MAFS and the fear of failure

The relentless reality TV mill has churned out another season of MAFS - and it’s the elite version, MAFS Australia (no shade to MAFS UK’s iconic Paul Brunson, ofc). Another cohort of hopefuls has been jettisoned into ‘The Experiment’, AKA: ‘marrying’ another plucky romantic before even having a chance to find out their favourite 90s girl band, u-hauling straight into living together, and signing up to weekly scrutiny from a panel of experts. It’s a timeless recipe for love.

Or, shockingly, not.

Although I’m unfortunately not investing into watching the new series, I have clocked plenty of MAFS viewing over the years. Rather than throwing a load of hot people together and seeing who clicks, the MAFS couples are ‘matched by experts’ (AKA cast by the production team) ahead of meeting. These experts stick around for the whole show, surveilling the couples and dropping in to grill them in weekly ‘commitment ceremonies’. MAFS has no casual getting-to-know-you period: the relationship is immediately described as ‘a marriage’, and participants move straight into a thrillingly anonymous block of flats - with all the other cast members, as well as their new ‘partner’. Thus forms ‘The Experiment’ bubble: a haven of 24/7 intense contact, comparison, judgement, and the odd temptation to woo someone illicit. Fun!

The intensity of the format creates massive pressure - on the contestants themselves, but particularly on their relationships. Participants are launched into a highly escalated version of a relationship, giving them an immediate sense of having something to lose (‘a marriage’), rather than the chance to gently build from the ground up. The pressure not to ‘fail’ is apparent from the outset – and it’s increased by two foundational pillars of the show:

1. The Experts

The MAFS experts bring a posture of gravitas and professionalism to proceedings, somewhat flirting with the idea this is all a worthy psychological experiment rather than full-on reality TV drama shaped by mendacious producers. Many MAFS contestants arrive with a narrative of ‘not being very good at relationships’, and with a sense of needing the experts’ help – which creates quite a power dynamic. The experts are supposed to know better than the participants, and are alleged to have picked the person that should be great for them, heaping pressure on the participants to make this expert-mandated match work. Calling time on a three-date Hinge situation is one thing, but ending a relationship chosen by professionals? As we see from the MAFS contestants, the presence of the experts heightens the fear of ‘relationship failure’ – because if you can’t make ‘the right’ relationship work, what does that say about you?

2. The other couples

With its Greek chorus of assorted new couples, MAFS injects significant peer-pressure into the relationships. The couples all want to embody the picture of happiness: a united front of colour-coordinated outfits. Alongside showboating their own relationship, they are actively encouraged to observe and judge everyone else’s (sorry, I mean ‘hold each other to account’), exacerbating the divide between the ‘successes’ and the ‘failures’. Watching other couples seemingly find happiness makes admitting to unhappiness even harder, and ending a relationship then feels like it carries extra weight.

We can often feel vulnerable when looking for love, especially with pervading narratives suggesting that lacking any romantic relationship equals failure. These feelings can intensify around ‘happy couples’, reinforcing isolation and comparison. When all our friends are in relationships, or making big life changes facilitated by those relationships, the pressure to do the same can be immense. If we’re not also moving to the suburbs and making plans to hand-rear chickens, we can feel ‘left behind’. It’s hard to be the only one not doing something, and to hold onto your sense of why you’ve chosen your own path. As MAFS shows, peer pressure can make us feel like we’re doing something wrong.

The problem with hope

Many MAFS contestants describe feeling shame around being single, and a deep desire to finally join the ranks of the ‘successful couples’ – and The Experiment promises a route to this. It provides hope. And, as any football fan will tell you: it’s the hope that kills you. Why? Because in coming to terms with the fact that things haven’t worked, that hope means it’s not just the relationship you’re letting go – it’s all the dreams you’d had, and the picture you’d built up of your future. For the MAFS participants, the inflated hope of finally finding what they’ve been looking for (whether that’s love or a multi-figure deal with Boohoo) intensifies the disappointment when it doesn’t happen. Alongside the experts’ input not working out, and their peers finding what they’d wanted, it’s easy for that disappointment to feel like failure.

What’s the alternative?

The media personality (a short-hand title for a podcaster, blogger, sex columnist and general advocate for queer lives) Dan Savage often talks about the rhetoric of failure in relationships. He highlights the strangeness of our ideas about successful and failed relationships, pointing out the absurdity of making the sole arbiter of a relationship’s success that it only ends when one party dies.This is a bizarre metric to apply to something so nuanced, life-changing and fulfilling as romantic relationships. He encourages us to look outside the limiting binary of ‘continued = success; ended = failed’. This includes his idea of ‘the camp-site rule’: what about aiming to have relationships in which we (and the other people) leave them ‘better’ than when they started? In short, he advocates for viewing relationships with recognition of the good they brought into our life, and removing stigma and shame around them ending – especially as the ending often brings more good into our lives, too.

So, back to MAFS. As we watch the class of 2026 sign themselves up to one more week living with that anti-vaxxer hanging in there ‘til partner-swap, perhaps we can spot the influential rhetoric of ‘relationship success’, and the fear of failure keeping them there. Ending relationships is tough, and can bring up all sorts of emotions - so it’s important we avoid them feeling like shameful failures on top of that. After all, to quote Carrie Bradshaw (as I do on a regular basis): ‘the most important relationship you’ll ever have is with yourself’: and prioritising yourself by leaving the hellscape of the MAFS universe sounds like a pretty big success to me.

Also – All Saints is the correct answer. Destiny’s Child also good, and ofc you can never go wrong with The Spice Girls.