The Ick: MEN (and Hannah)
The Ick: MEN (and Hannah)
If you haven't finished Love is Blind 7, please keep scrolling.
Love is Blind, season 7, reunion drops this Weds 10/30/2024! Be forewarned, spoilers start now…
If the constant droning about how hard it is to find love when you’re a filthy rich art dealer with a $15,000 Rolex didn’t give you the ick on Love is Blind season 7, then surely STEPHEN did! After revealing that his dad was 3/5th Nigerian, he calls his paramore Monica a “mutt,” because multiethnic women love to be compared to dogs. Soon after, we bear witness to him agonizing, in front of Monica (who is somehow now his fiance), about what he should do when his social media inbox is flooded with women offering to suck his d*ck after the show airs.
Instead of turning it off, I texted my BFF Adrienne, “You’re gonna hate when Stephen starts talking about what can go in his butt.” To be clear, Adrienne is not a butt stuff shamer! She encourages and supports folks to follow what brings them joy, as do I! But, Stephen is a self absorbed, thoughtless, unemployed manbaby who ends up kink sexting a random woman we never meet, leaving Monica sobbing on a couch. I don’t even like Monica! She sucks! But she didn’t deserve that.
Before I get too far into this, I want to introduce Adrienne (BFF, co-host of Don’t Ruin This for Me, substack here, and NO BIG DEAL, BUT PRE-ORDER HER BOOK TODAY). This morning we decided we needed to talk about how much we hated everyone on LIB7 before the reunion drops, except for you Marissa -- you keep shining, girl!
Elizabeth: Name your top 3 villains this season and why.
Adrienne: OH GOD. All of the men????? (Except Garrett who gets a gold star for being the least offensive man.) So all of the men plus Hannah. I mean, the men were truly awful this season, should we go through them one by one? Can we start with who I’m maddest at? Currently that is Ramses. What’s your read on Ramses?
Elizabeth: RAMSES! I can’t stand his braids, his voice, or his thong. He’s so fake. His soft tempered tones when he talks to Marissa reeks of grass fed cow manure. He’s trying to be socially conscious, but he’s serving boss who puts his hand on your lower back energy. Please tell me what you thought when he said, “I’ll do what you want…unless you want me to wear a condom…but of course, whatever you want, just not a condom.”
Adrienne: What I’m most upset about is that I was definitely snowed by Ramses at the beginning and this parallels my experience with too many men IRL. He came out of the pods looking like a great (if not the best?) choice. His little braids take on a cool vibe when you’re in love. But now that I know he’s just a douche in feminist clothing, I want to rip them outta his head!
Here’s what I’m really upset about -- my girl Marissa. She’s like begging this unremarkable dude with no job to stay with her. She thinks he’s special, but SHE IS THE ONE WHO IS SPECIAL. She’s so full of light and joy and exuberance and he’s like, I dunno, you sing in the shower and listen to podcasts in the morning, maybe I don’t like that. That was his criticism of her. And she’s like, you know what, you’re right. GAH, I’M SO MAD. Marissa! You’re the special one with nuanced opinions on how the world works and you’re the one on a career path and you’re the one who is fun and cute and this bro is making you doubt that!
Elizabeth: HARD AGREE. It was so hard for me to watch her ask, “Are you sure?” while crying when he broke up with her. This man was mad at you for not feeling frisky when you’re sick? PLEASE GO, RAMSES. You suck AND you look like your favorite meal is Grape-nuts.
Adrienne: The bitching about sex while she was sick!!! And the bitching about how he won’t be in a relationship where condoms are involved was like WOW O WOW. Ramses showing his true colors, right here in this kitchen, with everyone watching. Girl, I was shook. He completely dropped his whole feminist persona and was basically like, you can give me a BJ on your period, can’t you? GIRL. It’s hard being a forty-four year old woman watching this because I want to scream at Marissa, you just wait till you have a baby, girl!!!! He’s telling you right now who he’s gonna be then. And, Elizabeth, real question, why when faced with these exact realities, when men tell us exactly who they are and what their priorities are, why don’t we believe them????
Elizabeth: Do you think he’s better or worse than Hannah, because we both can agree she’s in the villain top 3?.
Adrienne: Poor Hannah. I think ol’ girl is a victim of being twenty-six and on reality TV. I’m literally grateful on the daily that I never applied for the Real World because I think I might’ve been cast. I was definitely a bombastic blonde who thought I knew everything when I was twenty-three and I would be MORTIFIED to have that shit on tape.
Elizabeth: For the record, I would watch you on a reality tv show at any age. I’ve seen you react to people’s choices and I’m telling you, there would be whole viral memes of your reactions. I’m laughing about it now and you’re not even in the same room. That being said, there is no scenario where I can see you telling a dude you’ve known for two weeks that you’ve made him a man in that time.
Hannah clearly didn’t like Nick’s spirit. She didn’t like that he’s a full adult who lives in a basement in his parents’ house or that he couldn’t boil water for pasta. SURE, FINE, not great! I get that, but I don’t like how she spoke to him. It felt demeaning and taunting. I am the last person who wants to defend a guy on a reality tv show (or in reality) but the way she asked him if he knew what stocks were was completely to emasculate and embarrass him. All the while, I’m like Hannah, what do you bring to this? She’s mean, doesn’t have a job, and isn’t fun. Literally, there’s a whole scene about how she “was going to be fun tonight.” Why is that something she has to turn on? Like either you’re down to clown or you’re not. Did I just write down to clown? Please send this to your publisher so they can go ahead and offer me a book deal.
What made you turn on Hannah?
Adrienne: I just burst out laughing at: “There is no scenario where I can see you telling a dude you’ve known for two weeks that you’ve made him a man in that time.” You are absolutely right. I also don’t see myself ever saying to any man -- I do not want that credit unless that man is fictional!!!! Related: Preorder my romcom FAN FAVORITE today!
I feel so conflicted about Hannah because like so much of her storyline has now become about her weight, and just, UGHHHHHHH. I thought we were done with body transformation reveals, but I guess not, I guess we’re stuck with this retrograde, depressing shit forever.
(I would like to note at this point that everything about Love is Blind UK felt better? The women had normal bodies and faces and everyone’s expectations seemed much more rooted in reality???)
Hannah’s obviously got some control issues. I’m going to be interested to see what she has to say about it on the reunion because so far her transformation has been strictly body related so we don’t know if she’s a sociopath with no ability to self-reflect or if she’s like, oh shit, why was I berating this man? I also think there’s a lot of weirdness in love right now with women being like I DESERVE A MAN THAT DOES X Y Z and she (and Monica with the FLOWERS! FLOWERS! FLOWERS!) really took it some place. And then there are the men who are like LOL, you don’t even deserve for me to be nice to you, like at all. It’s upsetting. Mostly because I see this exact vibe playing out in real life?
Can we get into the Tyler of it all? I have heard so many conflicting stories about Tyler and his children that I will try to summarize here:
Tyler told Ashley that he donated sperm to a friend to help them on their fertility journey
Ashley asked if the kids knew what he looked like / knew him
He said no
The internet then provided photos of Tyler with these children, proving that he was lying
The mother of these children then came out with a story stating that Tyler donated sperm to her and her girlfriend to have a baby. Then the girlfriend broke up with her and Tyler didn’t want the baby to be raised by a single mother so he got involved. At some point she and Tyler had sex and she became pregnant with twins. This was fraught for her because she identifies as a lesbian. But at least for a period of time Tyler lived with her and they were raising all three of these children together.
Then the ex-gf of the children’s mother came out and said, don’t trust this gal, she’s an unreliable narrator and also claimed Tyler and the gal had sex when the first baby was conceived as well, rather than using an agreed upon turkey baster kit.
Whatever the truth is, some crazy shit is going on here. What are your thoughts?
Elizabeth: I think we can agree villain #1 is tied between Tyler and the producers of the show. I’m fine with all the adults having their lives spilled out and exes coming out of the woodwork to say crappy things about these people, but I’m not ok with how this affects the kids. Like these poor children are gonna learn that their lesbian identifying mom was involved in threesomes with Tyler and his friends? Like it’s all too icky. Again - I’m not judging sexy times, but I am concerned that the kids will have to confront this, like Pamela Anderson’s kids when they were old enough to be teased about the sex tapes.
I mean Brandon and Dylan Lee are fine now (maybe), but I always take a pause when kids are involved. Where were the producers on this and why did this deeply problematic reveal happen off camera? I am very naive because I want to believe that the producers wouldn’t have let it go this far if they knew, but of course they would because MONEY. It breaks my heart and also Ashley, come on girl, you know these babies were not just donor babies. He would have been upfront about it but instead he lied and he walked away from his children. I’m forever fascinated about how men can delete their kids from Instagram so they can get on a reality tv show about getting married. Wow.
Adrienne: For the record, I’ve watched every single episode of The Hills: New Beginnings and I don’t think Brandon Lee is okay.
The production aspect of Tyler and Ashley has me very upset. I kept texting you during the wedding episode -- if the producers are letting her marry this man and they have information about the veracity of his statements and the situation with these THREE young children, I might have to give up watching forever because the ethics have gotten VERY murky.
This seems like information the producers could’ve found out prior to the show or at least investigated when he brought it into the show and told Ashley. Like did everyone just believe him that he had nothing to do with these kids? What about his family and friends who appeared on the show? Everyone’s like, this is all a-ok?
You predict that Ashley and Tyler are still together -- speak on that.
Elizabeth: Ashley loves God and Ashley’s faith will win over her common sense. She’s a stand by your man woman. BLEH. She’s the type of woman who is so hypnotized by the patriarchy that her man can do no wrong. She’ll have an excuse about why he abandoned his three children after ruining a lesbain partnership, of which one was his best friend. She’ll tell us that she didn’t like that he lied but understands that he had to do it. She’ll say he’s not the Tyler that the internet knows and only the people in the relationship will know the truth. AND MY FAVORITE - He said he won’t [insert verb here - lie, cheat, hide children, etc.] again.” I can’t wait! I’m ready to start texting you now!
Overall, this season has felt very lazy. Our only other marriage was Taylor and Garrett. They were boring though I hope we’ll find out that they broke up because Garrett has some kind of fish fetish. It felt like all the people were on the show to get social media famous. I don’t want reality tv as much as you and I’m curious what you think. How manipulated were we? Before this season, did you think these people were doing it to fall in love or to build a following? Speaking of building a following, please pre-order Adrienne’s book here.
Adrienne: Ugh, ugh, ugh, the ability to monetize five seconds of fame is really ruining my reality TV vibes. Everything has become so meta. Like on the Real Housewives, half the arguments on the show now are about things people said in podcasts when they were out promoting the show. This added layer of artificiality that points towards the farce, the production, it sort of dulls the shine on the good times. And I think on these dating shows specifically, becoming a personality that can make money off your image is becoming more and more difficult due to the proliferation of these types of shows. So, I guess I’m saying, I think it’s complicated. Do I think Stephen showed up here to get married? No.
Elizabeth: I think that’s exactly what took the fun out of it this season. Literally no one even pretended they were there for a real reason. I understand that participants are never there for the right reasons, but I want to live in the fantasy for a little bit, like I did for LIB UK. I know you miss Tom. BLEH!
Final thoughts?
Adrienne: Well, now that you’ve brought up Tom and UK, you know my big worry there is, I would’ve absolutely chosen Tom and I think that’s the shit that keeps me coming back, finding out again and again that I would choose incorrectly hahahaha.
The other day my kiddo came in when I was watching Love is Blind and he was like, I don’t understand why you watch this crap. And I was like, well, I don’t know shit about romantic love and it comforts me to know that no one else does either. HAHAHHAAH, that’s my final thought. People in heterosexual relationships have no idea how to be with each other. And that’s why I write books about love, rather than trolling these streets, trying to find it myself hahaha.
That feels like the right note to end on! Remember the Love is Blind Drop is tomorrow on Netflix and we want to know all your thoughts so give it to us now!
OBSESSED:
Listening: Preorder my new favorite book!
Streaming: What We Do in the Shadows is back!
Booking: Fan Favorite!
Obsessing: ABOUT MY BFF’S NEW BOOK! Also I’m teaching this class, so join me!
Crocheting: This baby gift - a family of yip yips
Patryk’s Gripe Corner will be back next week! Sometimes, he doesn’t get all the attention.
I'd like the record to state that I took one look at Ramses' promo shot on the Netflix IG account and literally shared it on my Stories with the following comment: "More toxic than an oil spill". Run away from any man who looks like he knows the original definition of emotional labor, but only uses it to dismiss your concerns about the current definition of emotional labor you are doing.
nobody asked me but I think Hannah has self-loathing b/c she thought Nick was going to be some hunky football player and she was going to be his normie gf and she was disappointed when Nick wasn't what she had in mind and couldn't admit it b/c *she* was expecting to be the victim of shallowness, not the perpetrator.