Justin was born and raised in New Orleans, where the second season is filmed. (Each season is set in a different city; New York City was the setting for season 1.) His family left New Orleans for some time after Hurricane Katrina and moved to Houston, where he was bullied. But it wasn’t long until he came back to the Big Easy. Netflix’s upscale dating show Dating Around has a simple premise, but being a fly on the wall for a handful of blind dates is anything but simple. There’s awkwardness, intimacy, and, sometimes, even a guy who might possibly be the devil (if you watched, you know who we’re talking about).

Professor on Dating Around: About Ben Samuel’s career:

The show’s third episode centers on Lex Liang, a costume and set designer who runs an events design company. He’s also a gay Asian-American man who never assumed he would get cast as a lead on a dating show. I’m not a football player virgin,” he joked in an interview with TIME. Over coffee—and in the same white-tee-black-jeans getup he wore to each date—Liang talked about being Asian in the gay community, being gay in the Asian community, and the ups and downs of the grueling shooting process. It’s unclear whether middle-aged sweethearts Leonard and Dianna are still going strong since neither of them has a public social media account.

What’s the track record like on ‘Dating Around’?

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. Today’s biggest stories, from pop culture to politics—delivered straight to your inbox. We should all adopt this mind-set when it comes to dating, but that’s easier said than done sometimes. John’s comments clearly made Sarah uncomfortable, but it took two of them for her to leave the date. When she does, she pads her reasoning for dipping out with kindness.

Although Dating Around is like the refined, classy aunt to Netflix’s other 2020 trashy dating shows Love Is Blind and Too Hot To Handle, it delivers the same cringeworthy moments that make reality dating shows so watchable. Full of passionate CambodianCupid legit first kisses and and plenty of serious drama, Season Two does not disappoint. While the cast has yet to announce if any of their second dates led to a third or even fourth, here’s what the six members are up to on social media lately.

“The absolute highlight of this experience is all the messages I’m getting from people appreciative of my visibility on the show. I think doing a show like this and trying my best to be authentic really impacted the people who watched and/or could relate,” she told the outlet. Charlotte Glaser, who appeared on a season 1 episode with five other gay women, talked to Go magazine about the importance of representation in 2019. Although the world of reality dating shows focuses overwhelmingly on heterosexual couples, there are some series that have challenged that norm.

When it comes to reality television series, Netflix has been doing a pretty decent job with shows like Love Is Blind, which graces individuals with a platform to ease the engagement process. And since dating has proven to be strenuous and near impossible to some people, it is always a good idea to help those struggling to find love. Last year, Netflix released a new kind of dating show, in the time before shows like Love is Blind and Too Hot To Handle really took off in the grim era of 2020. Dating Around, in six half-hour segments, followed one person each episode as they went on five dates, where they can only choose one of the “contestants” to go on a second date. In addition to the major implications for LGBTQ rights and the ideological rifts currently dividing the church, the episode raises fundamental questions about privacy in the internet age that should concern all Americans.

Unfortunately, men behaving inappropriately within minutes of a first date is a reality many, many women face. “I have stories for days,” Amanda, a 25-year-old public relations manager, tells me before diving into a particularly horrifying account. You have to make it past episode one, though, which features your standard 27-year-old bro having dinner and drinks with five different women. It’s cringe-y and awkward—which may be the point—but things really pick up in episode two. That’s when we meet an Indian woman who shuts down her ignorant white male date. It’s a tense, necessary exchange that will hit home for anyone who’s experienced culture clash.

Often, we all probably swipe left on a lot of people that we would want to engage with in real life. But they’re just a two-dimensional image at that point. The overall outlook on “Dating Around” is based on quantity over quality with the reasoning that the more dates everybody goes on, the more likely they are to meet their match. Each episode follows an unlucky-in-love singleton who ventures out on five dates filled with either intense awkwardness or laidback chats and flirty glances across the table. Fans rallied behind “Dating Around,” cheering its authentic approach and lack of heavily produced storylines.

After bingeing the show’s just-released second season, staffers at The Ringer stopped cringing and started divulging their thoughts. Dating Around, which arrived on Netflix last month, has none of those things. Each of its six episodes follows a New Yorker as they go on five separate dates across the city, navigating through awkward silences, shared passions, bad jokes and arguments over cultural differences. In its diversity and anti-sensationalist gaze, it’s the reality dating show closest to dating in reality.

It seemed that the Netflix couple had a fair deal in common, too. Alex said she was looking for a connection and they both agreed they were wanting to find someone they could relate to on a lot of different levels. Ben seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve a little more with Alex; in the taxi after their date, he described her as “beautiful and kind” and added, “There aren’t a lot of people in the world like you, Alex.” Television has treated dating like a game since, well, The Dating Game. Each generation finds an era-appropriate kind of competitive romance. The game shows of 20th-century networks presented the hunt for love as communal, lighthearted, and blessedly straightforward.

It is the “first original dating series” that Netflix has produced. California-born professor of computer science Ben and jazz singer Alex instantly connected over their love for musicals. As well as hitting it off with some of the women, Ben had a fair deal of awkward moments on some of his Dating Around dates. For example, when Stephanie revealed that she was a student at the University of New Orleans, Ben had to work out whether it was acceptable for them to be on a date together.

When his girlfriend started to date someone new, Ben felt happy, which he knew was a sign that he and his ex needed to break up. Netflix’s first original dating series follows one person per episode as they go on five blind dates and then choose one person to reconnect with a second time. Unfortunately, Ann hasn’t liked either of Justin’s posts about the show, which seems odd because she’s likely the only person he knows who can share his experience. (Justin shared the trailer twice on his feed and on his Instagram TV.) Still, Ann has liked other posts on Instagram, so perhaps she just didn’t see his ‘grams about the show.

In First Date we get regular checkins to know their thoughts, which is the really interesting part. The very gentlemanly Professor of Computer Science Ben deserves some happy love, although his episode was full of awkward moments so pungent it was hard to watch. We’re rooting for him and awaiting any updates from his brand new Instagram account. And without a narrator, or cutaways, or any kind of sense of humour, it’s astonishing that anybody would want to watch this over First Dates. Dating Around isa more realistic dating show with a sort of traditional style of romance. Drinks and dinner helped them build deeper connections, and due to some contestants being easily datable, they were quick to get a match to take to the second date.