When Love Didn’t Need Eyes to See

He never came to me. Not metaphorically — literally. Behind the glow of usernames and profile bios on a dating app that promised "deep connections without the pressure of appearances," we had our first conversation. Skeptical? Definitely. But curious? Even more so.

The premise was simple: no photos, just conversation. We could choose to exchange images only if something clicked. It felt like an emotional experiment — Love Is Blind meets the digital age — and I was all in.

Eli was his name. His first message was a quote from Rumi: “The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you.” And just like that, he had my attention.

We communicated frequently through messages for two weeks. It seemed like a relationship developed outside of time, with long voice notes about childhood fears and late-night arguments about soulmates. I didn’t know what he looked like, but I knew how his laughter hiccupped at the end of a sentence. I knew how he paused when he was thinking. I knew the softness in his voice when he spoke about his mom’s cinnamon cookies. Eli became a part of my life, like music that played in the background. One night, he asked, “What if we never see each other and just… fall in love like this?”

It stopped me. Could I?

We were living out the kind of connection reality shows like Love Is Blind tried to bottle up — raw, unseen, and unfiltered by surface. I wasn’t trying to impress him with selfies or curated posts. He liked me for my thoughts, for the weird way I described silence as “a velvet blanket,” for the way I always ended voice notes with “okay, that’s all, bye!”

Eventually, curiosity won. We decided to swap photos.

I stared at his picture longer than I’d like to admit. He didn’t look like what I expected — and that was perfect. There was something beautifully real about him. He had a lopsided smile, like he was caught mid-laugh. His eyes held warmth, not polish. And in that moment, I realized: if I’d seen his photo first, I might’ve swiped left. I would have looked at him through the lens of superficiality rather than connection, not because he was not attractive. I also sent mine. His reaction? “You look exactly like you sound. Beautiful.”

We met in person a week later. There were no sparks flying or fireworks exploding. It was just… calm. Familiar. like meeting a person I had known for a long time. We dated for nine months. It ended gently, like a song fading out. There was no drama, no betrayal, just two people realizing that their journey together had naturally stopped. But what stayed with me was the power of how it began.

Love isn’t blind. Not really. Love sees everything — not just with eyes, but with memory, emotion, intention. The world around us—the apps, expectations, and checklists—are blind. Love knows better. Love listens first.

Sometimes, love wears no face at all — just a voice in the dark that makes you feel seen.

Love isn’t blind. Not really. Love sees everything — not just with eyes, but with memory, emotion, intention. What’s blind is the world around us: the apps, the expectations, the checklists. Love knows better. Love listens first.

Sometimes, love wears no face at all — just a voice in the dark that makes you feel seen.Love isn’t blind. Not really. Love sees everything — not just with eyes, but with memory, emotion, intention. What’s blind is the world around us: the apps, the expectations, the checklists. Love knows better. Love listens first.

Sometimes, love wears no face at all — just a voice in the dark that makes you feel seen.