Silly Thoughts, volume 6

I was unwell at the beginning of September. I think it was a lot of things. Stress. Exhaustion. Back-to-school germs. Whatever caused it, I spent a weekend as horizontal as I could get away with. My husband took the children out to see his parents, and I rested at home.

And I watched Love is Blind UK season two on Netflix.

My friend Sarah described the premise of Love is Blind to me. A selection* of men and women move into adjoining houses; their days consist of a series of dates, held in special pods that allow potential couples to hear, but not see, each other.

(*They 'happen' to select contestants who are all quite attractive. Funny that.)

'So it's basically Blind Date?' Chris said, when I told him about it.

And yes. Essentially. It's a dating reality show wrapped in the faux-curious wrapper of a 'social experiment'. There's plenty to criticise about it, and yet, I watched both seasons of the UK version with my jaw on the floor because I like the drama. My favourite part is the first third of the season, in which the contestants are getting to know each other. There, the show sheds most of the shallowness that completely puts me off shows like Love Island. There, you get to see actual human tenderness. Vulnerability. The contestants are frank about how shit the modern dating scene is, open about their past trauma, excited at the thought of settling down and finding someone based purely on their heart, not their looks.

But then it all goes downhill. Successful couples get engaged, because the producers have decided they have to get married within six weeks for tension purposes. They go to a villa and lounge around in expensive swimwear and engage in minor beef with other contestants. And then the friends and family have to come to a full-blown wedding in which they aren't sure, until the last possible second, whether or not the couples will actually go through with the marriage. 'Is love blind?' the registrar says, dramatically. (It must be quite fun to be a registrar hired for this specific purpose. Makes a change from bog-standard weddings that aren't engineered by Netflix.) And then we find out, once and for all.

I'll come back to this later. This is already embarrassingly long. But first:

How many cat pics can I get away with on my newsletter, do you reckon?

Some stuff I've enjoyed from September (other than trashy reality TV):

• I've been watching Heartstopper with my daughter. It is so sweet and has led to some really lovely conversations. And it was lovely to see a coming out scene in which the mother is immediately supportive, kind, and considerate, rather than horrified/making it a big deal. Perfect representation of what good parenting looks like
• I've also been enjoying the album Lovergirl by Rachel Bochner. The track Alchemical wrenched me out of work when I first listened to it
• I've been binge-watching House. It has overtaken my life somewhat. It's ridiculous and fantastic
• One episode of Alien: Earth left. Savouring it like a delicious, violent snack. Nobody tell me how it ends
• I got to review the fantastic Strange Antiquities for Thinky Games. An excellent, gentle introduction to spooky season
• Strictly has returned, and thus, my Saturday evenings are joyful once more
• This article by Glamour magazine about a disabled fashion designer's collection at London Fashion Week is well worth a read. The article (and the collection) touches on the narratives around people with disabilities in the UK after the PIP fiasco earlier this year. It also (rightly, but briefly) delves into the exploitative nature of having to work for exposure rather than payment, and the difficulties of finding work in creative industries for disabled people
• Finally, I've been reading the last third of Lobster by Hollie McNish, another excellent poetry collection. I love her.

I need to talk about Love is Blind again. I watched the reunion episode, hosted by a very sincere Matt and Emma Willis in front of a live audience, one year after the weddings. It was excruciating this time around. Excruciating. Every couple crumbled apart except for one. It was messy beyond belief. Two of the men, in that intervening year, went on a little lad's minibreak and then obviously planned a coordinated break-up with their respective wives, both with the same script: 'there's no chemistry', that kind of thing. Just absolutely blindsided their other halves with divorce. They represented what these women were trying to escape by coming on the show in the first place: shallow relationships, in which the other half bails when things get too serious.

I think love might be blind, under the right circumstances. I'd love to see a version of this experiment where they vet the contestants better. Where the producers focus on how emotionally stable and mature the contestants are, not just how pretty they'd look on camera. Where they are allowed to date each other for several weeks and then slowly get to know each other in real life, totally outside of the pressure to get married. But then again, that probably wouldn't make for interesting television.

Anyway. To bookend September I am now poorly again, possibly with Covid, and feeling very sorry for myself. Here's to a healthier October.