Note: This article contains spoilers for Season Six of Love Is Blind.
As a Black man, it’s stressful to watch other Black men on reality dating shows. It’s beautiful when Black men appear on these shows and demonstrate emotional intelligence and true, genuine love and care for Black women. However, so often these men show up, bringing their own brand of colorism and misogynoir with them. Love Is Blind, the Netflix dating show, now in its sixth season, where strangers propose to each other sight unseen, has been rife with problematic Black men, as well as a few who give us hope.
Clay Gravesande, one of the protagonists of this season of Love Is Blind, started as a stereotypically troublesome one-dimensional character. But as the season continued, he evolved into one of the most complicated depictions of Black masculinity, generational trauma, and internal tumult in reality television history.
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Clay started the Love Is Blind season as an easily identifiable villain. When we meet him, he tells his potential partner, Amber Desiree Smith (known as AD), that he won’t choose a woman unless he knows what she looks like. “I just have to be attracted to you,” Clay explained. “My favorite attribute is lips, butt and all that stuff. That sounds so shallow but hearing what your best attributes are, if I’mma propose, that’s something I need to know.”
Eventually AD and Clay get engaged in the pods before heading on a vacation to the Dominican Republic, and then returning home to figure out if they want to get married in a few weeks. Those weeks were spent with Clay exploring his pathology, fears and doubts about marriage.
And his problematic comments continued, namely when he told AD he won’t let her gain too much weight because he’d tell her to “get to the motherf—ing gym.” He even went so far as to say he’d make her work out when she’s pregnant. After seeing that, I rolled my eyes, frustrated again that we were getting another Black man on a reality dating show who was primed to mistreat a Black woman.
As the season progressed, though, Clay leaned into discussing the deeper issues at play in his life. We learn that his father, whom he greatly admires, has played a major role in his insecurities about marriage. On several occasions, Clay described his dad as a suave ladies’ man. Later we find out that Clay’s parents, Trevor and Margarita, were married for more than two decades and his father was unfaithful for most of that time. According to Clay, his dad took him on “infidelity trips” as a kid when he was cheating on his mother. And the issues Clay has with his father have colored his relationship with AD — so much so that at every turn, he talks about how much he’s worried about failing in marriage. Most of their scenes together revolve around Clay’s fears about infidelity and his readiness to be a husband.
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While he’s dealing with his own internal struggles about marriage, Clay constantly affirms the way AD helps him and “checks” him when he’s wrong. Throughout their relationship, AD displayed tremendous patience and always reassured Clay that he’d be able to see their relationship through. However, the show doesn’t highlight exactly what Clay does for AD, though we see him take her on a romantic date just days before their nuptials. What plays out on screen is a classic “Black woman builds up Black man with nothing in return” scenario. The drama left me screaming at the screen for AD to see the red flags and leave Clay alone before she’s doomed to decades of pouring into a man who doesn’t have anything to offer her. As the show goes on, it feels inevitable that this will be their fate.
Of course, the two make it to the season finale, where they prepare for their wedding and decide at the altar if they want to actually get married. But before the ceremony can begin, Clay’s dad visits him. Their dynamic is immediately apparent. Clay’s face lights up as soon as he sees Trevor, who doesn’t waste any time telling Clay — and, thus, the audience — about his athletic prowess as a kid and how he almost made the Olympics. During the conversation, Clay transforms into a kid again, looking to his dad for approval about his decision and where he is in life.
The lead-up to the wedding makes Clay’s decision feel like a foregone conclusion. He’s celebrating with his brothers and friends beforehand. He never mentions any hesitation. And he’s all smiles when the ceremony begins, even reciting his vows — like, “I want to thank you for your patience” — mostly about what AD does for him. All signs point to them both saying yes.
But things don’t go so smoothly.
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AD said, “I do.” Clay, though, shockingly says no. “I don’t think it’s responsible for me to say ‘I do,’” he tells her. “I still need work. I still need to get to the point where I’m 100% in … I know I’m not fully ready for marriage and you deserve the best.”
I couldn’t believe it. Social media viewers couldn’t either. At first, I was outraged for AD.
How dare Clay say no to a woman who has done so much for him and been so patient? But the longer the episode went on, the more I realized something: Clay’s rejection of AD is the first time we see him show her genuine love that puts her first, whether that was his actual intention or not.
Everything Clay said at the altar was absolutely right. He wasn’t ready to marry AD. He wasn’t ready to give her all he had. The vows he said to her before saying “no” were proof. Clay could have married AD and seen his life markedly improve by being with a woman who wanted to help him grow. Most men simply opt in to that kind of marriage, gladly benefiting from the fruits of a woman’s hard work and “building” them up. Clay — in a moment that was somewhere between panic, insecurity and selfless love — spared AD from years of pouring into a man who wasn’t ready to pour anything into her.
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Clay’s denial of AD was one of those unforgettable reality show plot twists. But, a later scene turned the entire episode into something we rarely see on television, reality or otherwise.
As AD and Clay deal with the aftermath of his decision, his parents are left to reckon with what they’ve just seen. Their conversation is transformational, and they discuss how the fallout from their marriage and divorce impacted Clay’s entire life. Margarita is firm in her demands that Trevor have a serious conversation with Clay so he doesn’t continue to carry his shame and fears into future relationships.
At that moment, the cameras captured a real moment I can’t stop thinking about. While talking to his former wife, Trevor pauses, rubs his nose and chokes up a bit. As he does this, the camera focuses on Margarita as she looks at him, pure frustration on her face, and she gives a slow eye roll from the bottom of her spirit. Margarita knows what’s coming. She saw it for over two decades and is ready for what’s next: “I never had the best role models,” Trevor explains, as he goes into a monologue about how his father passed down trauma to him. Margarita’s reaction was so real to anyone who’s had to live with explanations (and excuses) that don’t come with much work to heal and evolve. It’s especially real for Black women who’ve had to endure marriages like hers.
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After Margarita cuts Trevor’s excuses off, they have the most important exchange yet.
“Tell him to meet somebody like his mom,” Trevor says with a smirk as if his lighthearted moment would smooth over the conversation.
“Yeah, but you met me,” she tells him. “But you wasn’t good to me.”
It’s a word. A declaration. A demand that the hurt she’s experiencing anew after hearing about Trevor’s “infidelity trips” with Clay be acknowledged as well. It’s a refusal to capitulate to Trevor’s charming gaslighting. And it’s a cry for help for her son, who is in pain.
The scene felt too deep for something as usually vapid as reality TV, but it’s also the type of scene you can’t script. For a Black woman to have an honest reckoning with her former husband who wronged her for decades and to be heard feels like a pivotal, cathartic moment.
Clay’s rejection of AD likely means they will not have the conversation that his parents just had. But it frees AD to find someone better, someone worthy of her goodness and who will give it back to her.
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At the end of the episode, AD is devastated, questioning why men often leave relationships better off after experiencing her love, but she’s left with nothing. I hope she sees Clay’s decision as a chance to change that. I hope she can look at their last moment together, after the rejection, where Clay is still trying to glean emotional comfort and affection from her without offering any comfort in return. I hope it reveals that men like him will never be for her.
Which brings me back to Clay. When we last saw him, he was sad, embarrassed, and unsure of his decision. He looked shell-shocked, and he walked away with his head down. I don’t know what’s next for Clay. I don’t know if he’ll ever change. He has so much generational pain and trauma to work through.
And he needs to talk to his daddy.
On first watch, it’s easy to see Clay as just another troubled, problematic man in the history of problematic brothers on reality TV dating shows. However, this season showed us so much of what brought him to this point in his life in a raw, unfiltered fashion that we just don’t see often in entertainment. Whatever happens next, Clay Gravesande will be one of the most talked-about figures we’ve seen on reality TV.
David Dennis Jr. is a senior writer at Andscape and an American Mosaic Journalism Prize recipient. His book, The Movement Made Us, will be released in 2022. David is a graduate of Davidson College.
