Monday, January 9, 2012

Amber Tierney Reflects on Her Short-Lived Stint on The Bachelor


  Craig Sjodin/ ABC
 
This season’s premiere episode of The Bachelor was like the usual debut on steroids. Limo arrivals used to be filled with tiny presents and the occasional poem. Now gestures like that are simply child’s play for a new breed of bachelorettes. One went so far as to bring her grandmother and another arrived on horseback.



So it’s no wonder that Amber T., the 29-year-old critical care nurse from Waverly, Nebraska, had a hard time standing out. Sure, she had a cute entrance, circling the bushes to give Ben Flajnik a chance to get a second impression. But it paled in comparison. In a recent conference call interview Amber T. talked about her brief time on The Bachelor.



Amber T. revealed her motivation for going on the series. “I did it on a whim. I went with my friend, who’s this huge fan of the show. And she was going and we talked and she was telling me, ‘You should go.’ I questioned it at first. I didn’t know if I really wanted to, and she talked me into it. And I was like, ‘Well, I really don’t have anything to lose.’ So I decided to go, and then it was a good experience from there.”




Unlike many of the contenders, Amber T. hadn’t follow Ashley Hebert’s season of The Bachelorette and had only a cursory opinion of Ben. She revealed, “I watched the first and the last episode of The Bachelorette, so I knew a little bit about him prior to going on, when I did find out he was the bachelor. I was happy to hear that he was and ABC is where I found out more information about him.”



Unfortunately Amber T. wasn’t able to connect with Ben any better at the cocktail party. She recounted, “I didn't get a chance to talk to him at all. It was really that initial meeting and then sitting in on him blindfolded. The thing is that there’s 25 girls and they are fighting for him. And everyone's aggressive and he tries to find time to spend with everybody.”



Amber T. admitted that she never wasn’t ever able to steal Ben away during the soiree. She recalled, “Initially there wasn't a whole lot of chemistry, but if we would have had time to sit down and talk to each other, that that could have been different. I do wish that I would have been a little bit more assertive and I would have approached him and tried to have a conversation with him. But it was a pretty crazy night, and it isn't like me to really go and interrupt and try to do something that I wouldn't normally do, because that's not me… I'm just not the type of person that would go in there and do something to make myself stand out… in a negative way.”



In fact a lot of Ben’s energy went to the drama queens who inevitably revealed themselves quickly. This season Jenna and Monica went head-to-head right away and tears were flowing before the first rose ceremony began. Amber T. commented on the situation saying, “I honestly did not see everything that happened in the situation when I was there. Personally, I thought that [Jenna] was a little bit of a hot mess. She got a little emotional.”



But Amber T. did give Jenna the benefit of the doubt adding, “It was a long night and everyone's tired and emotions are high. And drinking is involved. So she could have had a couple too many drinks as well.”



That said, Amber T. thought Ben was on a mercy mission when he gave Jenna a rose. “I think that he didn’t probably want to hurt her more. He already saw that she was upset… But I would think that that would be a red flag for him seeing how she acted.”



If Amber T. had been able to reveal more about herself to Ben, he might have been surprised to learn about her love of game hunting. She reflected on what he might have thought, “I can see that it could possibly be intimidating, just because it's something that generally is more masculine, maybe. But the thing is, is that with hunting… it's a hobby. So it can definitely be intimidating to some guys. Not where I'm from. Guys love that stuff, but I could see where that would be intimidating to him.”



When push came to shove, Amber T. admitted that she was a little surprised when she didn’t get a rose. She admitted, “I was a little bit disappointed as well just because I did see that Jenna had got a rose, and it made me question Ben’s intentions at that point in time.”



Catch The Bachelor on Monday nights at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central on ABC.

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