Generally, I'm sort of lukewarm about dating shows. I watched the first season of Married at First Sight, but none of the other seasons. I've seen a few seasons of the Bachelor and Bachelorette, and one season of Bachelor in Paradise. But, in general, I feel like dating shows are unrealistic. They're filled with overly beautiful people trying to get their 15 minutes of fame, not find love. So, I rolled my eyes pretty hard at Love is Blind when I started watching it. That show, though--oh wait, spoilers--let's just say it's off to a stronger start than the Bachelor.
The most interesting thing to me, though, was the premise of Love is Blind. They're trying to find out if two people can fall in love without ever seeing one another and then if that love can turn into something real and lasting. That's literally me and Matt. That's how we began, so I feel pretty sure that the premise of the show is not only realistic, but completely possible. Matt and I began to fall in love over the internet, without ever seeing one another, and without even hearing one another's voice.
I say "began" because we didn't actually fall completely in love until we started to get to know one another in person. But, the same thing is pretty true of the show's contestants and they had the advantage of hearing one another's voice. When Matt and I were falling for one another over the internet, we had to trust that the other was what they said they were. He had the believe that I was a 19 year old woman and I had to believe he wasn't a total creep. We choose to take that leap of faith and believe in one another.
On the show, they go on a short vacation together to see if their connection will become something more and then if it is, they move in together. For us, it wasn't a vacation to a tropical destination, but I did go to Texas for a few weeks to meet him and see if what we had going on between us was something real and when we realized that it was, I moved to Texas to be with him within a few weeks.
We obviously didn't get married the same month. There were some situations that would have made that impossible and, honestly, we were both pretty adamant when we got together that marriage wasn't going to be a thing. I told Matt I wasn't getting married again and he said he didn't really believe in marriage, so it was settled. Ha... yeah. We got married 8 months after we moved in together and haven't ever looked back. We've been married 20 years.
I hope the couples that did get married on Love is Blind stay together and have an amazing 20 years (and more) of happy marriage. I feel like I can safely say, not from watching the show but from my own experiences, it is completely possible for love to be blind. Netflix didn't need to do an "experiment," I completely could have told them it was! ♥
 |
| December 2001, Married almost two years |
