Charles Jensen | Writer

It’s Lauren Conrad’s last season on The Hills, they’re saying, and it seems to me a good opportunity to self-examine why I can’t seem to feel anything but love for her.

She’s pretty much everything we should hate: fabulously rich, dubiously famous, amazingly beautiful, and accepting hand-over-first the extraordinary opportunities presented to her. But despite the outward appearance and definitions, she’s also exceptionally down to earth, hard working, and sane.

Lauren Conrad and her stints on Laguna Beach and The Hills represent a few typical American fantasies. First, the obvious: that we have all the resources we need to live a lifestyle of decadence and leisure. It’s true; she does. She eats out at the hottest LA restaurants, goes out to bars and clubs regularly, and has a flattering luxurious wardrobe. She jets off to Cabo–becase, why not? Or plans an impromptu trip to Hawaii with the girls because hey, girls need to get away sometimes too.

But her narrative arc on The Hills is really a rags-to-riches story turned upside down. If all our material needs were met and all we had to focus on were giving our lives meaning, what would we turn to? Work and love, the only things missing. Lauren’s career Cinderella story found her working a highly-coveted internship at Teen Vogue, where she will forever be known as “the girl who didn’t go to Paris” when she could because she wanted to live with her alcoholic deadbeat boyfriend instead (but she went to Paris the next year, so don’t worry). She scored a hot job at fashion PR firm People’s Revolution with Kelly Cutrone, one of the best reality TV personalities ever. She works hard, she makes tons of mistakes, she learns from her mistakes, and she keeps working toward her dream.

This makes her a singularity among the rest of her friends in LA, which is the second fantasy Americans hold for themselves: that we are the sane harbor in a sea of totally fucked up people around us.

Two words: Heidi Montag. Nice girl, but whoa. She gots problems. Well, problem: Spencer Pratt. Lauren’s pal Whitney was pretty down to earth–but then again, we never saw Whitney’s life beyond Teen Vogue and People’s Revolution. On The Hills, she existed solely as Lauren’s sounding board and sage advice giver. Audrina, also a nice girl, can’t seem to stop falling for the wrong guy, and can’t say shit when she has a mouthful. Pile on Brody Jenner, with his penchant for douchbaggery, getting thrown in jail for fighting, and chickenhawking young ladies and you’ve got quite a mix. Oh, and Stephanie Pratt, who, like a mosquito, knows exactly what to buzz in people’s ears.

As she mixes with everyone, Lauren is our touchstone, generally unflappable, her eyes bulging out at the antics around her the same way ours were. She flatly confronts the lunacy around her to the people she has issues with, and she avoids gossiping beyond the harmless or inane. She’s also a great friend, always there when people need her–even Heidi sometimes.

Ah, Lauren…what will I watch when you’re gone? Here’s to hoping you’ll follow Whitney to Diane von Furstenberg in NYC, where you can bitchslap the smarm off Olivia’s face and take your rightful place: on my television and in my fashion fantasies.