Entertainment

JoJo's Feelings For 'Bachelor' Ben Are Real

JoJo and Ben totally have something going on this season on The Bachelor. Their chemistry is palpable, so it’s of no surprise that JoJo has made it through to the Final Four situation of Hometown Week. JoJo’s Bachelor connection with Ben is so strong that she could really win this whole thing. Ben’s been partly enamored with JoJo since the first day, and who wouldn’t be? She’s beautiful, funny, vivacious, and, as is most important on a show like The Bachelor, doesn’t like to take things too seriously. You can’t pretend you’re curing cancer when you’re swimming with pigs on a nearly deserted Bahamian island, you know? There’s just one thing that worries me about Ben and JoJo’s relationship, and that’s Ben constant haranguing JoJo about her real feelings and if she’s ready to fall in love.

Don’t get me wrong — Ben is usually pretty sympathetic toward the plight of being a contestant on a reality television show. He was on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season of The Bachelorette, so he knows what it’s like. Ben’s been very in touch with making sure the women on his season of The Bachelor aren’t succumbing to the weird pressure of the show, so I can’t for the life of me guess why he keeps poking JoJo to confess her feelings for him.

The situation is this — on one of their one-on-one dates, JoJo and Ben were talking about their past relationships, and JoJo admitted to Ben that she had been hurt really badly before and didn’t know if she was ready to open up again. She lamented, in grand Bachelor fashion, that she had always felt like she gave more in her relationships than her partners. Now, as someone who has had her heart stepped upon and then thrown in a garbage disposal, I sympathize with JoJo here. Reality television or not, allowing yourself to fall in love can be difficult if you aren’t ready to fall. Ben pretended to understand this — at least, until their next one-on-one date.

Things ramp up fast in Bachelor world, and on JoJo and Ben’s next date, I guess Ben was worried that JoJo wasn’t expressing herself as much as the other girls and told her as much. Too bad he completely ignored everything she said before about being hesitant to throw herself down the elevator shaft that is love. This really left a bad taste in my mouth, and I think it speaks a little bit to some insecurity by Ben. It shows how strong their connection is — Ben really likes JoJo, and he’s afraid of getting hurt himself. But, in his insecurity, he put her on the spot, which made JoJo feel worse and cajoled her to tell him that she’s falling in love with him. Why can’t he let it be and let things happen naturally?

I get that The Bachelor happens in a limited time frame, but I think that Ben is undermining his connection with JoJo by putting this pressure on her. Sure, she could say that she loves him, but wouldn’t Ben want her to mean it? I hope that this doesn’t damage their strong bond for good.

Images: Jean Whiteside/ABC; Giphy