I felt for Matt tonight – I really did.
I’ve been in his shoes.
Nah, I haven’t been forced to date twenty-three women at once, but I have done behaviour management in a high school and I have dealt with Year 8 girls.
Year 8 girls thrive on spreading salacious gossip. Year 8 girls love sitting back and watching the carnage unfold. And Year 8 girls “literally death stare” each other, which accounts for the piles of corpses that litter middle schools across the globe.
There could be no greater joy for a death staring, hormonal teenager than to grow up and be a bachelorette. It’s just like high school – except there’s slutty dresses and a never ending supply of champagne. And don’t we love it.
I’m not sure that I would have picked Abby as the chief shit-stirrer amongst the group, but just like we were fooled by her luxuriant curls on the red carpet, her true colours have come out this week. It all started at that last cocktail party when Abby kissed and told, and told, and told.
Monique found this particularly irksome. She had had a lovely date and had already decided she and Matt were married and then he went and pashed Abby out in the rose garden.
She’s still seething about it the next day and decides to vent to bogan Rachel. Abby overhears and our scene is set.
Or it would be. Just then Osher arrives and tells them that Matt has decided to take them away for a few days, resulting in squeals of delight.
“Oh thank God!” says one of them. “We all need some time to relax. We just need to get out of this mansion!”
Oh, I know. I can’t imagine the stress of never ending yoga sessions beside a sparkling tropical pool, a supply of cocktails on hand, and all the alpacas a girl could ever want to pat.
In a flash they are packed and headed off in a string of red Hyundais.
Abby kills the time reliving all the glorious details of her pash sessions with Matt, much to the chagrin of Brianna who is absolutely regretting calling shotgun.
It’s a long, tedious trip before they arrive at their destination – a resort, where the girls can enjoy never-ending yoga sessions beside a sparkling blue tropical pools, a supply of cocktails on hand, and there must be an alpaca somewhere.
Osher arrives with a date card and all the girls are so excited for Abby when her name is read out. Kind of like the excitement when Brutus rocked up to rotunda and saw Julius Caesar there.
Matt rocks up in an old truck. He’s pretty pleased with himself , because he reckons it’s got Abby’s name written all over it:
What’s also dodgy is the date itself which involves turning citrus into foot-infused juice. Nicole can’t keep her hands off Matt and according to him the flirting is “pulpable”. In any case, it’s a bloody hard way to get yourself a gin and juice.
There’s the cheese platter and the rose, and then to get all the lemon guts off their feet, they decided to go for a late night hot tub.
Abby can contain herself no longer. She has her rose, so she’s safe for another week.
“Oh, BTW. Monique called you a dog c*nt disrespectful pig.”
This makes Matt very sad.
And it’s a real mood killer.
He’s still sad the the next day as he stands , shirtless, drinking coffee out of a bucket, one pec muscle flexed.
He’s still sad even when he takes the girls out for a “low key truth session”. Osher has set it up, but you just know that he’s pretty disappointed with Matt’s choice of date given there’s not one single inflatable, nor faux Love Doctor, or lycra outfits. Not much point him even sticking around. He might as well go off and plan ridiculous rules for his new hosting gig on The Masked Singer.
It’s a bit of a disappointment for Matt too. He set this whole thing up hoping that someone would dibber-dob on Monique, but no-one does and instead he goes off on a date with Chelsie. What ensues is flirtacious banter about waste water management (I kid you not!) and a rose, but no pashing, because someone has called Matt a dog c*nt disrespectful pig, and he just can’t bring himself to it.
The next day, Kristin interrupts the girls’ casual game of golf with a surprise. It’s a date card (not a surprise) which she doesn’t read out in Chinese (surprise!) but rather slow, laborious English.
This gives Emma a lot of time to form an abduction plot in her head where she slips a Mickey into a cube of double brie and when Matt is overcome she drags him off into a sex dungeon she has installed under the bunker next to the putting green.
But it’s Helena who gets the date, a romantic afternoon spent impregnating oysters, which looks as good as it sounds.
The banter is sexy and then later, reclined on a pile of cushions in a grove by the river, and in a Bachelor first, Matt gives Helena a pearl necklace…
But there is no kiss. Someone has called Matt a dog c*nt disrespectful pig and he just can’t bring himself to do it.
Finally it’s time for the cocktail interrogation and after double-checking with Abby that Monique called him a dog c*nt disrespectful pig, he decides to confront Monique about it. They’re clearly not on the same page
“I heard you used some fairly flowery language about me,” says Matt.
“Floury?” asks Monique, proving how doughy she is. ”Flurrerery?”
“I heard you called me a dog c*nt disrespectful pig,”
“Well that’s not true. I never use language like that. I’ve never used the word pig.”
Then Matt goes into full-on Year 8 girl death-stare investigation mode. He brings Abby and Monique together to get to the bottom of it.
“You called Matt a dog c*nt disrespectful pig,” accuses Abby.
“Did not!” spits back Monique.
“Did too!”
“Did not!”
Poor Matt. I could have told him that would happen. So he goes the next step and interrogates the witnesses.
“Yep she said it.”
“I didn’t hear it.”
“Well Rachel told me that Elly said that Emma heard her say it.”
“Yeah she said it, but it was just jokes.”
Throughout all of this there two disturbing things that emerge:
Noone has bothered to point out to Monique that she has accidentally out her frock on backwards:
And who the hell punched Rachael in the chops?
Matt is left agitated and frustrated. He assembles all of them and tells them that the whole night has been a monumental waste of time and he walks off in search of a stiff drink.
I know the feeling well.
But then, a glutton for punishment, Matt walks back in for the rose ceremony and he has a difficult choice to make. He’s already given Abby a rose, so she’s locked in. Does he keep Monique or not?
He whittles the choices down until he is left with one rose and two girls: Monique, and weird little squinty-faced Julia.
And left with that, he only has one choice. He picks Monique.
He hopes he has made the right choice and he won’t live to regret it. There’s every chance of course that he will regret it, and that’s why we’re glad he made it.
See you tomorrow night!
friday night with kath 