Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I am chronically on the Channel 4 website watching reality TV dating shows. Celebs Go Dating, Married at First Sight, First Dates (my favourite, and my last resort if I’m still single by 30): you name it, I’ve watched it. By their very nature, they require a certain amount of box-ticking. First Dates asks singles to list their preferences, which are then magically materialised into someone to snog at the end of the show. It’s almost uncanny how well they are matched every time: if ever a ‘dislike’ sneaks in among the ‘likes’, chaos ensues – these are the moments inevitably segmented into YouTube videos later on. No one has ever told me that I should base my dating expectations on the ‘reality’ TV that I obsessively watch, but these shows all broadcast something interesting about the way we view dating now, on and off the screen. Because we can fine tune our dating preferences on all manner of apps, which do Fred Sirieix’s job for us, we are able to exclude anyone who doesn’t quite fit the bill. Had I met certain Tinder dates in an organic environment, perhaps I’d overlook the fact that they’d chosen to list wrestling as an interest in their bio, or only have group profile pictures. But because there are always more profiles to see, more faces to scrutinise, I keep swiping – looking for an embodiment of perfection that I now fear doesn’t exist.
As a result of the tangle of influences from both dating apps and shows, telling me I should really watch out for certain (objectively benign) characteristics, I end up finding it reasonable when a contestant on Married at First Sight inexplicably calls her spouse a liar because he didn’t tell her about his acting career (AKA dabbles in am-dram), or when a suggestion of splitting the bill is enough for a first date to end on a sour note. Modern daters have become so merciless. Although I’d never watch Naked Attraction unless caught unawares while watching Gogglebox with my parents (eek), there’s something, somehow, more forgiving about it: your bits look a bit like mine, you’re wobbly in places that human bodies tend to wobble, let’s give it a go.
Dating shows and other forms of box-ticking dating have existed for decades, and I fear I might be a special case in my guilty pleasure of watching them all the time. Yet the encroaching force that is The Internet has only made romantic matters worse. TikTok and Instagram reels (my chosen poison) are crammed full of red flags, green flags, ghosting, breadcrumbing, soft launching, and love bombing (sprinkle sprinkle). I had to Google ‘online dating slang’ to get a sense of how extensive the list has become and encountered many I’d never even heard of. Can someone please tell me what makes a flag beige? When did we all start waving flags around anyway? While some might like this shorthand as a tool to prevent wasting time, I feel this new dictionary of love languages has only muddied the waters. It’s now possible to designate a character trait as a red flag and rule someone out completely. What happened to second chances?
As you grow older, the kinds of debates you have with family members tend to change. At the ages of 6, 8 and 10, my brothers and I argued over which football team was worthy of support; 4 years on, who was robbed in the final of X Factor; give it another few years and we’re engaging in our own kind of mock politics (as my brother developed a never-explained obsession with Nick Clegg). Although last Christmas when I was reunited with my siblings, I was surprised when my light-hearted reference to someone having given me the ‘ick’, a term that had come into popularity in between occasions of us seeing each other, sent sparks flying. My eldest brother insisted the concept was demeaning and set unachievable standards for men. While I stumbled trying to defend it as a tool for women to redress the balance while faced with sky-high expectations set for us by men, I realised he had a point. All it takes is for me to catch a glimpse of a boy on a VOI and I’m out. I thought recently about how I’d never be able to go on holiday with a romantic partner unless I averted my eyes when they walked through the street with a suitcase. I did some sociological research for more icks and dug up: chasing a table tennis ball (how often does that even happen?), running for the bus (a reasonable necessity in modern life), tripping while running up the stairs (come on now). I think it’s high time we lower our expectations. In the words of Jessie J, Nobody’s Perfect. Maybe we just need another reminder.
