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Love Is Blind Carlton and Diamond

Source: Netflix / Love Is Blind

I’m a bit late to the party when it comes to Love Is Blind on Netflix, but after being heavily encouraged by a co-worker late last week and a friend over the weekend, I decided to check it out.

The series definitely has my attention as I await the finale on Thursday, but I’ve been a bit stuck, mentally, on episode four following the demise of Diamond Jack and Carlton Morton’s short-lived engagement. You already know I follow plenty of forlorn couple storylines on TV, but I’ve never seen an implosion the likes of these two falling out poolside. Hell, it left me angry like it was my own situation.

Whom Carlton chooses to love is his business, and it’s commendable that he chose to share his story on the show; but as many times as he told the cameras that he was bisexual, it made no sense why he didn’t just go ahead and tell Diamond about it, too. I get being nervous, but it came off as deceptive. It was bad enough he wanted to marry a woman because he preferred the nurturing sensibilities of them (is that all?), but the fact that he waited to open up to her about his sexuality until after he said he loved her, proposed and jetted off to the faux honeymoon trip was even worse. Carlton knew he was handling things wrong all along, hence the reason he was literally pushing her away by talking crazy to her early on in the trip, and by having a tearful meltdown the night before they clashed when he finally shared his truth. The secret he knew he was keeping from her was weighing on him.

So why did he cut up in such a way when she told him how she felt about his late admission?

She told him that he wasn’t honest with her from the beginning and his response was to tell her that she was the only woman he’d been with who had a problem with him being bisexual (then why are you on the show?)

He became defensive, deflecting and acting as though she switched up on him, his lifestyle was being judged, and he was being insulted.  It was like she was trying to explain her feelings and come to a possible resolution, but all he heard was that he was a scam artist, which he was, and chose to call her a b—h, ignorant and a stereotype. It was ridiculous. How things got to this point blew my mind.

The only light in this dark tunnel of TV is the fact that in the present day, Carlton and Diamond have been able to make peace and see the error in their ways.

In an interview with PEOPLE recently, they both acknowledged how they could have handled things differently.

“I feel like we were met with some things that neither one of us really knew how to handle at that time and may not have handled that situation in the best way,” he said. “I would listen more than speak because even though it was a new experience for me, it was a new experience for her. And when I say new experience from me, I mean just the whole hoopla of TVs, cameras all in your face. Because it’s not like I’m just having a conversation with her. I’m having a conversation with her and the world and that is playing in the back of my mind. I’m like, ‘Netflix is going to see this. This will never go away. Your kids’ kids will see that.’ And it’s just all those nerves. I wish that I would have not allowed myself to be so defensive. I thought that I was being rejected and I think I counted myself out before she did.”

Diamond, with more grace than I could ever have had about the whole thing, wished she was more understanding looking back on their discussion gone awry.

“I would change the approach of it,” she said. “I was trying to be very understanding, but I had questions because I’ve never been with a bisexual man. I don’t really know that community that well, but I respect the community. I love the community. I just had questions. Maybe I should have been more encouraging and maybe start off saying, ‘I’m happy you were able to open up to me. I’m happy you’re able to bring this to my attention at this moment in time.’ Or, ‘I’m happy you came out. I know this is very hard for you to do that.’ That possibly could have changed that whole outcome of how we were aggressive toward each other.”

While I was disappointed in both parties to a certain point, Carlton for disrespecting her because she didn’t have the reaction he wanted to his lie by admission, Diamond for reciting Beyoncé’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself” lyrics as she walked away from him, I was mostly disappointed that the sole Black couple on the whole series ended in such an ugly way. This was the best we could get?

Carlton was literally the only Black man we saw on camera in this premiere season, and the way they acted towards each other at that pool, for the world to see, was cringe-worthy. I’m not naive enough to think that they were going to necessarily be the fairtytale couple, especially since he wasn’t forthcoming about things early on in their correspondence in the pods, but who would have thought it would have ended so ugly? Not to mention, with the really disappointing way Black women and men interact with one another off-camera in real life these days, to have to see more of that played out on TV, to the point that he was dragging her lacefront, was somewhat embarrassing, not entertaining. We have to do better. And in addition to that, let’s hope that for Season 2, producers will dig a little deeper in their search for people who could possibly be compatible. Maybe then we don’t have to watch another Carlton and Diamond situation, or be left thinking a Lauren and Cameron coupling is the only hope out here.

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