Kirpa Sudick, the Smartest Bachelor Contestant (11/30)
I'm writing 30 posts in 30 days. This is number 11.
I've written about Kirpa before. Which is strange, because there's not that much to say about her. Kirpa Sudick is a specter. She hardly appeared on her season of the Bachelor, despite coming in fourth. She rarely commented on the passing dramas, or opined on whether one of the other women had committed injustice. She never came close to taking sides. She just kept her cool.
This is hard to do. On reality television shows, producers constantly tempt you to be a jackass. They egg on your worst impulses, ask you leading questions, and engineer drama. Kirpa's invisibility had to have been the product of an iron will. To a million questions by producers, she said "I'd prefer not to."
In life, people present you with games to play, and act as if they're the only way to generate the desired outcome. You want money? Get a law degree and grind. Would you like to be likable? Live somewhere trendy, buy the latest bullshit, inhabit the most legible form of cool. You want to win the Bachelor? Participate in the banal kabuki. Debase yourself for America.
But there are other games. Basically whatever you want can be attained by means that are not presented to you as reasonable options. You can get rich, get ahead, and be socially admired by other means. And, as Peter Thiel would tell you, if you see that other people have found a guaranteed formula for success, that means you should go somewhere else rather than elbowing your way in to get a slice of the rapidly vanishing pie.
Kirpa didn't win the Bachelor, which is to say, she won the Bachelor.
Typically, winning couples break up. Kirpa's relationship looks adorable, and that makes sense. The best way to get a relationship out of the Bachelor is to end up in the back half of the season and then depart the show, thus becoming a micro-celebrity and dramatically expanding your dating pool. That's way better than competing for one person chosen specifically to stir up conflict. And, without having to wail on television, Kirpa appears to have become a successful influencer. She came out on top in every relevant dimension.
Meanwhile, how did winning turn out for Cassie? Oh yeah, she split up with Colton after he stalked her and placed tracking devices on her car.
Kirpa is a model of the wisdom of disobeying. She took place in the most normie competition in the world, and defied the norms. Let us all remember the lesson of Kirpa: don't assume you should make someone else's choices.