You can forget your cocktail sausages, gins in tins and those balmy evenings spent sprawled on a picnic blanket in the park. Ditto that sparkling pint glistening in the golden-hour sun. This summer, like most, I’ll be staying inside six nights of the week glued to my TV screen, ruthlessly anticipating people in neon string bikinis and questionably patterned trunks get pied off, couple up and recouple. Yep, it’s Love Island season, which – for the past seven years – has lured millions of us away from our traditional summer plans to obsess over the love lives of people we’ll (probably) never meet.
And it’s not just Love Island; dating shows are thriving across the board. It only takes one look at Netflix’s summer slate, with new shows such as Dated And Related and Jewish Matchmaking, or all 16 series of First Dates, to know the appetite for reality TV ‘romance’ is alive and well.
For many of the contestants, the outcome is fame and fortune (and maybe that was their intention all along). For others, there’s a genuine desire to find love; a hope that attempting an alternative method of dating might help them find their person. But does it really work? In lots of cases, yes. There’s a whole creche of Love Island babies now (including the offspring of Camilla Thurlow and Jamie Jewitt from series three), while Brent Zillwood and Challis Orme from The Undateables got married in 2015.
For every success story, though, there’s a villa full of contestants who didn’t manage to get quite so lucky in love. So, what did they learn from their reality TV dating experiences, and how has it changed the way they look at relationships now? I tracked down three previous contestants to find out.
Liberty Poole
‘If I’m not being respected, I will remove myself from the situation’
When Liberty Poole, 22, from Birmingham, entered the Love Island villa in 2021, viewers were convinced she was going to win the show. She coupled up with 25-year-old plumber Jake Cornish on day one, and four weeks later when he asked her to be his girlfriend, their journey to victory was practically secured. However, things started to unravel days before the final, when Liberty began to question if Jake was playing up to the cameras in an attempt to win the show, and whether his feelings were genuine. The pair broke up on screen, later leaving the villa together as friends.
"Before Love Island, I’d never experienced true love. I hadn’t even really had a happy relationship. I’d been cheated on and it led to me thinking I just wasn’t good enough. When Love Island came along, I’d been single for a while so I thought, ‘Why not?’ I genuinely thought I’d meet someone.
"The first coupling up in the villa is based on who you fancy. The girls are standing in a line looking at the boys and it’s like, ‘Do I think that guy is hot?’ You’re basically thinking, ‘Oh, they’re good looking’ and hoping a connection develops later on. With Jake, I fancied him immediately and then, as I got to know his personality, we clicked really well. I think you need a bit of both, emotional and physical attraction, which is what we had, and it’s why, at first, we worked so well. But over the seven weeks we were on the show, I started to realise we weren’t on the same page.
"I’ve been asked if I had a sudden change of heart about Jake, but what led to the break-up was actually a lot of little things I’d noticed throughout the experience. I’d been overlooking them, but they built up so much I couldn’t ignore them any longer. There was the moment when I wanted to run up to Kaz [Kamwi, after her successful date with Tyler Cruickshank] and he stopped me. Also, during the Movie Night challenge, they played a clip of Jake saying, 'Lib’s personality is amazing, but there’s no physical attraction there for me.' It reminded me of what I’d been through before – of being made to feel not good enough.
"Love Island is heavily weighted towards appearance, so if you’re not feeling good about yourself, or the person you’re with isn’t making you feel good, it’s time to call it quits. It got to the point where the energy changed and I thought, 'I would rather leave the villa now and give up my place in the final than try to fake something that’s just not there.'
"After Love Island, I didn’t date for a long time, mainly because I was busy with work and training for Dancing On Ice. But I learned a lot from it. The villa taught me that no matter how much I like someone, if I’m not being respected or I notice red flags, I need to remove myself from the situation. It made me stronger and now I always put myself first. After wasting my time in a previous relationship, and then my experience with Jake, I realised I need to leave situations where I’m not getting what I need in return. I will never be scared of being on my own.
"But I am open to finding someone again. I’m still looking for the same thing I always have – someone to be happy with and have a laugh with. I know exactly what I want, and I’ll now leave situations sooner if they don’t feel right."
Deepti Vempati
‘You need to ask the deep questions early on when you’re dating’
Deepti, a 31-year-old information analyst from Chicago, applied for Love Is Blind season two after struggling with dating-app culture. The show sends 30 participants on speed dates in separate screened-off ‘pods’ in an attempt to help them find someone to marry without ever seeing each other. After Deepti said ‘yes’ to Abhishek ‘Shake’ Chatterjee, a 33-year-old vet, in the pods, their emotional relationship struggled to turn into a physical one, with Shake making several critical comments about Deepti’s appearance behind her back. Eventually, Deepti turned down Shake on their wedding day, telling him, ‘I deserve somebody who knows for sure. I’m choosing myself and I’m going to say no.’
"Dating apps have never been my vibe. I’ve always found it hard to move on from the talking stage, and I don’t like that appearance is the first thing you’re going off. When I saw Love Is Blind, I was like, 'Wow, what a different outlook on dating.' After seeing the success stories of season one, I was under the impression that I could find my person this way. I applied during lockdown in 2020 – I’d been single for a year and a half, following a six-year relationship. A couple of days after applying, a casting director reached out to start the extensive casting process. A year later, the experiment began.
"You’re only in the pods for 10 days, but you really start to care about the people you’re talking to, because you spend so much time with them. You learn there’s more to each book than just the cover. With Shake, I could see myself marrying and loving him, because we got so close in there.
"But it quickly became evident he didn’t find me physically attractive. In my culture, marriage is a big deal, and we don’t believe in divorce unless you’re truly unhappy. When I said no to him at the altar, it was bittersweet, but I made the right choice. It felt like he was on Love Is Blind just to be on the show, rather than to find his person. Some of his behaviour since the show, playing the character of the villain... I know for a fact he’s not meant to be in my life.
"The experiment changed my outlook so much. It highlighted even further how we shouldn’t place so much importance on looks. Personality really does change the attractiveness of a person. I’ve dated someone since who was extremely attractive, but I knew he wouldn’t be therefor me emotionally, so I ended things on the second date.
Also, when you’re starting to date someone, you should begin with the important questions. I’m at the stage where I want to meet my person, and the pods have taught me so much about getting deep quickly, instead of pushing those questions aside and addressing them later. The hard stuff like, 'How are we going to be financially? How many kids do you want? What are your political affiliations?' There’s no reason to waste time if you don’t align on the big principles.
"Before the show, I was against arranged marriages, but I’m more open to it now. I’ve seen how successful my parents have been, and how they’ve grown into love together.
"Of course, I wish I found my husband through this experience. I can definitely say I’m not back on the dating apps, but I have gone on a few dates since the show wrapped. I have to be much more cautious with dating now – not everyone’s intentions are true and real, and everything is under a microscope in the public eye. The biggest thing I’m looking for is self-awareness and emotional intelligence."
Nameya Jacobs
‘People will have opinions on you whatever you do’
Nameya, a 24-year-old copywriter who lives in London, wanted to go on Naked Attraction after watching the show alleviated some of her body-image woes. The format sees a participant choose to date one of six other contestants based on how they look naked, with sections of their body being revealed one at a time – their face last. Nameya picked Megan, a law student. Despite a successful first date, the pair didn’t take things any further than a kiss.
"When I discovered Naked Attraction, I was struggling with my body image. I was 23 and sick of staring at my figure for days on end thinking, 'This is wrong, I wish this was different.' Watching the show felt like a revelation. It was like, 'Oh my god. These women look like me. We all have bellies, we’ve all got back rolls.' My reaction was, 'I have to go on this.'
"I came out as bisexual aged 20 and moved to the UK from Namibia at 22. The country is so conservative – gay marriage is illegal and women are viewed from a patriarchal perspective. So I wanted to represent my country, to show it’s not all like that. The way I date has always been politically driven: I want to know that our values align on class, gender, sex and race. I need to know that we’re on the same page when it comes to fighting inequality.
"I applied for the show online and had to do a video audition, then I went to Manchester to film over three days in September 2021. I filmed my backstory one day, recorded the show the next day and then went on the date that evening. You’re on such an adrenaline rush and it’s very go, go, go. The show itself took about an hour and a half to film. Anna Richardson was lovely and the whole crew made me feel so comfortable. What I really appreciated was how they were always on hand with a robe, because while I was consenting to being naked, I only said I’d be naked for a specific portion of the show. There was such a magnetism around Megan – I was instantly attracted to her and we connected really quickly.
"The most anxiety I felt about being on Naked Attraction was in the phase between filming the show and it coming out. I wasn’t scared because I regretted it, but because of public opinion. Being naked as a woman is very sexualised, and men can be very possessive of women’s bodies. I was like, 'What will future partners think? What if I never find anyone to date again?'
"But I’ve learned that people are going to have opinions on whatever you do, so you might as well do what you want. Everything I was scared of, I didn’t need to be – people don’t care as much as you think they do, and the people I’ve dated since have been like, 'You were naked? So what?' Anyone who thinks it’s weird isn’t who I want to be with anyway.
"I’m also a lot more confident than I was before the show, and I care less than I did before. We don’t need to be hung upon how we look, or overthink how our bodies naturally are: 'Are my boobs too small? Are my boobs too big? Is my ass fat enough?' I’m embracing how my body grows and flows, and have accepted that this is the way it’s going to look."
The expert's view
Dating-app fatigue is real and anything’s worth a go, right? Relationship, family and friendship expert Dr Melanie Ross Mills gives her verdict on which show is most likely to find you love.
Love Island
"The show seems to lend itself to shallow exchanges – it would be better if the challenges were more focused on strengthening connections as opposed to the focus on looks. But as in real life, there are always some people who think the grass is greener, and some whose heads won’t turn. Try to discover which type you are, and have a think about the types of people you’re dating."
Love Is Blind
"Dating like Love Is Blind offers a 'friendship foundation' if you let it. There are three stages of love – the limerence phase, the trust phase and the commitment phase. The first is when you fall head over heels, but is also a time when you might overlook red flags. Focusing on communicating emotionally rather than physically might allow you to date without any rose-tinted glasses on."
Naked Attraction
"I’m not convinced coupling up with someone based on their body will form the solid foundation needed for a healthy relationship. As we all know, bodies change, making this a ‘conditional connection’. If you’re choosing someone based on appearance, or limiting your list of preferences to a superficial level, you could miss out on someone who’s better suited in the long run."
