Cincinnati resident Elissa Finley recently garnered nationwide fame for appearing on season 10 of Netflix’s dating series “Love is Blind,” where she brought new meaning to the show’s namesake after being medically evacuated in the first episode for putting nail glue in her eye instead of eyedrops.
“I just saw a little bottle and put it in my eye. Immediately after, I was like, ‘that was thick,'” she said, extending the syllable for so long that if she’d typed the word ‘thick’ she would’ve done it with two c’s. “I looked at the bottle and realized what happened, then held my eye open as I screamed for a medic.”
Before she gave Netflix a major viral moment, though, she grew up on the East Side of Cincinnati and graduated from Turpin High before becoming a nurse. Half the week, she works as a certified aesthetic nurse injector at the Fort Thomas, KY spa Skin Esteem; during the other half, she works in a local ICU ward.
Given the schedule and stress of her job, dating in Cincinnati hasn’t been easy. Her desire to pursue a long-term relationship without men focusing solely on her looks drove her to appear on the popular streaming series; for those unaware, contestants on the show are unable to see the appearance of the person they’re talking to, as they’re placed in special “pods” that force a barrier between them.
“I felt like every guy I met in public just wanted to take me home, but I’m looking for a guy who wants to take me home to mama,” Finley said. “I also feel like it’s hard or intimidating for guys to come up to me and my group of friends and just be like ‘Hey, what’s up?’ For me, the idea of the show was really cool because they’d have to get to know me instead of looking at me first.”
After seeing an Instagram ad for season 10—which solely featured contestants from Ohio—and deciding that her chances of finding Mr. Right on the series were “more realistic” than finding him out in the wild, she decided to give it a shot. Weeks later, she got a call back and became the only Cincinnati-based woman featured on the series.
“The pods were a two week ordeal. You can’t see anybody. All you’ve got is their voice and personality,” she said. “You can’t even see their mannerisms. It’s crazy how your other senses kick in. Somebody would walk in, and you’d be like, ‘Oh my god, I know who this is because I remember their voice.'”
Perhaps the lack of clear eyesight in the pods was what gave her the season’s most notable moment. On the second day of filming, Finley had just finished four dates and was set to go on four more before she accidentally put nail glue in her eye in the break room, giving the season its first major cliffhanger.
“You don’t see them on screen, but we had handlers who walked us everywhere we went. I told her to grab the medic, and I told him, ‘Grab a bag of saline and just throw it in my face.’ The glue started hardening as I was scraping it out. Thankfully, I had contacts in, which probably saved my eye,” she said. “It’s funny, I was saying, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine’ even though it was starting to burn and be really painful. They told me I was going to the hospital and I was like, ‘But I have four more dates!'”
She returned to filming the next day, wearing an eye patch. Rather ironically, the doctor ordered her to use antibiotic eye drops multiple times a day.
The show’s producers didn’t inform the other contestants of what happened, only that there was an “eye-related incident.” On the series, one of her co-stars joked to her that “love is half-blind,” which Finley got a kick out of, saying that she was just “super committed to the bit.”
“All the guys come in the next day and they were like, ‘So did you lose your eyeball or what?,'” she said.
Eventually, she did get engaged to contestant Miguel Lopez. The two had instant chemistry, and when they finally did see each other in person, sparks flew. However, Netflix opted not to take the couple on the vacation trip because their storyline was “less interesting” than some of the other couples.
It seems like Finley dodged a bullet, though. The very next day after leaving the series, she attended her brother’s wedding and heard from Lopez that he was still interested in continuing their relationship in Cincinnati. The day after that, he informed her that he was actually planning on moving to Tampa the entire time they were speaking on the show. He then ghosted her, ended up staying in Ohio, and got engaged to another woman before the season even aired.
“I was like, cool. That’s really cool of you. He even posted about it and had to take it down,” she said. “I never saw him again. I haven’t even spoken to him. It seemed like he was in it for the fame more than anything real.”
While she’s glad she didn’t end up with him, she’s still resentful since there were other men on the series she would’ve chosen if Lopez had been more truthful.
“The first thing I asked every guy in the pods is if they could settle in Cincinnati, and he said yes. If he had said no, I probably would’ve moved on and really opened up to somebody like Jordan Faeth. It kind of felt like Miguel stole this experience from me, and that he stole my first engagement from me. It was really tough. But hey, they offered me therapy, so that’s nice,” she said, laughing.
While the show didn’t work out for her in a romantic sense, she’s grateful for all the bonds she made with her female co-stars, who she still talks to on a regular basis despite only knowing each other for two weeks. The group of women plans to attend sporting events and music festivals in the near future.
Now that her time on the show is over, she’s going back to doing what she loves: celebrating the city she grew up in. She plans to eat plenty of Skyline—she “always gets one cheese coney and a kid’s 3-way”—and continue going out with her friends in their favorite Northern Kentucky spots, like Covington Yard, Doubt It and Smoke Justis. She hasn’t given up hope on finding the right man, either.
“I still want to meet somebody the all-natural way, not on just Hinge or Bumble … I’m just kind of coasting and hoping I’ll meet somebody in Cincinnati. Whatever happens, happens,” she said. “And I really do love Cincinnati. I love our city’s camaraderie. I love our sports teams. I know I was on TV, but … other than that, I’m still just a hometown girl who’s thriving through life.”
