Jax From Love Is Blind Didn't Completely Ghost Stew: ‘The First Person I Reached Out to Was Him’

Warning: spoilers for Love Is Blind season 11, episodes 1—5, ahead.

Jacqueline “Jax” Guelli had just come out of a three-year on-and-off relationship when she applied to be on the Boston-based season of Love Is Blind. “I was hesitant at first,” Jax tells Glamour after pulling an all-nighter to watch the first round of episodes on October 14. "I remember sitting at my friend's dining room table, and I was like, 'I'm applying!' and then they called and I thought, 'Oh God, I don't know if I can do this.'”

And yet, she took a leap of faith and found a match in 34-year-old Scott “Stew” Stewart, a Connecticut-born engineering director who guessed her dream engagement ring and shared a mutual love for Phantom of the Opera. Things couldn't have been going better—until he revealed he'd never been in love.

“I was like, ah, there it is. You're not Prince Charming," Jax says of that first red flag. "It's just kind of something I've dealt with a lot, unfortunately. I love a challenge, but I'm 31 now. I'm tired. I don't want to change people anymore—or try to.”

Still, Jax felt they had too much in common to completely abandon the experiment, despite her concerns over Stew's apparent commitment issues. After all, she never expected to fall in love in the pods anyway. “I was more checking the boxes to be like, okay, this is a really good match. When we meet, the rest will come,” she says. “I didn't want to say I love you through a wall. I really wanted to wait to meet him and feel that in real life.”

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But when it came time to meet her fiancé in person, those feelings she'd hoped for never came. After a panic-inducing first encounter (at least, on Jax's end), the skincare founder left producers to tell Stew she was leaving the show. “I do think I handled it immaturely in a way,” she says. “I regret that, and he deserved better. He deserved to have a conversation.”

Unlike many former Love Is Blind contestants, Jax didn't need to watch the show to recognize her mistakes. “When I got my phone back, the first person I reached out to was him,” she says. As we wait to see how their reunion plays out next week, Glamour spoke to Jax about where things went wrong, what she messaged Stew after ghosting, and more.

Glamour: How does it feel to finally have your season of Love Is Blind out there?

Jacqueline “Jax” Guelli: We filmed it a year and a half ago, so it almost feels numb. You've thought about this for so long, and then it's finally here. It's weird. It's like watching your friends on YouTube or something. It doesn't feel like you're watching a TV show.

Watching it back, did it play out how you remember it?

I actually stayed up last night and at like three a.m. I started watching it because I was like, I'm not gonna sleep. It's exactly how I remember it in some ways, like all the conversations you weirdly remember like a dream or something.

Does anything feel different?

My reveal [with Stew]. It felt like it was just zooming by me. Now when I sit and watch it, I'm like, Jax, you should have like taken a breath and thought about this instead of just going into flight mode.

To rewind a bit first, what was your first impression of Stew?

I thought he was very charismatic—a very big personality—and I'm attracted to that, and he could really carry the conversation. I like being able to sit back more and listen. That's how I kind of saw our dates going.

How did you feel about the Gaston monologue in one of his confessionals?

He's very interesting and entertaining, and I do like that type of man. Nobody else in the pods was like that, and I was really drawn to that. I think he's highly intellectual, so when he gets nervous he acts like that. I think he wants to be charming and stuff because he's an amazing person, and I don't think the camera captured that. I've given him grace for that. I was the same way. I've said stuff that I was like, “Oh my God.”

What was the first red flag?

Definitely when he said he's never been in love. I was like, okay, let's pump the brakes here. The next question was, have you had a long relationship? It didn't seem like he had. So then, I was just kind of spiraling on all these thoughts. Like, okay, is he serious about marriage? Is he ready? If he's never been in love, how will he know if I'm the right one? It takes experience to know that. So it's a little alarming.

Did you consider leaving after that date?

No, I really thought there was too much of a connection or too much that I had seen already, and I wanted to meet him, thinking, “Wow, who wouldn't want to be someone's first love?” I thought, you know, I'm here. This is my first time doing this, and that's a one in a million chance. Maybe this is right. Maybe this is what he needs.

Was there something we didn't see that you wished we had?

Yes, there was a really special moment that was crazy. For his gift, he gave me a gurgling cod from Shreve, Crump & Low. It's a New England thing, but it's a vase shaped like a cod. When you pour water out of it, it gurgles. My aunt, who I was very close with, had passed away four years prior, and that was her gift whenever someone got engaged. My aunt gave me mine before she passed. She was sick, so she said, “I'm not going to be able to give this to you. Here is your gurgling cod.” Nobody knows that. Only my family.

So when I opened the box, and it was a big gurgling cod, I broke down and was like, “This is insane.” We both really love Phantom of the Opera. And he knew my ring, which I know is so silly, but this has been on my vision board for so long. That was incredible to me, at least. That's when I started to feel deeper things.

He didn't know about your emotional connection to the gurgling cod though, right?

No one does.

So, was it more of a sign to you than something he actually did for you with that context?

Yeah, it was completely random, and I was like, “How is this possible?” It was emotional for me, but they didn't show that. There was a list of other things that we connected on that I kept going back to when I got doubts. Like, we can work on the commitment issues. There's something happening here.

At first I thought your in-person reveal was going well, but then there was a big mood shift. When was the exact moment you realized the relationship wasn't going to work?

The whole thing overall was very intense, and he's a very intense person, so the combination of both…I kind of blacked out, in a way. I think I had a panic attack. When we sat down, it was even more intense for me because I was like, “Oh God, what do we talk about? We just talked for 10 days.”

He kind of came off a little more intense and wasn't picking up that I was really nervous. I just kept saying, “Oh, this is so weird. This is so weird.” When I got out of there, I was incredibly overwhelmed, and I was like, I gotta go, I gotta go. I genuinely regret that. He deserves better.

Was there anything about him, specifically, that threw you off in that moment beyond your own internal battle?

It was not about his looks. That's so black and white. I'm not like that. I think it was the intensity. Through a wall, you obviously don't get that as much. I knew he was theatrical, but then just putting it all together, it was a lot in that moment. We had just gotten engaged and gone through this incredible connection, but the physical was not matching up to me in that moment. It kind of freaked me out. There's no other way to explain it.

When he said the guys called him Kennedy, and you say, “You're more Romney.” What did that mean?

He kind of looks like he would be like one of the Romney sons. I thought it was cocky when he said that, and I thought he could maybe be taken down a notch. I was like, “Who says that? And then brings it up again?” Like, of course, I had heard that. Like, I knew.

Watching [everything] back, I was like, “Oh my God, this guy thinks he's like so attractive, calling himself Jude Law.” I kind of want to talk about me a little bit. What do you think about me? He said all these really nice things in his interview. Like, “Oh, she's everything I could have imagined.” But I wanted to hear that, especially after a proposal that wasn't that romantic. I was like, maybe this is the moment that I will get this romantic thing, and it will be about me. And it really wasn't about me, and that also threw me off. Like, “Oh my God, this is not my person.”

I was wondering how you felt about the proposal. It felt like it started from a sincere emotional place, and then he kind of took the wind out of his own sails with the jokes.

God, you are so right. It's so funny because when I watched it back, I was like, “Wow, he starts really strong.” I loved that. And then, it took a turn and it was back to silliness. I just thought it would be more about us, and not in a superficial way, and maybe about me because we had just met. Like, “I like your humor, your smarts…whatever. I can see us going through life together, the good and the bad.” It had nothing to do with that. It was like, “What Hamptons house do you like?” I could have had that years ago. You want your person to say, why me? You know?

Why do you think he had such a different interpretation of how that reveal went?

I think a little bit of it is my fault because I kind of doubled down there. I wasn't taking accountability and being like, “This is how I'm feeling right now. I'm freaking out.” I didn't want to do that either because that would open a hole. Like, I don't know what would happen. I just wanted to get out of there. I do think I steered him the wrong way, and that's why. Because I don't even think he thought it was awkward.

We see at the end of episode five that you two do end up meeting up again. What brought that on?

When I got my phone back, the first person I reached out to was him. I said, “I'm so sorry. I would love to talk to you back in Boston.” I had gotten his number through one of the other cast members through Instagram that I knew he was friends with in the pods.

We just wanted to meet and clear the air. Now that I had some time to think about things and get back to real life and organize my thoughts, I could talk to him like a normal person. So I'm excited to see that too because it's been a long time.

What's one word you'd use to describe the conversation we'll see next week?

It was friendly and fun. I think you'll see there's that connection…I don't know how much I can say. I feel like I'm like teetering on lines.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. The next two episodes of Love Is Blind season 11 hit Netflix on October 21.