I love MasterChef. Like really, embarrassingly love it. So much so, I cook fancy things the nights it's on and make my fiancée have MasterChef parties with me if there's a really juicy elimination. (I have to say, given he is a 6"4 blokey bloke who loves watching sports, he has taken to this extremely well. It's not uncommon for him to yell something at the TV similar to, "JESUS, Sarah. You KNOW that's too many elements on one plate!")
I love my fiancée. He's the best. But I also love Matt Preston and count him as one of my favourite imaginary boyfriends (there are a few).
Let me tell you a little something about imaginary boyfriends -- they're imaginary. Well, at least your relationship with them is. As such, you can totally have as many imaginary boyfriends you want. And -- this is important -- you don't have to be attracted to them (sorry Matt) for them to still earn imaginary bf status.
Here is how my imaginary relationship with Matt Preston evolved. First up, he's always been my favourite MasterChef judge. The cravat! Those pants! He's hilarious the minute he walks on screen. Waiting to see what Pres-dog wears every night is seriously one of the show's ultimate highlights.
My fiancée teases me about this a lot and one night, dared to rudely talk over Matt when he was giving some very important culinary feedback. I had no choice to intervene and say something along the lines of, "shhh my boyfriend is talking".
And that's how I knew. Matt Preston had joined the esteemed ranks of other imaginary boyfriends (Sam Pang, I'm looking at you) and he and I are in imaginary love in an imaginary cravat-filled land where everyone is tall and round and wears absurdly colourful pants. #sigh
I don't know what I would do if I actually met Matt Preston. I did have the opportunity once, when I was attending an awards night for work last year and Matt and co (Gary and George) were there. My fiancée Lucas was all like "honey look! It's Matt Preston! We should go and tell him how much you love the show!" and then he took my arm and started walking toward Matty P like it was no biggie and we could just strut up to the MasterChef King and be all 'hey' about it and I just could not deal.
I think my reaction went something like this. "omg seriously don't. DON'T. Do not take me over there. Lucas I swear to God if you go over to Matt Preston and tell him how much I love him I will kill you. DO NOT EMBARRASS ME." And Luc was all like, "but didn't you just say hello to Rose Byrne?" and I was like "DO NOT ENGAGE WITH MATT PRESTON I WILL DIE."
So, yeah. Fan girling over Matt Preston is an actual thing that actually happened AND I AM NOT ASHAMED. Here is the thing about Matt. He is a glorious culinary hero who gets to eat things and be on television for a living while wearing silly pants and has a Twitter account called @MattsCravat which, let be real, is totes hilare and he writes cook books even though he's not a chef and frankly, I think all of the above is pretty awesome.
So, judge away if you must, but so long as Matt Preston continues to eat things on television very seriously and wear his cravat and drop food pun warnings like "everything you've been through today is just a hors d'oeuvre" his imaginary boyfriend status is safe.
And given there's another season of MasterChef in the works, it doesn't look like we'll be going through an imaginary break up any time soon.