What happens when you fall in love with someone sight unseen and they don’t look quite the way you envisioned?
“Love Is Blind” cast member Hannah Jiles was confronted by this problem ahead of meeting her fiancé, Nick Dorka, in Season 7 of the Netflix series.
Before they met face-to-face, Hannah expressed her fears in a confessional interview.
“Worst case scenario, he’s like super, super tiny and I feel like I could throw him in my pocket or something. But my biggest fear in this moment is that he’s going to see me and he’s not going to like what he sees,” she said.
Then came the moment of truth. When Nick saw Hannah for the first time, he called her “absolutely beautiful.”
They both joked that, while wearing heels, she is taller than he is. In a confessional interview, Nick said the height difference didn’t bother him at all.
“She might’ve been a little bit taller than me, which is funny — she’s 5’9” with heels on. But I love that, that’s perfect. I love that about her,” he said.
Hannah asked Nick if she looked the way he’d envisioned and he said, “Of course.”
In her own confessional interview, Hannah said that her fiancé looked different than she expected. Nick had compared himself to a “less buff version” of the actor Henry Cavill.
“In the pods, he described himself as a football player — bigger, medium build, like 5’11”. And what he said, I don’t think is really truthful,” she said. “It does make me feel a bit insecure cause I feel like I’m bigger than him.”
When the newly engaged couple traveled to Mexico for a romantic getaway, Hannah elaborated on her initial reaction to Nick.
“When I first met Nick during the reveal, it was shocking. He built himself in a way that was different from what he is. I imagined a really big guy. I definitely go for the big guy, like 6’5,” handsome, best looking guy in the room,” she said. “It really took me a second to really match (who) he is to the voice and who I fell in love with.”
Hannah went on to say Nick made her feel “very at home” quickly and said that she was now “physically attracted” to him.
Hannah explains her reaction to Nick’s appearance
Hannah tells TODAY.com it took her some time to match her vision of him with reality.
“I had this person that was pictured in my mind. And so no matter what, you’re going to build this person. So when you see them and they’re not like that exact person, it’s just shocking, and it’s different,” she says. “You have to just mold the voice to the face. So it was just a lot of confusion and shock and I had to figure it out.”
Once the couple arrived in Mexico and got to spend some time together, Hannah says she had time to adjust her expectations.
“That person that you were imagining in your head is not there anymore. And then Nick is who this person is, and so you get past it and it’s normal,” she says.
Nick responds to Hannah’s reaction
Nick, who hadn’t seen the first six episodes of “Love Is Blind” Season 7 when TODAY.com interviewed him, says he wasn’t aware of Hannah’s reaction to his appearance.