How on Earth did Married At First Sight Australia turn out to be my homesickness cure

If you would have told me four years ago Married At First Sight Australia (MAFSA) would ‘help’ me in the future I would have whacked you over the head with a festive bonbonniere.

The show, which ‘scientifically’ pairs total strangers and sends them down the aisle to get married, never having laid an eye (never mind two) on their prospective spouse, was never in my recently viewed list.

I would ‘ugh’ at the mere mention of the show when I lived in Australia, totally uninterested and a little peeved that two total strangers can get married on reality TV but same-sex marriage was still banned (luckily that is no longer the case, better very, very late than never).

While I’ll admit I found the Aussie Bachelor franchise quite entertaining, I was so turned off by MAFS for whatever reason, which would, in all likelihood, greatly intrigue a psychiatrist. People were obsessed, but it just wasn’t for me.

Then, in 2017, I relocated to the UK and… nothing changed. Still wouldn’t have touched MAFS with a barge pole.

Then coronavirus came and put a bloody great big travel ban on me heading back to Australia to see my family and friends, and banned them from leaving the country to see me. For the first time since I’d got over the initial homesickness of relocating to the other side of the world three and a half years earlier, my yearning for Australia was palpably, heartbreakingly, a little dramatically strong.

Now, I have no intention of moving back Down Under any time soon (sorry mum, sorry dad) but just being told I couldn’t pop back should I want to, or need to, is a hard pill to swallow when you can’t even go to the pub to drown your woes in a pint of Aspall’s finest, or chat about it in the park with a mate without adding burpees to the mix. It’s a turn of the knife to know that back in Australia they can do this…

By the earliest time pundits are expecting the UK and Australia to be joined as it once was, it would have been two and a half years since I last saw my parents and some of my closest friends in the flesh. Yes, I know people have lost loved ones during the pandemic, and many, many have had it so much harder than I have, but god that separation and the not knowing when I’ll be able to see loved ones again really stings.

So when MAFS season six landed on UK screens recently, I was amazed at how soothing just hearing my colleagues bang on and on about Ines and Jessika and Cam and Jules was on my rampant and unabating homesickness.

Even though, sure, I initially felt that, ‘oh god, you are NOT watching that, are you?’, for weeks now I’ve listened as work chums dissect the ‘marriages’ and relationships of the 2019 cast and even though they could be talking about people from anywhere in the world, just knowing they’re talking about my fair countrymen somehow, I don’t know how or why, has made me feel a little less like I’m 16,000km away from the motherland.

Mate, I’m as shocked by this startling revelation as you are.

I know TV programmes are made to elicit an emotional experience in viewers, it’s the point, right, but, let’s be honest, MAFS is there for the drama – and I’m under no illusion this series can be all kinds of problematic and gossip-mongering.

But deciding to do Aussie-dwelling Mel a dirty and watch the series here in the UK, I tuned in and as soon as the opening scene showed off the Sydney Harbour Bridge in all its glory I was immediately overcome with feels, like this reality show was some sort of This Is Your Life and I was the guest.

I’m getting a little misty-eyed now just thinking about it.

From the very first friendly hugs – Aussies just know how to GRAB you for a hug – of the contestants, to the nasal accents I usually baulk at (do I honestly sound like that?), Georgie Gardener’s narration and Ines’s telltale Aussie ‘I just tell it like it is, get over it you bogan’ attitude you don’t get as much in the UK (which I’m not mad about, TBH), for the hours I’ve spent bingeing the series, I’ve felt like I was home. Or at least not so far away from those who are back home.

I feel somewhat soothed now and, luckily as the series comes to an end there is a light at the end of the tunnel. For we’ll soon be cheersing in beer gardens, and as the weather heats up we’ll be firing up BBQs, laughing with mates, outside, licking poles etc – and my heartache at being so separated from those close to me won’t hurt as much as it does now.

And should we balls it up yet again and be plunged into another national lockdown, lucky for me there are two more series and a reunion where MAFSA is concerned, so I’ll know what to do.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.

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