The Bachelor: Nick Viall, Vanessa Grimaldi talk After the Final Rose reactions

Nick Viall and Vanessa Grimaldi confirmed on The Bachelor: After the Final Rose Monday night that they are engaged and planning for the future, but it’s fair to say that the public didn’t necessarily have all that glowing of a reaction to seeing the two of them together. Specifically, many people out there felt like they looked awkward and uncomfortable being together in the interview with Chris Harrison, not acting as though they were two people still happy in their engagement.

Is that true? Only Nick and Vanessa know for sure, but Nick certainly had a response to people who questioned how they appeared on the show last night. Speaking (per People Magazine), he put the following message out there into the universe:

“I hope we came across as in love and passionate tonight. The reality is — we joke about it, but it’s true — we don’t know what it’s like to go to the movies together, we don’t know what it’s like to spend time together in the real world. Our relationship has been based off of stressful situations.”

Grimaldi, meanwhile, made it clear that they are focusing more so on themselves than trying to make other people feel like they are living up to their standards:

“You can never make people happy. At the end of the day, we are focusing on our relationship … It’s easy to focus on the negative, which sometimes I do, and Nick tries to get me out of it. But it’s the world that we’re living in.”

We don’t want to look at this from a romantic angle; instead, what we’ll say is that from a television standpoint, this was one of the more interesting After the Final Rose editions in recent memory just because you weren’t having these two people go out and gush all over each other. There was a tentative quality to how they were speaking and acting, and they looked at things realistically. That was probably jarring to much of the tone of the franchise, but it may be better if their goal was to be themselves as opposed to pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes and pretending like they were so much happier than they actually were.

Just for fun, take a look below at a funnier appearance featuring Nick and Vanessa from Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, which ironically was taped before they were revealed to be a couple.

To many people out there, we know that the real After the Final Rose highlight from last night was seeing Rachel Lindsay meet many of her guys for The Bachelorette this coming season. You can read more about that over at the link here. (Photo: ABC.)

What did you think about Nick Viall and Vanessa Grimaldi last night? Share now in the comments!