Obsessed with watching MAFS? You're not alone and here's why

It’s 7:25pm on a Sunday night and instead of being outside enjoying the last hours of the weekend, I’m perched on the edge of my couch waiting for all the Married At First Sight drama to unfold.

And it seems I’m not alone because according to Mumbrella, the show was watched by a whopping 1.2 million metro viewers last night, all eager to see if the couples will stick together or bail during the commitment ceremony.

But why are we so interested (or mildly obsessed) in the lives of these complete strangers? Psychologist Lucia Giovannini explains it all to Yahoo Lifestyle.

“We use it as an escape from our everyday life and we identify with the characters in the show,” says Lucia.

“To our brain it feels like living an alternative life.

“Reality TV is difficult to stop, because there is unconscious process of identification.”

That ‘unconscious process’ keeps us glued to our screens night after night and even browsing the web during the day, desperately trying to find out more information on the stars of the show.

“It’s also wanting to escape insecurities, failures, everything that’s not going well in our lives,” Lucia continues.

“It also gives us an emotional acknowledgment. We feel emotions through observing others living an emotional experience.

“We feel passion though their passion, we feel love though their love, we feel like our life has meaning, but in reality it’s the life of the screen character, not our own.”

MAFS commitment ceremony

There certainly isn’t a lack of drama when it comes to this year’s couples, with last night’s commitment ceremonies being one of the most dramatic scenes to ever happen on MAFS.

We farewelled Amanda and Tash, who have been at loggerheads for the duration of the series, with Amanda breaking down.

"Unfortunately, this relationship has not been a good representative of what gay relationships are really like,” Amanda said.

"There are a lot of good functioning gay couples and I'm sorry this didn't do the gay community justice."

Show favourites, Josh and Cathy, were also at breaking point, with Cathy sobbing on the couch, relaying to the experts how Josh had told her he couldn’t be with a partner with trust issues.

Things got heated between Mikey and Natasha, with Mikey writing ‘leave’ after he was left ‘embarrassed’ at the dinner party when his wife joked about their sex life.

Michel also wrote ‘leave’ on her card, after listing off a set of rules she said Steve gave her, including that she wasn’t allowed to say the words ‘wee’ or ‘poo’ and she must not swear when speaking.

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