Right from the start, fans were unsure about Dave and Lauren on Love Is Blind season 8. While the pair got along great in the pods, trouble was brewing even from Honduras. It all stemmed back to a man with whom Lauren was previously involved. By a twist of fate, when she mentioned his name, Dave actually had mutual friends with him and recognized his name. This made things slightly awkward between them.

When they got back home to Minnesota in the second batch of episodes, this topic kept coming up in discussion. Notably, it happened because once Dave got his phone back, his friends and family members heard the details, too, and weren’t happy about his engagement to her. It all comes to a head in the third batch of episodes.

There Were Awkward Attempts to Save Lauren and Dave’s Relationship

When the new batch of episodes resume after teasing massive trouble between Dave and Lauren on Love Is Blind 8, Lauren spent the night alone in their shared apartment while Dave went out with his friends and slept at his own place, needing some time to think. When he returns in the afternoon, he and Lauren discuss the issue. She continues to press him, wanting to sit down with his friends and sister to clear the air. But he’s reluctant.

The pair meet with Lauren’s mother, who seems to get along well with Dave and supports her daughter’s decision. It’s mentioned that Lauren’s dad is supportive as well, but he just doesn’t want to be on camera. Like others who have talked to Dave, Lauren’s mother tries to convince him to stop being influenced by what his friends and family say and make the decision based on his own feelings.

Dave’s overthinking continues, however, when the two have a bowling date. There’s little physical affection between them; there’s fist bumping and high fiving whenever they return from getting a strike or a good throw versus a hug or a kiss. When they sit down after to talk, Lauren expresses her frustration at Dave claiming that he wants to figure it out, yet he isn’t willing to bring his friends and family around to meet her so they can resolve things.

Related

Love Is Blind Season 8 Hid 2 Engagements Off-Camera (& Fans Would’ve Loved Them)

As with every season of Love Is Blind, more couples got engaged than was shown, and the two from season 8 are ones we would loved to have seen.

Lauren expresses confidence that once she meets them, they will understand her position and like her. Dave discusses his sister (yet again) and makes it sound as though she “allowed” him to go on the show only because she didn’t expect him to get that far on it. When he did get engaged to a woman who she believes was “seeing” another man right before departing for filming, it made it even worse.

Dave then turns things around on Lauren again, implying that his off-camera meeting with her father added stress to his decision. “It’s a lot,” he says. In a fitting retort, Lauren advises, “it’s a lot for me to handle that your sister doesn’t want to meet me.” She’s clearly tired of everything falling on her.

Sealing the fate for the couple that was once one of the best couples on Love Is Blind 8 is Dave’s response. “They don’t meet just anyone,” he says, Lauren’s eyes scrunching at this comment, considering she’s engaged to be married to him, after all. “I don’t want to waste her time either.” From this moment, Lauren realizes this engagement likely isn’t going to continue. And she is right.

Dave and Lauren Broke Up

Once the pair move to a strange, empty auditorium for a quieter place to talk, it’s there that they have the more serious conversation. Dave admits that he doesn’t think he can get over the situation. But more so than that, it seems he cares more about what his friends and his sister have to say than anything else, and certainly more than what Lauren has to say.

Dave continues to display his insecurities, noting that he thinks Lauren had this casual relationship not thinking it would blow back on her and no one would find out. But as it happens, Dave and all his friends know the guy, so in his eyes, she was caught red-handed. Perhaps she thought the information would never have come out.

In her opinion, however, it’s a non-issue. She was casually seeing someone before going on the show and had apparently slept with him up to a week prior. But it was nothing serious. She admits that she failed to have any closure with the mystery man, at least to confirm that their “friends with benefits” deal would not continue after she went on the show (or if she ended up meeting someone there). But she also didn’t feel it was necessary for closure when it wasn’t really a “relationship” to begin with.

Related

Love Is Blind Season 8 Just Included the Show’s Best Fake Out

Love Is Blind is going strong with eight seasons, and the latest delivered one of the best fake-outs ever in its history.

Dave claims, however, that Lauren previously told her she “should have ended it” and this is what is causing his lack of trust in her. He doesn’t believe she’s being truthful, and he has the words of his friends and family members in his ears. Dave even goes so far as to claim that the guy has been texting Lauren to hang out, which she refutes, saying he only texted her when they got back to ask her what was going on, and she hasn’t responded.

The argument kept going in circles as Dave didn’t understand why this guy needed closure, Lauren didn’t understand why Dave didn’t believe her that he clearly had a very different understanding of the relationship than she did, and it just kept going around and around in circles. Some believe Dave was trying to make excuses to get out of the relationship, others feel it was simply his ego, even “slut-shaming,” to blame.

Finally, Dave brought Lauren’s father back into the mix, angry at how he treated him when they met. Her father questioned whether he was ready to get married since he didn’t want Lauren to meet his friends and family. Dave felt this was unfair since her father didn’t want to be on television either. Puzzled, Lauren couldn’t understand how Dave was equating her father meeting with Dave off-camera to Dave’s friends and family refusing to meet with Lauren either on or off camera (or him refusing to let them).

Dave confusingly admits that if he wanted them there, they would be supportive and would show up. But when Lauren notes that she has asked numerous times for everything from a meet-up to even a phone call, he claims to have “tried.” Throughout the entire argument, he consistently contradicts himself.

The clincher is when, after they officially end things, an event fans thought might have been coming on Love Is Blind season 8, a tearful Lauren reveals that she wrote a letter to Dave’s sister that she gave him. Apparently, he never even gave her the letter. It was obvious Dave was not willing to give Lauren a chance to prove that she was worthwhile. His ego got in the way, and he trusted his friends and family over the woman who was supposed to be his life partner.

Does Dave Regret His Decision?

Later, at a reunion party, the two show up separately, and the tension is palpable. Dave talks to the guys and says he did not like that it came across like it was his decision to break up, though it clearly was.

“I didn’t want it to look like I broke up with her because that’s not what I was trying to do,” he explains, and the guys support him, advising that if he did not feel 100% about the relationship, he should not have continued.

His real clarity comes perhaps after talking with Molly, who delivers a refreshingly scathing speech suggesting that he did not give things a chance and fixated on something that, in the grand scheme of things, was not important. Knowing him well from their bond in the pods and the way he revealed to her that he was, she says she senses that he was trying to push Lauren away for her to end it so he didn’t have to take responsibility. Dave seems visibly taken aback by this comment.

Molly pushes further, trying to understand why he wouldn’t defend Lauren to his friends and family and tell them that while he loves them, he also loves this woman, and they need to respect that and give her a chance. Molly assures him that if the roles were reversed with her, she wouldn’t care. And she implies that he’s being judgmental just because he hadn’t been with a woman that recently prior to the pods.

Related

I’m Convinced the Love is Blind TikTok Controversies Will Mark the Beginning of the End for Ben & Sara

There are a few Love is Blind controversies, and one involving TikTok, Ben, and Sara could spell the end of their chances at marriage.

Dave continues to talk about his sister and how she told him he could go on the pods but could not get engaged. His sister’s worry, according to Dave, is that he would end up with a woman who was in it for the wrong reasons. Laughing, Molly asks if he is aware that Lauren is far from being that woman.

He admits he’s still in love with Lauren and Molly can’t comprehend what the problem is, and why he couldn’t just put Lauren on a FaceTime call with everyone to clear the air. “If you wanted it to happen,” she says before walking away uncomfortably, “you would make it happen.”

This seemingly gets through to Dave and the slightly tipsy ex-fiance approaches Lauren for a talk. His words are ambiguous, indicating that he still loves her, and he recognizes he was wrong and apologizes. But his motives don’t seem genuine, especially when he discusses in a diary session that he feels like now he wants what he can’t have.

He tries to plead his case to Lauren, telling her that it isn’t her but just that he’s sick of trying to defend her against the important people in his life. He admits that his ego got in the way of seeing what they truly had. He adds that he knows it’s real and knows she knows it, too. But Lauren is seemingly not interested in continuing. “I’m sorry that you were going through all the feels of this,” she says. “I want to believe it so badly, and a lot of me does. But I think we’re past that.”

It’s unlikely that Lauren and Dave will get back together, certainly not in time for the final wedding episodes. Is it possible they continued dating after the show to see where it went? Nothing has been confirmed as of yet, and fans won’t find out officially until the reunion episode on March 9, which has been added to the Love Is Blind season 8 schedule. But if we were betting on it, we’d say Lauren dodged that bullet and moved on.

Love Is Blind

Release Date

February 13, 2020

Showrunner

Chris Coelen

Directors

Chris Coelen

Writers

Chris Coelen

•