Welcome to our Thursday recap of The Bachelor — you can read Sinead Stubbin’s excessively funny Power Ranking from Wednesday here.

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You know what, let’s do it. Let’s talk about why love is a goddamn sewerage-fire, why dating is horrifying, why the entire Bachelor show is a mansion of horrors. Let’s talk heartbreak.

This week on The Bachelor, we get to really dwell in the realities of this sham, of why it might be a bad idea to date four women at the same time for the entertainment of the sociopathic Australian masses. Shit is getting real, with all the contestants actually developing feelings for this underserving pillar of lunch meats, for this giant neck with legs.

And because of the format, he is going to break up with someone once a week until we are all freed from this nightmare, starting with him legitimately breaking someone’s heart tonight.

I hate this.

But, I started this whole experiment to see if I can learn things about romance from The Bachelor of all places, so I guess I might as well re-learn just how horrific the consequences of dating can be. Let’s do it, let’s wade into tonight’s awful hometown episode and learn everything can we can about love from The Bachelor.

And then let’s all enrol in a nunnery, seriously.

1. The Winner Takes It All

I could faff around and talk about being horny for dirt-bikes or whatever I usually do in this article, but let’s cut straight to the chase.

Cass is dumped tonight and it is AWFUL to watch.

I’m not saying I understand how she managed to develop feelings for the HoneyBoi in a highly curated dating show, where she must compete for his absent-minded affections with 700 blonde girls, but she somehow did. You can see — it’s genuine feeling. And with that sort of feeling comes a vulnerability, a chink in your armour that allows you to get hurt. And amongst all the contestants this year, she’s the one who is the most open.

Perhaps it’s because she knew Nick from the outside world, and had dated him and already held a torch. Maybe it’s because she’s naive. Maybe it’s because she’s under a horrible sea-witch curse and if she doesn’t fall in love with him, she gets fish legs again.

I’m not saying it’s a good idea to fall in love on Australia’s most popular reality show, but she did. The producers of the show must have been absolutely licking their chops over her — you can’t manufacture that kind of emotion.

“Breaking anyone’s heart is the worst thing you can do,” says the Badgerlor, as he gears up to do it three more times. Why did we have to watch him meet her family, why did we have to watch her clearly happy and in love and envisioning their stupid future together?

Anyway, the point is that she definitely had her heart broken on television, and that’s really difficult to watch. What can we learn from that? That when you go through all the horrifying steps necessary to fall in love with someone, you can have it all taken away and be left not only with nothing, but actually be more fucked than before.

Let’s let Meryl sing about it:

Love is for chumps.

2. Trust Is For Chumps

In this episode, Brittany takes the Honey Bachelor back to her parent’s place, where she discovers from her sister that the media have been reporting on Nick and Cass’s previous relationship, which makes them all (fairly rightly) doubt the sincerity of Nick and the authenticity of the entire show.

Brittany does not take it well.

First, she confronts Nick (admittedly fairly gently), but you can tell that behind her quite controlled and rigid mask, she’s spooked. She asks him for details about the relationship, which he attempts to explain away. But she’s on the scent for mistruths now, her nostrils are flared, she’s not going to be sated by this.

So, at the rose ceremony, she confronts Cass, and it’s pretty brutal. She is not nice, and poor Cass definitely comes out looking more… human and relatable. Britt does seem to be both low-key evil, and blowing things wildly out of proportion. I’m not sure if we should totally defend her.

“It came out to me at my hometown, I’ve never been so embarrassed,” says Brittany, and you have to wonder — why? What’s embarrassing for her?

But the thing is, it makes total sense. At Britt’s hometown, we discover that she’s been single for seven years after she was cruelly betrayed by her last partner. It’s a big mood.

Her father even goes as far to say about Brittany’s ex: “I would give him physical harm given the opportunity”.

Once you’ve had your trust broken, and you’ve been heartbroken by actual betrayal, it’s extremely hard to learn to trust again. Or perhaps more specifically, you’re careful and you’re angry and you don’t want to make the same mistake twice. Britt might look evil and dramatic, but she’s just scared and needs to know as much truth as you can. You don’t just take the fucking Honey Bachelor at his word — you triple check his story with Cass, you run down every lead, you do your best to protect your tiny damaged heart.

As for her statement about being embarrassed — that’s also horribly real. It’s fucking humiliating to be betrayed, and you feel like a fucking chump if you let it happen again. Here at Junkee, we’re Brittany apologists.

So, here’s the lesson: never trust anyone. This is a comedy column!

3. Barriers Are Useful

Sophie (remember Sophie? she’s also in the show) is apparently having trouble letting down her barriers enough for Nick, but honey, keep them up. Otherwise, you’ll end up like Cass, or in seven years like Brittany.

“I’m not someone who’s going to put my heart in a plate and pass it to him when there are other girls involved,” she says.

Just jet-ski away from this whole nonsense (she takes him jetskiing).

Well, that was fun! I’m fine, we’re all fine.

The Bachelor is on every Wednesday and Thursday nights from now until when we all die. Junkee will be recapping them all.

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Patrick Lenton is an author and staff writer at Junkee. He tweets @patricklenton.