And We Can’t Even Go to Fiji

I used to think I was above reality television, or rather, I considered it to be something below me. But as an avid people-watcher, reality television has become a new guilty pleasure, and Love Island is like crack. 

My favorite activity, finding my own love, has become too expensive; going out and failed dates rack up a bill, streaming doesn't. My friends seem to be too busy hustling so we have enough money for new-age gambling, so I needed another scoop of dating discourse from somewhere.

And with a summer buzz in the air of a reality television series about love, what else was I to do besides watch?

Beyond the fact that I find it outrageous that I am quickly approaching the ages of the younger Love Island USA contestants with each new year, all I see when I watch this show, especially this year, is a petri dish taken from the dating market; I know because I'm a part of it.

Obvious reasons aside—being Gen-Z, attractive, and someone who could definitely have been a model if I ever just applied—I almost recognized this year’s contestants as kindred spirits. 

It took me embarrassingly long to realize why.  Every one of this year’s Love Island USA contestants reminded me of someone I know. 

Even if I didn’t specifically know a caricature personally (thankfully, a Sincere has not entered my life in any capacity… yet), I definitely knew of someone who was close enough.

I know of someone who can’t embrace their vulnerabilities, or someone for whom communication skills are beyond them, or someone preferring their patterns, or someone who is emotionally immature, someone stuck in toxic masculinity, or someone who people-pleases, or someone who moves blind to consequence, and so on and so on. 

This wasn’t The Kardashians about a family having money and quotable dialogue or the personal lives of rich women from Real Housewives or even, the home renovation and real-estate content of HGTV, a staple of the 2010s. These were dating stories I had heard at some point, whether from my friends or their friends, or a random stranger I struck up a conversation with at a community event.

On the surface, Love Island USA is structured like a game show, rather than just being an excuse to suck up content for clips. Contestants live in an isolated villa where they can establish themselves socially, and to survive to the end, they must continually couple and recouple.

Challenges test each couple's compatibility publicly, and winners receive rewards like dates, or access to special secluded spots. Bombshells join as outsiders trying to disrupt both couples and the existing social hierarchy.

Anyone left single after recouplings is eliminated, and each season culminates with one couple winning $100,000, courtesy of public voting.

Watching this show means watching people lie, cheat, and scam through the motions of love, intimacy, and attraction, while frantically rushing to protect themselves emotionally and strategically, all while putting on a flashy white smile for the cameras.

So much has been said online about the social patterns of the show, especially the gender dynamics and the racial biases, and how they can be extrapolated to the social politics of modern-day dating. In fact, anything that I could add here about it could practically become plagiarism. 

But what I can say, while I still feel like I have an original thought, is that Love Island USA, amidst the catty clapbacks and cathartic releases, is a snapshot of what dating looks like when it decays into itself.

Relationships have become a gig economy, and attention is the currency, valued by perceived authenticity. 

People’s value in the dating scene is constantly reassessed with new people entering “the market”, and people compete not only to win a partner, but to win the social validation that comes with “winning dating”. Swiping on dating apps, which are functionally designed to keep users on the app, has turned romantic pursuit into instantaneous decisions made about supposed romantic compatibility. 

Even if you’ve built a good foundation with someone, there is always the looming threat of someone better—hotter, smarter, funnier, more accomplished—in the form of “the other woman” or a “side piece” who can take away everything you’ve worked so hard for.

And the public voting? We don’t need that. Not when we have likes on soft and hard launches and jealous comments on couples’ content. These habits have turned relationships, both others’ and our own, into products to be consumed. 

People package themselves and their relationships, which they think of as an extension of themselves, as things that can be measured objectively, as if relationships can be understood universally.

The commercialization of romantic life with all of its emotions has become intertwined with market logic. 

And why is that? Because we are scared. So, so scared. Terrified. 

As leisurely pursuits and every form of recreation grows more and more overpriced, every potential chance for love to begin and blossom comes with a higher cost.

Expensive opportunities shrinking the scope of possibilities for love, means the possibilities we do get to have, become increasingly more valuable. And so we hold on for dear life. Until the second things might seem like they go wrong. Then we ghost, we avoid, and we run. 

Anything to keep ourselves from feeling.

That’s why Love Island USA feels so poignant. We see ourselves in the contestants. We see our pain in their struggles, our attachments in them trying to control the situation, our shame in their public humiliations. We write thinkpieces and record monologues about behaviors we have committed ourselves. When no one is watching, we are all the same scared someone.

Someone horrified that all that effort might be for nothing, that all the social alliances we built couldn’t stop unexpected change, that the performance we put on can’t save us.

Love Island USA reminds us of the someone we try to be in dating. 

Confident, attractive, intelligent, charismatic, untouchable. Perfect. But also reminds us of the realities that love doesn’t let us be those things, at least not always. You can’t be all those wonderful qualities when faced with the reality of another person.

Love is restlessly eager. Love is being gentle. Love gets jealous over others trying to get close, and love will make you do stupid things to get their attention, and you will still feel like an idiot for feeling after. Love won’t manipulate, or keep score. Love won’t laugh at your Instagram archive because it holds every record of your truth. Love is the smile when they put their head on your shoulder. 

Love has always been our desperate and messy attempt to be acknowledged and understood so we can share the best and worst parts of ourselves.

Emotion doesn’t function on the economics of attention, and the more we brace ourselves, the more alone we'll be, even in Casa Amor.