Love Island: Casting Older Men Would Save The Severe Lack Of Chemistry This Season

If you’ve been watching Love Island this year you’ll likely agree that the cast chemistry has been less than sparkling. Couplings start and end within a few days, never a tear shed, and even the friendships aren’t bringing the same jovial vibes they used to.

But in last night’s episode, the reason why became perfectly clear: all the men are basically babies. How could the cast possibly have great relationships – be them romantic or platonic – when all of these grown women are forced to live with men barely out of Freshers Week?

It struck me first when bombshell AJ Bunker told the other islanders that she’s 28. She’s now the sixth female contest aged 25 or over to enter the villa, meanwhile all but two of the men have been under 25.

You can see the result of said age-gap in the couplings. Rachel Finni, Kaz Kamwi, Faye Winter and Sharon Gaffka all struggled to meet someone that gives them exactly what they need in a relationship – meanwhile the youngest female Islanders, Liberty Poole, Lucinda Strafford and Millie Court, all settled into couplings immediately.

Even in those random pairings that have pushed through the noise, like Toby Aromolaran and Chloe Burrows for example, the age gap is fast becoming an issue. ‘I don’t know how to process my emotions,’ 22-year-old Toby told Chloe after a tiff over being bottom of the public vote. Later on, Chloe then admitted how frustrated she was about the entire miscommunication, telling the women: ‘The four-year age gap is starting to show.’

Last night, that became even clearer during a confrontation between Toby and Liberty, about the way he'd treated Kaz. 'I'm learning how to talk to women, I've never been in a relationship before,' he said - leaning again on the fact that he's very new to dating, as a 21-year-old man.

Why then, are producers not sending in more age-appropriate men? Yes we have Teddy Soares, 26, who is honestly the only light relief from a whole load of men who can barely string a sentence together - but knowing how much more emotionally intelligent women are forced to become at younger ages, surely a man over the age of 30 wouldn’t go amiss.

It’s not unheard of either, Marcel Sommerville was 31 when he entered Love Island in season three, as was season one’s Jordan Ring and season four’s Paul Knops. That is the oldest age men on Love Island have ever been though, and boy is it starting to show in the barely-a-speck-of-drama couplings this year.

What we’ve seen so far on Love Island is a bunch of women that are sure of themselves, not just in who they are but what they want. When they show that in their actions, the men tend to pull back – Aaron Francis, we’re looking at you in particular – all the while claiming that their ‘type on paper’ is an ‘independent, confident woman’.

Well, that’s what you’ve got lads, but you clearly don’t know how to handle them when they come. Because as soon as they do pull back, the women are done - as grown women would be – and viewers are left witnessing a two-day coupling that barely got started. We don’t blame the women of course, the older you get the better you are at spotting red flats – or incompatibilities – and thus the easier it is to cut and run when it’s clearly not going to work.

But perhaps if there were some men in the villa with more life experience, emotional intelligence and a sense of security in who they are, we wouldn’t be subject to so many fleeting, vapid relationships that can’t stand the test of mere blonde woman walking in, let alone Casa Amor.

Bring in some grown men, producers, we’re begging you – there’s only so many fart jokes and infantilising we can take before Too Hot To Handle becomes our summer reality show of choice…

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