Disclaimer: This article contains so many spoilers. If you haven’t watched Love is Blind yet, I think it’s in your best interest to shut down this website and not come back until you’ve thoroughly binged it, marathon-style.
When I first came across Love is Blind and its gigantic cringe factor on Netflix, I did what any normal and rational person would do. I stayed up all night and binged every episode, and of course fumed with the entire world when Jessica fed her dog wine while claiming she was mentally stable. Because I’m definitely mentally stable as well, I then spent the next ten hours stalking every possible Love is Blind article, interview and forum out there to try to piece everything together (which provides the foundation for this entire article).
And then I was fuming once again, for different reasons. After researching and reflecting on everything that went down, I realized something ground-breaking: Even though she made her fair share of mistakes, Jessica is not actually a Messica and she was the real victim of this entire series.
There’s a lot we don’t know about what goes on behind the scenes. Spoiler alert: Reality TV is the furthest thing from reality! So, get ready to be mind-blown.
Jessica wanted to leave the show but wasn’t allowed to
At some point during the series, you probably thought to yourself: “If she didn’t feel a physical connection with Mark, why did she stay on the show and lead him on?” Guess what? She recently did an interview with Entertainment Weekly where she admitted that she actually wanted to leave in Mexico when she realized she wasn’t feeling it with Mark. But they didn’t let her, so she basically had to stay stuck in a relationship she didn’t want to be in until the wedding vows.
Netflix is psychic and probably knew that she would bring a lot of juicy drama to the show. It just sucks that she had to sacrifice her entire reputation for it.
Mark blindsided Jessica at the altar
Here’s more tea: Mark and Jessica talked things out and agreed way back that they would reject each other at the altar to reduce the pressure because they both weren’t ready to get married in such a short span of time. When you saw her relax more on their little hiking date, that was because the weight of that pressure was lifted from her shoulders, knowing that Mark was on the same page as her.
Then he did a complete 180 shift, and I kid you not, he said “Even though those conversations might have been had, once I saw her [Jessica] walking down the aisle, I just felt what I felt in the moment.” Stop Mark, just no. Drop the act already.
Think about how bad that makes her look. He knew she was going to say no and blindsided her because of “how he felt in that moment.” He knew the whole time that she was planning to reject him, and he had the audacity to change his answer last-minute without Jessica knowing. Obviously, that was going to make her look even worse on the wedding day.
Jessica’s own producers and verified cast members from the show have also confirmed that she got edited in a bad way and is actually a super sweet person. There is also speculation that Mark initially had a girlfriend going into this show, so you tell me who seems shadier.
Most of her mistakes were genuine mistakes that a lot of people make
I’m going to list off some fun and random situations (and no, I have not done all of these).
Never have I ever…
Fallen out of love with someone but stayed a little longer in the relationship because I wanted to make it work and wasn’t sure if it was just a phase? Or tried to make things work even though I was having second thoughts?
Tried to get closure from an ex, then cringed at myself a year later for that? Or got intoxicated and did something I regret, like drunk dial an ex?
Had a crush someone who was in another relationship?
Here’s what these scenarios have in common: most people have probably gone through at least one of them at some point in their lives, because although we don’t want to admit it, they are ridiculously common. Yes, Jessica should not have gone after Barnett while he was with Amber and that was insanely disrespectful to her. But keep in mind that Barnett did say in the pods that Jessica was his number one choice and that he would essentially propose to her, before changing his mind the next day. It’s natural that she wanted some sort of closure from that, she just went about it in a bad way. And keep in mind that this literally all happened within a few weeks!
She did also say in her interviews that she thought Mark being there for her after Barnett’s rejection was a sign that he was the one she should be with all along. Is it so wrong that she trusted an instinct, went for it and then realized it wasn’t meant to be?
We’re not perfect and we all make mistakes in our relationships, but that doesn’t make us horrible human beings that deserve to be hated on every day of our lives. With support and other perspectives, we learn to grow from our mistakes and become better people. The only difference between most people and Jessica is that she had her entire relationship and internal struggles broadcasted for the whole world to judge her and send her death threats for.
She might have an actual drinking problem
Everyone literally knows Jessica by her iconic gold wine glasses on the show. And facts remain facts: she drank a lot on the show and did some embarrassing things. But how do we know she doesn’t have an actual drinking problem? She’s had a painful childhood and her career as a regional sales manager for IBM is bound to cause stress for her, so maybe she resorts to alcohol to cope with things.
We can all agree that our best selves are definitely not our drunk selves, and it’s no coincidence that most of her regrets happened while she was severely intoxicated. While that doesn’t excuse her behaviour at all, it makes me wonder if there’s a bigger issue at hand that we should be more concerned about? And if there is, we really don’t have the right to be making memes and parodies over her real-life struggles.
The age difference definitely wasn’t small
We know that the age difference wasn’t the only reason why she didn’t want to be with Mark, since Barnett was seven years younger than her. But even if it wasn’t the only reason, I have to side with her on this one. Ten years is a long time. For some people, they don’t care about age and that’s totally cool. I’m just not one of those people – it feels like dating an eighth-grader while I’m an adult in the workforce.
And finally: she was a queen at the reunion
Can we please just give Jessica a round of applause for the way she handled herself at the reunion? I admit it doesn’t erase her past mistakes, but most people would have booked a plane to Alaska and deleted all their social media if they received even half of the hate that Jessica received. She sat there all remorseful and quiet, nodding to whatever Amber was dishing at her, and apologizing to Amber, Barnett and Mark. It takes real courage for her to even show her face on television after the show, but she did so very elegantly. She took responsibility for the mistakes she made and didn’t sugarcoat anything or try to defend herself, and it really seems like she’s learned a lot from her experience. So it may not have seemed like much, but that really spoke volumes about her newfound maturity after the show.
To wrap things up: I believe that Jessica is a normal person who is receiving horrible backlash for genuine mistakes she’s made. People are literally messaging her employer on LinkedIn – this is going way too far. I would rant more about why she is misunderstood and start going off on a tangent about societal expectations, but this is already a really long article and I should probably stop writing before I start fuming again. If you actually read through this all, I hope you found this somewhat entertaining and I hope people realize that things may not always be as they appear on the surface.