Baby, You Look Good To Me Tonight - Love In The Tri-State
This episode, themed around Valentine's Day, focuses on modern dating experiences.
My guests are Amy and Ben, who share their personal dating stories and backgrounds.
Ben discusses his experiences using dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, finding varying levels of success and challenges.
Amy talks about her experiences with Facebook dating and the importance of mutual friend connections for vetting potential matches.
Our conversation covers the pros and cons of dating apps, including challenges like catfishing and ghosting. I share my own experience of meeting my husband on MySpace, highlighting changes in dating over time.
We talk about the importance of communication, honesty, and mutual interests in successful relationships.
We also touch on the lack of local events for singles and the need for more social opportunities in the Tri-State area.
And we all agree on the value of friendships and not rushing into relationships, advocating for personal happiness and growth.
This episode is sponsored by Alex R. White, PLLC.
If you have a memory you would want me to talk more about, just send me an email at TSTM@mail.com. Or post a comment on the Tri-State Machine FB Group page.
Welcome to the Tri-State Time Machine.
I'm your host Vanessa Hankins. This is a podcast where my guests and I share our memories and present day stories of the Tri-State Area. That's West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.
Nothing too serious, no political views, and no ulterior motives.
We're just here to share our fun stories about this great area.
Whether you're a past resident or a current Tri-State resident, I think you're going to have fun with us.
So join in, press play on your podcast player, and welcome to the Tri-State Time Machine!
Music from #Uppbeat - https://uppbeat.io/t/moire/new-life - License code: LWJEODYBFWYH73TR
https://ts-time-machine.captivate.fm/episode/baby-you-look-good-to-me-tonight-love-in-the-tri-state
Copyright 2025 Vanessa Hankins
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
Transcript
This is the Tri-State Time Machine brought to you by Alex R. White, PLLC, at suedistractedriver. Com. Each week, your host, Vanessa Hankins, and her guests share memories and stories about the past, the present, and the future of the tri-state area. That's West Virginia, Kentucky, and the Ohio areas. If you used to live here or you currently live here, you're going to catch yourself saying out loud, Wow, I remember that. Now, Now, here's Vanessa.
[:This episode is going to be a tad different than what you guys are used to. Today, we're putting a spin on Life in Huntington, and we are talking and having fun with February being known for Valentine's Day and All Things Love. Our guests are going to share with us stories on dating in this modern world. With that, I welcome you to the show, and I welcome our guests as well. Amy and Ben, welcome to Tri-State Time Machine. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. I'm sorry to have you guys out so early. For those listening at home, it's 8: 30 in the morning, and we're here recording because our schedules were conflicting. We all work different hours. We're here at the crack of dawn jumping right in. I'm going to let you guys, Ben, I'll let you go first, introduce yourself a little bit about what you do in your background.
[:Okay. My name is Ben Wheeler. I'm a Hunting resident. I grew up in Wayne County in West Maryland, went to Spring Valley, and Marshall. I graduated Marshall a few years ago.
[:You're like full You're a local. You've done all the things local.
[:I was going to say I work at WSAZ, and a lot of people there aren't from Huntington. I noticed that. It's like a group of different areas.
[:There's a lot of Pittsburgh people there. I've noticed that, too. Not to interrupt you and go on a tangent here, but we were in a meeting for leadership that was held at WSAZ, and I was astounded at the amount of people that were not local working there, and a lot of them were from Pittsburgh. I thought that was crazy.
[:Yeah, it's It's nice where I saw my cameraman. I do photo journalism there, and a lot of my stuff is going out with reporters, and most of them aren't from here. They're like, Oh, well, you're from Hunting, so you can tell me where to go or where's a good spot to set up. Right. Being from around here is nice because you get a whole idea of what's going on in the city. For sure. Working at a job like that where so many people look for what you're doing and it's nice to learn from what you're doing as well as giving out to other people. That's just a little bit about me. I also do photography on the side. I haven't had a chance.
[:Well, I was going to say I was creeping on you the day before yesterday, preparing for the episode, and you have some really great photographs. You've got a real good skillset.
[:I love taking photos. To me, if I can capture a memory for somebody, they can have that forever. To me, it's like, Oh, it's awesome. It's just another way to connect with people. It helped me with my job. It It's a little weird because doing photos, it's just stills. I go to WSAZ and it's fully video. It's like I have this whole gap that I need to fill. But with my schedule where we're meeting so early, I don't have the time to go out and do those shoots because a lot of it's during the evening.
[:When the sun's setting. Yeah, and I'm working. I get that.
[:My window is small, but I still like to do it.
[:Well, it's important to have hobbies, I think, and especially if you can be successful with those hobbies. I think that is human nature that brings us joy that we can't get from anyone else besides ourselves. So that interest, bro. Amy. Amy Joe. I was just telling Amy, like when I write down her name, I always say Amy, and now I'm doing it on purpose because my head is playing mind tricks on me. But this is Amy Jo, and I'm going to have her introduce you or introduce herself.
[:Good morning. My name is Amy Stowasser. I do go by Amy Jo, especially casually. Professionally, I stick with Amy for the best part. I am 49 years old. I am a tri-state native. I've grown up pretty much in capital of Wayne County all my life. I am a victim advocate at a non and I work in the town of Wayne and cover the entire county of Wayne, which is huge.
[:Which is massive. Massive. That's how I met you. Yes, that is how we met. I was working in the nonprofit world, and she She was a shining star in a beacon of, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. So thankful for that when we met that day.
[:It goes both ways.
[:I love that. All right, so we've got two different vantage points here of the things we're going to talk about. Ben, did you say how old you were?
[:No, but I am. Okay. Okay.
[:24. 24. And Ben is newly in a relationship? Is it new? Is it fresh?
[:Tomorrow is three months.
[:Okay, so it's fairly new. Yeah. You were doing the dating up until meeting your significant other, and we'll talk about how that went and all that. Then, Amy Joe, we were just talking before we started recording You've been divorced, I've been divorced, and then you had a long-term relationship that ended prior to marriage that you probably thought was going to be the long-term. We'll talk about that a little bit. But the main thing we want to talk about here is dating in the modern world. What does that look like? For me, and you guys can chime in as well, there's a lot of apps. When I was doing research for this episode, it's crazy the amount of apps and the questions that they ask you, just for giggles. No, I had to tell my husband beforehand. I was like, Look, if anybody tells you they've seen me on Hinge or Bumble, I was on there for five minutes because I wanted to see what the process was, all the questions that they ask you and stuff like because I didn't start dating in that world. A funny story I'll go ahead and share just to throw it out there.
[:My husband and I actually met on MySpace, which was before there were dating apps and stuff like that. And it was before Facebook. It was when you could have a glorious song picked as your profile jam, and you could have a top five, and you could have a top 12 at one point. And the way I met him, and the reason I I'm even telling you about the top, if you don't know about my space, is because I was looking for another guy, and my husband now was in his top five friends. So I was like, Hey, what's up? Do you know so and so? Because I can't get a hold of him. And I was newly single, so I was looking up like an old flame, and he says, No, I can't get a hold of him, but what are you doing? And he just kept on being insistent and insistent. And after a full day of him aggravating the piss out of me, I agreed to go to the movies with him, and it has been uphill ever since. So that's the way we met. But enough about me. Let's talk about the dating apps.
[:What are your viewpoints on the dating apps, guys?
[:I primarily use Facebook dating.
[:Okay. And I just found out about that three days ago.
[:That one, I do believe, I have really, really enjoyed it. There's several reasons. One is because it will not match you with people that you're currently friends with.
[:Nice. Okay. Which I love. Yeah. That's nice. That is a nice thing.
[:But second of all, when it does match you with people, it will show your mutual friends. Oh, cool. So you can vet them.
[:Well, I was going to say you can bring up their profile then and look I can get an idea of what they're like.
[:They're out who they are. Yeah. Hey, Vanessa, there's this guy I'm thinking about matching with.
[:Yeah. What do you know about him?
[:I usually get a quick, Oh, no.
[:Yeah. Or, Yeah, he's great.
[:I really like that platform. Warm. Okay. And that way you can use Messenger to talk.
[:Well, and I love that because you immediately know they're in your area, if you have mutual friends, things of that nature, as opposed to, I noticed on some of the apps, and I did a lot of research asking friends of mine that do the apps, a lot of the big red flags that they see. A big one that a lot of them shared with me was people lying about where they're from. They'll work in your area and they don't want to get caught where they live, cheating. So they'll say they're from a different town or something. So you'll match with them and they're 300 miles away from you. Or they'll pay to change their location. Yeah, which is crazy. But people do it. I was astounded at the amount of girls that found that to be a huge disappointment that happens more often than not. I thought it was going to be, which ghosting was a huge one, but I thought it was going to be people just catfishing in general, but it was these lies off the rip, where they're from, if they're actually in a relationship or not, things like that. What was your choice of apps or dating when you were a single, Ben?
[:Well, Unfortunately, app-wise, I didn't have any success.
[:Okay.
[:I want to give a breakdown. If I go on a tangent, just throw something.
[:No, you're fine. That's what we're here for.
[:I had tried Tinder. I tried Bumble and Hinch. Okay. And Looking at it now, it's funny, but I had a concurrent thought of all three while using them. Tender is... Most of the people on there for me, and this is majority of what Marshall, most of the people on there for me were Marshall students, and the age group I had was around my age, of course, which I went a little over. It'd be Marshall students or it'd be people I knew in person or out in the city of Huntington or local areas. It was I don't want to belittle myself, but it was almost like a higher standard of people were on tender. It's like, Well, I don't really see a chance here. I knew a majority of these people or I'm mutual with them. It's like, There's no Dance. I was like, Well, Tinder is rolled out. So then you have... I don't know if it was Bumble or Hinge. I think it was Hinge. Hinge had a lot of people that, to me, looked like, Oh, well, that'd be someone nice to talk to or get to know. They look interesting or cool or the pictures were like somebody I'd want to talk to.
[:But then I'd look and it'd be like 150 miles away, 200 miles away.
[:The distance thing, yeah.
[:Every single person on there was over 100 miles. My distance is set to Charleston, so like 45, 50 miles. And it's like every person was over 100. And I was like, I'd see one person that I knew, but it wouldn't be anywhere close. That just doesn't make sense to me.
[:Right. Well, it's like a waste of your time on this. Yeah. It's like, what's the point, unless you're interested in long distance, but for the most part, if you're wanting companionship, you don't want them to be 100 miles from home. Yeah.
[:And the last one being Bumble, which honestly, my friends had talked about it, and we agree that that one is probably the better one out of the three of them. Right. Which is surprising to me because a lot of people like Hinch, too. I feel like Tinder is declined. But with Bumble, you have people that are close to you. Yeah. Almost all of them on there I've never seen before in person. Okay. Which can set you up to be like, Are they even real? If I've never seen them. Especially if people do go and look up their profile or who they are and you can't find anything. It's like they might not be real.
[:What was going to say? How scary is that that you're like, Okay, this has to be too good to be true. Does that happen a lot in the dating world now?
[:I feel like it can be, especially in the sense if you're going to use an app and you can't find that person on social media. At that point, it's like, I might as well not even swipe on them.
[:It's almost like, do you even exist if you don't have social media? Is there any way in the world that you're real? Because who doesn't have social media to some extent, whether it's Insto, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Twitter, it's something. You're somewhere.
[:But I'd say Bumble out of the three was the better one. Again, I didn't get really anything on any of them. Bumble is actually the one that I did get matches on, but the ones I'd get matches on were I didn't know, and I knew it didn't have mutuals. I know nobody around here knew them, so it was probably falsified, maybe a fake account. But I'd say the quality on there was a lot better than the other two. There are people I'd see that I'm interested in, and their topics that they have listed on their account are stuff that I'm relatively interested in. And it's easier to put hobbies down on that, in my opinion. Yeah, for sure. I feel like it filters a lot better on that. But the people I wouldn't match with, it's like they're super dry talking or they just didn't want to talk. They're just matching to match.
[:Just trying to pull teeth to get them to have a conversation with you.
[:It's not worth it at that point. I will say during when I was at Marshall, I don't know if this was a special thing they did on the app, but every other day they'd do a specific one-hour window where it was a quick chat. Oh, that's cool. So whoever you would end up with, you'd have a quick 10-minute conversation with and then go, and then they'd end up in your message for her if you still wanted to talk to her. Oh, that's cool. That was neat.
[:That is really neat.
[:Which the other two didn't have.
[:Well, in my research, that's why I would just, if you guys noticed, I had my app, I picked my phone up because I wanted to make sure that I got the name of the app correct. There's a podcast that I listened to, to gear up for this called Kind of Dating, which is really funny if you guys are interested. I don't know if you would be now that you're not seeing. I'm married and I still am getting a lot of joy and laughter from it, but she's a comedian that talks about the dating woes in the world. One specific episode was a dating app. I was like, Okay, I need to listen to that one because we're talking about that. It's called Magnet. The way that it works, I don't know if either of you have heard about it, is... I don't know how well it would work in an area like us for Huntington, and I want to download it and see if it works here, just out of curiosity. But you check into a location that you go a lot. Say, Amy Joe, you go to Booktenders a lot, and that's a hangout for you.
[:You check in at Booktenders, and it will give you an immediate response of who is also at Booktenders and shares that with you. If you guys choose to match, you can go ahead right then and have a 5 or 10-minute conversation. It's not all this pressure of you've set up this date, you've had to get ready, you've done all this stuff, because you might just be hanging out with your girlfriends and you can be like, Hey, I'm going up here real quick to get a coffee and talk to this fella and see if we hit And if we don't, cool. We go our other ways and it's fine. But I thought that was a really cool concept. Yeah, that's funny. Because you could check into the places that you regularly go, so off the bat, you already have that in common. That is somewhere that you guys regularly spend your time. The thing they were talking about I thought was interesting was people aren't upfront about their lifestyle choices in a lot of these apps. One specific, not that there's anything wrong with having a disability, but a girl did not say that she was paraplegic.
[:The guy gets on the date with her and she's like, Hey, can we skip the valet and park over in this parking lot closer to the front door? He's like, Yeah, sure. I don't know what that's about, but we can do that. It turns out she's paraplegic and she refuses to use a wheelchair. She's using the... My brain is escaping me. What are the- Crutches. Crutches, yes. She She's using crutsches, but her legs, they can't hold any weight at all. They go to cross the road to get into the club, and she's like, They're going to a comedy club. And she's like, You may have to carry me. And he's like, I mean, I don't care to carry you, but I wasn't prepared for this, and they're in a very busy city. And he's like, So it was a nightmare getting her across. And he said, And I did not even think about it. As soon as we got to the other side, I took her down off my back and stood her up, not thinking, She can't bear any weight on her legs. So he dropped her. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, how mortifying.
[:You feel like a terrible human at that point. And you can't be mad that she's paraplegic, but you can, I think as a human, be mad that she did not share that to prepare you for that date? Because I think he, in that situation, would have planned a more disability-friendly date as opposed to on a busy street in LA that has this line to get in and this huge road to cross and things like that. Have you guys come across anything like that where people aren't upfront about something? I mean, maybe it's that something as crazy as they're vegan. So you've planned a date at a steakhouse. You know what I mean? Maybe something crazy. Mine have been Like, I'm pretty upfront on my bio.
[:I state very clearly, I have three cats. If you're allergic, it's a no-go.
[:It's a no-go, yeah.
[:And I state things like that. And guys will still, they'll accept the day, end up coming over, and then they can't breathe, and their throat's closing up, and It's like we've had wonderful conversations for weeks and hung out, and now you come over and you can't read.
[:And you're dying on the couch. It wasn't going to work. And I'm like, It was in my bio. Yeah. Why didn't you speak up? I get Why would you want to put yourself in a situation? I'm putting your health at risk. That's hilarious. Have you had any experiences like that? Just in dating in general?
[:Honestly, I'm trying to think of any... I I feel like I don't.
[:Well, that's good. That's a good thing that you don't have a horror story. I feel like I've gotten off a little easy there.
[:I will say there was... I'm not going to say a name, but there was a girl in Marshall that I talked to. I want to say, when was that? The end of my freshman year.
[:Okay, so it's been a while.
[:Getting used to Marshall and how being a college student was. There was a girl that I met that was from West Virginia, but not from Huntington. So she lived on campus. And we had hung out a bunch. I could tell that she was interested. I was like, Well, that's nice.
[:Yeah, it feels good to be wanted.
[:It's been a while starting Marshall. It's nice to have a few people, especially someone that is interested in me. Yeah. We'd hang out all the time. And I want to say it didn't last that long, but I want to say within a month or so, we didn't date. It was like a flirt.
[:Hanging out, yeah.
[:Yeah, it was a flirtatious get-together.
[:Situationship. Yeah.
[:It was worse than that. I ended up finding out that she was dating somebody.
[:Oh, my gosh.
[:And she never told me.
[:Oh, no.
[:And I was terrified. I was like, now I have this girl that I like that, I guess likes me, maybe doesn't like me. But she's committed. But she's hanging out with me and just- Having a great time. Having fun. And I find out she has a boyfriend, not by her.
[:I was going to say, did you confront her about And her boyfriend messaged me. Oh, no. That's the worst.
[:I was like,.
[:Oh, no.
[:Her boyfriend messaged me and I was like, Who is this? And she's like, I'm so sorry. And then that put it nicely She didn't really say that. Right. I was like, I don't know what to say. And funny enough, it's not funny now to think about it, but he wasn't mad. He was more sad and disappointed. I'm sure. I hate confrontation. If there's anything you're going to find out for me is I hate stuff that doesn't need to happen. Right. And he went on a whole story, told me to treat her nice.
[:Oh, so he was prepared to lose her to you? Yeah. Oh, that's heartbreaking.
[:I felt really bad, which this was... Side story. So I went to BCM Marshall, which is the campus Ministry there. But prior to that is when I was seeing her while this was going on. So a whole change there after that. Right, for sure. But I was just like, I hate this because I feel bad that I just feel like it just destroyed this.
[:You're like a home wrecker. Yeah.
[:But then she's like, I was going to break up with him anyway.
[:I was like, Oh, my gosh. But still, what a weight to carry on your shoulders that you had to be the one to carry that burden.
[:Yeah, I know. I feel bad. I was like, Don't even say anything. I told her, I was like, I didn't know that you all were dating. She didn't say anything to me. She's like, I figured she didn't. That's the worst. I think that's... I don't have any stories, but then that came into my mind.
[:I was like, Yeah, I do have one. Doing my research, I was telling you guys a little bit before we started recording, I have a few girlfriends that live out of state, in bigger cities, that use every dating app. When I say every, I mean she named off 20 off the top of her head. It was nothing. I'm like, Girl, you're wild. Because I feel like, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, coming from a married person, but I feel like being single is a part to full job in of itself to even navigate the apps in the dating world and the friends that are trying to set you up and maintain relationships with strangers. You know what I mean? It is. Because that's what you're doing. You're trying to maintain and grow a relationship with a complete stranger.
[:I will say, between the relationship I'm in now and the last one I had, it was coming up on eight years. Oh, wow. Which would have been December, and I started dating in November. Within that eight-year window, a lot can happen. For sure. During that was me graduating high school and then doing four years of college and then starting a job.
[:That's a whole transition. I was going to say we grow a lot during college. I think I speak for everyone We were finding ourselves for the first time, almost. Good, bad, and ugly. Yes, all of it.
[:I was going to say there were a handful, not a handful, there was a few people at Marshall that we had things, but not actual dating. All right. I told the, I don't want to say her name, but the woman I'm dating now. I told her about one of them, and I was like, That's someone I could have seen myself being with, and I didn't go that way. I just feel like when you go eight years without actually dating somebody, you start to feel like Maybe I shouldn't date somebody, or am I supposed to be single?
[:Right. That was something that I actually wanted to talk about with you guys. Is it something that you self-reflect and become almost like, Am I the problem? After so many letdowns in the dating world?
[:Yeah, I was going to say it. It's easy to feel that way.
[:To self-reflect and think that it must be me because it's not working out. I think as humans, I think we're hard on ourselves in general. But I think when it comes to relationships, and I can say this from even friendships, it doesn't have to be a love or a romantic relationship, but it is so easy to internalize things when they go wrong and just feel like it must be us. So that leads you down the self-help. Like the podcast, like I was mentioning, it really embodies you and you get in your own head. You really do. I didn't know if that was a big part of the experience that you guys have had.
[:I think another thing that's difficult about online dating, or even not online dating, just dating someone new, is so many people text, obviously.
[:Yes.
[:Now, Vanessa, I've known you for a handful of years. I've known you two years.
[:Yes.
[:If I text you, you know my humor, you know my sarcasm. Absolutely. You can understand my tone. If I say something, you know I'm not being a bitch. You know I'm being funny. Somebody new might take that as, That was so weird.
[:She's so rude. She's so rude.
[:Or she's really shy. They just don't understand, and vice versa. Texting is so hard. You can't hear the tone behind it.
[:The tone, right.
[:And so- And you can't get start with them. That is hard in a new- In a modern world. Meeting someone new is learning each other's tone.
[:Which is why I thought that- Because I am a smartness. You absolutely are. You absolutely are. And I love that about you. And it brings the humor. It definitely lightened a lot of work days.
[:I love it Smartness. It can come across pretty ugly if you don't- If you don't know someone, yeah.
[:Working in the nonprofit world, you meet all walks of life. Just building those work relationships. It doesn't even have to be those romantic relationships, getting to know people. You sit in meeting after meeting after meeting, and it takes a while to get to know with these people. So add that romantic aspect on top of it, and it's a whole another ball game. It's a whole another ball game. That's smart. Now that we've led there, let's talk about that. Dating in Just in general, meeting new people. I know Amy, just because we're friends on Facebook and stuff like that, I know you've done speed dating. Have you done speed dating? I did once. Last Valentine's Day. I thought that I'd seen that. That's what it was.
[:Cupid It was a stupid event.
[:Okay. So what was that like? And is there a lot of events for singles in our area? I did a little bit of research and I couldn't find a lot. They need a lot more.
[:Last year's would have been so much fun, but it ended up being a snowstorm.
[:Oh, no.
[:So there was me and my girlfriend and maybe one other guy that was single. Oh, no.
[:We just ended up hanging out. Just hanging out, yeah.
[:He became a good friend of ours. But, yeah, it was a really cute event. You wore green if you were interested in meeting people. You wore red if you were- Just out having a good time?
[:Yeah. Okay, cool.
[:You wore yellow if you were open to it, but not sure.
[:It was just a cute little event. My girlfriend was telling me Her name is also Amy. She was telling me there used to be a girl in the area that did a lot of events like that, but she has now since moved to Cincinnati, and she's doing something similar up there for Valentine's Day. She may have been the person that put that event on. I'm not sure. But back in the heyday of Huntington, we used to have a bar that had telephones on each table. Oh, yes, ma'am. You could call the other tables. They were red?
[:Yeah. Wired?
[:You could just call the other tables, if you think so and so is cute, you could be like, Hey, how are you? Or, Hey, my girl thinks that you're hot or you want to buy around, which I think is the coolest thing in the world that we need to bring back just as someone- That was cute. I'm not even single, and I think that would be super fun. I I think that would be hilarious to see your girlfriend across the way and instead of having to make your way to the bathroom and stop them by their table to say, Hey, you could literally pick up the phone and be like, Hey, girl. I didn't know you had the same plans as me tonight. That was cute.
[:Yeah, the event I went to, they also they had little mailboxes set up. You wore a number on your shirt. Okay. So let's say my number was three. I have a corresponding mailbox, so people could leave little notes in your box. At the end of the night, I get, Hey, girl, you have a beautiful smile. Love your tatas.
[:I I'll see that one.
[:Things like that. Didn't get a number. It didn't go anywhere.
[:But a lot of people feel safe when it's- Anonymous. Anonymous, yeah. People feel like they can say things like, Love your tatas. Again, have it. Something you would never say otherwise.
[:It had not been a snowstorm, I think it would have been a lot more fun because it would have been a blow.
[:Well, I was looking up events in our area, and honestly, and I posted this on Facebook, I was a little let down by the amount of, and this is not even just for single for people in a relationship, married couples, all couples, single people, whoever, everybody. There's not a lot of events going on for Valentine's Day. I mean, of course, the restaurants are having special dinners that cost a little bit more because you're getting a bottle of champagne or something like that. But one of the biggest ones that I saw that looked really fun was Hunting Pride is doing a stoplight party, which is similar to what you were saying with the dating game. So it's like they use the colors of the traffic light to say whether you're into dating, if you're just to have a good time, whatever. I thought that was really cool. Then Sip is doing Swinging with Sinatra, where they're going to do a wine tasting, and they're going to have a gentleman doing Sinatra songs. I think his name is Lee. I can't think of his last name, but if you're familiar with going downtown, he moonlights in a few of the restaurants and things, and he looks like Sinatra.
[:But then, of course, we've got the Always Faithful Greater Hunting Parks and Recreation events. They They have the Daddy/Daughter Dance, they have the Galentine's Lunch or Brunch, and then they have... I think the Galentine's Day Brunch, they do two events of that. They do it two weekends in a row because it was such a good seller. And then I've seen another thing, Pearl Picnics. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of her. She's an event planner. She's doing several packages with wine tastings and things like that where you can set up these dream TikTok dates, I call them, the ones where you're in the bubble and you've got the rose petals and all the things. She does that stuff. She's offering those packages, which I think would be really fun with your girlfriends. I don't necessarily want to do that with my husband because he's not going to appreciate it like my girlfriends are going to. I thought that was pretty cool. Tell me about any setups that you guys have had, like your best friend or a girlfriend or whoever is like, I met this person and they are going to be perfect for you.
[:Have you had any of those experiences that just went totally down here? You're like, Do they even know me? Are they even my friend?
[:I had the opposite, actually. Okay. Which is funny. We mentioned that my previous relationship. He passed away after a long illness almost three years ago, which has put me back in this awful single world.
[:Well, which is, we were talking before we started recording, that's a whole other level of anyone who has lost someone, grief is so heavy, but when you lose someone that you thought was going to be your forever, that's going to cause you to put up a big wall. You're going to be very guarded. It can. You're going to be very protective of yourself.
[:I think a lot of men get intimidated because even though he's not here, that loved it in no way.
[:He's still a big part of your life. Yes, exactly. He didn't break up. He's gone on. He has. I have a really good friend. We've been friends since high school, and she married... His name's Buck. Well, his name's James, but everybody calls him Buck. And he passed away in a motorcycle accident. And she has since moved on and in a relationship, and she's very happy. But she still celebrates their anniversary. She still celebrates his birthday. That love did not go away because he's no longer here. So I get that 100 %. And I could also see the other side of that, of it being intimidating. It is intimidating.
[:Yeah. And I think I deal very well with my grief, and I've got to that point.
[:And you I have a great sense of humor that I think helps.
[:Yeah. But on the flip side, speaking of that, I met him about 20 years ago. Oh, wow. Before my second marriage. He was a good friend of my best friend and a couple of really good friends. It was the opposite. They were like, Oh, God. Amy Joe's single. He's single. Do not let those two meet.
[:Do not let them. It'll be like, Gasoline and fire. They'll tear up the town.
[:We were young. We were both out of a relationship. They were like, Don't let those two meet. They're so much alike. They'll be nothing but trouble in a good way. I knew what he looked like, and he knew what I looked like. We went out one night by ourselves without our friends, and lo and behold- We'd run into each other.
[:Hey. I love that. I love that. He was like, I like your hair.
[:He had a tag on. He was always like, I like your hair. I love that. And he came up to me and he was like, Okay, I got to have a hair.
[:Because you do have great hair. And I was like, Oh, my God, you're Jay.
[:I'm like, Oh, my God, I know you're Jay. I love that. He was like, Yeah? And so our friends were like, Oh, God, you let them meet?
[:Which is funny that you said that you guys were so much alike. I just learned a recent thing. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of it, but a twin flame is supposedly someone that is your complete match. You're so much alike, but it also creates difficulty in the relationship because you are so much alike. So I just learned about that.
[:He did at that age. He was in his early 20s. I had just turned 30. Our life circumstances didn't allow a long-term relationship at that time. We went our own ways and just stayed friendly. But after Johnny passed away, we had stayed friends, and I was single again. He was single. No, it was not after Donny passed away, after I got divorced.
[:Yeah, okay.
[:He was Johnny.
[:Well, I was like, Hold on, where are we going? I didn't want to interrupt you, but I was like, Hold on, where are we going with this? Yeah, getting way ahead of myself.
[:But yeah, after my second divorce, Rekindled. He was divorced, and we became friends first for a long, long time, hung out. So that twin frame, we were still- It was still there. We were still there, but a lot more mature and a lot more- I I think- He wasn't 22 anymore.
[:Well, that's what I was going to say. I think a hard thing with, especially Ben at your age, is a lot of aspects, women are so much more mature than men So maybe the girl that you were talking to, maybe the one that ended up having the boyfriend, maybe she just didn't know how to navigate that. And maybe you guys could have been something long term, but because she didn't navigate the situation correctly, it put a damper on the whole thing. I think I can speak from that because I got married really early in high school, had a baby, did the whole marriage thing before I was even 20 years old. I was in a failed marriage, single mom, doing all the things. But at that point when I was dating, it was so hard to, A, meet a guy, and we'll talk about this a little bit more. These are like your non-negotiables in dating, right? So it was really hard for me to meet a guy that didn't live at home at that age because a lot of them are still living at home because they're mama's boys. Another one was that if they weren't living at home, they lived in a house full of other guys, and they were disgusting.
[:So there was no chance of you staying at their house. And being a single mom, I don't want anybody at my house. I had a crazy work schedule where I got off at 3: 00 in the morning, so I'm sleeping till 11: 30, 12: 00, and then that's when my day starts, and then I'm going back in to work at 6: 00. It was really hard for me to meet people that didn't surpass those immediate non-negotiables for my life. So what are some non-negotiables for you guys?
[:I will say before we jump in on the topic of the setup Yeah. I wouldn't say necessarily someone had set me up for anything. However, thinking about that question, I quickly realized that, not a handful, but some of the relationships I was in had best friends that helped cater that relationship. But then got to a point where they were like, Oh, well, they'd be better with me than my best friend.
[:Oh, yeah.
[:I was like, Oh, there was one instance of that. And I was like, Actually, there's two. And I was like, Oh, there's three. It came an instance of... I guess they saw how I treated their best friend, which I'm not mean.
[:I don't try to be mean. I can't see you being mean.
[:They're just like, Oh, well, I feel like they thought their friend was being mean to me. Oh, I could treat him better.
[:And they thought they could benefit from your kindness. Yeah. Well, that's cool to be on the flip side of that. In your aspect is to have, now you've got two people interested in you rather than just the one. But at the same time, I have seen where I think girls do this probably a lot more than guys, but we overshare our relationships with our girlfriends, and then that makes them fall for the guy because they're getting to know them intimately the same way we are. Or hate the guy. I don't say it. It can go both ways.
[:I was nervous because it's like, I have intentions with who I'm dating, and if their best friend likes me, they may try to either manipulate me or their best friend to think that it's helpful.
[:To ruin that relationship. I love that wording. I love that verbiage that you had intentions with the girl that you are seeing. I think that's big in the world that we live in to know what people's intentions are. I think that's the scary thing is you never know what We were touching on that a little bit. I know we're getting a little bit off of the topic that we were talking about, but we were talking a little bit prior about the intentions of people. What are some things that you know off the rip that their intention was only a hookup? Does that happen a lot? Yeah, it happens a lot?
[:I will say, and I think this is more specific to my age group because I'm 50 versus you're 24.
[:24, yeah.
[:There's a lot of positives, and there's a lot of negatives to that when you're 50. The positives are you know what you want. You've been through a lot, you know what you don't want. The negatives are you're set in your ways. Oh, yes.
[:I am at 39. I'm set in my ways.
[:We're all set broken at 50.
[:Yes. We've lived some life.
[:I mean, Even if you've had a really good life, there's just been a lot of grief loss.
[:There's been a lot of grief loss, yes, when you get older.
[:Unfair relationships, kids, grandkids.
[:Well, and also carrying our friendship wades, too. There's a lot.
[:I do find, even with myself, I think it's hard to narrow down intentions because you may have an intention of, I want a relationship or I would like just a really good friendship. But then that brokenness comes or just life situations come in, and it's like, No, that's not what I want. That's where it's harder, I think, at 50. I think there's just a lot of brokenness.
[:I could see that. That makes total sense to me.
[:In my opinion, I think men handle it a lot worse.
[:I think so, too. They crutch around. Not to get teemed up on them, but- They do crutch around like, Oh, I've been hurt. I don't think I could do any. I've been done so wrong. I feel like women are more optimistic. I would agree with that 100 %. And as someone who's been in a relationship since I believe Brandon and I were 19, which we've only been married a couple of years, which, Amjo, you know that because we've been Facebook friends for all these years now. But we dated for like 15 years before we got married. We had other things that we wanted to do. We wanted to pay off our house, we wanted to pay off our cars, we wanted to be settled. The funniest thing, we wanted really good insurance before we got married. One of us needed to have really good insurance before we felt like, Okay, we're going to let the government get involved in our relationship now. We're going to make it official. That's the benefit of the plan. Yes. We were able to do that. I have great insurance, and now he's on my insurance. That was really the push of why we did the official marriage.
[:But we have seen a lot of relationships in our years come and go with our friends. A whole lot. We've seen a lot of marriages, we've seen divorces, we've seen terrible breakups, we've seen amalamical breakups. But we've also got to watch and witness our friends grow and become who they are as people today in their late 30s, early 40s, sometimes 50s. I will say, Brandon and I, we're usually the youngest in our friends group because we gravitate towards people that are in their mid to late 40s and 50s. I don't know why we do that, but most of our friends are in friend group. The younger ones have fallen off over the years because we're just not in the same place as they are. It's hard to relate to them when they're still dating and partying, things like that. For us, the older crowd is more stable. They relate to us more. They're supportive of a relationship. There's never, like you were saying, Ben, the envious of, Is she going to create a problem that ends up being my fault? You'll get that in a lot of... Because they're not mature yet. They're not there.
[:They can get envious of, Oh, my gosh, how have you made it work? And I'm talking as if we're not married yet, 15 years. How have you made it that long? We have a girlfriend that her and her was husband, now ex-husband, started dating at the same time that we did. We got to watch that whole falling out. Now watching her date again, it's like a rotating door. I'm like, they have kids from the first marriage. I'm like, Are you thinking about your kids when you're bringing all these guys around and bringing them to the Little League games and stuff like that? Then you find yourself being so judgmental, but at the same time wanting them to find happiness. So you're however they have to find that, you want to be supportive. But anyways, I got on a little tangent there. I want to talk a little bit about the apps that are out there just for... We may have a listener at home that is single and wants to go into the dating world. Forbes top five, and you guys can tell me or chime in on these if you want or if you've heard about them.
[:The number one was eHarmony. I think everybody's heard of eHarmony. That was one of the old-school originals Then datemyage. Com. Have you ever heard of it? Mm-hmm. Okay. I had never heard of it. Then dating. Com. I think everyone's heard of it. This one I've never heard of. Stir. Com. Never heard of it. They don't have an app. This is an actual website that I'm assuming that you pay for. Then match. Com. Everyone's heard of match. Com, I feel like. But on the flip side of that, and eHarmony is at the top of this list too, is the top 25 apps. These are ones that have apps and not just websites. Some of them may coexist because some of them have apps and websites. But eHarmony, Bumble, Hinge, OkCubid, and then Happn. I've never heard of it, and it's H-A-P-P-N, not E-N. I had I've never heard of it, but it had really great reviews. These two specifically were in the top 25, but they are both lesbian, which is crazy for me because I didn't find the male equivalent of a gay app for the gay community. I'm sure they are, but they're just not in the top 25.
[:But the two of them are called Her and Raya, and then Coffee Meets Bagel, which I don't know why, but I just love. I love that name. I think it's cute, which makes me wonder And I didn't bring it up, but I wonder, do you meet in coffee shops, Coffee Meets Bagel?. Which is another one of those if you spend a lot of your time in a bookstore, like we were talking about, or a coffee shop, or something like that, you do want someone that shares that. Maybe you start your day with a pot of coffee, and that's how you get your morning going. You want somebody that does the same thing.
[:But I'm thinking the ads I saw for it, Coffee Meat the Bagel, was Was thinner men who were into heavier women. Oh.
[:Now I need to look it up because- Look it up. I'm going to look it up because now- And maybe that was the situation in that long commercial. Because I'm literally in my head making up a whole another thing. I don't know. Well, and I didn't... I don't know. I've never been on any... For Shits and Giggles, I downloaded two of them and went through the questions, and I did tell my husband I was doing it, so not trying to cheat here. I just wanted to see the process because after talking to so many single friends, I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is like a job. This is an actual job in and of itself to even maintain these profiles and put yourself out there. So you also had Tinder, plentyoffish, and then match. Com. Now, far Ownersonly.
[:Com is not on there.
[:It didn't make the list. It didn't make the list. And then Christian Mingle. I can't believe it didn't make the list either, honestly. But I've heard with Christian Mingle, I've seen... Well, I've seen. I was told from a lot my girlfriends that ones that got on there that are religious, a lot of people were using it and lying about their background and their faith and just using it as another way to find hookups and stuff. So they were running into that, a lot of Christian Mingle. One, I got a lot of really negative feedback about, and I'm not judging the app because I've never personally used it, but Plenty of Fish. They said that that is the biggest one that you get catfished on was Plenty of Fish. I don't know if you have it You ever used it now?
[:I set up a profile and I never even looked at it. I need to figure out how to delete it because I get a notification every day.
[:Well, they say that... I say they. My girlfriends and a few guy friends said that it's the place people go, that no one talks about you're there. You're on there, but no one talks about... So it's the place you can go and cheat. It's the place that no one's talking about if you're there or not. Side-eye. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Hey, thank you. Exactly.
[:I was going to say... I'm going to sound old-fashioned a little bit.
[:No, I love old-fashioned.
[:The experience I've had between using the apps and going out and do stuff I'm not going to tell someone not to use an app because if that's the way they feel it's going to be successful for them, then that's how you should do it. But the time that I was at Marshall, I wanted to make it... Again, being from here, I I knew that I was going to know a lot of people there, but I was going to meet a lot more people I didn't know of. I wanted to make as many connections and friends as possible, of course, for business networking later on. Absolutely. But you get the feeling of talking to people that you don't know right there in school. That translates to the real world of dating. To me, it's like you can use an app, which I know, Hunting, there can be a lot more events than there are, but We have stuff like Night Street Live. Perfect example.
[:It's like, go out in the summer. We love Night Street Live.
[:Listen to music. There's drinks spots right there.
[:Yeah. So you can take the edge off.
[:Yeah. Polman is a good place to just sit or ridder, enjoy nature, to see people going out. That's where the old-fashioned in me is. There's no better success story than building the courage to go talk to somebody because you're either going to get told, No, I'm not interested, which is the easiest outcome. I could say, It's nice to meet you. I'd love to learn more about you. You don't have to worry about, Is this person real? You don't have to worry about if they're going to catfish you or lie to you. They could ghost you. That's inevitable, I feel like, whether it's in person or online. But at least you're getting out not only seeing that the person is real, but you're building your own confidence, whereas on a app, you're just throwing out a solution out there or causing a problem. Whereas in real life, you get to know whether maybe this person is for me or they're not just by that initial conversation with them. I lean heavy towards the- To the real life, the IRL.
[:When I was his age, I agree completely. Meaning organically. It worked.
[:It worked, yeah.
[:At 50, unless you sweep me up at Kroger or. Because you're not going a lot of places, right? I work all day, and I pretty much go home or I take care of my parents. So I'm just... I'll go out once a quarter, maybe Right. My girlfriend's for a drink or something.
[:You brought up the Facebook dating. I didn't know that existed.
[:I didn't either. I just learned about it.
[:I'm almost sure they're doing away with it. My Facebook account got hacked back in October. And totally, I had to set up a whole new one. And when I did, it didn't have the option. And I googled it, and it said they were trying to deal away with it a little bit.
[:Was it a success? Well, that's a bummer since it was one that is successful for you. Well, and that I met some amazing- My other girlfriend, Amy, that told me about Facebook dating. She loved it for the very same reasons you did. She's like, You can go and click and see where their mutual friends are. You can creep.
[:Exactly. And you can creep on them. You can creep on them. Girls can creep and figure out their profile and see if they really do.
[:We can figure out if they're these real big political people that are out picking fights on the internet with people over politics, because that's the worst. I think we can all agree to that. That person is the worst. Regardless Regardless of what their politics are, if they're just out here starting fights on social media. Yeah, that's a red flag for sure. But she said that she loved that, though, because she could see them organically interacting with their connections on Facebook. If they didn't have a truly lockdown profile, she could see the comments and the interaction and get a feel for what their person has. You can bet them. Yeah. But she really loved it. So I hate to see that it's going because I think... And my girlfriend, Amy, she's significantly Certainly older than you. Like I said, we gravitate towards older people in our friend circle. But dating for her has been just ridiculous. It turns out almost every time that she really likes someone, they end up married, and they're completely hiding it because maybe they have a spouse that they've got complete opposite hours that they work. Maybe they're a firefighter and they're on call for 24 hours.
[:Their spouse is used to them just not being around for that full 24 hours. When they get their off, they're used to doing their own thing, and they're courting my girlfriend, and she's getting to know him, and then she's four months into it. Turns out he's married with five kids, and she didn't know otherwise, and now she's already fallen for him. Then she's like, Well, I don't want to be the homemaker I'm like, So don't. But at the same time, you can't change those feelings that you have now developed. I think as humans, relationships are just hard. I think we can all agree to that, whether it's a friendship, a romantic, any of that. I think we can agree that it's hard. I do want to touch on this because I think it's hilarious. My girlfriend that's in North Carolina, her most recent, I don't know what app it was on, but she sent me a screenshot, and the message this guy sent her was like, May I be your footstool? This is Charles from North Carolina. May I be your footstool? And I'm like, Oh, my God. I'm like, Courtney, that's what you're dealing with?
[:That's the intro? Amy, you're laughing. What are some weird stuff that people have just said to you out of the blue. Because I think that's crazy. First, it feels like dominatrix type. So I feel like he's saying something about himself.
[:I was going to say, I get a lot of You start talking and you're really enjoying these conversations, and then they just throw it in there that, Hey, they're dominant. Call me Daddy, and I want you to be my little girl.
[:Oh, do they? And I'm like, No, no, sir. No, no, sir. Nash. Another one she told me was this guy messaged her and was like, A lot of people like my, referring to his private parts. Do you want to see it? And I'm like, What? That's what he led with? And she's like, You have no idea. She was like, I get that more than anything. She was like, It's always a different scenario, but just leading right with that. And I'm like, So as a female, the equivalent of that, I'd be like, I have a pretty vagina. Would you like to see it? I'm like, Who talks that way? You know what I mean?
[:Sorry, Ben, if we're I'm better than you. I had a conversation with a young man. It was a pretty decent conversation. Nothing out of the ordinary. Was it too flirty? We weren't planning a day yet or anything. We were just talking, and he said something like, What are you doing? What are you doing? Or whatever. And I said, Oh, catching up on laundry, straight- Doing the normal.
[:Right.
[:Whatever I was doing after work. What about you? His response was, watching porn.
[:Oh, just casually. Which is funny. That's fine. Whatever. But you're going to share it.
[:I don't know you. This is our first conversation, and without hesitation, I can see in Unsolicited, very eye-opening, inappropriate pick, which was hilarious. He ended up being a match for one of my best friends.
[:Oh, my gosh. How funny. What a small world.
[:He has just dwindled down into all my friends on a planet.
[:Which shows you what the small world it is in our area, the dating pool.
[:And his dad used to be my doctor.
[:Oh, how funny. Even smaller world. Like, who are you? I know your dad. He didn't raise you like that. Or was your dad like that? Yeah. Did I not realize all these years? So, yeah, there's some- Well, and I will say unsolicited pictures are, I don't know if it's as bad for men as it is women, but I think as women, I don't know a woman that hasn't ended up with an unsolicited photo So you know of the one that I got sent as a married woman, a mutual friend of ours. And honestly, poor guy, much older than me, accidentally, it wasn't even on purpose, and I believe him wholeheartedly, accidentally was sending it to another person, and we share the same name. And so I get it, and I'm like, whole shit. What do you even say? This is a person. This is my boss. This is a person that I work with daily and have to to converse it with. And at the time, we're out of town, we're staying in a hotel, we're on a week-long-Oh, no. We're on a week-long training, and I'm like, What do I even do? So I laugh about it now, still to this day.
[:He laughs about it, But there was another person that ended up being on the... Because it was like a group message for our work team. And you know how on Facebook Messenger, it's like whatever the first person's name is is what comes up. You don't see the whole group. That had happened. So there was a few of us in that message that he accidentally sent it to, thinking he was sending it to the girl with the same name, sharing the same name. And another person took it completely the other way, and the poor guy ends up losing his job. And I'm like, he's human. He's human. He literally... We know the mistake that he made here, and I felt bad for him. I was embarrassed for him because I know he was mortified that it happened. But I think as humans, you either have the people that are super comfortable with sharing those kinds of photos, and then you have the people that are like, I would never. And I would never. Even with my husband, I would never. We're not spicy in that way. I don't want my children to find a photo of me on the internet in 2075 when they Google my name.
[:You know what I mean? I am very feel for all of that. So it's not just single people. I think I've even had unsolicited one sent on Facebook Messenger or Instagram Instagram is the worst for some random people. I have noticed to send you some, Hey, you're hot. Here's a dick pic. I try to stay off that app because specifically for that. But it's not even people from around here. It's from people from all over. It's just crazy people. Crazy, crazy people.
[:I don't get the fascination with it.
[:I don't either. Especially on the guy end of it.
[:To me, it's like, why would you do that. But I feel like for my age, I'm a little more mature than most.
[:You are very mature, yes.
[:It's any age group or window that could do that, whether it's whoever it's to. It's like, to me, I think about it, I'm just going to throw an age out there. It's like, Dude, if you're 37- You know better. And you're in someone's message and you're like, Oh, well, I bet they'll like this. And they say, Yeah.
[:Exactly. I bet they'll like this.
[:I don't want to say that as It's like an older group, but to my age it is. It's like, You've known for at least a minimum of 20 years.
[:That's not appropriate.
[:That is not okay to do, but you still do it. If you think that no one's going to know you're doing it, it's on their phone.
[:Everybody knows. There's nothing holding that person back. I will tell you right now, as women, and I Amjo, you can verify this on your end. Our friends know. As soon as that happened, our friends know. I didn't know. It's getting screenshotted, and we're telling people. I just don't get the thought process. In my case, I immediately screenshotted and told my husband because I was like, What do I do? Because he's my best friend. So I'm like, What do I do? And my husband's like, Tell him it's nice. And I'm like, I don't... I'm not doing that. But I mean, and I think that there's also when we talk about there's two different kinds of people. There are the people that are sending these photos, and then there's people that are like, I would never. I think on the flip side of that, there's the people that get super offended by it, or the people that laugh it off. I'm a laugh. I laugh it off. I I laugh it off. I don't get to been out of shape. It's human anatomy. I'm a mother to a boy and a girl. So I've seen every aspect of the growing man.
[:I'm married. So I laugh it off. I think it's funny. I think people are very brazen, and I'm like, wow, you have, metaphorically speaking, you have big balls. To not know me or to know me and know that I'm married and still do that. I just think people are very brazen.
[:That's the worst thing is I get them from the married. Yeah.
[:Yes. All the time. So a lot of my girlfriends, and I know we're beating a dead horse here, but a lot of my girlfriends, I didn't get it from the guys as much, but a lot of my girlfriends say a lot of their most successful dates in the modern world have been with married men that they find out later on, that they have lied and literally courted them, took them on dates. I mean, sometimes gone out of town with them, took fun trips. And they will still say to this day, my girlfriend Courtney that's in North Carolina She was saying some of her best dates were with people that nothing came of it because they're clearly already committed to someone else, and they just felt to mention that. Just left that little bit out. Oh, by the way, I've been married 15 years. Got three kids in the Golden Retriever. They got the whole thing at home, but they're just courting other people, which I guess in these bigger cities, it's easier to get by with that where she's in Charlotte. I don't think you could get by with it here as much because you go to your local bar and you're going to You're going to get seen.
[:You're going to get seen, and I'm going to be taking a photo, whipping out my phone and being like, Oh, girl, your man's in here acting a fool, making a fool of you. So, yeah, I don't think you get by with it as much here. Well, is there anything that we have? Well, actually, I want to touch on this one thing before. What is a green flag for you? Immediately, if you are scrolling these dating apps, or you can even talk about the green flag with your girlfriend now, what was that one thing that you were like, Okay, this could be it. This is something that really intrigues me.
[:It was easy for me.
[:Okay.
[:I'm going to sound like a simple man whenever I say this, but Okay. So the Girl I'm Dating Now, we had known each other for a decade, and we met each other during band in high school. We marched together. We had an alumni night recently, and for some time, I'd seen her in a couple of We, which I get to that, I want to play. I'm like, I can finally get off work for once. I can do this. I get there and meet her talk for 30 minutes. Oh, I love that. Nonstop, just back and forth. And it's like, I haven't felt a communication with someone like that in a long time. If it doesn't go somewhere, it doesn't go somewhere.
[:But you've rekindled a friendship, if anything.
[:I feel the need to follow up and talk to them, and that's how that went. To me, where the green flag comes out of that is whether they were going to end up dating me or not, they showed an interest in wanting to talk to me. Yes. On apps, you can't really get that feeling, which is why I said the old-fashioned-You like dating in person.
[:Yeah, in the real world.
[:The green flag there was no matter what I was saying to her, her eye contact was there. I love that. She was listening to what I was saying and cared about what I was saying, about what I've been doing the last few years. It was reciprocated. When she would talk, I would listen.
[:It was like no-There was no mistaking that feeling?
[:Yeah, It was like we were surrounded by people at this football game, but it felt like we were the only people there.
[:Oh, I love that. I do love that.
[:To me, that was a good flag. But outside of that, just show that you care. If there's going to be an argument, don't try to push the other person into feeling it's their fault. Just talk to each other. Talk it out, yeah. Being honest with each other. There's nothing to hide.
[:I was going to say, which is also the success of a going on 20 years relationship with my husband. Talk it out. It's not going to come easy. I would lie if I said that our whole relationship has been easy. But I think that goes for friendships, too. We keep saying that. I mean, it goes back to all relationships. Be a decent human. Yeah, I don't Be a decent human.
[:Trust is a big thing. Yeah, for sure. I don't know how she feels, but if she wants to go out with friends or if she wants to go to a bar with friends or if there's people she wants to catch up with, I don't care. Yeah, If I trust you enough to go, you do what you want to do. You could tell me I'm wrong about what's what I'm going to say. If she goes out, I expect her to have fun, and I don't expect anything wrong to happen. I just want her to have fun.
[:Have a good time, Ryan.
[:I know she would never do this, but let's say she would cheat, then that's how that's supposed to be. That it wasn't supposed to work out that way.
[:That wasn't meant to be for you.
[:I'm not going to be the one to tell her she can't go out and do stuff or be with her friends. If she cheats, then she cheats, then that's how that goes.
[:Then that wasn't for you.
[:There's no reason for me to- That's her character.
[:Tell her.
[:Yeah, there's no reason for me to tell her not to do something or to whatever. That's just a full trust to have That's how our lean dream flag was.
[:Yeah. I think that's big because in my job now, we laugh and say I have workboyfriends or workhusbands all the time because there are certain males that I have to work with more than others. We do end up building a relationship, not a romantic one, but we talk on the phone. First thing in the morning, this is my morning routine. I have two guys that I talk to almost every morning because I'm either planning a podcast with one of them or the other one, my boss, I have to tell him what my day looks like, just like I would tell my husband what my day looks like. Because I work independently in a building, I'm alone all the time. I have to touch base with him and let him know what my day looks I think having that trust is huge, especially coming from someone your age. I know we keep saying that like you're the small little wee baby, but the fact that you think that way already is that's going to get you really far away. Very, very far alive because that's a big one. I do agree with you. I think that's a big green flag.
[:Amy, what about you? What are some- Green flags? What are something that if you're swiping, you're like, Oh, yeah, that's one. That's a winner.
[:Obviously. Confidence. More like once I start talking to them, like he said.
[:Actually having the conversation.
[:When you get to that point, you're like, Instead of trying to text on this app, let's talk.
[:Let's meet up for coffee or something.
[:And there's been men that we can talk for four or six hours. We've never met each other. It's so organic. A lot of times, they just turn out to be really good friendships that I've still had for two or three weeks.
[:And that's fine. Yeah. Because as humans, I think we're looking for that companionship. It doesn't have to be romantic. Yeah.
[:But like he said, just listening and the eye contact, or instead of it being one-sided, asking questions. I think when a man asks questions and I in turn ask questions, that's always a green flag. Can't deal with jealousy.
[:Yeah, that's a no go for me. That's a red flag for sure. I mean, that's just It speaks on their character. I can't.
[:I can't be questioned all the time. I won't be with somebody that if I need to question me then- If I need to question them, you're not for me.
[:Yeah. Yeah.
[:So that thing.
[:So again, it's that vibe you get, the feeling.
[:Just the little things. I talked to him not too long ago, and he said, What are you doing this weekend? I said, I actually got my nose in a really good book. And he was like, Oh, what book are you reading?
[:Oh, so he actually cared. Yeah.
[:And I told him, he's like, Oh, I actually just went to see the author at a book signing at Booktenders, and we should get together and get a Booktender.
[:That's fine.
[:That is fine.
[:Just that thing.
[:So the feeling that you get from a person is that green flag. Yeah. Okay. I get that. All right. Well, we're going to wrap things up. Amy Joe and Ben, on behalf of myself, the show and our listeners, thank you. And I mean that, thank you for your time. Thank you for the insight, the laughs. As always, thank you guys at home. We're always appreciative that you tune in. Amy Jo is a listener, so it's neat having her. It's pretty neat having her in the studio. I love when listeners actually get to come on the podcast and interact with us. Thank you guys for being here, It means a lot. I think our listeners at home are going to be really appreciative of the insight for sure. I think this is going to be a fun little episode. Anything you guys want to add?
[:I have a small one. Okay. Whether dating or not or seeking or not, it's so nice to make new friends. Absolutely. Maybe that friend can turn into something more. For sure. But don't feel like being single is a bad thing. I agree with that. Don't feel like you have to rush yourself into a relationship because things will fall into place. If you're meant to be single, then you're meant to be single. But the worst thing you can do is put yourself in a position you don't want to be in in the future.
[:Absolutely. Thank you. I agree completely. That's a good addition.
[:I don't feel like being single is a negative.
[:I don't think it is either. I tell my husband all the time, and of course, until I'm in that situation, I'm not going to know what I'll actually do. But mentally, in my head, if something were to happen to my husband right now, I think I would be okay with being single because I have great friendships. I have great relationships with other couples that are friends with Brandon and I. I have a whole life. I have a career. I have all of these things. I'm like you, Amy Jo. I'm not going to be about anything. If I want to... Too old. If I wake up at 2: 00 in the morning and I can't sleep, and I got a girlfriend that's down at St. Mark's, and she's like, I've had the worst day. Please have a drink with me. I want that freedom to, if I feel like it, get in my car, go down. I probably am not going to have a drink because I'm not a big drinker. But I'm going to hang out with her, and it's going to be fine because it's not hindering my life in any way. But the moment someone is going to be like, Oh, 2: 00 in the morning at 39 years old, you were at St.
[:Mark.
[:You were at your parents' You were 11?
[:Yeah, you were hanging out with your parents. Who does that? And I'm like, Yeah, absolutely. I'm not going to be questioned. So I think, and again, I can't say until it actually happens, and I hope that it doesn't because he's my best friend. But I think I would wear a badge of honor. I think I would be completely okay with being... But I'm a homebody. I'm a to myself person. Me too.
[:But I think what's worked for me to make being single okay Because I was married young. I was in a relationship, either married or dating since I was- Same.
[:In high school. Yeah, same.
[:So this is the first time that I really have been on my own, and It's actually been healing, and it's been for sure.
[:See, that's what I think it will be for me if it were to happen. I love it.
[:It's just how you look at it. I can honestly say my personality type I just try not to ever burn a bridge. Just because things don't work out romantically for whatever reason, as long as they ended it in a kind way, stay friends. Stay friends, yeah.
[:You can never have too many.
[:I have with so many of these men that I've met. We still hang out. And so when you do have those times when you're like, Man, I'm lonely. I don't have a date for this Christmas party, or there's still a handful that I can call me. There's still people you can call up. Oh, will you be my plus one?
[:And I'm happy to do it. Happy to, yeah.
[:And then sometimes It really does turn into something.
[:Sometimes it turns into something.
[:Just don't burn your bridges and just enjoy being alone.
[:Being with you and being alone in the time.
[:And when you think you really, really, really want a relationship, call one of your married I'm like, Call one of your marrieds.
[:Call us. We'll let you know how annoying it is that his socks are by the front door.
[:Can I just tell you what he did?
[:Or that he's farting in his sleep and keeping you awake. I'm not talking about you, Brenda. Not at all.
[:I just remember I have, good or bad, I have no children.
[:Right.
[:You have freedom. It's just me and my cats. I'm just enjoying it, taking it day by day. I love that. Things work out. They do.
[:I love then your perspective, even though you're newly in a relationship. I love that your perspective is, if something goes wrong, that's not a fault of my own. It just wasn't meant to be. I think that's true with life. I think whatever is meant to be will be, and I believe that whole impartedly. So thank you for sharing that extra little snippet. I didn't mean for us to go into another rant. So I will thank everybody again for being here. I think Amy, Joe, and think Ben. And I will say Amy and Ben, if you guys had a good time?
[:Yeah.
[:Very. I'd love to come back. Oh, I would love to have you back. Yeah, absolutely. We'll figure out some topics and we'll bring you back. You know what the show is about.
[:You and I can talk for hours.
[:Absolutely. All right. So with that, we are out of here.
[:Thanks for listening to the Tri-State Time Machine, brought you by Alex R. White, PLLC, @sudistractedriver. Com. If you have a memory you want Vanessa to talk more about, just send her an email at tstm@mail. Com or post a comment on the Tri-State Time Machine Facebook page. Did you like the episode? Be sure to share it with friends and family. It's the only way we can continue this fun work that we do. You can find a link in the show notes that you can use to share it. And be sure to let our sponsors know you like the podcast as well. Their contact information can be found in this episode's show notes.
