Jax Leaves Before Mexico Begins

“Love Is Blind” sells a particular dare: say yes before the body arrives. In the season that premiered on Oct. 14, Jacqueline “Jax” Guelli and Scott “Stew” Stewart made it all the way to the reveal, got the ring on her finger, and then seemed to discover that an engagement can still contain a trapdoor.

E! reports that Jax had already said she was nervous about “physical connection” before meeting Stew face to face. He, by contrast, sounded almost serene. He said he had no fears about the reveal and felt “reasonably confident” from the hints he thought he had gathered.

That asymmetry matters more than the insult-comedy of first impressions, though the scene appears to offer plenty of that too. Jax told Stew he was “not really” what she expected, then tried to soften it by calling him “very New England.” When he joked that other men in the pods called him “Kennedy,” she answered, “Please, more like Mitt Romney.” It is the kind of exchange people have when they are trying to disguise panic as banter and banter as honesty.

Afterward, according to E!’s account of the episode, Jax told production she did not want to go to Mexico, the show’s usual next stop for engaged couples, and wanted to go home immediately. She declined an offered conversation with Stew. Production then told him it was for him to “figure out” whether they were still engaged.

There is a cruelty in the format that data cannot quite measure. A person can be attentive, earnest, even hopeful, and still fail to make the other person feel safe in the moment that counts. Another person can want love badly enough to enter the experiment and still discover, at first sight, that the body has its own veto. Reality television edits all of this into a clean rupture. Real life is usually less tidy and more embarrassing.

Stew’s response, at least in the excerpt E! describes, was gentler than the show deserved. He said the feelings were not mutual, called the experience profoundly positive, and said he had no regrets. It is not a small thing when someone lets disappointment remain disappointment, without turning it into a case against the other person.