The Way The Love Island Girls Treat Amber Now She’s The Only Single Friend Is Painfully Relatable

If there was ever a more confusing narrative to watch on Love Island, it was last night when we saw the female islanders pushing Amber Gill towards Michael Griffith’s after he dumped her, publicly humiliated her and generally spoke to her despicably.

It’s confusing to watch, given how strong the female friendships have been this season, and how little shit they seem to take from their male partners. It begs the question, why are the female islanders so desperate for Amber to settle? Because it’s not just Michael they’ve pushed her towards - they did it when Chris walked into the villa and Anna sat detailing all of the reasons he’d be great for her despite Amber - despite her obvious lack of interest in him.

Then, in last night’s episode, Anna, Maura and Molly-Mae all sent Amber off to meet the new bombshell Greg with so much excitement you’d think they were sending her down the aisle. Of course, we could put it all down to them desperately wanting her to find love, but when you consider how happy they are to settle for less than she deserves, or instantly go for someone they know nothing about, it starts to feel like more than that.

And in fact, for anyone who's ever been the only single woman in their friendship group, it might feel eerily familiar. ‘Oh, Mike’s friend would be great for you,’ your friends say, as part of their weird obsession with finding you a boyfriend too, ‘he lives in his mums shed and makes tie-dye t-shirts for a living but they’re honestly so chic!’

‘You can’t expect him to have everything’ they remind you after every bad date, ‘so he said that feminism is a conspiracy against men, some guys just need a little fixing up!’. It can become exhausting, and often, downright insulting. Because, you soon realise that it’s not your welfare they care about but their own. For the female Islanders, Amber being single is inconvenient now that they’re all coupled up. They’ve gone through the ups and downs of finding someone, and now that they’re loved up and happy, to go through the same things with Amber is, most likely, boring for them.

Just as when your friends all become single and convince you that dumping your partner is a necessity before a girls holiday, when they all couple up and settle down, it suddenly becomes apparent that if you don’t follow the status quo, you’re on your own. For Amber, this has become clear not just in the way the girls are convincing her to settle for less than she deserves, but also how they refuse to hold Michael accountable for the way he treats her.

And where the girls are failing, this is yet another reason everyone is obsessed with Ovie who has seemingly swooped in where the girls are failing Amber, comforting her and holding Michael accountable.

Honestly, the female friendships on this show have been amazing so far, and the way they’re currently crumbling is disappointing to watch. Not just because of how much we loved them all, but also because it’s so relevant to so many different friendship dynamics that we all go through over the course of our lives. Someone needs to remind Amber not to settle just because her single status is inconvenient to her friends (and also that Ovie is literally her dream man... just saying).

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