Is love truly blind? One single is forced to contend with the dating experiment’s central question like never before in the shocking final moments of the Season 10 premiere.
Heading into the pods, Elissa, an ICU nurse who is no stranger to emergencies, lands in the hospital after using what she thought were eye drops. “I was midway through one of the days when I’d gone on four dates, and there was a break,” she tells Tudum. “I went into the dressing room, and I just saw a little bottle on the table that looked like eye drops that we use in the hospital.”
Except, instead of giving her eyes some relief, she in fact picked up a bottle of nail glue, placing her vision in peril. “I put it in my eye, and I was like, ‘Holy crap. That is thick.’ ”
Elissa immediately looked down at the bottle and realized her mistake before on-set medics rushed to her aid. “I held my eye open because if you shut it, and you got glue, you’re going to pull off your skin,” she recalls. “Luckily, I had a contacts in, which ended up saving my eyeball.”
Despite her pleas to continue with her remaining dates, Elissa was ordered to go to the hospital, where doctors told her she had a corneal abrasion. “I had to sit there with a bag of saline, just flushing my eye. I got the glue out, and then I saved my lashes, thankfully,” she says.
With her vision and, yes, lashes intact, Elissa returned to the experiment the following day with an unexpected new accessory. “I had to wear an eye patch home, so that was fun.”
In her absence, the rest of the pod squad had no idea why she’d abruptly exited the experiment. “They were kind of freaked,” Elissa says upon returning to the lounge the next day. “They were so wonderful, though. That was the best part. Those girls rallied behind me and then on we went to the dating world.”
Never more determined to find her husband in the pods, Elissa’s experience proceeded normally — albeit with reminders from the crew to keep using her prescribed — and, most importantly, well-labeled — eye drops. “Did you know that eyes heal the fastest?” she says. “By day two, it was just a little blurry and not irritating. I just couldn’t wear my contacts, so I was in the pods half blind. I mean, I was really committed to this.”
Elissa went on to develop the strongest connections with two men in the pods, Jordan and Miguel. “After so much time, I felt more chemistry with Miguel than with Jordan, which started to become more of a friend vibe. That’s why I went to Miguel,” she says. The two went on to get engaged, but they weren’t chosen to continue in the experiment. “We got engaged. We did the reveal, and it was awesome. Right away when we saw each other — it was chemistry, like I thought it would be,” she recalls.
But, according to Elissa, things quickly shifted once they returned to Ohio. Though they agreed to continue exploring their relationship, Elissa says Miguel blindsided her with the news that he planned to move to Tampa the very next day. Plus, Miguel was apparently spooked by Elissa tangentially knowing his former fiancée. “He stole this experience from me,” says Elissa. “It was really hard afterward. Since that day, we haven’t talked. That was it.”
While her journey through the dating experiment was anything but typical, Elissa is taking some powerful lessons from her time in the pods. First up? “Dating with intention,” she says. “I dodged a bullet [with Miguel]. Now, I’m going to ask the harder questions sooner and not waste my time, especially because I’m 39. Like what are your values really? Are you a narcissist? Hopefully no. Next time, I’m going to find those red flags real quick.”
