I regularly joke that I am the person amongst my friends who is most likely to go on Love Is Blind, Netflix’s pod-based reality dating show. This is not because I’m dying to be an influencer or looking for heterosexual romance, but because I have notoriously fallen for people I have … never met. If longing were a marketable skill, I’d be rich.
My current partner thinks it’s notable that we messaged for three weeks before going on a first date, but younger me hitchhiked to Tennessee—from Montreal—to meet a person I’d only ever emailed with. It’s all relative. The idea of meeting through a wall is not terribly different from meeting through a screen—I am of the generation of personal ads without photos, after all; the pods speak to me.
I take no ownership over yearning—it is a stereotype of queer women that I just happen to fall firmly into. If it were not for yearning, we’d be missing out on decades of lesbian folk music. The general premise of Love Is Blind, according to Love Is Blind, is that single people go on the show to find a match who will love them for who they are “on the inside,” physical attraction aside. But the show is mostly hate-watched by people who find the concept ridiculous and are waiting diligently for the trainwrecks it will inevitably produce.
The faceless dates run the gamut of first-date talk: pets’ names, jobs, favourite sports. But, because they are meant to lead to engagements between people who have yet to still see one another, they also get into childhood trauma, finances and potential baby names. You know who does this? Lesbians.
The lesbian U-Haul cliché exists for a reason: this is what we do. This is what I do. While cohabitation hasn’t been much of a thing in my relationship history, planning a life around people I objectively barely knew—but definitely felt like I knew—has very much been a thing. Would I be able to do it in a pod, through a wall? Unfortunately, I am pretty sure I could, and my friends would probably agree. Here’s the thing: queer women, especially those of us on the artsy literary spectrum, love a narrative. We meet, we fall madly in love, our cats become best friends, we winter in a trailer in Arizona. Dinner, a movie? Never considered it. (The U-Haul joke, in joke format, comes from a 1993 Lea DeLaria appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. That being: “What does a lesbian bring to a second date? A U-Haul.”)
And this, this is how Love Is Blind works. The narrative is already there: you meet through a wall, you are in absolute soulmate level love because your attraction can’t be physical; he proposes (only once thus far has a woman proposed—and even that was once the guy had started proposing to her first), you vacation in a sunny, sponsored destination; live in a condo with metal goblets for a few weeks; argue about your most fundamental beliefs and—boom—to the altar.
I do not long for straight marriage. I do not long for ugly wine vessels. But history shows that I do long for a love story that I can pre-write, insert myself into and live out as planned. And this is not solely a me thing, I know it isn’t. (Full disclosure: age, experience and a boatload of therapy is helping with all of this, but that isn’t entertaining.)
Also significant in the world of Love Is Blind: epic processing. If you’re only going to be engaged for weeks, you’re gonna have to talk—a lot. Like lesbians. (While the show has cast only one out bi man and no out queer women, I personally nominate Season 4’s Marshall Glaze as LIB’s key lesbian, respectfully, due to his ability to make everything about feelings.)
I’m not the first to suggest that LIB go gay. Bisexual comedian Ashley Ray has suggested it on X; as have queer YouTubers Victoria & Lindsay.
The idea has come up on TikTok in at least one spoof. And Autostraddle has written about it a few times over the years.
Viewers and reporters have been asking for it since the show’s debut season in 2020, when series creator Chris Coelen told Metro UK that the main issue at hand was the logistics when it came to living quarters. He said the same to the Hollywood Reporter just last summer. (When split between genders, the men and women live separately and—because bisexuality doesn’t exist in this realm—are presumed to run no chance of engaging with each other sexually.)
Similarly matrimony-obsessed The Ultimatum, which is also created and produced by Coelen, was able to run a queer edition (which has been renewed for a second season) because of the pragmatic differences in how the show is set up. And MTV’s “sexually fluid” season of Are You the One? (a masterpiece in queer reality television) just let everyone hook up—in fact, it was kind of key to the concept of the show.
Queers are so on board, and admit that this model of dating works for them enough, that in spring of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was keeping people apart, two different iterations began on Instagram. The BachQueer was, as the name suggests, a spin on the Bachelor, where Love Is Blind: Queers in Quarantine channelled LIB itself. In true queer DIY spirit, the people knew what they wanted, and if it wasn’t going to be handed to them, they went out and made it themselves.
Whether you watch for love (Lauren and Cameron), mess (Bartise and Nancy) or because you are a bored masochist (Lydia and Milton—I cannot believe the show didn’t end after that season), you have to admit that whatever the straights do on this show, queers could do better. Do I see a U-Haul sponsorship in LIB’s future?
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