The UK’s iconic Married At First Sight (MAFS) returned to our screens this week, with a handful of new singletons looking to find ‘The One’. 

Like usual, strangers met at the altar for the very first time before diving head-first into a simulation of married life. 

After six weeks, couples will then decide whether it’s truly an ‘I do’ or an ‘I don’t’ by confirming whether they want to stay with each other beyond the show.

But the new season got us thinking — just how effective is MAFS, and does The One really exist?

MailOnline spoke with two psychologists to uncover whether dreams of love at first sight are truly possible or just fairytale ideals. 

Does ‘The One’ really exist?

It’s no secret that marrying a handsome prince is a major plot point of countless fairytales.

Albeit idealistic, Dr Louise Goddard-Crawley told MailOnline that finding your own soulmate or ‘The One’ may be possible for not only the MAFS contestants, but the rest of us too.

‘Whether “The One” exists or not is a personal belief, and it can vary greatly from person to person,’ she said. 

‘Ultimately, the pursuit of a fulfilling and lasting relationship should be based on individual values, needs, and experiences rather than a rigid adherence to a romantic ideal.

‘It’s important to acknowledge that media, including romance films and novels, often present idealised and romanticised versions of love and relationships.’

Dr Goddard-Crawley claims that robust relationships are centred around four key components which include compatibility, effort, shared values and communication.

MAFS match Jay Howard and Luke Morley also gave hope to us all this week as the giddy pair set off on their honeymoon to Grenada. 

She added: ‘Discovering a partner with whom you share compatibility and collaboratively fostering the relationship takes precedence over the notion of finding “The One”.’

Dr Gurpreet Kaur agreed, also adding: ‘All of this will be influenced by cultural, social, religious, spiritual, and economic factors. 

‘Perhaps the idea of “The One” is only as important as one’s personal connection to the concept.’

Can you truly fall in love at first sight?

Whether it’s Romeo and Juliet or Dumb and Dumber, falling in love at first sight is yet another trope of romance movies.

MAFS contestant Arthur Poremba also startled the world this week as he declared his love for Laura Vaughan at their wedding — despite meeting her just a few minutes before.

In reality, Dr Kaur believes this is unrealistic, with many singletons mistaking initial attraction for the phenomenon of love.

‘Initially, there can be a strong feeling of attraction which can be easily mistaken for love,’ she told MailOnline.

‘The physical pull can be mistaken for intense emotional feelings and interpreted as a sign of something much deeper.’

During the first stages of a relationship, Dr Kaur explains that most people are often on their best behaviour and are perhaps more attentive than usual.

She added: ‘This is amplified greatly on a show like Married at First Sight, where a camera crew and an expert panel are involved throughout the process. 

‘However, determining compatibility in values, goals and personalities often takes time in reality and occurs through varied shared experiences.’

Dr Goddard-Crawley agreed, but added: ‘In the end, the quality of the connection matters more than how quickly it develops, as there’s no one-size-fits-all timeline for finding the right life partner.’

What are the signs you’ve found The One?

Kindness, intelligence and a good sense of humour are among countless typical traits we may hope for in a partner.

But Dr Goddard-Crawley explains that finding ‘The One’ takes much more than this, and MAFS participants must seek to strike a balance between stability and surprise.

‘While comfort and stability are important, there should still be a spark of excitement and attraction in the relationship,’ she told MailOnline.

‘However, anxiety can lead to misinterpreting whether you’ve found “The One” by causing overthinking, doubt, and fear of abandonment. 

‘It can amplify insecurity, avoidance behaviours, and unrealistic standards.’

Oxytocin -– often nicknamed the ‘love drug’ –  is a hormone that’s produced in the brain, stimulating feelings of intimacy and trust.

Meanwhile, adrenaline is another hormone in our bodies that is often linked to new experiences and excitement.

A combination of these two hormones can make finding ‘The One’ confusing at times, according to Dr Goddard-Crawley. 

But ‘The One’ should allow you to feel respected and accepted for who you are. 

‘Adrenaline can lead to infatuation, where the relationship feels exhilarating and passionate,’ she added.

‘However, this type of attraction is often short-lived and may not necessarily lead to a deep, long-lasting connection.

‘Oxytocin is instrumental in building and maintaining emotional connections in long-term relationships. It’s what fosters the sense of safety, attachment, and bonding between partners.’

Should you trust your first impressions?  

As MAFS participants walked down the aisle this week, there’s no doubt they quickly made judgements on their new partners.

But Dr Kaur also claims that first impressions shouldn’t always be trusted as they can be influenced by an array of different factors.

First date nerves and unconscious biases are encompassed in this, as well as your own mood on the day. 

‘The initial click is often more about attraction and preconceived ideas about what is a good match,’ she told MailOnline.

‘The scenario in which a couple initially meet might also lend itself to a romanticised view of what each other should be like.

‘Stepping away from ideals and “shoulds” in regards to assessing the other person will help to see them more realistically and give you a chance to decide whether the interaction is worth pursuing.’

Crunching my way through a forest of pine and eucalyptus trees towards grassy dunes and a vast, sandy beach, I look out towards a horizonless sea. There is no other sign of life, apart from the eagles and peregrines soaring above me.

It is the sort of wild, untouched beauty you’d expect to find in South Africa or Australia. But here we are in Sicily, the southern Italian island better known for its crazy, crowded cities, clanking costume jewellery and cocktails the colour of the lava that sputters sporadically from Mount Etna. But the summer crowds have disappeared and the island’s tranquillity has returned, even though I’m on the coast, only an hour south of the capital Palermo.

Until recently there were few properly lovely places to stay in this region, set between the towns of Sciacca and Agrigento and largely made up of wind-battered fishing villages and industrial ports. Last year that changed, with the opening of Adler Sicilia.

Slotted discretely into a hillside above a five-mile stretch of beach, the resort sits on the edge of the Torre Salsa Nature Reserve, a sanctuary for nesting sea turtles and migratory birds, including purple herons, honey buzzards, peregrine falcons and flamingos.

Guests are encouraged to make the most of this precious pocket, with organised treks through the reserve and into the hinterland on e-bikes. Or, like me, you can take the easy option and grab one of the hotel beach bags – containing a towel, sunbed mattress and water – and walk down to the beach.

As the Adler group is known for its plush alpine spa hotels, the same Germanic rigour has been applied to fitting out the extraordinary spa in its Sicilian outpost. All stone and wood and super high-tech, it’s such a vast, bamboozling playground of wellness you don’t quite know where to start.

Should I laze by the indoor/outdoor pool or pound up and down the lap pool? Join a yoga or pilates class, or book one of 40 different massages in the labyrinth of treatment rooms? End the day supine in a sauna, a steam room fragranced with Sicilian herbs or in the bubbling thalasso pool overlooking the sea?

When you’ve finished filling your boots with wellness, you might just make it to the restaurant in time for the all-inclusive buffet, a description which rather underplays the bacchanalian vision that greets you every evening. For example, on Seafood Night, slivers of raw Sicilian tuna, red prawns, langoustines, clams, oysters and sea urchin were laid out so beautifully on their icy bed it looked like a piece of installation art.

Beyond the hotel, the area is full of delights. Half an hour’s drive east is Agrigento and the Valley Of The Temples Archaeological Park, a collection of ancient Greek temples said to be the best-preserved examples of their kind in the world. An hour’s drive west, near the town of Menfi, is the Planeta Ulmo wine estate, where you can book a tasting and lunch.

Also worth visiting is the fishing port of Sciacca, with its narrow, colourful streets, seafood restaurants and ceramics shops.

After a few days exploring the coast I took a 90-minute journey inland, through orange and olive groves, past silent hill towns and abandoned farms into the agricultural heart of Sicily.

At the end of a bumpy, unmade road, surrounded by hills carpeted with wheat fields and wild flowers, sits the Susafa estate which was once one of the many masserias – farming communities – that had fallen into disrepair. Then, in the early 2000s, Manfredi Rizzuto and his family began a renovation project to restore the cluster of farm buildings and turn the estate into a unique hotel.

In Sicilian dialect, Susafa means ‘it can be done’, and that has been taken as a sort of mission statement by the family to return the estate to its self-sufficient roots.

Wheat and grains from the surrounding fields are used to make breads and pasta (you can join a class to learn how to make them). Cherries, apricots, oranges and strawberries grown on the farm are used in jams and tarts. Lamb, chicken and beef from the estate ends up on the evening menu with fresh fava beans, carrots and courgettes picked from the garden that day.

But although there’s a back-to-nature philosophy here, there’s nothing basic about the accommodation. From the outside it may look weather-worn, but on the inside Susafa has all the style, charm and comfort of a swanky Milanese hotel, from the enormous beds and rain showers to an infinity pool in the gardens and the magnificent, vaulted Old Granary where you can dine by candlelight on lamb, stuffed ravioli and platters of local cheeses.

From the roof terrace lounge, there are uninterrupted views of rolling hills, wooded valleys – and nothing else.

Palermo may be only 90 minutes away, but it might as well be another country.

NATURE’S CALENDAR 

by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines, Rebecca Warren (Granta Books £14.99, 400pp) 

Every year there are a few days when you have a sudden awareness that the seasons are changing: a balmy spring-like day after weeks of cold, or that afternoon in late summer when the leaves are on the turn.

While we British talk endlessly about the weather, most of us are quite oblivious to the incremental changes that are taking place all the time, both underfoot and overhead. 

Imagine one of those time-lapse films of bluebells pushing through the earth and then bursting into flower: this book is the literary equivalent of it.

Nature’s Calendar was inspired by a 17th-century Japanese calendar, which divided the year into periods of five or six days rather than months, and gave each segment a title reflecting what would be happening on that date, like ‘Bamboo shoots sprout’ or ‘First lotus blossoms’.

This British version, minus the bamboo or lotus blossoms, has been put together by four authors — an ecologist and nature writer, a lecturer in human environment, an author and a historian.

They asked people on social media to share their observations of how the landscape around them was changing over a period of a few days, and organised a vote to find which ones had the most resonance. 

After a year, they had drawn up their list of 72 of them.

The essays on each microseason are a sprightly mixture of botany, science, folklore and personal observation. 

Some of the topics are very familiar — the arrival of snowdrops and daffodils, the joy of rain-dappled roses in mid-summer, the ripening of blackberries in autumn — while others are rather more obscure.

Have you ever noticed that there are more spiders around the house in early autumn? As the chapter for September 8-12, ‘Arachnids Assemble!’, explains, this is when male spiders venture out in search of a mate. 

And if you’re wondering where the spiders have come from, the slightly unsettling answer is that they’ve probably been lurking out of sight in the nooks and crannies of your house for some time.

The chapter for February 9-13, ‘Birdsong Builds’, points out that, while the peak of the dawn chorus is still several months away, late winter is nevertheless a wonderful time of year for hearing birdsong, as birds gear up for mating. 

What’s more, the bare trees of February mean you have a far better chance of spotting the birds than you do in May. 

There is a delightful chapter on the magnolia, whose flowering is pinpointed here as March 31 to April 4. (Readers in the West Country, where magnolias start flowering earlier, might quibble with this date.)

These glorious blooms have a smell which is, apparently, mildly hallucinogenic.

Fossils have shown that magnolias were growing more than 100 million years ago; they are so ancient, in fact, that they are pollinated by beetles, since bees weren’t around to do the pollinating when they first evolved.

From the chapter called ‘Thunderbugs On Fizzing Elderflower’, you will learn that honey-scented elderflowers are home to hundreds of tiny black insects. 

These are thrips, or thunderbugs, and if you’ve ever been wearing a yellow T-shirt in summer and found yourself covered in black bugs, these are the culprits.

To mark mid-November, surely the dreariest time of the year, when Christmas and the winter solstice still seem an age away, there is a lively essay on leaf decay, a complex process of deconstruction which is carried out by an equally complex array of micro-organisms, fungi and animals. 

The smell of decaying leaves is so evocative, the writers suggest, that we should appreciate it ‘in the same way that we savour fresh coffee or a fine wine’.

Nature’s Calendar, designed to be dipped into rather than read in one go, is a reassuringly old-fashioned book, the sort of volume the Famous Five might have consulted before going on one of their jaunts.

It’s full of pithy observations on the natural world, and some rather charming line drawings.

 It proves that, as long as you know where to look, there are wonders unfolding all around us right through the year.

The US has begun to feel a bit of chill in the air and that means fall is upon us, when bright green leaves change into hues of orange, yellow and brown. 

If you’re wondering when your city is going to be covered in beautiful fall foliage, then this interactive map predicting peaking viewing dates should help out. 

The new season has already begun arriving in New England and in some parts of Washington, North Dakota and Montana. 

By September 25, all of the northern states and some parts of the west coast will be covered in fall colors.   

States in the Midwest such as Iowa, Kansas and Ohio will be completely enveloped in fall colors by October 9 but those in the south will have to wait until October 30 to see the first signs of the season.

Although by November 13, only southern states which include Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida will have foliage, while the rest of the country will be past its peak season. 

The map, which can be viewed at SmokyMountains.com, was created by David Angotti. 

The predictive map uses a complex algorithm that computes over 37,000 pieces of information in order to accurately forecast when fall peak will occur at the county-level.

And although it is not 100 percent accurate, it is a tool used by avid leaf peepers to plan their annual trips to see the spectacular colors around the nation. 

Leaves can change their color from as early as mid-September all the way through early November. Usually, the second and third week of October are marked as the peak times but with it can vary depending on location and local weather conditions. 

When fall leaves drop to the ground, they gradually break down and create a nutrient-rich layer on the forest floor. This layer acts like a sponge, soaking up water and providing food for trees and plants. It helps them grow healthy in the spring.

So, while leaves falling in the fall protect trees during winter, they also help trees survive and thrive in the spring and summer. This natural cycle keeps trees healthy and sustainable year after year. 

The green in the map highlights trees that have not yet changed color and brown is past peak viewing, but the two shades of red indicate ‘near peak’ and ‘peak.’

Compared to last year, fall foliage is set to arrive sooner in 2023. Most of the country was experiencing the season by October 17 in 2022 but by October 9 this year, a majority of states will be covered in fall colors. 

Data has shown that climate change is the reason why fall has arrived early in the US and other parts of the world. 

The reason why climate change is bad for fall foliage has a bit to do with plant biology. 

When days get shorter and and temperatures drop, the chlorophyll in leaves breaks down which causes it to lose its green color. The green gives way to the yellows, reds and oranges that make for dramatic autumn displays. 

As the planet gets warmer, dry regions are expected to get drier and wet regions will receive more precipitation. This extreme weather caused trees stress in areas that receive bare minimum rainfall. 

This stress can cause leaves to miss the fall color turn completely and simply die and fall off instead of following its natural process. 

These trends impact the aesthetics of fall foliage, in addition to raising concerns about agriculture and water supplies and are expected to become more drastic in the future. 

From last year’s Storm Eunice to 1990’s Storm Daria, many of us will remember some of the worst storms to have hit the UK in recent history.

Now, the Met Office has revealed the names of the storms set to batter Britain in the upcoming season, which runs from September 2023 through to the end of August 2024.

Agnes, Ciaran, and Elin are among the new names chosen to honour those who work to keep people safe in times of extreme weather.

Meanwhile, Minnie has made the list in honour of the famous Beano character, Minnie the Minx. 

So, do you share a name with any of the upcoming storms? Scroll down to see the full list of the storms set to batter Britain. 

Storms are named by the Met Office when they’re deemed to have the potential to cause ‘medium’ or ‘high’ impacts in the UK, Ireland, or the Netherlands.

Wind is the main consideration for naming a storm, although rain and snow are also taken into account, according to the Met Office.

‘This is the ninth year of us naming storms and we do it because it works,’ Mr Lang said.

‘Naming storms helps to ease communication of severe weather and provides clarity when people could be impacted by the weather.’

Storms are named alphabetically – but don’t expect to see any names beginning with Q, U, X, Y or Z.

‘To ensure we are in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming conventions, we are not going to include names which begin with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z,’ the Met Office explains on its website.

‘This will maintain consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic.’

Usually, the list is made up of alternating male and female names.

But the Met Office has broken tradition this year, to enable the inclusion of some of the more popular submitted names.

Agnes will be the first storm to strike Britain this season, followed by Babet.

The third storm – Storm Ciarán – was submitted by the public, but is also the name of Ciarán Fearon, who works for the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland.

‘With the effects of climate change, we are more aware than ever of how weather can affect us all in every aspect of our daily lives,’ Mr Fearon said.

‘In my role with the Department for Infrastructure I work closely with local communities in Northern Ireland and multi-agency partners to help keep everyone as warned and informed as possible.

‘We need to respect each weather event and this work, particularly during periods of severe weather and storms, helps to ensure that we are all as well prepared as possible to help reduce the impact of such events.’

Beano fans will be pleased to learn that Storm Minnie is also included on the list, following in the footsteps of Storm Dennis, which was named after Dennis the Menace in 2020.

If your name isn’t on the list, you’ll be happy to hear that you can submit it for consideration for next year’s list. 

‘Everyone is also welcome to suggest names for future consideration via email to nameourstorms@metoffice.gov.uk,’ the Met Office added. 

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