Was Dumping Ryan Park As Hard On 'Bachelorette' Ashley As It Was On Him?

The differences in departures and dumpings on Season Seven of "The Bachelorette" have sometimes been night-and-day.

It was at least mildly amusing when ZUB Jeff (for those just coming in, that's "Zorro's Unemployed Brother," as Jeffrey Ross dubbed the mask-donning St. Louis eccentric entrepreneur) was shown the door the very week he decided he would remove the mask he'd been wearing since he arrived, only for Ashley to quip, "He was older than I thought he'd be."

Before we realized what a needy 110-pound sack of issues and neuroses Ashley Hebert was, we wanted Bentley's blood as he went home for playing her like a two-dollar violin faking remorse and an open-ended possibility that they might rekindle something down the road.

But 'fess up: if you had a heart in your chest, you felt a pang for love-struck 31 year old California businessman Ryan Park this week when Ashley cut their one-on-one date short by telling him that for all his sweetness and great qualities, she just wasn't feeling anything.

Still, as the dust settles and as Ashley has now elaborated in her People blog, to treat him otherwise would've been much, much worse.

"Knowing that he had a successful business back home, and such a desire to find someone, I couldn't possibly keep him away from that. As soon as I realized this, the rest of the date was really hard to get through. My goodbye to Ryan was quite possibly the hardest one all season. Watching Ryan's last few words from his departure was heartbreaking, and I was fighting back the tears just watching," Hebert said.

Let this bake your ziti for a minute, though: in sharp contrast, she found later eliminating country gentleman Lucas Daniels to be so academic, she opted to forego the traditional pre-Rose Ceremony cocktails and get it done.

"During my conversation with Lucas on the group date, I realized that we had some very differing ideas about family and relationships. I began to see just how different we were and how there was very little room for change," Hebert said.