Looking For Love On a Field Of Mud
ARIAH PARK, Australia — They called it a wet T-shirt contest, but there were no winners or losers. Not many shirts, either. One man wore nothing but a tool belt, which no one seemed to mind even as the wettest and drunkest of the young and rural Australians tackled each other in the red mud, before arising for hugs.
Two hours later, they appeared transformed: black ties for the men, dresses for the women. The Ariah Park Bachelor and Spinster Ball had officially begun. After all, 1,500 people didn’t drive forever to this tiny town (population 493) just for giggles. They were searching for love.
“Yes, we’re here to meet people,” said Emme Williams, 22, a veterinary student.
In cities, courtship has become efficient to excess, with a variety of dating apps. But for people across Australia’s vast distances, it takes more planning and patience. Bachelor and Spinster balls, a fixture in the country since the 1880s, aim to help. They are increasingly the catalyst for a matchmaking hybrid that combines the digital with the raw, communal and real.
The interaction starts online, with friends posting photos and descriptions of their friends in a singles Facebook group before each ball; Ms. Williams was featured scantily clad except for the wool of a freshly shorn sheep. The lucky ones move on to flirting via Snapchat. But then real-life socializing takes over.
“You’re limited to three single boys in your town, and you’re related to two of them,” said Ebony Worland, 25, one of the ball’s organizers. “These were built for single women and men to find love in the country, really.”
Along with the free-flowing beer and the backfiring pickup trucks known as utes, turned on and off to create fiery explosions, there are people who connected at balls and come back to socialize, like Jess and Matt Chown. “We met at a ball in 2011,” Ms. Chown said. “I laid eyes on him and it was love at first sight.”
Nearby, Ms. Williams scanned the crowd for a bachelor. One of her friends, Stephanie Papulia, 22, pointed to a guy in an expensive new ute.
“He’s got a Land Cruiser and a mullet,” Ms. Papulia said. “Ticks both boxes.”
Most of the men in Ariah Park were more “chivalrous,” they said, than their behavior might suggest.
But some balls in other towns have been dangerous: In 2017, two men were convicted of raping a woman at one.
The main problem in Ariah Park seemed to be food dye. No one could explain why, but for years, attendees have felt compelled to spit dye onto each other.
The first band, Whiskey Business, set the tone, playing upbeat country songs. Near the stage, men bounced to the music. Many seemed awkward. Some of the women chose to be bold. “Are you taken?” they asked their intendeds. But near the edges, there was more tenderness. A woman in a green dress danced with her bearded partner.
“I love you,” she told him.
A rowdy mating ritual for young residents of a country’s rural areas.