By now, we're sure you're at least passingly familiar with the strange saga of Clare Crawley and how Tayshia Adams came to replace her as Bachelorette.
In case you missed it, Clare quit the show after falling madly in love with one of the contestants.
Sources say Clare was so smitten with Dale Moss that she simply couldn't keep going through the motions and handing roses to a bunch of guys who didn't stand a chance.
It's something that has surprisingly never happened before in the history of the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise, so we really have no idea how this thing will turn out.
Bachelor Nation relationships don't have a stellar success rate, but these are abnormal circumstances.
After all, Dale wasn't dragged through the usual nightmare process of the hometown round and the final selection, during which the Bachelorette usually agonizes over her decision and publicly shares her misgivings about both men.
Without all of that messiness throwing them for a loop just as their relationship is getting off the ground, maybe Clare and Dale actually stand a chance!
At this point, they're keeping their relationship on the DL due to contractual obligations, but insiders say the couple is still head-over-heels for one another.
Currently, Clare and Dale are “keeping their relationship off the radar," says an insider who spoke with Life & Style.
“But they speak all the time and are going strong.”
Though we obviously won't know all the details until Clare's season debuts next month, we are learning more about her departure from the show.
It seems that after just 12 days of filming, Clare “told producers she no longer wanted to participate in the show because she had already fallen in love."
Crawley has been criticized by past contestants for not giving the other guys more of a chance, but as they say, the heart wants what it wants.
And besides, dating expert Maria Sullivan says it's not uncommon for someone to know they've met The One after just a few dates.
“It is definitely possible for people to find their soulmate after only knowing each other for a couple of weeks," Sullivan tells Life & Style.
“It doesn’t happen too often but sometimes when a single meets the right person, they just know it is who they were meant to spend the rest of their life with,” Maria continued.
“More times than not, couples will experience lust within the first weeks of a relationship and confuse it for love. However, there are some people that know what they want in a partner and fall in love as soon as they find someone that checks all their boxes.”
We're sure Maria knows what she's talking about, but it's hard to trust someone who refers to an unattached person as "a single," as though they're an individually wrapped piece of American cheese.
Sullivan went on to say that “previous partners” can teach someone a lot about “exactly what they like and don’t like.”
We don't know much about Clare's dating history -- and given the brevity of her tenure as Bachelorette, we probably never will -- but we do know she went toe-to-toe with freakin' Juan Pablo.
That experience probably taught her all she needs to know about steering cleare of douchebags!
