While Love May Indeed Be Blind, It Doesn’t Conquer All—Especially Not Politics

Men’s political apathy finally has consequences in Season 8 of Netflix’s Love Is Blind.

By Jackie Jennings | March 17, 2025 | 3:49pm

Photo: Netflix Entertainment TV

While Love May Indeed Be Blind, It Doesn’t Conquer All—Especially Not Politics

Late last week, the final batch of episodes in season 8 of Netflix’s Love Is Blind dropped, proving once again that, sure, you can, for the most part, fall in love on reality TV—even “blindly.” Throughout its run, there have been multiple success stories that have emerged from its premise. But this season represented a departure for LIB, which, instead of asking whether you can fall in love without seeing someone, can you marry them without knowing their politics? Turns out the answer is emphatically no.

Each season, the show visits a new city and puts a slew of single people into isolation “pods” (little rooms) where they “date” (talk) in hetero pairings without seeing one another. The couples that forge connections either agree to become engaged and meet in person or break up. The show then follows the engaged couples as they are released back into the wild to prep for their wedding day, which takes place about one month after the proposal.

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When it comes to politics, discussions have been few and far between. One douchebaggy guy used his fiancé’s casually mentioned pro-choice stance to make her look bad in front of his family; another couple vaguely discussed the politics of race in the context of being an interracial couple. But otherwise, producers have largely avoided the topic of politics as such. But in Season 8, which was filmed in Minneapolis between February and March 2024, two out of the four engaged couples broke up at the alter over misaligned worldviews.

Social issues had the most obvious impact in the (eventual) demise of Ben Mezzenga and Sara Carton. Early in the pods, Sara brings up the topic of LGBTQ rights, because her sister, one of the most important people in her life, is gay. Ben says he doesn’t think being gay is a sin and that he has “no discomfort around that community at all,” and he has friends who are “that way.” When Sara brings up George Floyd, a Black man whose murder by a white police officer in Minneapolis sparked enormous protests across America, Ben’s thoughts on the matter are that he basically has none: “Not one way or another, I just kind of keep out of it.”

He doesn’t oppose Black Lives Matter or marriage equality—so they get engaged, because love and reality TV are insane. Then, in the real world, Sara finds a sermon from Ben’s church, which lays out its views on gay marriage: She says the views are “traditional” and it’s clear she means that in a yikes kind of way.

When asked about this information both when she discovers it, and again at the Love Is Blind reunion (a full year after their aborted wedding), Ben remains frustratingly vague. At the reunion, he reminds everyone that he doesn’t attend church every week and probably missed that particular sermon. But he still doesn’t—or can’t—say how he himself feels about same-sex marriage.

Virginia and Devin, another couple that broke up at the altar, seemed less obviously doomed by differing politics. Virginia and Devin are both Christians and emphasize throughout their relationship that prayer and faith are crucial to them. Beyond that, politics and social issues don’t seem to be at the forefront of their lives. But in a conversation a few days before their wedding, politics pops up. Like Sara, Virginia expresses clear viewpoints, including her support for the gay community and belief in abortion rights. She then awkwardly asks Devin, “Any thoughts? Care to comment?” And he just…doesn’t. It’s not a confrontation; in fact, it’s the lack of reaction on his part that feels so insane!

This season was filmed during an extremely tumultuous election year, when things like abortion rights and LGBTQ rights were literally on the ballot. Though Minnesota has protected abortion rights (thanks in part to Gov. Tim Walz), it is surrounded on all sides by states with incredibly restrictive abortion laws, including Wisconsin and South Dakota, where there are no exceptions for rape or incest. To be marrying a woman in 2024 with the express intention of conceiving children and to have zero cogent thoughts about abortion is so fucking bleak.

While Ben and Devin never articulate a clear stance on abortion rights, gay marriage, or Black Lives Matter, they do seem to believe one thing: that differing political beliefs shouldn’t be an obstacle to a happy marriage. As Devin says at the reunion, “I think you can be together…and not completely agree on everything.”

It’s a perspective articulated by Focus on the Family, a fundamentalist Christian organization that is rabidly anti-abortion and offers helpful parenting advice on topics such as kids exhibiting “pre-homosexuality.” Focus on the Family teaches, “No matter how significant your political differences may be, those differences should never have an impact on your marriage covenant.” That, of course, is a position that only cis hetero men can have in America; it’s easy to agree to disagree when the policies you might “disagree” on will cost you absolutely nothing. While not having a firm opinion isn’t the same as holding an opposing view, it is still a privilege afforded only to men in America, forcing the women who might procreate with them to ask things like, “If I become pregnant and the fetus that has zero percent chance of survival outside my womb, would you support my choice to have an abortion?”

Support for abortion rights, marriage equality, trans rights, BLM, and the freaking measles vaccine are straightforward questions that these guys just can’t (or more likely won’t) answer. For the women they claim to love, that’s simply not good enough—nor should it be.

If Love Is Blind Season 8 has anything to say, it’s that you can fall in love with someone and not know their politics. But you cannot marry them. Politics is a stand-in for the sum total of how you see and interact with the world. It’s a signifier of who you believe deserves human rights and who does not. You can’t bind your financial and physical future to someone who, at best, is profoundly ignorant about the world around them.

And besides, the willful cultural blindness of these men is as unattractive as shortness or baldness or any of the other superficial things that make straight guys panic. To have no opinion on the world isn’t just toxic, it’s so goddamn boring. As Sara sums it up, “I’ve always just thought I’d wanna be with someone who was more curious.”