“They need to do Love Is Blind holiday camps, because everyone would sign up. There’s something about it.” Love Is Blind UK presenters Matt and Emma Willis are so confident in the show's premise, Matt in particular is willing to implement it countrywide.
For the uninitiated, the show goes a bit like this: couples get to know each other “sight unseen” in pods, falling in love, or not, with someone without seeing them – with the most “successful” of couples getting engaged at the end of the “blind” stage of the experiment. It's pretty wild, but the idea has stormed the world, with Love Is Blind renditions taking place in Brazil, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and the UAE.
And now, the UK. So what we can we expect from the British version of the dating show? According to Matt and Emma, we will witness the quintessential dating chat that can only happen in the UK. "Banter and taking the p*ss is the Brits’ love language," Matt says, explaining that we can expect to see a lot of it as the couples get to know each other.
Starring Julianne Moore and Meghann Fahy, it looks to be an "incisive, sexy, and darkly funny exploration of women, power and class".
Emma and Matt tell GLAMOUR that we'll also see British men, specifically, opening up and being vulnerable and intimate. And women's health conditions, such as endometriosis, are talked about openly, including how they affect women and the way they date.
“I love seeing all those conversations, because they all are things that you need to talk about,” Emma says. “[The show is] for people who genuinely want to settle down, they’re sick of the dating world as it is currently.”
In the run up to the show's release, the presenters sat down with GLAMOUR to take our Bestie Test, talking their own dating icks, best and worst habits, biggest fears and their definition of romance.
GLAMOUR: What is Emma’s best habit in a relationship?
Matt: Checking in on me. I love it. I get a little check in if we haven’t seen each other for a couple hours. I’ll get a little message: “you alright? I love you”.
Emma: Tracking you online… “what are you doing there, I can see you!”
GLAMOUR: What is Matt’s worst habit in a relationship?
Emma: I think the one that always springs to mind is the towels. So he’s really good at getting out of the shower, and his towel’s so wet, he just walks into the bedroom and chucks the towel on my side of the bed. And then I get into bed that night and it’s damp!
Matt: I’m better at that now…
Emma: No no, you did it the other day! Sorry, I mean I found it quite soon after. So I hung it up for you.
Matt: You would think I’d be getting better!
GLAMOUR: What is Emma's pet peeve?
Matt: Apart from the towels, another one is I leave bottles and cans everywhere around the house. I leave a Diet Coke can out and it drives Emma nuts.
Emma: And shoes.
Matt: And shoes, and coats on the back of chairs. I think I’m tidier than I was.
Emma: You’re so much better!
GLAMOUR: What is Matt’s dating dealbreaker?
Matt: Straight off the bat, I can’t stand bad manners from anybody. It’s a massive turn off – [to Emma] you’ve got impeccable manners.
Emma: So do you!
Matt: Well thank you very much. Our kids have very good manners, we get remarked on it quite a lot. It’s drilled into them, I promise.
GLAMOUR: What is Emma’s dating ick?
Matt: I don’t think Emma likes being too into yourself. I don’t think it’d be up your street.
Emma: Yeah, I was thinking more I don’t want to be staring into each other’s eyes over a candlelit meal.
Matt: We’re quite soppy but we’re not stereotypically romantic. I’ve never written you a love poem
Emma: Why not?
Matt: I’ve wrote songs about you…
GLAMOUR: That counts!
Emma: They did rhyme…
Matt: … about how hot she is. Emma doesn’t like flowers, which is hard because what do you get? Chocolate or tiramisu.
Emma: That’s all I want, really.
GLAMOUR: Why not flowers?
Emma: Because you have to look after them, otherwise they die. And I’ve got a lot to look after already! If the flowers can live in the garden by themselves and I don’t have to do anything, then that’s great. It’s a lovely gesture, but I just leave them die. And I don’t want to be the one to do that. So they’re much better off going to somebody else. I normally give them to my mum.
GLAMOUR: Is Matt a romantic or a cynic?
Emma: I think you’re a cynical romantic.
Matt: Nice! Like that.
Emma: You’re not stereotypically romantic but you’re very cute, but you’re definitely not a cynic.
Matt: No, I’m not a cynic.
Emma: You love love.
Matt: I love love.
Emma: You love seeing it happen.
Matt: I do.
Emma: You love feeling it!
Matt: I’ll cry my eyes out when people fall in love.
Emma: You are a romantic!
Matt: I am, but I don’t like an overly gestured romance.
Emma: Yeah we’re quite aligned on that. Don’t give me the ick.
Matt: When I proposed, she wouldn’t let me go down on one knee, she was too embarrassed. It felt too grown up.
Emma: I grabbed him by the neck. I was like ‘don’t you dare, get back up’.
Matt: I was like ‘aren’t I supposed to do this? It’s like a formal thing!
GLAMOUR: Who is more likely to forget to respond to a WhatsApp?
Matt: Emma. Emma is awful at it. I don't understand how long she can go without replying something. I mean, I'm pretty good at that. Everyone in the room is like, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’. How do you live like this, like, leave people hanging for so long?
Emma: I don't mean to leave people hanging. So I read it and I go, Oh, right. Must remember to reply to that.
Matt: Yeah. Or you answer it in your head and think it’s done.
Emma: I think I’ll reply in a bit, or I'll even start writing it out, and then get distracted by something or have to do something else and forget to press send. But now, I've started not opening them. Pure procrastination. I’m the same with emails, if I open them, I just forget to go back to them. I hate having unopened emails, but now I've got like 50, if they’re there I’ve got to respond to them. But I still haven't responded. So it's not working.
Matt: I’ve learned to get back quick, because otherwise it won’t happen.
Emma: You make lists, don’t you? You like a list.
Matt: My main widget on my phone is a to do list, I tick it off every day.
Emma: He has to otherwise he doesn’t do anything.
Matt: I’m terrible. I’ve had to learn these things.
Emma: Towels aren’t on the list, surprisingly.
Matt: It will be, towel off the bed, towel never on the bed.
GLAMOUR: What is Matt’s biggest fear?
Matt: I don’t like baked beans.
Emma: Oh he hates baked beans, hates them. He thinks it’s like trauma from the 1980s when people used to get in a bath of baked beans and see how long I can sit there.
Matt: For charity! I can’t think of anything worse than that. I’d literally rather bathe in puke.
Emma: So now if the kids want baked beans, if they spill off the plate or if there’s bean juice or a cold bean on the counter, he’s dry heaving in the garden.
GLAMOUR: Matt, what was the top moment where Emma really surprised you on set?
Matt: I mean honestly I was quite blown away by Emma on Love Is Blind. I’ve watched her do her job a lot, and I’ve watched her on telly, but I was blown away at her ability to walk into a room of people and completely put them at ease. It's a real talent. It was amazing. These people who were nervous, first day on set, and we're all kind of scared, and she just comes in really warm, like everyone was just on side. It’s an amazing ability to be able to do that.
There’s also someone in your ear counting down for things. I listened to your feed on another show and I was like ‘how are you doing this?’ How are you reading this thing and ending on 3-2-1, thank you good night. That is mind blowing – pretty, pretty clever.
GLAMOUR: And can love truly be blind?
Both: It can be…
Love Is Blind UK drops on Netflix on 7 August.
