Season Three of Love is Blind is, somehow, remarkably heterosexual, despite its premise retaining deep roots in lesbian cultural practices: falling in love with someone you’ve never met, moving in together after a week, idealizing someone you barely know, socializing with all of your exes, your friends talking behind your back about how much they hate your girlfriend, sharing your trauma on Day Two, rampant alcohol use disorder, love triangles, and your parents fundamentally disapproving of the relationship before even meeting your partner. This was detailed extensively by me following Season One:

19 Lesbian Cultural Practices Appropriated By “Love Is Blind”

For those unaware of the concept, in the hit Netflix reality show Love is Blind, marriage-ready singles are challenged to spend time speed-dating each other in “pods” where they can connect emotionally without viewing each other physically. During this time they often manage to “fall in love” and are only able to see each other after a marriage proposal has been accepted, at which point they run down a red carpet of love into each other’s arms and are shipped off on a romantic beach vacation, where they also meet the people they once dated. Then, they go back home to see how they’ll integrate into each other’s lives before their wedding. At the altar, they can say yes or no and most of the time, someone does say no!

After the sizzling lesbianism of Season One, Season Two continued to carry the homosexual torch. Nick made his own toothpaste and was marrying Danielle, a costume party enthusiast with emotional baggage sitting right a the very surface of her epidermis. Natalie was a girlboss trying to tame a bourbon-loving Golden Retriever named Shayne into a suitable husband. Salvador played Mallory a f*cking ukelele serenade!!!

Initially, I’d set out to rank Season Three’s contestants by lesbianism, assuming that there’d be plenty of material with which to do so, but quickly found myself thwarted by what can only be described as a season riddled with absolute heterosexual tomfoolery. Most notably, while the show has obviously always trafficked in the potential fallout from one partner meeting their fiancee for the first time and realizing they are not actually attracted to them — a situation less frequent in queer relationships because all gay people are hot and recognize each other as such — this season has taken that particular situation to an uneasy and honestly very rude extreme that leads you to ask “why did this man sign up for a show called Love is Blind????” Let’s begin with Cole and Zanab.

Cole and Zanab: 99% Heterosexual

Patrick Wymore/Netflix © 2022

Cole, who initially reminded me of my ex with his childlike enthusiasm for life, specific style of eyeglasses and penchant for jumping on the couch like a child bowled over by the possibility of presents, was set to be #1. After he confessed that he’d in fact, at the age of 25, already been married to someone he only knew for two months and then got divorced four months later, I thought “that right there is a lesbian!” HOW WRONG I WAS!

After Cole met his betrothed woman, Zanab, who is objectively one of the hottest women in the world, he somehow, to our collective bafflement, was unable to summon a “physical connection,” instead reminding her and the cameras and his cast mates, at every opportunity, that his “type” is someone else’s fiancee, Colleen, an alleged ballet dancer.

Here is telling Alexa about his first impressions of Zanab:

Here he is telling Zanab for the first but not the last time that she’s not his usual type:

HERE HE IS RELAYING A CONVO FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE IN WHICH HE GAVE ZANAB A NINE OUT OF TEN AND THEN GAVE COLLEEN A TEN OUT OF TEN AND THEN TOLD ZANAB SHE SHOULD BE FLATTERED BECAUSE HE GIVES 80% OF WOMEN LESS THAN A 7 OUT OF 10:

Here’s his voiceover regarding how he is emotionally in love with Zanab and trying to summon the physical, which is already present with Colleen:

Here is Zanab at a gathering of the cast in which this all came up again:

In the pods, Cole and Colleen had a connection, until Colleen told Cole that, in typical heterosexual fashion, that she wasn’t looking for a “deep” relationship but a “shallow” relationship. Cole expressed dismay at this revelation, and I subsequently expressed dismay when Colleen went back to the girls and cried that Cole had called her “shallow.” Justice for this lesbian man with deep feelings, I said! But now, after witnessing Cole’s overall personality and absolutely hogwild reaction to his smokeshow fiancee’s physical appearance, I curse the day I ever considered this man one of our own. In fact, I feel deep, pervasive shame around it, which is enhanced by my girlfriend reminding me that she hated him from the very beginning.

To get serious for a second, Cole is obviously racist! It’s clear he only sees white women as beautiful, and cannot recognize the objective beauty standing before him. He even tells Zanab that he “usually dates girls named Lily” and knew getting engaged to “Zanab” that she wouldn’t be his usual type.

Do not even get me started on this man’s apartment! Unacceptable! Clean before you go on a trip, you are the human equivalent of a broken printer.

Colleen and Matt: 90% Heterosexual

Patrick Wymore/Netflix © 2022

Similarly to Cole, Matt gets some lesbian points for the fact that at his relatively young age, he has already been married and divorced. Furthermore, his ex-wife cheated on him, and he now appears to possess intense, deep-seated trust issues that he may never get over, which is incredibly relatable to me, personally, a practicing lesbian. However, the way these trust issues play out is TOXIC AS FUCK. This man needs to calm the hell down.

Meanwhile, Colleen is giving me “front row of the viral TikTok dance for Alabama rush” vibes and as aforementioned, has explicitly stated her desire for a “shallow” relationship that doesn’t go too deep. A lesbian would never!!!

Raven and SK: 98% Heterosexual

Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

As soon as Raven started doing pilates while Bartise was confessing his childhood trauma, it was clear that Raven was going to be last on my (as aforementioned) thwarted list of cast members ranked by lesbianism. Eventually, Raven ended up getting engaged to SK and despite her cold body language when they first met, they’re shaping up to be one of the chillest and most respectful relationships on the program. But SK did indeed fall asleep during a “sound bath,” which is not gay.

That said, Raven gets one small queer point for her impeccable reaction to Bartise’s inappropriate advances, telling the camera that physical complements are great and all, but she really wants to be loved for her mind, and telling him directly that she doesn’t think they’re compatible and that she feels secure that SK is more qualified to give her the love she wants to receive.

SK also gets one small gay point for thinking that going to grad school across the country shouldn’t impact the viability of their relationship.

Bartise and Nancy: 95% Heterosexual

Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

Cole and Bartise have the shared honor of being the people I hate most on this show, and I think both of them should be abandoned at sea. Nancy, who carries a heterosexual desire to birth 10+ children, gets some queer points for owning multiple properties with her ex. Bartise’s feelings about Nancy apparently shifted dramatically after Raven showed up to Meet the Exes night in a tight outfit:

Here Nancy is telling Andrew what Bartise told her:

Here he is after apparently not touching Nancy for two days:

Here he is, still talking about Raven to Nancy:

Meanwhile, Nancy is building a real estate empire and is a speech pathologist and is also incredibly hot and fun and delightful and loving. I am now, against all odds, shipping Nancy with Fake Tears Andrew, I think they should buy a spaceship and get the hell out of Dallas.

Alexa and Brennon: 75% Heterosexual

Patrick Wymore/Netflix © 2022

Apparently these two are having fantastic rough sex and Alexa is a queen who gives off light bisexual vibes. Also, Brennon’s family has a garden and chickens. Probably the gayest moment this season is when Alexa’s Israeli Dad unfurled a set of knives with which he was implying he would circumcise Brennon on the spot, because knives are gay. Alexa’s Dad also told Brennon that he expected him to be able to give Alexa the expensive lifestyle to which she is accustomed — treating Brennon like his economically underprivileged childhood was an inconvenience rather than a lived experience that could inform his present circumstances — which is a very straight attitude.

In conclusion, this show needs to get its shit together and make an all-lesbian season already! Logistically it would be impossible but I don’t care, men have been to the moon, women deserve a shot at the pods.

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