The Bachelor Television Show and The Affect on American Dating Culture

In today’s day and age, we have so many dating shows on television like the Bachelor. These shows are a pleasure to watch as the people participating all have the best of looks and charm. The environment for the show is usually a beautiful house where the romance takes place. The couple spends much time participating in all kinds of fun and fancy activities. It is like a dream world actually. Something most normal people can only imagine, but never experience fully. Although this type of show is great entertainment, the reality is that at the end of the show the winning couple usually gets married after only a very brief period of dating many different people. It is safe to say that all the money and beauty in the world cannot substitute a genuine long lasting relationship. For this reason many couples who get married on such shows as the Bachelor get divorced shortly after they get married. This sort of entertainment provides the audience with a false and dangerous idea about how to choose a mate for marriage and how to approach relationships in general. The values associated with successful relationships are completely omitted and substituted by short lived romance. The participants never get the opportunity to really get to know the partner and make the decision as to whether this person can really fulfill their needs. The American youth watching such shows very often gets the idea that it is okay to jump into a serious relationship with someone before thoroughly examining their character and intentions. With the help of a little superficial romance and the excitement caused by the novelty of the relationship and our hormones, we make life changing decisions with the blink of an eye mentality. We put our trust into complete strangers and simply hope for the best. Sometimes this strategy works out for the best with the few lucky couples. However, for most people it would be wiser to allow the time to get to know the true nature of our mate and make sure that they will meet our needs for the future. Love is a very vague concept based on some short lived moments of happiness. Love usually is infatuation taken to an extreme. We may believe that we have met our soul mate, but in reality we do not know who is standing in front of us. The truth of the matter is that the happiness of any relationship depends on the daily interaction of the partners involved and their ability to work through the difficult parts of the relationship. However, it takes time to meet the challenges to come and for that reason it is necessary to give the relationship time to grow. It usually takes a few years, not a few months to really figure out if a partner is right for you. You need to be patient and expect the same of the other half.

Kosanya~