Love Is Blind is notoriously known for participants with vibrant red flags, but I'm surprised by this season's results. The unique Netflix experiment is one I've always enjoyed. With its release in 2020 and the COVID-19 shutdown in full swing, the pod show brought a special type of comfort to TV screens. However, as Love Is Blind has gone on, I realize the pods make it really easy for participants to hide their red flags.
But it also makes it just as easy for them to be revealed. For about two weeks, Love Is Blind stars talk to each other, sight unseen, hoping to meet someone worth marrying. With so little time and hormones and endorphins running amuck participants have to make a choice quickly and their decisions don't always work out for the best. This season, several stars made it outside the pods, but unlike previous seasons, the women made choices that I couldn't be more proud of.
The 'Love Is Blind' Experiment Leads to Trauma Dumping
With so little time and so many people to connect in the pods, most participants jump right into the nitty-gritty details of their lives. They'd ask about political beliefs and childhood upbringings. Participants would ask about future kids and share the childhood traumas that created who they are today. Initially, this made sense to me. I would want to know as much as I could about my partner before settling down. But then this led to a sinister path where many Love Is Blind participants started trauma dumping behind the walls of the pods.
As the series expands, I've noticed trauma dumping plays a critical role in Love Is Blind for two primary reasons. The first being that trauma dumping provokes empathy and compassion. Those emotions could play a role in how quickly these stars think they've formed a connection. Secondly, trauma dumping can lead to trauma bonding, which is an inauthentic way of creating a connection. As a result, over the years, I've watched stars like Madison Errichiello and Alex Brown share far too much about their lives too quickly.
'Love Is Blind' Season 8 Women Stood Up For Themselves
This season threw me for a loop at first. There were extra, unwarranted pod episodes that seemed to drag on forever. And the season seemed so boring that I wasn't sure I truly cared about which couples made it to the altar. The connections also seemed ingenuine and superficial, especially from the male side of the cast. The drama seemed to escalate outside of the pods, but I still had no clue which couples to root for because I didn't truly think the men were of the same caliber as the previous seasons.
But what I can say is how proud I am of the women who stood up for themselves and recognized the instability within their partners. For instance, I had my suspicions about Ben Mezzenga when he didn't seem interested in the same political points as Sara Carton in the pods. She tried hard to express how important her views were, but Ben's dismissive attitude was concerning, so I'm glad that she picked up on some of the inconsistencies. I also felt similarly to Monica Danus's sister and thought Joey Leville had some red flags. My suspicions turned out to be true considering Joey slid into the DMs of another cast member.
Overall, while this season started off questionable, the ending was worth it. In the previous seasons, the participants, the women especially, were in a rush and excited about getting engaged. While I understand that getting married is the purpose of the experiment, I feel like some women settle for the sake of FOMO or fear of abandonment. However, I'm thrilled to see the Love is Blind women follow in the footsteps of the famous Deepti Vempati by choosing themselves.
