#10 Breaking Down 'Love Is Blind' PLUS Toxic Celebrity Crushes!

In this episode of The Tinder Project, Mark Rosenfeld and Teal Elisabeth discuss the strangest texts Mark has sent to men on Tinder, their healthy and toxic celebrity crushes, and the psychology of love. In this conversation, Teal and Mark discuss the TV show Love is Blind and the concept of vulnerability in relationships. They explore the idea that while the show promotes connection and self-disclosure, it also creates an artificial sense of safety and vulnerability. They discuss the importance of nonverbal cues and the challenges of building trust and intimacy in a real-life setting. They also touch on the similarities between Love is Blind and online dating, highlighting the need for genuine human connection and communication. Overall, they have a love-hate relationship with the show, recognizing its flaws but appreciating its ability to spark conversations about relationships.

Main Takeaways

Making dating fun is important in the online space
Engaging in banter and role play can make conversations more enjoyable
Having a sense of humor and not taking oneself too seriously is attractive
Kate Middleton is seen as a healthy celebrity crush for Mark
Matthew McConaughey is seen as a healthy celebrity crush for Teal
Alyssa Milano and Meghan Markle are seen as toxic celebrity crushes for Mark
Mr. Big is seen as a toxic celebrity crush for Teal
Love is Blind promotes connection and self-disclosure, but it also creates an artificial sense of safety and vulnerability.
Nonverbal cues play a significant role in attraction and building intimacy.
Online dating can be similar to Love is Blind, but the lack of nonverbal cues can hinder genuine connection.
Vulnerability is important in relationships, but it needs to be balanced and appropriate.
Love is Blind sparks conversations about relationships, but it may not accurately represent the challenges of real-life connections.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:38 An Update On... Parenting!
1:52 Day 72 Tinder Project Update
2:59 Amusing Text Exchanges Mark Had This Week
10:04 Mark's 'Healthy' Celebrity Crush
12:44 Teal's 'Healthy' Celebrity Crush
13:37 What Is A... 'Zaddy?'
15:21 Mark's 'Toxic' Celebrity Crush
17:35 Teal's 'Toxic' Celebrity Crush
18:34 Teal's Henry Caville Problem
20:20 Breaking Down The Psychology Of 'Love Is Blind'
35:03 Want To Speak With Us? Book A 1-1 Call

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:38 An Update On... Parenting!
• 1:52 Day 72 Tinder Project Update
• 2:59 Amusing Text Exchanges Mark Had This Week
• 10:04 Mark's 'Healthy' Celebrity Crush
• 12:43 Teal's 'Healthy' Celebrity Crush
• 13:36 What Is A... 'Zaddy?'
• 15:20 Mark's 'Toxic' Celebrity Crush
• 17:34 Teal's 'Toxic' Celebrity Crush
• 18:33 Teal's Henry Caville Problem
• 20:19 Breaking Down The Psychology Of 'Love Is Blind'
• 35:03 35:03 Want To Speak With Us? Book A 1-1 Call

Transcript

[Speaker 1]
What are some of the strangest texts I've sent to men so far in the Tinder Project? Who is the most healthy and toxic celebrity crush for Teal and I? And breaking down the psychology of love is blind.

That's next on the Tinder Project. G'day and welcome to the Tinder Project, the podcast where a straight Aussie man attempts to survive 365 days dating online as an American woman. I'm your host, Mark Rosenfeld, Australia's dating coach for women.

I'm here with my sidekick, self-love coach, Teal Elizabeth, and together we have one mission, to make meeting good men fun and easy for you. Let's give it a go. Teal, such a nice face.

It barely changes week to week and I love it. How are you?

[Speaker 2]
I'm doing really good, Mark. How's your baby girl, by the way? How old is she?

[Speaker 1]
She is very well. She's four and a half months now. She goes through phases every two weeks.

It's fascinating. There was a phase where she spoke a little bit of Swedish for about two weeks. For about two weeks, there was a phase where she got obsessed with rolling onto her stomach.

There was a recent phase where she got obsessed with putting her whole hand in her mouth. Then there was the phase of grabbing her feet and now we're up to the phase of vocal projection, where you just hear this. I was laughing earlier because it sounds honestly like a...

You know those baby velociraptors from Jurassic Park? I'm just hearing that from downstairs.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, you did not give birth to a baby. You gave birth to a baby velociraptor. Are you sure your wife is human?

[Speaker 1]
I'm sure many parents can relate, in fact. Guys, welcome. It is fantastic to have you here.

Thanks for joining us on the Tinder Project. We've got some exciting stuff to go through.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, I really want to hear an update. I know our listeners do too. What has been the juicy stuff you've been getting into over the last week?

[Speaker 1]
Did you know, fun fact, I was counting the days so far. We are on episode 10 of the podcast, which means we are on day 72.

[Speaker 2]
You haven't died yet.

[Speaker 1]
72, and we're still going strong. There's definitely been a few days where I'm like, oh, not feeling in the mood today, but it's the same with exercise, right? It's the same with saving money.

It's the same with a lot of eating salad. It's like, ah, I really don't feel like doing it today, but you guys are spurring me on. You're all holding me accountable.

I'm still figuring out how I'm going to explain Christmas Day to Sam, but that's future Mark's problem.

[Speaker 2]
What do you mean Christmas Day? You mean being on your phone on Christmas Day, texting women, texting men?

[Speaker 1]
Being on a dating app, texting men.

[Speaker 2]
I think you have to explain that to your family, not so much to us, Sam.

[Speaker 1]
Future Mark's problem. We're going to leave that out there in the future. We're not going to deal with that right now.

No, the project is going well. So I thought this week I'd share a couple of interesting little text exchanges that I've had. One of the big things with this teal is you do have to make it fun for yourself.

We've got on our banner, you know, making dating fun again. And I think the fun factor is really important. And I think of it like this, you know, sometimes you go to a party and there's the people there you really connect with.

You sit down with them, you have a good conversation and you just have a great back and forth. And that's maybe the person you end up on a date with a couple of days later. Party, networking event, you know, those types of things.

And then there's a couple of people, you know, you exchange a couple of sentences with them. They're wearing a funny hat or a cool shirt. And you talk about rhinos or leprechauns or how far the moon is away from the sun for two minutes.

And then that's it.

[Speaker 2]
That's the whole conversation.

[Speaker 1]
I need your hat, sir. I need to wear this hat for at least one minute and twice the points if it's a woman wearing a cool hat. But nonetheless, you have those people where you just have a quick chit chat and sometimes that's it.

And often that's where some of the most, I suppose, like odd conversations happen because you can get some things that are a little bit just random, unusual. It's not entirely rare for me to have a conversation in purely emojis. It doesn't happen that often, but maybe one in every 50, just because the guy sends an emoji, send one back and pretty soon there's a, you know, a Ugandan flag and an elephant and a witch's hat emoji going on there.

So you've got to make yourself smile throughout the process. And yes, I would say about one third to one half of these conversations actually turn into a phone call. So it's not the majority like it would be with some of the other men, but they are fun and they are short.

And I think that's something really important here is these are probably 10% of your online time. So I'm going on for 30 minutes a day, often 20 actually. So this is two to three minutes of my time.

So it's not a significant time investment, but it's enough to give me a smile and continue on the process. So I'll show you a couple of these because these are, these are just a few sort of that I had that I thought were a little bit of fun. They didn't, some of them did lead to a phone call and some didn't.

I didn't want to be too selective, but let me share the screen and I'll describe to the listeners here what we are looking at. I'm going to share the entire screen here. Beautiful.

So can you see my screen? Beautiful. So the first one was this guy, he had an entire batch of photos where there was always people in it.

And he happened to say he was a comedian. And I wanted to kind of playfully point out the fact that he did not know how to take a photo on his own, while also acknowledging the fact that comedians kind of a scary thing. So for those listening, we started the chat and our opening message was, so you don't have an issue with making jokes in front of hundreds of people, but you're terrified to be in a photo on your own with a laughing emoji.

And he loved it. He actually said, he said, dude, seldom get their photo taken, but LMFAO touche, definitely even more terrified. Now I've been called out on that.

So that was a little bit of fun. We had another one with a gentleman here. We had a picture with a koala.

And so he said, Hey, name, please tell me you kept the koala. That was his opening line. We said, I tried.

And then we said, unfortunately, Australian immigration and border force took me down at Sydney airport. When they had him, when they found him in my duffel bag, I had three years community service cleaning up poop at the kangaroo sanctuary and was banned from accessing koalas for seven years.

[Speaker 2]
This was your response. A little bit of banter.

[Speaker 1]
That was my response. Like let's make it fun. The occasional role play is a great way.

This is actually very true. The occasional little role play for an exchange or two is a great way to make it fun and have a laugh. A couple of other ones that I didn't grab screenshots of.

[Speaker 2]
Before you go into that, I think what you just said there is really interesting and a really great takeaway for our listeners, making it fun, playing into these little jokes, playing into the role play. Like you said, it's not just about having a fun little banter, but it also shows that you're not so serious of a person, right? And that you can have fun in life and you don't take yourself too seriously.

And that is very magnetic to men. Would you agree?

[Speaker 1]
It's such a nice energy to meet someone in. It really is. It's just a lovely energy.

A few other quick ones, quick little bantery ones. There was one guy, his whole profile, the only thing he wrote in his bio, he had nice photos, but the only thing he wrote in his bio was my love language is a quality time acts of service and talking a lot. That was all he wrote.

So our opening line was my love language, our quantity time acts of disservice and silence. And he thought it was hilarious. He just, that conversation started, but probably one of my favorites, actually, this guy had in his profile, he basically had a line that said, it's really attractive when we both have a life, but also we sometimes cancel plans to just hang out together.

Okay, cool. That's a sweet line. Nothing, nothing wrong with that.

So we were in an interesting mood this day and we said, hi, name, we'll call him Tim. Hi, Tim. I've canceled all the plans for the rest of my life so we can be together with a bright emoji at the end.

And he loved it that they had a conversation. This is with one of my clients, actually, but I was running the account. They had a conversation.

It led to a great conversation, great day. He loved it because that extra like extreme neediness joke just really landed with this guy. We both thought it was funny.

[Speaker 2]
Amazing. So basically we all just need to be super witty like you, because you are really good.

[Speaker 1]
It's honestly, it's like, what do I find fun? For example, there was one person today, a reasonably good looking person, but it was kind of had that grumpy, slightly angry look in all his photos. And all we wrote was Shane and then about 50 dots and then all caps, smile with a wink after it.

You've just got to find something, Teal, that like makes you smile a little bit. It's like, if you saw that at a party, what would you find a little amusing about it? A little interesting, just a little quirky.

And it can be silly. It's a place where you can be a little childlike creative, like a little bit. How would I make this fun?

If I'm a kid here, I'm looking around a boring room. What do kids do? They find a pen and draw on the wall.

They throw something, they push some buttons or they look under things. Kids are very good at finding a way to make something fun when we might think it's boring. So it's kind of like, how could you make this fun for you?

And whatever your version of wit is, and this is to everyone listening, whatever your version is, there's a part of you that can find fun in any situation, I promise you. And online, at what one might refer to as one of the world's most boring parties, it's the perfect opportunity to not fit in. It's the perfect opportunity to go, all right, well, rather than go to this party and try to fit in, I'm going to go to this party and make it fun for me.

How, how would I do that? What would I find amusing here? And when you're out meeting people without an agenda, you'll kind of do that anyway.

So you've got to bring that mentality to the online space.

[Speaker 2]
I love it. I love it. It's fabulous.

Way to be a role model. You do? You support this?

I do. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Good.

[Speaker 1]
Shall we talk about celebrity crushes, Tia?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, yes, yes. I really had to think about this a little bit.

[Speaker 1]
Who's going to go first? Because we, I think we need to hear, and I'm curious to the listeners as well, if there's a place you can leave comments on this episode. Maybe I'll pop it up on the story, actually.

We'd love to hear yours for this. Healthy and toxic celebrity crushes. Tia, where should we start?

[Speaker 2]
I want to hear yours first. Why don't you start with one, we could popcorn back and forth, maybe.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. And are we doing both sexes here or are we only doing one?

[Speaker 2]
I think just one. I mean, are you attracted to men? Celebrity men crushes?

[Speaker 1]
Well, no, but I could definitely spot which ones I would, for example, want for if I had a sister versus which ones I would say never to date. Like Leonardo DiCaprio, that dude upgrades, upgrades women every like five years. As soon as they turn 28, it's like finding you 23.

So I can spot. I will say, do you know what? Let's start healthy.

I had to think about this a little bit. That's a few, but I, I'm going to go with Kate Middleton.

[Speaker 2]
And why specifically?

[Speaker 1]
Well, I love her poise. I love the way she holds herself. She seems very well balanced.

I mean, I get that there's a degree of, she's got to put that image out there, but she seems to be, she seems to just hold herself very well. I like the way that she presents. I like the way she supports her husband.

I like the way she does her own stuff. I like the way she kind of models as a great mom for her family. She's also been through a lot.

I mean, she's just had so much challenge and she's been sick. And there was that whole thing where she got very sick. I'm not fully up to date on that, but I know it wasn't great.

She also had horrible, horrible pregnancies. So she's kind of been through the ringer and yet every time you see her, you kind of have this respect for the way she holds herself. She's, she's, she's someone you'd love to be seen with.

So I just, I just think that's so cool. And my perception of her having absolutely no personal relationship to her makes me think, oh man, that's like the ultimate wife material right there. Just bang on.

[Speaker 2]
I love it. I agree. Yeah.

She's a beautiful, respectable woman for sure.

[Speaker 1]
What about you Teal? Who's your healthy man crush? Can we tell your husband and put a poster of him on the wall?

Just don't say anything else. Just put a poster on the wall and then report back next week with what your husband says about the poster.

[Speaker 2]
He's not easily threatened at all.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Should we do that? I'll put a Kate Middleton poster in my bedroom.

You put a whoever this is on your bedroom and we report that next week of just the first comment we can do that. I kind of want to do this. Okay.

I'll get the printer fired up later.

[Speaker 2]
The first one that came to my head when I was asking myself, this was Matthew McConaughey, especially solid choice. Very solid. He's getting a little older now, a little wrinkly, but still he has such just that heartthrob energy, just being a good gentleman, a just good downhearted gentleman.

He's got that Southern kind of accent. Um, I mean, I only really know him from his book, Green Lights, which is an amazing book. If you haven't read it.

Um, I haven't, but I've heard amazing things about that book. So I'm sure a lot of the listeners are like, especially just his philosophy on life and just like looking for the green lights in life and how you're always being aligned on your guided path through little synchronicities from the universe. It's really, so he's got that kind of mindset, which I love, but then he's also, I mean, from his movies, of course he plays in so many rom-coms.

So I'm just drawn into his movie characters and I'm like, he's just so dreamy.

[Speaker 1]
How do you feel about the term zaddy and does it apply to Matthew McConaughey?

[Speaker 2]
I have never heard of this term.

[Speaker 1]
You've never heard of this term? Okay. Sam introduced me to this term when we were watching Physical 100.

Do you know what that show is? I have no idea. Oh my God.

Okay. Before we were parents, we actually had some time to watch stuff. And one of the shows we watched was Physical 100.

And that's basically where they took a hundred of Korea's best athletes. It's a Netflix show if anyone's interested. They took a hundred of Korea's best athletes in every discipline.

We're talking gold medalists, military, judo. We're talking, you know, firefighters, all the best physical athletes. And they basically pitted them all against each other until there was only one left.

And it was called Physical 100. But anyway, there was a guy on there. He was about 45.

He was a very attractive Korean martial artist, mixed martial artist. And every time Sam would watch, she would go, oh, that's my zaddy. And apparently it's just a dilf that crosses 40 is essentially the definition.

That's a zaddy. So I got three years yet to hopefully make that grade maybe. But no, I agree on Matthew.

You know, what I had huge respect for him was the moment he thought about getting into politics and then realized it wasn't for him. That's when you know someone has character because they look at those positions and they go, oh, actually the stuff I would have to do to survive in that job is out of alignment with the person I want to be. So I shouldn't do that, which is ironic because they're exactly the people we need as leaders, but they're the people who don't want to be leaders.

Shout out to you, Matthew McConaughey on the 0.1% chance you're okay.

[Speaker 2]
Toxic crush. This is someone that you would secretly love to be with, but you know, would be super bad for you.

[Speaker 1]
So my original answer to this was 15 year old me had an obsession with Alyssa Milano from charm. And after I read how that show fell apart, primarily because of her, I was like, oh man, this girl's so toxic.

[Speaker 2]
I just highlight some of those toxic traits. Why is she toxic?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, honestly, it was just reading the show notes where 20 years later, unfortunately, Shannon Doherty passed away recently, but unfortunately, oh sorry, 20 years later, reading those show notes, everyone, including Alyssa, is still arguing about who was the problem that broke up the show. It was a great show, it was charmed back in the day. I'm sure Alyssa's might be familiar with it.

Phoebe, Piper, Pru, and Paige. Third season, Shannon Doherty leaves unexpectedly. And essentially 20 years later, they're all still blaming Alyssa Milano and she's still defending herself.

So there was that. The other one I would probably say, actually, just continuing our thread from before, and this might be a bit of a controversial answer, but from what I've seen of Meghan Markle, opposite of Kate. And to be honest, I love the Queen.

I thought she held herself in such esteem. And if you're not vibing the Queen, you're not vibing me. I don't know how you don't make that relationship work.

This is with my 10 minutes of royal knowledge.

[Speaker 2]
I was going to say, you seem awfully connected to the royal family.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, I'm really into it. Yeah, I've spent a solid 10, 11 minutes in researching this stuff over the course of my life. So it's a bit of a side passion of mine.

But yeah, I don't know, everything I've seen in the six minutes that I devoted to Meghan Markle over the four minutes I gave to Kate, everything I've seen is just off-putting, just so fame seeking and attention seeking, not in a good way and blaming everyone else. I just.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Just screenshot that face and just remind yourself, listeners, don't act that way because that's how you're going to make men respond.

[Speaker 1]
Ugh, don't do that. Who's your toxic guy, Teal?

[Speaker 2]
I need to know. Back to sex in the city, Mr. Big. Should have seen that one coming.

And I mean, I'm not really attracted to him physically. He's kind of looks kind of old and like my dad, but, um, his, he's got this swagger and this vibe and this way of charming Carrie so much that I find it really interesting. And I totally could see myself in my old self getting swept up by that because it's kind of this like smirky look and this, this hot and cold and this coy dance and he's got all this money and he just knows exactly when she's like vulnerable to like go in there and pounce on her.

And it's so bad.

[Speaker 1]
About a quarter of our listeners are going, oh, so dreamy. I want that right now. Maybe half actually.

That's hilarious.

[Speaker 2]
And as dreamy as it would be to be, you know, swept up by some fancy Manhattan, you know, rich man. No, it's not going to work.

[Speaker 1]
No, not for you. I feel like we should give an honorable mention to one other gentleman, um, along with Matthew, which is Henry Cavill.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know him.

[Speaker 1]
Teal, you don't know Henry Cavill?

[Speaker 2]
Is he a movie star?

[Speaker 1]
55% of our audience might be disappointed in you.

[Speaker 2]
Is he another royal family member?

[Speaker 1]
Superman. The Witcher. Six foot handsome Englishman who loves playing board games with his fiance.

[Speaker 2]
Oh my God. No, I don't think I've seen it. I have not.

I've been out of the house. I have been so out of the, uh, what is it? The media world since having kids.

[Speaker 1]
There, there has to be one show. Henry Cavill shows. There has to be one show Teal recognizes here.

We've got The Witcher, The Tudors, Midsommar Murders. Ooh, more Witcher. Superman.

[Speaker 2]
Maybe not.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Look up his picture and give me your honest. No.

I mean, I've never heard a woman say that. Really?

[Speaker 2]
It's just not my style, but I don't know. I haven't seen it. I guess I need to watch Superman.

[Speaker 1]
I, you know, Henry Cavill is one of those very few people that I kind of thought was almost everyone's style. Like, uh, do you know Chris Hemsworth? The Aussie, Thor, blonde.

Is he your style? No. Interesting.

[Speaker 2]
Bradley Cooper, Matthew McConaughey. That would be my honorable mention.

[Speaker 1]
That, that dude is, that dude is something else, that guy. I love Bradley Cooper. He's, he's, yeah, that's, I'd probably turn gay for Bradley Cooper.

That's, that's good. Good, good decisions here. All right.

We've covered the, uh, we've covered the celebrities. Shall we talk about the regular people who end up on a very interesting television show, Netflix series known as Love is Blind and the psychology behind this. Teal, I'm really curious, your general thoughts on the show.

Is it good? Does it help people fall in love? Does it help people see what relationships are or is it just creating Disney level romanticism that we all have to unpack in our later years?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I think the show gives so much for us to talk about. I'm really excited to dig into it. I have kind of a love hate relationship with it.

I've watched a few full seasons and I love the concept. I love the idea in general, but I don't think it actually executes in real life. Um, I think in general when we meet them, how many times have you done this in real life?

The Love is Blind thing? The blind date?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. When you go to pods and sit there, you're like, this isn't working the way it was on the show. There's something, is there, is there any guys in here?

Is that a homeless person in my pod? This doesn't work like it does on TV, man.

[Speaker 2]
Gets a little lonely in there.

[Speaker 1]
You're doing it wrong, Tia. That's not, um, this isn't one of those shows where you replicate it at home and it works. Sorry.

What I mean is, what a quote, this doesn't work in real life. No shit, Tia.

[Speaker 2]
I meant the concept works, I think. The mind concept works, but when you see it on the show play out, I do not think it works. Um, mostly because, you know, in the beginning of the show, the idea, the theory of it is that you, you don't want to get caught up with all the looks.

You want to be able to really hear and feel their heart and understand them on a deep soul level before getting swept up in all the physical attraction stuff. And while that is a beautiful concept, what I noticed is that even though it's, it's not just the physical attraction piece, there's another huge component that goes into attraction, which I think is the nonverbal cues. And we're missing a lot of those nonverbal cues when we're talking just on the phone or just through a wall or whatever that is.

And although you can get really much deeper, I think when you're not getting distracted by the rest of it, you're missing a huge component. And I'll give you an example. I was really sitting with sitting with this and thinking about it because first I was all aboard, all aboard for it.

[Speaker 1]
Built my own part of the backyard of everything. I was so into this show.

[Speaker 2]
As I really started to think about it, I was like, I remember going on a date with a guy and we had had a few conversations on the phone and he seemed great and we were really hitting it off. And I was like, I really can't wait to meet him in person. And I met him in person and he just had this stare about him, even though we had the conversation and it was still flowing.

He was just like staring at me the whole time in a really uncomfortable way. And it really made me feel off. And it just really threw me so much because I thought I had a really good connection with him.

And then I saw him in real life and I'm like, there's just this underlying thing that I couldn't pick up on. And then, and I had another guy where I connected super well and I was like, wow, I'm really excited about this guy. And then I saw him in real life and I just, yeah, the physical piece wasn't there.

And it really kind of just, it was more of a letdown after that point because he was like, why is this not working? And then I had to explain to him that it's, it's not your wonderful soul and personality. It's that I don't want to fuck you.

[Speaker 1]
I don't like what you look like.

[Speaker 2]
And that's even worse. So, so I have a lot of thoughts about this show.

[Speaker 1]
That's even worse. Wow. I, I'm two thirds for it, one third against it, but the third I'm against it is a pretty big important third.

I like a couple of things about it. I like that it forces self-disclosure. It forces connection over feelings.

And I think in a sense, it really, this, this whole idea of bringing men and women back together, that was one of the foundations of this podcast. I love that it promotes this idea of humans connecting over experiences, opinions, and most importantly, feelings. And it really does a beautiful job of showcasing how human connection can foster and flourish and through simply shared without even seeing each other, just through those shared things that I mentioned there, human connection can truly flourish in that environment.

And I also think it does an interesting thing with, with voices, which is, I do think, and it's not perfect. And I certainly have had situations similar to you, but I'd say 80% of the time, if I connect with someone on the phone, I can, I can usually spend an hour with them and enjoy myself. It's not a perfect match, but in general, it's true.

I do think obviously it favors people who, you know, I did a deep dive into the effects of hormones on voice tonality this morning, and it was really interesting looking at how, you know, testosterone lowers the voice about four times as much compared to a quarter when men versus women go through puberty. So there's certainly sexual dimorphism there, and it obviously favors the people who have more classic masculine feminine voices. And I think there's interesting stuff to be said, especially for women, well, actually men as well, but particularly the I say, being a man around vocal inflections and tonalities and the more she expresses and extend her words and shows emotions through her use of tonality up, down, sideways, lengthening, shortening, you can get a feel for someone on quite a deep level with that.

So I think those things are really cool about the show and the general concept I really like. It's interesting you said the nonverbal cues because I hadn't noticed that, and it's a very good point. The thing that I noticed that I felt was much more important and the big one third that I don't like about the show, other than of course, you know, you may not be actually physically attracted to them, which is a bit of a disaster.

But I think the big thing that gets ignored is the fact that you have a wall and the wall offers a protection from intimacy, which creates this really fascinating false sense of safety around vulnerability. Because it's kind of like talking to, you know, they used to have those old psychic phone lines and people would call them up and you can sort of share your heart from someone who you'll never ever talk to again. Or if you've ever had a one night stand where you just kind of let out your entire soul and history to this person and never saw them again, there's a weird sense of safety and vulnerability that gets created when you know there's a wall and a disconnect there.

So you have these two people that are almost being artificially vulnerable because the threat has been taken away by the wall protection. I literally can't get close to you so there's no threat of you getting too close emotionally to some degree, but I literally can't touch you, I can't be with you. So all the usual fears of intimacy that would come up for either party, men or women, anyone who has a level of emotional unavailability and has triggers that would keep their heart closed, those triggers are not usually activated in this environment because you have this kind of artificial safety that's created.

So unfortunately once you get out of the pods you then have two people that it's like the dogs that are trying to bark at each other from each side of the fence. Suddenly they've been like barking, barking, barking, I want to get at you, I want to get at you, I want to get at you, and suddenly the fence is taken away and it's like oh shit. I know we're not attacking each other which is where that gives someone technically the option to hurt you or the option to attack you because we're building trust and as soon as someone has the potential to hurt you, your defenses are much more likely to come up.

So there's this weird thing with love is blind where the wall creates artificial vulnerability because it takes away your triggers and in that sense you do get a true sense of the person to one degree because they're talking to you without their defenses down but they're not forced to go through the process of working through those defenses to actually connect to you. That connection is almost like it happens like as a freebie or something and so then you meet up and you're in the real world all those defenses that had gone to sleep and switched off suddenly act come back up and you kind of have to take four steps back which is why so many of those couples really struggle three to six months later because they've had all this closeness but all of a sudden the defenses which are asleep at the wheel wake up and say oh my god I got to protect the person again which of course kills intimacy. So it's a bit of an unnatural vulnerability and I guess like any relationships it seems like some couples can work through it well after the show and many don't but I think that's the biggest thing that gets missed because in relationships we're really only as good as we are at handling our triggers and if you take the triggers away in an artificial environment while you do get a beautiful connection with the real person you do not get the person who's worked through the triggers to get there you get the artificial form that then has to do the work kind of after the event and I think that's where it's a bit misrepresentative of a real-life deepening of vulnerability experience.

[Speaker 2]
I love that you broke that down so clearly I've never really thought about it in that way but I think that makes complete sense it's a superficial vulnerability or not even superficial but yeah it's artificially created in a very petri dish environment but it's not going to necessarily test in the real world because it's true we have to build that slowly and build that trust slowly it's it's almost like you've pried open your heart and now you have to somehow just keep it open even though everything around you like it's not safe to do that I don't know this person