Originally posted Thursday, February 27, 2020 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Netflix’s “Love is Blind,” which debuted two weeks ago, started with 29 Atlanta singles and managed to get more than half of them engaged.
SPOILER ALERT: In the end, two of those eight couples actually got married in December, 2018 and remain so 15 months later.
That’s still not a terrible ratio given the unusual circumstances the singles were placed in. The concept was simple: couples would meet but not see each other. They were placed in “pods” separated by a wall so they could talk. After about 10 days, they had to decide if they wanted to get engaged to anybody. They then were sent to a pre-honeymoon of sorts in Cancun. Finally, they had three weeks in the “real world” to get used to each other, meet family and friends and plan a “wedding.”
On day 36, they each held ceremonies and decided whether to say “I do” or “”I don’t” on the stage.
While some of the couples seemed shaky the minute they laid eyes on each other, others hit it off immediately. But given the editing, there was a surprise or two in the results.
For instance, Matt Barnett (who went by Barnett on the show) seemed like a jokester in the pods and wavered among three women. He didn't seem serious about getting married. Yet after much back and forth, he picked the young wild card Amber Pike, who later informed him of serious financial problems that might have scared off Barnett.
Once in “the real world,” Barnett seemed far more mature and refined. Then he admitted to cold feet. It seemed doomed.
But surprise! In the end, he and Amber did get hitched.
Then there's the case of Kenny Barnes and Kelly Chase. They by far got the least airtime of the five couples that made it out of Cancun. (Two couples actually were not featured at all. The producers said they couldn't accommodate that many from a production standpoint and that far more people got engaged than they had anticipated.)
From episodes 1 through 8, it seemed like Kenny and Kelly had little to no issues at all. Their marriage path seemed super smooth. Kenny didn't reveal any doubts. Then in episode 9, Kelly said she felt like Kenny was more like a "best friend." Uh oh. "Best friend" zone is not "marriage" zone. Early in episode 10, she said she loved Kenny but wasn't sure she was "100% in love with him." (I've heard that one before myself!)
So she rejected Kenny on the dais. “My feelings for him were not as intense as his were for me,” she said.
Kenny acted surprisingly calm right after she said no, but when the producers started asking him questions backstage, his anger burbled to the surface and he told them to turn the cameras off. Poor guy.
The two relationships that got the most airtime were Mark Cuevas and Jessica Batten, separated by 10 years, and the multi-racial couple Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton.
Mark fell in love with Jessica almost from the first conversation and never wavered from day one to day 36. Jessica wasn’t so sure. She was hot for Barnett until he rejected her. Then she accepted Mark’s engagement offer sight unseen.
When she met Mark in person, she didn’t feel the physical attraction. She couldn’t deny the emotional pull but could she reconcile that missing piece? (The age difference ended up being a relative non factor.) She seemed to over-analyze issues and overlay her own concerns onto Mark, seeking to break his resolve. (She failed.)
He of course said “I do” at the ceremony. After a long producer-induced pause, she said, “I cannot.” As she walked away, poor Mark’s face said it all: his heart was cracking. But he said to his mom, “I’m going to be okay.” And it seems that’s true. The dude is mature for his age. He will be okay.
“I’m too much of a realist to take this big of a chance,” Jessica reasoned.
Cameron and Lauren made it to the altar cleanly. They had compatibility both in the pods and in person. Lauren’s only reservations as a strong black woman was what her black friends and family members (especially her dad) would think. Cameron was able to win everyone over and it didn’t hurt that he had previously had a five-year relationship with a black woman.
So the fact they decided to say yes seemed natural and the likelihood of their marriage lasting probably greater than Barnett and Amber.
The fifth couple - Giannina Gibelli and Damian Powers - was a definite contrast. Damian was a serious, somewhat closed-off man. Giannina was a free spirit with volatile emotions. They seemed super incompatible despite whatever attraction they felt for each other in the pods.
The massive difference ultimately made Damian uncomfortable. She would say yes one day and no the next. To her, it was merely airing her feelings. He wanted consistency.
On the day of the marriage, she was all in and super upset when he said no, running off in dramatic fashion at the start of episode 10.
“I need somebody that is all in ever day, not just some,” Damian said after the marriage that wasn’t.
“You messed up,” she told him.
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