It’s an age-old question: is love truly blind?

On February 13th, Netflix premiered a new reality series, Love is Blind, in which a group of young singles blindly date other contestants in attempts to find love. Described as an experiment, the show is based on the hypothesis that “psychologists believe that emotional connection is the key to long-term marital success, not physical attraction,” a comment given by co-host Nick Lachey. 

The strangers go on dates in “pods,” one-person rooms that are connected to one other, where their dates reside. They cannot see or touch the other person — they can only talk. The idea behind the show is that people can fall in love without knowing what they look like or without the influence of outside factors. Once the singles fall in love and decide to get engaged, they are finally revealed to each other.

After the blind dating stage, the couples who did “find love” are taken to a resort to spend time together before they go back to their home city and are forced to move in together to get used to daily life as a couple. They then meet the parents, and at the end, the remaining couples get married in usually extravagant ceremonies. Keep in mind this whole process takes place within only a few weeks. 

Needless to say, it has to be confusing to have an entire relationship, even the intimate details at some points, filmed and televised for the entire world to see.  No couple, I presume, wants to have their fights recorded. Then again, the contestants did sign up for it.

Regardless, fans have proven to, well, love Love is Blind, as it is a spin-off of typical dating shows like The Bachelor or Love Island, where physical appearance clearly play a larger role. Viewers get quickly invested in the show’s couples, as certain couples are fan favorites, while some seem to irritate nearly all viewers. 

With six couples declaring their unending love for one another after the blind date stage, the show’s hypothesis seems to be proven. However, I think there are some flaws in the logic behind the experiment and the outcome.

Only two couples ended up going through with the weddings, coming from a pool of around 30 contestants, which does not necessarily support the theory that love is in fact blind, as most contestants did not find love in the end. 

One aspect I did not enjoy was how the engaged contestants were encouraged to wait until they were at the altar of their wedding ceremony to finally decide whether they would marry the person. It forced couples to initially get engaged without knowing much about them, and if they changed their mind…oh well. The only real option was to leave your fiancé at the altar in front of loved ones. 

Obviously, this added a dramatic effect (and if things were so bad, they could call off the wedding earlier, as one couple did), but it seemed to play dangerously with the contestants’ emotions. It also created an immense pressure to say yes, which could have skewed the experiment, assuming at least some contestants were not fully invested but too scared to say no. 

Despite its flaws, Love is Blind is deeply entertaining. I found myself binging the whole series, wanting to see what happened to my favorite couples. I don’t typically watch reality dating shows, but this one is different. It left me curious to see how the relationships worked out, and I was always happy when the couples found love.

Having a reunion episode after the main series was a helpful addition to get closure on all of the contestants. I liked how everyone had the opportunity to find redemption in the end and express their opinions towards other contestants and/or the audience. Every contestant who behaved badly at some point in the season could provide some sort of apology or explanation for their behavior, so in the end, viewers like me no longer resented them. 

Above all, the show provides an important message that love is not solely based on physical attraction. The show brings out the happiness, the sadness, and the anger that are inevitable in human relationships.