The Love Islanders have a new term for their ultimate, ideal man: the “Golden Retriever”.
In last night’s episode, Leah Taylor told new Casa Amor boy Lochan Nowacki that he had “Golden Retriever energy”, in reference to a TikTok trend about the ideal “Golden Retriever boyfriend”, which has over 65 million hashtags.
In the trend, men who are doting, sweet, loyal and innocently fun loving are described as sharing the characteristics of the dog - and while some see the traits as naive and gullible, the “Golden Retriever boyfriend” is considered to be a good catch, with desirable traits such as soft masculinity and sensitivity.
In fact, a recent study of current literary trends found new fictional love interests were increasingly falling into the Golden Retriever category, with the ideal man now attracting heroines by their offers of comfort and support instead of dastardly lust.
Brilliantly, Leah was spot on with her analysis of account manager Lochan: not only does he seem to emulate the characterists perfectly - telling her: “You just give me such a good vibe. I just know that you’ve got a good heart. You’re so cute” - he also told her he has his own Golden Retriever called Luna.
He has clearly picked up some of Luna’s “energy”.
