The Popularity Contests of "Love Island"

Most romantic reality TV would have us believe that dating is about getting married, or simply being chosen. In romance, Tolstoy's aphorism about the family is reversed. All unhappy couples are alike, and all happy couples are happy in their own way. Happiness in a couple is a private and fathomless world, a far cry from the mere shared sensibility of the happy family; we can only make fun of the impish, impenetrable languages of other couples, which exclude us. Yet we all know what it is to be unhappy in love.