It’s Monday. Once again, you are thrown off guard by the abrupt transition from a slow moving, late-morning Sunday to a disheartening, 5C, blazer-dress-uniform Monday. The day progresses and the week’s freshest assignments flood you without warning: There’s the English paper due Wednesday, the Theology project Friday, and that Math test you totally forgot about on Thursday.

But how can you be expected to analyze quotes or attempt to memorize the unit circle when tonight is the night twenty-some women compete for one dreamy man’s heart on national television? Surely you can squeeze in the brief two-hour episode into your hectic schedule.

Really, it is your duty, your moral obligation to religiously follow their adventures. You owe it to all the women who sacrificed so much for the sake of love, forced to sit beside the “perfect man” in helicopter rides over exotic coastlines and wander with him arm in arm through the cobblestoned streets of Europe, or, worst of all­, sit idly on a private island under palm trees watching yet another gorgeous sunset. Some of the contestants have even left behind family or quit their jobs in the completely rational, justified hope of securing a pure, genuine, unedited love. Honestly, the least you can do is watch their trying journey unfold through the realistic lens of reality TV and try to empathize with their raw, unscripted emotions. Show a little compassion and tune in for goodness sakes.

And for your own sanity, you really ought to watch. After all, there is nothing more torturous and distressing than having to continuously respond “no” to the inevitable Tuesday-morning question, “Did you see the Bachelor?!”