For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of witnessing the emergence of “love experiment” shows that Netflix has mass-manufactured over the past several years, let me introduce you to one of my favourites. Love is Blind is arguably one of the most entertaining and conceptually interesting television shows I’ve ever come across, and I’ll tell you why.
The show’s entire premise is based upon the simple question: “Is Love Blind?” The show recruits around 40-50 adults from one city (which changes every season) and inserts them into an intensive two-week experiment in an attempt to find their perfect match. The contestants live together in separate gendered quarters and spend their entire days going on dates in “pods.” The pods consist of small rooms that are divided by an opaque wall so the couples aren’t able to see one another and are therefore meant to foster connections based on emotion and personality, rather than appearance. Over the ten days spent in the pods, the contestants are gradually narrowed down, leaving the pool at around 20-25. In the final stage of the experiment, there are typically about 4-6 connections that are deemed strong enough to move on to the next phase, the proposal. Yes, after merely two weeks of dating, several couples from the experiment get engaged sight unseen.
The next stage, probably my favourite part of the show to watch, is when the engaged couples are finally able to see one another face-to-face. Each couple has a big reveal, which often results in awkward looks of disappointment on one or both ends and difficult-to-watch hugs and kisses. The accompanying music is what I refer to as 2014 department store pop. From there, the couples embark on an almost “pre-honeymoon,” in which they test their chemistry and physical connection outside of the pods. This often results in the shedding of one or two couples, or at least cements early on whose relationship is definitely not making it down the aisle. It is also the part of the show where the other couples meet and the drama of “who dated who” or “who didn’t pick who” is unraveled. There are almost always several contestants who regret picking one person over another once they’ve seen everyone in person, though in order to stay on the show, they pretend like that’s not the case.
The next part of the experiment is when the couples are finally able to test what their relationship would be like in the real world. However, it’s questionable how “real” this phase is, as each couple moves into identical apartments all in the same complex. Each couple then meets each other’s family and friends, resumes their work, and has their phones returned to them (which believe it or not was the cause of one of the breakups this past season), and ultimately tries to see what their relationship could look like beyond the confines of the pods. This ends up being the end of the road for a lot of the couples when real-life obstacles get in the way, or they realize they’re just not compatible outside of the pods. Sometimes, they just come to the sound conclusion that they’re about to marry someone they just met.
However, at least 3-4 of the couples end up making it to the aisle in the end which has produced some of the most painstakingly difficult-to-watch rejections at the altar that I have ever witnessed. To be fair, several of the couples do ultimately say “I do” and many are still married today.
Now to my actual question, does this experiment really work? Is love really blind? I think it depends. Many psychologists have studied the show and its premise, and the general consensus is that it comes down to what people prioritize in relationships. Those who enter the experiment placing a much greater value on a deep, intimate connection, will most likely have a better chance of meeting their match than those who do not. So, the people who end up together both have that mentality upon entering the experiment. However, at the end of the day, Love is Blind is a television show. While many of the contestants are pure in their intentions to find a connection, there will always be those seeking fame and money or are added in by the producers to stir the pot. Because of this, the experiment is tainted from the get-go, and therefore I believe it can never truly work when tested in the context of a reality show.
Additionally, even those with the purest intentions of finding someone based on a personal connection cannot neglect physical attraction in a relationship. While the idea of finding your partner purely based on an emotional connection is amazing in theory, I think it can be unrealistic and projects an image of relationships to the public that condemns the importance of physical attraction. While the physical aspect isn’t necessarily the most integral part of building a strong relationship, I think striking a healthy balance between physical attraction and emotional connection is important. By eliminating this factor entirely and preventing the contestants from testing their physical chemistry before getting engaged, a lot of the couples ultimately split up when they realized they lacked this important aspect of their connection.
So, is love truly blind? Unfortunately, I don’t have a definitive answer. I think the context of this experiment taking place on a television show means that there will always be an aspect of inauthenticity. However, I can’t deny the fact that there are a larger number of success stories from the six seasons of this show than in the history of the entire Bachelor franchise. If you have a desire to try to decipher this question further or are merely curious about the show, I would highly recommend checking it out. Happy watching!