‘The Bachelor’ rarely creates enduring relationships. Why do we still watch it?

In a combined 49 seasons of “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette” and “The Golden Bachelor,” only 11 couples who met on the reality series are still together. Those odds aren’t terrible, but they aren’t promising, either.
After 22 years and counting of “The Bachelor,” the show’s concept has remained the same: A single man or women (the bachelor or bachelorette) is presented with 25 to 32 potential suitors.
Over the course of roughly two months, the bachelor (or bachelorette) selects a spouse. The season ends with a romantic proposal.
Most of those proposals — or marriages — don’t last. The show has proven not to be an effective place to create an enduring relationship. So why is it still on TV?
Because we still watch it. Viewership of “Bachelor” shows peaked during its early seasons, briefly dwindled and recently started climbing, per Newsweek. The most recent season finale of “The Bachelor,” which aired in April 2024, attracted 6.31M total viewers.
That’s the highest viewership the show has experienced in two years, per Deadline.
In 2023, the franchise launched “Golden Bachelor,” and it was the most-watched reality TV series that year, with an average of 5.9 million weekly viewers, per Forbes.
Despite viewers hopes, “Bachelor” has never been the right environment for fostering a lasting romantic relationship, here is why will still watch it.
Here are all “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” couples that are still together:
For a TV series thats sole purpose is to create enduring relationships, 11 happy couples isn’t a high success rate.
But most contestants don’t stand a real chance. The premise of “The Bachelor” is so unlike traditional dating, it makes it difficult for contestants to navigate and build a relationship that will last once the cameras stop rolling.
While filming, “The Bachelor” contestants enter a bubble, which forces them to give up everything related to the real world. Contestants must give up their phones, TV and even books.
“When you’re in that ‘Bachelor’ bubble, all you do is focus on and be brainwashed toward that person,” Tyler Cameron, the runner-up on Hannah Brown’s season of “The Bachelorette,” said, per The New York Times.
Contestants are spoiled with extravagant date-night activities, destinations, live music and meals. It’s a far cry from typical dating, and leaves couples with feelings of disappointment when they return to reality.
“I always talk about the foundation of a relationship and when the foundation is that it’s built off an edited TV show, a TV show where you’re doing all these dream dates … you don’t actually get to spend a lot of time with the person,” Kaitlyn Bristowe, the bachelorette from Season 11, said on her dating podcast “Off The Vine.”
“The relationship is so built up and put on a pedestal,” she continued, “and it’s manufactured, and that’s a tricky foundation to start a life on.”
Additionally, “The Bachelor” implements unique dating habits that many contestants don’t know how to navigate.
“We have been a society of what’s called serial monogamy for many, many years,” psychologist William J. Ryan told Huff Post.
In serial monogamy, people exclusively date someone for an extended period of time. Then they either marry that person or split and do the same thing with someone else.
“The way ‘The Bachelor’ does it,” Ryan continued, “I go to a shoe store, and I try on 12 pairs of shoes. Real people don’t really do that when they’re seriously dating.”
When winning couples finally get home, they must confront a series of logistical questions which threaten what they built on TV. Sometimes, answers to these questions lead to the demise of the relationship.
“Are you ready to uproot your life in order to make a relationship work if you end up in one? Are you ready to leave your job? Are you ready to leave your family? Are you ready to move? Are you ready to start over?’ That’s reality, it’s not just being in a relationship, we can all be in relationships,” Tayshia Adams, who starred on season 16 of “The Bachelorette,” told The New York Times.
Any longtime fan of “The Bachelor” knows the series won’t likely end with a lasting relationship.
But it doesn’t matter. We still happily watch it.
“‘The Bachelor’ series is a plunge into a world that is so unlike our own when it comes to dating and love that it’s essentially a fantasy,” Maddie Pasquariello, an expert in behavior change told PureWow. “People enjoy this kind of escape in the same way they enjoy traveling or video games.”
Avid viewers of “The Bachelorette” are willing to loosen their grips on reality to enjoy a romantic story and take their minds off the realities of modern dating.
“The entire premise of ‘The Bachelor’ counts on us as the viewers to suspend our disbelief and forget that every single moment we see is scripted. The producers want us to believe and so we do. We believe because it’s fun and it’s easy and maybe, just maybe, they really will come out of this in love,” one fan wrote in a Johns Hopkins Newsletter.
Amy Kaufman, a reporter who wrote the book “Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure,” and has vocally criticized the series, admitted that she still enjoys watching it for the romance.
“I can’t lie — when I watch two people connect, it makes me feel like I can have this someday. It might not be in a helicopter or on a mountain, but I can certainly have a guy make me feel like I’m worthy of love,” Kaufman told TIME.
“The Bachelor” spinoff series, “Bachelor in Paradise,” has proven to be the most successful version of the reality series.
“Bachelor in Paradise” welcomes back several previous stars and contestants from “Bachelor Nation” to Mexico for a second chance at love. Rather than one potential suitor, the contestants have several suitors to try their luck with.
Out of nine seasons of “Bachelor in Paradise,” there are 11 couples who met on the series and remain together.
“Bachelor in Paradise” might have a higher success rate because the series gives contestants a more familiar dating experience.
“It isn’t just twenty men vying for the attention of one woman, there are multiple men and multiple women, giving everyone a fair shot at making a lasting connection,” writes Collider. “Also, unlike ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘The Bachelorette,’ there isn’t quite as much pressure to pop the question by the finale.”
Here are all the “Bachelor in Paradise” couples who are still together: