For over 25 years oldsome of reality TV’s most memorable and nastiest contestants have said they are “not here to make friends.” But on The Golden Bachelorettethe second Bachelor-franchise episode focused on a romantic protagonist over 60, the friendship is not an unnecessary distraction from the main event. The new series follows 61-year-old widow Joan Vassos and an eclectic group of men hoping to win her over, some of whom have also lost their spouses. In a pleasant break with the classic conventions of reality TV, including within the Bachelor franchise, many of the show’s most charming moments focus on the friendships formed between Joan’s suitors.

By highlighting the bonds that unite men, the new series is based on The Golden BachelorIt is refreshing exploration about finding love after loss and how a person’s identity can change in late adulthood. Together, men grapple with profound changes brought on by widowhood, retirement, divorce, and other major transitions. During its inaugural season, The Golden Bachelorette offered a rare window into some of the distinct social and emotional challenges Americans encounter later in life and the varied connections that help them alleviate such significant stressors.

Last year Joan was an early favorite The Golden Bachelorwhere she quickly captured the interest of septuagenarian widower Gerry Turner. But after just three episodes, the mother of four left the show to care for her newly postpartum daughter. Yet participating in the program offered Joan an emotional reward beyond finding a permanent partner. During her brief time as a candidate, “My heart kind of got a little dose of Gerry,” she said during a tearful exit. “As we age, we become more and more invisible. People don’t see you anymore. His words resonated with a lot Golden Baccalaureate viewersespecially franchise newcomers and other women her age. Now, with Joan in the forefront, The Golden Bachelorette highlights the inner complexities of the men who hope she will see them. And by turning its attention to the unlikely intimacy forged between the male contestants, the series moves beyond the one-dimensional stoicism that is common in depictions of men their age.

Most of the two dozen men vying for Joan’s affections, aged 57 to 69, have experienced devastating loss or grief. Although the world of The Golden Bachelorette– where the suitors live together under the same roof – is obviously a staged environment, the losses suffered by the candidates are very real: 2023More than 16 percent of Americans aged 60 or older (about 13 million people) were widowed. The loss of a spouse has enormous consequences consequences for the physical, mental and emotional health of the surviving partner, which can begin even before mourningparticularly for assisting spouses. And yet, “as a society, we’re not necessarily very knowledgeable and comfortable talking about death and loss,” Jane Lowers, an assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine, told me. “Some people will be hesitant to engage with someone who is going through a period of grief.” The death of a partner can also lead to a crisis of self, she added, if the bereaved spouse has come to view caring, or being half of a unit. conjugal, as its essential identity.

On The Golden Bacheloretteloss largely brings people together, even if it provokes difficult internal reckonings. Many of Joan’s most meaningful conversations with her suitors reference her late husband, the milestones they shared, and her conflicting feelings as she attempts to find love again. But even when she’s not there, the men speak frankly about their grief, Joan’s as well as their own. When one suitor announces that he is leaving the mansion because his mother has died, the others gather around him, some crying as they offer their condolences and reflecting on the beauty of his interactions with Joan.

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Another moving exchange involves a widower named Charles, who spent nearly six years wracked with guilt, wondering if there was anything he could have done to save his wife from a fatal brain aneurysm. Speaking to Guy, an emergency room doctor, Charles shares that one detail of his wife’s death has always troubled him – and he looks visibly relieved when Guy reassures him, after explaining the science, that there was nothing he could have done. Later, as Charles recalls this conversation while speaking with Joan, he tells her that “it changed my life.” These scenes are not only a stark contrast to the hostile atmosphere typical of many dating-driven competition series in which contestants spend time together; they are also an instructive depiction of relationship building between older men. Rather than remaining peacefully alone, Golden Single men prioritize vulnerability and openness with each other. “I came in, I arrived at the mansion with sadness, I missed my wife,” Charles says when he leaves in the middle of the season. “After several weeks here at the mansion, it really helped me…the remaining friends, we bonded. We opened our hearts. »

The silent anguish Charles describes has dangerous real-world ramifications: After the death of a spouse, widowers experience higher rates of mortality, persistent depressionAnd social isolation than widows. “It’s partly because they don’t have those close friendships like we see on the show,” Deborah Carr, professor of sociology at Boston University and author of Golden years? Social inequalities later in lifetold me. “Their social ties often resided in work, and this diminishes once they retire – or their former spouses played the role.”

But widowers aren’t the only demographic represented on The Golden Bachelorette. And today’s older Americans have much more complex social lives than in the past, in part because marriage, companionship, and caregiving are all different — and often less predictable — than they were decades ago. Today, about 36% of adults who divorce are over the age of 50, a growing phenomenon known as gray divorce. As Carr said, “We’re certainly moving away from ‘one marriage for life'” — which is changing the way single adults over 50 view their romantic prospects.

The Golden Bachelorette tells what it takes for candidates to open up to love, romantic or otherwise. As these changes happen in real time, the series keeps an eye on the importance of emotional transparency when navigating relationships later in life. The men in the series sometimes acknowledge that they were raised to be uncomfortable with overt displays of sentimentality, but they seem to recognize the long-term consequences of suppressing their feelings. Carr added that she was happy to see how quickly a group of men with so little in common came to embrace each other. “Even though it’s an artificial situation,” she noted, “many of these lessons can be passed on to other men.”

On The Golden Bachelorthe isolated production environment eventually pushed women toward each other as well. “We were all sequestered in this mansion with no phones, no TV, and no social media, so it was very easy to connect very quickly and on a deep level with people,” Kathy Swarts, one of the contestants, told me . When we spoke, Kathy had just left Pennsylvania, where she was visiting Susan Noles, one of her closest friends from The Golden Bachelor. Both told me, in separate conversations, that they saw joining the show as a transformative choice and that their age also gave them a unique perspective on finding love, whether with Gerry or with new friends. For Susan, watching the men go through the same journey has been fascinating — and it’s different from watching previous seasons of the franchise or other reality shows, because the contestants are mostly parents and grandparents.

“We gave our lives to our children,” Susan explained, adding that the young candidates “didn’t experience what we experienced: we experienced ups, downs, horrors, broken hearts, moments happy”. As they enter the mansion, the Golden candidates largely know who they are and what they want. It changes what it means to win: Even if they don’t come to the show looking for new platonic connections, we see contestants recognize the beauty of forming friendships with peers who meet them as individuals, not as as extensions of their family or their employer. This season’s men may have started out as strangers, but they’re moving on again The Golden Bachelorette having found a “band of brothers,” as one outgoing participant calls his competitors.