This article contains spoilers for Season 9 of Love Is Blind.
For a reality dating show with an experimental premise, Love Is Blind has always been pretty traditionalist. Its entire purpose is the pursuit of heterosexual marriage. Separated by gender, contestants date one-on-one in “pods” without seeing each other. When it comes time for engagement, the men do all the proposing, and from then on the show is an arrow hurtling toward the altar.
But this season, which ended last week and aired its reunion episode last night, featured many contestants who seemed to be seeking relationships that were notably old-fashioned. Some people expressed sentiments that wouldn’t feel out of place on tradwife TikTok. This conservative bent mirrors a wider cultural shift, as more Americans express support for traditional gender roles. It also heightened Love Is Blind’s ongoing tensions between conventionality and nonconformity, and left the season’s values feeling incoherent—up until the end, when the show’s premise collapsed entirely.
The show’s focus on conversation means contestants’ values are often at the forefront of the dating process.
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