‘Love Is Blind’s’ Micah Opens Up about Paul and Shelby’s Tense Meeting: “There Was Definitely Alcohol Involved”

Love Is Blind‘s journey from first date to marriage is fast, but you can’t say that the show isn’t thorough. The couples that emerge from the pods get to experience all of the trials and tribulations of dating in a matter of weeks, from living together to meeting the potential future in-laws to [dramatic music sting] meeting the friends. While parents and siblings might put on a happy face, friends are always going to tell it like it is — especially when there’s booze flowing.

That right there is the trap that Paul walked into in Episode 8 when he went with his fiancée Micah to her bestie Shelby’s birthday party. He’s not meeting Micah’s friends at a nice outdoor brunch or during a casual drop-in at their apartment. Paul is meeting Micah’s friend group under the most chaotic of circumstances: a twentysomething’s bar birthday party.

Decider got the chance to talk to Micah about the high-stakes meeting that took place between rounds of shots. “There was certainly alcohol,” Micah told us with a laugh and knowing grin. “They all met the met Paul at a birthday party, we have a really big friend group, there was definitely alcohol involved.”

In the episode, Micah’s friends Shelby and Micayla gave the comparatively sober Paul the third degree, essentially playing drunk good cop/drunk bad cop. Micayla started the serious convo with, “Real-life shit: so you get to sleep next to her every night?” A reminder that in this scenario, Micayla is the drunk good cop.

After hearing Paul’s thought-out answers regarding how serious he is about Micah, Shelby jokes that they’re not used to his “articulate manner.” Paul then jokes that they’re at “the roast of Paul,” and Shelby warns that she “will have something bitchy to say at some point, so keep it up.” She adds, “I’m serious about it though. Don’t say that kind of stuff to me. I’ll get pissed.”As for what stuff Shelby is referring to, that has to have been left on the cutting room floor. Is Shelby angry that Paul joked that he’s getting roasted? That’s literally the last thing that he said aloud. Whatever — weird editing aside, the point is clear: Shelby does not like Paul.

It’s not like Micah didn’t see this coming. She tells Paul right away that Shelby has “single-handedly” ended a number of her relationships (Shelby also tells Paul that dating Micah is “a skill”).

“A lot of my friends are really protective over me,” Micah confirmed to Decider. “Doing this experiment, I was really putting myself out there and they didn’t want to see me get hurt. I think they didn’t want me to have a failed marriage. They didn’t want it, down the line, not to work. Me and Paul are pretty different, so I think they were a little bit unsure.”

“A little bit unsure” is an understatement, but it’s definitely a correct way of describing Shelby and, to a lesser extent, Micayla’s attitude towards Micah’s fiancé. Things don’t end on a positive note, either. When the producers pull Shelby and Micayla aside to ask them about their take on Paul, they disagree with each other Siskel and Ebert style.

The serious music kicks in and Shelby very dramatically tells Micayla and Micah, in intercut scenes, that Micah is her “best friend in the entire world” and she needs more from Paul. She tells Micah, while crying, her hands holding Micah’s face, “I just feel like this wasn’t meant for you. You’re meant to have the most spectacular everything. You’re Micah. I think you deserve better. You’re meant to have the best wedding of your life. You’re meant to have all this, and this isn’t it.”

We’ll have to wait for the next episodes to drop to find out if Shelby has really rattled Micah’s love for Paul. In the meantime, let this be a lesson: always meet your new partner’s friends at brunch.

New episodes of Love Is Blind will be added to Netflix on Friday, April 7.