Photo by Levi Stute on Unsplash
Name: Honor MacNeil Age: 23 Job: Promotions/ Part-Time Retail Assistant
Please write a dating profile for yourself.
How about…
Blonde-in-a-bottle seeks showmance. Fundamentally unlovable due to deep-rooted distrust of anybody stupid enough to fall in love. Willing to engage in sexually gratifying relationship with minimal emotional engagement as long as it benefits me.
Too honest?
How long have you been single for?
For the last two years I have avoided referring to any man I’ve slept with as ‘my boyfriend’. I always leave their home before morning, I sign all birthday cards ‘Kind regards’ and I only ever reply to texts between the hours of one and three am.
What was your healthiest and happiest relationship?
Undoubtedly, it was my fifty-three-day long romance with Hamish Finn when we were ten. We spoke directly on the seventh, nineteenth and thirty-third days. He gave me a mermaid pendant from a Christmas cracker which I’m pretty sure I still have stashed somewhere in my jewellery box.
Tell us about your biggest break up.
A few years ago, I ended my last official relationship by simply turning off my phone. This was the easiest way to communicate my desire to be miserable and alone. I just didn’t have it within me to send an ‘it’s not you, it’s me (and my crippling inability to cope with grief)’ text. Granted, I accept that when he then turned up at my brother’s funeral doing his insufferable good-guy-offering-morale-support-act, I should have been nicer to him… but that seemed too vulnerable/co-dependant/ risky.
Tell us why you deserve to find love on our show.
Mainly, it’s so my questionable lifestyle choices and aggravating personality traits will become more acceptable when validated by fame. You see, some people don’t like that I’m out every night until 5am or that I cancel second dates to avoid emotional intimacy. So, I’m totally prepared to fake falling in love with some braindead meathead so I can enjoy the delights of life on the D-List. I can just see myself promoting teeth whitening strips with the shameless, vacant look required.
Have you ever been married or engaged?
Hell no.
Do you already have any claims to fame?
My applications to Come Dine With Me, First Dates, Catchphrase, Just Tattoo Of Us, Race Across The World and Total Wipeout were unsuccessful. The advice offered to would-be-reality-stars always seems to be: ‘just be yourself’ so, this time, I’ve decided to just go all out with the honesty. Strap in.
Otherwise, claim to fame-wise, does appearing in a poster campaign for my friend’s uncle’s used-car company count? I also got through a few rounds when auditioning for some low-budget horror film. On that occasion I overheard a casting agent ask his colleague: ‘She’s very expressive… should we worry about her wrinkling early?’ I can happily confirm I’ve since mastered my expressionless dead-inside look but, if Love Yacht TV producers are still worried about my long-dormant laughter lines, I will botox every inch of my face into a terrifying paralysis-mask if it makes you pick me.
When I think about my aborted acting career, I wasn’t even the best performer in my family - my brother was a sensational Rolf the Nazi in our school’s production of The Sound Of Music. (I was a disgruntled and underwhelming Nun No.4.) I always thought, with a combination of his talent and my shamelessness, we could have ruled the world. It’s so unfortunate his life was derailed by his poorly thought through decision to fall in love.
Are your family supportive of your decision to apply?
They just want to see me settled and happy. So, no.
Although… when we were growing up, my brother was pretty supportive of my attention-seeking endeavours. I remember him cheering me on when I entered the local beauty pageant (my talent was my impression of Janice from Friends). He used to say I was ‘brave’ for putting myself out there. When I was unfazed by our The Sound of Music audience of half-asleep grandparents and bored parents, he said, ashen faced with nerves, that he wished he was more like me and didn't care what people thought about him. He cared too much. Felt everything.
I often think about the fact he said that. Because, if he were more like me, he would still be alive. But if he were more like me… well, then he would be more like me.
Have you had any medical concerns/ issues you should be alerting us to?
I think legally a doctor might be obliged to divulge the anti-depressants that lie unopened at the bottom of my handbag.
All applicants considered for the show are required to undergo a psychological screening. Are there any reasons to suggest you may be mentally unsuitable for the show?
‘Mentally unsuitable’ is an interesting ‘expression’ isn’t it? Surely, the show should provide their own definition of what ‘mentally suitable’ is? I mean, what is the ‘mentally suitable’ way to function on national television when fluttering your eyelashes at any man who entertains your existence? Perhaps the ‘mentally suitable’ candidate is somebody who doesn’t care when their social media is flooded with thousands of messages calling them an ‘ugly, plastic bitch’? Perhaps somebody who can withstand their parents’ shame when their ex uploads their grainy, cell-phone-shot sex tape? Or, maybe somebody whose ego can cope when, one day, nobody asks for a selfie with them anymore?
I personally think your ‘mentally suitable’ candidate should be someone who didn’t cry that much when they attended their 21-year-old brother’s funeral. Someone who looked blankly at the muck his coffin lay in as the image of his heart, defunct and decomposing, lodged in their mind. Somebody shameless and numb, who keeps telling themselves ‘this dead-brother-bit will make be a great sob story on a reality TV series one day’.
Describe your idea of the perfect love story.
Girl meets boy. Girl marries boy. Girl leaves boy. Boy slits wrists… You know, that old classic?
My brother was just 21. He had only been married for eight months when she left him. They were both so young. He placed his value and self-worth in the hands of somebody else and, what a surprise, it went wrong. If only he’d watched more reality TV.
Apparently, his suicide note was only addressed to her. She was backpacking around America with girlfriends when my parents finally managed to get hold of her. She went quiet for a while, then she said she couldn’t afford the flight back for the funeral so my parents sent her money. She had a nice tan at the service.
Shortly before my brother killed himself, when it was clear he was suffering, I took him out one night to try and cheer him up. We ended up in a club and, well, now it seems obvious that it was going to go wrong, but, at that point, I was trying anything to haul him back from the brink and I thought all he needed was just to… let loose a little. I remember, as the night carried on and we drank more and more, and the sounds of the stereo, the crowds and the people connecting made me feel warmer and warmer, this look slowly crawled across his face. For the first time in weeks, there was an expression, an existence within him. I held my hands out and smiled at him – this stupid, gormless grin. And his lifeless eyes revved a little, but, I realised after a second, it wasn’t what I thought. They were fixed with this look of absolute disgust. All directed at me.
‘You’re pathetic,’ he said as I tried to convince him to stay a bit longer. ‘You only want me to stay out so you won’t feel so alone, feel so pointless.’
I let him go. I watched him walk out and I stayed and drank and danced with some people, some strangers who, for a few hours, were all I needed.
I only saw him alive one more time. We pretended we hadn’t argued and made stilted conversation across the dining room table as our mum served us home-cooked food. The emptiness, stark and cruel, back on his face.
So, let me come on your stupid dating show and give the one performance my brother could never give: the performance of being OK when deep down everything that makes sense is draining and draining fast. I give that performance every single day.
Why not add some cameras?
Emma Brankin is a journalist turned teacher from Scotland who recently graduated with a Masters in Creative Writing and Education. Her work has been published in XRAY Literary Magazine, Maudlin House and more. Her twitter profile is @emmanya