Oh, how I’d love to be a fly-on-the-wall at Netflix HQ. More specifically, I’d like to be in the room where producers think up new concepts for its maddening dating multiverse, which, in the past five years, has pumped out dozens of formulaic social experiments featuring conventionally hot people all disenchanted with the modern dating landscape. There’s been Love Is Blind — where singles date through a wall and get engaged sight unseen — its horny sibling Too Hot To Handle, Ultimatum: Marry or Move On (about couples who definitely shouldn’t be together), and the all-star series Perfect Match, a repurposing of multiverse alumni to date, again and again.
“Whatever next?” I hear you ask. Well, Netflix’s latest riff on the theme is Age of Attraction, where singles aged between 20 and 60 date without knowing each other’s ages. There’s just one rule: no asking about age. Instead, contestants must piece things together through cultural slip-ups and missing references — whether that’s blank stares at The Hunger Games, confusion over The Powerpuff Girls, or an inability to place a Taylor Swift song.
Everything seems wholesome at first – a group ranging from young blondes to midlife moms and Botoxed silver foxes arrive at a serene lakeside retreat in Whistler, Canada, where they speed-date over campside chats, watersports and wine tastings. When a match is made, the new couple enters the “promise room” to exchange commitment rings and finally reveal their ages. Then the usual Netflix dating show formula kicks in: chaos ensues as the couples are whisked away via seaplane to a mid-budget hotel to see if their relationship can survive cohabitation. Bachelor star Nick Viall, 45, and his wife Natalie Joy, 26 – the answer to Love is Blind’s married couple host Vanessa and Nick Lachey – are wheeled in every few episodes to insist that age is just a number.
Age, surprise surprise, turns out to be a bit more than that. Mommy and daddy issues are always the elephant in the room here, but rarely interrogated. The younger women lament the “immature” men in their own generation and seek out someone older with financial stability, while the older men — most of them with children from previous relationships — definitely signed up to this show with the sole intention of securing a 20-something girlfriend.
The issue is finally addressed when Erin, a more mature participant, asks younger singleton Tristan, who is tactlessly trying to pursue her, if he has unexplored attachment issues with his mother. He denies it, but immediately undermines his defence by revealing his personal dating rule: “If you’re not as hot as my mom, then I’m not going to marry you.” Erin later tells the camera that being in a relationship with Tristan would be like “dating my 21-year-old nephew.” Oedipus would have a field day with this lot.
On some level, the show does pose real moral questions. Like, what happens when your girlfriend is only eight years older than your 14-year-old daughter? Or how do you react when the person you’re falling for turns out to be the same age as your dad? There are particularly uncomfortable scenes when 54-year-old Theresa introduces her beau, John — her 27-year-old Prince Harry lookalike boyfriend — to her adult children (her eldest is 28) but refuses to tell them about his real age. At one point, John ponders the prospect of co-parenting Theresa’s children who are his own generation. “They’re her kids, they’re not my kids,” he pauses. “Eventually they’re our kids, I don’t know?”
Whatever your views on age-gap relationships, Age of Attraction can, at its best, voyeuristically expose societal taboos, probe debate about Lolita-style power dynamics in consenting adult relationships, and explore sexual desire. At its worst, it’s repetitive reality TV engineered to ragebait viewers on one of modern romance’s most polarizing debates.
What I found most infuriating about this programme is a problem that continues to plague Netflix’s dating catalogue. These “social experiments” claim to remove the superficial side of modern dating – such as being judged solely on your looks or your age – but that concept is made largely redundant when the cast all conform to mainstream standards of beauty. In Age of Attraction, the participants’ ages might span across 30 years, but if you really squint, there’s not much telling them apart: Botox and filler have become the great equalizers of our society.
Age of Attraction will enrage those who morally oppose age gap relationships. It will also, I imagine, feel reassuring for those who are in them. For the rest of us, my tip: grab a notebook and try to guess the contestants’ ages as the show unfolds. Be prepared to be shocked.
