A clean break. After their Love Is Blind season 3 split, Nancy Rodriguez and Bartise Bowden attempted to remain platonic pals — to no avail.
“We made it very clear that we were romantically done,” Nancy, 32, exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the release of Netflix’s Love Is Blind: After The Altar, which dropped on Friday, February 10. “And I think that’s something that, like, there’s like a blurry line there because it’s like, ‘OK, so what does that mean?’ Like, we’re friends or we’re trying to be friends, so do we check in on each other? Sure. Like, ‘Hey, hope you have a good week. I’ll see you Friday,’ ’cause there’s like a group event happening.”
The speech pathologist — who noted that she “really did try to be friends” with her ex — even asked Bartise, 27, if he would be comfortable seeing her bring a date to a mutual pal’s party and vice versa.
“So … we were communicating in the point of like, ‘Hey, we are each other’s ex-fiancé,’ and ‘Yes, we had a wedding day,’ but like, we are moving on and we’re trying to do it without blurring the lines of what’s disrespectful [and] what’s not,” Nancy recalled to Us. “So I think that’s the maturity level that — at that time [and] in that phase — that we were trying to be friends. We were trying to really be considerate of each other.”
However, the real estate investor was quick to realize that Bartise was “not being the best” friend to her.
“I think me realizing that, as the year went by, there were just too many attempts of him trying to be a good friend that don’t align with what a good friend is,” Nancy claimed, revealing that the analyst barely spoke to her at a Halloween party that she hosted. “Once he came [inside] with [his new girlfriend], it was just him acting very odd. He said hi to me when he walked in the door … and I never heard or saw him again. When I did see him, they were, like, making out in the living room. [It was] just little things that I’m just like, ‘Sir, like, this is my Halloween party. Like, what are you doing?’”
Nancy, who later told the Perfect Match personality that she felt “disrespected” by his actions, eventually started to put more space between her and Bartise. Once she realized that her former flame wasn’t providing what she needed out of a friendship, she cut their ties.
“I really was such a people pleaser [in my twenties] and it was always, ‘Yes,’ it was always like, ‘I will break my back for whoever, like, needs my help.’ And so, so much of this last two years … since Love is Blind, is that I’ve truly tried to find out where my boundaries are [and] hold them strong,” Nancy told Us. “And that in itself is very empowering to me because it’s, like, if I don’t want it, it’s not gonna happen [and] if I do want it, then I’m gonna do my best to try to make it happen.”
During After the Altar, fellow season 3 stars Colleen Reed and Zanab Jaffrey confronted Bartise on behalf of their friend, telling him that they believed Nancy should “cut” off their communication.
The Texas resident has since closed their chapter, telling Us that she doesn’t miss their friendship.
“I don’t wanna be shady, but like, no, it really didn’t do anything for me,” Nancy said. “Like, looking back, … I struggled with the heartbreak and so then after the heartbreak, like, we never hung out one-on-one [a lot]. It was always in group environments. … So overall, like, do I miss being his friend? No, I don’t think that I do because I’ve had so many more other positive experiences with myself and other people that you kind of have to boot what didn’t work to the side and work on the things that are working for me.”
Bartise, for his part, will attempt to find love again on Netflix’s Perfect Match — and Nancy hopes he’ll be successful. The businesswoman has also started putting herself out there again and is using the mobile app Chispa — the No. 1 dating app for Latinx individuals in the United States — to find The One.
“I am dating,” Nancy teased to Us earlier this month. “When I got to the point where I tried to slow down in my career, I wanted to make dating more intentional, so I joined the Chispa app because it is based off of finding singles and putting us together when we have similar cultural backgrounds. That is something that is so powerful [because] I love my culture … so the fact that I can relate to someone [and] date someone who gets it [appeals to me].”
Love Is Blind: After the Altar season 3 is currently streaming on Netflix.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
