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  1. Culture
28 February 2013

What does “The Year of Making Love” teach us about relationships?

Answer: probably nothing. But there's a deeper point - is going on telly what it takes to find love these days?

By Bim Adewunmi

Will brought a rose. Kay looked suitably impressed. “Do I fancy him?” she asked the camera. “Maybe. I don’t know his personality yet, so that’s a big thing. I’m looking forward to finding out what he’s like.” Will was a little more forthright in his assessment. “I wouldn’t say I fancied her yet,” he told the camera with what a tabloid reporter might describe as a ‘cheeky smile’. “One thing that’s clouding my judgement at the moment is that I’ve seen another girl sitting quite close to our table that I do find attractive and is probably more my normal type…” Then I watched Rogan and Natalie go on a first date before “sharing a bed” (demure choice of words the voiceover lady’s, not mine). Next morning, Natalie divulged no information; Rogan smiled demurely at the camera. And then Andy went with Kirsty to Amsterdam, his plan being to “ask her out when we get there.” Months – or twenty-something minutes later – Newquay sunset in the background, Andy leaned in and told Kirsty: “I’m in love with you. You’re absolutely an amazing girl.” They kissed in the surf and the programme-makers played a gentle neo-folk song over the moment. 

I have been watching The Year of Making Love on BBC Three for the last few weeks, and I am exhausted. It’s basically a social experiment, something they’ve called “Britain’s biggest blind date”, in which three experts have used “scientifically robust” compatibility tests to match up hundreds of couples. Their cameras will follow the pairings for a year, to see if scientific matchmaking can yield love. “Millions of people are single because they’re hooked on this crazy idea that there’s just one perfect person out there,” says Thomas the profiler. “The reality is that we have several potential good matches.”Over the course of the six episodes, we see just a few of these unions (if not the ‘science’ that matched them in the first place) and not all of them are good.

The overwhelming take-home from watching other people actively seeking and then pursuing love is “gosh, that looks like a lot of work”. There was snogging, there were awkward chats, a lot of booze. And there were a whole series of baffling (to my clearly under-achieving eyes) dates set up: one woman set up her date at the gym, where the fledgling couple took a lesson in Muy Thai boxing. One told her date to prepare material for a short set at an open mic comedy night. Another couple went sky-diving. I sat watching at home, wrapped  in a blanket, agog. Whatever happened to a nice cup of tea and a sit down? Never have I been more bewildered by the mating habits of Britain’s young. Is this what it takes to find love nowadays? Well, buy me a cat and a lifetime prescription for animal allergy tablets, because spinsterhood looms large and I never saw a stereotype I couldn’t smash. The question is: will no one think of the lazy-in-love?

It’s a question I have been asking more and more recently, for whatever reason. There’s been a glut of long form essays on relationships: deep ruminations on whether love is supposed to fade, or if we are killing romance, or if dating is not a recipe for love but the fleeting joy of “hook-up culture” (these articles always have something made up and buzzy in them). Did our parents and grandparents worry like this? Is love really this complex? Comedian and actor Aziz Ansari gave an insightful interview to the AV Club last week, in which he talks about modern love in relation to modern manners and technology and laments the tyranny of choice. One bit stood out for me: 

I read this one guy’s texts where he texted a girl once and then texted again an hour later, after she didn’t respond. There were audible gasps in the audience when I read that.

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Communication was a big thing in The Year of Making Love . There were men who said they would call and never did. Women who sent text messages that went unanswered. One memorable standing up; her to camera at the last minute: “I don’t think I can put myself through it.” Him to camera, outside the restaurant: “I’m not hurt, [I’m] pissed.”Many iterations of the sentiment behind the statement: “I don’t know if he/she is really into me”. People who promised themselves (again, on camera) they weren’t going to do something and then doing exactly that. So many feelings! All on display for our viewing pleasure. It was excruciating to watch: have you ever really watched two people kiss? What a ridiculous idea it is. It’s the most awkward thing in the entire world, and never more so than when practiced by young, sometimes lightly intoxicated people who barely know one another. Falling in love is hard – who knew? 

By the end of episode one, Natalie had “shared a bed” with Rogan again, and hadn’t heard back. “That gives me all the answers I need, really,” she told the camera. Between a shaky breath and blinking back tears, she added: “For the sake of my sanity, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to continue being involved in this.” Meanwhile Will and Kay, the first couple to be matched on the day, were also the first couple to drop out (the tyranny of choice strikes again – I had been right to judge him harshly!). Beyond all the flirting, and the bravado, and the snappy dialogue, when things fell apart, they all looked so young. They all looked so broken. And so I remembered the untouchable Annie Hall: relationships are “totally irrational and crazy and absurd. But uh, I guess we keep going through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs.”

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