This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UFL chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

Love Is Blind spoilers ahead…

Most dating shows are obvious about how genuinely, mind-numbingly stupid they are. At least on Too Hot To Handle, they tell you straight up, “Here’s a bunch of hot people, and they’re gonna try not to touch each other! Have fun wasting your time watching them lose money and not fall in love!” That would not be the case with Love Is Blind, the dating show that hides behind the rhetoric that they’re conducting an experiment of sorts… to see if love is truly blind, as they say. The show works by allowing singles to meet and get to know each other without actually seeing what the other person looks like. Couples will talk for days, until they feel as if they’ve fallen in love–and then, after they commit to each other, they finally get to meet the body attached to the personality they claim to love so much.

It’s perfect! Everyone’s happy! Kieran Holmes-Darby and Megan Jupp from the second season of Love Is Blind UK are still married— and they look great together. Unfortunately, I’m making the claim that these two have only managed to survive as long as they have due to both being conventionally attractive, on top of the original personality match. I’m glad that they met and fell in love with each other’s wit and humor, but they got lucky with looks.

Let’s turn to season 9 of Love Is Blind, set in Colorado. Patrick Suzuki and Kacie McIntosh were one of the few couples who claimed to have found love before meeting face-to-face. But, as an objective viewer, let me lay the foundation as clearly as possible. Kacie is conventionally attractive to SEC standards–tan, blonde and fit. She could’ve been a Tri-DElt.

Patrick, on the other hand, is not. As a Chinese man, he’s automatically excluded from many American beauty standards, but Kacie knew he was Chinese from their conversations. What she didn’t know was that he wasn’t “hot for an Asian guy,” as he’d described himself–he was… just not hot… at all.

Now, if love were blind, that wouldn’t be a problem, because they’d fallen in love before seeing each other! But unfortunately, the moment Kacie saw him, she realized that he wasn’t at all what she was expecting, and he wasn’t at all someone she could learn to find attractive. Despite her deepest wishes, she needed someone on her level. Someone hot. Can you blame a girl? How does she rewire her instinctual urges? She told him she couldn’t see herself falling in love with him. That he deserved better. She never said it was about looks… But what else could it be?

We’ve been told our whole lives that “looks don’t matter,” but I’d argue that most of us explicitly recognize that they do. It is a choice whether we let that reality influence our actions and our confidence, but regardless, it is a reality.

A pretty girl can get a million likes and become an influencer. Anyone with money can get surgery until they’re pretty enough to get a million likes and become an influencer. If you’re average, it’s a bit harder. Our generation knows this as well as we know how to use a computer. We’ve grown up with it—our culture is entrenched in the commercialization of beauty, in the constant pressure to fix ourselves. Everything is an ad; there are endless products that will help you feel more confident–if you just tweak this or that.

And as casual American culture backslides into conservatism, we once again equate prettiness with moral value. It’s about worthiness and belonging. If you can sculpt your body and your face into something desirable, you get to participate in the world differently. You get softer treatment, easier connections and more forgiveness. The prettiest people get the most sympathy.

We sell ourselves and market our faces and bodies on dating apps for men to browse and swipe and then text to ask. I would maybe change this to something a little more PG lol. Normal conversation starters. We curate ourselves to make our personalities palatable for the dumbest guys in Gainesville, every interaction starting based on pictures, based on looks. They win when we’re insecure, just as much as companies profit from it.

The best rebellion we can do is to quit playing along with these beauty standards and buying every product sold to cure our insecurities…But to do so is painfully isolating. Because love isn’t blind. But I wonder if attention isn’t necessarily the affection we crave, and perhaps there is something necessary in the loneliness that comes before someone loves you.

Love Is, In Fact, Not Blind

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