Are Netflix's Love Is Blind contestants REALLY in love? Experts weigh in trends now
As the fourth season of Love Is Blind kicked off last week, many of us were on the edge of our seats once again in fascination of Netflix's hit romance experiment.
But with stars saying 'I do' without so much as laying eyes on one another, experts have clashed over whether true love can really be blind or whether it's an unobtainable dream.
Love Is Blind follows a group of singletons who talk with potential matches through a wall, hoping to find their soulmate based solely on an emotional connection.
Stars are often disillusioned with conventional ways of finding love at a time when many dating apps are driven by surface-level characteristics such as physical attractiveness and race.
While the show does work to change this, psychologist Linzi Kavanagh warns that relationships based on personality alone may go 'horribly wrong' when couples escape the bubble of the 'pods'.
Love Is Blind follows a group of singles who talk with potential matches through a wall, hoping to find their soulmate based on emotional connection rather than physical attraction
During the show, participants spend hours in small pods, assessing numerous potential partners.
If they manage to find a perfect match, cast members are then expected to propose before meeting them in person for the first time.
Speaking to MailOnline, Ms Kavanagh said: 'At the beginning of the show, within the pods, contestants are choosing who they want to be with whilst in a highly unrealistic scenario. There are no other outside distractions, no real-life pressures and no opportunity to see how your person will respond in difficult situations.
'So all you have to base your emotions on are feelings and assumptions about that person with no concrete evidence, making it easy to make up a story in your head about who that person is.'
Although lengthy conversations over childhood movies and music may allow the show's stars to feel as though they are falling in love, Ms Kavanagh suggests this only scratches the surface.
Inside the pods, couples miss out on all the more challenging parts of a relationship - whether it's the mundane mornings before work or the nights where food poisoning keeps you on the toilet.
To get the most out of dating this way, singles would therefore need to ask prospective partners how they might respond in these given scenarios to test their compatibility.
She continued: 'And that’s where the Love Is Blind experiment all goes horribly wrong. Each contestant has to "fall in love" and choose their person before they go out into the real world with them. Therefore they aren’t falling in love with a person without seeing them, they are falling in love with a person without knowing them.
'Don’t forget that all contestants are "primed" to be actively searching for this feeling. The main objective here is to find your soul mate so each one is operating from a position of expectation.'
Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton from Season 1 have now been married for four years
Amber Pike and Matt Barnett (pictured) have remained together after getting hitched in the first season despite considering divorce in the past
Despite this, psychologist Louise Goddard-Crawley believes it is possible to fall in love based solely on emotional connection.
While acknowledging that contestants may think up an idealised 'fantasy version' of their partners without seeing them, she argues this also comes as part of dating on apps.
'Of course, physical attraction is an important aspect of any romantic relationship, and it is difficult to know if you're physically attracted to someone if you've never seen them in person. Similarly, so much
