Love Is Blind’s Tyler on Why He Warned His Fiancée About People from His Past Claiming He’s ‘Not Nice’ (Exclusive)

Warning: this story contains spoilers from episodes 1-6 of Love Is Blind season 7.

Love Is Blind‘s Tyler Francis is not making excuses for his past.

In the latest batch of episodes from season 7 of the Netflix hit, Tyler warned fiancée Ashley Adionser about what people from his past would say about him.

“It’s a great point to meet me [now] cause you would’ve hated me,” he told her during the scene in Mexico. “I was just like, ‘Oh, you’re cute, wanna go on a date?’ Just prepare [for] people [to] be like, ‘He is not that nice.’ Like, nah, I just wasn’t nice to y’all. I didn’t give them a reason to be nice.”

Ashley, 32, brushed it off, saying, “There’s nothing that no one can tell me” to change her mind about her fiancé but Tyler, 34, claimed, “You never know who comes out of the woodworks.”

Now, the two are opening up to PEOPLE in separate interviews about their conversation — and why Tyler felt it necessary to share this information with Ashley.

“Just because I was in a bubble before her. So anyone that I dated, the slightest interest of not being serious, I was okay with cutting people off,” Tyler says. “I am at a point in my age where I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time, so it could come off as mean or cold.”

“I just wanted to let her know that’s the person I was but I came here to find love and prior to, I was trying to,” the account manager continues. “But of course dating is hard in itself, so I just wasn’t into wasting people’s time. And I may have come off cold and I just want to let her know, ‘Hey, there are people that may be like, ah, he’s an a——.’ No, I’m just honest, honestly.”

As for Ashley, she says Tyler’s admission about his past indicated that he was simply “self-aware.”

“The whole point of coming into this experiment is to jump in with both feet and accept someone for who they are. So when Tyler did say something like, ‘Oh, some people may not say that I’m nice,’ I’m like, ‘You are amazing to me. You’re the sweetest person. How could someone not think that you’re nice?’ I was shocked by that,” she recalls.

“He did go into detail where he said he used to work long hours and he wouldn’t be the most pleasant person after that and things like that,” Ashley continues. “That’s self-aware to me. I think everyone comes with something and I think the good part is recognizing it and realizing the person you want to evolve to be. So no red flags.”

Tyler and Ashley hit it off in the season 7 pods before getting engaged sight unseen. After their reveal, the two jetted off to Mexico for a couple’s getaway.

So far, things have been going smoothly for the pair, but only time will tell if they remain as strong when they return home to Washington, D.C., and have to integrate their lives as an engaged couple.

By the end of the three-week experiment, Tyler and Ashley will have to determine if love is truly blind by saying yes to each other at the altar and getting married, or walking away forever.

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Episodes 1-6 of Love Is Blind season 7 are now streaming on Netflix, and episodes 7-9 will drop Wednesday, Oct. 9.