The end of The Bachelor is a little bit like the Thunderdome — two women walk in, but only one walks out with a ring and a proposal. This time around, Arie Luyendyk, Jr. has to choose between Becca and Lauren, and he has quite the pair of women on his hands. Both are beautiful, smart, and funny, and they both seem to engage Arie and connect with him in different ways. Does Arie choose Becca or Lauren on The Bachelor? Unfortunately, this could be a game-time decision for this Bachelor.
It’s not that Arie wants to be indecisive, but what he’s shown to viewers so far is that he just… doesn’t know whom he wants to be with. I mean, it happens — he’s only known both Lauren and Becca for like two months before he proposes, and this is the rest of his life. Fans joke about Arie being old, but he’s only in his late 30s — any woman he marries now could be with him for 50 more years. He better be sure he knows what he wants out of a partner and out of the rest of his life. Of course, yes, both Becca and Lauren need to be ready and willing to marry Arie, but since they’re still on the show, I think it’s a safe bet that they do want that.
The jury is still out as to which woman Arie will pick, though, because of one huge thing — Arie told both Becca and Lauren that he was in love with them. He said those three words — “I love you” — to both Becca and Lauren. Not, “I’m falling for you.” Not, “I can see this forever.” It was three words, eight letters, and multitudes of meaning.
Arie, didn’t you learn from Ben Higgins that you shouldn’t drop the L bombs to two women? That’s basically why Ben and his fiancée, Lauren, broke up — they kept fighting because he said, “I love you” to JoJo Fletcher, too, and the media kept bringing it up and Lauren couldn’t get over it. Who could blame her for it?
Whoever ends up with Arie’s ring on her finger, she’ll have to deal with the fact that Arie expressed eternal devotion to another person at the same time as he expressed those feelings to her. It’s really hard.
In any case, Becca and Arie have an obvious physical connection. They get along really well, and always have a lot to talk about on their dates. They’ve bonded over past relationships (Becca has spoken at length about her last relationship and how she needed to break her patterns to move forward), and they seem to feel the same way toward each other. Becca is all in.
Lauren, on the other hand, is a little quieter, a little more reserved. She and Arie barely speak when they’re with each other, but Lauren attributes that to the fact that she and Arie are just on the same wavelength. At least, that’s what she told her mother.
During hometown dates, Lauren told her mother that she was sure about Arie because they could communicate with so much as a look. That said, Lauren has continuously expressed the fear of falling for Arie because she doesn’t want to get hurt again. She’s been engaged already, and she doesn’t want to give more of herself to end up hurt once more. It makes sense.
It all comes down to Arie now. When he sent Kendall home, he said, "I just really realized how in love I am and how I know that this is going to end up in a proposal. That really gives me a lot of hope and excitement and I feel so good going into next week." So, at least we’ll have a proposal, even if we don’t know yet to which woman he'll propose. The jury is out — and so might be Arie's heart...
