The past year has been undeniably difficult for everyone. But for those who have found themselves single, the coronavirus pandemic has also near enough wiped out an entire year of dating opportunities. One person who knows this all too well is Made in Chelsea's Sophie Hermann. In fact, 2020's dating prospects were so dire the German reality star finally said yes when she was asked to take part in Celebs Go Dating. ‘I’ve been asked before, but lockdown made me do it,’ Sophie laughs, on the phone to Grazia.
This year, there’s a twist. For the first time, the celebrity clients - including Love Island’s Curtis Pritchard and Geordie Shore’s Chloe Ferry - are living together. It might have been a change from filming Made In Chelsea, but Sophie loved spending time with the eclectic group of celebs, also featuring Coronation Street actress Kimberly Hart-Simpson, ex-Strictly contestant Karim Zeroual and Gary Lineker's brother, Wayne. ‘I mean, who could imagine me and Chloe Ferry becoming besties?’ she laughs again. It was also a big change from MiC as there was no ‘cattiness’ between the women on the show: ‘There was no drama, no cattiness, no animosity, especially between the girls, which is a nice thing.'
It was during a Made In Chelsea episode (aired last year) that Sophie told her best friend Fredrik Ferrier how she has started to think about freezing her eggs. She says the response, even though the conversation was only about two minutes long, was incredible. ‘I got around 500 DMs from women in their thirties, like going through the same thing with or without their partners - whether it's about it's about just like dating in general, or during a pandemic, or the whole egg freezing topic. It felt really good - the feedback was amazing and made me feel so much more empowered to speak about this.’
Sophie, 33, has also been very open about the fact she thought she would have settled down by now. ‘I think, even though it's 2020, women in their early 30s and even in their late 20s have these milestone pressures,’ she says. ‘OK, so I want to be engaged by 28, married by 30, then have a baby.’
As the reality star says on the show, freezing her eggs is something she’s only recently started to consider - but she says she wants to get more informed about her options first. ‘I've thought about it but I haven't planned anything yet,’ she adds. ‘I mean, I grew up watching Sex in the City when I was 15 and was I like, this is such an amazing show. But would I have ever imagined myself in this situation? Absolutely not. And then you wake up in your thirties and you’re like, what the hell happened? Like, this is not how I mapped up my life to be and reality always turns out very differently. I think I live in such a fantasy world sometimes - and Disney really fucked me up with unrealistic expectations about hair or boys.’
Fairytale-esque expectations aside, dating in a pandemic must have been a little bit more challenging for Sophie - as she refuses to use dating apps. Instead, she prefers to be set up by her friends. (As we saw in the last series of MiC when she was set up with newbie model Will Higginson by best mates Gareth and Ollie Locke. But that didn't last long: ‘I can't date any man who cuts his pasta!’)
When asked what she’s found most difficult about dating this year, understandably Sophie says the lack of meeting people by chance has been hardest to deal with. ‘It's all much more pre planned and organized,’ she sighs, ‘like, how many more park dates can you go on?’
Obviously, everybody had a crap 2020 - whether they've endured park dates or not - and that’s what Sophie is trying to remember. ‘What's been a great help is having amazing friends, like Freddie and Miles [Nazaire], and Ollie and Gareth to help me through the darkness. And they always make me laugh. At least everyone has had a shit year, so we can all take some comfort in that.'
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