On Wednesday nights at 10, a group of my friends gets together in our dorm common room to watch Are You the One. A reality television show on MTV in which attractive, single men and women try to find love, Are You the One is on its sixth season with the fourth episode airing this week. The show consists of eleven men and eleven women who are all staying in a house in New Orleans with a private gym, an abundance of alcohol and a “boom boom” room. Through an extensive and apparently scientific matchmaking process, the men and women in the house have been secretly paired up into 11 “perfect matches”. The contestants have ten weeks to determine all eleven matches, and if they succeed, they get to split one million dollars. Once a week, the contestants get to guess who their matches are, and the host of the show will tell them how many correct matches they have, but not who the correct matches are.

While Are You the One certainly does not have any educational value, the routine of getting together with friends on Wednesday nights is incredibly stress relieving. Because the show is very dramatic (there is fighting and crying in every episode), it holds our attention and distracts us from stressing about our classes, exams, and homework. The dates that the contestants in the show get to go on are very adventurous and enviable, for example feeding alligators, exploring ancient ruins, and cliff diving. Watching the show gives us a nice study break and gives us an hour where we can relax, eat snacks, and bond with our friends. We route for our favorite couples, yell at the television when the contestants make obviously dumb decisions, and try to figure out who the 11 perfect matches are. Every week we look forward to watching Are You the One. Having something relaxing and fun to watch on Wednesday nights definitely helps us get through the week.