“I can’t see her, but I see her,” Vic, baring his soul in the pods, declares in the Love Is Blind Season 10 premiere. “This invisible woman … She’s warm, beautiful, she deserves the world. She’s Christine.”
While only time will tell if the two Ohio singles will make it to the altar, there was an “undeniable” connection from the start. Vic and Christine chatted with others — he had a few dates with Dynasty and Brittany S. and she connected with Devo and Mike — but nothing compared to the feeling of hearing each other’s voices in the pods. “We just had this energy when I knew he was on the other side of the wall," Christine tells Tudum. “I didn’t feel that with anybody else.”
And, of course, a beautifully worded poem from the guy you’re crushing on helps seal the deal. “That little line about him seeing me will stick with me forever.”
With a strong foundation of faith and a shared dream of having the “Super Bowl house,” where all their loved ones gather for the big game, Vic and Christine become the first couple to get engaged this season. “It felt like a beautifully orchestrated opportunity to show up authentically, meet someone, and tap into my vulnerable side,” Vic says. “I hoped that when the blindness of the experiment was removed, that our families and everything would merge together. But, we'll get to that bridge when we get to that bridge.”
Their connection only deepens upon the big reveal (“You’re the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Christine tells him) before the two head off on a romantic getaway. But the couple don’t join the rest of the engaged pod squad members in Cabo, Mexico and head off instead to a stateside resort in Malibu, California. And, no, it wasn’t because of any passport issue.
“We’ve never had the resources to send more than six couples to Mexico, but this season, we felt so good about the couples that for the very first time we chose to follow seven of them, producing the biggest season in Love Is Blind history,” creator Chris Coelen tells Tudum.
“In order to make this work, we had to offer one couple the chance to go to Malibu on their own getaway,” he continues. “And while the romantic getaways are a chance to not only see if the couples can turn their emotional connection into a physical one, they are also a chance to address outstanding feelings and issues with others they may have dated in the pods. Christine and Vic had fewer intersecting relationships with the other remaining couples, so we offered them the chance to go to Malibu, and we were absolutely thrilled that they accepted. We’re so excited for all of our couples, and are delighted that we can share all of their stories with the world.”
The morning after seeing each other for the first time, Vic and Christine learned that their Love Is Blind journey would continue — albeit in a slightly nontraditional fashion. “I remember someone telling me, ‘If you guys both choose to go, then this will happen,’ ” Christine recalls. “And then it dawned on me like, ‘Oh my gosh, what if he doesn’t want to go?’ ”
Christine received a FaceTime call from Vic to discuss their options, and she tried her best to fight off self-doubt and the questions swirling in her mind. Should they just go back to Ohio? Is California the right move? What happens next? “Instead, Vic was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and said, ‘Hey, babe, so we’re going to Malibu?’ ” And I was like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to Malibu.’ ”
Just like that, they were in the back of a car with their bags packed, preparing to spend three days on the California coastline free from all distractions. “We talked the whole drive there,” Vic says. “It didn’t take too long to connect the voice to the person or feel comfortable.” Once they arrived, the duo relished the peace of a solo retreat. After sharing the happy news with their moms on FaceTime, Christine says they chose to “stay in their happy little bubble” as long as they could. “It was almost like what happens in Mexico, where you don’t get your phone back. We didn’t even mean to, but we [kept on] doing the experiment without those distractions,” she says. “It created such a beautiful, pivotal moment in our relationship. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”
Looking back on the experience, Vic says it was the ideal next step for them as a couple. “One of the beautiful things about it was the quality time. I was in paradise with my lady,” he says. “We talked about everything, revisited the conversations we had in the pods, and [found out] how we could travel together. If I had to put it in one word, it would be tranquil.”
Knowing a reunion with other couples was waiting back home in Ohio, both Vic says that the Malibu getaway didn’t “change anything” about the trajectory of their relationship. “If I were to imagine us with the other couples, maybe we would have more touchpoints, but I don’t think that would change our quality time,” he adds. “Whenever we were together, we were good.”
“There wasn’t a pro and con,” Christine adds. “I believed he was my person regardless. We would’ve had the same connection and the same intimacy even if we were at home. But I am really, really grateful for [the trip]. This was just such a wild experience. It would’ve been a lot to just be totally submerged in it, and getting to have that alone time with the world turned off was really nice. It was an absolutely beautiful few days. It was hard to leave.”
To find out what happens next with Vic and Christine, as they head back home and join the other engaged couples in Ohio, tune into new episodes of Love Is Blind Season 10 on Feb. 18.
