The way Clay handled AD on ‘Love Is Blind’ is typical male trash behavior
OPINION: One thing about men, they are always going to waste a woman’s time for their own self-gratification.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
If you can’t tell by the headline, this column is going to be full of spoilers for the latest season of the Netflix “reality” series “Love Is Blind,” so if you haven’t watched it yet and you plan to, I recommend you do that first before reading any further.
I put the word reality in quotation marks in the previous sentence because as a person who majored in mass communication and media studies, I am fascinated by the way production teams use creative editing to put together the narrative they want the viewing audience to believe — especially when that narrative greatly differs from what the participants later tell us really happened.
That said, we finally reached the “altar” episode for season six of “Love Is Blind,” and as you know, only two couples made it.
We already knew Johnny and Amy were going to make it and say “I do” to each other. Their love story has been syrupy sweet from the very beginning, and despite the looming questions about how they are going to handle birth control or the inevitable “oops” baby if they don’t get some, I’m rooting for them because they were the exact type of refreshing palate cleanser we needed in between the toxicity being displayed in literally every other scene of this show in this particular season.
I did not have Clay and AD making it to the altar on my bingo card, and I was definitely not rooting for them to make it because, while she seemed very sweet and genuine in her intentions, he has been incredibly shallow and unserious from the very beginning.
Just to make sure we are all on the same page, the entire premise of “Love Is Blind” and the point of the “experiment,” as they call it, is to prove whether or not two people can get to know each other intimately and fall in love with each other without relying on the “superficial” things like physical appearance.
If we are being honest, no matter how dope we think another person is, physical attraction is always going to play a role in our decisions, so it’s understandable that someone may not be able to function within the construct of this particular reality show. There is absolutely no judgment over here if that is true for any person, but if that is true for you, why would you willingly sign a contract to be on a show that specifically says part of the rules of the game are you are not allowed to discuss looks?
Clay is not the only person guilty of this; we saw plenty of people in the pods episodes describing themselves to their potential partners or hinting at physical attributes or attractiveness.
Chelsea, most egregiously, told Jimmy that “people say” she looks like Megan Fox, and we all know that was a big fat baldheaded lie. And before you jump to her defense by saying, “Well, she said people say that, but she also said she doesn’t agree,” please understand that if she didn’t want to plant that seed in his head about her looks, she wouldn’t have said it at all.
I have been told I look like Oprah before [Editor’s note from Genetta Adams: I was there!!]. Someone on a message board said I look like Roz Ryan. I don’t think I look like either of those two women, and it is not something that ever comes up in conversations about my looks with a potential mate.
But let’s bring this back to Clay.
In the pods, Clay straight up told AD that he wasn’t going to propose to her until he knew what she looked like. He also made comments about how after she potentially had his child, he would force her to get back in the gym and work out so her body wouldn’t be out of shape.
These are the things a 31-year-old man said to a woman whom he potentially wants to marry.
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We already knew what AD was in store for, and we did not want this for her, but she pressed forward anyway, doing what so many women before her have done and what so many after her will continue to do even though we’ve had plenty of examples to illustrate just why we shouldn’t do that thing where we take a broken man, put him in our Build-A-Man factory and try to help him improve and grow.
I know, my sisters. I have been there, too. Let she among us who has never experienced this in her life cast the first stone.
We watched Clay propose to AD, watched her very happily accept, and from the moment he laid eyes on her, we saw Clay objectify her and suck the life out of her.
She is vibrant and beautiful and loving and supportive of him despite all his goofiness and flaws, and he leans into that and takes it all from her while neglecting to pour into her in the same way.
The second verse is the same as the first.
In all of their scenes together, Clay continues to fumble around with AD’s feelings, including admitting that he’s worried about cheating on her because he watched his father cheat on his mother.
It becomes readily apparent that Clay has a lot of unhealed trauma he should have worked on before her came on the show, but instead of doing that, he came on “Love Is Blind” and proposed to a woman and then proceeded to project all that trauma onto her because this is what (some) men do.
The idea that he is second-guessing his decision is evident almost immediately, but it is blatantly apparent in the final episode.
At the bachelor party that’s thrown for him and Johnny, he’s talking to his friend about AD and everything he mentions is shallow and surface-level bs.
“We’re in a very good space. The sex has been good. The chemistry has been good,” he says. “As in terms of her just coming into my space and just being comfortable, that’s been perfect.
“It’s just like best friend vibes,” he continues. “We just love each other. She really sees me for who I am as a person and validates that. She’s willing to go to bat for that. She’s willing to like, fight for me and keep this relationship going.”
And here is where I get into the difference between compliment and complement.
Clay thinks he is complimenting AD, but everything he says about her is in reference 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 labor in the relationship and makes it OK for him to be a clueless dolt.
This is further affirmed in the vows he says to her at the altar. Everything is about how she functions in service to him.
Clay is putting the “I” in compliment because everything he likes about her are things that gratify him.
Clay is not and was not ready to be a complement to AD because he wasn’t focused on her as a woman and a human and an individual.
That’s the difference between complimenting a woman and complementing her. Sometimes your compliments are only about the things that are pleasing to you and satisfy you in some way. It’s not about her.
When you can get into a woman and understand her for who she is and value her as a human being with her own set of attributes that have absolutely nothing to do with you, then you will be ready to complement her.
Clay told AD at the altar that he wasn’t ready to get married because he still needs to work on himself, and while I can acknowledge that he did her a tremendous favor by bowing out of a marriage that would have likely sucked the life out of her, I can also call out the fact that he wasted her time and her energy, and he completely mishandled her love.
Clay wasn’t serious about the experiment. I don’t know what his true motives were in going on “Love Is Blind,” but we knew in the pods that he wasn’t ready for a serious and mature relationship, and he definitely wasn’t ready for AD.
He did what a lot of men do, though, in that he used AD as a lily pad, and when he was done with her, he hopped off to the next thing.
This man had the audacity and unmitigated gall to ask her for a hug at the end of it all.
After devastating her in front of her family and friends and saying no at the altar, he once again turned to her for comfort to assuage his guilt and make him feel better about hurting her feelings and breaking her heart.
Because a lot of men do that, too.
The second verse is always the same as the first.
I hope AD finds someone who can give her the love and respect she deserves.
I hope Clay grows up, gains some emotional intelligence and emotional maturity, and stops using women as stepping stones along his path to personal growth.
Monique Judge is a storyteller, content creator and writer living in Los Angeles. She is a word nerd who is a fan of the Oxford comma, spends way too much time on Twitter, and has more graphic t-shirts than you. Follow her on Twitter @thejournalista or check her out at moniquejudge.com.
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