Let "The Bachelor" Beware!

My wife and I really enjoyed the 13rd season of The Bachelor, but I had a hard time feeling happy for Jason Mesnick and the second-place contestant he decided to date, Molly.

As they canoodled while making dinner together during the final credits, I couldn't help but think of the winner, Melissa, whose heart got absolutely curbstomped when Jason decided that his fairy-tale forever fiancée was only good for about six weeks.

In case you missed it, Jason proposed to Melissa, but dumped her during the reunion show. He tried to get back together with Molly, whom he dumped just before proposing to Melissa. Amazingly, Molly agreed to forgive Jason and become his girlfriend.

This was very interesting to watch, but I really feel terrible when someone's heart is really broken.

At this point, there is almost no chance a man will go on The Bachelor, meet 25 women, pick one, and actually marry her.

It hasn't happened in 13 tries.

According to Wikipedia, Byron and Mary (Season 6) and Charlie and Sarah (Season 7) are still together, but I am not holding my breath that wedding bells will be ringing soon.

In fact, the only wedding that has come out of this show is that of Trista (the first Bachelorette) and Ryan. Everyone loves them, because not only did they get engaged, they actually got married and had a baby (with another on the way).

However, the next three Bachelorettes failed to find true love.

Still, third-place finisher Jillian came out on the reunion show and was giddy with excitement over being named the fifth Bachelorette.

Why was she so excited? There is only a 6 percent chance she will get married and live happily ever after.

So what's the problem?

Well, it seems like "The Bachelor" is a lot better suited to finding a girlfriend than a wife. If the show were geared toward finding the woman you would like to date most out of a certain group of 25 women, it would have a much higher success rate.

But the show is not called "The Boyfriend."

The fact that it's "The Bachelor" indicates that the guy is looking for a wife. Most guys who propose to a woman haven't been dating 24 other women in the previous month.

Most guys.

When it's time for the Bachelor to get down on one knee and propose, he usually has a solid idea of whom he will choose. However, the show tries to build the "who will it be?" drama until the very end.

The problem with Jason is that he really didn't know whom he wanted to marry. He wasn't trying to build the drama. He just didn't know.

When you can't decide which of two women to marry, the correct answer is "neither."

However, Jason succumbed to the pressure that he (and ABC) put on himself to pop the question, and it just didn't last.

In fact, if he had chosen Molly at the end, it may not have lasted either, because he would still have had feelings for Melissa.

So watching "The Bachelor" is good for entertainment, not for matrimonial, purposes.

You would have to be crazy to go on this show, since you have a 96 percent chance (or 100 percent this season) of suffering through a tearful limo drive into the sunset.