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When you hear the word chemistry, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was just a science subject you took back in school where you heated up your bunsen burners to mix colourful liquids together that would quite often end in an exciting ‘boom’ and puff of smoke. So, when it comes to love, can we hold the same expectations when we meet ‘the one’? And if we don’t feel this ‘chemistry’ that people refer to as fireworks and undeniable attraction is there any real point in a second date or is there a chance those fireworks can come overtime?

Like many others, I have been tuning into Channel 9’s second season of “Married at first sight”, fascinated at the prospect that eight individual people who have had little luck at finding love, courageously hand over the choosing to a handful of relationship experts to do the job, and consequently meet their husband or wife for the first time at the altar. Whilst these couples are reportedly matched together based on techniques surrounding neuroscience and psychology, it seems what may very well be the perfect guy or girl on paper, is not necessarily the right one in reality. The one ingredient these experts or anyone can never really predict is this ‘chemistry’ that either exists or doesn’t exist between two people.

As I watched the lovely Christie from Sydney, walk down the aisle with her beautiful bouquet in one hand and the likely expectations of meeting the man she has pictured all of her 39 years in the other, I couldn’t help but think, this man is lucky the wedding ceremony is on a floating pontoon, otherwise we may see a re-run of runaway bride! But it appears the lack of initial chemistry from her part wasn’t quite enough to send the beauty jumping overboard in the harbour, leaving the sweet, caring, down to earth farmer Mark (who we give 10 points for his joke telling but who has questionable dance moves) time to try and win her over.

For Jono and Clare, their fate seemed sealed as soon as Jono looked at the beautiful Clare walking down the aisle and later reveals, ‘she isn’t what he ordered’, as if sitting down to dinner and being handed the lamb and not the chicken. Despite being seemingly similar like an old pair of friends (who bickered at times), it seems that lack of initial chemistry was always going to work against them.

Why do we do this to ourselves? I know it’s nice to imagine, dream even, of what our future partner might look like, what they might do for work, and where they might live, but surely we are just setting ourselves up for a huge disappointment if we cement that idea down and don’t leave ourselves a little open minded when on our search? I mean, blonde hair, brunette hair, ever heard of hairdressers? Same with body shapes… some women have babies and that’s part of life…and location, how many people live in the same suburb their entire life? People can move too!

So is chemistry all it’s cracked up to be? Well, who doesn’t love the butterflies in your stomach, ‘desire to know all about you’ feeling you get when meeting someone for the first time, but like anything to do with fireworks and sparks, it might be fantastic while it’s happening, but those crazy I need to know everything about you flames don’t always last forever, but if they don’t exist to begin with, only you yourself will know if he or she is worth trying to create one with.