This story contains spoilers for season two of Nobody Wants This.

If there’s one thing Nobody Wants This understands better than other current on-screen romances, it’s that we’re a society obsessed with love for all the wrong reasons. We’ve all been sold on the fantasy that finding “The One” will magically solve all our problems, but the complicated realities of being in a long-term relationship are often swept under the rug in romantic media. This series, however, exists solely to put those narratively inconvenient complexities on full display. The show’s new and second season explores what happens when two new lovers rush their way past the “honeymoon phase” and slowly start to realize that being with each other hasn’t had the fantastical effect they seemed to think it would.

Throughout the course of the season, Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody) continually convince themselves they’re on track for marriage and babies while staring down several gaping cracks in the foundation of their relationship, primarily their differences in religious faith and some deep-seated intimacy and communication issues. While those problems rightfully sit front and center in the season’s dialogue, I saw another quieter and very relatable one lurking in several passing moments: Joanne’s self-image. If you’re anything like me—someone who watches everything through the lens of beauty and body image—you might have observed the same underlying message that I did while watching Nobody Wants This season two: That being in love doesn’t magically erase insecurities about looks that have always been there.

I think plenty of women, when we’re single and maybe a little bit immature and too entrenched in romcoms and fanfiction (hi, it’s me), convince ourselves that once we’re with the right person, we’ll finally stop obsessing over our weight or our wrinkles or the thickness of our hair—this persona loving you will make you so confident and secure that your self-esteem will go through the roof. I’d argue the writers of Nobody Wants This are aware of this unrealistic internal narrative and might be trying to put those clichéd notions to rest. In the process, they also end up highlighting the very real ways women turn to beauty in times of emotional crisis or confusion. Because, more disappointing news, falling in love doesn’t absolve you from the other inevitable stresses of life, whether they come from your family, your job, your living situation, or elsewhere.

Not even two minutes into the first episode of the season, for instance, Joanne does a literal beauty balancing act: Just as she’s settling into bed while staying at Noah’s, she precariously perches a bottle of Estée Lauder Night Repair Serum (fancy!) on top of a book that’s balanced on top a water carafe that sits on top of another book that covers the entirety of a tiny side table she’s forced to keep her things on because there’s no nightstand on her side of the bed. (Also among her things: Magnesium supplements, hand cream, her iPhone, and a rather luxurious-looking sleep mask.)

Then she slides into bed while Noah confirms some details of their first-ever co-hosting endeavor, a dinner party that would sound a lot more fun if their voices weren’t strained with the looming pressure they clearly feel to throw a perfect party and come off as the perfect couple to their friends. The entire time, Joanne is passing a jade roller back and forth across her jawline in such an absentminded way that I have to wonder why she’s going to the effort at all.

There are several other fleeting beauty-centric moments throughout the season. Like when Joanne frowns while examining her neck in her selfie camera moments before meeting with Morgan to have a tense conversation about a fight they had (which revolved around—you guessed it—their respective boyfriends). In one episode, Noah becomes a little avoidant of Joanne, and there's a whole montage of her spending a night at home alone, putting on a sheet mask and drinking a glass of wine before sitting down to stare at her phone, waiting for him to respond to her texts.

These moments aren’t exclusive to Joanne, by the way. All season long, Esther questions her marriage and embarks on a bit of a self-rediscovery journey, which leads her to get bangs along the way. Morgan and Joanne are seen fixing each other’s hair or inspecting their faces in bathroom mirrors in several scenes, usually following socially awkward or tense moments like a disastrous double-date or a run-in with a frenemy.

On the surface, these moments don’t read like anything meaningful. Taken out of context, they seem like simple reflections of real women’s lives: Yes, we do skin care before bed and touch up our makeup in public and sometimes catch a wrinkle in the mirror that we wish weren’t there. But when you consider the timing of all of these moments—specifically in times when a character’s emotional stability is under threat or things just aren't going as they'd planned—they read very differently. They illustrate that policing our own appearances is often our first reflex when things get stressful or we feel like we're losing control over our lives, which I couldn’t relate to more.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t count how many times I’ve dyed my hair or gotten a drastic haircut because I felt so stressed that I just wanted to start fresh (new look, new me, yadda yadda yadda). Or looked in the mirror at the end of a particularly bad day and subconsciously pinpointed a bunch of changes I’d like to make to my face or body. I’m years into the most loving and stable relationship I’ve ever had, by the way, and that instinct hasn’t faltered like I thought it would years ago, before I'd been in any relationship.

Contrary to the fantasy I'd bought into, falling in love didn’t magically turn me into a better version of myself. It didn’t cure me of any of my insecurities—physical or emotional—and it didn’t absolve me of the pressure all women face to look “perfect” at all times (though it’s helpful and healing to have a partner I can openly discuss those things with). But not even the purest of love can do that. Those are self-worth issues you have to face head-on and sometimes by yourself. I’m certainly still working on that, and I might always be. But maybe if Nobody Wants This had come out when I was younger, I might never have become convinced that love cures all to begin with.