Why the Second Season of ‘Love is Blind’ was a Compelling Commentary on Modern Dating

Hear me out.

I want to start by saying I’m not too fond of reality television.

It’s one of those things I get on my soapbox about, rattling off the reasons I think it’s terrible.

I’m convinced its purpose is to distract us and idolize and glamorize the wealthy (Vanderpump Rules, Housewives, Selling Sunset) or fetishize and exploit vulnerable populations (16 and Pregnant, Hoarders).

While my critiques may be valid, as much as I want to be above it all, I’m not.

I’m just as susceptible to the hypnotizing drama of people who will do anything on camera.

So I watched Netflix’s “Love is Blind Season 2.”

If you haven’t heard of it, the show’s premise is an experiment about whether or not love is blind. It’s a dating show where 15 men and women have been put in “pods” where they can only hear but not see each other.

They are then encouraged to build connections without knowing how anyone looks. At the end of the experiment, they have to either propose or walk away, and if they propose, they get to see each other, then test their relationship in the “real world” before their wedding.

I know this kind of thing makes for great tv.

I know because my boyfriend, who could care less about reality tv, got sucked into it and binge-watched the entire season with me.

Love is Blind was highly satisfying to psychoanalyze and a fascinating commentary on modern dating.

*Spoilers Ahead*

Why the show was captivating

The participants were relatable.

We love to watch things we can see parts of ourselves in, and it’s why we love any film or tv show, not just the reality variety.

I generally found most of the participants likable, but what stood out to me was just how relatable and imperfect they were. Like so many of us, they just wanted to find something real and meaningful in a society fixated on superficiality and status.

They recognized how dismal the dating game had become while holding this wholesome hope that they would somehow find love.

I will never know whether they joined the show to immerse themselves or for the airtime, but I empathized with the sentiment of finding love.

I respected their willingness to be vulnerable, nonetheless.

We watch them work through growing pains, handle rejection, leave the honeymoon phase, self-reflect, try to avoid hurting someone, understand their self-worth, and decide what love meant to them.

They played out the drama of their attachment styles and wounds, triggered each other’s insecurities and doubts, and opened opportunities to grow or remain stuck in old patterns.

It was intriguing to me how much the dynamic challenged them to step outside their comfort zones and how complex each was since most people are neither purely villains nor heroes.

Although the producers had their idea of how to portray each person, we as viewers saw all see the cringe-worthy moments part and parcel of being in the dating pool. The lapses in judgment, lack of self-awareness, and inability to communicate are things we’ve all experienced ourselves.

They were all works in progress.

All participants seemed to open themselves up to the experience and put themselves out there.

Even one of the most controversial participants seemed (at least initially) that he was trying to challenge his ideologies around superficiality and creating real connection, but reverted when it mattered most.

Other participants were challenged to develop their self-worth, empowering them to say no to people who wouldn’t have valued them fully.

Some of them said no (however clumsily) to relationships where they would’ve been compromising their values or doing most of the emotional labor.

Others, and one person in particular who lost his proposal, had to look at emotional maturity and reactivity.

We all make mistakes in love, and most of us have been in situations where our behavior eventually drove someone away.

To be human means to be in a continuous state of flux, and none of us will ever be perfect.

The show exemplified that.

It also didn’t necessarily have any “happy endings.”

One of the couples we were all rooting for couldn’t reconcile their differences after the rejected proposal, stating they were just very different people.

Even the two couples that said “I do” shared how things had been difficult. One was going to couples therapy and actively working on their relationship together. The other had to go through many strifes and difficult discussions to make it to the reunion a year later.

What Love is Blind highlights about modern dating

We are not having deep enough conversations.

“This is the deepest connection I’ve ever had with anyone.”

“I’ve connected with you more than anyone I’ve ever dated in these ten days.”

These two phrases were expressed more times than I could count throughout the show.

That’s great because it means the participants were experiencing depth in their connections, but it shines a significant light on how much we collectively avoid vulnerability and intimacy.

People don’t realize that when they stay guarded to protect themselves from pain, they also temper the ability to open up to love and create deeper relationships.

We can’t numb one area of our lives and not have it numb others. When we numb from pain, we also temper the joy.

If we aren’t willing to have direct conversations initially, we can’t tell if someone’s values and desires align with ours, which would allow us to determine early on if we’re a good fit.

We get so wrapped up in the excitement of a new connection that we trust it more than the compatibility. Even when we know there are likely too many differences, we don’t want to lose the connection or the dream of the relationship.

So we avoid hard conversations and don’t ask essential questions that would lead us to end things, remaining in denial until the problems become impossible to ignore.

On Love is Blind, there is no physical attraction component, so it’s easier to decide whether or not the connection is there. It’s almost a nothing lost; nothing gained mentality.

Many of us are willing to self-abandon to find love.

When one person gets rejected after proposing, he asks his “runner up” to marry him.

Initially, she walks away, stating she doesn’t want to be anyone’s second choice. She then convinces herself to be with him, despite still feeling hurt and insecure about it.

The challenge with accepting less is that we will never be able to unknow that we weren’t someone’s first pick, forever feeling on some level a sense of being undervalued.

This often leads to resentment, as we may hold it against them and ourselves for not letting it go and instead wait for someone who felt sure about us.

His proposal to her felt more like someone who didn’t want to leave without a prize, so she became the consolation rather than someone he truly wanted to know and love.

So many of us will do anything to avoid being alone. Part of that means we choose not to see the other person fully, creating a narrative of who we think they are. We convince ourselves they will eventually change, and when they don’t, and the relationship inevitably doesn’t work, we end up alone anyway.

We sabotage relationships due to unresolved trauma.

One of the participants struggles with anxiety to the point of panic attacks. She is often unable to soothe insecurities and traumas from previous partners, and her past experiences create mistrust for her chosen partner on the show.

It often leads her to pick unnecessary fights with him.

Everyone struggles with insecurities, and at some point, most of us have projected our baggage onto our partner.

While we all deserve someone whose behaviors demonstrate that they’re committed and trustworthy, it is not their responsibility to soothe all of our insecurities.

We are accountable for addressing our mental and emotional health and learning healthy coping strategies to manage them.

I had empathy for both participants in this scenario. That kind of mistrust and anxiety often do the exact things we were terrified of in the first place, abandonment or rejection, and drives someone away who cares about us.

It cripples the ability to build intimacy because it’s nearly impossible to grow closer without trust and emotional safety.

We get fooled by the honeymoon phase.

Needing a show where people aren’t allowed to see each other to create a “real connection” depicts just how high of an emphasis we place on the external.

There is validity to having preferences or not feeling chemistry, but having a “type” can also pigeonhole us from someone who could’ve been a great fit.

The show aims to mitigate that by having participants’ appearances concealed.

None of the participants were exempt from a “honeymoon” phase. Even if they hadn’t seen each other in the pods, they were in literal “love bubbles” without input or feedback from the outside world.

Some couples didn’t even make it through the literal honeymoon phase in Mexico. Others did but faced real hurdles when they got back to the “real world” and friends, and family members met their chosen partner.

Day-to-day stressors and the realities of what it means to build a life together often go by the wayside when we first meet someone new. It’s an exciting time, and we feel unstoppable, flooded with dopamine and oxytocin. We are so enamored. We forget that everyone has flaws, and when they start to rear their head, many of us don’t make it through the transition period.

We would likely be more successful if we were taught upfront that relationships mean a few months of ignorant bliss. Still, that romance is doing the dishes together or supporting our partners when they go through a significant failure or loss.

It was inevitable and relatable to see the couples face the realities of their “new lives” together. It was even more relatable to see some families reject the experiment altogether because that’s real.

We all have familial baggage, and it will show up in any relationship we pursue. Sometimes our family and friends don’t like or accept who we choose, and it’s something we have to reconcile if we want to be with that person.

Final Analysis

I think there was real growth for almost all of the participants on the show. Many learned about their self-worth, boundaries, values, and patterns.

I think any relationship we have, whether romantic, familial, friendship or otherwise, provides us with an opportunity to learn about ourselves and become more aligned with what we want and who we truly are.

Perhaps it would be more beneficial to front load relationships with a caveat.

Maybe everything we’re doing in our time here together is for us to grow. If it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t a personal or shared failure; it was simply an experience that brought us closer to who we are.

When we allow ourselves to be changed by relationships, we grow.