I’ll admit, I had at least two solid summers back to back where I lived, breathed and ate Love Island.
From scrolling extra fast through Instagram to avoid spoilers to extensively discussing the most recent couplings with my best friend, I had certainly put all my eggs in the show’s basket. And that might be the case for you too, right? With shows like Love is Blind, Too Hot to Handle and Are You the One popping off left, right and centre, it seems like all of us are fascinated with reality television of the romantic category.
Hopefully I’ve gotten my audience right over Love Nest’s year-long life, because I have some good news for you simps! UBC is hosting its very own version of The Bachelorette, and literally anyone can enter.
I first saw the open cal's dating column — both satire and serious. Send topics you'd like covered toyeah I know, the rent situation is shit). I knew immediately that I wanted to write something on it.
Here we are.
To learn more, I spoke to Zoe Nicoladis, a fifth-year economics and psychology student, who’s part of UBC Bona Fide, the club hosting UBC Bachelorettes.
“[The idea] came from a lot of conversations with people about how online dating is so frustrating,” said Nicoladis. “The origin was really frustration with that whole atmosphere, but especially after COVID, it feels like that’s the only way to meet people.”
Nicoladis also cited her evolutionary psychology class with Dr. Azim Shariff as a creative influence on the inspiration for this project. We shared a laugh when I told her I’d interviewed him for a Love Nest article about fuckboy culture.
“In my class, [we talked] about how the brain is really wired for in-person connections. Especially after COVID, we should be meeting in-person, that’s what humans are supposed to do,” she shared.
“We started a club called UBC Bona Fide to create ways in which people can meet in-person. [UBC Bachelorettes] is one of those initiatives. Dating reality TV shows are so addicting because it’s so cool to see people fall in love, and we just wanted to bring that to UBC.”
When I asked Nicoladis more about how her team plans to interpret The Bachelorette’s format, she said the team has been reviewing applications and will be picking five students to be UBC’s bachelorettes.
The bachelorettes will then have five roses to give to UBC students who attend the match-making event — and you’re invited.
“Anyone can come in and go in the room and have five minutes to chat with whoever. Each bachelorette will have five roses, and they can pick five people they’d like to see again,” she said. “They’ll have to go on dates with the five people, and we’ll slowly get more narrowed down until they each find the one, hopefully.”
Nicoladis said this is the first time anything like this is happening at UBC and that the Bona Fide team hopes to host the event every term to give students more in-person opportunities to find love.
“This is a trial run, so we have low expectations,” said Nicoladis. “Hopefully it could be a long-term thing.”
Love Nest is The Ubyssey's dating column — both satire and serious. Send topic you'd like covered to s.tanwar@ubyssey.ca.