September 12, 2016

Andi Dorfman – It’s Not Okay!

As a service to my fellow Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor in Paradise fans, I provide the following summary of Andi Dorfman’s book, It’s Not Okay: Turning Heartbreak into Happily Never After, which I spent this past weekend reading.

This book reads as a both a tell-all on Andi’s relationship with Josh and a “girls break-up guide.” I was hoping for more of the former and obviously don’t need the latter. I’m guessing they were just looking for a second way to market the book. Alternating between these two themes made for a loooong book!!

Throughout she refers to Josh as “Number 26” meaning the 26th man she broke up with in the past year. I’m guessing this was a legal thing and how she can actually write the book after all the non-disclosure papers they have to sign. Nick was referred to as “Number 25” and Juan Pablo as “Number One.”

So…here’s the quick summary of her side of it all (of the parts I wanted to know anyway):

  • First of all, she did not sleep with Juan Pablo. He spent the entire fantasy suite night showing her youtube videos of himself and talking about himself.
  • Now on to Josh: The “red flag” she remembers during filming was during the episode where they did the lie detector test. This first fight they had did not air on the show but he got very angry and combative about this, saying “How dare you make me prove my honesty.” He was super pissed even though she had already torn up the results before looking at them.
  • She, of course, talks about her fantasy suites visits. With Nick, the night went very wrong when he made inappropriate pillow talk. This turned her off of him completely! The fantasy date with Josh went perfect. The dates were 10 days apart. She doesn’t feel bad about trying both guys out, and she thinks it was necessary in the situation because although she was totally into Josh, he wasn’t a sure thing with regards to his feelings for her at that point.
  • He did know she slept with Nick before the “After the Final Rose” but he had a big issue with this.
  • They lived 5 minutes apart in Atlanta and after the show saw each other all the time.
  • But after a few weeks, he changed and started being jealous and emotionally abusive and would pick fights. She tells of several episodes where he gets jealous of her talking to other men…and regularly would call her a “whore” for this.
  • He often accused her of being with other men when she was out to dinner with her girlfriends. She would have to send a photo of the girls she was with!
  • She says that he based his tendencies for jealousy on the fact he was cheated on by a college girlfriend who kissed someone else while they were dating. In the end, Andi thinks this is only an excuse he uses for trying to control her.
  • The worst tantrum episode I can remember is when they are at her friend’s wedding, and Andi is in the wedding so she can’t pay a lot of attention to him. First thing he says to her at the wedding is “how many of these guys did you hook up with?” Later he gets mad for being ignored, is rude to her friends, and calls her a “bi%$#” in front of people at the wedding and leaves town by himself during the wedding.
  • After  being engaged for several months he would still get mad if she didn’t say “thank you” when he bought lunch.
  • Andi writes that the perfect woman for Josh would be: a domestic goddess (he didn’t want her working), supports anything and everything he does with no questions asked, and wants to bear his children.
  • Even when things were bad he wanted to get her pregnant.
  • After they broke up, she stayed at her friend Kelly’s house (from Juan Pablo’s season). She has several good friends from that season. LOTS of the book is her waking up at this house after drinking too much wine and crying.
  • Overall, she says Josh was very insecure and self-righteous about members of the opposite sex. For example, he made a rule at the beginning they could not take photos with members of the opposite sex but then he would be the first one to break this rule. Also after accusing her of being at dinner with other men he would actually be the one that ended up out late with girls from the most recent Bachelor season.
  • He seems to have stalked her social media activity and got mad that she started following a country singer!
  • They hooked up one time after the announced break up, but she already knew she was leaving for New York and considers this a victory over him because it was just a hook up for her.
  • In conclusion, she considers him an emotional abuser; there was no physical abuse but once she did find herself saying to a friend once, “if I’m found dead, he did it” and she admits she really had no reason to say this but still felt it meant something that she said this out loud!
  • She drinks A LOT of red wine throughout this book.
  • She does not address the “moaning” but she does address the sweating and chewing with mouth open habits. Only briefly though her main issues obviously are the other ones above.

As I’m recapping this, I am realizing why they had to put all the “how to survive a break-up” tips in here because really there is not a whole lot of other juicy information here!!

My opinion, in a nutshell, is that Andi is believable about the character issues Josh has. It does seem like Emily would put up with his immaturity/jealously/man-childness better than Andi could. I don’t necessarily think he is dangerous, just super annoying and not someone a normal/secure/independent woman could deal with!

So there you have it – I read it so you don’t have to!!