The Honesty Box (E4)
The British used to be a truthful lot. Most people regarded lying as literally sinful, a breach of the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’
But now, dishonesty is so normal, so widely accepted and expected, that the twin catchphrases of our time are ‘To be honest’ and ‘Not gonna lie.’
In text messages, they don’t even have to be spelled out: TBH, NGL.
And, of course, these words mean exactly the opposite of what they say — an open admission that no one expects the truth these days.
According to E4’s new matchmaking format The Honesty Box, 90 per cent of people on dating apps are lying — about their age, their earnings, their intentions and practically everything else.
That dooms most relationships to failure before they’ve begun. This low-budget show works on the premise that, if daters could be persuaded to be open and frank with each other, the outcome might be different.
Apparently conceived as a hybrid of The Traitors and Love Island, it pairs off six lads with six women, all in their 20s and early 30s, at a house dubbed ‘Truetopia’ with six double beds and a swimming pool.
The ‘Honesty Box’ itself is a booth where contestants face questions on their past love lives and their budding artificial romances. Sensors in the box track eye movements, pupil dilation and other vital signs, before an ‘AI lie detector’ decides whether they are telling the truth.
According to E4’s new matchmaking format The Honesty Box, 90 per cent of people on dating apps are lying — about their age, their earnings, their intentions and practically everything else
The ‘Honesty Box’ itself is a booth where contestants face questions on their past love lives and their budding artificial romances
According to presenter and reality show stalwart Vicky Pattison, the computer is ‘88 per cent accurate’. Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?
Inevitably, all of the players were self-obsessed and incapable of saying anything interesting. The lie detector twist is an intriguing idea for a game show, but it’s wasted on this third-rate version of First Dates.
One of the girls, Chantelle, proclaimed herself a devout Christian before admitting, ‘I would say I am honest 70 per cent of the time.’ She was one of the first to be called into the box, where a synthesised voice asked her, ‘Have you ever had more than one situationship at the same time?’
Readers who still think of Tinder as something to get the sitting-room fire alight might like to know that a ‘situationship’ is a no-strings sexual relationship. Don’t call it ‘sleeping around’ – dishonesty and promiscuity may be celebrated these days, but anything that smacks of a moral judgment is not.
Chantelle insisted she was a single-situationship girl, but later hinted she’d been lying.
Why she’d be ashamed of indiscriminate one-night stands wasn’t clear. A bloke called Tommy gave a sleazy grin when asked, ‘Have you had sex with 100 or more people?’
Few of the others believed him when he denied it. But they were all horrified when he told his
new partner, Rose, that he couldn’t respect any girl who’d slept with more than 25 men. Who does he think he’s going to meet on dating apps — a nun?
