“Love Is Blind”’s Haramol Admits He Wanted to Reach Out to Jess ‘Immediately’ After Leaving the Pods (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Haramol Gill and Jessica Barrett open up to PEOPLE about reconnecting after meeting in the pods in Love Is Blind season 10

• Jessica initially got engaged to Chris Fusco, but when they split due to his lack of physical attraction to her, Haramol says he reached back out

• She jokes that she didn’t realize her first time hanging out with Haramol was a date until he confessed his feelings to her

Love Is Blind‘s Haramol Gill always knew he saw a future with Jessica Barrett.

At the season 10 reunion of the Netflix hit, the pair revealed that they were dating after first meeting on the show. While viewers did not see much of their journey, the duo open up to PEOPLE in a new interview about their connection — and explain that they briefly dated while in the pods.

“I think the timeline’s always kind of interesting, because a lot happens in a very, very short period of time, and sometimes it looks like something is really, really long,” Haramol notes. “So I started reaching out, honestly, almost immediately. My plan was, as soon as I got out of the pods, to reach out to her. And then I found out that she was engaged, and I just waited maybe a week, and then all of a sudden, I heard from the grapevine that it didn’t go the way she wanted it to.”

While Jessica, an infectious disease physician, thought she found love with ex-fiancé Chris Fusco, their relationship came to an end when they moved in together and he confessed that he didn’t feel a physical or intimate attraction to her.

“In the normal world, I date people who do f—ing CrossFit and s—. Somebody who works out all the time, and has a different type of…” he said in the scene. “A different type of body?” Jessica chimed in, finishing his sentence.

“Just somebody who does f—ing, like, Pilates every day, or someone who’s working out every day,” Chris continued. “I just don’t know if it’s there for me physically.”

Haramol says that once he found out Jessica was single again, they rekindled things.

“That’s when it all started as far as us communicating and talking and things like that,” he explains. “So I think it’s been a year since that whole thing happened, and so we’ve been talking and working through things and figuring it out for the last year.”

The first time they met up, Haramol — also a doctor, specializing in emergency medicine — initiated the plan, and Jessica admits she had no idea that he intended for it to be a date going into it.

“I still thought that he just wanted to be friends with me,” she quips. “I just thought we were hanging out, until he basically said a couple of hours in. Because I had just been yapping about work and stupid stuff, and then he was like, ‘That’s not why I’m here,’ and just made it very clear what he wanted and how he felt.”

Going into the relationship, Jessica adds that she wasn’t able to look back on her dynamic with Chris and learn from it going forward. Still, she says she knew that she deserved better.

“It was really important to me that I highlighted the fact that had this been several years ago, I would not have handled it as well as I did,” Jessica shares. “What happened between then and now is just a lot of self-work, a lot of positive self-talk and recognizing that I would never treat someone I love poorly, I would never speak poorly about them or to them, and so I needed to give some of that grace to myself.”

“It sounds like common sense, it sounds almost kind of cheesy, but when you really put it into practice as a job to take care of yourself and care for yourself and give yourself grace and love, it really radically changes the way you live,” she continues.

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Since reconnecting with Haramol, Jessica says he has fulfilled everything she is looking for in a partner and more.

“I think the thing that I admire most about Haramol is how much he cares about other people,” she says. “Not just me and not just in this romantic setting, but he’s just so kind and he genuinely cares about other people, and I love that.”

For now, they are enjoying the present moment and not focusing too much on what’s to come.

“We’re both very committed to each other and making sure we’re doing well,” Haramol says. “I think good things will come from that. So no big plans as far as the future goes, but I think that’s how it should be.”

Love Is Blind season 10 is streaming now on Netflix.

Read the original article on People