Go raibh maith agat, indeed.
Despite only being in the villa for a solid 14 or so days, Greg O’Shea made quite the impression.
During his short time on Love Island, the Limerick rugby player officially solidified himself as an extremely likeable, caring, empathic guy who also happens to be easy enough on the eye – all in the space of two weeks and not an obscene amount of airtime.
So much so that he only went and won the entire show last night.
Fair play.
Sure, you could go ahead and say that the majority of men who have won Love Island have been sound lads.
Take Jack Fincham, Kem Cetinay, and whoever came before Kem in those two seasons of the show that we weren’t paying attention to – all standup guys, probably.
Greg’s narrative, however, is that little bit different given the context of his arrival in the villa.
He landed during a time of turmoil, a few days after Joanna left, Michael stayed, and Amber heard that her former flame still potentially had feelings for her. Or was pretending to, anyway.
But instead of diving in all guns blazing, Greg was relaxed about his approach to Amber.
The most heated things got between he and Michael was the multiple times that he insisted on calling him ‘Mike’ – and even those jibes, if you can call them that, were done to the firefighter’s face.
Greg’s game was to just be nice – tell Amber she looked nice, show her how much she was worth – and in fairness to him, it worked.
The ‘Good Girls Like Bad Boys’ presumption has been rife in pop culture, high brow culture, and regrettably real life ever since men were old enough to act like boys and women were willing to let them get away with it.
They behave like children, but it’s OK because they’re lads. They’ll lie to your face, but it’s alright because they sent a WhatsApp admitting to it two days later.
They’ll essentially cheat on you over in Casa Amor and then try to get you back when their most recent girl is out of the picture, but you can’t blame them really – boys will be boys.
After all, there’s something so enticing about a guy who doesn’t know what he wants. They’re enigmas that are impossible to read, incapable of expressing how they really feel until it’s too late.
They provide a level of uncertainty that is both frustrating and exciting, as you desperately wonder whether today might be the day they finally text you, or ask you out, or express any kind of interest in you at all.
It’s the lack of clarity, trust, and uncertainty that keeps the highs so high – and the lows so painfully low.
Once you’ve had a bad guy, there’s a strong likelihood that turning to somebody nice might just seem a bit boring.
It probably won’t be, but the fear is there. If everything is just ‘good’, then where’s the excitement? Where’s the drama? Where’s the dizzying heights of happiness after he finally contacts you after weeks of silence?
When things are good, they’re just good, and when boys are nice, they’re just nice.
But contrary to popular belief, nice guys don’t always finish last.
In fact, some of them even walk away with a cool £25k.
