Ready to Love Proves Few Are Actually Ready

This season reveals even more the reasons why finding love after 30 is challenging.

I have been watching this latest season and I love the show for the obvious reasons: black love potential, the focus on 30 and over candidates and the mix of black beauty in all of its forms on display. However, the show bothers me for two main reasons — curvy girls never get a real chance at love and they don’t screen all that well for people with mental/emotional issues that make the show painful to watch.

Tressa should still be on the show and the fact that she wasn’t the “type” for any of the guys was unfair. If you cast a plus size girl have a few guys on the cast that love plus size women. It is any easy fix. She was funny and interesting and we didn’t get to know her well because the “skinny chasers” booted her early on.

The mental piece is HUGE! A few of the cast members are so clearly relationship damaged that they shouldn’t have even been considered for a dating show. Their demeanor and backstories speak to needing a dating break and bit of love therapy. David screams stay away and the ladies are for the most part. He clearly is love damaged and isn’t aware that he needs fixing. He shouldn’t be on any dating show. Yet, he is here.

Overall the season is okay. It isn’t giving me much, but I watch it. I like beautiful black people and they always get an accomplished bunch. What the show does well is place a version of black excellence on a national platform that shows our diverse beauty, interests and goals … we need more of this.

This latest episode was a doozy! These guys ….

Joel picking Kyra was crazy, but I liked that he explained later that he only said it because he and Verneisha were in a bad place that night. His friends pointing out her clinginess were dead on. She locked it down too early on him and sitting around talking about marriage to his friends when he hasn’t mentioned marriage to you is too much. He is interested, but she is scaring him off by being too available and too focused way too soon. There is a dating lesson in that.

Liz isn’t stiff she is just too old … too mature for Jason and his friends. I think she only has him by a few years, but she is decades pass him in life experience. She doesn’t fit into his circle. Kyra doesn’t either. Intellectually Kyra is miles ahead of Jason and his crew, but she looks the part and they were a bit more comfortable. Eventually they won’t like Kyra either because she is smart. Honestly, none of the women are on Jason’s level.

David is nuts. Someone has to say it. Some people are simply too damaged to move on. The other women see it and stay away, but because Liz is a woman of faith she feels that she can be a support to him and that their faith will fortify him. It won’t. David isn’t ready to love. David needs therapy and it looks like next episode Liz is going to wake up to what she is really dealing with.

My hero this episode …

Chrysanthemum! If staying true to who you are was a person. She wants to come first, all the attention, no kids and to keep being fancy free … with a husband. None of the guys could handle that and she didn’t have time. Lawd she gave the guys dust and I loved it. She is going to bring fire to the reunion because she knows some of the guys threw her under the bus that were privately still very much interested. She is going to tell the truth because she doesn’t care.

Note — Ron’s “niche” comment to Kris made me laugh. Chrys was definitely out of Kris’ league, but you know what she was also out of Ron’s. He couldn’t match her energy either.