“I don’t know if I’ll be 100% ready.”

ABC’s 22-year-old dating behemoth “The Bachelor” and its cavalcade of spinoffs sells its confidence in its own fairy tale so brilliantly. It is resolute in the truth that a telegenic young man or woman can find true love — while simultaneously dating scores of other carefully curated young people — and live happily ever after. Only about 20% of those couples are still together, but the franchise has mostly encouraged certainty in the process, if not the suitors. Realistically, this doesn’t seem a sure thing, but reality isn’t what reality TV is selling.

That is, until Rockville’s Joan Vassos, a.k.a. the first “Golden Bachelorette,” uttered the above line earlier this season. The now-61-year-old stunner was actively looking for love among a group of age-appropriate and entirely pleasant men “handpicked” for her, and of course she and the men are way more attractive than most folks down at the Harris Teeter.

If life had gone the way she planned, though, Vassos would be hanging out with her beloved husband John and their grandkids. John died of cancer in 2021, and as Joan, a favorite on the first season of “The Golden Bachelor,” moves forward, she can admit she’ll probably never give 100% to her next love because she still holds space for her first. That vulnerability is what makes the series — and its star — shockingly refreshing.

“I was really afraid to say that [I wasn’t fully ready], because are they [the producers] going to say, ‘Why are you here if you’re not 100% ready?’” Vassos explained a few weeks ago during a short but delightful Zoom interview. But she said she didn’t realize she wasn’t emotionally all-in until during taping, when “I started to have some feelings for these men and I thought ‘How can I do this? I still love John. That’s never going to change. How is this whole thing going to work?’”

The show’s psychologist told her both John and whoever Vassos wound up with in the future were “balloons in the sand,” and that she could hold onto to her new love without having to let go of another balloon. “That episode was a huge emotional stepping stone in my journey,” Vassos said.

It makes her so intensely relatable as I imagine more viewers, especially those over 40, have been where Vassos is than, say, body-fat-free Instagram models. She had to leave the “Golden Bachelor” even after a strong initial connection with star Gerry Turner so she could care for her daughter, who was fighting postpartum depression. This season, she’s worried about help for her aging mother.

Being strong for everyone else is absolutely exhausting, and it’s charming when Vassos and her suitors, many of whom are also widowed, talk about it. In the non-”Golden” seasons, discussions between the men vying for the star’s hand are often about protein powder, and push the limits on how many times humans can possibly call each other “bro” in one sentence.

This season, we’ve seen incredibly human interactions, like sweet Charles Ling seeking medical clarity about his wife’s sudden death from fellow suitor and ER doctor Guy Gansert, or how the guys lovingly tolerate fancy French salon owner Pascal Ibgui’s insistence on having them do his laundry. You like these guys, and you like Joan. So you root for everybody.

“Being on ‘The Golden Bachelor’ season prepared me well for the role because I saw Gerry do it,” she told me. “He was really vulnerable himself which made us women feel very comfortable, so I made the men feel comfortable. Being on this side, you have more responsibility to try to control what’s happening, and their [the suitors’] feelings. I felt like I had a bigger job to do, and way more fun doing it.”

Something else Vassos had control over was how to conduct the so-called “Fantasy Suites.” Normally, the lead spends a camera-free night with their top three choices that sometimes leads to sexy time. But not this time. “I said wasn’t going to be physically intimate with anybody. I took that off the table. I would never be intimate with more than one person at a time,” she explained, admitting she wasn’t sure how the producers would respond. Thankfully, “they actually respected my decision. They said, ‘This is your journey and we’d never want you to do something you’re not comfortable with.’” So expect no beds in the rooms, but lots of deep conversation.

Overall, Vassos is handling her tenure differently than she might have had she been cast when she was younger. “In your 30s, you’re looking for something completely different. You have the tendency to be a little more frivolous with your decisions, picking the best-looking guy or picking the bad boy,” she said. “At this age, I’m way more conscious of what I really want in my life. I’m a way better picker.”

That’s very hopeful to those of us still picking in our 50s and 60s. (With one or two exceptions, my picker was also super duper off in the past!) Vassos cannot say whether she’s found true love this season — “I may, I may not. Even if I did I couldn’t tell you, even as much as I want to” — but she can confirm she’s happy she returned to the franchise.

“I had all these great men, even if I don’t end up with the love of my life,” she said. “I left with a lot of really great friends. When you share this kind of journey with someone, you become close really quickly.”

I cannot personally see myself taking a televised love journey, mostly because, a, they’d never cast me and, b, I don’t love leaving my own house that much, let alone living in one with a bunch of other ladies. But I’m so happy for Vassos that she’s somewhere on the road to healing, and being adored by impressive men along the way. And she’s a great example of how you never have to give up on love.

That I relate to, most of all.