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