For the past couple of weeks, Love Is Blind has been our Netflix addiction - and yesterday, the series ended, as the cast finally reunited. We found out that Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton and Matt Barnett and Amber Pike are still married. And that Damian Powers and Giannina Gibelli{
While there were 16 people sat on the couch, there were four people who weren’t there - as two more couples got engaged on the show. Rory Newbrough and Danielle Drouin, along with Lexie Skipper and Westley Baer, were all set to be married - only to be cut post-production{
‘It’s been tough,’ says Westley, talking to Grazia over the phone from Atlanta, ‘you know, being one of the couples that got engaged and then our story wasn't shown - it was hard because we went through this whole process. The show was filmed 15 months ago so we waited and waited and waited to see our story unfold. But it didn’t, so I think the expectations for me were really, really high.’ He adds that he understands production have a job to do - so no hard feelings - but that it’s been difficult watching his friends from the show become famous.
Why did he go on the 'dating experiment'? He says he was approached, and that he applied because he didn’t like dating apps, and thought it would be a good idea to meet someone when you have to solely rely on communication. He was working in sales, was granted unpaid leave, asked his mother for permission to appear - and then was in the pods, ready to date.
He says that the first day was more like speed dating - you had seven minutes with each partner. It was only then that the dates would get longer, as it was obvious which people you had a connection with. As the days went on, it would get to the point where dates would be five hours long - and people would take naps.
On the last day of filming, Westley proposed to Lexie. (‘Being in that pod and getting down on one knee seemed a little crazy.') But he says he knew she was the one from date five, when she’d requested for producers to decorate his pod like it was Christmas, as he mentioned in a previous date that he missed out on the feeling of Christmas during childhood. ‘I just started crying,’ he says. ‘Because I walk in and she had remembered everything I had said before about how that's all I wanted. And I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting walking into a pod and there's Christmas lights and my favorite cheesecake.’
That’s one of the things that people don’t see on the show, that daters could request things for each other. Westley, in turn, gave Lexie an ornament of a lighthouse as he has a lighthouse tattoo on his arm.
He says he was nervous about meeting her, and took a shot of whiskey before. But only a day after meeting in real life, the couple were then told that they wouldn’t be joining the group in Mexico. 'We talked about how we couldn't wait for our trip to Mexico,' he says. 'And then, of course, the next day we're totally couldn't.' Regardless, they stayed together for a couple of months after the show - and didn’t tell anybody they were engaged. They lied to friends how they met - he told friends they met through Instagram - as they knew it'd be best for the show's purposes.
Westley says that leaving the show didn’t change the way he thought about the engagement, though. ‘I think the only thing that changed internally was knowing that we were on our own,’ he says. ‘We both just quit our jobs [after the show], and so if we wanted to get married it would have been financially hard for us.’ (Lexie now works in fashion, and Westley works in sales, while running a coaching business on the side.)
The pair - despite splitting - are still good friends, and they live just buildings apart. ‘We're glad we're both blessed that we have an amazing relationship,' he says. 'We're not dating each other, but we're very good friends.’ Westley is single and dating, but the question is, does he think Love Is Blind?
'I do think love is blind, you can fall in love with someone without seeing them especially if you focus on the heart of someone else,' he says. 'You can see the person as they are without actually seeing them. Love is something very powerful, I think sometimes we mix up love with passion but to me with the experience you can definitely fall in love with someone without seeing them.'
READ MORE: Love Is Blind's Giannina Gibelli Exclusive Interview: Why She And Damian Got Back Together