SBS' Look Me In The Eye's Zach speaks after meeting estranged friend Lauren

His last resort was to appear on reality television show Look Me In The Eye on SBS – their episode aired Wednesday night.

“I didn’t know from a bar of soap what happened or where she’d been, last time I had seen her she was overweight and didn’t look well,” Mr Gallagher, 29, said.

The documentary-style program explores what happens when two estranged people come face to face without speaking, to look each other in the eye for five minutes.

Mr Gallagher said sitting in the room in front of cameras, waiting for his former friend to enter and sit in front of him, felt like an eternity with an intense and confronting climax.

“I was glad to see she was happy and really excited to be there. It was a very emotional experience for her as well so I felt for her, she seemed very anxious,” he said.

“It was obvious from our expressions and how we were interacting we obviously missed each other and it was a beautiful moment, but it was really intense.”

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Despite the pair hugging and seemingly rekindling their friendship the relationship won’t be the same.

“It’s sad, I went into the show hoping I’d get some sort of resolution or … it would be like old times but so much has changed,” Mr Gallagher said.

“We’ve hung out a few times since the show but I’ve come to the realisation we’re different people and the person I was friends with is not the person she is now.”

Other participants during the six-part series included a single mum who tried to win back her only son, a former child soldier confronted the man he said tortured him and a daughter who met the dad who walked away from her family when she was 10.

Host Ray Martin said the emotions were strong during the experiment and every couple wanted to spend time talking with each other after filming to try and sort things out.

“Of the 18 couples we spoke to everyone said to me afterwards they saw things. They saw sorrow, they saw love, they saw compassion, they saw anger, they had memories of the things they had to do,” he said, admitting the project surprised him.

“I was there every second of the recording … of these six shows and it was amongst the most intense and exhausting things I’ve ever done.”

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