Can I Get My Friend Gyasi To Watch The Bachelor? Week 1: Competition

 "I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people." -Daniel Plainview 

If you're curious as to the attitude you, as a contestant, should have when being on something like The Bachelor, the above quote from Henry Plainview, as played lived by Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood sums it up. You need to be relentless. You need to not care what the others say or do. You gotta live yer life and play to get the gold (however, Ben Higgins the titular Bachelor is whatever the generic version of gold is). That's why you should be rooting for Olivia and why you should be watching The Bachelor, Gyasi.
(Lost? Read this)

That's pretty aggressive, so let's back up here. We all like watching competition, don't we? We like sports, some of us just like other forms of it; sports work in mysterious ways (I would know, I had my first Sociology In Sports class today, at least I think that's the official title of the class). And right now, football is wrapping up, a sport I don't even kind of care for, unless it's fictionalized and takes up approximately 10% of screen time an episode (maybe), like on Friday Night Lights. In that case, football is pretty great. But for those who do consume football, your sport is almost done for the year. There's only one game left and it's between two teams America has decided they're pretty ambivalent about. Incidentally, it's between two animal themed teams, and we can all agree it would be more interesting to watch those actual animals play a game instead of humans simply representing them. Humans not even with the carnal instinct of an actual panther (that may or may not be from Carolina).

(Again, I do not watch football, so you could probably counter with "so and so" is ferocious like a panther and that's great, but I don't care because we're not trying to get me to watch football)

Do you know who does have the carnal instinct of an actual panther? At least 75% of the women competing on The Bachelor. My front runner, or rather who I want to see make it to the top, Olivia, appears to have the most competition in her. She also seems to be the least liked by the other women in the mansion (though this week they were in Vegas, so it was the hotel room, respectably) and it's because she has the most competition in her. However, what's frustrating about Olivia is that she doesn't let anything stop her, but she gets in her own head; she, like so many great athletes, is not impervious to a case of the yips.

And tonight, episode four, Olivia had a serious case of the yips. It's hard to watch a competitor you care about struggle, like Dirk in Game 6 of the Finals in 2011 (or in your case, I guess it'd be LeBron in every mysteriously bad forth quarter ((actually it's probably not that mysterious, because no way were his minutes managed well)). And while I wish I could say Olivia pulled out a Bachelor equivalent of 38 points, seven rebounds, five assist, three steals and a block (AKA Jordan's line during the infamous Flu Game of the '97 Finals against Utah). But has anyone done that in Bachelor history? (this is partly a legitimate question, because I have no earthly idea) It'd probably be impossible to measure that, because this is a competition based on relationships not points and those kind of specific statistics. But I'm sure The Bachelor is adaptable enough to make some version of those stats.

And Olivia even admitted to having an off week, which takes guts. She owned up to her personal lows and that takes character, a quality you only ever saw that within Lace (who is truly the Pippen to her Jordan). A loss to The Bachelor I'm still discouraged about and I've faced a lot of discouragement. But The Bachelor lives in a realm where these competitors have to scramble and have the determination of Leo in The Revenant to survive, and they do it without the interference of officials (refs) too.

Some are better than others. Olivia is a prime example of someone who can scramble at the last minute to make sure a lasting impression is made on our Bachelor. What might look like self-sabotage to some (me) is actually survival on a level so high above my understanding that it computes in my brain as something else. Manipulation? No, bite your tongue. Producer interference? You wish. It's called being a champion. And with the world's champion out of commission until next season, why not try to fill that void of seeing an out-of-this-world performance by someone else who can shine just as bright?

So why should you watch The Bachelor, Gyasi? You should watch it for Olivia, who never ceases to amaze and is the living embodiment of the flame emoji after she pulls off something spectacular (which happens every episode, by my count) and undoubtably, she will drink your milkshake.