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  “I suppose that’s true,” she allowed.

  “And besides, Mom,” I added, “it’s not like I’m actually going to get married there. It’s just going to be a fun, two-week adventure.”

  The feeling of destiny about the show truly had intensified for me. I knew in my heart that whatever forces were guiding me were leading me in the right direction.

  Lauren

  I reached a moment, too, where I was just like, Okay, God, it’s in your hands now. But I don’t think I was as calm as Cameron, definitely not that Monday morning when I left my apartment for the set. They picked me up in an Uber and took me to this hotel outside Atlanta. It was an older-looking building, with not much else around it. I remember thinking to myself, Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into! I admit I might have been a little paranoid, although I knew at this point that Netflix was behind the production.

  But as I walked inside, I saw a bunch of other girls along with some producer types. That set my mind at ease. They were going to take our phones away for good at that point, so I snuck into the bathroom and texted my parents. “I’m here,” I wrote. “It seems to be legit.” But as I went to sleep later that night, I still wasn’t sure.

  Cameron

  It was intense arriving at the hotel. I knew as soon as I walked inside it was go time. As I entered the hotel, I was brought into a drab conference room. A bunch of the other guys were already there, and more soon filtered in. They were getting rowdy, telling stories and boasting about their exploits. The level of posturing in the room was rising higher and higher—guys were talking over one another and were trying to tell the tallest tale. I just sat back and tried to take it all in. I remember thinking, Okay, these are your typical reality TV bros.

  There was an ungodly amount of paperwork to fill out. That included W-2 forms, because we were getting paid to be on the show. That’s something people always ask about. By law, you do have to get paid for reality television, but when you add up all the time you’re on camera—sixteen hours a day sometimes—it’s definitely lower than minimum wage. So nobody is getting rich.

  At one point, one of the producers came in and said, “Okay, guys, it’s time to get fitted for your wedding ring.” I looked up from my conversation with one of the guys to see a producer approaching me with a set of plastic rings of different sizes. My heart started racing as the stakes of this experiment were more tangible than ever before. My hand had the slightest shake as she slipped on the first ring. “Nope, too small,” she said. She put a bigger ring on my finger. “There we go, perfect.” I looked down at the plastic ring on my finger and, for a moment, considered that there was the slightest chance I might come out of this wearing one for real.

  It was a lot of hurry up and wait that first day, which was reminiscent of my firefighting days—long stretches of boredom broken up by bursts of intensity. Everyone in the room seemed to be huddled into small groups in their own conversations. I remember one guy starting up a conversation with me while we were waiting for the ring fitting. He started asking me questions about the kind of women I’m into.

  “Do you like Black women?” he asked. He himself was a Black man.

  “Yeah, of course,” I answered.

  “Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but you and I aren’t going to be competing for the same women here.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “Black women won’t be interested in you,” he said.

  “I mean, I’ve dated Black women in the past, so I don’t think it will be a problem.”

  “Oh really?” he replied, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “Yeah, man. I’m open to dating women from all different backgrounds, but admittedly I do find myself attracted to Black women more often. But I suppose since we won’t be able to see the women on the other side of the wall, none of that matters anyway.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he replied with a chuckle.

  Lauren

  Over on the girls’ side, I was actually surprised that everyone was so friendly and nice. LC—Lauren Chamblin—was one of the first girls I met. “Oh my God, my name’s Lauren too!” she said warmly. Kelly looked like she just walked off a canoe trip, real earthy and au naturel. Jessica had the Valley Girl thing going full tilt, while Gigi had more of a Kylie Jenner vibe. As for Amber, I remember her walking around that first day with this huge military bag and some kind of cast on her foot from an injury she’d gotten while working. I was like, Who is this chick? What the hell?! She was crazy from the jump!

  But none of the girls seemed catty or overly competitive. We all kind of banded together, maybe because it still felt a little scary. The fear only intensified the next morning when they piled us all into a van with black garbage bags taped to the windows. This was part of the ongoing effort to keep our location top secret, and it was also to make absolutely certain that we wouldn’t see the guys, say if our van happened to stop next to theirs at a traffic light or if we passed each other on the highway.

  “Okay, this is creepy as hell,” I said to a murmur of agreement from the other ladies as I boarded the van. But then we made it to the studio—Pinewood Atlanta Studios, which is where Avengers: Endgame was shot, along with a bunch of other blockbuster movies and shows. One of the girls even said she saw Robert Downey Jr. walking around with a few other stars. I remember being in a state of shock, thinking to myself, Wow, this is for real. I am definitely on a real reality show.

  Cameron

  I was ready to go when I woke up. I put on my blue suit with the red tie, which I’d ironed the night before, and took a few minutes to meditate on what lay ahead of me before heading to the lobby. The hotel had breakfast for us, but I couldn’t really eat and a lot of the guys were the same way. Everyone was charged up. We were herded into a couple vans, also with those blacked-out windows.

  Guys started telling more war stories, again with a lot of bravado. Mark and Damian both told stories about bar fights where they had helped out a friend who was being harassed. Many of the guys talked about the casual or complicated relationship they had ended so they could participate in this experiment. Despite all the one-upmanship, the comradery was strong from the start, I think due to how foreign and exciting this was to all of us.

  When we reached the studio, I marveled at how massive the sound stages were. At ours, we were told to wait out in the parking lot until further instructions. The ninety-degree Georgia heat and humidity was making me rethink the suit. I talked a bit more to Barnett, whom I remembered from my psychiatry evaluation a couple months earlier. He was more personable than that snarky comment had let on! I realized there was more to him than my first impression. Kenny seemed like a good guy—he was a smooth talker from the jump, in that he was laser focused on the conversation when I talked to him and his southern drawl seemed friendly. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Mark at first, but what I observed was that he could make friends with anyone. Damian wanted to bond over the fact that we both had red beards. From the start, he struck me as larger than life, as he, at first, was usually the loudest in the room or the one doing stunts like mixing coffee grounds with peanut butter and eating it. I quickly learned that he is a very sensitive and thoughtful person, though, and I could tell that he was going to be someone who stood out from the crowd. Carlton seemed shy and demure initially. I thought there wouldn’t be a lot of drama there—clearly an egregious error in judgment on my part!

  Finally, the producers told us they were ready for us. They walked us to the very edge of the sound stage, where we were getting mic’d up before the cameras finally started rolling. My nerves were firing on all cylinders. Barnett and I chatted some more as the line inched forward. He told me how nervous he was feeling.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said.

  “No, dude, I’m about to shit my pants right now,” he added with a mischievous yet anxious grin.

  “Okay, well, don’t do that,” I replied.

  They were sending us in one by one onto
the sound stage. Each time, as the door opened and closed, I was able to catch a glimpse of the set. It looked completely surreal, a blue-lit artificial world that I was about to be transported to.

  “Cameron, you’re up,” the producer said.

  I thought back to all the preparation that had led up to this and whispered to myself, “It’s go time.”

  Part II

  chapter eight YOUR REAL SELF

  Cameron

  As I made my way onto the set of Love Is Blind, I felt like I was entering another world. The layout of the men’s facility was surreal yet strangely familiar, like a cross between an upscale frat house and a model home. I can still picture it perfectly in my mind—the oversize armchairs, the towering bar packed to the gills with liquor, the television built into the wall with an animated fire burning 24/7, and the slightly lopsided pool table that was apparently built by the set designers. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to buy a pool table?” I mused to one of the guys while playing a game before the first dates started.

  Then there was the small gym off the kitchen. While anxiously awaiting the start of the dates, Damian and I decided to blow off some steam by lifting weights. The bench press collapsed when I sat on it! It turned out the crew hadn’t screwed the bench to the rest of the frame. The surrealness came from realizing that some things were real, some things were not, and some things, like the pool table, were somewhere in between. Everything was just a little bit off. I wondered how it would be possible to have genuine feelings and emotions while surrounded by so much artifice. Welcome to reality TV, I told myself.

  While surveying the men’s lounge, I remembered some of my mom’s parting advice: “Don’t forget about the Stanford Prison Experiment!” If you’re unfamiliar, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a controversial psychology experiment conducted in the 1970s where the student participants were randomly divided into prisoners and guards and placed into a mock prison setup in the basement of Stanford’s psychology department. The students were each told to assume the role they were assigned but were not given much further instruction. At first, the students didn’t take their roles seriously, but after six days the experiment had to be shut down, as they had all conformed to their roles too well. They could no longer distinguish the experiment from reality. “I won’t forget, Mom.” As I looked around at the rest of the guys pouring drinks and conversing, I wondered how those students at Stanford felt as they entered the basement of the psychology department for the first time.

  And there were cameras everywhere—something like four hundred in all throughout the entire sound stage, including in the lounge area, the gym, the kitchen, and the main hallway leading to the pods and of course all over the pods themselves. There were cameras embedded into the walls, over the doorways, and mounted to a steel grid that hung ominously overhead. On several dates, I would look up to see one of these overhead cameras looking down on me before it whizzed off to another pod. The on-camera conversations were a bit stiff at first, but everyone loosened up quickly enough. The posturing started once everyone got comfortable with the cameras. There were many times when I’d be having a normal conversation with one of the guys, and suddenly he would switch into a dramatic and seemingly prepared monologue as he noticed the cameras approaching. I wasn’t about to jockey for the spotlight, so I listened and observed, staying focused on why I was there in the first place: the prospect of finding true love.

  Lauren

  It was a similar scene on the girls’ side. They walked us into the main lounge area, sat us down, and everyone was super nervous, like, Oh. My. God. We’re really doing this! But very quickly, the personalities with some of the girls switched from shy and demure to really wanting to be seen, fluffing themselves up, looking to grab more camera time. Acting as their representative—a persona based on who they really are—it’s just that little… extra, you know? The show’s set was a microscope, so everything was amplified, including this notion of the representative. There were many times that first day when I found myself thinking, I’ve never heard so many story-speeches or seen so many random outpourings of tears.

  I mean, I get it… the hot lights of the cameras can be a bit much. Working as a model, I’m aware of the fact that many people cringe or shy away when someone whips a camera out, but there are also those who can flip that “on” switch and come alive. I have such a strong personality, it’s hard for me to NOT be myself. I’ve never felt the pull to preen, regardless of the situation, even if there are a few hundred cameras capturing my every move.

  Throughout the entire LIB process, from the very first Skype interview, there was never a moment where I felt like I had to get into character. Whether it was being chosen to be on the show in the first place or going on to find a husband, I wanted the outcome to be truly reflective of me. And so I was always honest about the things I said. I never tried to become someone or something I’m not. In social situations: if a good-looking guy walks into a room, some might fluff themselves up or laugh a little bit louder to make sure they’re being seen. The problem is, it becomes impossible to keep up the act forever—including in relationships. I wasn’t going to fall into that trap—not in real life and definitely not on the show. It was important to be myself in my purest form: raw, vulnerable, real, transparent, and 100 percent me.

  Cameron

  After hours of speculating what the pods would be like and who the women were on the other side of the wall, we got word from the producers that it was time to enter the pods. When I heard my name in the roster, I lined up behind the rest of the guys. I felt an immense rush as I entered the center hallway that divided the men’s facility and the pods, with its row of ten doors leading into the ten pods. I took my place in front of my door and began rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet while I tried to focus myself on being present for the impending date. Guys were doing everything they could to psych themselves up. Mark had this funny chant that he repeated over and over: “One time for the one time, I’m here for a good time, not a long time.”

  “Aren’t we looking for someone for a long time?” I shouted to him across the hallway.

  “It is what it is, bro!” he shouted back.

  “That doesn’t make sense either.”

  “It doesn’t need to!”

  Whatever gets you psyched up to enter the pods, right?

  The producers kept us penned up in the hallway for a solid fifteen minutes, which after the months of anticipation felt like an eternity. Finally, the loudspeaker crackled to life and an anonymous voice announced, “You may now enter the pods.” I cautiously pushed the door open and stepped inside. It was a cozy octagonal space, with insulated walls (for the acoustics, I believe), a couch, blankets, and a small side table stocked with mini bottles of booze and candy. A hypnotic blue screen filled the wall in front of the couch.

  “Hello?… Hello?” I said as I entered the pod. At first, there was no response. But ten seconds later, I heard the door on the other side of the blue screen open and close.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice said.

  “Hi, I’m Cameron.”

  “Hi! I’m Diamond.”

  She was friendly and personable, right off the bat. As we began to commiserate about how surreal and exciting this all was, my anxiety started to fade. It began feeling like we were on a date, despite being separated by a glowing hypnotic wall. We had an instant rapport, which started as flirtatious, then evolved to friendly and platonic over the nine days that followed. When she told me she was a dancer for the NBA, I was expecting her to be more performative, but she was humble and down to earth. After we said our good-byes, I walked out of the pod feeling like there might be a glimmer of hope that I could connect with someone here.

  That was not the case with many of the dates that followed. I was able to eliminate several women right out of the gate because they talked about themselves for the entire ten minutes. The dates literally consisted of one continuous monologue. I might as well not even h
ave been there. Not that I needed to do all the talking, but I think it’s important in a relationship for there to be give and take—for your partner to have a genuine curiosity about you, and you about them.

  After my ninth date that day, I found myself overwhelmed trying to mentally sort all the women and what I had learned about them. Some were memorable, like Diamond, while others were hard to place. Still, I wasn’t sure if I had really connected yet, even if the dates were feeling more real than I had anticipated. Eager for my next date, I approached the producer standing in front of the door leading to the hallway.

  “Can you tell me who’s my next date with?”

  “Hmm… let’s see,” he replied, looking down at the sheet of paper he was holding. “Looks like your next date is with… Lauren.”

  As we said our hellos, I could tell there was something different about this date, something electric.

  “Where are you from, Cameron?” she asked warmly.

  “I’m from the state of Maine,” I responded, a big smile on my face.

  “I’ve never met anyone from Maine,” she said.

  “Well, I’m the only one you’ll ever need to meet,” I answered, matching her playfulness.

  I could feel the sparks already igniting. From the intonation of Lauren’s laugh, I could sense her incredible spirit. It was love at first laugh, you might say. As we continued talking, I felt I could trust her. She made me feel both comfortable and at the edge of my seat at the same time.

  “So, what is it that really drives you?” I asked her toward the end of that first date.