The Golden Bachelorette is on the horizon … have you met the men in star Joan’s dating pool? Here’s a promotional video introducing them — and hey, did the women of The Golden Bachelor also get a variety of golden games to play?

LAURA STASSI

Next week is the premiere of The Golden Bachelorette. It’s the latest twist to ABC’s long-running reality TV dating show. Wouldn’t it be great if this time, we get a more realistic version of older-adult dating? “Inside the Lives of Older Singles.” That’s on this episode of “Dating While Gray, the Grown-Up’s Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships.” I’m Laura Stassi.

Remember Joan, the tall blonde Golden Bachelor contestant? She’s the one who wins the talent show by reciting an original poem. Joan’s prize is a one-on-one dinner date with Golden Bachelor Gerry. It sure seems like sparks are flying. But then suddenly, Joan takes herself out of the running and returns home to deal with a family emergency.  It goes without saying, tears are shed.

Well, 61-year-old Joan is back – and this time, she’s doing the picking, as the star of the Golden Bachelorette. She’ll be looking for love among a pool of 24 eligible men – ranging in age from their late fifties to late sixties. I don’t want to get my hopes up … but I really do hope that this time, the reality show is more, you know, real.

I mean, it’s great that the spotlight is finally shining on our overlooked demographic. But is that spotlight flattering? It sure didn’t seem that way to me. As the creator and host of this podcast, I felt I HAD to speak out. So I put together a one-hour radio broadcast special with American Public Media. It was called “BEYOND Reality TV: Inside the Lives of Older Singles.” And it aired on public radio stations across the United States.

Here’s a clip from that show.

DWG/APM EXCERPT

LAURA STASSI:

If you watch the reality TV dating show The Golden Bachelor, you know how it ends. Only weeks after 72-year-old Gerry meets 70-year-old Theresa, he gets down on one knee and asks for her hand in marriage. The actual proposal was filmed in late summer, but it was a big secret until the show finale in late November. That’s when Gerry and Theresa reunited on stage in front of a live audience after spending all those weeks apart so as not to spoil the big reveal. The happy couple announced not only were they engaged , they were getting married in a little over a month — on national television, of course.

Oh, boy. As a journalist whose primary focus is dating and forming new romantic relationships at age 50 and older, I can’t help but think what just happened. Sure, it’s a TV show, but these are real people with homes in two separate states, almost 700 miles apart. They each have grown kids and grandkids. She’s still working. He retired over 15 years ago. It’s hard to believe they’ve already figured out the details of their life together.

I’m Laura Stassi, host of the podcast Dating While Gray, and I remember the first time I heard The Bachelor, which debuted in 2002, was planning a more mature version. Through all the years and various spin-offs like The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, the participants were all in their 20s and early 30s. Then in February of 2020, in fact, the month I launched Dating While Gray, the producers put out a casting call. They were looking for, quote, active and outgoing single men and women aged 65 and up for a new, exciting dating show. I was 59 back then, too young to apply, but I was curious. The topic even came up when I talked with a woman we called Sandy. Like me. Sandy had been married for almost 30 years before her marriage ended. Researchers call it Gray Divorce.

SANDY

For two years, I just was angry, and I knew I would be a horrible partner, date, anything. It’s like I just wanted to work this out with myself and God, and grow up and figure out how I was going to manage my life by myself. And then after that, I thought, well, I should at least go date. So I started online dating and, you know, I met a lot of really nice men, but would know immediately, no.

 LAURA STASSI

But then your friends introduced you to a gentleman, and can we give him a name just to so we’re not calling him …

SANDY

Tom, let’s Tom. Let’s call him Tom.

LAURA STASSI

Okay, so friends introduced you or …

SANDY

Yes, it was really weird. They invited my family, my sister, my sister-in-law, and a bunch of single women, like it was The Bachelor or something. And I just was so disgusted by that whole thing.

LAURA STASSI

He was the only single guy?

SANDY

Yeah, he was late because he was buying roses for all of us. I just thought, oh my.

 LAURA STASSI

It was The Bachelor! The Gray Bachelor!

Three years after my conversation with Sandy, ABC announces their senior dating show is finally a go. By now they’ve lowered the age requirement. They also aren’t calling it The Gray Bachelor, go figure. It’s The Golden Bachelor. I talked about it with Lauren Harris. She’s an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire, and her research focus is older adult dating. We chatted after ABC unveils Gerry as The Golden Bachelor and starts promoting the show, but before the women cast members are revealed, and before episodes start airing.

LAUREN HARRIS

It’s not a surprise at all that they went with a widower over a divorcee or somebody who had never been married. It is so much easier, cleaner, and it tells such a more, a nicer story.

LAURA STASSI
How do you think this format is going to translate with older people?

LAUREN HARRIS

I think all of those things that the basic format of the show, I expect, will be about the same. I think they’re going to throw in some pieces that are different. So I think the dates might be a little less dangerous. I remember there was one episode where they went sky diving, or bungee jumping off the tallest building in Sydney, Australia, something like that. I think they played like a tackle football game one time. So I think maybe not those, maybe not like very more of the dangerous to sort of a physical health concern. But other things I think are going to be the same. You know, they’ve had musicians come on the show, and they have. But, you know, they have a dance and things like that, or, you know, there’s going to be picnics out in the middle of nowhere. They’re going to travel. Part of The Bachelor, they always go to another country and explore another region. I think they’re still going to be doing that. So I think the nuts and bolts of the show are going to stay the same.

I think people are just curious about what it is to date as an older adult and relieved and interested to see some representation from diversity of age on the screen.

LAURA STASSI

Okay, so it’s funny, but I — just now you bring up representation, and I thought, okay, that is legitimate, but is it … here’s the thing I’m kind of struggling with. Does representation matter if it’s in a format that’s kind of cringe worthy to begin with?

LAUREN HARRIS

I know what you’re saying. Yes, I’ve had this conversation with people like in other shows too, of like, okay, well, they’re showing this demographic in maybe a poor light. I think they’re going to be a little careful about it, but I think it’s in step one. Is this the end all be all? No, but maybe something like this will lead to the idea that single older adults, older adults are a market, are a demographic, are interesting. I think we’re going to see a lot of contestants who are, to put it in Bachelor speak, here for the right reasons. Like, I think a lot of the older women are really going to be looking for love.

But it is still a television show. ABC is still casting for entertainment, for drama. So if. We’re still going to be seeing a villain. We are still going to be see seeing women, you know, in arguments, in conflict, arguing with each other. There’s still going to be that same drama. There’s still going to be a level of immaturity on this show, right? So, just because you’re 60 doesn’t mean that you are super mature and perfect at all times. I think it’s a little naive and a little ageist to say that, you know, women in their 60s can’t have the emotions and feelings and behaviors that women their 20s, 30s, 40s might have.

LAURA STASSI

Also something you said reminded me of something I read, was like an opinion piece, but it was by a younger woman. And she was saying she wished that the bachelor, the golden bachelor, weren’t so hot, because that’s not realistic. We need a grandpa. And you said yourself, we’re gonna see women who are youthful, and youthful is implying that older women aren’t … we may be a little slower, but we’re still very active, and so — I don’t know where I was going with that, other than to say, if there’s, I don’t want people to think of these women as outliers.

LAUREN HARRIS

Of course, they’re going to choose really beautiful and really naturally beautiful women. I’m not saying had to have work done or, you know, super overdone, but just naturally beautiful older women, women in their 60s can also be beautiful. And that’s one of the things that I’m looking forward to seeing on this show and looking forward for this show to do, for public concept of older adults, that older adult can also be attractive. That’s not, you know? That’s not an oxymoron, right? We can have older adults who are also attractive.

LAURA STASSI

Indeed, the 22 single women vying for Gerry’s heart are all attractive, outgoing, active. They range in age from 60 to 75 divorced, widowed and never married. The show’s producers don’t tout the relationship history of each woman, but we know that, like Gerry, his final choice, Theresa, has been widowed. We also know the first runner up, 64-year-old Leslie, has been divorced twice. As the season progresses and Gerry whittles down to his final selection, relationship history does seem to be a plot point. I’m thinking of when Gerry has one-on-one time with Ellen, a retired 71-year-old teacher who shares Gerry’s devotion to pickleball.

Gerry begins her conversation by saying he understands she’s quote, no longer married, as if the D word — divorce — is taboo. It reminds me that when I, a divorced person, started dating again, I thought it would be ideal to meet a widower. I figured he wouldn’t have that stigma of relationship failure, that he was back on the market through no fault of his own. And this mindset is what Lauren Harris means when she says widowhood tells a nicer story.

I no longer automatically assume that all marriages ending in widowhood have been happy and fulfilling ones, and the parties involved know how to make a relationship work. And actually, Gerry’s relationship status as a widower is the first thing about The Golden Bachelor that is at odds with the reality of being an older single. Maybe you think older people, if you think about older people at all, are either married or widowed. And in fact, according to the US Census Bureau, the majority of people ages 55 to 74 are married: about 59% of the women and almost 70% of the men.

Now let’s look at unmarried people ages 55 to 74 — those who are widowed, divorced, separated, or they’ve never tied the knot. Thirteen percent of these unmarried men are widowed. That compares with almost 47% who are divorced. And, fun fact, unmarried men in this age group are about three times as likely to have never walked down the aisle than to be widowed.

So it turns out my first ever online date was with a widower. He was older and retired. Over dinner, he described his big family home and talked about his desire for exotic travel, if he could only find the right woman and pay her way. The evening ended with me concluding to myself that this man was looking for someone, anyone, to simply insert into the life he and his wife had sketched out for themselves before fate intervened. Now I may have misjudged, but one thing I’ve learned is that dating after widowhood can be tricky for the spouses left behind, as well as for potential dating partners.

END OF EXCERPT

LAURA STASSI

Golden Bachelorette Joan herself is a widow. Her husband died three years ago from  pancreatic cancer. Earlier this year, on the anniversary of his death, Joan wrote a tribute to him on Instagram. She said, “For years I’ve tried to think of how to memorialize him, but nothing seems quite right. I’d have to name the tallest building in the world to do him justice. He was the husband that always made me feel safe and cherished.”

Wow. He must have been a great guy – with very big shoes to fill. I’m curious to see if Joan will  connect with any divorced or never-married men in her TV dating pool. Or if she’ll be more drawn to a widower. For the “Beyond Reality TV” broadcast special, I talked with someone who has a unique perspective on this topic. He’s a geriatric neuropsychologist, and his name is Peter Lichtenberg. Peter’s been divorced once … and widowed twice. He’s now married for a fourth time.

Here’s another clip from the special.

DWG/APM EXCERPT

LAURA STASSI

Can you give me any guess, personal example or an anecdote from your own life that where you thought, Okay, this is happening because I’ve had this, you know, traumatic experience of being widowed.

 PETER LICHTENBERG

Well, I could tell you as a younger adult, I got remarried because of the trauma, not because of the relationship. And I was kind of in a in a fog, in a way. I mean, I really expected it just to be the same in some way. And I was also really wanting some kind of normalcy to my life.

LAURA STASSI

Again, when you said that, I’m just thinking it’s really kind of a dance we do, especially with the case of losing your spouse through death. You don’t want to be so wrapped up in your life and who this person was that you don’t, you know, give any breathing room to a new relationship.

PETER LICHTENBERG  Yeah, kind of there’s this dual theory, which talks about kind of restoration activities and relationship kinds of activities. And you know, both are in play. For people who are divorced or and or widowed, they’re just very different. For example, for me, it was very important, especially after Susan’s death, to find a way to honor both Becky and Susan in some formal way, so I created an endowed scholarship in their name at the university Becky and I went to in the field that Susan and I shared.

LAURA STASSI

What would be an example of a restoration activity one could do for divorce that will be different than through death.

PETER LICHTENBERG

I think through divorce, you often have to forgive yourself more. Everybody you know has some things they remember and think, Oh, I wish I hadn’t, but you really have to forgive yourself for mistakes that you’ve made and be willing to understand what the costs are for either divorce or staying in the relationship. I think that people who are dating somebody who’s would have to understand that it is usually, you know, as we said, there’s always exceptions. Usually important that people understand this relationship. Continues.

LAURA STASSI

So I’m just wondering, is there a point where the relationship continues, but how you know it’s not you know? Is it like the ghost of Mrs. Muir where you know it’s Well, see, what is it?

PETER LICHTENBERG

See, that’s the real question you’re asking is, is this relationship interfering with this current relationship? Yeah, and that is a different story. I mean that if it is then you know, you really have to kind of have some honest conversation about it.

LAURA STASSI

Yeah. Have you ever had the experience of calling or heard about the experience of calling a new partner by a former partner’s name? Yes, absolutely. I never called Susan Becky, but I have called Debbie Susan. And I almost do it almost every week. I’ve gotten good at Yeah, and Debbie says, well, that’s a compliment.

LAURA STASSI

She sounds like a champ. It feels like sometimes, if you’re going to be in a relationship with a widower or a widow, you really have to have almost no ego.

PETER LICHTENBERG

It’s not no ego. You really do have to have a healthy ego that recognizes that I’m going to embrace all of you, and you’re going to embrace all of me and part of you is this relationship. And how can we embrace it in a way that brings us closer and that we share it and it doesn’t interfere and get in the way of our relationship? So it does require that kind of a healthy ego and willingness to honor the whole person that you’re dating and not ask them to hide what’s going on deep down inside.

CALLER SARAH

Hi, Laura, my name is Sarah, and I’m a 71-year-old widow who lives in the Washington area, and I’ve been a fan of your podcast since its first season, when a widower friend of mine introduced me to it, I feel very lucky to have found a person, another widower, who lives 500 miles away. We met somewhat fortuitously when we were not looking for a new partner, but started a relationship right before the pandemic hit, and it certainly helped us both get through that and continue to enjoy each other as we’ve come out of the pandemic.

When I met my partner, whose name is Bruce, we were both at a position where we had helped spouses through a period of caregiving over a somewhat long period of time, and neither of us really wanted to remarry, and that was kind of a starting point for our relationship when we first started to get more serious. So far, it works well, we get together both traveling other places and visiting each other’s cities and lots of time on Skype and zoom and using other tools that are now available, both that we use during the pandemic, and since then, I’m planning on moving to a continuing care senior community that’s opening up here in a few years, something my parents and aunt and uncle did, and I’ve seen what I think is the value of moving to a place like that when it opens and you can grow old together in the company of new friends and people your own age.

Bruce’s parents were in a similar facility. He’s not quite ready to make the move because he’s very close to his grandchildren, and two of which live in the same town that he does, and he’s able to be involved with supporting them and spending lots of time with him. And just wanted to share those thoughts.

END OF EXCERPT

 LAURA STASSI

You heard Sarah describe a relationship that’s also a committed one, even though she and her romantic partner aren’t talking about marriage or cohabitation. That’s a path many older couples want to take … including, Golden Bachelorette Joan. More on that, after the break.

 BREAK

 LAURA STASSI

We’re back, with “Inside the Lives of Older Singles,” from Dating While Gray. I’m Laura Stassi.

Golden Bachelorette Joan says she’s hopeful about finding love again. She’s also said she won’t move away from her kids and grandkids. She doesn’t expect her partner to move away from his family, either. So unless she chooses 63-year-old Pablo, the one contestant from her home state, sounds like Joan is planning on an LAT relationship.

LAT – you regular listeners of this podcast know it’s short for living apart together. It means you’re in a committed romantic partnership, maybe even married, but you each have your own place. LAT is a growing trend, and older couples are leading the way. That makes sense to me. It’s not like we’re starting everything from scratch. When older people get together, we each bring with us full lives already lived. We may have careers and family and financial commitments in place that we can’t easily change — or don’t want to.

Successfully blending two lives while building a new one together, might require a shift away from thinking that a traditional arrangement like living together 24/7 is the way to go.

Indeed, that’s what seemed to trip up Golden Bachelor couple Gerry and Theresa. Only a few months after they got married, they announced they were getting divorced. According to reports, a major point of contention was — where to live.

Now that they’ve split, Gerry and Theresa have both said they’re open to dating. Theresa, in fact, was recently photographed frolicking on the beach with a gray-haired man who may or may not be a new beau. I wonder if they met online.

Here’s more from the Dating While Gray broadcast special with American Public Media.

DWG/APM EXCERPT

MICHAEL ROSENFELD

Internet is the number one way couples meet for people of all ages. It’s been the number one way same-sex couples have met for quite some time. For heterosexual couples, meeting online has been the number one way couples meet since about 2013.

LAURA STASSI

That’s Michael J Rosenfeld. He’s a sociology professor at Stanford who’s looked into how couples meet. I have to say, I’ve heard a lot of online dating stories. Some are great, a few are terrible, the majority are disappointing, so much so that a lot of people have just given up. According to the Pew Research Center, half of singles 50 to 64 are not looking to date. Seventy five percent of singles 65 and older are not looking.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my college friend Michele during Season One of Dating While Gray. She’s been divorced now for almost as long as she was married. Over dinner in DC, Michele said that when she jumped back into the dating pool, she set out to answer three questions.

MICHELE

Do I still have it? Can I do this, and is it hard? And so I got on match.com and I think I had 16 dates in three weeks.

LAURA STASSI

Wow.

MICHELE

And the answers to my question were, do I still got it? Yes, I do. Can I do this? Yes, I can. Is it hard? Not really, but it’s demoralizing, is what I found about online dating.

LAURA STASSI

Why do you say that?

MICHELE

I am not a shrinking, retiring person. And I found it all the men that I  was going out with at a certain point, you know, you’re meeting somebody, and you talk about your life, and you talk about what you’re doing, and you know what your history has been. And when I said things like, yeah, I worked at the White House, I was the only woman who had that role when I was there, I was like, in a substantive role that no woman had ever had before in history. It was, Laura, like I saw the garage doors going down over their eyes; that they were like, Oh, she’s not going to be my social secretary. She’s not going to be my deputy. Not that I’m high maintenance, because I’m not high maintenance. But I think a lot of the men that I met, I got the feeling that they weren’t looking for a partner. They were looking for adjunct faculty. Do you know? They were looking for, looking for somebody who was gonna, you know, like they were going to be the stars and you were going to be the supporting character, and that’s not me.

LAURA STASSI

When was the last time you went out on a date?

MICHELE

I can’t recall.

LAURA STASSI
Oh, that makes me sad.

MICHELE

I know, because I’m fabulous. Yeah, no.

LAURA STASSI
Years?

 MICHELE

Years. I have a friend who put something on Facebook, but she’s sort of coming to the idea that she may be permanently single. And when I read that phrase, it was like, oh, maybe that’s me. I’d never really heard that phrase or thought of that phrase. And then I really had to sit down and ask myself, Am I, am I actually permanently single? Am I as a person who can’t remember the last date she went on, is it really that I have decided that I’m permanently single? And so I sat with that for a while, and I don’t want to think that I’m permanently single. I want to think that because I’m out and about and I’m a nice person, and I’m engaging, and I’m I can pick up the check. You know that all those things, that I’m not going to be permanently single, but the data points to a different fact.

LAURA STASSI

I checked in with Michele recently. She says she’s open to dating but if she does wind up permanently single, she’s good with it.

BELLA DEPAULO

Single is my best life. It’s my most authentic, meaningful, and fulfilling life.

LAURA STASSI

That’s social scientist Bella de Paulo. At 70 years old, Bella has spent her entire adult life unpartnered.

BELLA DEPAULO

To me, being part of a couple would be a smaller life. It would be a lesser life. Now, I know that’s not the standard way of  thinking about things, but for people like me, it’s single life that offers a whole wide world of opportunities.

LAURA STASSI

Since our conversation in 2022 Bella has a new book out. It’s called Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life. I appreciate Bella’s work as I also applaud and empathize with everyone who’s putting themselves out there.

JULIE

My name is Julie, and I got divorced seven years ago and have been on and off online dating for the past five years. Happily, I’m in a new budding relationship, as of several months ago, with a lovely man who I met online. The reason he really was able to garner my attention is because of the green flags in his profile. His photos showed him in an everyday life, dressed for work, dressed when he was working out or just hanging out, not doing much of anything. And most importantly, he approached me with respect. His initial message to me was so kind and so respectful that it really stood out from the clutter out there of all the other nonsense one finds in online dating.

CALLER

My name is Ed. I’m from Colorado. I had been on match and OkCupid. had several dates, and, you know, even dates I didn’t follow up on. Everything went, went, uh, very friendly and amicable until I got on match and I saw this woman. I thought, oh, you know, we might have something in common. So I contacted her and she said, Well, why don’t we talk first before we meet? And I said, Yeah, that’s a good idea. And I had done that a lot with other women I had met online, and so I after texting, and then I actually called her, and I got on the phone and all of a sudden, as we were talking, she became like, very truculent and accusatory, and just was asking me, being critical, and saying, why aren’t you asking about me?

And I said, I did ask several questions about you, and she became really so rude that finally I said, I’m sorry, but I think this conversation is over. And she said, fine. And then hung up. And so I was glad I never actually got to the date. And since then, by the way, I met somebody wonderful. We’ve been together three and a half years. So I’m not a rude monster.

CALLER

Hi, Laura. I am a 58-year-old woman divorced twice. I’ve been single for about five years now. I have been on every dating website that you can think of at least once, some more than once. On your show, I hear a lot about women and men talking about their dating history and experience. I’m in a different place. I guess I can’t find a person to date – like, I can’t, I don’t get any responses on dating sites. I wonder if there’s other women out there that just don’t get any responses and want to actually have the dating experience. Let me know if you hear from other women like that. Thank you.

PRIYA

I find it pretty hard to date. You know, I say that I just really need a boyfriend between 9 pm and 11 pm only. Really, that’s all the time I have. The last voice you heard belongs to Priya.

LAURA STASSI

The last voice you heard belongs to Priya. She unexpectedly became a single mother in her 40s. Nine years later, she’s striking out with romance. In fact, children of all ages play a role in older singles ability to make and maintain love connections. That’s according to Lauren Harris at the University of New Hampshire.

LAUREN HARRIS

So the study is called Older Adults on the Dating Market: The Role of Family Caregiving Responsibilities.

LAURA STASSI

Okay, and tell me about it.

LAUREN HARRIS

It stems out of my dissertation research. I interviewed 100 men and women, single, older adults in their 60s and 70s about what it was for them to be single, decide to date, repartner, what dates looked like for them and the whole gamut. Men and women both realized that the care that they gave their families and the care that their partners, their dating partners gave their families impacted what they were looking for in a relationship, what they were looking for a partner, and their opportunities on the dating market. And so one of the big differences here was that men and women experienced these things very differently. So when women had caregiving responsibilities — and by that, I mean maybe they were looking out for an aging parent. Maybe an adult child had moved back in with them, or they were supporting them in that kind of way. Maybe they were babysitting one day a week, a couple days a week, whatever that might be. When they were caring for their family members, they had fewer opportunities on the dating market.

LAURA STASSI

So I have to say, from my anecdotal evidence, I hear a lot of women say, I want to be with someone who because I know he’s going to understand my family, because he has his own family.

LAUREN HARRIS

Absolutely.

LAURA STASSI

Were men saying this, even if they had kids of their own?

LAUREN HARRIS

Yes, a couple of men talked about the borderline physical fights that they had had with a woman’s adult children, which was surprising. I know, you’re making this face. I was also like, okay, great, yeah.

 LAURA STASSI

How old are we?

LAUREN HARRIS

I know. I know.

LAURA STASSI

Just goes to show you, maturity is not connected to age.

LAUREN HARRIS

It really isn’t.

 LAURA STASSI

I received an email from a listener who’s finally made a love connection. He isn’t ready to be interviewed, but he gave me permission to share this. He wrote, I’d say we are in the mid to late caterpillar stage. Still to come will be the chrysalis stage, followed by the emergence of a beautiful adult butterfly. Of course, caterpillars sometimes get eaten by birds or die for other reasons. He wrote, so I want to see where this goes before discussing it publicly.

Hey, I totally understand. I’m rooting for you, and not just to get a good story for Dating While Gray. Speaking of the show, it exists only because people are willing to be open and vulnerable in sharing their true stories warts and all, about seeking, finding, and keeping love in the later years. As one listener said, the stories are uniquely personal and also relatable, and they help all of us out. It strikes me that this spirit of community also infuses The Golden Bachelor. Yes, viewers get a largely fantastical version of dating and romance. The show’s producers edit scenes and conversations. They gloss over and leave out backstories. They miss some golden opportunities to get real and still have an interesting and fun watch.

However, they also showcase older single women who totally represent. And I don’t mean they’re attractive – which, to be clear, they are. I’m talking about how even though they’re under stress and sleep-deprived and spending way too much time in high heels, they’re for the most part loving and supportive and kind to each other. From my point of view, that’s as real as it gets.

EXCERPT ENDS

LAURA STASSI

So I may have expected too much reality from this reality show. Still, I’m curious. Will the men vying for the final rose develop friendships like the women did? Will there be any chest thumping, infighting, and backstabbing? And what about the kissing? I guess I’d better tune in to find out.

 END CREDITS

Dating While Gray’s audio production and mix is by Steve Lack: Audio. Theme music by D. Peterschmidt.

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I’m Laura Stassi. Thanks so much for listening.

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