Latest / In My Hometown / Is This A Midlife Crisis or an Awakening? | Erin Timm Shares Her Story

Transcript

Is This A Midlife Crisis or an Awakening? | Erin Timm Shares Her Story · In My Hometown

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: What if our happiest times weren't really our 20s, but our 50s or our 60s?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: What if the midlife crisis isn't really a crisis after all?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's really an awakening.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're joined today by Erin Tim.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: She is a writer, a model, a mom, and a familiar face from Netflix's very popular show, Age of Attraction.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And through her substack and personal essays, Erin has been exploring a reinvention, uncertainty, and self-discovery in midlife.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Join us for this conversation about who we are, what we're supposed to come to be, writing our own story.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're in my hometown with Jamie and Pascal.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to our show, Erin.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for begging me.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: You guys, I mean, I got DMs, I got strange text in the middle of the night.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's right.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: You don't we are thrilled to have you joking everyone because I begged.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: You want to hear the story?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh Erin uh sent me a DM and said, uh, you know, I'm in town, I'm staying the ambassador west.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're free, I would love to meet you.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, that's great.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, let me talk to Jimmy, my partner, to see if we could have you on a podcast.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: He said, No, no, no, I just want to have dinner with you.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how Erin.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he texted me and I said to him, No, she doesn't.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: She wants to be on the show.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I did not DM you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: I texted you.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: You texted me to get my cell phone number.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you get my cell phone number, by the way?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: I begged Teresa.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_04: Teresa Teresa Di Maria.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, De Maria.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, we went to the next show, yeah.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: But um, and she really didn't want to get involved.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_04: She didn't.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_04: But I said, I said, she said, why don't you DM him?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_04: I said, because that never works.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: What why why you decide?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: How did you end up deciding to call me?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: What's so great about me?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: You wanted to get to know.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_04: This show is called Let's Find Pascal a girl.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_04: Because you have do you know what you are?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_04: You are such a yenta.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_04: You really are, and that is a compliment.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: When I've watched where I come from, it is not, but we'll take it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_04: It is, it is a it is like something that we aspire to be as women.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_04: Because you are always like it's you'll you'll definitely say within podcasts, like, oh well, Pascal likes that.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: You do you do it?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it is because he talks about himself so much, so I'm always trying to help him out.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: But no, I I love him dearly.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I would want him to be happy.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly, this is not to be meant to be to be meant as a slight.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that you'll you're ever gonna be that happy with anyone because I do think that you like your things your own way.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I understand.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So he's happy at the time.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you are you seem very I am happy.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am very happy.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say, you know what?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody said to me, uh uh, how do you feel?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm content.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they said to me, Are you not happy?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I said, you know what?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's better than be happy or not happy.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm right in the middle.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very content.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Life is good for me.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way I look at it.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm content.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: And I I meant Yanta as nothing.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_04: Do not worry about it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, so we are we are happy to have you ultimately, and it doesn't matter how you get here, but you are here with us.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think if if any reservation, it was only because we had had both Teresa and Vanessa on the show.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I dug into your substack.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so open.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I just really love uh what you have been talking about, how open you've been about this midlife and what you have called a midlife crisis in a way.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So talk to us a little bit about what has led you to write, you know, to write these essays and where you are on all of that.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I'm trying to figure myself out.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I'm trying to know myself because I had my son when I was 22 years old, so he's 30 now.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_04: And um and I wanted to, like I wanted to have children.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: I had been traveling as a model from like age 16 through 21.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_04: And I came home to Chicago for a second, and I'm like, I just wanna, I just want to have kids.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_04: I thought, wanted to be a wife, but really, if I look back, I really just wanted to have kids.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I just want to set down some roots because I did not even have an address really for five years.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_04: I was in a suitcase, I was in because you were a model.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: I was a model, I was in, no, I'm not a model anymore.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'll model for you.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_04: It looks like a model to you.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_04: It costs a lot.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_04: It'll cost you a lot.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_04: You don't get up for 10,000.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, what's that famous like?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: You don't get out of bed for more than 10,000 a day.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, that would be me.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I don't have an agent, so you don't even have to pay the agent.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_04: So it's it's a deal, really.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_04: So anyway, and um, I was all over the world.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_04: I was in Germany, Tokyo, Paris, Italy, and um, and by myself, and I just wanted to set down some roots and have kids.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_04: And I've always wanted to be a mom, and I thought I would have a bunch of children by the time I was 30.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_04: But you don't just go having kids left and right, you know, you do you have to realize, oh, there's a dad involved, and he he better he better be a good person, and this one was not.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_04: So got it.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you never you never get married.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: Never got married.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_04: You never got married.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you basically had a children without being married.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: How long were you involved with that?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: The the father?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: I let's see.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_04: So I met him when I was 18 and he was 26 because he was managing his his family's restaurant, and I was actually on a blind date at that on that when I met him.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: And that guy was speaking of age gaps, I've always liked older men, always.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: Lots older.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: So this guy that I was on a date with When you say lots older.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we know.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well how old.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so the oldest one was um 22 years older, 22 and a half years older than than I.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: He was born in 1950.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what why why do you like older men?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why what what was there about?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um I have always been pretty mature.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_04: And and then having traveled all over the world by myself, being forced to understand life on that level, and then knowing I wanted to have children so young, I needed somebody who had that kind of experience and that kind of desire to create a life and to have a life together.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_04: So, and I've known that since I was a teenager.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_04: So I was on a date at this restaurant with a guy who was 34.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, he was 34, and um he played for the Chicago Bears.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_04: He looked for me, he found me.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_04: Not Jim Harbaugh.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: No, but I do because he was on the hunt for a long time.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I was part of that hunt.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_04: So was I.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_04: Were you?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_04: Who wasn't?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_04: Who wasn't, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: That's true.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: That I never actually went out.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: You went out.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we had a we had a phone relationship for a while.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_04: We had because he was traveling, but anyway, then he got somebody pregnant, so we couldn't talk anymore.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but he was like in the Chicago bars all the time.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: I don't I never saw him in the bars.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, but anyway, okay, it wasn't him.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and so when I met my son's father, he was just very charismatic, and we went on a few dates, and I was 18 and I was very much a good girl.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I knew that I w I wanted to get to know somebody I didn't just I didn't sleep around yet.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when you're doing 21, then when you stop.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_04: I thought I would always be that way, but anyway, so um, so we got to know each other for a few weeks, and then I had to travel again, and we couldn't keep in touch.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_04: Like, how do you do that?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_04: Like it took 16 days to get a letter from someone in Europe.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_04: So I lost touch with him.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_04: Long story short, I saw him one day um in Chicago again, like two, three years later, and I figured that was fate, and it was, you know.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and we just started dating, and I thought, this is it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_04: I I you know I want him forever, and he was making me think that too.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_04: So I said, Do you want to have a baby?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_04: He said, sure.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_04: He was 29, and I was 21.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_04: And and then so I'm was so excited, and then that's the very short story.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_04: I don't like telling short the short stories because you don't get all the details, but um, and then I got pregnant, right?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh when you started writing these essays though, it what spurred the essay writing about midlife?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did something just all of a sudden click that you okay, that you felt different or that you woke up?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I I told you I was really struck by one of your essays that talked about getting to this time and just sort of almost wanting to act out because you feel like that's what you're supposed to be doing, or I think that one was midlife crisis as a life reset.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_04: Was that the one?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_04: Well, in 2023, when I turned 50, I didn't realize it at the time, but that was definitely kind of a crisis for me mentally.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um because at a certain point you look at your life and you think this is not how I wanted it to be.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted other things.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um now, the best thing I've ever done is have my son.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_04: And we are like this.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_04: We bought a house together with my brother.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: We have a house that has two homes on it, so we all live in the same compound.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_04: Joey, my son, is the best human being I know.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_04: And we are so close.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: And so that turned out.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_04: But I have always wanted a partner and uh that lasted.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_04: And I would have loved, would still love to be married, you know, have somebody ask me at least.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even have a story where someone asked me, you know.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: When you go out, do people I look at you and I I mean, you look like you're 30.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not that it matters, because again, we talk a lot about it shouldn't matter.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I look younger than I am, right?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I hate when people say you look good for your age.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you look great, and so you do look great, not for your age, but look great.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: But what I'm saying is, do you get approached?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: I have, yeah, but um not really.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So let me let me track back a little bit.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so you got pregnant, uh, you got the baby.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: How long so what did you do during that period of time?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you weren't able to travel, you weren't able to do modeling, obviously.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, what were you doing during that time?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and and how did you raise your children?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: When did you decide to go back into the that was such a hard time?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_04: Because during my pregnancy, I really thought I that I was gonna try to make it work with his dad because I don't know if it was just your hormones wanting to make sure you have mom, dad, kid, or if it was that I just I don't know.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: But I tried to make it work with his dad.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I don't know, I don't really remember.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_04: I just was I didn't work.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't work when I was pregnant.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I just was health was being healthy and making sure that I had a healthy pregnancy, and and I started working when my son was like six weeks old after he was born obviously.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_04: And um I don't know, I just went back to work.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_04: I was modeling, I was only modeling.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: She's money, she's money, okay.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_04: And when you're 22, it's easy to bounce back from being pregnant physically.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but it was it was actually a really difficult time because I left his dad when my son was three months old.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_04: And um, and there was then a custody battle for like four years.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_04: So that took all of my money away from me.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_04: All of it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_04: All of it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: So um but I got sole custody.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um but he still saw his dad um, you know, periodically.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_04: But uh so yeah, I I went back to work as a model right, you know, right away.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So were you able to travel because I didn't travel anymore.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't travel anymore.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I went to New York and uh, you know, domestic, but I didn't go overseas for modeling anymore.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got an interesting story because my first wife was a big time model in Canada.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_04: Really?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she was a sport illustrated model, she's done a lot of modeling.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And she's done a lot of modeling, and she was traveling all over the world.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Japan was one of big uh was big China is everything.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I met her in an event, uh, you know, we uh she was living in Toronto at the time, and uh she was flying back and forth, back and forth.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And one day I said, Hey, enough, I think you should definitely uh, you know, or we live together, or we end it.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So she ended up coming to Chicago and she opened at the time a modeling agency, Carla Walsh World of Modeling.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And was it again?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Carla Walsh World of Modeling.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And she was training young girls who wanted to become a model because at the time Pepper Prince and uh were very popular was also a magazine for Marshall Field, Carson Periscott, and everything.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So she was teaching how to become a model, uh, run-way makeup, photo shoot, and stuff like that.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew the world of modeling a little bit about it, so but that's that's it's over now in me.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think yeah, it's I think you have to find something else in addition to modeling.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_04: When you're if you're not a supermodel, you definitely have to have side gigs.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you definitely have to, and that's why I started doing massage therapy 25 years ago, along with modeling.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I just stopped masseuse.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's not a good word.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's not a good word.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_04: That's not good.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_04: No, you don't say masseuse.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: Massage therapist.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_04: Masseuse is what you do on a illegally on a private island.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's okay.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: That's not good.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we will not massage therapist.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_04: Anyway, but your question was what made me want to like think about that, explore that for myself.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: Is that what you were saying?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I guess where I was going, Pascal, and that's great.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: I we definitely want to go back and forth, you know, to hear sort of your story.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Where I wanted to go is we got a lot of um our audience is primarily women over 40, over 50.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they really want like these stories about this midlife and this idea of reinvention and finding about who we are.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I what resonates with me is this comment you made about you just you sort of woke up and you you feel like you're this isn't where you thought you might you would be.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that is some of that is because um you were a model and that maybe these expectations of something were different than they are, or you were going down the road of it's more about you just thought you'd have this partner?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, mine was partner.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: Modeling didn't have a lot to do with it uh as far as midlife crisis goes.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: Because as I was saying earlier, I turned 50 um in 23, and I went on hinge and I hadn't been on an app for a while.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: And the reason I went on hinge is is because I'm like, I'm 50, I'm probably not gonna be this good looking forever.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: And um, and I just have to I just had this sense of hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, you know.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so I went on the apps and I in I'm in Wisconsin now, which is like 90 minute drive from here.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: And the pool there is bad.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_04: It's just the people around I'm sorry, it's not my people.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: They're I sh I they're just not my people in general.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I did find this guy, and he was the opposite of what I have ever dated, and that's not a good thing because I thought maybe I've been doing it all wrong.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_04: I gotta find the the tattooed guy who drives a motorcycle.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: Right, change it up, change it up, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I thought I should do.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe there's something soft under there, and and and you can't just judge by by that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: And so the first six weeks of that were kind of exciting, but then then I knew this was probably not gonna go anywhere, but we stayed together for like nine or ten months, and it was because I was getting advice from my girlfriends, and they were like, just stay with them, stick it out.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_04: You're supposed to go through these hard times and and you know, these stumble blocks and everything.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: Just and so I was doing that, and and I it was awful.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_04: It was just no, I don't why should I have to deal with this?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_04: That's something I don't want to deal with.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I just had this conversation the other day about that idea of just um two couples I know had were in therapy before they even got married.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I've done that.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_04: I've done that with two guys.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_04: I've been in therapy before we were even going to be.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe you shouldn't maybe that's a signal flag.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you go in therapy before you get married, you got issues.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: You got issues.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: I can't do that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think to me, if you meet somebody the first six months to a year to two years, is what I call the honeymoon stage.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: You get to know each other, you travel with each other, it's natural.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then you get married.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, when you get married, there is challenges who come along, and then that's what you might need therapy to be able to realign your value, to realign your your ideas, your gold.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think to me, if you start therapy soon after you meet somebody, it's a but it's a red flag.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: It well, it is.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: I I know that for myself because I've done that with two different men.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but so um, and during that whole time, during that age 50 year for me, because I turn, I turn my my birthday is in January, so I'm that age the whole year.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: So my entire 50 was being with this loser.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: And he is.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_04: He's a sorry, I won't tell you.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: So what ultimately made you wake up to that?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um to break up.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_04: I this is gonna be kind of messy to say and maybe uncomfortable for the males, but that was the last year I had my period.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_04: And it was all the time, and it was gross, and it was a lot, and it was it was it was to the point where I almost needed a blood transfusion.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_04: I couldn't work for it was like 10 days and what did your doctor say?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_04: The doctor said this is blood transfusion time, and so why was that happening?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_04: Because I was losing blood all the time.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: Did they give you some hormones or something?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_04: No, I had to take severe amounts of iron.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, it was like 350 milligrams of iron a day, which has its own side effects, and then you have to balance that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so did you ever have an IUD?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, and I haven't taken any sort of birth control since like 2000.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_04: So that you lost Pascal by the time.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_04: I know because that's okay.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, Pascal come back.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's okay.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_04: I mean that's a crazy that's crazy.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_04: But I mean, it's a fact of life.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm gonna go through.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, no.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_04: You have one daughter.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_04: I have two daughters, you have two daughters, so they'll they go through.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_04: But it's not, it's not, you know, I want to include the men in this because it is a fact of life.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_04: But so, and and to answer your question, he was very impatient and very unsympathetic.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: And and um, I mean, I understand not understanding it, but he was eye rolling all day long about it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_04: And um because you couldn't have sex with you.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah, well, that was another thing.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I don't care.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_04: You could if there's blood, you can still have sex.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_04: But this was the only guy who didn't want to, and I thought that's a little gross that he doesn't want to, you know.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: That's to me, that's I don't know.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_04: I've never had a man not want to.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: I would agree with that.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: This is a little bit of a risque conversation.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: We could take it, we could take it.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like there were too many red flags, Aaron, and you should have gotten this guy earlier.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: So many.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, right away, you know.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_04: So um, but it was like I was the whole year, I was just grasping.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: I was grasping onto that dead-end relationship.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_04: I was grasping on to my youth, I felt.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_04: I was grasping on to dealing with my health condition, you know, that that passed, obviously.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_04: But um I was grasping and the whole, and that was the energy I was dealing with.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_04: And so I got myself, I finally got myself a therapist at the end of the year when I knew I'm gonna have to break up with them, but I don't know how to.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: I just didn't know how to.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_04: So when I got the therapist, she said, she said, um, she asked me, Why are you here?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: Why do you, why do you need me?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, because there's a breakup coming.
• 21:51
  unknown: Right.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I want to establish a relationship with you so you know me when I start to cry.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: If you needed that support?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: And she said, perfect, let's let's talk.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it took me uh probably about six weeks to uh you know get myself ready to not feel like your girlfriends were gonna be able to um uh to do that support or you needed well one of the girlfriends was like stay, just stay, you need to.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_04: And now she's married to the guy that she was with during that time, which in my opinion, they shouldn't have gotten married.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_04: It was almost like she just wanted to do that, just to get married.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_04: And the other girl is just so very open to anything you're going through that she's not gonna be the one to give you uh advice like you need to get him out of your life right now.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_04: She would never say that.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, and I don't know, I don't know.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: What's your relationship with your parents?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_04: It's good, it's good.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't always good, like with my dad growing up, but he has redeemed himself as uh it when he got into his, I guess into his early 50s.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_04: But um my parents got divorced when I was 28, and then they got remarried to each other when I was like 33 or something.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_04: You have brothers, sisters?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I have I have two sisters and a brother.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And who are they in their life?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_04: So my older sister's just 12 months older than me, and then my younger one's two years younger, and then my next one's two years younger than me.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I asked about your parents because I have not been in therapy, but I have known people in therapy and watch a lot of therapy TV shows.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times when people, women have issues with men, it is daddy issues.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_04: Well, why do you think I said mommy issues on the show that I was on?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_04: Because if that guy's talking all day long about older women and his mom and stuff, I'm like, oh, let me hear your relationship with so that I'm glad you brought that up.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: So let's because I do think we should have to talk this back a little bit.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_04: I feel a little claustrophobic there.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we can move this whole thing if you want.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Just a little?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 23:57
  unknown: Okay.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_04: I I speak loudly.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um age of attraction.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you're talking about?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I what we we watched that, right?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: We watched it.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't even seen the whole thing.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: We even watched the four-hour okay.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I have not watched that.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh what's struck me about that is you were in the early episodes, and I was like, who's this lady?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: You were in this wine field.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and um you were with a young man.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I did not bring pictures, but we'll we'll put in the clips, we'll add in pictures and post.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so what was going on there?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, how did you get involved in Age of Attraction, right?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_04: Teresa de Muriel.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_04: She's the one who she reached out to my but my best friend Yovanka, who's a friend of hers, and she asked if she thought I would want to do this.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_04: And so then uh Yovanka said, Would you want to do this?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I was it was that was in um February of 2025.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I really had healed like for a good year from that crappy relationship that I allowed myself to be in.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, Okay, God, all right, universe, I'm ready.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_04: I'm ready now.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: And that was like the next day I got that message from Teresa.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_04: And so I said, All right, thanks.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_04: And and said yes.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: Because I that some it's not for everybody.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_04: Like I asked my my son and my brother, would you guys want to do a reality show?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, No, I would never do that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I would.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just I I don't mind the cameras.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when you were when you were in the show, there was like 20 guys between 20 and 60s, I believe, and 20 women between 20 and 60s.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you end up pick up the youngest of all and the most immature of all?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: He was I I personally think he was an idiot.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was so cocky, so vague.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_04: There's something wrong with him.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, but so there's something wrong with him.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you obviously when you go in the show, you you look at who is belong to you and you try to fend you.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_04: I think we know the answer to that.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: How did you end up with this one?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I didn't ever come up to Tristan.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_04: I never came over to Tristan.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_04: Even his name.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_04: His name.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_04: He didn't really like his name either, he said, in the beginning of the show.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_04: So what happened was there was the speed dating situation in the beginning.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_04: That's how we met all the guys.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_04: All the women were sitting, there were 20 tables, there was a girl at each little table.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_04: And then the way they introduced us to the guys was they had the guys all march in, you know, in this under this tent.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_04: And so we were all ready for these guys.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_04: But we saw that these these men were were assigned to a table.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_04: They knew exactly where they needed to go.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_04: So why is that surprising to you?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_04: You know all that.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: To me, I would I would have, I would have, if I was, I wouldn't have seen with the kids to get the hell out of you.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right, nobody I would have said to the police, so why are you matching me with this kid?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Give me somebody who's a little bit more mature.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, so and I don't know if it was just my naivete or what, but I really was I really went there thinking I will find someone that I want that you know, uh I and they'll they'll show that because that'll be interesting.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_04: But it's more shock value to get the big age.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that would have they missed the boat, in my opinion, on that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I think it did well.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I hope they changed it.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I but I do think that they wanted the shock value and they loved that that Teresa was uh 54 dating a 27-year-old and and Vanessa.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I agree with you.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think it would have been interesting just to sort of have some uh other mix in there and just right and have the and they tried to do that at the end of the show.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_04: They had a few couples, they showed a few couples in the promise room, but that that obviously had a little bit of history, but we didn't see any of that on the show.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_04: So how are we supposed to be invested in these two saying, yay, I want to promise with you, when we don't even know who they are?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it wasn't.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think I think to me when I watch when I mean I watched the whole show, I I just think then they they pick up the the the the finalist was the biggest, the biggest age disparity, yes.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was the the 60 with a 27.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would I I would say get out of here, you know, period.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then Vanessa and and and uh Logan Logan's which is 20 years difference, and uh, and uh Teresa and younger than her oldest daughter.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so to me, as you think they wanted that.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was the promises of the show, I think that was the experiment of the show, but I think it would have been better to try to match more be a little bit more compatible with age, like uh you're 50 and you got a 54 years old.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, or Andrew was in his 40s.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_04: Andrew was 38.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, 38, yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and I never even met Andrew.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_04: Right, I never got to because they didn't want you to.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_04: They didn't want to.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, they were ushering people, like once I I tried to talk to Josh, who I he's he's gorgeous, and and he's probably I think he's like 48 or something.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_04: So that would have been good age, yeah.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so I went over to talk to Josh and one of the producers go, Aaron, Aaron, come here for a minute.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and they took me somewhere else.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_04: I don't remember what I was like, just a minute.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: I'm no, you gotta come this way.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_04: They didn't want to waste the time.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_04: So, but with Tristan, so when we were speaking on that date, that winery thing, I had spent the entire ride on this big bus with with cameras, um, speaking with Brian, who is 50 now or 49, and we were talking the entire two hours.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_04: And I totally just love that guy.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I mean, it was like, oh my god.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_04: And he lives in Wisconsin.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, parts of the city.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So are you are you able to see him now?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: Well, no, see, so I'll tell you how this happened.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_04: So um, I mean, we I thought we connected.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe I was just, maybe I just had like, you know, hearts around my head or something.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know, but and we were definitely having great conversation, and then we all we get off the bus, and then he goes over there, and I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'll just stand here.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_04: And then Tristan stood by me, and then he just kept talking to me.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I didn't want to talk to him, I just didn't, but he wouldn't leave me alone.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: And there was a point when I walked off and I said to the producer, Can you get him away from me?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: I don't want to talk to him anymore.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_04: Where's Brian?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I loved how you handled him.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: And then it was like a like a mother, right?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_04: And so um, so then I walked away and Tristan grabs me and tries to take me off into the bushes, and I said, What are you doing?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_04: And he said, I thought you might want to kiss, you know, not in front of the cameras.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, Am I giving you any vibe that I'm just dying to kiss you?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_04: No, and so I mean, I it was it was very frustrating.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think he probably had a producer in his ear, sort of saying, like, oh and because Tristan was not interested in having a relationship.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_04: No, he was not, no.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not insulting myself, right?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_04: But he was not interested in that.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so, anyway, about Brian, so he on the bus ride home, he was he said, I think that we should be open to seeing other people.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_04: And that pissed me off so much because I'm like, here I am connecting with somebody, and he says that.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, well, then you know what?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_04: I quit where was this connection?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I quit forever.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because like where was this connection happening?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: You had you in the on the bus.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, on the bus.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Just on the bus.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I see.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying that he wants to make sure he keeps his options open.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to be with you.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think he's right.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, he was right for the show.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: He just get he just gets into the show.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's got 20 women there.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to keep my option open.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to you, I enjoy your company, I'm talking to Jimmy, I'll jump company, and I figured out which one I like the best.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: At one time they had, I don't know if you remember, they had what they call speed dating.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where where there is tables and women are lined up in the table, and you go spend five minutes with this one and that, that, that, that, that, until you find the one you want, and then you exchange numbers.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that was the concept of speed dating, but you were assigned somebody.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was very uh architected in that way.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: So what so why not reach out to Brian after the show?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_04: So Brian was interested in someone named Vicky, and I don't think they tried to get together after it, but so I did reach out to him after the show, and um and we he kept saying, and he's he's a baker, so he's part-time in Panama, and because I think that's where his ex-wife was from or something, and she doesn't live there anymore.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_04: But then he's from Wisconsin, and so every time I would reach out, he'd say, I will let you know when I'm in Wisconsin.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_04: And then I would see him post things in Wisconsin.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why would he be in Wisconsin?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's where his kids live.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's where he's from.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, that's where he's from.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_04: So he lives there part of the time.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Forget him, forget Brian.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, forget him.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, totally.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't and that's okay.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, it's okay if somebody's not interested in you.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_04: I I can still be friends with you, especially if you say, I think we should keep our options open.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_04: I understand.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_04: But it made me mad because there have been many times in my life where a man has said that, yeah, and I'm like, you know, I I'm sick of this.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_04: I am just sick of knowing there's a connection, and then they say, maybe there's someone else.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just sick of it.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and it is what we are hearing is it's part of the culture right now.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's that swipe culture, and that you always feel like someone is better that's around the corner.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_04: Mostly it's the men who have that.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what why?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you doing this?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just joking.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no, no, no, I just think, I mean, you it's a good question, Jimmy.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think men think they could do better and better and better.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just think men are.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for admitting.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's just be realistic, okay?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna talk as a man versus a woman, okay?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Women, when women get involved, they're emotionally involved, they're mentally, physically involved.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: When men get involved, the only time is really and I and I might you might not like that.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking for sex.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: They just want sex.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they they they they they don't want the responsibility of somebody, particularly when they reach a certain age.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think to me, when you look at a woman, when a woman involves emotional involved.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, versus when a man involved is a physical involved.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very difficult to particularly when you reach the group age we are.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I think also the older the men get uh and they're single, they're thinking, they may be grasping too, where it's like, oh, I I don't want to, I don't want to admit that I can't get the younger girls.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_04: I so you know, and I'm I've I've seen that over and over again.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, so either you want to commit or you don't, because we're not we're not uh naturally monogamous, but I like to be monogamous.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_04: That's just I I choose to be.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: So where'd you go where'd you go and meet people?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Angie is one of the worst website.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Pascal doesn't love Hinge.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't like Ange?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know Ange Hinge.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: He made it sound nicer, French way.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Hinge.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_04: I haven't been on the app since October of last year.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we had we talked to Teresa and Teresa was in Mariah, Mirahia, and she Oh Raya.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Raya, because she was there for seven years.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen it?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the time.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people make comments on that.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really working so well, you know.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think she said that she had had a relationship for a little while in between that time or something.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like because there were a lot of comments on that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean seven years in ange, I think it's a long time before you kind of if you have.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you're not doing the apps.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_04: I I did I decided to go back on the app on Hinge October of 2025.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_04: So and then I was on it through February, and I and so no one knew that I was on a show or anything, and and so they weren't trying to date me because I was on a show or anything, so I thought I'd better do this now before it's for the more wrong reasons.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so the guys who were liking me were all like in their 30s, and I did go on a few dates with a guy who was 36, and I really did like him.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_04: And he had like kind of grayish hair, and I'm like, this this might be able to work, you know?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and he was a doctor, so he was, you know, not just like sitting around doing nothing all day.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um and when when I thought I maybe I would like for this to be a relationship, I had to ask him, Do you want to have kids?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_04: Because he was 36, doesn't have kids, and and that's not that old yet to not have children as a man.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_04: It's not.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you know, you know what I mean?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I don't think that's like a red flag.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's not a red flag.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think his eye his eye rolling or movement was I I'm gonna speak for you.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think was more like yes, that's the situation that he probably wants kids.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, wait, yeah.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_04: So wait till you hear this.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_04: So he said, kids are not a priority.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_04: I said, that was not my question.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_04: Do you ever want children?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_04: And um, and he said, I don't know.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_04: I and I said, that's a yes.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_04: That is a yes, and you just want to have sex with me.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_04: That's a yes, and you just have to sex with him?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, was it good?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_04: No, okay.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_04: No, it was like no, it was one time.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, right, it was one time, and I regretted it during, right?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, let me be honest.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, this is just the way it goes in life, you know?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, fuck, I ruined it for myself.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Damn it.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it was he was bad because it was just like awkward as the first time and it would have gotten or do you think he'd become bad lover?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: He was tiny.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was tiny.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love it, Aaron.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we need to talk about these headings.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: This tiny, not just tiny, tiny.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Tiny.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tiny.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Tiny.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was tiny.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tiny.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: But this but no.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: This study is not the size, is the motion.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: No?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the tiny?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lie.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's a bad size.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: It is.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's the size doesn't matter, it's the it's the size because, especially the taller you are, or as a woman, because you have a longer anatomy.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, do talents.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, okay.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_04: Let's call that the notepad out.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: So let me so let me ask you a question.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Besides Inch, which which other website have you used?
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Have you been to bumblematch.com?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've done bumble.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, yeah.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and let's see, I I did match.com in the early 2000s, and I think I had one date and it didn't go well.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_04: But um, and I have so many, I have probably the best dating stories anyone will ever hear.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, just like you're kidding me, that did not happen.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't I get I get some good ones.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_04: I have better ones than you have.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_04: I know I didn't.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you should put some of those because I I haven't I didn't see so many of those in your substance.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't put it, I didn't put it in the same way.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: That would be an interesting sort of area.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: What I've seen so far is just so vulnerable and I so wonderful.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: My my question is um, have you gotten some great response from the community?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: From the substance?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_04: No, and and and uh it's okay because I write those for myself.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, you know, if you're doing something in the hopes that you get recognition or some sort of accolades, it's never gonna be a good thing.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I just I know I'm a good writer and I wanted to just do this for myself.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Jamie.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, I appreciate that.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_04: Uh especially as a woman, you know, who's my age, yes, I appreciate that.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um that it resonated.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but check them out.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_04: Also, yeah, it's called Old Me New Me.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um on Substack.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_04: But uh I I sp I have spent pretty much my whole life since I was probably about six years old trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um, my especially my mom and dad, starting with my mom and dad, and then it was my teachers because I really wanted to please them and be what they wanted.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I was the president of the National Junior Honor Society when I was 12 and 13, and um and uh and then it became boyfriends, and then I learned pretty quickly that if you want to get a guy to stay with you, regardless of his age, you better be demure and not be very funny, not be um very smart.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_04: You know, that's what I got from it.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I don't agree with you.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I got.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_04: It's not a necessarily a fact, but that's what I believed.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_04: That was my conviction at the time.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_04: And um, especially the ones that I wanted, they needed the spotlight.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_04: They needed to to be the life of the party.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_04: And um, and so then I would allow for that because and then when I started to become more myself, which is just goofy, and not I can be, I can be funny again, I can be serious, but I when I'm with my friends, I like to just crack them up and and just make jokes and and and laugh.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_04: I I think laughing, and I'm I I can I can make people laugh.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_04: And so I hid that for so long from everyone except for my family and close friends.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_04: And so now I'm like, I'm just gonna be myself.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_04: And if that turns someone off, then that's not part of my tribe.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you should be, you should be yourself.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, right.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_04: You should be yourself.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you try to be somebody else, and then all of a sudden you get involved and you become who you are, and that person doesn't like that, be who you are.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think to me, well, so it's you know the question do you know what you're looking for?
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are you looking for?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of men are you looking for?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what kind of a you know, what kind of life do you want to do?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_04: I know.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_04: So that's a tough question because I think for most of my life I've I've tried to just have a relationship with someone I thought I wanted and or people I thought I wanted, and then um, and then fit into their life.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_04: And so I never considered them fitting into my life.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: Because I think part of the problem for me has been I could never, I really don't think I could never, I could ever have been a mom and a wife at the same time.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_04: Because how different are those roles?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_04: A wife in my eyes was being um uh, you know, a romantic partner, um and and like attending to my husband, and a mother is being the opposite, you know, the just uh a mother, the mother archetype, which is um being there for the the baby who needs everything and um and soft and not sexy, you know.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: It's and so I I could never have been that for I could never have been too.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what you wrong, that's what you wrong.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well that personally, you could be both.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: She should be both.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: But if she knows that now that you don't know that because I think you could be both.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: You could be a great wife, a great friend, or great lover, and a great mother.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think to me, that's the great wife, your grandmother.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_04: And I but I thought it felt like too many plates in the air.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I could see.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_04: I think where do I fit here?
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_04: If I'm somebody's mom and somebody's wife, what am I?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_04: But I wonder where did you get I wonder where you got that view.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I mean that's bizarre.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: I know where I got that view.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: Where'd you get that view from?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_04: So, well, so my dad, um, it it's daddy issues.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it really is daddy issues.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: My dad I diagnosed it.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's definitely it is.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I we won't charge you for the joke, okay?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and I have the only way it is kind of working.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_04: I told you that's where it's a good t-shirt.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's summer in Chicago, you know?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'm always cold too, but um the only way I could ever admit that I have have had daddy issues is by being on the track to tr to to uh treating it, to recovering from it.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_04: So hang on, I'm so hot too.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think the conversation is having cold.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm very comfortable right now.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_04: So um, so my dad and my mom were this is my take.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_04: I have three siblings, and they may not have the same take.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_04: But um my dad was you was a model, and he was just a good-looking guy.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_04: He grew up in Wilmet, and my mom grew up on a farm in the middle of Illinois, and they met in Wilmet.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_04: My mom was working in uh at the CBS building in the in the 60s, the late 60s, and she was just this gorgeous, they were just two gorgeous people.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_04: And my dad is an amazing artist, and um he drew and painted a lot of nudes women, and we had those in our house, and I mean, just the most beautiful women you could ever imagine.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_04: And I I thought if I'm not beautiful when I grow up, I'm gonna be rejected.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_04: And because my mom was always beautiful, and um just just the best mom, the best wife, the best looking woman.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_04: And so, and my dad really put a lot of emphasis emphasis on beauty.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_04: Like he would, it would be a night in September where we would all watch Miss America, like he would kind of rally us all around and have popcorn, and we would watch Miss America, and he would criticize them like he would not believe.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um I that was where I was like downloading the info that I need to be are you in therapy now and you've come to realize I I haven't been in therapy for I mean this year I haven't yet, but like I up until like late December.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and again, you don't have to.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_04: But and that's why.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I I don't mind, this is just a human thing.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_04: We I no one's perfect, and and uh I like talking about it because it's fascinating.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_04: You're going to get your idea about the opposite gender or what you like in a partner from your opposite gender parent, period.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much about that, and I think there's so much too being written about how you heal yourself as an adult and how that sort of takes place.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it may not, I shouldn't keep saying therapy because the your writing could be your therapy, right?
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of it, it's all part of it, all part of it.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's becoming who you, you know, you're sort of next.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: We started this off with this idea of your next chapter, like who we are, what we're supposed to be.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all these questions that at midlife come about.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you're um starting to ask them and answer them.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_04: And and so I think you know, I think I've kind of surrendered to um, you know, if if the worst thing in my life is that I don't find like a forever partner, then that's not the worst life I've ever heard.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_04: But you know what?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: I might tell you one, Tan, if you keep looking, you will not find it.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think you got to go about it.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have to surrender.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta surrender around friends, you gotta have some exposure, you gotta leave the door open, you gotta give opportunity.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: That guy might not be you type, but he have maybe sometimes he's gonna bring to you an emotional, uh, you know, like a friendship and stuff like that.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we are we are very superficial.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: We lack uh we we lack what pleases us visually, and we go for for that versus going for what is inside of the heart, the mind, right?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then sometimes some people are going into relationship just because the girl is beautiful, but she's a nutcase.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, and sometimes you go to a woman who is not that beautiful, but who has good values, who has good conversation, who's educated.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think to me, you know, you gotta get exposed, you gotta go out, you gotta meet people, and and and then then don't don't put your standards so high because we're not that high.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I and I've gone through all of I love all of that because I have never since I've never been married, I've been what I call a dater my whole life.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_04: And which means how many years have I been dating?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_04: Uh 35.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_04: So I have tried, especially into my 40s, I'm like, well, maybe I should try a different kite type of guy.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe if I'm just like 85% attracted to him, then yet, and yet, but he's a good person.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_04: So I tried that, and I was like, I can't, I I can't.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_04: I can't.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_04: I it I so I I just I know that I need to be 100% attracted physically, but then you're right.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe you find out that they're crazy or they don't have the value, you know, or they're not very smart, or they don't have the values, or yeah.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: The physical part that is we've talked so much about this, but but I think it's important, but it can grow if you really um begin to like love someone.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_04: I think attraction can drop can grow, but I don't think chemistry can can grow.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like there's a difference.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_04: There's a difference because I've had chemistry with with men that I'm not even attracted to, and but I don't have chemistry with men I'm not attracted to.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_04: I know that's a little confusing, but um, and it's never been that it's not like the guy needs to look like um Brad Pitt or Clooney or whatever.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um they because I've been attracted to men who are like obese, I swear, like or like way too skinny, or it just there's never like this one type that I have, but you but I have to be a hundred percent attracted to to him.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and it doesn't have to do with their looks being perfect, and that's hard to find.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_04: And that's why I'm leaving it up to destiny now.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_04: Like I am, I have surrendered.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like I I'm not searching, I'm not on the apps, I'm not searching.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm just doing my own thing.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going out?
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are you getting invited?
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: You go to advance, you go to mixer, you go it's not easy in Wisconsin.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, you know, I've been there since the pandemic, and that that decision was because I thought, oh, that's right, we're all gonna die.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_04: I better be closer to my parents, which who live in Lake Geneva.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I also wanted to buy a home, and I thought the home that I can get in Wisconsin was gonna be, you know, really big compared to the place I the condo I could get here.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_04: So um, and I miss Chicago.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm here at least two or three times a month.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a group of friends?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a network of friends where you go out?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean there is a lot of mixer in Chicago.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but not enough, you know.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm always just holed up in my my hotel, and I love that hotel, and it's and it's great, but I I'm just not enough.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I what group age, what group age would be the appropriate group age?
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_04: Would be like ideal.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I'd say 40 to let me see, like 40 would be the youngest-ish to like 65, you know, like that would be ideal.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, there's wiggle room because depending on the person.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_04: The one guy that was one of my biggest relationships was was born in 1950.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_04: So how old would he be now?
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_04: He I haven't seen I saw him last year.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_04: And and get this.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_04: So I I met him when I was 33 and he was 55.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and then we it was a long distance relationship, which I disagree.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_04: I think those can work if you both have a common goal.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_04: Like, are you is this how it's gonna stay or is somebody gonna move?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_04: But then we stopped seeing each other, and then 10 years later in 2021, he reached out to me out of the blue.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_04: So now he was 71.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_04: And I hadn't seen him since he was 61.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_04: And the difference that he had, I mean, he was so different looking.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_04: He sh he also was shorter, and um um, and he had had some health concerns too, and so that was a lot to to take in.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, um so well it seems like the question I have, okay.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: You met him when he was 61.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_04: I met him when he was 55.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: 55, okay.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then you took take a break and you he came back when he was 71.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just say that you would have engaged that relationship with him all the way to the 71.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: Would you feel different about the way he looks and the way he is?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, totally, because it only took like a weekend to rem you know be back to what I knew that he was.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_04: So, um, but then that only lasted another few more months, and then I knew that that that couldn't stay.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_04: Couldn't stay.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, with a couple minutes, I just wanted to pivot quickly to, or not quickly, but pivot over to your modeling career.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we touched on it a little bit, but you had mentioned that you lived in New York for a little while, and that you you actually had told me that you lived with Tyra Banks.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen this documentary on um I think it's on Netflix?
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's on Netflix.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, about the neck America's next top model.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and just so we it was uh the problem is I don't like telling the sh the short stories because you know you don't have to tell stories.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just more mean well, I was gonna just more say what was your were you surprised that there was so much vitriol to Tyra around that.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not, yeah.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but so this was like 1992 or 93 when I was like 19 and 20, and it was a models apartment in New York.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_04: We she and I had the same agency, and um, and so in this particular apartment, there were four girls.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_04: And actually there were three, and then Tyra came in, and I had been there for like a few weeks, and we were told there's a new girl coming, and um, she's gonna stay in the bunk with you, Aaron.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_04: She'll, you know, so I picked the top bunk and and I was so excited for another girl to come.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like I wanted to make friends with it's very, a very small group of of girls who are models, and and we all had that in common.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_04: And and so I just wanted more friends, and so I was ready to make friends with whoever this was, and here comes Tyra, and she just was not very friendly from the beginning.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_04: She didn't really want to, you know, watch Melrose Place with us on the couch.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_04: And she did, but she was off to the side, and she just was not wanting to be friends, and it made me so sad because I wanted to get to know her.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_04: And um she hogged the phone at night and we couldn't get our calls.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_04: And this was a phone that could only receive calls and not you could only do like 1-800 number calls out because they didn't want us to write the bills, you know.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so she wouldn't let us receive calls, and I knew my mom was trying to call, and and anyway, she just wasn't very considerate of the other girls in the apartment.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_04: So one day um I had to, I knew I had to get up the next morning at like six o'clock for a booking.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_04: I had this beautiful alarm clock that was given to me for my parents.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_04: It looked like a compact and it had the flags of the world on it.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_04: You could turn its face and you could know the time in that city.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_04: And anyway, it was from my parents, and I couldn't find it.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_04: And so I I Tyra was not there at the time.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_04: She was somewhere out.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_04: And then I asked the other girls, can you guys help me find my alarm clock?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_04: I can't find it anywhere.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_04: We looked in the oven, we looked in the garbage, we looked under the couch, we looked everywhere, couldn't find it.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_04: So I knew I had to get to bed, and there was that 1-800 wake-up.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you remember that.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_04: If you lost your alarm clock, yeah, you could call like 1-800 wake up one or something, and it would call you and you would program what time to wake up.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_04: So I did that, crawled up to my bunk, and was ready to crawl up.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the girls said, Um, hey, Tyra's here.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Okay, I was ready to just walk, crawl up my bunk.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_04: There was a bag hanging off the bedpost of the bunk, and it was Tyra's bag, and I saw my alarm clock sticking out of it.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Oh shit, there's my alarm clock, and but I didn't want to take it because I felt like that was stealing.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_04: And then I said, Jennifer, my alarm clock's right there.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_04: And she goes, Take it.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_04: I said, Yeah.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_04: And then Tyra comes in to the bedroom, and I'm just like this, and she said, Have a good night.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, Yeah, you two have a good night, and just set my alarm clock to six o'clock.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_04: And she goes, What?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_04: And she stood up and her face was right next to me, and she said, Is it because I'm black?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I was immediately sad and devastated because well, and so I said to her, if you took the time to get to know me, you would not have said that.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_04: And but she was screaming now, yelling over me, punching the bed, kicking the bed, and she said something like, I'm gonna be so rich that I'm gonna be able to own an alarm clock company.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_04: I don't need your alarm clock.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, It is in your bag.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_04: It's right there.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_04: And she wouldn't listen, she wouldn't look, she's kicking things, and then I'm like, Well, I called that number, so it'll wake me up, and then I just pretended to sleep.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_04: Middle of the night, she's kicking the top, you know, my mattress.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_04: And have you ever talked to her since then?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_04: So the next day I get up, I leave, and I get back in the afternoon.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_04: And just as I'm walking into the air uh into the apartment, she's walking out with all of her bags.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_04: And she said, I hope you find your clock, miss thing.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, I looked over there and on the couch behind a throw pillow was my clock.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, Oh, there it is.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's a crazy story.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_04: And then from there she left, and then years later, someone told me that on the America's Next Top Model show, some there was a storyline about somebody stealing an alarm clock.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_04: No, yeah.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_04: So I I over the years I've thought maybe one of the other girls took it and knew how upset I was that I couldn't find it.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_04: So they went, they just tossed it in that bag.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's a possibility.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_04: Because if she was that upset, you know, then I mean, if someone, I don't know, if someone accused me of stealing something and I didn't, I'd be upset.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I would be like, you know, but I love that you're thinking about it now.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it sort of brings us back to this midlife type.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, I think now in my I'm 54 that uh there's a lot of things I think about from my past.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I can't rewrite it, but you can at least learn from some of those things and think I I would have maybe handled something differently.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think it makes us better and it makes us um, you know, I think it helps us to move forward and reinvent ourselves uh with you know as we go.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and to at least to have some compassion.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_04: But when I watched that the show, I can't watch, I watched 15 minutes of that documentary, the the America's Next Top Model.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_04: And right away, within about five seconds, she yells at a girl and says, I have never yelled at another girl the way I'm yelling at you.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_04: And I went, um, that's not true.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_04: Right here.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_04: And so when someone says that, that's called methinks ye doth protest too much.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna learn from that, but then we can also see that she necessarily has not.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, we have so enjoyed.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we could talk for longer periods.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_04: There's so many stories.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um we all have dating stories.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: I well, we are we get a few of them from Pascal every once in a while.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you so much for um being so open with us and uh important.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: We enjoyed the conversation.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh please subscribe if you're still with us, and uh, we'll see you next time in my hometown.