The love expert:
The man helping couples (hopefully) find love.
Pairing up singletons for televised, legally-binding weddings is a big deal. Just ask Tony Jones. Jones, who runs a counselling business, is responsible – along with social psychology expert Dr Pani Farvid – for the match-making on the reality show Married At First Sight NZ, in which 12 singles become six married couples. “We put many hours and weeks and months into the matches,” says Jones. “At the time we were so generally committed to the individuals and the couples, we were just lost in them and putting together the best match.
“In terms of looking any further outside the expectations of marriage and the expectations of performing and the expectations of success, that didn’t come through until all the matches were pending and then all of a sudden, yes it dawned on me the enormity of the process we’d gone through and the process that the couples were going to be going through.”
Jones, who is in his mid-30s and has a young family, hails from the UK. His previous careers include being a police officer and a high school teacher.
He has been living in New Zealand for 12 years and earns his keep listening and advising.
Until Married At First Sight NZ came along, he had never done any TV work.
“I work in a room with individuals, families and couples and I’m not filmed all day doing it and I haven’t got lots of people watching me,” says Jones.
“So it’s very much out of my comfort zone, but I have enjoyed it.”
While Jones takes his role on Married At First Sight NZ
seriously, the chances of the marriages succeeding are low – if the overseas versions of the show are anything to go by. As to whether the unions on
Married At First Sight NZ will last is anyone’s guess. Only time will tell.