All the Contestants on "The Bachelor" Are Either Completely Disingenuous or Utterly Irrational - And Here's Some Quantitative Proof

Hello, everyone! This week, I take a brief detour from my typical topics-of-interest to respond to a question posed by a fellow Busenbarkemetrics reader on one of the social networks through which this blog is broadcast. The question posed reads as follows: “What is the probability that I will find love on the Bachelor?” Obviously, this question was not derived from my own bank of questions for two reasons; (1) I would be a contestant on the Bachelorette not the Bachelor, and (2) I have literally no interest in finding love on this show.  Either way, this detour is going to be kept to a minimum, as this post will be brief, but will answer the question at hand!

As I digress, not only will I answer this question, but I also will explain why all contestants who have appeared on the Bachelor are either completely disingenuous in their search for love or are completely irrational in their methods chosen to find love. In order to substantiate this claim, I present a decision tree that graphically diagrams the potential outcomes from attempting to find love on the Bachelor(ette) and compare the probability of finding love on the show to another popular method of locating a soul mate.

First, let’s take a look at the decision tree posted below. As we can see, there are two potential outcomes that result in finding love and four that don’t. Even more, it is apparent the cumulative probability of finding love through one of the two outcomes is approximately 0.0055%, which makes the probability of not finding love approximately 99.9945%. This translates to a 1/18158 chance of finding love on the Bachelor from the beginning of the process to the end. That’s fairly low, if you ask me. But, as we all know, these figures mean absolutely nothing without some context. After all, maybe the Bachelor features the greatest probability of finding love of any method out there.

As it turns out, the probability of finding love on the Bachelor is, indeed, extraordinarily low. Comparing the figures from above to another popular method of finding love (Match.com), we can notice that the probability of finding love on the Bachelor is substantially lower than that of finding love on Match.com. In fact, it’s approximately 13.26 times lower. Where the probability of find love on the Bachelor is 1/18158, the probability of finding love on Match.com is 1/1369 (0.073%) – according to figures published by Match.com.

So what does this all mean? To me, it means all contestants who have appeared on the Bachelor are either disingenuous or irrational. If they’re rational people, then they wouldn’t be seeking love using a method with such a low success rate. Instead, they’d spend the time it takes to apply and participate and opt for registering for a Match.com account. Thus, they must have an ulterior motive for appearing on the show or are disingenuous. For those who are truly seeking love on the Bachelor, they are irrational. If they really desire love, they should instead yield to a much more successful avenue to it – such as Match.com.

For all of you who watch the show, you should spend your future viewing sessions trying to determine into which of the categories the contestants fall. Are they completely disingenuous or utterly irrational? You decide!

** In order to complete the above analysis, I defined “finding love” as locating an individual with whom one would spend the remainder of his/her life. That is, all of the figures are based on the number of individuals who were engaged to be married and remain together today. While the Match.com figures are based on those subscribers who are actually married, I made the assumption that Bachelor contestants who are engaged and remain together are effectively the same as those who are married. Further, I assumed the divorce rates among Match.com subscribers and Bachelor contestants are effectively the same, and thus, no incremental change should be applied to the analysis. I also estimated 25% probability of finding a mate after being cast on “Bachelor Pad”. This is probably a vast overestimation, but it’s meant to also include the possibility of meeting another cast mate at ancillary functions**