Like millions of viewers throughout the country, Hicksville resident Shannon Fries tuned in last season to watch the weekly ABC television series The Bachelor. This season, the 26-year-old graphic artist had firsthand experience as she was one of the 25 women selected to appear on the show. The latest "reality show" to hit the small screen in recent years, The Bachelor provides 25 single women with the opportunity to vie for one eligible man's hand in marriage.

"I watched last season and I got totally addicted," said Fries. "At the end of the last show they were asking for applicants. I thought it was a little ridiculous, but just for fun I went to the website and as a joke, sent in a picture and an application." Less than a week later, Fries received a phone call from the show's producers asking her to send in a videotape of herself speaking for three minutes. "That just started the ball rolling," she said. "I was flown out to California for an audition."

In August, filming for the show began at a secret location in Malibu, California. Over the course of the seven-week series, the bachelor, 28-year-old Aaron Buerge of Springfield, Missouri, went on dates with each of the women, either alone or in groups, to find the one he was most attracted to and compatible with. Each week, women were eliminated so that by the finale, which aired earlier this month, the bachelor had to choose between two remaining women.

In Fries' case, she made it past the first and second cuts and was eliminated after week three when the bachelor had to select just six of the remaining 10 women. At this point, Fries said she was more than ready to come home. "I was kind of relieved because at that point I wasn't hitting it off with Aaron," she said. "He was very nice, but we were not making a connection. I am glad I did it, but I don't know if I would do it again."

When asked whether or not she would have married the bachelor given the opportunity, Fries said, "I went in thinking that [if I made it] I did not have to get engaged. I did not have the worries or pressure. I probably would have had a long engagement and waited until we got to know one another."

Fries also said that what aired on television and what really happened were sometimes two completely different things. "They call it reality television, but it is so not reality," she said. "What they showed on TV isn't really how things happened. [The producers] just want to go with what makes a good story....They want America to think we are these desperate girls who can't get dates. What we really wanted [out of this] was the same thing - a once in a lifetime experience ..."

Since appearing on the show, Fries has appeared on Good Morning America, Entertainment Tonight and several live radio shows. Up until the first episode premiered, however, she was forbidden from telling anyone she was on the show or discussing anything that happened while it was filming. To ensure that she would not talk, ABC required Fries and her parents to each sign contracts binding them to a $15 million lawsuit if they did.

Over the course of filming, Fries said the women were not allowed contact with family or friends and could not watch television, listen to music, or read newspapers, book or magazines because it would interfere with the show's advertising policy. The women were also not allowed to leave the property on their own or been seen with one another once they were eliminated from the show.

Despite having no contact with the outside world, Fries said the experience itself wasn't all that bad. "It wasn't like being held prisoner because we were in this beautiful house with all the luxuries you could ask for," she said. "We had to entertain ourselves and that's why we became such great friends. It was like a vacation with 24 girls you've never met before."

Only since the finale has she been able to get in contact with the other women on the show and has maintained friendships with several of them. "Everybody was great," she said. "None of us got caught up in the cattiness. Most of us looked at it like we get to do this, and whatever is meant to be, is meant to be."

A lifelong resident of Hicksville, Fries attended Lee Avenue, Hicksville Middle School and Hicksville High School before attending C.W. Post College for a degree in graphic design. She currently works for a local graphic design company and became involved in a serious relationship before the first episode of The Bachelor aired.