Finally, a Netflix dating show for us painfully awkward introverts

Sydney Morning Herald

08-08-2025

As someone who enjoys both a) watching people fall in love, and b) any form of entertainment that allows my overactive brain to switch off – or, even better, rot a little – dating shows are one of my fave genres. The Bachelor, Love Is Blind, Married at First Sight, The Farmer Wants a Wife, Love Triangle, Too Hot to Handle … you name it, I've watched at least one episode of it (and probably 167 more).
But lately I've grown increasingly dissatisfied with the genre, as more and more shows became less about people finding a match and more about them getting half a million followers on Instagram and/or a foot in the door of the Netflix Dating Show Cinematic Universe, which seems more viable as a career path than an actual road to romance. And while I enjoy hate-watching and drama and epic dinner-party showdowns as much as the next reality-TV fan, I also actually, genuinely want to watch people I like find love and happiness – a concept that's alarmingly rare in a genre in which that is ostensibly the whole premise.
Enter: Better Late Than Single, a new South Korean dating show that is so compelling it's quickly become my favourite I've watched in a long time. The conceit is that the contestants have never actually been in a relationship before – and not in a 'party boy who only hooks up' kinda way (like most of the cast of Love Island, for instance). No, the Better Late Than Single cohort are more the 'so awkward they can't even make eye contact' variety. There's even a term for them in Korean – motae solo, which basically translates as 'single since mother's womb' or, as Netflix more succinctly subtitles it in English, 'eternally single'.
That's right, the cast are all – and I say this with the utmost affection – massive losers. Massive, relatable losers. In other words, they're just like us! In the first episode, one contestant says she's single because she hates leaving the house – like, one time she didn't go outside for a whole month and she forgot how to actually talk to people. Relatable! Another contestant reveals she just has high standards – like, if someone moves their eyebrows too much or holds their chopsticks wrong, she gets the ick. Relatable! Then there's the guy who just wants to wear pop culture T-shirts and eat delicious food and do karaoke alone every day. Relatable!