If you’re like me and are an unashamed Love Island fan then welcome, you’re not alone! Each season I sit myself comfortably amongst my scatter cushions and avidly watch toned 20-somethings fight tooth and nail for a £50,000 grand prize. So, without further ado, let’s do some bits…of the intellectual kind, layer on the factor 50 and dissect what the islanders have been getting up to.
To bring you up to speed if you have indeed been living under a rock, Love Island is where five women and five men are flung into a villa with the expectation of finding love by “coupling up” with each other. The couples are thrown into tempestuous times with new islanders entering the villa, semi-inappropriate challenges and free reign to get to know who they desire. Things heat up with “shock recouplings” a trying ritual where either the boys or girls choose who they would like to be with next, a sort of sadistic PE lesson where the last picked to be on the team for netball gets dumped from the island.
Orginal Couples: Week 1
Shaughna + Callum
Leanne + Mike
Sophie + Connor
Paige + Ollie
Sianeese + Nas
New Girls:
Eve + Jess (twins)
New Boys:
Finley + Connagh
The first week is always a funny one as the islanders enter the anarchic villa, get to know each other and navigate their way around being in a couple with someone they’ve just met. The evil yet fabulous producers start to throw in new islanders, this season started off with blonde twins which got all the boys heads spinning and ending with them stealing Mike and Callum off Leanne and Shaughna.
A further two new islanders were thrown into the mix, new boys Connagh and Finley (who looks strangely like my ex) taking the girls on dates and pulling them for chats. A shock recoupling happened on Friday night where the boys chose a girl to recouple with Eve sadly being dumped from the island.
The talk of the week has been Connor’s reaction to pretty much everything Sophie does or says. At the start of the week they were loves young dream and you felt yourself invest emotionally in them, but day 1 Connor started to wave a few red flags. His first comment started when the islanders were playing truth or dare, and he deemed Sophie was “digging him out” the first sign that she should have run away! Sophie is a fun bubbly girl who wants a bit of banter and fun, yet Connor seems to not quite grasp this concept. Then low and behold Sophie, who is by far the most attractive girl in the Villa, gets picked to go on a date with Connagh the hot new boy.
In my opinion the reason for Connor’s general bad temper is because he knows he has the best-looking girl, she’s also fun and is liked by everyone in the villa so in all honestly, he is punching. Connor is your quintessential Zero Gravity guy, a few tats, very white teeth and an “I go to Tenerife on an all-inclusive lad holiday every year” look about him. He feels threatened and is acting out, this is the only conclusion.
I just want to say to him through the TV, stop showing the worst bits of yourself, this is a terrible idea, hold it in mate! During the recoupling on Friday night Connagh picked Sophie and I’m not surprised. He had 1 day to get to the know the girls and I believe he’s gone off looks rather than personality, which is fine he had to do what he had to do or as they say in the villa “it is what it is”. Let’s keep an eye on this one, I’m hoping for cat fights and a strong love triangle coming this way!
Another islander which has caught my eye for observation has been Nas! Nas was last to be picked in the initial coupling, he was paired with Sianeese or Shaw-knees as twitter has been calling her, and he’s not had a good run. Girls can we stop saying that guys are “too nice” or “too short” and therefore cannot see the spark. It is so sad that young girls come onto this show and are actively looking for a bad boy. What I think they mean by this is that they don’t think “nice guys” are very sexy and that they finish last. When did height become such a criteria? I work with a few 5ft11 girls and I do see their point when a guy is shorter, fair enough, but Sianeese come on now love you are 5ft5 at a push!
What is so aggravating about this is that she is starting the sentences with “he’s so nice, he has a great personality…but he’s too short”. Nas is one of the best guys in there, you know he would treat you right, have a savings account and wouldn’t get his head turned, yet she’s tossing him to the curb and not getting a lot of love from the public for it.
Come on Love Island producers get someone in there that will be worthy of Nas, he deserves it because “Shaw-knees” does not appreciate him. Do we think that she will come to regret this? Predictions from my side are that a girl will come in and fancy Nas and Sianeese will realise what she could have had…a classic girl move where you don’t want them, but you don’t want anyone else to have them either.
Now to finish let’s talk about game playing in the villa! Obviously, the master has been Shaughna with playing Callum hot and cold by using new boy Connaugh as bait and girl did it make good TV. I don’t believe that this tactic works in real life or maybe I’ve just been too scared to try in case it doesn’t work and judging by past experience I couldn’t imagine why it would.
Another tactic for the villa seems to be the case of doing absolutely nothing and getting the guy. Let’s look at Leanne for example, she said to Mike when they first coupled up “I don’t let people in easy” and to him that was ding ding ding it’s challenge time. It worked as he left twin Jess feeling “mugged off” as he went back to Leanne after Jess picked him when she first entered.
Paige, who is slowly becoming my favourite girl, also did a whole lot of nothing to get Finley to pick her in the recoupling and I believe that these girls are slightly savvier than we give them credit for. Let the guy chase you rather than “laying it on thick” so they feel like they have nothing to work for. In a guy’s opinion (and I have asked many guys this) if you are laying it on thick now, what does this mean for later on? Will the girl just show all her cards at the beginning or will she be a lady and keep them close to her chest, allowing the man to find out for himself. Excited to see how this pans out in the coming weeks, will the girls be able to keep their men interested or will their heads be turned when new girls enter the villa with a different tactic?
All in all, the final episode when Connagh finally did the first interesting thing any of them have done by choosing Sophie when she was supposedly happily coupled up, shook things slightly. Now we wait and see the drama unfold!
New Couples: Week 1
Shaunga + Callum
Jess + Nas
Sophie + Connagh
Leanne + Mike
Sianeese + Connor