“One of the basic needs of every human being is the need to be loved, to have our wishes and feelings taken seriously, to be validated as people who matter.”

― Harold S. Kushner

After watching The Bachelorette for a grand total of 20 minutes with my sister, I think I understand the premise. Some girl named JoJo (does this remind anyone else of a clown’s name?), whose claim to fame is being a failed contestant on the brother show, The Bachelor, is back again to find a mate, and this time it’s a definite because she’s the prize as opposed to the contestant? Close enough.

Since when was dating, the righteous pursuit of finding a partner with whom you wish to spend the rest of your life with, a game? But I think we can all find comfort in the fact that The Bachelorette is simply a reality TV series, and the participants obviously have some problems with self-esteem and confidence if they’re resorting to this, a complete disconnect from reality. This show in no way actually reflects reality, because real relationships are not seen as games or competitions to be won. Right?

To “date” as we know it is actually a fairly new concept, barely a century old. It used to be that society would arrange marriages, and in some parts of the world this is still the norm. This system was entirely based on socioeconomics: “Hey, you have an upper-class son, I have a middle-class daughter, I’ll give her to you along with this blender!” (And if you’re now wondering, “Did this writer just equate a woman to a blender?” the answer is yes and no.) A dowry could be anything from cash to appliances to bedding, all as a way to entice the man's family. Often there would be competing advances, with the man and his family having options.

And even when the Suffragette and women’s rights movement did finally catch on in the early 20th century and most parents stopped selling their daughters off along with their blenders, there was still a fairly limited dating pool for young people. This was because most people would usually marry a nice guy or girl from the neighborhood, with the goal often being to find a good parent or a good provider, as opposed to finding a soul mate. In the 1950s, “Going steady had become a sort of play-marriage, a mimicry of actual marriage”. And then dating did something truly odd: according to Beth Bailey, author of From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth Century America, dating suddenly became less serious.

Dating is now more about finding someone you like rather than about socioeconomics, and more about getting to know someone first rather than immediately committing downright. However, it’s still not perfect.

There are still traces of a competitive, game-like nature throughout the world of relationships. On the popular Podcast This American Life, the episode “Birds & Bees” mentions one thing many sexual assault case workers find particularly troubling about modern relationships; oddly enough, it’s baseball.

A popular trend when talking about relationships is to use the analogy of bases in a baseball diamond to demonstrate physical advancement. But what is to be said about the fact that, in this analogy, the other participant is the opposing team? This simple analogy plants in the minds of both men and women the idea that their possible partners are nothing more than a means to an end (in this case, getting a home run). This is not to say that this is the actual mentality of all relationships. However, it is startling that in our own modern vernacular the way many discuss advancement in a relationship has everything to do with the physical and nothing to do with the emotional. It's all about objectification, not partnership.

So, it seems as if The Bachelorette may have not just tapped into the scary underbelly of dating that society has tried to move on from, but actually perpetuated it. JoJo was given 26 contestants and has slowly whittled them down. By the 20 minutes that I watched, she was romantically involved with all 8 remaining contestants. And, in the end, the final 2 propose and she has to choose. It's as if every contestant is offering her an emotional and physical dowry.

We live in a time where we choose the people we get romantically involved with based on feelings of belonging, not socioeconomic advantages, which had been the case for centuries. We are encouraged to find someone we love. We need to cherish this freedom, not abuse it by turning it into a game. We should be promoting steps forward in the ways in which we connect with others, not falling back on insulting games and analogies that encourage objectification and, in the process, disregard basic human dignity.

So, next time you’re watching The Bachelorette, remember that we, as a society, are so much more developed and better than that. Or, better yet, don’t let there be a next time.