On Thursday night’s episode of Married at First Sight, the youngest participant of the season, 26-year-old Davina, decided to “flirt” with someone else’s husband at the first official dinner party.
In attendance were 11 couples.
Historically, it’s been a particularly explosive moment in the series, because couples compare their own chemistry with everyone else’s.
Sometimes, couples separate immediately and begin bad-mouthing each other to new friends. But very rarely does someone decide to try and pick up someone else’s (experimental) husband, while sitting beside their own.
Last night, Davina did both. She joked she couldn’t stand her experimental husband, Ryan, from the moment he opened his mouth. She confided that they were like two good friends because they have sex whenever they get drunk enough. She made lewd remarks regarding their sex life, and shared with anyone who would listen that all they did was fight “like cats and dogs”.
LISTEN: Clare and Jessie Stephens discuss last night’s episode of Married at First Sight. Post continues below.
The experts rightly commented that Davina’s behaviour was a prime example of how to never behave at a dinner party.
But then, things got much worse.
She developed a crush on Tracey’s experimental husband, Dean. She gave him the nickname ‘Deano’. She winked at him, and admired his large hands, before leaning across the table to touch them. She then announced she had a new crush to fellow participant Carly who said, “You can’t say shit like that”.
That, however, didn’t stop Davina.
Of course, we know this is reality television, and it’s cut to look dramatic and controversial. But for anyone who has been subject to the behaviour of someone a lot like Davina, the scene was particularly confronting.
It reminded me of the time I had been seeing a guy named Jordan for about a month, and he invited me to the pub with a few of his friends.
At the time, I was smitten. He was funny and extremely charismatic. The kind of charismatic you should always be wary of.
So off I went to the pub on a Saturday night, and his friends seemed nice. I was the only girl so I decided I’d invite my friend, Sara, who lived around the corner. She was newly single and I was surrounded by 10 available men.
I was very much trying to help, because I knew she was lonely.
An hour later she showed up. It turned out she actually knew the guy I was dating from years ago, so they began to catch up, and I spoke to some of the other guys that were there.
Nothing about the situation bothered me in the slightest.
But then came the nickname.
"Jordy!" she began to affectionately refer to him. Still, I dismissed the signs.
Another alarm bell went off when she started laughing a little too hard at his jokes, coupled with a touch on the arm.
"We will laugh about this later," I thought to myself. "Surely Jordan can see straight through this..."
She didn't seem interested in speaking to anyone else at the table, and was asking Jordan incredibly deep questions about what he really wanted to do with his life, and if he was really happy.
She'd never asked me any questions like that.
As the night began to wind down I was pretty keen to go home, but one of the guys, Matthew, suggested we all go back to his house. Jordan and Sara were interested so I shrugged my shoulders and off we went.
As we walked to his house, Jordan held my hand and told me how much he liked me. The whole thing had become very intense, very quickly. I dismissed all the bizarre behaviour at the pub.
That was a mistake.
When we got to Matthew's house, I realised it was just the four of us. "Ooh," I thought. "Sara must actually be interested in Matthew!"
She asked to borrow some tracksuit pants, and got changed in front of all of us. This was textbook flirting.
Bizarrely, she then started to dance, and do strange stretches that seemed - dare I say it - attention seeking. At this point I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with her behaviour.
Matthew then offered to show me the pool so I went with him. About half way down I realised that Jordan and Sara weren't with us. Still, I thought, they were probably just talking.
After we checked it out, we walked back into the kitchen and I could hear whispering.
There they were in the lounge room, arms around each other, seconds from kissing each other.
I heard her say, with a slight giggle "So I guess you don't like her?"
Suddenly, they realised I was standing there.
The strangest thing, even stranger than the almost-kiss between my current boyfriend and friend, was that they both pretended nothing had happened.
I went into the bathroom fighting back tears and frantically called my sister to come and pick me up. I felt physically sick. When I hung up, I saw I'd be sent a number of snapchats from Sara of the two sitting on the lounge, arms around each other, smiling.
....What?
There are so many things I wish I did at this moment, but instead, I just got out of there as quickly as I could.
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Jordan tried to put his arm around me, and I pushed him off and left. No one followed me. No one called me.
They both stayed there that night.
It ruined my relationship with both of them, and I'm still perplexed by her behaviour.
When I look back on the night - there had been no boundaries. The fact we were dating, and she knew how happy I was, didn't factor into her decision to flirt with him.
I know ultimately it was him who should have had some loyalty, but Sara was, too, a really good friend. I expected more from both of them.
What I learned - on top of what kind of guy never to date - was to never trust a woman who gives your boyfriend a nickname within a few minutes.
Or the woman whose behaviour suddenly changes, sitting up straighter, laughing harder, leaning in closer.
The partner we all deserve, is the one who backs away.
But equally, the friend we all want, is one who doesn't come on to our partner in the first place.