Netflix’s Love Is Blind in real life: speed-dating event uses blindfolds to create a more comfortable setting
- At the speed-dating event Dating Blind in Los Angeles, participants were blindfolded for 10-minute chats, and questions about age or appearance were avoided
- After roughly 70 minutes of speed dating, the guests were asked to remove their blindfolds for the grand reveal
Maria Serpas fidgeted nervously, her hands in her lap, as she waited for her date to arrive.
“I’m giving [dating] another chance,” the 40-year-old entrepreneur said. “I think I’ve done a lot of work on myself mentally and now I’m in a space now where everything is aligned, and it’s like, ‘All right, let’s see how I can align my love life now.’”
When her date finally sat down in front of her, she couldn’t see him. They’d both been blindfolded ahead of time – he’d been guided to Serpas’ table by a member of staff – as part of an event called Dating Blind.
“It made me feel a bit safer because they weren’t looking at me and I wasn’t looking at them,” Serpas said.
“My issue with men sometimes is that they see this first,” she said as she traced her hands along her body, “but they don’t want to engage in deeper conversations.”
Serpas was one of 12 single people – five men and seven women – to participate in the Dating Blind event, which took place on a recent Saturday afternoon.