Something unspeakable happened on Love Island over the last few days. On the off chance you missed it; I hate to be the one to bring this to your attention; but GIRL CODE was broken.
I know. Call Beyonce, rally Gloria Steinem; the sisterhood is at stake.
Here’s what went down…
Rebecca re-coupled with Luke T even though she knew Siânesse – her dear friend of approximately 42minutes – liked him.
Truly shambolic behaviour. It’s almost as if she thinks the entire premise of this show is to couple up with someone she fancies…
Siânesse was so visibly incensed by this action, you would be forgiven for thinking someone had just pronounced her name wrong. So she pulled Rebecca for a telling off chat, during which the sacred words were uttered: “You’re just not a girl’s girl.”
I’m not sure if any of you were placing bets, but on the off chance you gambled on ‘girl code’ being invoked within the first two weeks, you’d be in the money.
Girl code – or its male equivalent – and the breaking thereof, is a brilliant weapon to have in your arsenal on Love Island. After all ‘you picked someone I like and I’m annoyed I have to share a bed with Nas’ doesn’t have the same accusatory sting to it, does it?
Let’s get this out of the way – Rebecca is not winning any popularity contests any time soon, and I’m certain the entire British public trusts her about as much as a bus promising extra money for the NHS after Brexit, but technically speaking Rebecca has done nothing wrong.
“There’s no loyalty there,” cried Siânesse. But is there ever any room for loyalty in the Love Island villa? Can you make friends and find love; or does the ruthlessness and fundamental bizarreness of the set-up on this show, make that impossible?
“I haven’t come in here to find a friendship,” was Rebecca’s defence- gaining brownie points for swotting up on the show’s concept; “I’ve come here to find love.”
And, as they say in Love Island parlance, you can’t find love without ‘stepping on a few toes.’
Yet I can’t help thinking that girl code, boy code – whatever you want to call it – is just a smokescreen for ‘step away from the person I’m interested in’ which is, of course, as self-motivated as the alternative.
So, really, we’re between a rock and a hard place here. The course of true love never did run smooth….TOES WILL GET STEPPED ON.
Of course, this happened with Connaugh, Connor and Sophie. As it did with the twins, Shaughna and Leanne and their ‘stolen’ men. These situations repeat for any of these couples who have been, let’s not forget, artificially thrust together for a reality show.
Love Island is often praised – and rightly so – for the fascinating and unrelenting microscope it puts our modern (albeit so far rigidly heterosexual) relationships under. We love seeing love blossom, crack and strain. But we can’t forget that it’s a manufactured circumstance – everyone is in here to play a game, not be on a jolly with their mates in Cape Town. Only when people like Rebecca play by the actual rules of this game, do we get a rude awakening.
What Rebecca hasn’t done, of course, is play by the rules of decency. Siânesse’s feelings were hurt – twice – by her, and she threatened to cause just as much emotional carnage to Shaughna and Paige, before she (briefly) settled on Connaugh. This is what Siânesse was crudely referring to when she mentioned being a girl’s girl. Yet what would have been less grating to hear – would have been a comment on consideration and kindness in general, and not these misplaced notions of gendered loyalty in a televised dating competition.
So, just as Love Island has given us a whole new vocabulary; perhaps we, and the islanders, need to consider that it presents entirely new rules of dating behaviour too – for guys as well as girls.
Decency doesn’t need to be gendered, placed in binary camps of girl and boy codes, but nor does relentlessly pursuing love mean you can’t apologise for all the toes you step on along the way. At least hand out some Compeed while you do.
