Ask Elisa Podcast

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Here’s a bonus mini episode of Ask Elisa. If you listened to the previous episode, episode five, you know that I recorded an episode with my boyfriend’s mom, Rhonda, and it was just an hour after we first met. We were both a little nervous, so before we started recording the episode, we chatted for a little bit while the mics were recording.

I asked Rhonda how she met her husband, Mark, and we just got to talking, and it’s all here, recorded, for you to enjoy. So, here is one of the first conversations I had with my pretty new-ish boyfriend’s mom. Can you tell me how you met Mark? I can.

I met him at our friend’s Christmas party, which really wasn’t a Christmas party. It was in a bar. So, I met him in a bar, and I had a, not a date, but a guy that I was spending time with, with me, and he just instantly caught my eye.

I instantly caught his, and there was some false advertising involved because he asked me to dance, and he does not do that. So, there was that, but anyway, he just, he listened to me, and I mean, I was in the dating pool for a while at that point. I was 40, almost 41.

Like, it was like a week before I turned 41, and he asked for my number and then didn’t call me for two weeks. But he called you? But he did call me, yes, and according to him, he had called me at work, and I didn’t get the message a couple of times, but I don’t know. I think he was, like, kind of waffling.

But anyway, we, I, I was, I had decided I wasn’t going to date anymore. It wasn’t, it was exhausting. It wasn’t worth the free dinner, because back then, they always paid for dinner.

I don’t know if they do that now, but it wasn’t even worth that. It was terrible, and I decided, I’m wasting my time doing this. I’m just gonna, you know, finish raising my son, and, and I told him, he called and asked me to dinner, and I said, listen, I just, I am done with dating.

You know, you seem like a really nice guy, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, and he called a couple more times, and we just talked, and I finally gave in, and we went to dinner, and he just looked at me, and listened to me, and was genuinely interested, and I don’t think that had ever happened to me before. Wow.

Even, even though I’d had two husbands. You know what I mean? Yeah. It was fascinating to me that he was interested and, and engaged.

No one had ever done that for me before. So, and, and there you have it. How long were you married to both husbands? I was married to Jack for 10 years, um, the father of my children, and I was married to Don, the chronic fibber, um, for four years.

I dated him for four years, and then married for four years. I did tell him right before we got married that this is, I’m not marrying you for the right reasons. I’m not, I, I’m marrying you because I need help financially to raise my children, and I said, we can’t do this, and then I ended up doing it anyway.

He talked me into it, and it was a mistake, so. Yeah, I got married and was married for four years when I was 28. Yeah, and then I had another long-term relationship, which we didn’t get married, but it was like I had two husbands.

Yeah, yeah, and they were, did you know, seven years and almost eight years. Yeah, that’s kind of the same deal, 10 years. I mean, actually, we were together, 12, Jack and I, um, the boy’s dad, and then the second one, we dated for four, married for four, so that’s eight years, and I started thinking, maybe this is how my life’s gonna go.

Every 10 years, there’s gonna be a different guy, and, and yeah, that was another reason I wanted to quit dating, because it just was, it was not successful, and. Yeah, I have a philosophy on dating, which is part of the message of the podcast, is that dating will be easier on you if you don’t focus on it. Right.

If you are, if your main focus is, like, enriching your life and doing your things, and then you’re like, and I’m also kind of putting myself out there, because I do want that, but I’ll be happy and healthy and good in my life either way, and so you’re not dependent on it, and so even though, like, I talk a lot about dating, because that’s what this podcast is, it’s really important to, like, not make it, not make your life depend on having somebody, because, especially because I’ve learned. My second relationship was actually really great, and we, there was no, there was really no problems other than we just, like, kind of fell out of alignment with what we wanted in our lives, and we kind of had to be like, oh, I guess, I guess we’re breaking up, and it wasn’t, there was nothing bad, and so. That’s wonderful.

It’s like, if you get to a place where it’s like, okay, we can break up, and it’s not the end of the world. Right. It’s, like, kind of freeing.

I, I’m sure it is. I never reached that. Oh, God, I didn’t, I’ve been babbling.

I didn’t. Oh, no, it’s fine. Are you sure? I’m, I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m actually, I’m leaving this.

I know, um, um. I listened to your podcast, the whole thing. You did? I did.

Oh, wow, so you know me. Yes, a little bit. That’s weird, but that’s, it’s a weird thing to be doing.

I’ve, I’m, like, it’s. And Jake said this, this, this is Alyssa’s, Elisa, it’s Elisa, right? Elisa’s first, um, podcast. I said, send it to me, and I listened to it when I went to bed that night, and it takes me forever to go to sleep because of the pain.

And they’re pretty short. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it was very interesting.

Good. And lots of things that I wish I’d known. Like.

When I was dating in my late 30s, early, well, I met Mark when I was 40, but yeah, dating in my late 30s, it, it, it would have been very helpful. So I think it’s a great idea. Yeah.

And there’s a lot of podcasts about dating out there, but oh well. I, I’m a bit surprised that how supportive everybody’s been, and like, everybody I’ve asked to come on has said yes, and, and Jake’s just like, yep, you’re doing this. Yep.

Which is great. That’s awesome. Um, I’ve had a few people who have not had very supportive boyfriends or husbands or anything, and they’re like, and he’s okay with you, like, talking about dating, like, publicly and doing this.

Yeah. It’s been my experience that open is the way to go. Yeah.

It’s, it’s a little bit of a personal thing to be talking about so publicly. Sure it is. Sure it is.

But I think that nasty surprises show up if you’re not open with who you are and what you think and how you feel and all of those things, you know? Yeah. I don’t like nasty surprises. I don’t think any woman does.

This is a creative project, and I think a lot of people, and also because I was doing my TikTok stuff, talking about dating on TikTok and doing stuff on TikTok was also like a creative outlet. Right. And when I would tell guys I go out with that I did that.

They, they would just like, they see it as like either like wanting attention and needing attention because of how, you know, a lot of social media is or not respecting privacy somehow or wanting to embarrass people somehow. And so, yeah, well, those are like, they don’t really shallow people. Yeah.

They don’t want, well, I think that people who just don’t understand a creative outlet. Right. And even when I don’t know how you can go light, I would say it’s part of my creative outlet.

How can you go through life like that? Some people just don’t have that. So what do you think Ask Elisa listeners? Did I pass the new girlfriend test? Do you think my boyfriend’s mom liked me? I think so. And I liked her.

Thanks for listening to this bonus mini episode of Ask Elisa.