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It’s your average love story: boy meets girl through a wall without seeing each other, then they get married almost immediately.
In an experiment set to prove that you can fall in love based on personality alone, Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” had 30 young singles hang out in windowless rooms where they chatted without setting eyes on each other. Those who developed a connection got engaged (yes, without ever meeting in person), and were sent to spend just ten days together before getting married. Around 30 million households tuned in, according to the platform’s opaque viewership stats.
But did it work?
At the end of the show’s crazy ride, two happy couples — Lauren and Cameron Hamilton and Amber and Matt Barnett a k a Barnett — emerged as show’s sole success stories. They are still married today, two years after they met.
Now, in three new episodes titled “Love Is Blind: After the Altar” (out on Netflix on Wednesday), the audience catches up with the lovebirds as they prepare for a “Love Is Blind” reunion at a joint anniversary party.
So how do the Hamiltons and the Barnetts manage to make it work after meeting in such an unlikely way?
“It wasn’t hard,” said Amber, “which is weird because at some point we would look back and be like, ‘Wait a minute, we’re married — but I’ve only known you for five months. Holy sh-t!’”
The outgoing pair both have a laid-back, flirty attitude that’s kept them on the same page. Amber, who still lives in Atlanta and moved into Barnett’s place after the show, attributes their connection to “pure dumb luck” and said, “We both came into it with no expectations.”
Another reason their relationship has endured: They keep their finances separate.
On “Love Is Blind,” Amber owed some $20,000 in student loans, which came as a shock to her new man. But Barnett said money hasn’t been a problem going forward in their marriage, since she paid them off “three months after the show.”
“I think that was played up for cinematic effect,” said Amber. “Our issues were something that everyone comes across in life, if you’re not born rich as f–k.”
Rather, their biggest fight as a couple happened when Amber was frying chicken, got distracted, “and Matt was freaking out — like, ‘You’re going to burn the house down!’” she said. “I got really upset because it felt like he didn’t trust me or thought I was incapable.”
Each expected the other to back down — and the situation only got more heated.
“That was the first real time we realized how stubborn each of us could be when we think we’re right,” she said.
Amber didn’t recall how they resolved it, but Barnett noted, “Someone was naked.”
The road to romance for the Hamiltons was rocky in a different way. The couple was fixated on each other from the start, and spent much of their time on the show discussing what it means to be in an interracial relationship — Lauren hadn’t dated a white man before and her father had doubts about Cameron. But their mutual infatuation won out.
“We’re just like any other couple, we’re not perfect,” Lauren told The Post. They focus on open communication and observing each other’s habits.
“We’re different in how we deal with stress,” she said. “When he gets stressed, he likes to be together. And when I get stressed, I’m like, ‘Oh, I need space!’ So that’s something we had to come together as a couple and learn. Because we have a busy life. That was one of the biggest things in our relationship that we work on.”
The duo runs a YouTube channel “Hanging With the Hamiltons” — a video blog giving glimpses into their daily lives — and just released a book, “Leap of Faith: Finding Love the Modern Way.” Being relationship influencers is a full-time job for them both, which isn’t without issues.
“For Lauren and I, one of the challenges was figuring out our work rhythm with each other. We both have strong personalities, so finding that middle ground was tough,” Cameron, a data scientist, told The Post.
Their biggest point of contention has been navigating each other’s personal space, they said. Cameron said they’ve both gotten better at knowing when “to go into our offices and close the doors.”
“We had to find our rhythm of just being together — whether it was in personal space or in how we like to wash clothes or in leaving dishes in the sink. We are not without struggle and triumph. For us, it’s important that we always work at it and try to find the silver lining in arguments we have,” she said.
Because they share their relationship on-camera so often, they also make time for romance in the quiet moments, they said.
“Lauren, for my birthday, did a cabin retreat for just the two of us in Georgia,” said Cameron. “And it was a great way for us to relax together, just the two of us — a ‘phones -off’ type thing.”
As for what’s next? Cameron and Lauren will continue to broadcast, and they’ve got another “big project” on the way, but aren’t able to divulge details just yet.
Meanwhile, Amber and Barnett are deciding between “settling down and starting a family or just road-tripping across the US national parks for a year,” said Amber.
“Whichever happens first.”
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