Chris Harrison named the next Bachelorette during tonight’s After the Final Rose special. For you West Coast viewers, we’re going to stall for 40 words so we don’t reveal the name on our homepage. Stalling… Stalling… Stalling…. Stalling… Stalling… Stalling.

bachelorette-ali Craig Sjodin/ABCIt’s official: Ali Fedotowsky, who “chose work over love” when she walked away from Bachelor Jake Pavelka (and the other three women he was dating at the time) to save her job, is the next Bachelorette. She told Chris Harrison that she’s looking for a man who’s “funny,” “smart,” and “kind of quirky.” As we found out last month on a conference call with Fedotowsky, Southern men should apply. Her season of The Bachelorette premieres May 24. Any guesses for her theme song?
For weeks, rumors have swirled that Bachelor producers were keen on the working girl from San Francisco. When asked about the possibility last month, Fedotowsky, 25, said if asked to be the Bachelorette, “I would challenge myself to put love first. I hope I’d make that choice.” In a poll, 60 percent of PopWatch readers said they didn’t think Fedotowsky should accept the offer. Perhaps because they hate to think a woman has to take a leave of absence from the career she so clearly values and devote 100 percent of her time to a man hunt to find a mate. As we said then, “choosing love over work” doesn’t have to mean quitting your job to go film a reality show. It means when you have a choice to go out and meet new people after work or stay at your desk until 9 p.m. every night, you go out. That way, you can meet a man who would actually fit into your life, and we don’t have to read an ABC press release that proudly states, “She has let go of everything this time — her apartment, her job, her stability —  to really make a life-changing commitment to put her heart first.”
Was Ali your pick for the next Bachelorette? Can working girls find love without taking a sabbatical?