We are a nation fascinated by love. Love – but more precisely – sex, betrayal, affairs, break-ups, reconciliations and romance. The producers of Love Island hit upon something quite genius when they realised that this is what we are truly interested in when we watch reality television. Programmes which have gone before, ostensibly ‘social experiments’ about surviving in a house full of strangers or on a desert island, have always been most avidly consumed when they have chanced upon a romantic storyline – yes, we’ll watch someone zip-wire over a crocodile-infested ravine but what we would rather know is ‘who’s getting it on with whom?’. There’s a reason why all we remember of season three of I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here is the now infamous ‘fairytale’ romance between Katie Price and Peter Andre.
The question is, are the relationships we see played out on screen where contestants are encouraged to pair off based on an instant of physical attraction having barely said four words to one another, and where all the agonies and ecstasies of love and attraction are exaggerated and magnified and distorted into a cartoonish caricature of romantic life, helping or hindering us in our own romantic lives? In the independent research we commissioned we found that 65% of Britons feel they’re in the wrong relationship romantically but don’t know why. The figure is highest in young people (the principal target audience of shows like Love Island) with over three quarters (76%) of 25-34-year-olds feeling this way compared to 54% of those 55+.
We’re living in an age where our role models declare their commitment to each other after spending a mere twenty minutes together in a hot tub with a glass of champagne and where we’re increasingly using our smartphones to help us choose our next partner. It’s no wonder we’re dissatisfied – without knowing how to choose a relationship wisely we’re at risk of being eternally tormented by the feeling that the grass could be greener. Like Love Island, dating apps encourage us to choose a person based on their physical appearance alone and what we think that might tell us about their character. Moreover, they present us with the illusion of a never-ending stream of new potential partners, each more glamorous and exciting than the last – we might be reasonably happy with our latest conquest but who knows whether someone that little bit better looking, more successful, more intelligent or funnier could be just one more swipe (or episode) away? It’s a suspicion that series 4’s Wes articulated perfectly – ‘I’m happy but I could be happier.’
One of the most significant obstacles to finding love is a lack of understanding of who or what we should be looking for. Partners used to be found for us by our parents or society – or perhaps, because of where we happened to be born, there just weren’t very many options. The apparent abundance of choice now available to us hasn’t necessarily made us happier. Now that we’re expected to follow our own feelings and locate a partner by ourselves, we all too often find ourselves pulled towards problematic characters and unhealthy relationship dynamics which we don’t necessarily understand.
Our culture has slyly fed us the Romantic world-view which tells us that our instincts will naturally guide us towards individuals who are good for us. Love is an ecstasy that will descend when we feel ourselves in the presence of the individual most certain to make us happy. There is a being out there for all of us – a ‘soulmate’ who we will track down if only we have the appropriate technology and tenacity to find them. This is an illusion and a cruel one at that. We’re trying to find the one ‘right’ person for us when in reality no such person exists. For a start, we’re all too deeply, deeply flawed (and as we know, the real cure for romantic infatuation is just to get to know the person better).
What we should be doing instead is looking for a partner who is ‘good enough’ – it doesn’t sound as exciting as ‘The One’, but we need to come to realise that this is all anyone could ever truly be, however divine they might look in their swimwear. There are those who are outrightly wrong for us and there are those whose inevitable weaknesses we can accept and tolerate safe in the knowledge that no one is perfect. Finding love and making it work are skills we can learn and practice and they begin with being honest with ourselves about who we are, how we are damaged, and what we are looking for. Once we learn this, success in love need not be a matter of sheer luck.
Charlotte Fox Weber is head of psychotherapy at the School of Life