Netflix's Love is Blind definitely isn't Married at First Sight with a name change. Photo / Supplied
Netflix's Love is Blind definitely isn't Married at First Sight with a name change. Photo / Supplied
Opinion
COMMENT:
The impossible has finally happened: We have a reality dating show with a premise that's actually quite good and which actually takes care of its contestants and tries to make something meaningful happen.
You know, as opposed to just throwing strangers together at the altar based on absolutely nothingand forcing them to live as a married couple for the entertainment of strangers. Wild, I know.
I had assumed Netflix's Love is Blind would basically be "Married at First Sight but with a different name so no one gets sued" but I was pleasantly surprised.
The reality show gets a bunch of singles who are ready for marriage to meet in adjacent rooms - "the pods" - separated by a thin wall through which they can speak to each other but can't see or touch each other.
Over the course of the first few days, they must blind date their fellow reality hopefuls and try to make an emotional connection strong enough to commit to marriage over.
It sounds impossible. But when you have people who are all there with the same goal, you get results pretty quickly as small talk and flirting is replaced with "how many children do you want?" and "what are you looking for in a wife?" right off the bat.
One couple falls in love - and exchange declarations of said love - in just four days.
It takes me longer than that to commit to a new deodorant.
The only thing I've ever loved that quickly and with such certainty is dogs. Which is why it's actually really nice to see it happen on TV - especially in this era of disconnection and Tinder hook-ups. Some of these couples were more in love in a few days than I've ever been in my life; willing to change their entire lives, challenge their values, challenge their families and give up their lifestyles for their new partners and that blows my mind.
What's particularly great about Love Is Blind is they don't just pair people off and send them on their way, they ask the hugely important question that many people forget to ask even in real life: "They've found love, but is it enough?"
Marriages can last for 10 years before the people in them realise love is no longer enough to keep them together. So what this show does is pair up the singles in the pod, send them on a romantic holiday to explore their physical relationships, send them home to experience living together and even get them to meet one another's families. Only after all that, do they send them to the altar and even then, they get one final chance to either back out or say "I do".
Throughout this wild journey, we see one woman grapple with her perceived social stigma of dating a man 10 years her junior.
We see a black woman come to terms with dating outside her race for the first time and her white fiancee meeting her less-than-impressed father for the first time.
A scene from Love Is Blind. Photo / Supplied
We see a queer man struggling with his history dating both men and women, and getting his new partner to accept that.
We watch families question whether our singles are ready for all that marriage entails after the novelty of new love and the cameras are all gone and suddenly you've got joined debt to think about and you're arguing over the dishes that didn't get done last night.
Love Is Blind is the first reality show I've ever seen taking love, relationships and marriage seriously.
It's all well and good to dish out roses for weeks on end but what happens after that? What happens when everything fades away and suddenly you just have to do life with this person?
Love is easy. Love hits you whether you want it to or not. What's hard is following through, being open and flexible and ready to commit, compromise and sacrifice.
It's about merging families, finances, assets and lifestyles, and taking on each other's baggage and insecurities and being okay with carrying that load and having yours tipped out for the world to see.
And Love Is Blind shows all of that - albeit in a super-condensed format; all of this happens in just 10 one-hour episodes. (Eleven, if you count the reunion episode in which we catch up with all the contestants a year later.)
It's a whirlwind of a journey and one that is filled with intense fear, uncertainty, tears and self-sabotage, but also joy. Did it sometimes drag on a bit? Absolutely. Too much Jessica, not enough Lauren.
Did most of the relationships crash and burn? Of course they did. They got engaged in less than a week to a stranger they talked to through a wall, what did you expect?
But some of these couples are still going strong and other hopefuls have remained single but discovered new things within themselves and that's just as beautiful.
In a time where you can order sex to your door as conveniently as a pizza and people obsess over the image they portray on social media, it's just really nice and wholesome to see a show that focuses on connections that actually matter.
