Everything Love Island Has Taught Me About Love
What if a reality TV show could stop you from making mistakes in your love life?
I first started watching Love Island when a close friend recommended it to me. I’d just started getting into reality TV and was on the lookout for something new. She told me it was the ultimate dating show — the OG dating show, the gospel and the bible of dating. She talked at length about Season 5 (2019), which in her opinion (and now mine, too) was the best season of the show. By the end of our meeting, she’d convinced me. I went home and put on the show first thing. The addiction was instantaneous. I mean, it will never be boring watching people date or try to, at least. At its best, there’s a lot one can learn from this, and at its worst, it’s great entertainment.
I’d started watching the show in the interim period between seasons, which gave me plenty of time to binge-watch the seasons past and understand the anatomy of the show. What I soon began noticing were certain dynamics that kept popping up, person after person, season after season.
Love Island operates based on what I call, The Closed Insecurity Model. The premise is that men and women watch people they form connections with — and often start liking or become possessive about — go on and talk to other contestants right in front of them. All the contestants are cooped up on a remote island with (seemingly) no outside interference. Emotions are charged with copious amounts of alcohol, sleep deprivation, and gossip. Within such a tight space, watching their prospective partners make eyes at other hot men and women is bound to create insecurity and tension, which the show exploits to create troubled relationship dynamics that more often than not, mirror the relationships — romantic or otherwise — in the lives of the viewers.
Imagine how many of us would be happy with our partners if they scuttled off into corners of the room with hot, drunk strangers on a night out. Love Island makes use of the same jealousy tactic and amps it up.
While, it can be both entertaining and excruciating to watch people cry ugly tears over people they’ve known for (oftentimes) less than a week, observing other people pass or fail in their attempts at forging everlasting relationships can help us normies navigate the heterosexual dating landscape in our metropolises.
Season after season, we watch (mostly) men and (sometimes) women throw caution to the wind when they catch the eye of someone new, or vice versa. We see people who make bold claims of being secure in their relationships and those who say that their heads won’t ever turn, teeter on the edge of (a dating show’s version of) infidelity when a bombshell who is their type on paper or a bit of them walks in.
I remember this defining moment in Season 5 when the love triangle between Curtis, Amy, and Maura culminated in Amy walking out of the villa on Day 37. Here’s the gist for the uninitiated: Curtis and Amy were (practically) ‘day ones’. They chose to be a couple on Day 5 and stayed together until Day 30, after which things started looking bleak.
During their short yet romantic half-relationship (as they called it), things were seemingly great — at least on Amy’s side. She’d mentioned the possibility of the L-word coming into play and had even decided to tell Curtis of her feelings for him.
That all went tits up when Curtis caught Maura’s eye. The story after is a classic tale of unrequited love. Maura pursued him and Curtis let her. They decided to give things a go between them, leaving Amy an obstacle in their burgeoning romance.
Soon, Curtis tells Amy of his feelings/ situation with Maura, and what ensues is perhaps the most emotionally charged segment in Love Island history. There are a lot of tears — on both sides — and Amy’s heart is broken to the extent that she decides to walk out of the villa on Day 37.
What Love Island does well, is it presents a well-contained, well-controlled reality of our dating and relationship struggles to us. Some of us see ourselves as the contestants. I strongly empathised with Amy because I, too, had experienced heartbreak right when I watched that episode.
Watching how the dynamic fell into and out of place, getting a front-row seat to the conversations Amy had with the girls and how she voiced her feelings helped me understand exactly how I was feeling. I cried along with Amy as she announced she was leaving. It felt cathartic and validating, in a way, to witness something play out on TV that was brewing in my heart too.
A few years later, in 2021, during Season 7, I watched Liberty and Jake, the Season 7 day ones, try to make things work in their relationship. Many viewers watching the season claimed that Jake was pretending to like Liberty for the cameras, to get further in the game. I’ll always remember this moment when Liberty told the girls that Jake had finally let out those precious three words. The reactions the girls gave her mirrored exactly how most of us viewers felt.
Summer and summer, I watched different (but really, the same) contestants come in and annihilate the sanctum of their partners — some knowingly, while others unknowingly. Take the Season 7 example of Liam lying to Millie about kissing someone else in Casa Amor, or Season 5 when Maura overheard Tom saying some less than respectful things about her, and when asked to explain himself, he effectively gaslights her into thinking she’s got it all wrong.
When a pattern is reinstated and reiterated time and time again, one tends to become wary of it. As viewers of Love Island, or effectively any reality dating show, watching the patterns and the behaviours helps us understand the society we live in — especially as dating adults — when we watch examples of men and women interacting in a potent environment and replaying the behaviours we experience in our lives on the screen.
Love is a tricky thing. Most of us have been in love or something like it. Most of us have been hurt thanks to being in love. I think there’s something to be said about watching people on the screen make mistakes in love and learning from them. None of us are perfect and we all make mistakes in relationships — romantic, platonic, or otherwise. But seeing models of ourselves play out scenarios for us to watch — from a third-person perspective — and analyse with an open mind, while considering the perspectives and feelings of all people involved, really does help us become better daters, lovers, friends, and people.
For those this may help, here’s the gist of what I’ve learned from years of religiously watching these dating shows.
- Most people (but usually men! Sorry, men!) are emotionally stunted and sometimes even unaware of the fact. Their words and actions seldom add up. I’d chalk this up to the prevalence of dating apps and the concept of supply and demand, but remember folks, actions speak louder than words. ‘If he wanted to, he would.’
- Most people are not bad. They’re just absolutely, horribly terrible communicators. What I religiously practise in my life is ‘straight-up communication’. I no longer beat about the bush, especially when it comes to feelings. If you feel it, say it. Be polite, don’t hurt the person, but also don’t sugarcoat the truth. It’s better for all the parties involved.
- Most people conflate lust with romance — although let’s face it, we’ve all been there.
- The biggest lesson I’ve learnt is: It really isn’t that deep. You deserve better. If you feel like you aren’t getting it, move on. Don’t stay stuck in the trenches for someone with potential, but nothing to show for it.
Over the years, I’ve come to revere these dating shows, especially Love Island, as a sort of dating bible. By watching people try and find love for eight weeks every summer, I’ve strengthened my dating and relationship vocabulary. The show has helped me be a more confident person, sure of my likes and dislikes. Most importantly, it’s shown me that even when everything seems to collapse around us, there’s always going to be an other side.
There’s something to be said for showing people mercy when it comes to love — we’re all just figuring it out. That being said, it’s better to learn from the mistakes of others. Notice the patterns, pay attention to how they make you feel, and try to think of how they would fit into your life, rather than you into theirs. If all of that fails, there’s always Love Island to laugh, cringe at, and fall in love with.
