Reality Dawns
Ashamed but Curious, Dammit.
For the last four days I’ve been with my daughter Hannah, and, more to this particular point, the last three nights. These nights were spent watching a reality show her partner hates and refuses to watch, so I figured I’d indulge her.
The show is “Love Is Blind,” hosted by facile singer Nick Lachey and his equally facile wife, Vanessa. The contestants are six men and six women, all looking for their one and only heteronormative forever love. The men aren’t allowed to see the women and vice-versa, which explains the show’s name. Their only connection is via adjoining pods, in which they sit alone talking to a wall/the person on the other side of the wall. Eventually there are proposals through the pods, after which the couples have their first face-to-face meeting. If they are still into each other after they reveal themselves, they go on a pre-wedding honeymoon at a resort, and four weeks later, if it’s still holding together, they get married.
Of course this show is egregious on so many levels. Would you marry someone you just met talking through a pod? What are these people thinking? I haven’t a clue. They are weird throwbacks to traditional marriage heat-seeking missiles. Within seconds of seeing each other for the first time they are focusing on how cute the babies they will make will be. It’s such a bizarre concept, pretentiously framed as a “social experiment.” And please don’t get me started on the background music, a constantly changing pop soundtrack that made me feel the exact same annoyance I remember feeling when I would drive with my kids when they were young and they’d reach over for the radio dial, going station to station, trying to find something they liked before I started screaming for them to stop before I lost my mind.
Last night, I watched two hour-long “Love Is Blind” episodes back to back. Today, I feel hungover.
Still, I was happy to make Hannah happy, and to spare Dan, her partner, whom I adore. I’m happy the “Love Is Blind” grifters got a Mexican vacation out of this travesty. I really doubt any of the couples I saw in Season Two found love until death parts them, though apparently a couple from Season One, the Hamiltons, are still going strong.
The worse thing about the stupid show is that I am still thinking about it this morning. On top of that, I am worried that Danielle won’t see through Nick and dump him. Come on, Danielle, I want to tell her. We are both better than this.