Image Source: The Trinity Voice, People, Today Show

Love is Blind is a social experiment series by Chris Coelen aspiring to see if love is actually blind. The series has two groups of 15 women and men each, and the two sexes are not allowed to see each other but can date through pods. If they want to meet, they will have to get engaged, and then it is a matter of time to see if they will actually make it to the altar. 

Talking about the list of people who made it to the cast of the Love is Blind, the series creator Chris Coelen told Variety, "We do a lot of diligence on the cast, and we invite people to participate who we’ve done lots of vetting on, who exhibit an authentic desire and interest to actually finding someone to fall in love with and if they find that person, to get married to. We want somebody who’s genuinely interested in a committed relationship."

"That’s really the first thing that we’re looking for. And then beyond that, we have a big enough pool that we try to invite people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and walks of life," he added. 

While the show creator and producer did mention that their top priority is to find people who would fall in love regardless of looks, it is highly noticeable that people who end up engaged in the series tend to be "attractive, thin people." 

To this, Coelen shared that he does not have much say in the workings of the series as the producers because the creators are not supposed to have any influence over the participants of the show. "We won’t ever tell them what to say, what to do, how to think, how to feel. This is entirely documenting their real journey," he answered. "So we build the machinery, and then they go into it, and they have their own experience, and as a producer, that’s frightening because you don’t have any control, but it’s also exhilarating because it’s incredible. It’s authentic."

The creator revealed, "We had eight engagements in the season, we chose to follow — just like in Season 1 — six of them because you only have so much bandwidth." Hence, a couple of these engagements will not make it to have screen time on the show. 

"We didn’t even begin to tell the stories of the other engagements that happened or lots of the other really fascinating, multi-layer relationships that went on," he revealed. "Many of the people who showed up really put themselves out there, tried and didn’t ultimately find a connection. I would love everybody to find the connection. I’d love there to be 12 engagements, and that’s unfortunately not the way that things happened."

The creator also shared, "I think it’s very funny for people to say, “Oh, you put somebody who was, you know, heavier in there, and then you just didn’t follow them.” It’s not like anybody wants that to happen or doesn’t want that to happen. What I want to have to happen is just to be true to the experiment. You put people in there. They can’t see each other. If they fall in love, then we follow it, and if they don’t, we don’t."

Though it seems a bit suspicious, the creator maintained that multiple women in the show have been on weight-loss journeys was completely coincidental. "I mean, again, we tried to capture real people. There ended up being multiple women who we did follow who went through that. It was completely random."

He then explained how the team decides to follow on people who end up engaging in their show. "It’s a lot of guesswork, to be honest. We don’t know what’s gonna happen."

An aspect of the show that has truly made Love Is Blind an "authentic" experience is the gold glasses that can be spotted just anywhere on the show. The creator said that it is in a way a distinguishing way for the series that when people tune into the show, they can immediately recognize it as Love Is Blind.

Explaining the inner workings of the series and how things work even though the contestants do not get to see each other for a long while, the creator explained that they tell the contestants that their dating experience in the show is just like regular dating. So that if they want to cook for the other person, or have any other experience they can just tell the producers and have it set up so. 

"We would take the meal that they made, and we would place it on the other side, in the other person’s pod. So when they got in there they would see that it was there," he explained. "I would say, if you want to play mini-golf together, we’ll get little mini golf clubs! Literally you can do whatever you want to do, within the bounds of being in the pods."

Soon, when people finally fall in love through the ( limited ) experience that they get with each other, they can propose to each other with the rings that the series provides to them, and there is no compulsion to source the rings individually by the contestants. "If they want to propose and want to have a ring to give, we provide — up to a certain level — a ring for them to do that with. If they choose to do that, we actually give choices. There are, like, 10 or 12 different styles and colors," said Coelen. 

And the best part? Even the women can propose in the series though many choose not to. Yet, they are completely free if they wish to do it their way. 

While Love is Blind has stayed critically true to traditional relationships until now, there are talks of the series expanding its stories to more genders and more gender-fluid relationships involving all sexes. Presently, people are divided into men and women contestants, dividing the cast into two groups, where the other group is the only romantic option. 

However, "If there was a fluid version, everyone would have to be completely isolated from everyone else because everyone would be an option. Is that something that we could do? In its current form, I think it’s difficult because of the way that everything is structured. You wouldn’t be hanging out in the lounges with people because those people could be possible love interests for you," he said. 

Several couples from season one of the show are still together; Credits: Us Magazine

Now that there are wedding bells imminent for some of the contestants, Coelen said that it can be a wild ride as "You have no idea what’s going to happen, no idea what’s going to transpire." Things have a certain way of going awry and not the way you expected but that is all part of the experiment in Love Is Blind.