I’ll admit it: I love reality dating shows. The drama, the sheer stupidity. I live for all of it. The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise—I’ve been watching these shows since I was in middle school. They’re like a trainwreck you can’t look away from—you have to see what happens. So naturally, when I saw Netflix released a new reality dating show called Love is Blind, I had to jump on it.
The premise of the show is as follows: a group of men and women are taken into a building and their contact with the outside world is cut off. They’re separated at the beginning, living in quarters with their own gender. The only interaction with the opposite gender takes place in “pods,” soundproof rooms with frosted glass separating the other side. There, each contestant will go in and have “dates” with every other contestant of the opposite gender.
The whole purpose of the show is to see if people can fall in love with someone based solely on who they are as a person, not on their physical appearance. The end goal: a proposal and marriage within a month. Cue the trainwreck.
The first few minutes of it were absolute cringe, even cringier than The Bachelor or any other show in the Bachelor universe. Attractive people rolling in, talking about how they have shit luck when it comes to love, so they decided to participate because their own egos have single-handedly ruined their dating life. Now, they decide they want to get married, but because they’ve fucked themselves and so many other people over, this is their only shot. Go figure.
Carlton and Diamond’s romance was short-lived when he revealed to her after their engagement that he was bisexual. When they attempted to talk about it, it went downhill pretty quick. Diamond took her ring off, Carlton threw it into the pool, and she stormed off quoting Beyoncé lyrics—“Ladies, I know we fantasize about this but, for the love of God, do not ever do this”—and he told her to watch her wig because it’s been slipping since day one. Cue the trainwreck.
The villain of the show was definitely Jessica. From her annoying baby voice that goes up several octaves whenever she talks to men, her obsession with age and Barnett, her obvious lack of physical attraction to Mark (whom she only ended up getting engaged to because Barnett tossed her to the side), feeding her dog wine, getting too drunk constantly… she’s a hot mess. Cue the trainwreck.
On the other hand, Barnett ended up choosing to marry Amber. A girl who’s unemployed, couch-surfing, blows $700 a month on makeup and is thousands of dollars in debt from a degree she never finished. She’s the real queen of finessing. She gets to be a stay-at-home mom while Barnett the engineer pays for everything.
Giannina looked like she was auditioning for a drama show the entire time, from her dramatic and cringey proposal to Damian, to bringing up the fact that their sex is not the best sex of her life during an argument—a low blow. Then she runs away after he decides not to marry her because he felt like she wasn’t ready. He was right. Pure reality TV gold.
However, not all hope was lost. The real stars of the show were Lauren and Cameron. They truly found love, were unproblematic, drama-free and are still married two years after filming of the show ended.
The devil and Kris Jenner may work hard, but reality dating show producers work way harder—and we love them for it.
Feature image from screenshot.
