Last night, Liberty Poole finally called it quits with Jake Cornish after a season of viewers doubting his intentions towards her. In multiple heart-breaking scenes, the 21-year-old confronted Jake about his constant comments on her appearance, behaviour and ‘messiness’.
‘I feel like recently there’s been a change in energy, and I feel like I can’t do nothing right,’ Liberty explained to Jake. ‘I am messy, I am learning not to be messy but that’s just me. I do wear big heels, I do wear big eyelashes, I do like red lipstick and I feel like I can’t do nothing or say anything right.’
While Jake protested that he’d never explicitly told Liberty to ‘change’, it was clear from her comments that he’d been picking apart small things that she does for a while. After attempting to frame it as ‘banter’, Liberty went on to challenge him – noting that she can tell the different between a joke and nit-picking.
‘Certain things I can tell the difference in energy,’ she explained. ‘Certain things aren’t banter, I don’t pick things or say “You’ve got long nose hair” or whatever, because I just love you for you and exactly who you are.
‘You’ve got to love me for who I am or I’m just not the girl for you and I’m happy to give you this [bracelet] back and hope that you find the girl that wears blazer dresses and heels and that’s tidy. I’m happy to do that, because if there’s things you don’t like about me I’m just not the girl for you.’
It was a confusing conversation for viewers, mostly because none of Jake’s comments about the way Liberty dresses or behaves have been aired. Even other Islanders accused her of ‘taking things to heart’, with some Love Island fans claiming that she’s being ‘insecure’.
But actually, Liberty is not being insecure at all – this is exactly what happens when you fall foul to negging.
In case you’ve never heard the term, negging is described as ‘an act of emotional manipulation whereby a person makes a deliberate backhanded compliment or otherwise flirtatious remark to another person to undermine their confidence and increase their need of the manipulator's approval.’
The term was coined and prescribed by pickup artists who used the form of abuse to manipulate women into bed – one of many haunting exercises by pickup artists that has widely contributed to rape culture - but in recent years ‘negging’ has become a popular term across dating culture in general.
Negging is used to describe comments or jokes that might seem harmless, but are actually attempts to change someones behaviour.
It is often used to describe jokes or passing comments that might seem harmless on the outside, but are actually implicit attempts to change another person’s behaviour. For example, your partner making continuous jokes about not liking your sense of style so as to encourage you to change – in turn, allowing you to base your opinion on yourself on their standards, thus relying on them for validation and forming a dependent bond.
Now, it may not have been Jake’s intention to neg Liberty when commenting on the way she dresses - but her reaction is certainly evidence of what happens when someone does. The fact that she clearly felt so much pressure to change, as though she was letting him down, to the point she was reduced to tears and concerned he doesn’t really like her - it’s all what happens when someone slowly tears down your confidence and turns your own perceptions of beauty into theirs.
Liberty is not being insecure then, but rather recognising that all of these small comments add up to a larger pattern of manipulation. In fact, for 21-years-old, she’s demonstrated incredible emotional intelligence by being able to spot the ‘shifts in energy’ and walk away from the relationship now, versus falling foul to the negging completely and becoming dependent on Jake for approval.
What all this goes to show is just how much manipulation can easily go unnoticed on Love Island, with viewers only seeing a snapshot of their lives in the villa. Without Liberty noting the particular ways Jake has made her feel less than beautiful, we would still be unaware that her confidence was slowly being picked at.
Ultimately, it’s why viewers were so happy to see Liberty end things with Jake last night – we can only hope she stays true to that commitment in tonight’s episode… but that may just mean Liberty leaving the villa altogether.
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The Way Love Island's Jake Laughs And Acts Exasperated By Liberty Is A Sinister Form Of Gaslighting