Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos Reveals 'Goal' for Her Season, Why Getting 'Engaged' Wasn't a 'Need'

Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos didn't need a ring at the end of her season, as long as she left with someone with whom she could see a future.

“I said all along I didn't need to leave engaged,” Vassos, 61, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “My goal was to leave in a committed relationship. I wanted to have somebody I saw a future with and that we wanted to see how it works in the real world outside of the Bachelor bubble. I didn't want to go through all of this and be at the same place I was when I came to the mansion.”

The private school administrator — who departed early from Gerry Turner’s season of The Golden Bachelor to be with her daughter after she gave birth — also went into her journey knowing she wouldn’t relocate from her home in Maryland for a new relationship.

“I would never want to leave my family,” Vassos says. “My kids and my grandkids all live really close to me and not being close to them all the time would not work for me. They're the most important people in my life. I felt that anybody that I would be a good match for, they would have the same family values as I have and would not want to leave their family.”

Joan Vassos with Gerry Turner on 'The Golden Bachelor' in 2023.John Fleenor/ABC
Vassos realized that she and a potential partner from the show would “have to figure out a different way to make it work” if they didn’t live in the same area.

“My thought was that, depending on your working status, you could go and spend two weeks at their house and two weeks at your house, or have another location where you would all gather and maybe each other's families would come,” Vassos explains. “You figure it out for a while until you figure out a permanent arrangement, and that could be, feasibly, years.”

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One of Vassos’s suitors, Pablo, hails from Maryland, which she did not expect. “Going into this journey, I assumed that I was not going to have anybody from Maryland or not many people that were geographically really desirable,” she says. “But in the immediate present, I'm not leaving my kids. I don't expect anybody to leave their families. You figure it out. You put the burden on yourself, not in your families.”

Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos.Brian Bowen Smith/Disney
Though Vassos recognized distance might be a factor in a relationship with someone she met on The Golden Bachelorette, she thought going on the show would be more successful in helping her find a partner than dating apps have been.

“Up until that point, I really was not having a fun time dating,” Vassos admits. “I tried a dating app. I was always hoping a friend would set me up with somebody, and none of those things really seemed to work. I wanted to date, but it seemed like such an effort. I didn't really know how to do it.”

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After leaving 73-year-old Turner’s season, Vassos says she “didn't dive really back into the whole dating thing” as she continued to focus on supporting her family.

“I posted a video in the beginning of the year and I said my New Year's resolutions, and one of them was to get back out there and start dating,” she recalls. “And then I got a call soon after that saying that they were considering me as a potential Golden Bachelorette and was I interested? So then I definitely didn't date.”

Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos.Disney/Michael Le Brecht
While Vassos can’t say how her season ends, she teases that “the final result was exactly what it was supposed to be.”

“The journey was wonderful for me, and I ended up being exactly where I think I should be,” she says. “I learned so much about myself. The journey was very revealing and it was joyful, it was exhausting. I can't imagine my life now without having gone through this. I am such a happier person at the end of this journey than I was before I went on it.”

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The Golden Bachelorette premieres Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.