Love in a Hot Tub: How Reality Dating Shows are Killing

Relationships
Last Monday, in a rose ceremony heard round the world, the latest “Bachelorette” Kaitlyn
Bristowe made her choice: front-runner Shawn beat out bad boy Nick to walk away with the girl
and a shot at “happily ever after” (Disney is, after all, ABC’s parent company). After 13
controversy-filled weeks, it felt like the right choice. But as they say, it’s all about the journey,
not the destination. And despite the perfectly coiffed manes (and often surgically enhanced
features), the journey on reality dating shows is rarely pretty.

In The New York Times article “How the Movies Made a President,” Manohla Dargis and A.O
Scott contend that what we see on the screen can affect our real-life opinions. In their view, film
portrayals of strong African Americans in positions of authority helped usher in a new era
leading to America’s first black president. Perception is reality, after all – and little influences
perception more than the media. If we see a fiction often enough on screen, do we internalize it
as fact?

While the proverbial media stars may have aligned for Barack Obama, romantic relationships
haven’t fared as well. Quite the opposite. The glut of reality dating programs has left us
disillusioned, discontented, and dissatisfied with our own love lives. For the uninitiated, the
formula is simple: take one eligible bachelor (or occasionally a bachelorette), add a bevy of
eager, ridiculously good-looking members of the opposite sex, and mix them together in a
mansion to vie for the love of said bachelor. On these shows there’s always a better, younger,
hotter option waiting in the wings to profess their undying devotion. But “reality TV” is rarely
real. And those who pin their off-screen hopes on on-screen expectations will surely be
disappointed.

In “10 Reasons Reality TV is Ruining Everything,” psychologist Brian Gendron, PhD, writes
“after being constantly bombarded by images of beautiful, in shape, and healthy people, us
viewers start to look down upon the characters in our actual lives.”

So if you think it’s realistic that 25 gorgeous suitors will vie for your heart, are you more likely
to stray from your current relationship? Possibly. In “Watching TV Can Ruin Your
Relationship,” Women’s Health Magazine cited a study from the Journal Mass Communication
and Society which found “the more realistic you find depictions of TV romance, the less likely
you are to be wholly committed to your actual marriage…and be open to the idea that there’s
someone better out there.”

The implicit message from these programs is clear: you can do better. But what if you
can’t? Are reality dating shows setting us up to be miserable in love?

Jeremy Osborn, Ph.D., communications studies professor at Albion College tells Women’s
Health “television basically becomes another influence on your expectations.” These reality
dating shows are setting the wrong expectations, I fear. The most ridiculous according to Dr.
Osborn is “the notion that women will tolerate a guy who casually dates a dozen different people
while slowly weeding out his least favorites.”

Even more of a letdown is the glamorous and unrealistic nature of reality TV with fantasy dates
in luxurious Irish castles and the ever-present hot tub. “These couples go on incredible dates in
exotic locations, only to come home and wind up having the same arguments about who left the
cap off the toothpaste that the rest of us have,” says Dr. Osborn.

What’s most troubling is that as a culture, we’re inundated with media representations of
marriage and relationships as disposable. Shows like “The Bachelor,” “Flavor of Love,” “Next,”
and “Joe Millionaire” are infamous for outrageous, foul-mouthed contestants and drama-filled
episodes but ultimately short-lived relationships. And with the constant barrage of celebrity
divorces in the news, it makes us wonder if anyone can make long-term monogamy work (if
Kermit and Miss Piggy can’t go the distance, we’re all doomed).

In today’s, on-demand, no waiting, I want it now culture, it’s easy to quote Peggy Lee and ask
“is this all there is?” Do reality dating shows create a sense of restlessness that something better
is out there? Do they inadvertently make us a little too picky – always looking for the next best
thing, always on the hunt for someone a little smarter or better looking?

In her book “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough,” Lori Gottlieb urges
women to give up the search for the “elusive Prince Charming”. Gottlieb gives readers a healthy
dose of reality, urging women to look for Mr. Right, but not Mr. Perfect. He doesn’t exist.

Reality dating programs, on the other hand, encourage us to reject potential mates for the most
inane reasons. While Gottlieb urges women to look past trivialities like height or hair color, these
shows actually engender such shallow thinking. Airing on MTV from 2005-2008, the popular
show “Next” offered one lucky bachelor or bachelorette the chance to meet five potential
partners who they could summarily dismiss by shouting “Next” (which they often did the
moment their date stepped off the bus). Next at first sight. How demoralizing (yet hilarious for
those of us watching).

Is this just entertainment? Or is there something more dangerous at play?

As it turns out, repeated exposure to reality dating shows can actually have a detrimental effect
on the psyche. Research by psychologists Eileen Zurbriggen and Elizabeth Morgan found that
watching reality dating programs was positively correlated with negative traits including
“adversarial sexual beliefs, endorsement of a sexual double standard, and the beliefs that men are
sex-driven, that appearance is important in dating, and that dating is a game.”

Has finding modern love become a game? If so, there are no winners here.

Good luck to Kaitlyn and what’s his name.