I used to look down on reality TV dating shows like Love Island. But then I realised their hidden value

Reality TV shows about finding love are everywhere. ITV’s most talked-about series, Love Island is the obvious contender, but there are plenty more vying for our hearts. Channel 4 has Married at First Sight (UK and Australia), Netflix has Love is Blind, and the BBC – not immune to the love-bug – launched its own rival called Love in the Flesh.

It’s easy to be dismissive of reality dating shows. The shows themselves can look trashy, usually feature highly pumped-up contestants who are impossibly good-looking, and the conversations... well, oh my god the conversations can be quite inane. You can also argue that the contestants have little racial or body diversity, or pick at all sorts of other social issues.

But while I generally avoid them like the plague, my partner on the other hand loves them. She voraciously consumes them, going as far as paying a subscription to ITV just to watch Love Island. Her dedication to the show is worrying to me at times.

On one level, these shows are merely short pieces of drama around flirting and sex. The contestants are put in awkward and unnatural situations to see what happens, and 90 per cent of the time, nothing does. We get the carefully-edited 10 per cent. But there is more to it. My partner made a point once that stuck with me, and made me see these shows in a whole new light:

Reality dating shows, she said, give us an honest and sometimes unmoderated way insight into dating and relationships. She remembered watching a segment on women discussing red flags with men, and thought that she would have benefited from seeing that conversation when she was younger.

Dating shows like Love Island may seem inane to some people, but perhaps those televised conversations can give us an insight into how to better approach relationships and sex. When I was growing up, we had Blind Date with Cilla Black, and that was it. A contestant asked three hopefuls of the opposite sex some weird but amusing questions, and then picked the one that sounded best without getting a look at them – a bit like an Asian arranged marriage.

Maybe it’s because I’m of South Asian origin that I find this more fascinating. Generally, Asian parents will try and stop you from talking to the opposite sex until you’re ready to get married, and then you’re supposed to figure everything out once you’re already married for life. It’s a terrible system, I can’t lie. I don’t recommend it (but I digress).

If I could have watched reality dating shows when growing up, I might have grown up with better chat-up lines. Or at least, a better understanding of “red flags”, or the understanding that my anxieties and insecurities were not uncommon. That looks aren’t everything. That everyone makes mistakes, and so on.

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Last night I watched Gemma Owen, daughter of footballer Michael Owen, flirt with “Italian stallion” Davide, who’s a lot older than she is, and it made all the other guys feel even more insecure. It was simultaneously hilarious yet insightful. Watching these guys squirm took me back to my teenage years.

Programmes like Love Island, or my favourite one – Love on the Spectrum – about autistic people trying to find love, gives us an insight into a world that feels very scary, but shouldn’t be. It sounds counter-intuitive but reality TV dating shows open up difficult conversations around sex and relationships in ways that others cannot.

As for me, well, I’ll never become a Love Island devotee. But I won’t judge the shows and people who like them anymore, either.