Why your ‘love language’ matters, and other lessons from this season of MAFS

As its 10th season finally, finally wraps up, Married at First Sight was marginally less likely than usual to induce anyone to stab their own eyes out while simultaneously marvelling at the producers’ Machiavellian mastery of reality TV. So there will be some of you out there still able to read on about this season’s key learnings on modern love.

The thing the juggernaut does brilliantly is create and manipulate relationships which have enough glimpses of what we all go through “outside the experiment” to keep us hooked. I’ve tried many times to give up watching, but I always get reeled back in. And not just by the confected storylines and unintentional comedy (Harrison: “You’ve violated my boundaries”) but by seeing patterns which hit home, including emotional bids and careless boozing when things are tense or boring.

Of course, you have to suspend disbelief, with MAFS’ premise being this crew of young, good-looking, ambitious people has zero chance of finding love unless matched with a random by someone whose mission is to deliver drama, not happy-ever-afters. Most notable this time was model Evelyn, who has kept company with Justin Bieber. Yeah, that Queensland tradie husband was going to tick her boxes.

Anyway, here’s your own cheat sheet for next time you marry someone to boost your social followers. This year’s overarching theme: Victim! Play one all the time and you’ll be sweet.

We’ll start with the trivial, and no, we’re not at the tepee charcuterie platter stage yet. Let’s talk fashion, specifically the men’s gear. The brides got around in their traditional mix of athleisure wear for daytime, off-duty ice dancer for evening, leaving it to the fellas to teach us your clothes may be your dating problem, not your conversation.

The lesson: nobody can take you seriously if you flounce off post-fight at a couples’ retreat while wearing a longline oatmeal cardie and jeggings. And you’re asking for trouble sporting white, torn jeans anywhere, let alone a showdown where you’re called a “gaslighting narcissistic dickhead”.

Most of all, no man should wear a turtleneck and sports jacket at night unless they’re Sean Connery and it’s 1967. There was a rash of turtles, as if a street grifter handed them out en masse: “Promise, you’ll look cool. David Beckham’s doing it.”

MAFS also taught us about the newish thing of love languages. For the uninitiated, the concept of five love languages was created by a couples’ counsellor and is a global craze, with personality test site Truity claiming over one million people took its love language quiz this month.