Is love really blind? That’s the question we’re all dying to know as we gear up for the season two finale of the Netflix reality series.
Love Is Blind season two dropped on the streaming platform on 11 February, and for the past two weeks, we’ve watched five couples fall in love and get engaged. As the last episodes air, we’ll find out who decides to get married and who leaves their lovers jilted at the altar. It’s juicy stuff.
The premise of Love Is Blind is simple: 30 single men and women spend 10 days in “pods” getting to know the members of the opposite sex, without ever seeing their faces. During these 10 days, some people form connections so strong that they decide to get engaged, still sight unseen.
Only once a couple is engaged can they see each other for the first time – a moment that’s nearly as exciting for the viewer as it is for them – before they head off on a post-engagement trip with the other betrothed pairings to get to know each other better.
Then, after living with each other for a few weeks, each couple must decide if they want to go ahead with the marriage or not – keeping in mind they’ve known each other for less than two months.
While we still don’t know what will happen with the season two cohort (our money’s solely on Shayne and Natalie at this point), two couples from the original series are still happily married two years on since the first season aired. So is it really possible to fall in love in just 10 days?
Holly Roberts, a counsellor at Relate, says it’s all about connection. “The spark you feel when you meet that certain special person is so hard to define, but you just know it’s there,” Roberts explains. “When we feel like someone understands us, hears us and sees us and accepts us for our true authentic selves, then love is likely to blossom.”
There isn’t one route to love, it is so different and personal for each of us
While Roberts says love can develop from an intense physical attraction, for the contestants of Love Is Blind, it’s more likely to be a deep friendship that develops initially and the fact they have been “thrown together in exceptional circumstances”.
“The common element is a sense of connection,” Roberts adds. “There isn’t one route to love; it is so different and personal for each of us.”
While we may scoff at the thought of seeing people “fall in love” in less than two weeks, a YouGov poll from 2017 found that 16 per cent of Britons have told a new romantic partner they love them within the first month of dating, and 3 per cent have said those three words within the first week of meeting someone new.
“For some people, this [falling in love in 10 days] is totally possible,” Roberts says. “All the stars might be aligned and two lucky people will be in the right place at the right time for this to happen. If we feel able to be instantly open and vulnerable with another person, and for them to reciprocate, then love can flourish quickly.”
However, she adds that for most of us it “takes a while to let our defences down and let someone into our inner word”, which makes falling in love a slower process.
It’s not for lack of wanting to fall in love though. A study from 2010 found that men fall in love more easily than women and a separate 2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that men start to think about saying “I love you” after 97.3 days on average – a little over three months – while women think about it after 138.9 days, around four and a half months.
Dr Elena Touroni, a consultant psychologist and co-founder of The Chelsea Psychology Clinic says there’s no set time frame for falling in love.
“It’s different from person to person,” she adds. “Some people fall in love very quickly and intensely. Other people – who are perhaps more cautious and avoidant – may not experience the same intense feelings for a longer period of time. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to love.”
She says we can often associate a feeling of excitement with falling in love, which could be what the Love Is Blind cast feel while they sit in the pods; excited about the prospect of meeting their other half.
But, as we know from the show, falling in love is the easy part. It’s what comes next – the arguments, the make-ups, the family gatherings and a life together – that requires work. So whether you fall in love in 10 days or 10 months, it’s how you feel about each other in the long run that matters.
