Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Mathsphony Podcast with Me
Speaker 1: Joshua Fox. In tonight's episode and Married at First Sight,
Speaker 1: we all watched Lauren cement herself as a superficial, judgmental,
Speaker 1: and just around unpleasant person, to the point that I've
Speaker 1: just angrily wrote an open letter to Lauren that I'm
Speaker 1: going to read. But before I get to that, Between
Speaker 1: all of her remarks about the other coas members being
Speaker 1: boganic and whatever she said and too loud and rowdy
Speaker 1: for her, this remark I'm about to play is the
Speaker 1: one that's pissed me off the most.
Speaker 2: These people are just not my cup of tea.
Speaker 1: Athena is going.
Speaker 2: To be screaming, her nylon hair extensions are going to
Speaker 2: be blowing in the wind. Hopefully Athena brings a dice
Speaker 2: in to the trip so she can like do it
Speaker 2: once over on her head, so we don't end up
Speaker 2: with nylon hair extensions all through the hallway like we
Speaker 2: have here.
Speaker 1: And you know why that comment has infuriated me more
Speaker 1: than anything else, Lauren said during tonight's episode, it's because
Speaker 1: of this suggestion that what Athene is worth as a
Speaker 1: person is determined solely by the type of hair extend
Speaker 1: that she has. Now I remember this is Athena, who
Speaker 1: is a single mum and presumably her biggest priority once
Speaker 1: pay day comes around, is feeding her son and keeping
Speaker 1: a roof over their head during a literal cost of
Speaker 1: living crisis, Lauren, and you know, by a time when
Speaker 1: most families are struggling to pay for most things. This
Speaker 1: is also Afena, who works in age care, Lauren, a
Speaker 1: selfless job that isn't glamorous, and it isn't pretty, and
Speaker 1: as far as I'm aware, doesn't necessarily pay great.
Speaker 3: But you know what a job like that does do, Lauren.
Speaker 3: It tells me the kind of person Afena is.
Speaker 1: She's caring, she's compassionate, she's kind, And these, Lauren, are
Speaker 1: all the traits we are yet to see in you.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm angry about this is because I come
Speaker 1: from a very working class background. I didn't grow up
Speaker 1: with money. I didn't grow up in a family where
Speaker 1: we could splash out on designer things and present ourselves
Speaker 1: in a certain way with.
Speaker 3: The best products or whatever.
Speaker 1: And when I turned twenty one and got offered an
Speaker 1: internship that took me from you know, the government housing estate,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Manchester to suddenly working in the
Speaker 1: media in London. I constantly faced so many little snide
Speaker 1: remarks like that one from Lauren about Athenis hair extensions.
Speaker 1: It was always like just little comments and remarks about
Speaker 1: the way I spoke my accent because it's quite northern,
Speaker 1: which in the UK's classters, you know, the working class
Speaker 1: part of England.
Speaker 3: And it was comments about maybe what I.
Speaker 1: Was wearing, why I wasn't a certain brand, and all
Speaker 1: these things that other people wouldn't necessarily notice, but to
Speaker 1: me I understood they were subtle ways of people also
Speaker 1: in the media making it clear to me that me
Speaker 1: being where I'm from and presenting myself as they do
Speaker 1: made others believe they were genuinely above me. Even working
Speaker 1: my first ever season, I married at First Sight back
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen. I won't mention who this bride was,
Speaker 1: but I just landed in Sydney as a backpacker. I
Speaker 1: was figuring things out. I didn't have any money, I
Speaker 1: didn't have much to my name, and I got a
Speaker 1: job for a few months working at a magazine and
Speaker 1: one day we were doing a photoshoot with all the
Speaker 1: brides from that season, and in between, like the cast
Speaker 1: doing individual shots, most of us were sat around like
Speaker 1: this big table on set which had like snacks and shit,
Speaker 1: and my colleague would be taking people one by one
Speaker 1: for interviews on the side. And I remember, while like
Speaker 1: all of us were sat around this table, there was
Speaker 1: one moment where I wanted the brides and I'm laughing
Speaker 1: because like, I've never forgot this, but this bride. She
Speaker 1: said to me as I picked my phone up from
Speaker 1: the table to go do another interview, she went, oh,
Speaker 1: is that an iPhone eleven or whatever the older iPhone
Speaker 1: model was back then at that time. And she said
Speaker 1: this in front of everybody else on the table, and
Speaker 1: she said this in a way of why do you
Speaker 1: have that iPhone?
Speaker 3: It's so old?
Speaker 1: No, like there's been three new models since then. And
Speaker 1: to me, there was no question about why she made
Speaker 1: that remark other than this belief that she genuinely thought
Speaker 1: she was better than me, as she had the latest
Speaker 1: iPhone model, which I didn't have because I couldn't afford it.
Speaker 1: And at the time, I remember just replying to her like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is the iPhone eleven.
Speaker 3: Full stop, as in like yeah, and I remember once.
Speaker 1: We finished that photo shoot that day, I went back
Speaker 1: to my friend's apartment afterwards, because as I said, I
Speaker 1: was a backpacker, I didn't have much money, and I
Speaker 1: was sleeping on the floor on an inflatable mattress in
Speaker 1: his studio apartment on the North Shore. And as I
Speaker 1: got back to my friend's place, I remember thinking like, fuck,
Speaker 1: how am I ever gonna fit into life here in
Speaker 1: Sydney if I can't even afford the latest iPhone? And
Speaker 1: it kind of like messed with my head a little
Speaker 1: bit for a few days, and over time I realized,
Speaker 1: you know what fucked that bride? And fuck how superficial
Speaker 1: people can be, especially here in Sydney. But I've just
Speaker 1: never forgot that one incident. And yeah, that hair extension
Speaker 1: comment from Lauren again just reminded me of that and
Speaker 1: led to me writing this open letter I will read now,
Speaker 1: which I suppose I wish I wrote back then to
Speaker 1: the bride who made that iPhone comment to me. I
Speaker 1: literally hand wrote this, let me get my paper, dear
Speaker 1: Lauren from that she is.
Speaker 3: Married At first sight.
Speaker 1: Firstly, it's outstanding that at thirty seven years old you
Speaker 1: can have such little in life, I loky. You want
Speaker 1: to say that the level of delusion you live your
Speaker 1: life with is kind of impressive, but it's not.
Speaker 3: It's just sad.
Speaker 1: Your genuine belief that someone's entire worth as a person
Speaker 1: is determined by material possessions is also just sad too,
Speaker 1: as is the fact that you genuinely see yourself as
Speaker 1: superior over others because of the things you may wear
Speaker 1: or the way you may look and present yourself to
Speaker 1: the world. Judge people on their actions, judge people on
Speaker 1: how they behave towards you or in your presence, and
Speaker 1: judge them on the things they say and do, and
Speaker 1: not for anything other than those things. Looking down on
Speaker 1: people like you do isn't funny, It isn't comical, It
Speaker 1: isn't cute. It doesn't make you likable or endearing in
Speaker 1: any way whatsoever. As I said, it's just sad to
Speaker 1: see you are Lauren, a thirty seven year old woman,
Speaker 1: So just grow up. I hope that one day you
Speaker 1: reach a point in your life where you realize that
Speaker 1: the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the type
Speaker 1: of hair extensions you wear, or the model of iPhone
Speaker 1: you have means nothing. It bears no reflection to who
Speaker 1: you are as a person or you're standing in society.
Speaker 1: Go read the news, Lauren, go look at the world
Speaker 1: around you, and please go gain some perspective. And until
Speaker 1: you do that, I assume you'll be indefinitely single because
Speaker 1: any guy you may attract because of your nice clothes
Speaker 1: or expensive hair extensions will eventually see past all of
Speaker 1: that as your personality eventually takes over. And sadly, Lauren,
Speaker 1: you can't buy a nice one of those. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, have a nice day, and that's all I've
Speaker 1: got for today's episode of this podcast. Goodbye and good
Speaker 1: night friends. I don't really know what the point of
Speaker 1: this was. It's just that fucking hair extension comment like
Speaker 1: riled me up so much that I was compelled to
Speaker 1: literally bring pen to paper.