It’s “Bachelor season,” which means many people in America are enamored with the crazy, scripted world of ABC’s “The Bachelor.” I am a sucker for TV shows, but reality TV has lost its credibility. Lifetime even has a show — obviously based on “The Bachelor” — called “UnREAL”. UnREAL is a fictitious show about the behind the scenes action of a reality TV show. 
Other than bringing friends together for entertainment, “The Bachelor” serves no purpose. Growing up, I remember that my mom and older sister loved watching the show. That was back in 2006, only four seasons after the show first aired. The contestants on the show were dramatic, but not nearly as dramatic as the newer ones. 
The show has made a mockery of the people involved, and it seems they’re fine with it. Take last season’s Chad on “The Bachelorette.” He was awful, self-obsessed and dim witted — people even made memes of him. I remember seeing countless Buzzfeed lists about his “Chad-isms.” He was made out to be this insane guy — and he might be. However, he also might have been manipulated by the producers to act in a way that portrayed him as worse than he really is. 
I am not going to say the producers and those involved with making the show only care about ratings, but it doesn’t seem like they have the contestants’ best interests at heart. 
The show brings out the worst in people, and no one should be manipulated on national television. Ratings are too important to the people involved. While I personally don’t watch the show, my friends, when they heard I was writing this column, told me, “They went to a church on their home visit.” 
My response was simple: Any show that promotes maliciousness, infidelity and manipulation is in need of some sort of spiritual upheaval, but not on camera. It makes religious people look bad, and it makes the people on the show look hypocritical.
Not only are the contestants made fools of, but the show’s existence promotes highly unrealistic expectations about relationships and marriage. No one will be able to take you on extravagant dates all the time,  and in real life, dating multiple people with the possibility of marriage attached makes no sense. 
The show provides entertainment, but nothing more than that. It is superficial and leads us to expect the worst from people we meet. It makes us skeptical of their intentions, and we aren’t able to fully enjoy life the way we are supposed to. I think that people find their best relationships by participating in life, not participating in a game show. 
I get that it is just a television show, but it affects the people who watch it, whether they know it or not. Even if you aren’t one of the 6.56 million people who tune in to watch the show, you are affected by living in this world contaminated by this kind of television. 
Women everywhere are waiting for someone to scoop them up on a helicopter to a tropical island for a day. They tear down other women in their social circles and are suspicious of them and their actions. 
As women, we should be lifting one another up and encouraging one another. Take a girls’ weekend with to a tropical paradise. Don’t sit around waiting for someone else to make you happy.  
If you are waiting on someone to have a relationship with, live your life like a regular person. Make strong friendships, make strides in your education or profession, take care of yourself and good things will come in its own time. You don’t need to go on a scripted reality show to find the person you should be with forever. 
Myia Hambrick is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Temple, Georgia.