Some thoughts on the cast of Love Is Blind

Love Is Blind cast members ranked according to the drama they delivered

***Spoilers ahead***

Jessica – Clearly, this woman wanted to be on a TV show and nothing more. She owned her role as villain right up to the end. ‘Messica’ indeed. Moving on…

Kelly – The surprise villain! Something was obviously off. At one point, when she talked about having had issues with sex in the past, I felt for her. Then the truth started to come out that actually, she wasn’t physically attracted to her fiancé… because he wasn’t a brunette. And this was after several declarations about how attractive she found him. Umm… okay. In the end, she made it seem like she left him at the altar for superficial reasons, and she trotted off with a smile. Cold.

Damian – Am I the only person who got creepy vibes from this guy? He looked angry for much of the time, even when he wasn’t in a fight. Close to the wedding, he said he was going to exert more control, and he seemed resentful of Giannina. This is not a stable person. He was drawn to Giannina’s intensity and yet he threw it in her face at every turn and blamed her for all of their issues. Nope. Not okay.

Mark – This guy seemed like a genuinely nice person, but I have a hard time believing that he tolerated Jessica only because he was too nice and in love to see her for what she was. There has to be more to the story. Maybe he, too, just wanted to be on a TV show. Here is the thing about all reality shows: the people who get screen time are always conventionally attractive and often have acting/modelling aspirations or experience.

Diamond – I was on her side a little bit initially. I didn’t think it was a good idea for Carlton to propose to her while he was agonizing about keeping his sexuality a secret from her. Then, when they arrived in Mexico, Carlton was acting like a completely different person. I kind of felt bad that she was going to have to bear what seemed like his deep issues with himself and be confused. But then during that fight that ended their relationship, the biphobia/homophobia jumped out. And no, he should not have called her a bitch, but no one that I have seen post online has mentioned her comment about him getting another dick when she stormed off. That was toxic and only proved him right in his insecurities. A lot of discussion has ensued online about whether refusing to date bi/pan people is just a “preference.” It’s perfectly fine to say, “I’m straight and I’m looking for a partner who is also straight,” but when you do mental gymnastics to try to come up with a justification for disregarding people of fluid sexuality, that is another story. It’s as if cisgender heterosexual men don’t cheat all the time! But this is why queer people should ideally not seek acceptance from straight people and should, instead, seek love and companionship from fellow queer people.

Carlton – As a queer person, I saw Carlton in his first scene. I knew he was one of my people and I knew this was going to create drama. And Love Is Blind was just that predictable, so I wasn’t wrong. My first red flag with him was when he said that he wanted a wife because women provide a “nurturing love” that he just couldn’t get from a man. Let me clarify that there is no one way to be bisexual/queer/what have you. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, it is not being equally attracted to multiple genders. It is fine for a man to be more sexually attracted to men and more romantically attracted to women, but when you phrase it as though women are some inherently more “marriage-material” beings who are going to take care of you emotionally, so you choose to give up men, that is weird. In addition, his constant references to “the past” kind of echoed that idea that he was going to give up men and commit to a wife. That doesn’t sound like someone who is truly comfortable with his sexuality. Then after seeing him happy and feeling loved, the audience got to watch his unravelling, and as a queer person, this made me uncomfortable. I felt empathy for him. It is hard enough to navigate relationships, but when you throw in insecurity about whether the other person can accept you for you (and it didn’t always seem like even Carlton accepted Carlton), it can be a recipe for toxicity. And that is exactly what we watched unfold. As I said above, Carlton suddenly seemed like a different person outside of the pods. He was clearly struggling internally and projecting hubris. Then he got really torn up and told the truth and immediately showed signs of poor coping skills (throwing his hat and shouting when nothing negative had happened yet). Then after crying that he hoped they could talk it out, he was immediately defensive and changed his tune from “people always reject me because of this” to “you’re the only one who’s ever had a problem.” I just hope that Carlton meets a kind, loving, emotionally stable, queer person. He shouldn’t be asking for “acceptance” from straight women anymore.

Giannina – Yes, she was intense. I think the audience has largely misread her. She was transparent about her issue of pushing people away, and that was what she was doing. It isn’t as if she didn’t have reasons to feel insecure. Besides the fact that she was supposed to marry this person she didn’t really know yet, Damian’s family chose not to meet her before the wedding. Damian told her that his mom had said not to marry “some whore from a reality TV show.” How would you feel? And as I said, Damian was creepy! The man was initially quite emotionless and for the duration of the show, he was hard to read. Even during the wedding, that crying looked like it had an underpinning of anger, and he continued to try to control the situation after dumping her by following her and telling the camera people that he didn’t think their relationship was over—after ditching her at the altar. Red flags! Her mother was right: she should have been the one to say “I don’t.”

Amber – She was open and honest with her fiancé about her financial situation and he was ready to go ahead and marry her. So, I don’t see a problem. And that was really the closest thing to drama with her. I don’t see the big drama others are seeing.

Barnett – His indecisiveness was the most real of anyone on that show. But I think he knew ultimately that he wanted to be with Amber. He wasn’t that interesting, to be honest. They tried to make him interesting by having three women vying for him.

Cameron – It took me a while to warm up to him. He just didn’t give off much of anything. Anyway, when he was out in the world with Lauren, he seemed really sweet and committed, and he won me over.

Kenny – He seems like a decent person. But he wasn’t very interesting, so I don’t think Netflix gave him much attention except to remind us that he was the only one* who wasn’t getting laid. (* That was the message, but I sincerely wonder whether Jessica and Mark ever actually had sex either. Jessica was so fake in general and her description of their sex life seemed equally fake.)

Lauren – My favourite on this show! She is gorgeous and funny and just seems genuine. I was rooting for her from the first episode!