I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends (33 page)

I got sick of hiding out with Arie and decided to tempt fate. I wanted to take him to my favorite restaurant at the Farm. I called ahead and asked them to reserve the most secluded table and made them promise that my visit would be confidential. But when we got there, they sat two couples right next to us. While we were eating dinner and kissing, one of the couples took our picture. When I went to the bathroom, Arie politely asked them to erase the picture, but they denied they snapped us. We both knew we were screwed.

The next day I left to drive back to L.A. and all hell broke loose. I got a call from my friend at Wet Paint, who told me the picture of us kissing had been sold to TMZ.com. I panicked.

I texted Julia, Ben’s sister, to give her a heads-up. “Is he a good kisser?” she asked jokingly. That eased my mind a bit. Until a producer from
The Bachelor
called me and said “I just talked to Ben and he is totally flipping out.”

“Should I call him?”

“No, let him cool off.”

Ten minutes later I got a text from Ben: “Really? Please don’t ever contact me again. Low blow.”

I tried to temper the explosive situation by being apologetic.

“Please understand I have been so brokenhearted. I wanted us to work. I’m so sorry I hurt you. It was never my intention. I would have loved you forever and ps I’m still in love with you. I care for you deeply and only want to see you happy.”

That just made him spitting mad.

“You just dug your own grave. Good luck gaining respect from anyone. I’m not here to protect you from negativity anymore. You lost all credibility that you built up after the last media disaster. It’s really disappointing. Don’t expect me to be on your side anymore. Our ‘united front’ is out the fucking window. Have a nice ride on your own. Tata.”

“That united front has been out the window for quite some time. You’re the one that gave up, not me. Remember that.”

“You kissed the guy!!! How does that make you still miss me? It’s been a week since we stopped talking and you’re already going on dates in public!? How stupid are you?”

“I do miss you, badly. I wake up in the middle of the night crying. Not that you care. Looks like you’ve been off living it up. You let me go so easily.”

“Last weekend was an escape for me. You going on a date with Arie is the prime example why we didn’t work. You never think about your actions.”

“Everyone makes mistakes and I’ve forgiven you many times.”

“Whatever. This is your bad not mine. You’re in a pickle. Have fun with that.”

“It was one date; he called me,” I lied, trying to diffuse the situation. “Again I’m sorry. I will always love you and be there for you, whether you like it or not.”

“Not so sure anymore. Anyway have fun with this. I do feel bad you put yourself in this situation. Frankly, I’m shocked.”

Ben called Arie and left him a message. “Hey man, I’m not mad at you. I just have a few questions.” Arie never called him back. I warned Arie that he should be prepared to be blasted in the media but he just said calmly, “Don’t worry.” Unlike Ben, he didn’t let these things bother him or change his opinion of me. He tweeted a picture of himself shouting from a mountaintop with a caption saying he had no problem telling the world what an amazing woman I was. He seemed so much more passionate than Ben.

The Arie incident started a vicious war between Ben and me. Back and forth insults were flung through the media. He said that he owed an apology to the women on the show for not believing them. That he dodged a bullet. His sister posted nasty messages on Arie’s Instagram pictures, calling him a C-list fame whore. She texted me, too, demanding to know how I could do this to Ben. Before Halloween, ABC ran a video online called “The Hatchelor” and they used film from our season to make a horror movie starring me as the monster.

I retaliated by setting up a paparazzi photo shoot “catching” me returning the $80,000 engagement ring to Neil Lane.

I also did a story in
Life & Style
, in which I ripped on Ben. I did another exclusive in
Us Weekly
, saying I felt “brainwashed.” Ben unleashed more fury, and questioned publicly if I were only interested in being famous. “Did I ever really know her?” he said about me, saying all the things he knew would cut to the bone. “Maybe she was just that good at fooling people.”

After a few weeks of this, I couldn’t take anymore. I waved the white flag and gave up, totally bummed out. Ben had pushed all of the right buttons and hit me where it hurt most. Like Ben said, “Things don’t end, unless they end badly.” Boy, did we crash and burn.

I called a producer friend and told him to tell Ben I would break up with Arie if it would stop our hateful war of words. He never responded to my offer, but I knew that my tryst with Arie was toast. In early November, a bunch of Bachelor Nation alumni came to L.A. to attend Ashley and J. P.’s wedding, which would be televised a month later in December. Arie was also in town, though we were not invited to the wedding. I tagged along with him when he visited his buddy Jef Holm, who was staying at the Ritz-Carlton. It was strange that the two were friends, when both had fought so hard to win Emily’s heart. But such is the nature of the beast. Ben and J. P. were buddies, too.

Jef and Emily had split up a few weeks ago as well. Emily had not so secretly turned her attention to Arie, bombarding him with jealous texts about his relationship with me. Jef found out about the texts (so did I, there are few secrets in Bachelor Nation). Jef was furious, but he wasn’t so innocent either. He may have adhered to his strict Mormon teachings about alcohol, but he certainly didn’t abstain from womanizing. The guy was a total player. During the wedding weekend, I know from very reliable sources that he hooked up with
three
women—a one-night backslide with former fiancée Emily, Over-Analyst blogger Jenna Burke from my season, and his new hookup, a twenty-three-year-old named Katianna.

I knew the guy was shadesville the moment I met him. My intuition was confirmed again when he told me, “You got a bad rap. Come build a well with me.” He said his People Water charity would do wonders for my reputation. He told me that I could shake a baby and everyone would still love me. Ew, what a cocky bastard.

I couldn’t deal with this love triangle or quadrangle or whatever I was involved in with Arie, Emily, and Jef. I wanted out, no part of this incestuous
Bachelor
drama. At the end of the weekend I told Arie we were done. He was disappointed and asked me to think about it overnight, and then attend the iHeartRadio concert with him the next day.

After sleeping on it, I called Arie and told him I’d overreacted and that I’d love to go with him. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said. I was surprised and confused, until I checked Instagram later that night. He’d flown in another girl to take to the show and because he just couldn’t help it Arie posted pictures of them together. I clicked on her name and figured out that he was dating this woman, a born-again virgin, the entire time we were together. He’d often seen both of us on the same day. It was all right there on social media, if I’d bothered to check.

Once word got out that I was single again, all sorts of
Bachelorette
guys contacted me. I was asked via Twitter and through mutual friends to “hang out” with a long list of alumni, but I decided to try to stay away from
Bachelor
guys.

A lot of (random) guys also wanted to be my savior. As soon as the news broke about the breakup, my ex Cavan sent me flowers. The comedian David Spade, who got my number from his friend Mike Fleiss, called me out of the blue and asked me to come see his comedy show. He texted me a lot, and he was so sweet and funny and charming, but I just wasn’t ready. After I blew him off a bunch, he wrote:

Well, I have to admit you are sort of tough to date. First have to figure out if you’re single, then I have to get you to answer the phone, then you have to say yes. Lining up all three of these things is sort of difficult.

I declined all invitations and on New Year’s Day, after everything had died down, I reached out to Ben in an e-mail. I wanted to come clean and apologize. But he never responded to me. I reached out to Chris, always my source of comfort in times of trouble, but he was living with someone and disappeared on me. I never felt so alone in my entire life.

I sank into a serious depression for months and for the first time in my life, I didn’t turn to a man. I turned into a recluse. I was sick of the drama and I was sick of myself. I felt I had lost my voice and sight of who I was. I felt like I had become a bad friend, sister, daughter, and person. I genuinely cared what people thought about me. I was so disappointed in myself for the way I’d handled everything and couldn’t face the world.

The show, and everything that happened around it, was the experience of a lifetime. But it also changed me forever—and I wasn’t sure I liked the change. Was what I’d gone through worth the pain I felt now? Was it worth destroying my modeling career? Or my reputation? I didn’t think I was ever going to feel unconditional love again and wasn’t sure I deserved it.

At the end of my rope, my faith in love and in myself completely lost, I decided to see a psychic. I was desperate and I’d had good luck before. In Tempe, Arizona, I’d seen the famous Mrs. Rita, who was immortalized in a Gin Blossoms song, and she told me I would wait until I was older to get married. I’d also seen a guy named Yogi in Miami who handed me a piece of paper and said, “This is who you’re going to be with.” The name on the paper was “Chris.”

I scrolled through Yelp and found a medium named Shirley Lipner, right down the street from me in Santa Monica. She had all five-star reviews and cost $150. When I walked in, she said to me right off the bat, “You’re not depressed. You’re in a fog.”

“Oh, thank God,” I said. “I was so worried.” I had to pee so I asked to borrow the key to the bathroom. I didn’t know if she knew who I was, but while I was gone I became concerned that I’d picked this woman randomly. What if she sold our conversation to a tabloid?

As soon as I got back from the bathroom, she put my mind at ease: “I was channeling your energy when you went to pee and don’t you worry, everything is completely private, much like a doctor.”

I asked her to channel Ben and she did. She said he was standing there with his arms crossed, pouting like a little boy. She said he had a mental block because of his mother and that we were possibly together in a past life. She said he just didn’t know what he wanted, but he really did love me. I would hear from him again when I turned forty.

I had tears in my eyes.

“In the past, you’ve always been like, ‘Pick me!’” the psychic said. “But now you’re going to have your pick. Take your time.”

She was right. I’d jumped right into most of my relationships impulsively, without even taking the time to ask myself the right questions. What was the type of man I wanted? How did I want him to treat me? How should he treat my family? What type of parent would he be? All simple questions, yet all questions I’d avoided most of my life, just to avoid being alone.

In the months after breaking up with Arie, I was alone for the longest stretch of my life. And you know what? Once the depression started lifting, it was a revelation. I found a new sense of faith and started praying again and giving thanks for my life. Instead of going on dates with guys, I went on dates with myself. I treated myself the way I always wanted a man to treat me. I stopped beating myself up for my past actions and was nice to myself. I realized I wasn’t the character “Courtney Robertson” on
The Bachelor
. I wasn’t a Man-eater or a cold marble statue or a villain.

I slowly started remembering only the happy moments with Ben and stopped feeling anger toward him. And when that release was true and genuine, in July 2013, he finally reached out to me in an e-mail with the subject “Long time …”:

Hey Courtney,

Just wanted to reach out and say a quick hello … I just wanted to clear the air a bit in case we ever run into each other at any point … I don’t harbor any negative feelings about you and wish you nothing but the best in your future relationships, endeavors, and life. With the little bits of info I hear about you through the grapevine it seems you’re super happy and that makes me happy.

Take care.

I was genuinely heartbroken when Ben and I broke up. The failed relationship was the greatest disappointment of my life. I loved being engaged to Ben and that peaceful feeling knowing the search was over. I thought he was my forever and was scared I would never love or care about someone so deeply ever again.

But I’m not scared anymore. It’ll happen when it happens and there’s no rush.

Like my mom always says, “You have the rest of your life to let a man screw it up!”

The two biggest questions I always get from
Bachelor
fans is, “Is it real?” (yes) and “If you could to do the show over again, would you?”

The answer to that question is … Hell no! Meaning, of course, I wouldn’t do it again if I knew then what I know now. But that’s not how life works. I think it’s okay to live with regrets and learn from failures. Even when things are over, they continue to influence and inspire you. This experience made my life fuller, my beliefs stronger, and gave me the patience to wait for the right person. In that way I’m “winning!” (I couldn’t resist.)

So, no, I probably wouldn’t do
The Bachelor
again. But you know what? I’d be thrilled to be the Bachelorette, so I can do the picking.

My only requirement for the guys?

Must. Love. Skinny-dipping.

EPILOGUE

April 2014