The Bachelor 20 - Ben Higgins - ATFR - *Sleuthing - Spoilers* #3

^
ITA, Lucas. IMO Lauren was the only woman he never thought about letting go of. He panicked early on that she might leave, and his feelings just grew as the time went on.

^^ wow. I believe him because he seems the type that was truly interested in the process.
The one indicator for me is that he constantly spoke about his life to Lauren because he wanted her to know him.
That first date was extremely natural and the conversation was real and flowed. I think they both had heart eyes on that date.

Idlemess wrote:That first date was extremely natural and the conversation was real and flowed. I think they both had heart eyes on that date.

To me the thing that struck me from the first date was when Ben explained to Lauren how he had seen the depth of love his mother has for his father and how he forgot about that through the fun times - but seeing her fear of loss of the man she loved made him realize that was what he wanted in his life.

IMO this season is my all time favorite because I was able to watch Lauren go from "interested" to "pinch me because I'm not sure if I'm awake or dreaming" to "If this was the last time Ben said he loves me I don't know what I'd do" and it all was caught on camera. I think as Ben and Lauren watched their parts over, and Ben got a chance to see the ITMs that he probably never saw during filming, he realized that in Lauren he had found exactly what he started out looking for.

It would have totally blown my mind if he had passed up that love. I'm not surprised that it seems as though he never considered passing that up; smart man.
JMHO

ForeverLove wrote:https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Bachelor-Ben-Higgins-Finale-Facts-40603562#photo-40603562

Finale Facts

After Ben broke JoJo's heart, we saw her break down in the limo as she was driven away. While most people might think that she immediately packed up and headed for the airport, that wasn't exactly the case. Nobody could leave Jamaica early in order to avoid looking suspicious and revealing Ben's final pick, so JoJo stayed in Jamaica another day and the entire crew flew out together.

Thank you to the one who provided this info to me.

GuardianAngel wrote:

After Ben broke JoJo's heart, we saw her break down in the limo as she was driven away. While most people might think that she immediately packed up and headed for the airport, that wasn't exactly the case. Nobody could leave Jamaica early in order to avoid looking suspicious and revealing Ben's final pick, so JoJo stayed in Jamaica another day and the entire crew flew out together.

Thank you to the one who provided this info to me.

Thanks for sharing this GA. I'm not surprised at all - IIRC they started doing this a while back with at least the final 2 and often the final 3. Once they realized that sleuthers were tracking when someone became active on SM or was seen back home it was a dead giveaway that they were not F1 they kept them at the FRC location. IMO this was not the only thing they did this season for the same reason - to better hide F1.

Lucas15 wrote:

ForeverLove wrote:https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Bachelor-Ben-Higgins-Finale-Facts-40603562#photo-40603562

Finale Facts

From the above article, this resonated to me:

It was always Lauren," Higgins tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week's issue. And despite the fact that he also told runner up (and new Bachelorette) JoJo Fletcher that he loved her, "no matter how much I felt for JoJo, I knew I could never say goodbye to Lauren.
...
There were women who gave up their lives to try to see if things could work, and I had agreed, made a promise to myself that I would go through this. There were times that I had to fool myself into thinking I was open to other women. It was too good to be true! And as weird as it sounds, it's not fair to not be open.

THAT was the show I watched.
JMHO

IA. I just never saw any relationship better than what he had with Lauren or catch up to what he had with Lauren. Lauren was the only one he wanted to get to know him. He said that twice - first date and Warsaw date. He's never revealed anything about himself to Jojo. I think he just ramped up with Jojo (probably with some prodding) during the FD. I think he knew he had to give another relationship some chance before he made the final decision.

On the dressing, own it including the comments you will attract because of the way you dress. Lauren does not always have her boobs hanging out (except a couple), yet the way she's dressed has been written about. Very simple yet catches attention!

^^^I disagree. Yes he was attracted to Lauren early on but JoJo really grew on him. He was conflicted because he fell in love with JoJo too. It was not a clean ride to the finish line with Ben and Lauren. JMHO ;)

I agree that in being open as he promised himself , he did let Jojo into his heart but never as his final choice imo. He said as much. I don't think he was even conflicted on the day he picked the ring like the smoke and mirror editing showed . Many times it's been said, we're not Ben , we don't know what he was thinking at that time. Well, here we have him telling us, it was ALWAYS Lauren.

IMO he never thought of letting Lauren go, it boils down to that. So in that way it was clean cut IMO. Was it hard to let JoJo go, yes, of course. But IMO there never was the option of letting Lauren go.

IMO it says a lot, when they didn't show the BenLo first kiss, and had to edit the show a lot (switch the date orders etc) to even out the score.

Lucas15 wrote:

Idlemess wrote:That first date was extremely natural and the conversation was real and flowed. I think they both had heart eyes on that date.

To me the thing that struck me from the first date was when Ben explained to Lauren how he had seen the depth of love his mother has for his father and how he forgot about that through the fun times - but seeing her fear of loss of the man she loved made him realize that was what he wanted in his life.

IMO this season is my all time favorite because I was able to watch Lauren go from "interested" to "pinch me because I'm not sure if I'm awake or dreaming" to "If this was the last time Ben said he loves me I don't know what I'd do" and it all was caught on camera. I think as Ben and Lauren watched their parts over, and Ben got a chance to see the ITMs that he probably never saw during filming, he realized that in Lauren he had found exactly what he started out looking for.

It would have totally blown my mind if he had passed up that love. I'm not surprised that it seems as though he never considered passing that up; smart man.
JMHO

I loved his realization that from Warsaw, Lauren confessed her love for him in her PI ....

What shocked me watching it that night was hearing Lauren say she was in love with me. I know to a lot of you this is a TV show and that you expect stuff like this, but I had no idea. I had no idea that she had said that and felt that that night until right now. It's really great to watch that and hear that and know that it wasn't just me that felt our relationship really take a step up to a new level that night.


http://www.people.com/people/package/article/0,,20981907_20987486,00.html

ForeverLove wrote:I agree that in being open as he promised himself , he did let Jojo into his heart but never as his final choice imo. He said as much. I don't think he was even conflicted on the day he picked the ring like the smoke and mirror editing showed . Many times it's been said, we're not Ben , we don't know what he was thinking at that time. Well, here we have him telling us, it was ALWAYS Lauren.

Not to rain on any love story, but after the AFTR and the couple goes public with the media rounds, we normally start hearing similar and the lead starts rewriting history, often contradicting, what we saw play out on our screens.  It was always so and so, never anyone else, blah blah blah.  It's like fill in the blank with the name of the F1, rinse/repeat season after season, IMO.

I'm not saying he's lying, it wasn't Lauren from early on or that he didn't always feel more for her than anyone else.  But he also has to toe the company line while trying to build up his relationship and love story with his F1.  I saw more there with Lauren than with anyone else, so this time around, it does appear there is more truth to that line (It was always...) than normal.  It's normally just not quite as cut and dry or black and white as they (the lead) claim and what we actually are shown by TPTB isn't always the way it happened.  So, it's somewhere in between, IMO.  I don't think it necessarily has to be all or nothing or putting one down to build up another, but most of the time that's exactly what we hear from the lead and TPTB.  JMO.

^^ Agreed. I believe that he knew early on that he loved Lauren and so it was easy and safe. With JoJo, the love feelings crept up on him. He didn't expect to feel those feelings, especially given how he felt about Lauren. So, I think on the show his feelings for Lauren may have plateaued, but the feelings for JoJo continued to grow so much so that it APPEARED to be on the same level as with Lauren. I believe however, that if the show lasted for about one month longer that his feelings for JoJo would have surpassed those for Lauren just because they continued to increase over time whereas with Lauren it was a more steady pace throughout. But this is just my opinion.