Happy quarantine everyone!  The last week has been a doozy for all of us as we find our lives suddenly interrupted and altered, our schedules disrupted, our norms dismantled, and our social lives distanced.  After thinking it through, I decided I wanted to keep the podcast going as best I could.  So with the help of Gotham Podcast Studio, we recorded this episode virtually, with all three of us - me, my guest, and our tech - in our respective homes.  Technology is awesome :)!  Please forgive any difference in sound quality you might hear.

A lot of single people (myself included) are unsure of how to proceed in the dating world and LUCKY FOR ME I found the only relationship coach in the world who just also happens to be a behavioral scientist that specializes in infectious diseases whaaaaaaat!!  My guest Clarissa Silva has been featured as a guest expert on media platforms around the globe, and in this episode we chat about the pandemic impact on human behavior as a whole in terms of risk behavior, non-compliance, and the way humans have historically prioritized love over safety.  Listen in if you wanna hear Clarissa's predictions on what the immediate and long-term future will look like for dating... let's just sum it up with two little words:  VIDEO GHOSTING.  #yikes

This episode takes a hard look at the potential ways our society can and will need to change around mental health and companionship in the immediate future, so it's not for the faint of heart or for those of you who are still stuck in our good ol' friend Denial.  But if you wanna hear a scientist's take on the mechanics of dating in the time of pandemic, I hope you'll enjoy this incredible episode.  I certainly learned a lot.

Hit us up in the comments with any questions you have for Clarissa!  If you're interested in learning more about her Happiness Hypothesis dating program, click here.  

Ever been told you're intimidating?   Ever been told you're too much?  Ever been told you're overwhelming, too educated, a know-it-all, too successful, aggressive or assertive?  

What about objectified?  For being a certain size, a certain shape, a certain weight,  a certain race?  How about just for being a f***king woman!???

This month we're joined by Leah V., a writer, model, body-positive activist and self-proclaimed "unashamed fat, black, Muslim" who is the absolute epitome of living a queenly badass existence.  Leah V. spills the deets on her love life and ten year marriage to a Muslim man who eventually came to reject the idea of marriage as a whole and land in a place of freedom and vocal empowerment.  We hash out what exactly is up with crappy opening lines (one more "Hey, how are you?" and we'll both vomit) and Darian joins us as the VOP to weigh in on why men feel the need to have status on a date.  

We hope you find this episode as juicy and empowering as ever, and that you fall in absolute love with the charming Leah V!  Buy her new book here!

Happy Tuesday, singles!  We have an incredible guest expert episode for your February blahs.  Whether Valentine's Day has found you getting your groove on or Netflix-and-chillin' solo, renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Alexandra Solomon is here to share her uplifting and profound wisdom on reclaiming your sexuality as a thing of value and cultivating it in a way that feels authentic and aligned to you.

We are honored to have Dr. Solomon join us to talk about her new book Taking Sexy Back (a companion book to her acclaimed Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Get the Love You Want) which sets out to dismantle the often conflicting, shame-inducing, and disempowering messages about sex instilled in us from birth in a patriarchal system.  Instead, Dr. Solomon encourages us to connect with our true sexual selves by taking "sexy" as an adjective and turning it into a noun, something you own that is yours.

From incomplete sex educations, why women fake orgasms, sexual shame for men, and non-relationship hookup sex, we cover a ton of ground to investigate how the broken parts of our culture prove a disservice to the beauty that is your gorgeous, sexual self.  Get ready for a deep dive look into your sexual story.  

Alexandra H. Solomon, PhD, is on faculty in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. She is a licensed clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, and is on faculty at The Omega Institute. Her first book, Loving Bravely, was featured on The Today Show. She writes articles and chapters for leading academic journals and books in the field of marriage and family. She maintains a psychotherapy practice for individual adults and couples, teaches and trains marriage and family therapy graduate students, and teaches the internationally renowned undergraduate course, “Building Loving and Lasting Relationships: Marriage 101.” Solomon is a highly sought-after speaker who works with groups like the United States Military Academy at West Point, Microsoft, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. She is frequently asked to talk about love, sex, and marriage for media outlets like O, The Oprah Magazine; The Atlantic; Vogue; NPR; and Scientific American. She is an international speaker and teacher whose work has been featured on five continents. She lives in the Greater Chicago Area.

Buy Dr. Solomon's phenomenal book here!

"OMG it's Valentine's Day, I should have a partner I can go out with."

"OMG I'm nearly 30, I should be getting married by now, what's wrong with me?"

"OMG I'm turning 40, I should have a baby soon or I'll be out of time."

Sound familiar?  Probably we all have some version of that nagging voice in our heads that tells us we should be settling down, or should be following a "traditional" path, or should be elsewhere in our lives romantically than we are right now.  It's hard not to compare timelines to our friends, based on what society expects of us and don't even get us started on family pressures, oof.

It's SUPER easy to let societal messages get into your head, but you know what?  As our guest Chloe reminds us, "Just because you're in a relationship does not mean you're happy.  There's so much complication that comes with being in a romantic partnership, and it's not simple.  

This episode is for those who ever wondered if they were on the wrong path, and a gentle reminder that your path is your own.  Plus, we full on bash Tinder, which is always fun. :)  Happy Valentine's Day! 

HAPPY NEW DECADE, singles!!  We too are excited to shake things up a bit!!  You may have noticed that last month we introduced a new kind of episode with an interview with Laura about her book.  This year we're excited to bring you more one-on-one interviews with singles, in addition to providing really cool content with an expert on any topic surrounding or involving single people.  Yay!  We're calling these - wait for it - our Guest Expert episodes, and we're hoping to have one per month going forward.  (Side note:  if you have anyone you know should be on our radar, please tell us!  We're game for for coaches, authors, creators, you name it.)

This month's Guest Expert is Grace Lee, a dating coach and online dating specialist in NYC and founder of A Good First Date, a company that provides dating coaches and specialists to help give you a new approach to dating.  What do Grace and I cover in her interview?  More like, what don't we cover! From the basics of what a first date should look like (it's not what you think), focusing and appreciating your freedom as a single person, dating vs. hunting and more, Grace shares with us her perspective as a single person herself who is experiencing the dating environment first hand.  And one thing she's really insistent on is removing the blame from other people, taking stock of maybe some bad habits you've acquired and really taking a close look at how things are working for you.  And if they aren't, holding yourself accountable and changing the pattern.

We know you'll love this episode with tons of nuggets of great advice, encouragement, and tips to get you excited about dating in 2020 and beyond! 

To learn more about Grace, go here.To learn more about A Good First Date and possibly coach with Grace, visit this link.  

Hey ladies: Ever stay on a date an hour longer than you wanted to because you "felt bad" leaving early?  Ever go on a date you didn't really want to go on because you couldn't figure out how to get out of it?  Ever talk to a persistent pursuer on the subway or in a cab in a way that you thought was a polite turn down but he just didn't pick up on?

As women, a lot of us have been there.  Is it because at some point along the way we must have been taught to be polite and not hurt someone's feelings?  Or do we innately act a certain way to prevent a threatening response from the other person?  My guest Liz and I wonder why it is that as women we just can't seem to find the words to remove ourselves properly from these situations.  

And don't even get us going on showing up in a crappy T-shirt with a Monster drink or commenting on how large our ass is or telling us that he really doesn't care if you're successful. . . !!  Liz and I trade horror stories of badly behaved men who just can't seem to pick up on our social cues, while VOP Walker pipes in about why men prefer dogs over cats (and pets over women).  

Gotta horror story to share?  We'd love to hear them!  Happy 2020 y'all. . . let's hope it gets better.  

Ever look through the Self Help or Advice section of Barnes & Noble --- err, actually Amazon Books -- well actually actually amazon.com, let's be real here -- and think, "Man!  None of these books apply to me!!"  Well you're finally in luck, because one badass feminist writer wrote a book JUST FOR US!  "Singles: Take Control of Your Own Financial Journey" author Laura M. Oliver joins #single to share her views on the pros and cons of being single financially, what you can do to get your own self economically sound regardless of your past, and answers for us the ultimate money question:  Who really should be paying on dates??

Laura M. Oliver is a deal seeking expert, writer, blogger and public speaker. She founded afrugalchick.com as a way to help people find deals on their everyday expenses during the recession. In the ten years to follow she has spoken at over 2,000 churches, community centers, and private functions about using coupons and saving money. She has been featured on Fox News, MainStreet.com, WSJ.com and in The Virginian-Pilot and The Daily Press. Oliver lives in Chesapeake, VA with her super loving (and annoying) cat, Bella.

BUY LAURA'S BOOK here!

Learn more about Laura here!

Guru (Sanskrit: "venerable") in Hinduism, a personal spiritual teacher or guide.

Our guest this month is Priyanka, who may not know this but is officially becoming the love guru of #single.  Full of wisdom, confidence, conviction, and inner strength, this powerhouse Indian feminist knows what she wants in life and in a partner (whether they be alive or dead).  Through an incredibly rich international upbringing she has navigated all the highs and lows of dating, from Indian aunties setting her up, to long-term teenage commitment, landing now in the complex New York world of online dating, all the while just trying to find a sexy Alpha entrepreneurial male who has worked on himself as much as she has.  This girl has literally seen it all.

We hope you enjoy listening to her gorgeous melodic voice as much as we did and find some beautiful nuggets of wisdom along the way.  Parvati is the Hindu goddess of love, but here in NYC our goddess of dating is officially Priyanka.

Dating's only tolerable if we can laugh about it, right? (I mean. . . you are listening to this podcast, after all)  So for the second October episode of #single (recorded October 31st, because being single is the spooooookiest costume of all) I decided to bring in two professional comedians who have made us laugh based on their own horrific experiences of dating online to talk about what it is about live performance that makes this content so relatable, as well the process of taking something potentially negative and using it as a creative mechanism to connect with others in a shared experience.

Also, we talk about the dating sub-sect of colonial reinterpreters and if butter-churning women have got you craving some period costume. . .  please email us.

Robyn Lynne Norris is the creator of #Date Me: An OKCupid Experiment, where she and co-writer Bob Ladewig cooked up 38 "undateable" profiles.  What started out as a cathartic way to express fears around her own singledom and "undateability" quickly spiraled into an exploration into all that humanity has to offer in the single world.  The show ran for three years in Chicago and just recently ran for ten weeks in NYC.  She currently lives in Los Angeles where she teaches and peforms at Second City Hollywood & M.i's Westside Comedy Theater.

Andrés Govea is a Brooklyn-based stand up comedian.  They have been featured at Brooklyn Comedy Festival, Brooklyn Comedy Collective, Union Hall, and has been a featured guest on Chris Gethard Presents as the "Sexy Talk" rep, a phone-in segment where people call in to share sex & dating stories.

Real talk:  we're all unfinished human beings.  We're all working on bettering ourselves, going to yoga, meditating, medicating, and practicing self care, aren't we?

WAIT, AREN'T WE??  I don't know if you know this, but dating online is a minefield of red flags and you best be your best self before you even think about taking it on.  It can be emotionally traumatizing and also, not for nothing, but if you're not working on yourself, how can you really - REALLY - be ready for the challenges of partnering up with another human being?

Listen in as Jeanette is joined by self-admitting work-in-progress Rachel as we hash out the importance of knowing your values and setting your boundaries, and then strap yourself in for a doozy, cause Jeanette brings to the table an insane post-first-date interaction you do NOT want to miss.  Ever felt judged on a date?  Ever felt evaluated just for your looks or by what you have or have not achieved?  Wanna know what some men really think when women say they "don't need a man to take care of them?"  We cover all this and more.  This one might rub everyone the wrong way so hang in tight, grab a glass, and feel free to leave your comments below.  Enjoy!