THREE

The Project co-hosts Jesse Mulligan and Kanoa Lloyd have revealed their reasons for running a dating week on the show and their own dating disasters.

Kanoa Lloyd isn't sure if a week is long enough for The Project team to share all their dating disasters.

Although now happily married, the 31-year-old co-host of Three's flagship current-affairs show admits she herself "kissed a few frogs to find my prince".

However, despite being one of The Project's "old, married, boring" presenting team that hasn't stopped her, Jesse Mulligan and Jeremy Corbett from throwing themselves into a week-long investigation into the New Zealand dating scene.

As well as hosting a singles' night on Wednesday, the show is also looking into the experiences of people who identify as transgender, are into polyamorous relationships, have a genetic condition or religious restrictions.

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Lloyd says the idea came from one of The Project's "amazing producers".

"Dating puts you in a very vulnerable state. You want someone to like you. You're not sure how much to share about yourself or if you'll ever see this person again. It's a position we've all found ourselves in and can relate to. Then we started thinking, 'If it's hard for all of us when we're healthy and able-boded, imagine what it is like when you add in another ingredient like having a genetic condition like Huntingdon's disease? At what stage during your dating process do you say, 'hey, by the way…' And what about if you are a trans person or gender non-conforming who doesn't fit into a neat little box?' So we decided to look to go 'on dates' and have conversations with parts of the population that aren't always visible."

Lloyd admits that while the rise of online dating ad sites like Tinder and Bumble come with their own set of challenges ("you're constantly wondering what people's intentions are all the time"), she says they have heard from some people this week whose dating lives have been made much easier by modern technology.

"There was a Muslim guy who told us he would typically be set up on dates by his parents to find the person he was supposed to marry. They would be chaperoned and no physical contact was allowed. But now, through this app Minder – the Muslim Tinder – he's found it easier to meet people who fit into his world and have conversations with them. Technology has really changed the game for him."

Raised in Dunedin ("where dating kind of consisted of walking around the same place with another person"), Lloyd confesses she didn't really go on a "proper date" until she first came to Auckland – and it didn't exactly start well.

Chris Skelton

Kanoa Lloyd says The Project's investigations into the New Zealand dating scene have taught her that the challenges of "finding the one person who you want to share your life with are the same for everybody, no matter what church you go to, whether you are in a wheelchair, or whatever life might be throwing at you".

"For whatever reason, in my life I had never eaten an edamame bean before I went to this Japanese restaurant. My date ordered them and I had no idea what I was doing and started chewing the entire thing, including the shell. It wasn't a terrible date, apart from that terrible moment, it wasn't something we couldn't overcome. It think we laughed about in the end."

Also now off the dating scene for some time, Lloyd's Project co-host Mulligan recalls his success with internet dating was somewhat chequered.

"It reminded me that, even when you have unlimited choice, it still doesn't guarantee that you're going to find your true love and, in fact, it might be an impediment. I met some really cool people, some of who I became friends with, but I didn't meet my true love.

"I remember going to one where it became clear very early that this person was slightly unhinged, so it was just a matter of getting through this one drink and then getting back on the train. And on the train back from the date to my house, I got three text messages from her asking when we were going to see each other again. So that was like fairly intense. But that's no disrespect to internet dating, you meet plenty of weird people in real-life too."

"The texts said, 'Hi I'd love to see you again some time', then five minutes later the next text said, 'Hi, why aren't you texting me back?', then the next text said, 'Please text me back, I'd love to hear from you'. That was all in the space of about 10 minutes, so it was pretty full-on."

He also recalls meeting up with another girl, "who seemed really nice and normal online".

Chris Skelton

Jesse Mulligan believes TV and movies have a lot to answer for when it comes to perceptions about dating.

"But when I met her [at 6pm on a Tuesday] she was drunk – like totally wrecked! Turns out she'd been made redundant that day and gone home and hit the bottle, but hadn't thought to cancel the date. I ended up propping her up at a table for a couple of hours, then basically carrying her home. I think she would have been quite embarrassed, though on the bright side, I expect she woke up and didn't remember a minute of it."

Mulligan believes TV and movies have a lot to answer for when it comes to dating.

"Almost every story we see is about a white man meeting a white girl, and falling in love, and some obstacles along the way. The much more interesting stories are the ones where it's not that straightforward. And, I also think by the way that people in relationships are poorly served in TV and movies, the stories are always about people getting together but noone shows you like 20 years into a marriage, which is what most of us are dealing with.

"We were really interested in telling some stories that hadn't been told before or hadn't been told enough. And the first ones we've told are exactly that.

"We had a person on Tuesday night who was trans, who was saying that being trans was only about 1 per cent of his personality, and the other 99 per cent was normal stuff. And so doing these stories reminds people that these are normal people, going through all the same sort of stuff as we are, and they don't sit at home on the couch thinking, 'I am trans, what am I going to do next', they're just getting on with life the way the rest of us are. It was quite a heartbreaking story in many ways, because most of us find it pretty hard to find the right person, but for them they've got to deal with the fact that there's a really large portion of society who would never date a trans person, or wouldn't consider dating them.

"I think it can be lonely going through something that most people don't have to go through, and even more lonely if it's harder to find a life partner who can be there to talk about stuff with."

Lloyd says that apart from making her appreciate her husband a little bit more this week, the "really fun series that has got something for everyone", has taught her that the challenges of "finding the one person who you want to share your life with are the same for everybody no matter what church you go to, whether you are in a wheelchair, or whatever life might be throwing at you".

​"So if I had any advice, it would be that if you're meeting someone, just remember – everybody's nervous, everybody wants to put their best-foot forward and everybody wants to find some sort of real connection. And if that fails and the conversation starts going bad – maybe just imagine them in their underwear or something."

The Project screens weeknights at 7pm on Three.

 - Stuff