#105. Confused, sad, and mad
Another Bachelor has a fiancé, and once again, the topic of having kids (and on what timeline) has infiltrated reality dating television. Grant Ellis’ finale aired on Monday night, and at first, I was all wide eyes, jaw-on-the-floor surprised by who he picked. But as I sat with the events of the dramatic three-hour finale the next morning, I realized this outcome makes absolutely the most sense. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t watched yet!
Litia Garr, 31, said she was “confused, sad, and mad” about Grant’s decision to get engaged to Juliana Pasquarosa in the Dominican Republic last October, just a few days before Donald Trump was voted back into office. What viewers didn’t know until “After The Final Rose” is that Grant had been telling Litia he was going to choose her basically all season, but that information just never made it to air. (Eeek!!!)
Grant seemingly only changed his mind the night before he pulled a 180 and proposed to Juliana instead. When Litia slung accusations at him with a full timeline of his empty reassurances in front of a live audience on Monday night, Grant didn’t deny any of it. He immediately took responsibility and apologized, effectively corroborating Litia’s side of the story. It also seemed like he had already told Juliana everything. Oof.
From what I understand, Litia was upfront about “her timeline” with Grant since the third week of filming. She wanted to start having children within two years, which she claimed wasn’t an issue for Grant (and he even said he was on the same page) – until a conversation they had the very last night before he was forced to make a decision between his final two. We’ll only ever get to see what producers allow us to see, but here’s a transcript of that last conversation:
Grant: “Today’s big. And I did want to talk. You know, and I wanted to keep it light, but I also wanted to –”
Litia: “Don’t keep it light for me. Go in, king.”
Grant: (Laughs). “We spoke about our timeline, right, and I know that’s something big for you. And I know we had this conversation, but to talk more in depth about it’s important. Litia the woman, she wants to be a mother. People in your family have, like, children, and it’s such a big family. How much pressure do you feel to accomplish that?” (Context: Litia is Mormon and has a very large extended family, who Grant met during her hometown date. It seemed like it went really well.)
Litia: “Yeah, I think my desire to be a mother comes from my heart. I think my family knows that, and so they want it for me, but I don’t feel pressure from them on timeline.”
Grant: “What if, in two years, I come to you and say Litia – what if I’m not ready yet? What if I want to wait another year? How do you think you would handle that?”
Litia: “I think it would depend on your reasons. If your reasons were, there’s still more that you want to accomplish before you have kids – I think you want to be a very present father, and so I think if you’re not ready and there are things you want to do, I think of course, you know? I want to make you happy. I want you to feel ready and I want both of us to feel excited and ready at that time.”
Grant: “Right.” (They kiss.)
Litia: “When I see you sad or stressed or going through a hard time, I feel those things. And like, this week, I feel so calm for myself. But I just, I know how much pressure you must feel. And how heavy it must be for you. I just want to do anything I can to share that stress with you. And –”
Grant: “You’re going to make me cry.”
Litia: “No but like, just really make you feel like you are enough. You are so much more than enough. And I love you.”
Who Grant wants to marry is absolutely none of my business, but I do think it’s interesting that, the night before he was likely going to propose to Litia, my interpretation is that Grant got freaked out by her priorities and changed his mind. Despite telling Litia he loved her first and reassuring her all season it would be them at the end, he ended up choosing Juliana, 28, who wants kids eventually but doesn’t seem to have any kind of timeline. The word Grant kept using over and over and over to describe his relationship with Juliana was just three extremely potent letters: F.U.N.
Grant is 31. He honestly seems like a great guy – one of the most respectful and well-intentioned men I think we’ve maybe ever seen on The Bachelor. But it does feel telling about the state of the world, and the state of the millennial mindset in particular, that Grant may have gotten spooked at the last minute by the idea of having kids on Litia’s timeline.
During his season, Grant professed that he absolutely does want children. Though he does still have a (very touching) relationship with his father, both men are rooting for Grant to be a better parent than his dad was. But even two years from now seems to be too soon for Grant. He wants to have fun first. He wants to enjoy life with a spirited, joyful woman by his side who isn’t trying to rush him into anything he isn’t ready for. And that woman wasn’t Litia.
Here’s what Juliana said on the couch next to Grant during “After The Final Rose” after shrieking about her engagement ring:
“This moment does feel just so surreal. The whole journey has felt a bit like a fever dream. But you know, we’ve lived so many months just reconnecting and getting to know each other. I’m just so excited to get dinner with this man and have a glass of wine. We’re free!”
And then, later: “Life is just too serious to take seriously.”
Compare this with earlier in the taped finale, during a conversation with Grant’s dad, when Litia said:
“I’m 31. You know, I have my career, I’m ready to find my partner and settle down and have kids. I just feel like the most fulfilling part of your life starts when you have kids.”
It’s so interesting (but not at all surprising to me, honestly) that Litia and Grant are the same age, yet they see things so differently. At 31, Grant feels too young for kids right now (he’d be 33-34 when they had their first child) and Litia feels like she’s starting to run out of time.
I usually examine life and pop-culture from the POV of women making big decisions, so this was an interesting outcome to wrestle with, especially without pitting Litia and Juliana against each other. Both women are great. And Grant isn’t a “fencer” – he does want kids – but he also wants fun and freedom before he takes on that responsibility. It’s relatable, honestly. But so is Litia’s biological clock she clearly hears ticking. Personally, I really don’t know how to feel about Grant’s finale and its outcome. One the one hand, it was riveting television. But these are real people, and it was also a little hard to watch?
(Also? Grant’s final four was one of the weirdest I’ve ever seen in the history of the show, and I’ve been watching for 12 years now. I don’t think Zoe and Dina ever had a chance at winning Grant’s heart, but I’m surprised given how the finale played out that he didn’t take Alexe and Carolina into hometowns instead???)
Anyway, if you need a “confused, sad, and mad” mug, Claire and Emma from
already made it, lol.
“Let The River Run / Trust The Process” by Carola Lovering for
I’ve become a crazed fangirl of Carola Lovering this year, and this essay for her newly-launched Substack nearly moved me to tears. It’s so raw and honest and everything I love about Carola’s (fiction) writing:
“I love to write—the expansion and peace writing has brought to my life is immeasurable—but over the past year I can’t count the number of mornings I sat down at my computer and stared at the blinking cursor in front of me, thinking: I don’t want to do this. My brain doesn’t have space for this. There isn’t language for the way I love my children, but trying to write a novel and parent them in tandem—even with the privilege of childcare—has flipped my process on its head. I can’t figure out how to do it without stretching myself thin, on the verge of breaking. I always need more time. My mind is constantly robbed of stillness, of clarity, of intention.”
“A Death-Defying Sexcapade” by Rachel Handler for Vulture
I started reading this article because I was drawn in by the edgy headline, but by the time I was finished, I couldn’t freaking wait to watch this new show by the creator of New Girl when it premieres on April 4th:
“Dying for Sex comes at a fascinating time. We’re living under an openly fascistic government whose express goal is to wrench any remaining agency, sexual or otherwise, from anyone who is not a white man with an upsetting hairline. Yet we’re suddenly surrounded by stories, fictional or otherwise, about women over 40 fucking their way to self-actualization: Miranda July’s All Fours, the Nicole Kidman–led MILF renaissance, a deluge of pro-divorce memoirs, a recent New York Times Magazine piece about how Gen-X women are having better sex than anyone else. [Dying for Sex] explores kink as an opportunity for liberation and catharsis, not as a punch line or dark Freudian detour on the way to conventional sex. It doesn’t shy from the visceral realities of what happens to a human being as she dies — the sounds, the way time slows and distorts. It’s proudly weird and theatrical, featuring a hallucinatory dream-ballet sequence complete with custom puppets, one of which is a hyperrealistic penis outfitted with fairy wings.”
“Americans under 30 are so miserable that the U.S. just fell to a historic low ranking in the World Happiness Report” by Alexa Mikhail for Fortune
Well well well. The title says it all, but it doesn’t say that we’ve dropped down to #24, or that if we were just considering people under 30, the U.S. wouldn’t even make the top 60.
“In these Nordic Scandinavian countries, a rising tide lifts all boats, so the levels of economic inequality are much less, and that reflects in well-being as well,” De Neve says. “In Finland, most people will rate [their happiness] as seven or an eight, whereas if you look at the distribution of well-being in the States, there’s a lot of 10s out there, but there’s a lot of ones as well.”
Somehow I read Dolly Alderton’s three books (not including her “Dear Dolly” collections) in reverse chronological order. Everything I Know About Love is her hilarious, relatable memoir that ends when she turns thirty. Ghosts is still my favorite of her books, but I loved this.
I didn’t know who Liz Moody was before this week, but a sneak peek of her podcast found its way onto my Instagram feed a few days ago. Liz has been in the process of deciding whether she wants kids for a few years, but she and her husband just recorded a 37-minute episode about their final decision and how they came to it. (She also references a previous episode she recorded with Merle Bombardieri, who is the author of The Baby Decision, a book I highly recommend for anyone still sitting on the fence!)
She also asked her audience to share their honest thoughts about parenthood, and the answers are potentially even more interesting than the podcast:
What did you think of The Bachelor finale? Were you confused, sad, and mad?
Oh Kelly, sometimes when it feels so bleak out there with the government’s constant attack on rights, it is so comforting to know there are others like you. Your words have been such a light recently.
I highly recommend the podcast Dying for Sex that inspired the tv show. You get to hear the real Molly Kochan tell her stories. My husband and I listened on a long road trip when it came out, and we were literally going from laughing at the awkward sex recollections to crying at how much life Molly was able touch, kiss, squeeze, fuck out of her last days. It's an incredible listen that I still think about years later. Makes me excited to watch the show and see how it's interpreted.