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“Love is Blind” on Netflix has contestants date and propose all without meeting each other in person, testing the idea that love goes beyond physical attraction.
Reality TV shows test the limits of people’s physical and mental endurance (“Survivor”) and seek to find our generation’s greatest talents (“American Idol”). But Netflix’s popular reality show poses a different question: Is love blind?
“Love is Blind” tests this hypothesis by placing single contestants into “pods” where they date without ever seeing each other. Couples only meet after they get engaged. Over the course of the following weeks, they go on a couple’s trip, move in together, and plan a wedding. Over this short span, they must decide if they’re going to say yes or no to their partner when they’re at the altar.
Since first premiering in 2020, “Love is Blind” drew in high numbers of viewers on Netflix. The streaming service reported that 6.3 million viewers tuned in the first week Season Six dropped. Netflix rolled out episodes in batches week by week, with the finalreunion episode of the season coming March 13.
The show has been a topic of discussion in group chats, social media threads and Northeastern classrooms. Elizabeth Glowacki, an assistant teaching professor in communication studies at Northeastern University, said the show has come up in the interpersonal communication class she teaches.
“My students find it to be interesting because we’re so inundated now with apps like Tinder and Hinge,” she said. “But there, until recently, haven’t been spaces for people who are looking for connections that are deeper. … Because people do love differently, it’s important that there’s content out there that speaks to all the ways people want to find a partner.”
While the premise may seem ridiculous, Steve Granelli, associate teaching professor of communications at Northeastern, said the way the show is set up allows for people to make legitimate emotional connections. Much like a dating app, it lets you form a connection with someone, but only without the photos. It also allows people to engage in self disclosure, the process of sharing things about yourself with other people that builds a relationship.
“What ‘Love is Blind’ has done is remove the physical attractiveness,” Granelli said. “It moves right toward social penetration theory, which is a theory of how relationships build. It forces people to build on the breadth and depth of topics that they can connect on…By forcing you to talk with those people, you are going to inherently build out the breadth of topics that you’re going to talk about and you’re going to find some common ground somewhere and start to explore the depth in one of those topics…(This) is the way that we build relationships.”
By dating without seeing each other, Glowacki said contestants can focus on their connection beyond physical attraction, allowing them to find out if they have similar values and interests, factors that research shows is critical to making a relationship last.
“Most of the research suggests that birds of a feather flock together,” Glowacki said. “The similarity piece is so important. Physical attraction and the sexual connection fade. You really need those shared activities, and common interests, and common values to keep you together over time. Shows like ‘Love is Blind’ are really important for highlighting that.”
However, viewers of the show know this is not always a foolproof way of finding love. After all, contestants Kenneth and Brittany bonded over their shared faith only to break up shortly after getting engaged due to a lack of “crave,” or desire between them. Jeramey and Laura left the pods together after finding out they are both clean people who want to build holiday traditions, but they implode over Jeramey’s dishonesty about meeting up with another woman.
It’s also important that couples are able to merge lives and test their relationship in the real world, whether it’s seeing how they can handle each other’s work schedules (a challenge for AD and Clay in Season Six) or friendships with people of the opposite sex (fans will remember a blowup between Jimmy and Chelsea over this particular issue in episode 10). On the flip side, Johnny and Amy’s bond only grows stronger when they meet each other’s families and get support and approval.
“We see this in every season of ‘Love is Blind,’” Granelli said. “When you’re forced to make somebody else a part of your life and fit them in with your schedule, that’s a turning point that could push people more toward commitment or away from commitment.”
Unfortunately, at the end of Season Six, only one couple says yes to each other at the altar. Over the course of its run though, “Love is Blind” has produced nine couples that are still married to this day.
So is love blind? While it’s possible to build a connection without seeing someone, both parties need to put in the work to make that connection last, Glowacki said.
“It depends on what you prioritize,” she said. “Some people, it’s really important for them to have that instant physical attraction, some people are in it for more of a slow build. … In any relationship, you really have to talk yourself into staying in the relationship. You have to really believe your partner is great and there’s no one else like them out there for you.”