Warning! SPOILERS ahead for Love Is Blind season 2 episodes 1 and 2 below!
Abhishek Chatterjee a.k.a. Shake went into Love Is Blind season 2 with the full awareness that this is an experiment for people to potentially fall in love without seeing or knowing how the other person looks on the other side of a wall, but he showcased quite a few red flags during his conversations with women in the pods. As it was proven by the couples from Love Is Blind season 1, falling in love with someone without never having seen them isn't easy.
The Love Is Blind experiment surprisingly worked for quite a few couples, but it didn't work for most of the single contestants who went into it. As repeated by co-hosts Vanessa and Nick Lachey time after time, the entire point of this series is to prove whether or not the age-old "love is blind" saying is true. According to season 1 stars Lauren & Cameron, Amber & Barnett, and Giannina & Damian - yes, love was indeed blind for them.
However, season 2 introduced a cast member who tried using coded language and questions that not only went against the core principle of Love Is Blind but also showcased quite a few red flags to the women having these conversations with him in the pods. First, during a conversation with Mallory, Abhishek asked if she was Latina and claimed that he felt "Latina vibes over there," which seemingly made her feel pretty awkward. Shake then told Iyanna that he loves to buy clothes for girls and proceeded to ask what her size was, which made her look clearly uncomfortable. Later, Shake asked Hope if she enjoys working out - a question that is usually coded language for something like, "Are you in shape?" When Hope said that she does enjoy working out, Shake insisted that he "gets along best with individuals that do work out," which sounded like he was perhaps even doubting her answer to his own question. The point of the pods on Love Is Blind is to remove physical attraction from initial interactions between two people, so all of these questions were completely out of line.
In a subsequent conversation with Chassidy, Shake straight-up asked her age. After Chassidy said that she was 33, Shake replied, "I prefer dating younger." When Chassidy asked how old Shake was and he said 32, she shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. Shake then spoke to Deepti and immediately concluded that she was Indian, adding: "My serious relationships, they've all been... blonde." Shake told his story of moving to the US and seeing "snow and blonde girls" for the first time. "I was like, 'Oh wow.' You like what you like, right?" he remarked. As it turns out, Deepti was able to actually laugh at Shake's off-the-cuff comments on Love Is Blind without feeling uncomfortable. Deepti revealed that she also had only dated white guys in the past, so she could relate to what Shake was trying to say. In any case, their conversation quickly turned into Shake asking Deepti if she liked being on a guy's shoulders at a music festival. He literally asked, "Will I have trouble picking you up?" Again, this was a coded question meant to figure out what Deepti's size and/or physique looked like.
In the second episode, Deepti confronted Abhishek about his remarks and he opened up about being "chunky" himself as a kid. Shake talked about how his line of thinking reflected some of the "demons" he still had inside, and it made Deepti feel happy that he was being vulnerable. But even with all of that said, Shake came into this experience ignoring the whole point of Love Is Blind, and it took someone to straight-up confront him to make him realize how wrong he was being. This might have been a teaching moment for Shake, but it still doesn't change the numerous red flags that he wasn't entirely ready to go through this process as it is.
Love Is Blind season 2 airs Fridays at 3 a.m. ET / 12 a.m. PT on Netflix.
