A hot new bombshell has entered the villa (Critic office)! Yes, you read that right – we’re stirring the pot. Keegan Wells (OUSA President) is joining the Critic Bachelor for a special guest appearance. Today, the remaining singles Micah, Brad, and Lily will be competing against Keegan in a good old fashioned game of trivia. The topic? Joel lore, of course! We’ll be testing how well the singles have gotten to know the man of the hour during the four dates they’ve each been on – plus some cheeky bonus OUSA lunch dates, if you’re Micah. Let’s see how well they stack up.
Joel and the singles trickle into the office. By now everyone has good banter and they all chat about the mid-sem break. It’s a genuine shame that someone will be voted off today. Keegan seems laid back about the whole thing, stretching out on the couch (where she’s been known to nap) and crossing her ankles. The singles huddle closer together, and everyone faces Joel who’s perched on the opposite couch. Several Critic staff spin on desk chairs, clicking and typing idly on their computers. I hope their disinterest doesn’t reflect yours, dear reader.
Editor Nina kicks off the trivia, announcing that there will be twenty questions for the singles to answer. If anyone thinks they know the answer, they are to smack the coffee table in front of them (we left our buzzer in our other pair of jeans). If Keegan wins, she will have the power to choose the two singles who make it through to the next round of dates. If either Lily, Brad or Micah score the most points, they will secure their spot, and Joel will choose the final single.
The game commences. The first question: what is Joel’s favourite colour? There is a sharp smack as all the singles slam their palms down onto the table. “Red,” says Keegan. Joel shakes his head. The singles proceed to go through the entire rainbow before I stop them. I’d forgotten to announce that there may be trick questions. “Does Joel even have a favourite colour? Or, maybe–”. My sentence is cut short as Lily brings her hand back down on the table: “Joel doesn’t have a favourite colour!” Joel beams at her – she knows him so well! Nina tallies her win on a whiteboard normally reserved for news pitches and Sam’s doodles.
Keegan proceeds to guess Joel’s favourite cuisine and dream travel destination: Japanese and Nepal. Things are going great – until the group is asked what Joel’s favourite season is. Earlier in the day as we had drafted the questions, Joel had expressed his love of winter due to a love of mountaineering and snowsports. Keegan brings her hand down on the table. “Summer,” she says confidently. Joel smiles and nods, before breaking eye-contact with her to look at me. I complain that isn’t what he told me earlier, and he says, “I get to choose. You’re allowed to change your mind.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that he was giving Keegan special treatment. “What tipped you over?” asks Nina, looking puzzled as she tallies Keegan’s third point. “Nothing,” Joel responds, smiling. The cheek of the man.
Brad remembers that Joel’s top Spotify artist is Harry Styles (mentioned all the way back at speed dating), and knows that his favourite movie genre is nature documentaries (Nat Geo!). “Does Joel have a favourite book or author?” Nina asks. Keegan leans forward and smacks the table. “Yes,” she says. Everyone pauses, waiting for her to continue. “If you wanted to know his favourite book or author, that should have been a follow on question. The answer is yes,” she explains. Smart lady.
Unfortunately, Keegan’s strategy doesn’t afford her the win, as it is common knowledge that Joel is far too busy to read nowadays between rewriting uni assignments, running (unsuccessfully) for Exec positions, and his shifts at DeliveryEasy. Micah is the winner here, bringing his hand down to answer, “No.” He proceeds to rip into Joel for all the trick questions. Don’t hate the player, hate the game (or me and ChatGPT for generating the questions).
“What is Joel’s childhood fear?” asks Nina. This is something they’d know if they’d been paying attention. “Pipe bombs,” chirps Keegan. “Zombies,” guesses Micah. “Trolls?” wonders Brad. “Oh, it’s something your parents made up to stop you from behaving badly, right?” says Lily. Joel nods eagerly. “Some place naughty kids went – it’s on the tip of my tongue…” We stop her there, it’s close enough to the real answer: the dreaded Boy Girl Soup Factory – something Joel revealed to Charlotte (miss her) in their very first speed date.
Things are getting intense now, with Joel nervously glancing up at the tally board. What’s Joel’s favourite hobby? It’s not a sauna, despite Keegan’s keen guesswork (BTW: the OUSA Clubs and Socs sauna is now open 9am to 9pm. Sweat out those toxins). “Snow shoeing,” says Micah, citing Instagram stalks as his source of inspiration for the answer. Joel shakes his head. “Thank fucking God, that’s a dumb thing to do,” Keegan says, rolling her eyes. She guesses alpinism, which is close enough to Joel’s true fave: mountaineering.
Joel’s favourite animal is the next topic of discussion, prompting two guesses for dogs and Lily saying that Joel looks like someone who likes otters. Joel hints that it's bipedal, causing even more wrong answers. Nina asks Joel to give another hint, who shoots back with: “No, I don’t want to give a hint.” Assertive king. Keegan stares down at her heavily stickered water bottle, eyeing one of a bird. A parrot, to be exact. “Kea?” she asks. Buzz! Another tally is added to the board.
The game continues. Lily correctly guesses Joel’s favourite cheese as brie. Brad knows that Joel is a night-owl and that his coffee order is a long black. The tallies are as follows: four to Keegan, five to Micah, four to Brad and seven to Lily. There is a clear winner, and Lily seems thrilled.
Keegan, seemingly salty about not knowing the Bachelor as well as she thought she did – but also having repeatedly stated, “I have nothing to lose” the entire time – suggests just giving away her points to someone. Self-sabotage to avoid the inevitable embarrassment of potential elimination? Joel’s head shoots up – and a crafty grin crosses his face. He suggests that in doing so, Keegan will be the one to decide the elimination. She pales, and quickly tries to back out. “No, that’s how it is. You have to do it,” insists Joel. Keegan thinks for a second, and asks to donate her points to Lily, who has already won. “No,” says Joel, and pushes her to donate them to either Micah or Brad.
Keegan takes a measured look between Brad and Micah. “I feel like the Brad Army will come for me [if I don’t donate to him],” she stresses. “He’s a mad scientist,” pleads Micah. Keegan explains that she’s known Brad for a while now. Earlier in the year, they’d met each other in Queenstown before realising they both went to the same uni. For that, she seems to owe a degree of loyalty. “I’ve been at it from the start,” grins Brad. What a competitor. Keegan makes the donation.
“Sad days,” frowns Micah. “He hates choosing every time, he’s finally gotten out of it,” he sighs. “Well that made it way easier for me. Thanks Keegan,” laughs Joel. Keegan doesn’t seem thrilled. Micah gets a $50 DeliverEasy voucher thanks to our wonderful sponsors. “What do I get?” whines Keegan, looking sorry for herself. Nothing apparently, aside from another weird thing that pops up when you Google ‘Keegan Wells’.
“I’m sad to see Micah go, but congrats to the Brad Army. Power to the Brad Army,” Lily tells me afterward. “I am more happy to be through to the next round than I imagine I would feel when I have my first-born child,” she says, smiling softly. In the background, I overhear Micah suggesting yet another OUSA lunch-time catch-up to Joel.
Catch us in the next issue for the last two dates before we figure out who Joel will be entangled with for the rest of his life. Joel will be meeting the flatmates of Lily and Brad over $100 of DeliverEasy – and we all know the way to your flatmate’s heart is through a stomach-full of free food.