Ben Higgins And Lauren Bushnell On The 'Bachelor' Buzzwords They Never Want To Say Again

Hint: "Validation" isn't one of them.
Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell: Two total lovebirds who are definitely here to make friends.
Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell: Two total lovebirds who are definitely here to make friends.
XPX/Star Max via Getty Images

After months of watching their own "journey" play out on reality TV, Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell are very much in love and very much ready to be off-camera.

The "Bachelor" stars stopped by AOL and The Huffington Post's New York office last week for an AOL BUILD interview with HuffPost's Leigh Blickley. Afterward, Ben and Lauren sat down for a chat with Claire Fallon and Emma Gray, the hosts of HuffPost's "Bachelor" podcast, "Here To Make Friends," to discuss Lauren's upcoming move to Denver, the real source of Leah's mysterious black eye and which franchise buzzwords they are ready to ditch for good. (Because two-and-a-half months of talking about your "amazing journey" and why everywhere is "the best place to fall in love" can get pretty exhausting.)

Ben told us he is done calling things "incredible" after watching the show back.

"I’ve tried so hard not to say 'incredible' because I said it so much in the show," he said. "[Also], 'Guys.' I would walk into the rose ceremony and be like, 'All right, guys.'"

For Lauren, the buzzword she's ready to stay away from post-finale is "surreal" -- and for a truly sweet reason. "I kept using that word to describe the experience, and it really is surreal, but I don’t want things to be surreal," she said. "I want to just start normal life and be like, OK, this is REAL life."

Apparently the couple is still torn on "journey," because what else are they supposed to call the truly bizarre experience they had, an experience which led to love and has been watched by millions of people on national TV?

As Ben explained:

There’s not a great word for it. There’s the "journey," there’s an "experience," because the show isn’t really what we’re doing, right? The show is a byproduct of what we’ve actually done. So you’re doing this whole thing and what do you call it? Is it an experience? I don’t know the right word and everyone says "journey" and I’m like, "I’m not doing that." So, I don’t know what to call the segment of life when you’re actually living this.

Enjoy the full interview with Ben and Lauren -- in which Ben agrees to validate "Here To Make Friends" -- by listening to the podcast:

Do people love “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” or do they love to hate these shows? It’s unclear. But here at “Here To Make Friends,” we both love and love to hate them — and we love to snarkily dissect each episode in vivid detail. Podcast edited by Nick Offenberg.

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