Breaking Bachelor News: Arie Is Considerably Less Dull on Twitter

(Photo: City)

My relationship with Arie Luyendyk Jr. is complex. I’m in the apparent minority in that I was actually quite excited about him being named our The Bachelor Season 22 lead. (Don’t get me wrong, I’d run away with everyone’s first choice, Peter Kraus, any day, but I’m an old school Arie fan, and I had my fingers crossed that his salt-and-pepper hair would be a decent substitute for heavenly Peter).

I had hopes for the so-called “Kissing Bandit” because I remember watching Emily Maynard’s season of The Bachelorette about 39 years ago in Bach years (it was actually 2012) and LOVING Arie. I thought he was handsome, charming, chill and yes, hot. And back then the smooching was spicy, but it felt authentic and that’s why it was smokin’. Now it feels forced—almost like the producers put in his contract that he had to cup each prospective partner’s face before going in for a kiss—and the lukewarm makeouts this time around have been like watching a stream of beautiful women kiss a bowl of day-old oatmeal. In a word: tepid.

And this season of our fave show has been equally blah in almost every way. Arie uses approximately the same five sentences on a loop when interacting with each woman and doesn’t really talk about anything ever aside from how “impressive” so-and-so is, how “nice” a certain locale might be and how much he “loves that” (with “that” being anything from Kendall’s passion for taxidermy to how much Tia was letting herself fall for him). Really titillating stuff.

(Source: Giphy)

To put it extremely bluntly: Arie stinks on TV. But guess what? He knows he stinks! And that makes him infinitely more likeable. The evidence: Arie’s Twitter account, which boasts more flair in 280 characters than what feels like 280 excruciating hours on television. One of the best things he does on the social media platform is roast himself. A good dose of self-deprecation is delightful IMO.

Let’s enjoy some of Arie’s best tweets while considering: perhaps the next time anyone wants to put the dude on TV—a stint on Bachelor in Paradise after his controversial forthcoming engagement goes belly up, maybe?—they should ask him to just tweet at the women he’s dating instead of trying to carry on a spoken human conversation.

Here’s Arie making fun of his communication issues on the show:

And here he is hating on himself like most of us do on a weekly basis:

Here Arie responds to a tweet about his unique pronunciation of the word “quirky.” Who literally knew Arie was kinda funny?!

Or sassy? Burn!

See what I mean about sassy?

He loves to retweet posts dragging him, like this one, which gets major points from me.

Arie also likes to poke fun at how at 36, he’s basically elderly by Bachelor standards.

Another opportunity to roast himself? I LOVE THAT!

Arie Luyendyk Jr., it’s been a rollercoaster but I know quality social content when I see it and I tip my hat to you, sir.

Watch The Bachelor Mondays at 7:00 p.m. EST on City. Then, head on over to FLARE.com/themorningafter for Sharleen Joynt’s always on-point recaps and more!