On last night’s episode of Love Island, Mike Boateng decided that after a brief flirtation with twin Jessica Gale, he actually had feelings for Leanne Amaning – much to Gale’s shock. While his decision was celebrated by fans, many are remaining optimistically cautious about Boateng. Because if Love Island has proven anything, it’s that you can’t put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to stanning a male contestant.
It seems that the memory of Love Island 2019 is still seared into our memories. (Well, it was only five months ago.... ) That was when we all fell in love with Michael Griffiths as he encouraged Amber Gill to let her guard down – only to cast her aside for Joanna Chimonides and leave us all distraught.
Now, we’re not saying Boateng is a carbon copy of his 2019 namesake, but the flags are possibly there. The afternoon after the twins arrived, at which he commented ‘twice is nice’ and chose to kiss one of them in a challenge, he told Amaning he wants to be the guy to open her up.
‘I have come here to find love, to find that someone and my initial thoughts of you is that you could be that someone,’ Boateng said to her. Then that very evening he was picked to couple up with Jess Gale and spent the night cuddling her in bed.
Of course, we can’t start overly-judging Boateng on the back of his first few days in the villa – but that doesn’t mean we’re not remaining cautious of him and indeed ALL the men. Because it’s not just Griffiths that gave us trust issues with the Love Island boys – it’s been a common theme every season that certain men will sell a dream about themselves, or what they want, only to let his partner, and therefore the rest of us, down.
Danny Williams came into the villa in 2019 as Yewande Biala’s long-awaited Prince Charming, only to gaslight her as soon as Arabella Chi strutted into the villa. While in 2018, Alex George came in as the resident nice guy only to quickly become a byword for toxic masculinity and what the New Statesman described as ‘an incel icon’. The previous year, Jonny Mitchell seemed to be Camilla Thurlow’s perfect man until he came out with the infamous line, ‘I feel like feminism believes in inequality’, leaving her in tears at the lost dream.
Of course, we’ve also had our fair share of redeemable men. Last year, Ovie Soko very quickly balanced the scales of Griffiths toxicity, while in 2017, Kem Cetinay and Chris Hughes never broke our hearts – and, actually, that same year, Jamie Jewitt turned out to be Thurlow’s real true love (they’re still together now).
So, with that in mind we’ll keep our fingers crossed for Boating – but you can’t blame us for holding our breath.
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