If you’re anything like us, Love Is Blind: After the Altar left you with more questions than answers by the end of it. While some stories ended abruptly, cast member (and for the record, our fave) Deepti Vempati has released her book I Choose Myself to fill us in on all our unanswered questions and give an unfiltered look into her life.
Here’s everything we learnt from Deepti Vempati’s book I Choose Myself…
@cosmopolitanme توجهوا الى موقعنا لقراءة المزيد: cosmopolitanme.com ❤️ #booktok #bookrecommendations ♬ all too well 10 min version sped up – bia (taylor’s version)
Moving to America
She revealed how she moved to America at the age of eight from her hometown Hyderabad, India. “I was just getting comfortable at my school in India and enjoying my friends, dancing, tennis, and family. And all of that was about to change,” Deepti wrote. “But even with these fears, I was still hopeful. I think at eight, I didn’t realize what I was about to gain: a new place to explore, new habits to create, and new types of people to meet.”
On Whitewashing
Deepti mentioned having a “whitewashing mindset” when she was in the sixth grade, where she started to adapt to a mindset that was “more reflective of American values than her family’s values”. She opened up about her insecurities about her accent and physical features while comparing herself to other classmates.
“Day after day, I found myself wishing I looked and sounded whiter. I still found school challenging, and now I had the added pressure of my parents wanting me to do well enough to get into advanced classes,” she said. “While my parents wanted me to do well in school, all I wanted to do was to focus on my crushes and making friends to fit in.”
About her struggles with bulimia and anorexia
Speaking of her decision to lose weight through a healthy routine, Deepti looks back on her battle with bulimia and anorexia. “I use the words’ bulimia and anorexia because I recognize now that these are the categories my actions fall under,” she stated. “My old mindset was that if I just didn’t eat, then I would lose weight. This was the unhealthiest way of thinking because, after a few days of this behaviour, I would feel low from my lack of nourishment.”
Natalie was the first person she met from Love is Blind
Upon travelling to LA for Netflix’s reality TV show, Deepti spoke to another woman on the flight whom she later figured was going to be on Love is Blind and it was indeed Natalie. (Yep, they casually lied to each other about why they were travelling and figured it out later.)
Her first choice wasn’t Shake
Shocking? Deepti revealed that on her first dates, Sal was her #1 followed up by Shayne and Kyle being her second and third choice. She wrote, “My dates with Kyle were quite memorable and fun. He was easygoing and didn’t take himself too seriously. He was constantly burping and farting. This spoke to his silly nature. Those were the dates I enjoyed—the ones filled with goofiness and witty banter paired with deep conversations about life.”
How the dating process at Love is Blind is really like..
If you’re wondering what the uncut scenes for the dating experiment are, then you’re in luck. Deepti shared how a few people left the show at the beginning after not finding love which gave way for the remaining ten men and women to spend two hours with their top four people every day.
She shared, “We all had diaries with our names on them. At the end of each day, we would rank the men based on preference, and they did the same. And, every morning, we got our diaries back with a schedule attached of times and the location of what pod we’d be in. Sometimes, there would be fun games in the pods.
This was to ensure that we could partake in various activities with our person, just like in real life. It simulates the same experience as a real date; we just couldn’t see each other.”
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Shake and *that* question
Recap to when Shake asked , “Would it be a problem to lift you on my shoulders?” on his date and Deepti said, “I don’t know; are you strong enough to lift me on your shoulders?”
Deepti shared that Shake didn’t really like that answer and went out of this way to figure out how she looked IRL. “He took great concern with that response. So much so that he asked another guy, Vito, from the show about me. Vito was another cast member who coincidentally went to the same college as me.
Because we knew each other, we didn’t have a second date. Shake asked him, “Hey, you went to the same college as Deeps; what does she look like?” To which Vito responded, “Oh, she had a glow-up. That’s all I’ll say.””
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Shake’s behaviour off-screen
Remember during the reunion when the cast said that what we’ve seen on the show was a watered-down version? Shake further made three women cry during his dates *and* called someone “stuck up” after a woman wanted to end the date early when she felt they didn’t have a connection.
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During the cast’s bachelorette parties, Deepti mentioned how she was made aware of a lot of things that Shake had said to other cast members, with one instance of Jarrette warning her of Shake’s comments in Mexico.
Being closest to Caitlin from Love is Blind
Deepti said she met up with Caitlin in Chicago after the reality TV show and how the friendship was special to her. “She wasn’t there to get the inside scoop. She was there for me; it was easy to see that she cared. We didn’t need to only talk about the show or what happened. There were other important aspects to life too. This friendship was special to me. I saw the type of person she was and decided that this was someone I wanted in my life,” she said.
Breaking up with Kyle
Although we didn’t get to really see their relationship on-screen and have now broken up. Deepti shared why they decided to split, “We had experienced beautiful moments of joy, intimacy, and adventures together, but very quickly, things started to change between us. This was when I realized that although we had been spending lots of time together, we weren’t really talking about the important stuff that helps make a relationship last.”
She continued, “We didn’t communicate our wants, love languages, or habits that made us happy. We both needed to vocalize what we wanted, and, in my view, Kyle wanted to be single to explore other options and figure out what he wanted.
I wanted to be in a relationship with someone who had the same mindset, goals, and aspirations as I did. We were on completely different pages. It was easier to end things and remain friends than try to mend this mess.”
To purchase a copy of Deepti Vempati’s book ‘I Choose Myself’, click here.