When Pat Benatar sang “Love Is A Battlefield,” she was talking about The Bachelor!

On March 13, yet another season of The Bachelor will be completed and Nick Viall will choose the lucky woman to propose to. For all readers who don’t religiously watch The Bachelor, it is a reality TV show on ABC where 25 women compete for the love of one man: The Bachelor. Throughout the season, the bachelor eliminates several women each week by not giving them roses. The goal is for him to find one woman in the end that he desires to propose to and marry. This year’s bachelor is Nick Viall, a 36-year-old from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The unique thing about Nick is he’s been the runner-up for two seasons of The Bachelorette (a girl version of The Bachelor) and didn’t find love on Bachelor in Paradise (another spin-off of The Bachelor). Nick has failed to find love on these TV series three times, yet he still continues to search for love on these shows. However, it doesn’t seem to be working.

As entertaining as The Bachelor may be, the ethics of it are completely twisted. It presents an idea that is foreign to most people, dating multiple women at once. Parents, mentors, and classes, like health, teach that it is healthy to have a single partner, but bachelors on the show have both physical and emotional relationships with multiple women at a time.

Another issue with this show is that it presents love as a competition. The women on the show are constantly competing for the beloved bachelor, and in the process, they throw away potential friendships with the other women competing. They spread rumors, tell lies, and constantly tear each other down in order to win the love of the bachelor.

The Bachelor also presents an unreasonable and insufficient amount of time that the women are supposed to fall in love. From start to finish, the show only lasts seven weeks, meaning that the women must go from complete strangers to marriage material in two months.

Although it is just a “reality” TV show, it has the ability to influence the viewers and America’s ideas about dating. The show reinforces ideas that it’s okay to have multiple relationships at once, that love is a competition, and it has a short time limit. “The bottom line: this isn’t how love works.” (Samantha Short from the University of South Florida). Considering these circumstances, it’s no wonder that only six of the thirty couples on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have stayed together so far. This also explains why so many young people have trouble dating nowadays and divorce rates are overwhelmingly high. Most people in today’s culture don’t put in the time and work required for a successful and healthy relationship.

Despite the facts, viewers must remember that The Bachelor is only a reality TV show and a lot of the things said and done on the show are probably staged or scripted. But, if you are able to watch the show knowing that it’s not how real love works, then it is actually very entertaining and a great thing to do on Monday nights.