Cavan woman shares ‘unreal’ First Dates Ireland experience in search for true love

A Cavan woman has spoken of her experience at searching for true love ahead of her upcoming appearance on RTÉ’s First Dates Ireland show.

The popular dating show returned for its ninth series last week with a whole new batch of hopeful singletons hoping to find ‘the one’.

Among them was 22-year-old Cavan hairdresser Chloe Martin.

The former Cavan Institute student is due to take to the nation’s screens over the coming weeks having decided to enter the show last year.

“I think it was back in April,” she said when asked by Independent.ie when her intrigue about possibly putting her name forward first materialised.

“I was kind of doing it to see what would come of it. I just said to myself: ‘I am cool if something comes of it and I am cool if it doesn’t’. I just thought it would be a good laugh and a story to tell.”

Her family, were by her own candid admission, not entirely taken aback when news of her anticipated appearance broke.

“They were like: ‘Chloe we are not surprised’ and said ‘this is the sort of thing you would do’. I just replied: ‘Yeah’.

“I kind of just go with the flow and if I see something I will do it in the moment, but they were not surprised.”

The likeable Canningstown native, who confessed how she has only ever had “situationships” as opposed to relationships, said the path towards landing a slot on the hit show involved plenty of behind the scenes preparation.

“I have never had a proper relationship, so I was kind of hoping that (going on First Dates) would help the love life,” she said.

“We had an online application to fill in which involved answering all the questions and then once that got approved, you had a phone call application.

“They (show’s producers) would ask the same sort of questions and see what you are looking for, what is your interests, how long have you been single and worst and best date stories.

“Once you got that approved, then you had to submit a video answering the same questions and then once you got through that you had the first real interview with a heart in the background.”

Despite the invariable challenges of navigating through that three step process, Chloe stopped short of shedding light on how her date went, but said family and friends could hold off on purchasing any wedding attire for now, at least.

“Maybe not in my case,” she quipped, when asked if she believed in love at first sight.

That said, the bubbly Cavan woman said her involvement with the show was one she would encourage others to replicate.

“100 per cent,” she said.

“I enjoyed the whole experience. You have to do walk in and walk out shots and you are in this room meeting all the other contestants and meeting new people.

“Just the experience itself is unreal and I would recommend people do it, it is so much fun.”

First Dates Ireland airs on Irish television screens each Thursday evening on RTÉ 2 at 9:35pm.

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