The Structural Unbalance of “Bachelor in Paradise”
I enjoy the Bachelor franchise. Do I know that it’s a completely fabricated, scripted, planned out “reality” show? Yes I do. Do spend 2 hours each week screaming in frustration at the TV thinking that Nick or Rachel or Dean will listen to my input? Yes I do. While it’s easy to write off The Bachelor and its spinoffs as “trash” television, you have to admit that it is extremely entertaining and fun to discuss with others. I’ll specifically be discussing the relationships in ABC’s “Bachelor in Paradise” series. BIP is essentially the rejected men and women from the Bachelor and Bachelorette getting a second chance at love (or to be on TV?) on a beach in Mexico. The premise is there are an uneven number of men and women on the beach and in order to stay “safe” and not sent home, you must secure a rose from a member of the opposite gender. This encourages coupling up early on in the season, but also encourages “stealing” from an already established couple.
The major plot story throughout the entire season revolved around a love triangle between Dean, Kristina, and Danielle (D-Lo). It seemed that each episode he was flip-flopping between the two girls. D-Lo and Kristina were more than patient with him and this back and forth lasted for the better part of eight 2-hour episodes. I believe that this relationship is the perfect example of Structural Balance Property. We can say that Dean has a strong relationship with Kristina and D-Lo (despite their annoyance with his lack of commitment). The relationship between Kristina and D-Lo is best defined as a weak tie, representing mutual enemies.
graphical representation of the Dean, D-Lo, Kristina love triangle
The Structural Balance Property states that “For every set of three nodes, if we consider the three edges connecting them, either all three of these edges are labeled +, or else exactly one of them is labeled +”. It is clear that this is an unbalanced network.
While this type of relationship makes for an entertaining show, the complicated relationships do not fair well for any of the people involved. In the second to last episode, Kristina announced that she would be leaving the show, which is not usual for a contestant to do without being sent home at a rose ceremony. While this seemed like an easy solution for Dean’s problem, he ended up breaking up with D-Lo the next episode due to his strong feelings for Kristina. While I won’t burden you with the entire summary of Bachelor in Paradise season 4 relationship history, I can say that this is not the only love triangle to form this season, and certainly not the only one that ended this exact same way.
The Dean/D-Lo/Kristina network ultimately didn’t work out due (partially) to its violation of the Structural Balance Property. Am I suggesting that all future contestants strive to form a completely balanced network with mutual friends and enemies? Where’s the fun in that?