The Perils of Reality TV Romance

After watching Season 6 of "Love is Blind," one thing is clear: those with little experience in long-term relationships are doomed to fail in marriage, or at least pay a heavy price to learn, adapt, and overcome.

The pressure these couples face is likely massive, baring their hearts on national TV and promising to make the biggest decision of their lives with a total stranger in an unreasonable amount of time.

How can someone possibly be sure of spending the rest of their lives, that is, every day of every week of every month of every year, times decades, based on what someone else shares on the other side of a wall?

In my case, I’ve been married twice, and only did so after at least a year of knowing my partner, living together, and making sure that our mutual desire could overcome unforeseen challenges. But like a new broom that always sweeps well at first, things seldom turn out the way I hoped. It was what we ignored and couldn’t account for that eventually led to irreconcilable differences.

Love is Blind is like skydiving, without a parachute.

REALITY BITES

When it comes to the show and the participants' attitude, the amount of ignorance, egocentrism, and manipulation is like nothing I've witnessed before. Many wrestle with insecurity issues, unresolved trauma, and an overwhelming fear of inadequacy — loneliness —, even if that means betting their all against the house. This leads to an uncomfortable inner state that grows over time, courtesy of cognitive dissonance.

The amount of cognitive dissonance we experience equals the amount of times we betray ourselves to obtain a goal, and in this case, to achieve an ideal far from reality. Many times we think we want to be loved for who we are but struggle with failure despite our best attempts.

However, most seem oblivious to the fact that in love, we fail because of the things we do, not who we are. This factor has pushed some to seek the connection they desire through this unorthodox method, perhaps based on not having the courage to explore the ones that have stood the test of time.

Who’s monkeying around with your feelings?

VOWS OR WOES?

Despite the nitroglycerin-like nature of the experiment, some couples took the leap and tied the knot anyways (around their neck, maybe?). I dare to say that the majority did so based on lack of self-knowledge, low self-esteem, and settled for a mutual exchange of acceptance with someone like them.

After watching “the reunion” episode, it's clear many followed through with their promise without contemplating the real consequences. You can see the pain and regret in some men's eyes, their body language betraying the things that come out of their mouths, even when doing their best to appear happy on global TV.

The fancy dresses, suits, and feigned laughs can’t cover up the emotional pain these couples are facing. And how could they not struggle? They made massive changes in a matter of weeks simply to experience the feeling of being accepted by someone else and a promise of not being abandoned.

A stark reality of relationships, just like everything else in life, is that they are all doomed to end sooner or later. But the issue here is committing to someone who you’ve just barely met and making the ultimate promise based on what they have told you, often committing or ignoring things they know are dealbreakers (i.e., the surprises you will uncover at some point, like aggressive behavior or destructive habits).

In the case of these couples, once they say "I do" and realize what they’ve done, the duality of staying together or splitting is their biggest challenge. Perhaps the only thing holding them together is the innate need to keep their word, to behave according to who they say they are, and to do things that align with the promise they’ve made in front of the whole world. But that can prove to be more than they bargained for.

SACRIFICES AND COMPROMISES

I know firsthand the difficulty of nurturing and creating a sustainable relationship. I’ve dated hundreds of women and endured divorce twice by 36. In my case, there were no odd compromises, no families forcing me to convert to another religion, no silly dance parties on a table, and no friends meddling in matters they had no say in.

There were no cameras, no staff interrupting important moments, and most importantly, no pressure of millions of people watching my every move. Even without these massive forces at play and my best intent, I still tripped over reality and face-planted on failure. My inexperience, wishful thinking, and ignorance got the best of me, my partners, and my relationships.

After obsessively searching for answers and the recipe for a sustainable relationship, it hurt to see so many men struggling in the pods to “find love”. One guy converted to Judaism to be accepted by the woman’s family, and another married someone who's 4 feet shorter than him, with a bad temper and control-freak tactics. In my opinion, that's a lot of self-sacrifice to hold onto the ideal they desired, and surely something that will come back to bite them in the ass at some point.

What frustrates me the most is that many think they need to be loved for who they are, and perhaps consider their past failures a reflection of this misguided belief. Most confuse who they are with what they do, and that's where the line in the sand becomes a bit faded because it’s the things we do that lead to the end, not who we are as a human being.

In my first handful of relationships, I sacrificed my identity to fit in with someone else, such as ditching heavy metal, cutting my hair a certain way, adopting their dress code, and pretending to like football or other pointless pursuits like TV, alcohol, and a social life.

Although no one explicitly rejected me, they pushed their agenda by suggesting possible improvements and other ways to ensure my success. By trying to mold me into someone I wasn’t, however, they initiated a process that later evoked mutual resentment, cognitive dissonance, and the inevitable breakup when the inner turmoil becomes unbearable.

WALKING THE TIGHT ROPE

Fitting in is only one part of dating and marriage, out of numerous components that can make or break the ultimate union. There can be no sustainable relationship without compromise and commitment, but it’s important to ask ourselves, “how far am I willing to go to maybe feel what I want to feel?”. In this case, being honest and transparent is a must, but beginning to mutilate parts of your hard-wired personality and preferences is far beyond anything justifiable long term.

To make a relationship work, there are times when you have to sacrifice what you want, trivial things that have no bearing on your life or future, like choosing a movie, deciding where to eat, or selecting an outfit for a formal event. Perhaps you have to set aside your plans or dreams, at least temporarily, to fulfill the promise you made to be your partner's rock when they need you most because, at some point, it will be the other way around.

But you can’t know what to compromise on if you don’t understand yourself, what drives you, and have enough experience to know in your heart of hearts what you are willing to sacrifice and what is non-negotiable. This is what makes this experiment inconceivable; no amount of talking behind a wall can expose you to the factors that will determine your fate, and making that commitment before opening the Pandora’s box stacks the odds against you.

However, I do believe love is blind, and there are steps you can take to increase your odds of success. After all, stepping onto that film set is proof that you are willing to go that far to satisfy your need for someone else, or in other words, to avoid loneliness, and for that, you need to be prepared.

PREPARING FOR THE UNKNOWN

After my vast experience in the love battlefield, I can attest that love has nothing to do with physical attraction.

Anyone can become attractive enough with the right attitude, the right state of mind, and becoming the person you dream to find. Most importantly, what guarantees a loving and fulfilling relationship is understanding both your core driving needs and taking appropriate measures to ensure they are met most of the time.

Because, as we all know, our physical state will change, but developing the fundamental traits and guiding principles that will make you the ideal partner is a must. To be in love is a daily choice, one we need to remind ourselves of every day, the same way we think about being good at work, eating healthy, and the things we need to do often to make sure we don’t slide painfully backward.

TRAINING GROUNDS

If I were to lose all hope in “the real world” and subject myself to this social rat lab, I would take the following steps to increase my odds of success and reduce (as much as possible) factors that can lead to making the wrong choice based on unknown driving factors.

These factors are:

KNOW YOURSELF: Understand who you are as an unchangeable person. Yes, that's right, there are things about you that you can't change. If you don’t know your personality type, the inherent features you are equipped with, the ways you see the world and how that relates to others, you are sure to make mistakes by trusting others more than you trust yourself. Cognitive dissonance is born from betraying yourself for the sake of an outcome.
COMPATIBILITY: Tools such as The MBTI, Enneagram, and others, allow you to understand yourself at a deeper level, the things you are equipped with, and why you do what you do. These tools also give you a glimpse of other personalities, their inherent traits, and how they could possibly interact with yours. This will help you avoid expecting figs from an apple tree.
FIGHTING STYLES: When it comes to arguments, you really — I can’t emphasize this enough — need to understand your fighting style, what you fear, and what you’re looking to accomplish on every interaction. We all respond differently to conflict; some like to solve things on the spot, some prefer time alone, and others might even brush the whole thing off. No matter what your approach is, you have to be aware of how you respond to conflict, and so does your potential partner. This will ensure you understand each other's behavior after a disagreement and develop a strategy to find common ground.
APOLOGIES: Develop the ability to be okay with being wrong, to develop self-awareness, and to apologize when you know you’ve have hurt someone else. Unfortunately, we have been taught to apologize for things that are trivial, and have learned to ignore the ones we should focus on. We are all equipped with the inner tools to know when we’ve hurt someone else, and recognizing our wrongdoings, owning up to them, and setting the other person free from emotional discomfort is a ninja-move you need to master if you want to avoid divorce court.
YOUR SHADOW: Love is definitely blind because no matter how handsome or beautiful you are right now, your deterioration and decay are guaranteed. To avoid a death by a thousand cuts, you have to identify the beliefs, thoughts, and actions that lead you to act in ways you’ll later regret. The experiment is based on accepting someone else without judging by their looks, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept their bad behaviors, negative responses, and the lack of self-awareness that could lead this experiment to being a one-sided win.

CONCLUSION

After watching every season of Love is Blind and yelling at the TV like a football fanatic during the Super Bowl, I can see how the desire to find true love has been replaced by fame-seeking, misguided intentions, and a total lack of self-development before entering this volatile battlefield. No wonder many feel like they are chopping a tree down with a hockey stick.

Whether you find love in the pods or in real life, it’s the things you don’t know about yourself that will eventually lead to the fate you dread most. If you don't analyze your thoughts, feelings, and resulting actions, you’re likely to repeat your mistakes again with the next person, perhaps enough times (just like me) to realize that there's no other way around self-development.

But if you do your homework and become the person that you want to be with, you’ll craft the key to a fulfilling and sustainable relationship, whether you meet your partner on national TV or at the local coffee shop.

No matter where you go to find your ideal partner, remember it’s better to be alone than with bad company.

Thank you for your continuous support, reading my rant, and until the next post.

Victor

PS:

If you’re interested in learning how I failed, transformed, and found the keys to a life of Love, Purpose, and Peace, check out my book “No Grail Without Dragons”. I’d certainly read it before trying my luck at love again.

If you struggle with inner self-talk, download my free “Conquer Your Inner Critic” step-by-step guide here.

Last but not least, if you are facing troubles in your current relationship, need a hand overcoming a breakup or divorce, and would like to learn proven strategies to succeed in love, consider booking a call and allowing me to help you take your love life in the direction you desire.

LOVE IS BLIND: 5 KEYS TO SAY “I DO” TO THE RIGHT PERSON.