If you do not recognize the headline, this column will probably be filled with spoilers for the latest season of Netflix’s ‘Reality’ series.Love is blind”, so in the event you have not watched it yet and you intend to, I like to recommend you achieve this first before reading any further.

I put the word reality in quotation marks in the previous sentence because, as someone who makes a speciality of mass communications and media studies, I’m fascinated by the way production teams use creative editing to create a narrative that audiences need to consider – especially when that narrative differs significantly from from what the participants later tell us actually happened.

That said, we finally got to the “altar” episode of Love Is Blind season six, and so far as we all know, only two couples made it.

We already knew that Johnny and Amy would make it and say “I do.” Their love story was syrupy sweet from the start, and despite lingering questions on how they’d handle contraception or the inevitable “oops” in the event that they did not have a baby, I rooted for them because they were exactly the sort of refreshing palate cleanser we would have liked between the toxicity present in literally every other scene of this show on this particular season.

My bingo card did not have Clay and AD making it down the aisle, and I definitely wasn’t rooting for them to achieve this, because while she seemed very sweet and sincere in her intentions, he was incredibly shallow and unserious from the start. starting.

To be certain that we’re all on the same page, the whole premise of “Love Is Blind” and the meaning of the “experiment”, as they call it, it goals to prove whether two people can get to know one another higher and fall in love without relying on “superficial” things equivalent to physical appearance.

If we’re being honest, regardless of how crazy the other person is, physical attraction will at all times play a job in our decisions, so it’s comprehensible that somebody may not have the option to operate inside the confines of this particular reality show. There is absolutely no judgment here as as to whether this is true for any individual, but when it is true for you, why would you voluntarily sign a contract to take part in a program that clearly states a few of the rules of the game, or are you not allowed to achieve this? discuss appearance?

Clay is not the just one guilty of this; we saw many individuals in pod episodes describing themselves to potential partners or hinting at physical characteristics or attractiveness.

Chelsea, in the most blatant way, told Jimmy that “people say” he looks like Megan Fox, and everyone knows that was a giant, bald lie. And before you jump to her defense by saying, “Well, she said it, say it, but she also said she didn’t agree with it,” please understand that if she didn’t mean to plant that seed in his head about her appearance, she would not say it in any respect.

I’ve been told before that I appear to be Oprah (). Someone on the forum said I looked like Roz Ryan. I do not think I appear to be either of those two women, and it is not something that ever comes up in conversations about my appearance with a possible partner.

But let’s bring it back to Clay.

In the pods, Clay immediately told AD that he wasn’t going to propose to her until he discovered what she looked like. He also commented on how after she potentially gave birth to his child, he forced her to return to the gym and exercise to maintain her body in shape.

Here’s what a 31-year-old man told the woman he potentially desires to marry.

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We already knew what was coming for AD, and we didn’t want that for her, but she pushed forward anyway, doing what many ladies before her had done and what many ladies after her would proceed to do, regardless that we had loads of examples of why we shouldn’t to do something where we take a broken man, put him in our Build-A-Man factory and check out to assist him improve and grow.

I do know, my sisters. I used to be there too. Let those of us who’ve never experienced anything like this in our lives forged the first stone.

We watched Clay propose to AD, we watched him happily accept, and from the moment he laid eyes on her, we watched Clay objectify her and choke the life out of her.

She’s energetic, beautiful, loving and supportive of him despite all his stupidities and flaws, and he leans on that and takes every part from her while neglecting to pour himself into her in the same way.

The second verse is the same as the first.

In all of their scenes together, Clay continues to struggle with AD’s feelings, including admitting that he is frightened about him cheating on her because he saw his father cheat on his mother.

It becomes obvious that Clay has a variety of unhealed trauma that he must have worked on before she got here on the show, but as an alternative of doing that, he went on “Love Is Blind” and proposed to a girl after which proceeded to project all of this trauma onto her , because that is what (some) men do.

It’s almost immediately clear that he’s second-guessing his decision, however it’s clear in the final episode.

At a bachelor party organized for him and Johnny, he talks to his friend about AD and every part he mentions is shallow and superficial nonsense.

“We are in a very good situation. The sex was good. The chemistry was good,” he says. “As far as her just coming into my space and just feeling comfortable, it was perfect.

“It’s just like a best friend vibe,” he continues. “We just love each other. He truly sees me for who I am and validates it. She’s willing to fight for it. She is ready to love me, fight for me and maintain this relationship.”

This is where I come into the difference between a compliment and a complement.

Clay thinks he’s complimenting AD, but every part he says about her applies to himself. He likes the way she makes him feel. He likes the way she validates him. He likes the way she does all the emotional work in the relationship and allows him to be an unknowing idiot.

This is further confirmed in the vows he makes to her at the altar. It all depends on how she functions in service to him.

Clay compliments “me” because every part he likes about her makes him joyful.

Clay is not and was not able to be a complement to AD because he didn’t focus on her as a girl, a human being and a person.

This is the difference between complimenting a girl and complementing her. Sometimes your compliments are only about things that make you joyful and satisfy you in some way. This is not about her.

When you’ll be able to empathize with a girl and understand her for who she is, and appreciate her as a human being together with her own set of characteristics which have absolutely nothing to do with you, then you definitely will probably be ready to finish her.

Clay told AD at the altar that he wasn’t able to get married because he still needed to work on himself, and while I can acknowledge that he did her an enormous favor by getting out of a wedding that might likely suck the life out of her, I can even cite the indisputable fact that he wasted her time and energy and completely mistreated her love.

Clay didn’t take the experiment seriously. I do not know what his real motives were for making Love Is Blind, but we knew in the pod that he wasn’t ready for a serious and mature relationship, and he definitely wasn’t ready for AD.

However, he did what many men do and used AD as lilac padand once he was done with it, he jumped into the next thing.

This man had the nerve and unbridled audacity to finally ask her for a hug.

After destroying her in front of his family and friends and saying “no” at the altar, he turned to her again for comfort to ease his guilt and make him feel higher about hurting her feelings and breaking her heart.

Because many men do it too.

The second verse is at all times the same as the first.

I hope AD finds someone who gives her the love and respect she deserves.

I hope Clay grows up, gains emotional intelligence and maturity, and stops using women as a stepping stone on his path to private growth.