That’s it, the 15e season ofDouble occupation just ended. A finding is required: several couples were formed during the two seasons turned into a pandemic …. and it may not be just a coincidence.
Let’s focus on the season that has just ended first. Two couples were (officially) formed at the foot of the Rockies: Ines and Stevens, the big winners ofOD in the West, and Lucas and Amélie, who were excluded from the final by the other candidates. And what about the bromance indisputable between the guys!
That’s not all: two other duets made it to the show’s finals. First there is Robin and Marilou, who have confided in seeing each other exclusively on the show. The week of 4 Julie. There is also Fred and Audrey, who want to get to know each other better before deciding if they will be a couple or friends.
According to a (non-scientific) census, only a couple formed during the 13 pre-pandemic editions still hold. They are Claudie and Mathieu (OD South Africa), who are even engaged.
And before you threw us tomatoes, yes, we excluded the couples who formed after the adventure was over.
It’s all well and good, but what does the pandemic have to do with it?
All these months isolated from each other could have a link with the multiplication of romantic ties, says sexologist and psychotherapist Caroline Messier-Bellemare.
“When we are deprived of something, we tend to appreciate it even more,” she emphasizes. The pandemic has changed our “relationship of consumption to the other”, she judges. We would focus more on the quality of the moments rather than the quantity.
And that could also be true for OD candidates. All these couples who have formed, that could denote “a desire of people to get involved that was perhaps not expressed in the same way before”.
OD Chez Nous, released last year, is also a record cuvée. Stacey and James, Julie-Anne and Jordan, Vincent and Noémie (the big winners), in addition to Carl and Andréanne are still in a relationship, more than a year after the end of the adventure. The latter have also recently announced that the first baby OD will see the light of day in spring 2022.
Even if the candidates do not forget the game (and the prize awarded to the winning couple), they think much more about love, affirms Caroline Messier-Bellemare. It goes beyond the game of seduction as we have always known it. “We are closer to theLove is in the preShe laughs.
It’s a bit like a post-war period, she adds. After having lived an intense situation, we put on projects in order to have “something tangible and lasting”. For some, it may be the search for Prince Charming.