At any rate, in “Age of Attraction” a flock of heterosexual people decamp to a forest lodge to meet other contestants who might be 21 years old or might be 59 — the only rule is that the relationship seekers cannot directly ask anyone else their age. Nobody, including viewers, learns exact birth dates unless a couple decides to go exclusive and make a trip to the “promise room,” where they declare feelings, declare ages and then decide whether they want to move forward to a cohabitation trial. And this is where I need to make something explicitly clear:

I had first assumed, in reading promotional materials, that this was going to be a “Love is Blind” situation, i.e. arranged so contestants could not meet face to face. Perhaps AutoTune would be involved, to remove younger contestants’ vocal fry or older contestants’ middle-aged gravel? I assumed there would be lots of careful protocols to ensure age-blind dating.

But. No. These people all get off the plane, in full view of each other. And then they do all the dating in person. And while they are doing all the dating, with functioning eyeballs, they are saying things like: “When you tell people your age, they put a stigma to that. It should be about my vibe, my energy.”

And you think, hmmkay, lady, but your vibe and energy are fully 54 years old. Which is a fantastic age, but nobody in their right mind would mistakenly think your birth year began with a 20– or even a 199-. So how exactly is this experiment going to work?

Let’s meet some of the men.

Suitor #1: “My age range is evil. No one is safe. I could date you, or your mom, or I’m open to both.”

Suitor #2: “I am a young, hot dad. I want to have fun. I’m not ready to grow and get boring.”

Every suitor who is desperately trying to verify he’s talking to a 20-something but doesn’t want to look creepy: “I BET YOU LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT. I TOO AM SWIFTIE. FRIENDSHIP NECKLACE.”

Why has everyone come here? Because dating the traditional way wasn’t working for them. Because in dating apps, “most guys don’t put their range up to my age,” one frustrated woman explains. Because it was a free vacation? Because daddy issues. Some of the contestants probably have arrived wholesomely, interested in just going with the flow. These are not the contestants we will spend the most time with. “My mom had me when she was 19,” one heavy-lidded Lothario explains. So while he’s looking for a potential older girlfriend, “she has to be hotter than my mom.” [Distressed dolphin sounds.]

Repeatedly we are told that the wildest thing about this experiment is that, whoa, nobody has any idea how old anybody really is! But, and I cannot stress this enough, everybody in this show looks exactly the age they are. Nobody should be fooling anyone. The older people have crows feet. The younger people have baby fat. The middle people know the lyrics to the Spice Girls.

There is nothing wrong whatsoever with a grown-up dating any other grown-up who will have them. (I am already anticipating emails from 51-year-old gentlemen loudly explaining that it’s not their fault that they are attracted exclusively to 23-year-olds, and yes, I am specifically addressing you, Leonardo DiCaprio.) I’m just saying, once I read a news story about two optimistic criminals who believed that if they rubbed their faces with lemon juice, cameras couldn’t capture their likenesses, so they robbed a bank naked-faced thinking they were successfully passing as invisible, and this show repeatedly felt like that.

Am I losing my mind?

Let’s check in on 27-year-old Vanelle, who is torn between Justin, a sweet, attractive elder millennial wondering whether fatherhood is still in the cards, and Jorge, who those of us older than 27 can immediately tell is a total clownstick.

She ends up picking Jorge, hoping he’s less than a decade her senior because her parents would disapprove of anyone older (Vanelle, this man is clearly 60), and wondering whether Jorge might be interested in kids one day (Babe, he’s clearly 60), and marveling that he seems to know what he wants in life (Because! He’s! Clearly! Sixty!). They go to the promise room, where Vanelle reveals that she wants to remain celibate until marriage. Jorge reveals that he is 60.

Then the troubles start. Vanelle asks Jorge if he wants kids, and he says maybe, without mentioning that he already has two grown kids. Vanelle asks him whether he’ll be cool with her celibacy plan; he says absolutely and then a few days later starts pressuring her for sex. We’ve got more flags than an embassy, and all of them are red, but Vanelle can’t seem to see them.

And that is the point where, I am sorry to say, “Age of Attraction” starts to make sense. Because we, sitting in our living rooms, can absolutely tell that Jorge gets to order from the cheap menu at IHOP. But those dopes at the lodge can’t tell anything because when you start to fall for someone, love makes you an a moron. You miss the red flags. You overlook the obvious difficulties. (We could use a surrogate, a 50-something woman suggests to her younger lover, trying to convince them both that she, who has already raised three children, would be up for joint-launching motherhood and menopause.)