What I’m Giving Up As a Black Woman After Watching Love Is Blind Season 3

Like most Millenials and Gen Z’s out there, I too joined the cultural zeitgeist that is Love is Blind and watched Season 3. After watching Lauren and Camron say I do in Season 1, my interest to continue watching other seasons was piqued. Here was a show where a woman who looked like me found love. It wasn’t just love in the surface sense, but it was love in the way you can tell someone is seen for the unique human they are. Now I could be projecting my own fantasies onto this couple as I’ve never met them, but it was clear that something special was there. It’s rare to see unambiguous Black women as the object of desire on national tv. And so, I reserved a level of cautious optimism for the seasons to follow.

And I’m glad I kept watching.

It’s not to say the last two seasons have been a delight to watch. I have yet to see someone like Lauren make it to the altar again (le sigh). But watching these 20 to 30-somethings risk it all behind a wall for love gave me a lot to chew on about the state of modern love for a modern woman like myself.

I had hoped to see more Black unambiguous women finding love, and when it didn’t happen I was disappointed but not surprised. Ijeoma Oparah’s, So…Where Are the Black Girls in Love Is Blind Season 3? gives a thorough analysis of this so I won’t do that here. It would have been nice to see more BIPOC women finding a romance that actually respected and valued them (And speaking of BIPOC women, where are the Indigenous women on this show? And there are so many other types of representation that haven’t really made it onto LIB? Another think piece I guess).

The greatest travesties of the last two seasons have set social media ablaze. Just to rehash some of the good times: Deepti (she’s gorgeous, but I shouldn’t have to say this) reminded Shake of his aunt, so he let everyone know behind her back that she just “didn’t do it” for him. I’ve heard this excuse many times when it comes to the desirability of BIPOC women. I like all the caretaking you do for me but you know, I’m not really attracted to you because you remind me of my aunt, or my Mom, (or insert family member here). Jarrett first asked Mallory to marry him when it seemed obvious the person he had the most in common with was Iyanna. And why wasn’t there a romantic meal during Iyanna’s proposal (I mean he got tacos for Mallory, right)?

Season 3 was grueling to watch. The ill-fated union between Zanab and Cole was one of the most heart-wrenching storylines. When Cole said his type of girl would usually be a Lily rather than a Zanab I think many people knew where the relationship was headed. Both of them seemed to have internalized oppressive ideas about desirability, which is not surprising given that modern-day beauty standards are still defined by what’s white and thin. And I cannot forget about Bartise. I’m not understanding what was “too much” to handle about Nancy (he kept saying all the issues she brought into the relationship were “too much” ad nauseam). She was a 31-year-old woman who had a point of view and a life. You didn’t have to agree with it, but really, was it that much? She had money and had had a relationship before him…methinks this is likely for someone her age!? Sometimes I wanted to scream at my laptop because it was like Bartise was saying, Well, because you’re not a smokeshow I don’t want to deal with all your problems. I mean, you’re just not attractive enough to be this complicated.

So, after processing the LIB universe in its totality, this is what I’ve learned:

Love is not neutral.

We live in a world where we are imprinted with implicit biases that shape 21st-century mating rituals (at least in most parts of the world), so no, love is not blind. Love is not blurry (a la Shake). Love doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We’ve internalized ideas that tell us every day what’s acceptable and what’s not, the further away one is from the “standard”, the harder it is to get the fairytale. So for many people, the pursuit of love is often unfair.

So here’s what I’m giving up as a Black woman after watching LIB Season 3.

If someone I’m dating keeps calling another girl a smoke show or a smoke program (I really loved this from Nancy during the reunion), then you know what? So be it. You don’t have to tell me twice. Goodbye. I’m giving up on a love where I have to do mental gymnastics around someone’s internalized oppression about whether I deserve to fit into their lives. It feels like an unspoken rite of passage for BIPOC women to put up with things we should not have to put up with in our pursuit of love. So…I’m not willing to make it work for a love that doesn’t value my inherent worth. At this big age of mine, I don’t have the patience. And finally, I think I’m gonna give up this whole fairytale about what love should look like. It might very well look different for me, and maybe that’s alright. It’s not to say I’m not celebrating those who have made it down the aisle and said, I do, it’s just me saying that maybe in a world where the pursuit of love can feel limiting it’s important to give myself other possibilities.

This doesn’t mean that I’m giving up hope on finding that special someone who’s worth holding onto, it just means, what I desire most, is peace.