'The Golden Bachelorette' contestants show what it takes to be a good man. Bachelor Nation fans shouldn't have to settle for less.

If there’s one thing the internet has taught me, it’s that men are not OK. They're lonely, they're struggling to make friends and apparently, some don't like it when their wives get raises. Let's not start on the Andrew Tate acolytes. But on Wednesdays at 8 p.m., I travel to a magical place called The Golden Bachelorette, where the men are caring, emotionally intelligent and have neat hobbies like surfing, dancing and cooking. Is this real life?

Of course, it isn’t. Like the rest of The Bachelor franchise and all of reality TV, ABC's senior dating show is a carefully produced fantasy that reflects our deepest beliefs about humanity. We know that older men can be just as skeevy as their floppy-eared counterparts, so why is it that the guys on Joan Vassos’s inaugural Golden Bachelorette season have been so dreamy and well-rounded while many of the guys on the regular Bachelorette are well, not? As a seasoned reality TV viewer, I’d say we’ve got a carefully crafted redemption arc on our hands — not for one guy in particular, but for mankind.

We’ve all probably heard the conventional wisdom that girls mature faster than boys — a narrative that, too often, surfaces when someone wants to excuse a man's bad behavior. “Boys will be boys” is a phrase — or excuse — used all too often. When I look at the young men searching for love on The Bachelorette, many seem to play that part. They’re a bit immature, pick fights and, to borrow a turn of phrase from one contestant who competed on Jenn Tran's season, they suck at “keeping the main thing the main thing.” Every season, some guy pulls some silly stunt and draws out of me the exact reaction that I suspect producers want: Why are men like this?

Obviously, #NotAllMen are like this — on The Bachelorette or in real life. Just look at franchise star Joey Graziadei, who moved on from Charity Lawson’s season to become our best Bachelor in years and now might just win Dancing With the Stars. Or Jonathon Johnson, who had us all in tears when Tran sent him packing. On the whole, the men on The Bachelorette are in an entirely different league from those who showed up for The Golden Bachelorette. Age does (hopefully) make us all wiser, but it also seems like something deeper might be going on here.

From the moment ABC announced Gerry Turner as its first Golden Bachelor in July 2023, fans could see the narrative beginning to form. He was framed as more mature, sensitive and earnest than the usual youngbloods — a story that fractured after The Hollywood Reporter fact-checked several aspects of his backstory.

The fantasy fell apart even further when Turner and his final rose recipient, Theresa Nist, announced their divorce in April 2024, just three months after their televised "Golden Wedding." As shocking as the THR exposé might’ve been, the divorce was somewhat predictable. Turner and Nist live halfway across the country from one another, and both expressed how important it was for them to stay geographically close to their respective families. Would we have trusted a younger couple to figure this out, or would everyone have seen the divorce on the horizon a little earlier?

Vassos’s season has similarly portrayed its men as more soulful, although one of them has received reduced screen time due to a restraining order. It’s not just that all her suitors have been nice and gotten along (although that is refreshing). It’s the deep camaraderie they’ve shared from the moment they set foot in the mansion and started doing cannonballs into the pool. These contestants have opened up to one another about losing their wives. They’ve bought each other sleep aids and run out to hug their eliminated friends after rose ceremonies. Not once in the history of The Bachelor have we seen a group of men this genuinely invested in one another’s happiness. The testosterone-fueled competition that usually drives The Bachelorette is gone, and in its place is genuine empathy. I just wish we got to see that on The Bachelorette, too.

And why don’t we? As fun as it can be to play the old “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” hits and joke about how doofy “men these days” can be, plenty of princes still linger among the frogs. Do none of them want to find love on TV until they hit their 70s?

To an extent, casting any reality show relies on the luck of the draw; the producers cast a wide net for their applicant pool and they decide who will make the best stories. But if this franchise and its many offshoots have taught its loyal fandom anything, it’s that there are many kinds of stories we can tell, even with the same people.

While The Bachelorette seems to be cast for drama, excitement and hotness, our first season of The Golden Bachelorette has gone for pure, unadulterated earnestness. No one wants to see a 61-year-old woman get jerked around. I just wish that the leading women in their twenties could receive the same courtesy.