Red Flag: Change Your Life to Dance Around My Jealousy

Love is Blind is an idiotic show on Netflix where no one sees what the others look like until they agree to marry them. The premise — despite its obvious narrow view of relationships as monogamous, heterosexual, and aiming specifically for marriage — isn’t all that bad. It’s execution, however, is completely idiotic because they already weeded out any contestant who’s appearance may actually challenge anyone.

The only people they allow on the show are generally quite fit and conventionally attractive. No one is in poverty. The closest person to an overweight contestant was someone who “used to be overweight and recently lost 75 pounds” but was still insecure about it. No one has a disability or even a missing tooth for that matter.

It makes the show entirely unrelatable to real dating, and it means that none of the people involved have to stop being shallow and closed-minded in how they filter out their potential partners. Netflix provided a safety net that protects them from having to consider anyone in those common categories.

Anyway, I’m a glutton for punishment and my friends talk about the show a lot, so I watched all of them. Even the ones with subtitles. (the Japanese one is the best, by far)

The Scene That Triggered This Post

Iyanna and Jarrette have a scene in episode 6 where Iyanna demands Jarrette throws away anything he owns that he received from an ex. Including personalized gifts that she acknowledges are important personal things.

I don’t believe in keeping gifts from exes. I don’t believe in staying friends with exes.

Iyanna McNeely

She continues to snoop through his apartment, going through drawers, yearbooks, photo albums. She repeatedly brings up other women on the reality show that Jarrette talked to before choosing her.

You know, the dating reality show where everyone on it signed up to do exactly that.

Her justification:

I need to know that I’m the only one who he wants to be with.

Iyanna McNeely

Context: https://screenrant.com/love-is-blind-iyanna-mcneely-jealous-jarrette-jones-ex-girlfriends/

My Take

This woman has trust issues, and needs to get them figured out in therapy on her own instead of demanding Jarrette — a new guy in her life who has yet to give her any reason to be distrusted — destroys important sentimental belongings. She wants to erase his history and assert control over him instead of working on ways to make herself feel more secure in her relationships in general.

If the two of them don’t get and stay married, and she doesn’t go to therapy and figure out her shit, she’s going to have the same problems with everyone else she dates.

The effect she’s likely to feel from acting this way is also probably exactly what she’s afraid of too. She’s pushing away a guy who opens up his home, his past, and everything about himself to her. Jarrette is being punished for his openness. If this doesn’t work out, she’s going to attract the kind of dudes who are better at hiding things and pretending to be trustworthy.

I hope Jarrette doesn’t enable this. I hope no one reading this would put up with it.

*frustrated gibberish sounds*