Nicole Tasker Woods

I was not surprised to see three of the four hometown dates going extremely well. There were lots of happy tears at Jason’s house when he said goodbye to his son, Ty, and you could see DeAnna melting every minute she looked at him or talked to him or played with him. She mentioned how comfortable she felt around his huge family, which is so similar to her own.

There was a lot about Jesse that kept me wondering if DeAnna would be happy with him. He kind of is like a big kid. He does not act like a kid, but has a sweet innocence about him. For instance, he was her friend at first and is now her boyfriend. Their relationship has taken longer to develop, but seems to have a stronger foundation than the others. You can tell that Jesse is taking this seriously because he finally laid a romantic, long kiss on DeAnna after she met his parents. He said he wanted it to be perfect, that he took the first kiss seriously. DeAnna claimed that getting a kiss from Jesse, her first kiss from Jesse, was the only thing that kept her wondering about him…well, now there is nothing left to question, you can see how into him she is.

Everything was picture perfect about Jeremy’s two brothers, his house, his dog, his body…according to DeAnna he might be too perfect. She mentioned needing to fall in love, not just settle for perfection, which makes me believe that Jeremy is out of the running.

My two guys I am routing for are Jason & Jesse.

Graham, Graham, Graham. What are we going to do with you? He was really great when he first met up with DeAnna at his old high school on his hometown date with her. He was talkative, outgoing, sweet. He even had matching basketball jerseys made for him and DeAnna with his last name on the back. She is always so giddy and happy and touchy-feely around him, how could this not work out? Well, Graham made it really simple for DeAnna to not give him a rose this week by turning closed off in a matter of minutes. He got scary quiet after dinner with his parents and DeAnna kept asking what was on his mind, what he was thinking about, what he was obviously worrying about and he kept shrugging his shoulders like a little boy who did something wrong, incapable of confessing his crime. You could see this was bugging her. She even brought it up by saying that they are so different when it comes to talking about their feelings. She lays it all out there, asks for kisses and such, she is really obvious about her feelings towards him. But you can not really tell if Graham is into DeAnna or not because he turns off and on at the drop of a hat.

When saying goodbye, both of them were crying. It was really sad! He kept acting like it was nothing, smiling and saying stuff like, “It’s ok, you did what you had to do, what you thought was right.” But he did not mean it, not the way DeAnna needs him to mean it. She needs him to say he is in love with her and sweep her off her feet. But instead he let the other guys get to him and this turned into another one of his few, short dating stints. If anything, it was a one-sided relationship and DeAnna was doing all the work. She finally said to him, “Do you understand that I am saying goodbye to the one person I was falling in love with?” It was truly heartbreaking. I felt so bad for DeAnna, but she had to guard herself and keep from being led on like she had been with Brad. I think Graham would have destroyed their relationship/marriage if it ever got that far. He would just sit in silence and it would be a one-sided, unhappy time for DeAnna.

Then, before heading to the limo, Graham did something I would have never seen coming. He handed her a hand-written note that he asked her to read at another time…that the words inside were for her eyes only, not for any TV show or cameras. I wonder if he thought there would be a cocktail party so he could give her this note and win her over before she made her final decisions about the roses. But there was no cocktail party, no extra time for him to make his case. He must have sensed the hometown date did not end well which is why he wrote the note to make up for his being closed off; he wanted to tell her in written words (as opposed to spoken) how he felt about her. But too little too late. DeAnna ended the show not with a toast with the three remaining guys, but with her crying into the camera confessing that she was fearful she made the wrong decision letting Graham go and that she may have blown her chances of falling in love. I think this is one of those hard things you know you have to do. DeAnna made the right choice, it just hurts right now.

Next week the three guys go on a tropical island vacation and get special one-on-one day/night dates. The previews lead you to believe that Jesse declines DeAnna’s offer to spend the night with her—but if he was smart, he’d accept. I guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out!