Watching Love Island year after year, it’s safe to say our shock factors for men being shitty is at an all-time high. We’ve seen countless gaslighting, love-bombing, possessiveness, all in between Casa Amor betrayals that left us so scarred we barely trust men in our own lives anymore (Michael Griffith’s, we’re looking at you).
But last night, the impossible happened: we were actually shocked at how badly the men behaved.
It started off okay. Yes, the men seemed far too excited to be meeting new arrivals, but Jake Cornish was surprisingly clear with the Casa Amor women that he has a girlfriend back at the villa, Liam Reardon put his foot down that he was ‘very happy’ with Millie Court and Teddy Soares admitted it would take ‘a lot’ to be swayed away from Faye Winter.
So what changed? Well, the peer pressure started. ‘You have to give people a chance and get to know them though,’ was the first line brought out as the men discussed whether or not they’d break their girls hearts. Slowly, the cracks began to show as they all agreed it was only fair to ‘test’ their relationships by you know, trying to cheat.
Then, in a conversation about bed-sharing, what began as some men choosing to sleep outside to respect their partner (notably, revealing their thought process slowly as the other men reacted to their decision) quickly turned into a locker room chat where each men threw out a knew excuse as to why they could in fact share a bed with a new woman.
It might’ve felt harmless, but it was classic ‘lad banter’ before our very eyes, the kind that goes from a cheeky joke to excusing cheating in an instant. And that’s what happened, right? All of the men – except Jake – went on to kiss a number of Casa Amor women in a game of truth or dare while their partners sat in the villa across the street from them playing a PG game of ‘Never Have I Ever’.
Okay, so cheating might be strong – only one of them is in a relationship. But there’s no denying that all of the men – again, except Jake (we’re shocked too) – completely disregarded their partners feelings in aid of a game they did not have to partake in at all. ‘Faye would want be to get involved in the game,’ Teddy joked after kissing about 8000 women, laughing knowing how absolutely wrong he was. Liam’s reaction was all but identical, giggling as he pretended he just HAD to kiss the ‘islander he fancied most’.
But that’s the problem isn’t it, all of the men laughed off their indiscretions as if it’s all just a bit of fun – meanwhile, Faye and Millie are having a conversation about how much they miss their partners and how much they think they can trust them. It wasn’t just heart-breaking, it was genuinely hard to watch.
Why did they laugh it off? Because of that very locker room lad banter culture that had been set as soon as they began joking about sharing beds. Usually on Love Island, at least one or two of the men will be respectful. They’ll sleep outside, no questions asked, and while they might not hold each other accountable for cheating, they’ll at least spark conversations about whether it’s right or wrong, what it means about their partner at ‘home’ and how she’d feel about it.
This year, that all went out the window. ‘Nice guy’ Hugo Hammond was nowhere to be found, instead making the same ‘lad banter’ the rest were – just days after telling Toby Aromolaran his behaviour towards Chloe Burrows was unacceptable. The laidback Teddy we’ve come to love for his admiration of Faye lasted about two seconds before he too reneged on his apparent feelings for her, and Liam – who has spent the last three weeks cuddling lovingly with his ‘Millie Moo’ – was so quick to snog his favourite Islander we got whiplash watching him stand up.
At what age do we stop letting men off for succumbing to peer pressure?
It’s not as simple as ‘out of sight out of mind’ mentality, because every year we see (some of) the men actually miss their partners. So what is it? Is this just the first time we’ve truly got to witness what lad’s holidays are really like?
‘In my early 20s, lads holidays were exactly like the men on Love Island,’ one self-confessed former f*ckboy, aged 27, told me. ‘You wouldn’t get laughed at for not cheating, but it was certainly egged on and seen as funny. We were a lot younger, dumber and thought with our penis’ then but in my friendship group now there isn’t really that much peer pressure – it just depends on the guys.’
Okay, so maybe it’s an age thing, after all we have had a lot to say about the need to cast older men. But doesn’t that make Teddy and Hugo’s behaviour all the more concerning? With Teddy 26 and Hugo 24, you would hope they had grown out of their male fragility enough to actually account for their female friends and partners feelings. Tyler Cruickshank is also 26, but given he’s only just coupled up with Kaz Kamwi we can slightly side-eye him less.
Either way though, all of the men on Love Island are grown adults - succumbing to peer pressure, lad banter and toxic masculinity this easily is not only concerning, it's embarrassing.
All this is to say, we need more actual nice guys on Love Island. We need the men speaking sense to their friends about how they’re emotionally gutting their partner, the men having actual conversations about their feelings and what they mean, we need what Hugo Hammond promised he’d be before lad banter took what was left of his personality.
Read More:
Love Island: We Need To Talk About Chloe And Hugo’s Code-Switching
Love Island: These Videos Are Exactly Why Millie And Liam Are Becoming Fast Favourites