I’ve written about how reality TV dating shows, like The Bachelor and Farmer Wants a Wife, are mainly a disadvantage when it comes to looking for love – from the low statistical probability of finding love, based on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette success rate, to being blind to the red flags because of the camera and the novelty. Yet, I’m a simple girl, and there’s always something alluring when it comes to potential love. So I watched, knowing chances were slim, to make fun of reality TV and to hope despite it all that there might be true love. So, without further ado, here’s what this farm girl thought of the second season of Farmer Wants a Wife.
The Farmers
The farmers were Ty Ferrell (42), Brandon Rogers (29), Mitchell Kolinsky (27), and Nathan Smothers (23). Ty is a single dad with a ranch in Missouri. Brandon farms potatoes in Colorado. Mitchell is a first generation farmer in Tennessee. Nathan is the born-older Gen Z Florida farmer.
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Out of the four farmers, my favorite right off the bat and through to the end was Nathan. He was a bit shy at the beginning, but it was endearing. As he grew closer with the girls, he was very gentlemanly and had such a sweet relationship with Taylor BeDell. (Spoiler: They ended up together and are still going strong!)
The Drama About Being “Real”
There was plenty of drama on the farms, some of which was instigated by the show itself (of course). However, the most interesting drama (between the ladies, at least) occurred on Brandon’s farm between Reba and Joy. Between the two, Reba seemed to be more likely to adapt to farm life. And as a farm girl myself, Joy giggling and complaining about being covered in dirt while helping sort potatoes (despite the whole process looking very minimally dirty – take it from someone who gets coated in hay dust every summer) didn’t sit well. Reba, likely immediately feeling this and a bit threatened, was adamant about Joy being insincere. I couldn’t help but agree with her.
Upon confrontation (in front of everyone, no less), Reba told Joy that she was fake. Joy stood up for herself and said she was being herself – trying to be joyful in everything. It made me wonder if I was too harshly judging her with my first impressions, and that perhaps Reba was too, simply because she felt threatened. After all, one of her dislikes about Joy? She smiled too much. Despite the whole situation making Reba look a little bit like the bad guy, Brandon kept both on the farm. But Reba only hung around until she could no longer quietly hold her opinion of Joy while watching Brandon pursue her. Or rather, until she could no longer wait for a guy who was interested in a person whose character she couldn’t respect. She voluntarily left the show, and Brandon continued to pursue Joy.
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Still, I felt there was something not right about Joy, but was open to being proven wrong. However, it seemed Reba was right all along, when, as the farmers were having to choose two of their three remaining girls and visit their families, Joy suddenly told Brandon she never felt romantically inclined towards him and wouldn’t want to have her family meet a man she only considered a friend. He was completely blindsided, especially since this came after an especially romantic one-on-one at his family’s cabin.
In the reunion episode of the season, Reba was one of the girls invited back to share their thoughts on their experience on the show, and she was of the same mind as she’d always been, saying, “I wanted you to figure it out, I just didn’t think it would take you so long.” This whole conflict really highlights feminine intuition and how important it is. We can argue that Reba had more than a gut feeling; her nerves and her brain were working together to tell her that something wasn’t right about Joy.
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The whole situation also really drives at what being real means. So many people aren’t putting themselves totally forward or are putting up a persona to make it big. Joy may have been trying to find love, but, as she hinted during her goodbye, she wouldn’t have been able to connect romantically with him in that short of time and she should have been honest with Brandon sooner to spare him and the other girls heartbreak. You can argue she didn’t know – after all, she didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him earlier. However, a few of the girls backed out fairly soon when all they felt was friendship. And this goes for those of us not dating on reality TV too. Are we putting up a front? Are we being fake with the men showing interest in us? Are we leading him on when we don’t actually feel any chemistry because we enjoy the attention or are waiting for something better to come along?
The Ability To Empathize
I had another concern about Joy that surfaced near the end of her time on the farm. To preface, Brandon felt so much compassion – something the girls on his farm often said was a quality that was attractive to them. He paid attention to how they were feeling and interacted with them on that basis. On one date, when Brandon asked how Joy felt about him coming from a family that had experienced divorce, she basically said she didn’t feel anything about it. This turned the whole date sour, and Joy was quick to make an explanation the following evening in the hopes that he wouldn’t send her home on a misunderstanding. When she did open up, Brandon’s compassion was clear on his face. Tears were in his eyes as Joy explained how it was to grow up with epilepsy and having been without treatment for most of that time due to family financial struggles.
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Wearing compassion on our sleeves is a wonderful quality, so it was fantastic to see this in one of the main guys on the show. However, Brandon seemed to be inclined for the majority of the show to keep Joy around, and I wonder if that, paired with his compassion, might have blinded him from seeing sooner that Reba was right about Joy. Because, at the same time Joy was sharing with him her sufferings, she seemed to also be saying that the greatness of her own suffering made it difficult for her to feel any compassion for the suffering of others.
I am not in any way meaning to call Joy a bad person – I know nothing of her life except what she explained and what I saw of her on the show. But for Brandon, who wears his heart on his sleeve, this should’ve been a red flag. When he opened up about his trials in life, she didn’t feel much of anything because it wasn’t as difficult (in her mind) as the suffering she went through. However, suffering isn’t meant to be judged on a scale of smallest to greatest. This is not to say we shouldn’t have some concept of what is small or great suffering – that helps give us perspective. We most certainly should. But our conception of own suffering should help us see the suffering of others. It should play into our understanding that suffering comes in many different forms, and it is felt personally with a specific intensity for many different people. It’s in having this emotional intelligence – experiencing suffering and learning how to go through it gracefully in our own lives – that our sense of compassion is cultivated and nurtured to grow.
In a day and age when true compassion seems difficult to find in others, many men and women can use these kinds of instances in their dating lives to help get a sense of the other’s character. The situation between Brandon and Joy is an example for us viewers; from simple conversations in the “getting to know you” stage, we can learn whether or not someone has the compassion (or insert any other virtue) necessary for a romantic, forever relationship.
You Have To Know When To Walk Away
The part of the season that truly blew my mind was the end of single dad Ty’s romantic journey. He ultimately chose neither of the final two women on his farm, opting for singleness. What was it that made him choose singleness, you ask? Both women, Melody and Megan, hoped for children of their own.
Though this was a shocker, this ending was foreshadowed when one of the women invited back to his farm, Amy, asked him whether he would want to have more kids in the future. At that time, he couldn’t give her a confident answer. And kudos to Amy – she decided to leave, knowing she needed someone who wanted kids and she needed the reassurance of being on the same page. Melody and Megan, on the other hand, told Ty they were happy to be just a “bonus” mom to his daughter and further discuss having more kids in the future. On the one hand, I can respect Ty for not stringing along either of them while knowing he didn’t want more kids. However, it would have been better for him to have considered this and been upfront in his farmer bio or whatever information they give possible candidates that he wasn’t interested in more children before they went on the show.
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This also brings about another question that any woman looking for that forever someone and looking to move into that next season of life should ask: What does it mean for a man to want a wife but not kids? And if we run into a man like this (this isn’t to say anything about Ty’s character, but the chances are high we’ll run into someone with his outlook), how should we respond? Of course, we will all have our own personal desires which determine what we are looking for in a husband and marriage. But for many of us, we know that putting off having children until later isn’t something we can reasonably bank on. So, perhaps we are like Amy, Melody, and Megan, and we hope to have children.
If you read my last article on Farmer Wants a Wife, you might remember that this show has been successful in other countries, including Australia. Interestingly enough, the streaming service Tubi also has the Australian version available for watching. And I confess, I watched it while waiting for the next week’s episode of the American show. In season two of The Farmer Wants a Wife, Australian farmer Rob Hodges was looking for a wife. The same age as Ty, he was looking to start a family. He ended the season successful, and he and his wife have three kids and just celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary. Now, you might say that their situations were entirely different – and they are. Ty was previously married and has a 12 year old, while Rob was never married before and wanted a family.
Again, like I noted for Joy, there’s no judging Ty’s family or life circumstances – no one can know for sure what things are like in his life. But being so against having children while simultaneously looking for a wife means 1) he’ll have to find a woman who both shares his values and doesn’t want any kids, and 2) contraceptives will likely be used to maintain the desired childlessness. However, studies show that contraceptives can become a divisive element in a marriage. Natural Womanhood, reporting on a study published in the Journal for Divorce and Remarriage, stated women who have taken oral hormonal contraceptives have a 54% higher divorce rate than even the study’s average, and women with tubal ligations had a 78% higher divorce rate than their counterparts not using contraceptives. That’s not even including the effect getting off birth control might have on a relationship that began while on birth control since birth control can change who women are attracted to. In addition, the study also suggests when a husband had a vasectomy, the couple was twice as likely to divorce as the average couple, and couples who ever used condoms were 67% more likely to get divorced than those who had not. (Interestingly, using a fertility-awareness based method to manage family planning reduced the chances of divorce.)
So what is the problem with contraceptives and birth control? Why does this study show that almost every type of measure used to prevent conceiving a child can tear a couple apart? The pattern must have an explanation. Mike Gaskins, author of In the Name of the Pill, says it best: It’s because couples are saying to each other “I’ll give you some, not all, of me” or “I’m giving you all of me…except this part.” Everyone hears how marriage is about giving yourself to the other, and for the sake of reproduction, that means allowing nature to take its course and bring two together to create a completely unique human being. Of course, there are circumstances and reasons to hold off on having kids. But using contraception or sterilization to avoid having children suddenly makes it less about giving all of yourself to the relationship and the life you’re building with your spouse. Effectively sterilizing the union between a man and a woman, it makes physical love only about the pleasure you’re seeking from it, and, perhaps unintentionally, turning your spouse into an object of pleasure. This is the unfortunate, negative outcome that rears its ugly head in marriages when contraception is expected to be a part of the relationship. Contraception can make intimacy selfish.
In all of this, as we date, we have to ask ourselves how much of ourselves we want to give to another person and how much we want them to give us in return. It can’t be 75%, or even 98%. If we meet someone – even if he checks all of our other boxes – if he doesn’t check the box of giving all of himself, we have to make the hard decision. Like Amy, we have to walk away. Even (or perhaps especially) when he’s unclear, we have to walk away when it’s about a non-negotiable – particularly when it comes to a foundational value like kids and how you decide to plan a family.
Walls To Break Down
Maybe Ty has reasons that I can’t possibly know from edited footage made for TV. That’s a given. After all, he said in a May interview with his daughter that we don’t know the back story, and he may be right that he just didn’t find love. And that’s okay. However, I can’t help but think his decision could have been motivated by fear. On the show, it seemed as though he thought he wouldn’t be able to be a dad again – that may have been what motivated him to not want more kids. That, at 42, there are too many unknown variables that made him think it wasn’t worth the risk. His age, what his health might be like, how old he’d be as the children he could have grew up, etc. Whether this was wisdom or self-limitation, we can only guess. It does, however, make me consider my own upbringing.
I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m a farm girl, so in that way and some personal ways as well, I can relate to Ty’s perspective. I’m one of the youngest of my family; my oldest sibling and I are a decade apart. When I was born, my dad was in his 40s. And let’s just say, he’s never been in a constant state of perfect health. Like Ty might be concerned, I’ve had my moments of worrying if my dad will be able to be there for all of my life’s special moments. Yet, I would never have wanted my dad to have these worries and let them keep him from allowing me to enter this world and his life.
Having this perspective, I couldn’t help but agree with Melody when, at the reunion episode, she expressed that Ty “might have missed out on a really good thing” with Megan. Out of the two women who made it to the end of his journey to find love, it seemed he had more in common with Megan (not to mention, his daughter liked her a lot). Even Melody admitted to knowing the two had a very strong connection. So when she was rejected at the end, she thought she knew who Ty was choosing. Yet, right at the end, he told Megan he didn’t feel a love or romantic connection with her but a friendship. Megan, blindsided at that moment, later said that she never felt simply friendship with him – she saw someone she could uproot her life for. She said, “I mean, I don’t kiss my friends, you know?”
He later regretted saying friendship, agreeing it was something more than that, but I can’t help but wonder if he (and if many of us have) used “friendship” as an escape when we’re afraid. Melody continued to say during the reunion, “Just because you’re saying you don’t want kids right now – I get it. I understand. But I don’t like that excuse. I don’t think it’s a good enough one. … I think you just kind of maybe sold yourself a little short.” And there’s some truth in that comment. Every person’s life is different. But we all have barriers we’ve built up based on fears that need to be torn down in order to experience joys in life we could have never imagined. We all have ways in which we might be selling ourselves short when it comes to trying to find love.
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We often hear that today’s dating scene is a total dumpster fire, and I can’t argue with that. But I do wonder, how many of us are walking away because of fear? How many of us aren’t initiating or responding because we’re running away from the unknown variables which inevitably come while trying to find our person? It’s one thing to leave the dating scene entirely out of being content and happy in singleness. Not everyone will end up married, and that’s okay. But to give up on dating despite the deep longing for a spouse because of fear does not help ourselves or our culture thrive. What if we’re letting misbeliefs get in the way of giving ourselves and others a chance at a beautiful future?
Closing Thoughts
Reality TV dating shows are full of examples of how you shouldn’t approach dating. However, the reality of dating is still present on these shows, even if somewhat obscured by editing and producers. We often find ourselves in the same dating predicaments as these people trying to find love. There are those lucky enough to find love and others leaving with heartbreak or resolve, there’s unnecessary drama and necessary tough conversations, and there’s something to learn from all of it as viewers. For the ladies, feminine intuition can be our guide – telling us when something’s off or when it’s time to walk away. Staying true to our non-negotiables can save us from misusing our time and effort on those who are on a different path. And when it comes to letting the hope of finding a spouse go, it should never be because we’ve convinced ourselves that our fears are the truth.