On a quarantine ‘Bachelorette’ Clare Crawley’s already smitten

Welcome to the Bachelorette Bubble where you’ll get a swab up your nose and, if you’re lucky, a rose on your lapel.

Or is that unlucky — considering that any man not named Dale Moss appears to have zero chance with the oldest Bachelorette in franchise history (and yes, apparently we have to be reminded of that over and over and over again).

One thing that producers couldn’t keep quarantined at La Quinta Resort in California were all the stories about Clare Crawley walking out partway through the season to get with Dale, with “Bachelor” and “Bachelor in Paradise” fave Tayshia Adams replacing her as Bachelorette.

No, ABC hasn’t admitted that’s what’s going to happen — and if you thought they would on Night 1, what are you, new? — but it certainly was strongly hinted at in the promos.

And don’t forget Clare’s reaction after she first met Dale, a 31-year-old former pro football player. Seeming shaken, puffing out her breath after Dale left her to go inside, she said, “I definitely  feel like I just met my husband” — a pronouncement startling enough to bring host Chris Harrison over from wherever he hangs out as the limos empty of men to tell Clare that no one had ever said that at this stage before. But hey, here comes another limo, so snap out of it.

Clare did her duty, chatting with as many of the men as she could manage before handing out 23 roses.

An early theme of the proceedings seemed to be congratulating Clare for being 39 years old — gasp — and still trying to bag herself a man instead of, you know, admitting her old maidenhood and retreating to a solitary life with her two dogs.

In the video call in which Harrison told Clare she’d been chosen as the Bachelorette he said that since she hadn’t given up on herself, “we feel it would be appropriate if we didn’t give up on you.”

Um, you don’t say.

We were reminded of Clare’s Bachelor history, including being runner-up on Juan Pablo Galavis’ season (ick) and a couple of unsuccessful forays on “Bachelor in Paradise.” Curiously, “Bachelor Winter Games,” after which she actually ended up engaged, however briefly, to Canadian food dude Benoit Beausejour-Savard, got left out entirely. Is that because Clare doesn’t consider Benoit one of the “jerks” from her past?

In a conversation in which Harrison dutifully pushed Clare’s buttons, getting her teary-eyed talking about her late father, Clare declared, “I’m here and I haven’t given up on love and I never will. Just by showing up it shows I still want it and I still deserve it,” as if that was actually a question.

It was time to bring on the 31 men. Instead of the usual “getting to know you” packages filmed in some of the standouts’ hometowns, we got footage of them in quarantine at La Quinta, some of it self-taped. Think solo chess games, jumping on the bed, bubble baths and masks, both the coronavirus and cosmetic kind (well, OK, only one guy applied a cosmetic mask). And I don’t know about you, but seeing those big guys’ eyes water after their COVID-19 tests (they had to take more than one to be cleared to meet Clare) made me hope I never have to take one myself.

I won’t bore you with all the men’s names because, let’s be honest, you’ll have forgotten most of them by the time the season ends.

Besides Dale, one of the interesting ones was Blake Moynes, a 29-year-old wildlife manager from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He broke the show’s rules (which is funny because rules get broken all the time if it adds to the drama) by contacting Clare during the quarantine. “It meant everything to me,” said Clare, tearing up, adding that she was struggling because her mother, who’s in a care home with Alzheimer’s, had just fallen and broken her nose.

Blake was rewarded with the first kiss (or at least, that’s how it was edited) but then watched in disappointment as Clare spirited away Dale to give him the first impression rose — and an even smoochier kiss.

Speaking of drama, West Virginia lawyer Tyler C. ratted out medical device salesman Yosef Aborady for allegedly creeping on some woman that Tyler knew on Instagram, but Clare believed Yosef when he said there was no substance to the accusation and sent Tyler home.

Sounds like Clare might regret that since the word online is that Yosef said some nasty things to her that got him kicked out ahead of a future rose ceremony. We’ll see. To me, the single dad reeked of smarminess and cockiness, which you’d think somebody with all Clare’s experience would suss out right away.

Another potential villain was Bennett, who went to Harvard and said that when you tell people that, it’s described as dropping the “H-bomb.” No, really, he said that. He showed up to meet Clare in a Rolls-Royce and a tux with a white scarf draped around his neck.

Another guy wore a straitjacket, because he’d gone “a little crazy” waiting to meet Clare. There was a knight — in shining armour, get it? Someone wore a fake pregnancy belly in homage to Clare’s “Bachelor” entrance. Someone else wore a T-shirt with a photo of Clare’s dogs, which was good enough to earn a rose without any one-on-one time. There was a dude in a parachute because he’d “fallen” for her and another in a plastic bubble.

I’ll tell you what the men didn’t wear a lot of was ties and socks, lots of fellows baring their ankles. The best dressed had to be sports marketing agent Eazy in his salmon suit, although I couldn’t help but notice when he made his entrance by bursting through a poster that read “Your Future Husband” he seemed to smile at the camera before he smiled at Clare.

Anyway, hold those thoughts. It sounds like in just a few short weeks, the drama is going to be all about Clare blowing up “The Bachelorette,” as Harrison put it. Stay tuned.

“The Bachelorette” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Citytv. Feel like chatting about “Bachelorette”? Come visit my Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter @realityeo