Last night on Love Island, viewers bore witness to Toby Aromolaran’s fourth attempt to ‘learn’ about women in an extremely awkward confrontation with Chloe Burrows. After a week of hilariously-memed ‘chats’ with Kaz Kamwi - where he admitted he has no idea ‘how to talk to women’ - he put his foot in it again after failing to reassure Chloe when new bombshell Abigail Rawling made a move on him.
As has become typical with Toby, his age – or should we say, immaturity - became the centre of the conversation. This time though, it wasn’t him using it to excuse his behaviour, it was Chloe – which Toby ironically didn’t seem to like at all. It’s one thing for him to blame his age when hurting someone, but have it be used against him? Absolutely not.
The thing is, Toby has admitted time and time again that he has no idea how to treat women in relationships. Most notably, he told Liberty Poole earlier this week that he struggles to account for his partner's emotions as well as his own.
‘I’m learning, I’ve never been in a relationship, I don’t know what to do,’ Toby explained. ‘I don’t how to talk to girls past that stage where I’m looking at your emotions and looking at my emotions, I’m just trying to be 100% honest at the same time.
‘This villa is a mad experience for me,’ he continued in the diary room afterwards. ‘I’m learning things that I wouldn’t even dream of learning or knowing about myself. It’s just a shame that the mistakes I’m making are leading to someone being hurt, that hurts me inside.’
Viewers have fast become tired with him using age as an excuse though, and it’s likely what cemented his place in the bottom three ‘favourite male islanders’ last night. Because, Toby isn’t the school-age boy whose persona he seems to have embodied. In fact, he’s a 22-year-old man. That’s one year older than Liam Reardon by the way, who has managed to settle into a fan-favoured relationship with Millie Court without upsetting any women at all.
Now, with Toby causing harm to these women – intentionally or not – he is quickly developing a bad boy reputation, despite all his best efforts to ‘learn’. What strikes me then about all of this, is whether or not he should actually have been cast on Love Island in the first place.
He might be a 22-year-old man, but the fact remains that his emotional maturity levels are behind what some may consider typical for his age. That’s not to attack him, since everyone develops at their own pace, but merely an observation based on his own admissions of being clueless about dealing with other people’s emotions.
To watch someone ‘learn’ how to talk to women on national television then, particularly a show renowned for brutal trolling, feels almost like he’s being set him up to fail. Because not only is Toby bound to make all those cringe-worthy ‘first relationship’ mistakes we all did way back when, he’s also incredibly sensitive to what people think about him.
We saw it first when he and Chloe were voted one of the least favourite couples, the basis of their first argument when Chloe couldn’t work out why he would take that so personally. She’s 25, old enough to have become secure in herself and what she wants, likely having grown to understand other people’s opinions are not the sum of yourself or your life. Toby though, doesn’t seem to have got there yet.
In one extremely-memed episode, Toby demonstrated this yet again when he attempted to pull Kaz for a series of chats about the way he handled their ‘break-up’. When Kaz was upset and needed space, he was so caught up in how guilty HE felt for hurting her and what she thought of him, he spent the entire day attempting to convince her to talk to him. It was clear from his need for pep-talks from the older, more mature Aaron Francis, he was extremely nervous about Kaz – or anyone for that matter – thinking badly of him.
What’s concerning about all of this is how Toby will process the negative attention he’s getting on the outside world. Much of it may be memes, and many viewers may not care beyond the odd tweet about how he’s harming Kaz and Chloe, but we know for a fact there will also be countless trolls taking the Love Island commentary beyond a frivolous tweet about an awkward conversation. He will absolutely be receiving abuse for months to come, so how well will he handle that when he can barely cope with one woman being upset with him?
Even the tweets that are largely meant for entertaining others - the running commentary that sees apt takes on why he is the way he is - when those become a chorus of voices largely projecting negative sentiment towards Toby, he’s bound to find that difficult.
Casting sensitive men with no experience of dating is a slippery slope on a show this renowned for trolling.
This isn’t to say that people aren’t allowed to comment on the show or his actions, but it is to ask whether or not someone as inexperienced as Toby is right for a show like Love Island. Most of us would not want our first experiences with dating on national television, nor our cringe-worthy mistakes broadcast to millions. So when you add in the fact that he’s clearly very conscious of other people’s opinions, it begs the question whether Toby was ever right for this show.
Producers, of course, weren’t to know the depth of Toby’s emotional maturity when casting him – not without seeing how he interacts with women in real time, as we have now - so it’s likely he came across as a fun-loving, attractive and easy-breezy castmate.
But in future, it’s worth noting that casting sensitive men with no experience of dating is a slippery slope on a show as ruthless as Love Island – he might be providing entertainment, but will he be entertained when he leaves the villa a villain merely for being somewhat romantically underdeveloped? Aftercare team, it’s all on you now.
Read More:
Love Island: We Could All Learn A Lot From The Way Toby Treated Kaz Compared To Chloe
Love Island: Casting Older Men Would Save The Severe Lack Of Chemistry This Season