Singles come on Love Is Blind for all types of causes—real love, shameless fame, or only a once-in-a-lifetime expertise. However regardless of their motivation, most individuals normally share at the least one factor in frequent: a need to be seen for who they honestly are, past appearances. Simply take Daniel Hastings, one contestant within the present’s eighth season hoping to satisfy a life accomplice who gained’t contemplate his five-foot-eight body a deal-breaker.
“The relationship world right now is simply actually shallow, and individuals are very choosy and picky about issues that don’t actually matter,” Hastings says in Love Is Blind season eight. “I’ve been single for 10 years…in that span, top has been one of many greatest components. ”
Whilst you’ll have to look at your self to see how his seek for love goes this time round, loads of previous seasons have confirmed that some {couples} can’t get previous their bodily preferences. And let’s be actual—between relationship app top filters, memes, and countless debates concerning the “over six toes solely” normal, it’s a subject that gained’t go away anytime quickly. Which could go away a few of us at house questioning: Um, am I shallow if I care about top?
Why is top such a giant deal?
In principle, a robust emotional connection needs to be sufficient to beat one thing as seemingly minor as top, coiffure, and different beauty particulars. That’s form of the entire premise of Love Is Blind, in spite of everything—contestants are challenged to construct deep bonds in pods with out seeing one another. However who we’re truly bodily interested in is subjective, Rachel Goldberg, LMFT, a licensed therapist based mostly in Los Angeles, tells SELF. And whereas appears aren’t all the things, they do play a giant position in that preliminary spark and sustaining long-term chemistry.
A part of why top, specifically, is such a giant deal for some of us comes all the way down to ingrained heteronormative requirements: “What we’re taught rising up is that for heterosexual relationships, a person needs to be taller than a lady, and we’re used to seeing that enjoying out on TV,” Goldberg explains. “There’s additionally this concept {that a} taller man is extra masculine, the ‘protector,’” which solely feeds into this widespread cultural expectation that taller = extra fascinating. You may think about how that subtly shapes who we’re drawn to within the first place too.
Understandably, then, there’s a high quality line between respecting your preferences and veering into unhealthy superficiality. However getting clear on that distinction may very well be the important thing to understanding whether or not you’re going for precisely what you need—or holding your self again.
When does choice turn into an issue?
Let’s say you meet somebody who checks all of your packing containers—they’re humorous, good, sort, and also you genuinely vibe…however they’re shorter than you like. In a wholesome mindset, you’d at the least problem your biases and provides it a shot as an alternative of viewing surface-level particulars as automated dealbreakers.
On the flip facet, if you happen to’re used to ruling out potential companions as a result of they’re, say, 5 eight as an alternative of 5 eleven, “I wouldn’t essentially label somebody as shallow,” Gayane Aramyan, LMFT, a Los Angeles–based mostly therapist specializing in relationships, tells SELF. “However I’d problem them to consider why top holds a lot weight of their relationship selections.”
