Were Ali Fedotowsky writing on her Facebook page, she could legitimately claim "complicated" under relationship status.
She's the young woman who was on "The Bachelor" last season and left Jake Pavelka to return to her job at Facebook. Now she's featured on the sixth cycle of ABC's "The Bachelorette," which begins Monday, May 24.
Fedotowsky was shooting the series, and had just escaped being stranded in Iceland, Portugal and Turkey because of the erupting Icelandic volcano, when she talked to Zap2it.
"I believe everything happens for a reason," she says. "In retrospect, it's not so much that I made a mistake as much as I learned a lesson. I have put my career first in my life. The last few years, I was trying to build a career. I will never be happy in my career or life if I don't find love."
That sort of instant openness and approachability is what makes her reality show gold. And no one knows that better than Mike Fleiss, the producer behind this cottage industry of looking for love on TV.
"She is my favorite lead character in the entire history of the series -- 'Bachelor' or 'Bachelorette,' " Fleiss says. "She is so telegenic, so likable on camera. She is the most watchable person we ever had in the title role. She has the certain something. She sparkles. She's magical."
Granted Fleiss is an impresario, but he doesn't usually gush like that. What is it about the 25-year-old blonde?
"She jumps off the screen," Fleiss says of Fedotowsky. "She pops. She is like a young, blond Sandra Bullock. Both are incredibly gorgeous women, but they're not threatening to women, not the bombshell girl, off-putting. She seems like the girl next door but just happens to be super-hot."
Fedotowsky says she is putting her life on hold for love. In addition to giving up her job, she left her apartment share in San Francisco and wants to exit the show in a committed relationship.
"My goal is to find someone that I love and he loves me back," she says. "I am not just choosing you; you are choosing me, too. It is a two-way street even though I am handing out the roses. I need them to love me back. I would love this to end in a proposal."
