This is my first time watching Love Is Blind. I know, I know, I’m wildly behind and it’s been wildly embarrassing. What’s held me off for this long is the steadfast belief that love is not, in fact, blind, and if my boyfriend told me he liked me — forget about marriage — without knowing what I looked like, I would roll my eyes. Particularly if that was after ten days. Anyway, inspired by my lovely co-workers who work on the “Love Is Blind Club” telling me it was basically non-optional, I decided to give season six a shot and was immediately drawn once I realized that the show is not, really, an “experiment” to learn whether you can love someone without knowing if they’re hot — it’s an examination of the myths that heterosexuality depends on. Truly, Love Is Blind is the greatest artistic study of heterosexuality since the Chainsmokers and Halsey performed “Closer,” a song about a man who just wants to get laid and sings lazily, while the woman reads too far into it and sings perhaps too effortfully.
By far, the best case study of the season has been Chelsea and Jimmy, two wells of toxicity who clearly have ideas about what this show should be for them and have proceeded to mash their respective square pegs into each other’s circle holes. They could not be worse for each other. It is a car crash, and each episode I root for them to break up. Episode ten featured their worst fight yet, which I cheered on like an Alabama mother at her son’s high-school football game. The topic shifting is so fast and catastrophically difficult to follow, but I have bravely decided to take it on. Here’s a breakdown of the argument of the century (which still ends with them together).
False Pleasantries
The argument begins how all great arguments begin: With clear holes in the relationship being papered over by forced smiles. Chelsea and Jimmy discuss how well their day went, while Chelsea mulls over whether to blow up their night. Will she have the self-control not to destroy their night? (She will not.)
Is She Cranky or Fishing?
The first shot is fired. Chelsea pretends to comment on how different she feels now from this morning, when she was cranky with him. Clearly, this means she is still cranky with him. “You can’t be cranky with me,” Jimmy dares to say. She pounces. This was a clear miscalculation on Jimmy’s part — instead of wondering whether she is cranky for legitimate reasons, he tells her she can’t be cranky. Of course she can be cranky. She’s Chelsea!
You Can’t Spell Embarrassed Without Bar
Chelsea brings up the fact that Jimmy went to a bar the previous night and mentions that random girls from the pods — who Jimmy wouldn’t recognize — saw him there. Jimmy tries to defend himself based on actions, but Chelsea is primarily concerned with her image. If he really wanted to ameliorate the situation, he should have convinced her that his going to the club without her did NOT make her look bad. This is the moment when the fight goes south, because they are no longer fighting about the same thing. Chelsea keeps saying that she doesn’t want to deal with someone who goes out, which is ludicrous. Jimmy is talking about actions, Chelsea is talking about perceptions. And she must make it his fault.
“I’m Really Trying to Dive Into This, and You Don’t Give Two Shits”
Okay! This is our first sign of the real argument, which is not about bars or crankiness or anything else that comes up. The truth: Chelsea does not think Jimmy is into her, and Jimmy is trying to convince her (and himself) that he is, but no amount of love will ever make her believe it, so they will never be secure. They toggle back to the bar again quickly, but we will come back to this.
Girl Friend vs. Girlfriend
“And then I find out you’re with your girls,” Chelsea says. You had to know this would be a problem when the girls were revealed, right? Of course, this is fine on an objective level — they are his friends! But consider this: Chelsea is (say it with me now) insecure. She would like him to not have girl friends. He is (of course) unwilling to do this.
A Plea for Directness
Here, Jimmy attempts a tactic that is ultimately unhelpful: Reframing the debate into whether or not Chelsea has directly asked him to step back from his girl friends. This is not relevant, because it will still stand either way that she wants him to not have girl friends, and he wants to have girl friends. This is a classic Jimmy vs. Chelsea issue, where Jimmy wants to frame debates around questions that make him seem like a “good guy” (a man who will do what his fiancée wants, as long as she makes it clear) and in doing so elides the actual question.
Chelsea Goes Nuclear
Oops! He “fucked her”! Which friend Jimmy fucked is unclear, but what is clear is that he told Chelsea this off-camera (to be a good guy), while asking her not to bring it up on-camera in order to keep the internet out of his friend’s life (to be a good guy). This is relevant to the argument, but they’re not having a normal argument. They are having an argument on TV, which is not something Chelsea cares about. In bringing it up, Chelsea crosses a clear boundary, and he tells her so.
The Jess Thing
Jess was always going to be an issue. Chelsea chose Jimmy over Trevor because she wanted something that the Kardashian wanted. Clearly, she was always going to be nervous that once Jimmy saw both of them, he would want Jess more. There is no way for us to know if Jess was there. (I do not think she was there, as Chelsea steadfastly refuses to give any proof.)
“Not the Kind of Person I Want to Be With”
The kind of person Chelsea wants to be with is not a person who exists. The kind of person Chelsea needs to be with is a therapist who she has no relationship with outside of sessions. Jimmy, on the other hand, is the kind of person who makes appearances for his friends’ birthdays, which takes some real acrobatics to twist into a liability.
The “Does Jimmy Want to Go Out a Lot?” Debate
No, Jimmy does not want to go out a lot. He was gone for an hour and a half. She is being ridiculous.
Does Jimmy Even Like Her?
Okay! Now we’ve finally arrived. After approximately 8,000 mini-arguments that are not about the thing, the thing comes up. Is Jimmy into Chelsea? I’ve heard a lot of opposition on this, but, as much as I think that Chelsea is largely being annoying and creating irrelevant arguments and acting like the worst imaginable partner, I do ultimately agree with her here: Jimmy is not into her. Jimmy wants to seem like a nice guy on-camera, but if they were off-camera, it never would have gotten to this point. Still, she’s just as in the wrong as he is, because she’ll keep running back to him for validation forever.
Some Light Boundary Chat
Jimmy decides to head out, saying that Chelsea crossed a boundary — this language is interesting and in line with many inter-coupe conversations on Love Is Blind. Turns out? Heterosexual couples are obsessed with therapy-speak. Chelsea, meanwhile, goes into a manipulative baby-girl mode, begging him not to leave. The boundary crossing in question was not Chelsea saying Jimmy didn’t love her — that was just mean. The boundary was revealing on-camera that Jimmy boned one of his friends. The question, to me, is if that’s what actually mattered here.
And Now, a Prediction …
Episode 11 ends on a cliffhanger, with Jimmy asking Chelsea where she’s at with the marriage thing. To me, this is no cliffhanger at all. Chelsea wants to wear her dress. She was so desperately excited during the try-on! I highly doubt that Chelsea would be the one to call off the wedding before even getting to the altar. Whether or not they both say “yes” or “no” remains TBD, but the wedding is coming.
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