There should be a salacious German word for the blissful relief one feels at not being in another’s uncomfortable situation. Not pleasure at their misfortune, as in schadenfreude, just toe-stretching- and-dancing joy that you are safely under a blanket on the sofa while others are undergoing intense public scrutiny.
First impressions suggested earnest, caring individuals fed up of the transience of modern-day hook ups
This is the feeling I have when watching Married At First Sight, the hit American TV programme that is now franchised to 24 other countries across the world. The original programme in 2014 was influenced by a very similar Danish TV series, Gift ved første blik, and has also spawned eight (and counting) slightly desperate sounding spin-offs such as Married At First Sight: Honeymoon Island, and MAFS: Happily Ever After.
Is there a happy ever after? Well, the last available stats in 2023 showed that of the 64 couples who had made the leap of faith, 11 are still married. Which is probably better odds than just swiping right on Tinder.
What makes the couplings interesting is that the individuals are carefully chosen and matched by an in-house team of ‘experts’. These include therapists who will follow them through the ensuing journey, analysing everything from body language to micro-aggressions. In MAFS UK, the current ‘experts’ are Mel Schilling, Paul Carrick Brunson and Charlene Douglas. They are all on first name terms with each other and the contestants, reducing professional barriers and encouraging that panacea of therapists, ‘opening up’. Mel is a warm, beseeching Australian relationship therapist; Paul a positive American self-proclaimed ‘love doctor’ who has also appeared on another match-making reality show, Celebs Go Dating (although his degree is in business); and Charlene is a sex and relationship therapist who featured on TV’s The Sex Clinic.
It’s important to know that despite the elaborate display of ceremony with vows and exchange of rings and the reception for family and friends, the couple do not enter into a legally binding marriage. However, they have signed up to living with this stranger for many weeks until and unless they leave the programme. This must produce pressure on the two to develop physical and emotional intimacy.
The day after the ceremony and reception, the couples are whisked away to exotic honeymoon locations, after which they return to a rented apartment provided by the producers. With nothing to do on the honeymoon except bask in the sun, and with no contact with friends and family allowed, many of the couples do fall in lust if not love.
The couple later have to meet each others’ loved ones. This can be ‘awks’, as the young people say, if someone’s best mate has taken umbrage at the newcomer, or a parent feels the new hubby wasn’t friendly/polite/suitably besotted. But the best friends can be remarkably perceptive. Many a time a ‘he’s hiding something’ has proved to be prophetic.
The 11th series of MAFS Australia started recently. As usual, first impressions suggested earnest, caring individuals fed up of the transience of modern-day hook ups and looking for love forever. But although most of the couples on their honeymoon became closer or even ‘physically intimate’ (as the experts would say – no coarse synonyms for shagging here), some couplings inevitably sank quicker than an undercooked soufflé. There were revelations in the gossip rags about one man, Jack, by a disgruntled ex who claimed that just before the programme she had had a serious relationship with him, and he had told her he was going to America to work.
Confusingly, Jack is only recognisable to me by dent of his man bun, but another contestant also has one, and – whisper it – I find it impossible to tell them apart. (At this point, etiquette demands that I hastily add that some of my best friends have man buns, but it’s not true.)
The bluster and arrogance with which Jack dealt with these accusations, labelling his ex as ‘crazy’, revealed more about him than the rest of the honeymoon combined. The other mishap early on was the announcement of one tearful female contestant that she was leaving. And who could blame her? She had been coupled with a man who laughed inappropriately after everything he said, had never dated anyone, couldn’t answer a straight question about whether he could see a future with his partner, and faked devastation at her decision to leave, a charade unveiled by the fact that he didn’t hug or kiss her, he had not so much as touched her on the honeymoon, and he seemed more upset about having to go back to work ‘the next day’. (Obviously an elaboration.) My gaydar wasn’t firing but I do think he was hiding something, possibly asexuality or another relationship outside the programme.
Where several years ago I might have thought that MAFS was exploitive, I’m now much more mellow about it. These are mentally capable adults making decisions for themselves and a minority of them find lasting love. They are optimistic and hopeful, an antidote to constant cynicism and the rash of sexual body parts programmes on TV. And in the modern era, it’s not such a catastrophe if everything falls apart because they can just leave and start swiping right again.
Comments