If you’ve read my blog in the past, you probably know that my guilty pleasure TV show is the The Bachelor/ette. (**Warning: if you watch the show and haven’t watched the episode from 7/15, this blog contains spoilers!**)

Every Monday night, a group of girlfriends and I gather together to eat, drink, and dissect all of the drama of the show, including what we would or wouldn’t do differently than the person dating 25+ people and deciding who they want to potentially spend the rest of their lives with. Regardless of whether the participants on the show are there “for the right reasons,” I find that many of the stories and scenarios taking place on the show provide good fodder for discussion about falling in love and communication in relationships.

I’m writing this blog on a Tuesday, with last night’s episode of The Bachelorette fresh in my mind. I’ve been planning to write a blog about the concept of “blind love” for a while now, and something that happened in last night’s episode illustrates the concept beautifully.

For those of you who don’t watch the show, I’ll break down the situation I’m referring to in a nutshell. This season’s bachelorette is a girl named, Hannah. Hannah has not been shy about proclaiming her Christian faith, both on social media and on the show. One of her suitors (is there a better word than suitor? Contestant?), Luke P., has also been outspoken about his Christian faith. Luke P. declared on the second episode that he was “falling in love with Hannah.” Hannah and Luke P. have had a strong connection throughout the season, despite Luke P.’s tumultuous (to say the least) relationships with the other men vying for Hannah’s heart, and those men warning Hannah that Luke P. is a completely different person with them than he is with her. Despite all of the drama centered around Luke P., Hannah has maintained a strong connection with him, which she attributes in large part to their shared faith. 

Last night, Hannah and each of her four remaining men had the opportunity to spend the night together with no cameras around, leaving the audience to fill in the blanks as to what was actually happening behind closed doors. Hannah confirmed to the audience that she had sex with one of the men. While Luke P. knew what could potentially happen on the overnight date, he did not know that Hannah had been intimate with at least one of the men. In fact, not only did he not know, he assumed based on their shared faith, that they also shared the same views regarding sex outside of marriage, and therefore, that she hadn’t been intimate with any man on the show. When he shared this assumption with Hannah during his date, all hell broke loose.

Let’s pause a moment to discuss the concept of “blind love.” It’s been written about, sung about, and portrayed in various forms of entertainment. But what do we mean when we talk about someone being blinded by love?

One way of describing blind love is feeling strongly attached to someone—to the point where you feel strong romantic feelings and/or believe that you love the person—you’re dating without knowing significant information about them. Blind love often happens when the time you spend together is emotionally and/or physically intense, particularly over a short time period. The Bachelor/ette is the perfect incubator of blind love: it’s filmed over a period of weeks, you have no contact with anyone outside of the show, and your relationship evolves from literally not ever meeting a person to declaring your love for and getting engaged to them in a manner of weeks without ever spending time with them outside of this incubator.

The show showcases all of the romantic aspects about blind love. It can be fun, new, and exciting to spend time with a new person (especially if that time involves jet setting to exotic locations, helicopter rides, and bungee jumping!). If it’s someone you’ve not known in other contexts, someone you met randomly, the mystery of getting to know them can be enticing, especially if the attraction is strong. Also, not knowing the person in other contexts, you’ve only experienced them in a romantic context, so you have no potentially negative aspects of the person creeping in on your newfound excitement.

The problem with blind love is that we can find ourselves emotionally, physically, and sometimes even financially attached to someone we don’t know very well. We set ourselves up for being duped down the road when that person doesn’t turn out to be who they said they were or who we thought they were, but we attached ourselves before truly getting to know them.

Case in point: Hannah and Luke P.

While both claim to share the same faith, they clearly have differing views on sex outside of marriage. Luke P. appears blindsided when he learns that Hannah does not feel the same way as he does. Hannah, who has heard the other men’s repeated warnings about Luke P.’s condescending and arrogant personality traits, has finally witnessed them firsthand for herself, when he delivers his thoughts in a judgmental and disrespectful manner. Hannah is no longer blindly falling for Luke P. – she breaks up with him after this conversation. Luke P., however, seems to continue to be blind, as the preview for next week’s episode shows him coming back to Hannah, and declaring that he doesn’t care that she’s been intimate with another man on the show, he is choosing to be with her anyway (which may be more of a narcissistic trait, than a trait of blind love).

So, can people fall out of blind love? Yes. Like Hannah finally did with Luke P. on last night’s episode, we can fall out of blind love as we get to know the person, and begin to reconcile that the image we have of the person in our heads does not match up to who the person actually is. Up until this point on the show, Hannah knew Luke P. in terms of their physical chemistry, their shared faith, and his relationship with his family. She had heard about some of his negative characteristics from the other guys, and as she spent more time with him, getting to know him better, and witnessing how he treated her in their last conversation, she realized that the image of who Luke P. was in her mind did not fully capture who he actually is.

In the PICK program, we talk about the associations, stereotypes, and ideals we all hold that often lead us to making assumptions about our partner that may or may not turn out to be true. Luke P. associates being a Christian with not having sex outside of marriage. Because Hannah professes faith, Luke P. associated her Christian faith with this belief, assuming she felt the same way he did. He turned out to be wrong, and in the process, greatly offended her with the way he delivered his words. Hannah’s ideal for a mate is someone who shares her faith, which is perhaps why she kept Luke P. around for such a long time. She ended up feeling blindsided by him when, not only did his ideas of sex before marriage did not match hers, he disrespected her wishes when she asked him to leave and he refused.

We can protect ourselves from the syndrome of blind love by considering the associations, stereotypes, and ideals we hold about the person we’re dating, and holding those up next to what we actually know about that person. The great news is that the blind love syndrome does not have to be debilitating – we can learn from our experiences and seek support in figuring out what to do if this situation arises again in the future. 

How can we know if the strong romantic feelings we experience early on in a relationship are symptomatic of blind love? It’s important to be mindful of the pace of your relationship. This can be difficult, considering the positive feelings that come with a new love! However, acknowledging those positive feelings and excitement, as well as prioritizing getting to know the person on a deeper level, can help from keeping you get swept off your feet too fast or too soon. Hannah exemplified this with one of her other men, Tyler C. She knew that she and Tyler had great physical chemistry and she intentionally told him she did not want to be physically intimate with him because she wanted to prioritize getting to know him on a deeper emotional level during their private time together. She was afraid that being physically intimate with him would strengthen her attachment to him, without her knowing enough about him (go, girl!).

I encourage people to consider the statements their partner is making to them and if their partner has enough information to make that statement. For example, Luke P. told Hannah on the second group date, surrounded by at least a dozen of her other boyfriends, that he was falling in love with her. While it may feel good to hear something like that, if a guy told me on our second date that he was falling in love with me, I would’ve wondered how in the world he could know me well enough after two dates to make a statement like that? It’s important to remember that early on in relationships, people try to showcase only their best qualities. Conflict and negative qualities take a bit longer to surface. Consider the information from which they’re operating—in Luke P.’s case, it had been two weeks with minimal conversation surrounded by a number of other guys Hannah was dating at the same time.

We all have a desire for relationship – God made us that way. Because of this innate desire, it makes sense that we get excited about being a part of our own great love story. While we may not always see it played out on TV or the movies, we can follow our hearts without losing our minds. We’ll discuss this in our PICK group for divorced women, starting September 3, which you can learn more here. I hope you’ll consider joining us!