Finally, a Netflix dating show for us painfully awkward introverts

As someone who enjoys both a) watching people fall in love, and b) any form of entertainment that allows my overactive brain to switch off – or, even better, rot a little – dating shows are one of my fave genres. The Bachelor, Love Is Blind, Married at First Sight, The Farmer Wants a Wife, Love Triangle, Too Hot to Handle … you name it, I’ve watched at least one episode of it (and probably 167 more).

But lately I’ve grown increasingly dissatisfied with the genre, as more and more shows became less about people finding a match and more about them getting half a million followers on Instagram and/or a foot in the door of the Netflix Dating Show Cinematic Universe, which seems more viable as a career path than an actual road to romance. And while I enjoy hate-watching and drama and epic dinner-party showdowns as much as the next reality-TV fan, I also actually, genuinely want to watch people I like find love and happiness – a concept that’s alarmingly rare in a genre in which that is ostensibly the whole premise.

Enter: Better Late Than Single, a new South Korean dating show that is so compelling it’s quickly become my favourite I’ve watched in a long time. The conceit is that the contestants have never actually been in a relationship before – and not in a “party boy who only hooks up” kinda way (like most of the cast of Love Island, for instance). No, the Better Late Than Single cohort are more the “so awkward they can’t even make eye contact” variety. There’s even a term for them in Korean – motae solo, which basically translates as “single since mother’s womb” or, as Netflix more succinctly subtitles it in English, “eternally single”.

That’s right, the cast are all – and I say this with the utmost affection – massive losers. Massive, relatable losers. In other words, they’re just like us! In the first episode, one contestant says she’s single because she hates leaving the house – like, one time she didn’t go outside for a whole month and she forgot how to actually talk to people. Relatable! Another contestant reveals she just has high standards – like, if someone moves their eyebrows too much or holds their chopsticks wrong, she gets the ick. Relatable! Then there’s the guy who just wants to wear pop culture T-shirts and eat delicious food and do karaoke alone every day. Relatable!

Don’t get me wrong, the contestants are all still extremely attractive. But they are attractive normal people (I’m pretty sure they all even have their own teeth!) who – to quote every contestant of The Bachelor ever – are there “for the right reasons”. They each have their own charms, even if sometimes those charms are buried under 12 layers of awkwardness. And, unlike most reality shows where there’s a token villain (or 10), you are actually rooting for every one of them to grow and get what they want.

Part of what works so well is the format. Like other Korean dating shows, there’s a panel of hosts who, Gogglebox-like, watch each episode unfold and provide their own hilarious commentary and reactions. But Better Late Than Single takes that one step further and has each of the hosts — comedian Lee Eun-ji, actor and singer Seo In-guk, actress Kang Han-na and the improbably named singer Car, the Garden –act as “cupids” for the cast members, so they each have their own “team” that they know and want to succeed.

It’s all extremely wholesome. I know, I know – you’re asking, “But what about the drama? The tension?! The love triangles?!?” Well, I can assure you that all of that is there, and then some. You see, the thing about awkward, inexperienced people is that they tend to say and do the wrong things, and the thing about saying and doing the wrong things is that, well, it can really hurt and offend others. Even when their intentions are good, these eternal singles make mistakes all over the place. At times, the second-hand embarrassment of watching them interact is downright excruciating – even worse when they’re not interacting (at one point, one of the men literally hides in the bushes). But it never stops being endearing and, yes, very relatable.

In fact, it’s the cast members who don’t find love (and that’s not a spoiler – a dating show is a dating show, after all) whose journeys turn out to be the most satisfying to watch. There’s a lot of personal growth, and real friendships develop. And also, thankfully, there is love – or as much love as can develop within 10 days between people who have never even kissed another person before.

Which is to say, if [redacted] don’t end up married, I’ll personally be heartbroken forever. And I need a reunion show, six more seasons, and at least three spin-offs of Better Late Than Single, stat.

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