I stopped recapping dating shows
Once upon a time I used to recap The Bachelor and other shows like it - MAFS, Love Island, whatever trash reality was serving up that week. I’d provide expert commentary based on behaviours I witnessed and comments being made between participants. Picking apart the patterns, naming the red flags, translating the dysfunction into something people could recognise in their own lives.
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A lot of the time it got lapped up. People loved it. My inbox would fill with messages about how I’d helped them see their own relationship differently, how they’d finally put language to something that had been bothering them for years.
But towards the end, I didn’t love it anymore.
Because I was having a bigger realisation: by recapping this show, I was supporting it being on air. And in truth? I don’t.
These shows might bring awareness of what toxic behaviours look like, sure. They’re a masterclass in manipulation, gaslighting, weaponised jealousy, and emotional unavailability dressed up as “protecting my heart.” You can learn a lot by watching someone else’s relationship fall apart in real time on national television.
But they also normalise these behaviours. And worse, they weaponise them.
Weaponised because producers want TV that people will watch, which means “drama.” Which actually means: orchestrated cruelty, power imbalances, people being pushed past their limits for content. Normalised because there’s always a chunk of other toxic people who champion their fellow comrade. Who defend the indefensible because they see themselves in it.
I started noticing something: watching these shows was making me angrier. Not in a productive, “let me break this down for you” way. In a “I can’t believe we’re all sitting here consuming this and calling it entertainment” way.
And I decided that energy of mine would be better spent actually educating people on toxic behaviours in real time - with real clients, real relationships, real stakes - as opposed to via a heavily edited TV show designed to maximise conflict and ad revenue.
So I stopped.
But still, I see these participants all over my social media feed. Why? Because they’re being interviewed on podcasts. They’re getting as much media time as possible, stretching their 15 minutes into a career. And I’m sure for some of them, that was always the goal. The relationship was never the point. The attention was.
But here’s what’s sitting with me: consuming this content makes us part of the problem, surely?
We aren’t innocent in this.
We say we don’t want toxic friends who cause drama. We say we’re done with partners who treat us terribly, who gaslight us, who make us question our reality. We say we want healthy, reciprocal, adult relationships where people communicate honestly and repair when things go wrong.
And then we sit down weekly to watch the exact opposite. Again and again. On TV. And then we follow it up with podcasts that do it again, but this time make it a deep dive. An entire ecosystem built around dissecting dysfunction for entertainment.
Where is this actually getting us?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. About what we consume and what that consumption says about what we’re willing to tolerate. About the difference between learning from someone else’s mistakes and just… watching people suffer for our amusement.
Because these shows don’t exist in a vacuum. They shape culture. They teach people what’s acceptable. What’s normal. What “all relationships are like.”
I’ve had clients in my practice - real people, sitting across from me - who’ve justified their partner’s behaviour by referencing something they saw on MAFS. Who genuinely believed that screaming matches and public humiliation were just “passion.” That jealousy was proof of love. That pursuing someone who’s clearly said no was “fighting for the relationship.”
These shows are teaching people patterns. And not good ones.
And yes, I know - I used to recap them. I used to be part of the problem too. I justified it by telling myself I was providing education, context, a different lens. And maybe I was. But I was also driving traffic to the very thing I claimed to oppose.
At some point, you have to ask yourself: am I helping, or am I just participating in a more intellectualised way?
For me, the answer became clear. I was participating.
So I stopped.
But the shows are still here. The podcasts dissecting every episode are still here. The Instagram accounts dedicated to recapping drama are still here. The participants leveraging their 15 minutes into influencer careers are still here.
And we’re still watching.
We’re still clicking. Still sharing. Still discussing. Still feeding the machine that produces this content in the first place.
I’m not saying you’re a bad person if you watch The Bachelor. I’m not even saying these shows shouldn’t exist. People can make their own choices about what they participate in, both as contestants and as viewers.
But I am saying: we need to be honest about what we’re actually doing when we consume this content.
We’re not just passively watching. We’re actively supporting an industry that profits from dysfunction. That casts people specifically because they’re likely to behave badly. That edits footage to create villains and heroes out of real human beings who are messy and complicated and probably shouldn’t have been on TV in the first place.
We’re saying with our attention, our engagement, our clicks: yes, more of this please.
And then we wonder why our culture is so toxic. Why people don’t know how to communicate. Why relationships feel harder than they used to. Why everyone’s performing instead of connecting.
Maybe it’s because we’ve been training ourselves, week after week, to see relationships as content. As something to be watched and judged and dissected, rather than something to be lived.
I don’t have a neat answer here. I don’t have a solution that fixes the problem.
But I know what I’m doing differently: I’m not recapping the shows anymore. I’m not following the contestants. I’m not listening to the podcasts that turn someone’s emotional breakdown into a 90-minute deep dive.
I’m choosing to put my energy somewhere else. Into the actual work. Into helping real people navigate real relationships. Into creating content that doesn’t rely on someone else’s dysfunction to make a point.
And maybe that’s all any of us can do: stop feeding the thing we claim we don’t want.
Stop watching the drama and then complaining about the culture of drama.
Stop consuming toxicity as entertainment and then wondering why it’s everywhere.
At almost 40, I’m done pretending my consumption doesn’t matter. That it’s just TV. That it’s harmless fun.
It’s not.
It’s shaping what we think is normal. What we think is acceptable. What we think love is supposed to look like.
And I’m not participating anymore.
Not because I think I’m better than anyone who still watches. But because I finally understand: I can’t spend my days helping people leave toxic relationships whilst spending my evenings watching them for fun.
The two things don’t align.
So I stopped.
And honestly? I don’t miss it.
The version of myself who thought she could have it both ways. Who thought recapping the toxicity made her exempt from supporting it.
She’s (gratefully) gone now.
And in her place is someone who’s finally willing to put her energy where her values are.
Even when it means turning off the TV.
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