Ep 103 “First Date Stories” Author Jodi Klein

Midlife Mixtape

“Dating is a skill”: Jodi Klein, author and podcast host of “First Date Stories”, on the benefits and challenges of being a “seasoned” dater, her Ninja midlife dating tips, and Midlife Mixtape listeners’ own memorable First Date Stories.

Find Jodi on:

• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/1stdates/
• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/1st_DateStories/
• Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/firstdatestories
• Website https://firstdatestories.com/

The only Goo Goo Dolls song I knew of theirs, back in 1990 when I asked this cute guy on a first date with the free tickets I’d won. Thanks for being so loud that the guy suggested we leave and go get a coffee and talk, Goos! I still respect this video hard for all the nods to our mutual hometowns in Western New York, FWIW

***This is a rough transcription of Episode 103 of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast. It originally aired on August 24, 2021. Transcripts are created using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and there may be errors in this transcription, but we hope that it provides helpful insight into the conversation. If you have any questions or need clarification, please email [e-mail] ***Jodi Klein 00:01

Think about who you were in your twenties, versus who you are in your forties or fifties. You are a different person, and you know so much better who you are, what’s important to you, and you show up without being as concerned about the unimportant things.

Nancy Davis Kho 00:17

Welcome to Midlife Mixtape, The Podcast. I’m Nancy Davis Kho and we’re here to talk about the years between being hip and breaking one.

[THEME MUSIC – “Be Free” by M. The Heir Apparent]

Nancy 00:42

This episode of The Midlife Mixtape Podcast is brought to you by Audible.

Get a free audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.AudibleTrial.com/midlifemixtape. Over 180,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player. And you know what? One of those 180,000 titles is my book, THE THANK-YOU PROJECT: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time. It’s about a year I spent writing thank you letters to people who had helped, shaped, or inspired me from my AP English teacher from high school who I hadn’t seen in 30 years to my husband who I had seen five minutes before I started writing the letter. It gives readers a blueprint for doing it themselves, and explains the science about why gratitude and happiness work so well together. I hope readers will find it to be a tool that helps them emerge from this difficult period a little bit more gracefully. So go to www.AudibleTrial.com/midlifemixtape for your free audiobook.

[MUSIC]

Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Midlife Mixtape Podcast. I’m Nancy Davis Kho, the creator and host of the show, and I’ve missed you over the past month while I was out on vacation. But don’t you feel like absence probably made our hearts grow fonder for one another? I think it did. That topic of mutual affection is actually a specialty for today’s guest. Do you see what I did there? Did I segue like a boss? Yes, I’ve still got it!

My guest today is Jodie Klein, the author of First Date Stories: Women’s Romantic and Ridiculous Midlife Adventures, which comes out on September 14^th 2021.

A demanding career and desire to find the right “Mr. Yes” for her led to Jodi becoming an alumna of nearly 400 dates over the course of 26 years. She founded “First Date Stories” both the podcast and the blog, as a platform for GenX women to share their tales and wisdom so that others can overcome the trials of dating in midlife and find the long-term love they seek.

Jodi is a graduate of UC Davis and holds an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and she lives with her husband in San Francisco. Yes, spoiler alert. She found her husband. She found “Mr. Yes.”

Now, after I’d spoken with Jodi – I was so intrigued by the book, I really enjoyed reading First Date Stories, I loved talking with her about it. And then I thought, you know who I bet has some good first date stories? The people who listen to this podcast. So I sent out a call on Facebook and said, “Real quick, everybody. Send me a great first date story.” And as usual, you delivered. So stay tuned all the way to the end of the episode because I’m going to share some of your stories about memorable, magical and some pretty bad first dates.

But for now, fix your hair. Check your teeth for broccoli. We’re sitting down with Jodi Klein to discuss First Date Stories.

[MUSIC]

Nancy 03:30

Welcome to the Midlife Mixtape Podcast, Jodi Klein. Thank you for coming today. Glad to have you on the show.

Jodi Klein 03:36

It is terrific to be here. I’m such a fan.

Nancy 03:39

Well, that’s nice of you to say. I have to tell you, I have been so intrigued by the book, First Date Stories, we’re going to talk a lot about it. But the first question for you, Jodi Klein is, what was your first concert and what were the circumstances?

Jodi 03:52

My first concert is one that I will never forget. It was Styx — Paradise Theater tour at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California.

Nancy 04:03

Oh my God! Tell me all about it.

Jodi 04:06

It was the last show on their world tour. I went with two girlfriends. We were dropped off. We waited in line for six hours and as the line grew, so did our anticipation. We rushed in to the Coliseum. We grabbed our seats, we got pretty good seats.

But, we did not spend much time in those seats because the show was so amazing that we ended up heading down to the floor and the light show, the singing, the whole thing, it just blew my mind.

Nancy 04:43

How old were you?

Jodi 04:44

I had just finished my freshman year of high school.

Nancy 04:48

See, I think 14 is the formative year. That’s the age everybody should get to see their first show because it really means something.

Jodi 04:55

It did. I feel so fortunate to have had that as my first show. I really couldn’t have asked for a better debut concert experience.

Nancy 05:04

I’m going to ask you a question about Gen X and music. You’re a dating specialist, so I will ask you this. Did we not perfect the mixtape as a dating artifact that in fact caused people to fall in love?

Jodi 05:20

We did.

Nancy 05:23

I mean, if you’re listening: raise your hand if you either formulated or received a mixtape that was designed to make love happen.

Jodi 05:32

For sure. In fact, I seem to remember a movie or two where the mixtape was essential in the storyline to woo the woman, and I think many of us had those tapes given to us. Some of us, like me, may have it still in a box somewhere.

Nancy 05:50

Totally. Actually – I don’t know why I just remembered this out of the blue. But when I was in high school, there was this boy that I liked, and he was going on a road trip because his grandma had passed away. He was going to his grandma’s funeral and I didn’t know him very well, but I thought he was a nice guy, and I made him a mixtape.

And he came back and he immediately broke up with me. He was like, “There’s no future here because I like you too much. The mixtape was so good that it scared me, and I’m not ready for that kind of commitment,” which began a whole run of boys who would break up with me saying, “I love you too much to date you any longer.” That was Nancy from ages 15 to 19. But I couldn’t help it. I make a good mixtape. If it scares you, that’s on you, buddy.

Jodi 06:34

Exactly. If they couldn’t take it, you needed to move on.

Nancy 06:38

Have you had a mixtape figure into any of the first date stories? A first date mixtape, that’s a lot. That’s too much pressure.

Jodi 06:46

It’s way too much pressure.

Nancy 06:47

Yeah, I would be like, “Sir, you don’t know me well enough to create a mixtape for me. Back off.”

Jodi 06:51

Yeah, I have not heard any of those stories. No.

Nancy 06:55

Will you call if you do?

Jodi 06:57

I certainly will.

Nancy 07:00

Alright. Well, Jodi, we’re going to talk about your book, First Date Stories. But I want to start with a little background because there is also a podcast and a blog that are related, and it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing and I hope that you could explain to everybody who’s listening how these all interrelate and came to be.

Jodi 07:16

To do that, I’d like to set the context. And that is that I created all of this – because there are millions of uncoupled women who are Gen Xers, whether they’ve never been married, or in a long term committed relationship or are divorced or widowed – these ladies do not get enough recognition or connection. They’re not celebrated enough. They’re not supported enough, not what they deserve, and I’m trying to fill some of that void.

Nancy 07:49

First of all, women are overlooked, Gen Xers are overlooked, so Gen X women: it’s like the perfect, terrible storm. We started talking about that when Ada Calhoun was on the show with Why We Can’t Sleep about why Gen X women are trying to make changes. Because it’s so right in our faces that we’re not being served with the answers and the attention that we deserve. So I hear you. I totally hear what you’re saying.

Jodi 08:15

It really goes back to when we were little girls. A lot of us have created movie trailers in our minds of what our lives were going to look like, from the time that we were little girls – and, of course, this is not representative of everybody. But I think a lot of us thought, okay, we will go to high school, we will go perhaps to college or get some other training, we will get a job, and then when we are in our 20s or at the latest, our early 30s, a partner is going to show up in our lives and we will be coupled and we will live ongoing as a couple person.

That is a result of all the media, the books, the movies, the TV shows that we used to see in the 70s and 80s. Because let’s face it, no Disney Princess got divorced, no Disney Princess led a kingdom, no Disney Princess ran a company, right? I mean, seriously. The princesses let down their hair, they ate poisoned apples, they lost their slipper, and a prince always came to rescue them. Right?

Nancy 09:23

Right. Sure. How did you go from that understanding to deciding that you were going to put together this forum for sharing stories about dating at midlife?

Jodi 09:33

Well, we as women connect around our stories. It is the way we come to understand ourselves and each other. It is a way in which we give and receive empathy. It’s a way in which we validate our lives.

But what happens when you are still in the dating world – a lot of the people who you once were in the dating world with, your girlfriends from when you were in your 20s and 30s, suddenly aren’t there anymore. You’re kind of a lone warrior in your own mind in this journey, and you don’t hear those stories. You then don’t get that validation and you start to feel disconnected and perhaps questioning things and lonely. Then, you could very well pull out of the dating world, because you don’t want it to be such a solo journey. Or if you find yourself coming out of unexpectedly of what you thought was a long term relationship, then you may not re-enter the dating world. So there’s that truism.

Now, the next truism is that you have to show up for a first date to meet the person who you will be coupled with. So if you have stepped away from the dating world, you won’t do that. Right? You’ve got to go on a first date, a second, a tenth, a hundredth in order to be with that partner.

My idea was to couple those two concepts together, to have women share their stories with other women about how they kept showing up for what they hoped would be love, or a meaningful friendship or companionship, and in doing so, share their learnings as well. So that the women listening to the podcast and soon reading the book, would learn from them, enjoy the tales, not feel disconnected and continue pressing forward, if it is, in fact, important for them to find a loving partner in their lives.

Nancy 11:39

Right. Because we’re acknowledging that not everybody wants that, and just because you’re single, doesn’t mean you want to be coupled. So anybody who’s listening, no one’s saying you have to do this. But if you want to, it sure is easier, I think, to do it with some company and some validation that you’re not the only one who is out there showing up for the coffees and the glass of wine with the stranger.

Jodi 11:59

I couldn’t agree with you more. I have been there. I came to a point in my life where I thought, okay, I’m not going to live a coupled life, and I am okay with that, and I am 100% a believer that a woman can and should live a very meaningful, joyful, fulfilling life without a partner in it.

Nancy 12:22

Yes, and I think that goes also for those of us who are married. You have to be comfortable with your own company, be comfortable inside your own skin.

Where do you find the guests whose stories you share across? Just to reiterate, the podcast and the blog are both also called First Date Stories. How do you find your guests, and how do you select them because I’m sure you hear a lot of stories that maybe are not as educational? Having read the book, I thought it was great and it presented a really wide variety of circumstances. So I’m sure that as you are deciding what story to share further you’re looking for, okay, does this one have a learning moment in it basically?

Jodi 13:05

Exactly. I guess I kind of categorize them into three: hopeful stories, hilarious stories and horrific stories. We all enjoy a horrific story, right?

Nancy 13:15

Oh, my God. Can I mention in the book, there’s a story of a guy who shows up for a date, and he’s like, oh, I’m off the clock. He’s a professional man, and then he just is like, this is where I get all my swearing out. I like to swear, and then he curses his way through the entire date. That is rude as shit, sir. That is very rude. I mean, oh, my God, that poor woman on that date.

Jodi 13:41

Yes, that poor woman and the way he spoke to her, and the way that he treated her was awful. But hey, it made for a memorable story.

Nancy 13:49

It was an early tell. There was no ambiguity there.

Jodi 13:51

Exactly. I do receive a lot of different people’s stories and we take a look at them and try to figure out, are there nuggets in here that listeners can benefit from? Is it entertaining? Is it something that will help move this whole initiative forward?

Now, I want to mention that the stories in the book are entirely different from the stories in the podcast. So when it came to selecting the stories for the book, the idea was to put a collection of stories together that different dating takeaway tips could be drawn out of, because none of the stories there have overlapping tips. I authored those tips based on my personal, very long journey in the dating world and so it kind of gives an overall view to someone reading it of all different aspects of things that they can think about as they are out there in the dating world. Because this is really about just helping women become in-the-know, confident daters and have fun.

Nancy 15:04

Yeah, each chapter of the book is a first date story, and then it includes “the rest of the story”, so you find out what happened to the couple after the fact – some of which were they never saw each other again – and then the dating takeaway tips. I mean, you mentioned based on your own experience, but were those also from stories you’d heard? I know you have dating experts come on the blog, too. So you’ve brought in a wide variety of viewpoints to look at, what are the things we can learn and do better in dating going forward?

Jodi 15:33

Yes, I did author of first draft of them all, and then run them by professional dating coaches. There were two people who worked with me on this project through the time it was in development. So we got to professional’s eye on them, and hopefully, they will be helpful to readers.

Nancy 15:54

They are really good common sense, like a) be punctual. Yes, you have to show up on time.

But I really appreciated that they also upheld the dignity of both people, really. I mean, there’s the situation like the guy who’s swearing where, obviously, the first priority is to make sure that you don’t feel disrespected, and you feel like you are obviously physically safe. But also you uphold your dignity, you keep your wits about you and you say goodbye. Then also, if it’s not a fit, there’s no need to belittle the other person. I appreciated that there was kindness, and also a recognition that we should have high standards for ourselves and for how we treat other people.

Jodi 16:36

Well, thank you for pointing that out. Really, kindness is at the core, because you should show up as your best self when you meet anybody in life, and to show up and meet someone and exude kindness, even when they aren’t always kind back and if it’s not appropriate, and you can’t take it any longer, like you said, you just leave.

Nancy 17:01

You go to the bathroom and tell your girlfriend to text you that it’s an emergency.

Jodi 17:05

Exactly. Or do the call thing or whatever. Yes, they may even have apps for that, too.

Nancy 17:11

If they don’t, they ought to. But they do, right? I think they do.

Jodi 17:13

Yes.

Nancy 17:14

Having read all these stories, you summarize some of the biggest challenges for dating at midlife and a couple of them, I had not thought about so I was appreciative. But do you want to just throw out a couple of the big reasons that you found that it is so challenging, or that it can be challenging to date at midlife?

Jodi 17:32

I coined the phrase “dating deterrence” to mean just some little bumps that people can encounter that keep them from either keeping on in the dating world, or re-entering, and there are six and I’ll quickly run through them. The first is just sheer economics of supply and demand. When you’re in your 40s or 50s, there are not as many single people out there as there were when you were in your 20s. But the good news is in some ways for you as someone in the dating world, there are people coming out of relationships.

Nancy 18:11

The Second Time Around Merry-Go-‘Round has started!

Jodi 18:12

Exactly. They’re hopefully wiser about how to be in a relationship with someone else. The second is just, life gets more complicated when you’re a Gen X.

Nancy 18:24

That’s the one that kind of jumped out at me. I’m like, oh, right, like as stressed and frantic as I can be, to add dating on top of that would be really hard. I had not given that full credit before. I’m glad you pointed that out.

Jodi 18:36

Yeah, absolutely. The third is societal pressure.

I spoke about this movie trailer we had in our heads coming out early in our lives and it was formed. But you get to this point in life and there’s probably at some point going to be somebody who lovingly says to you, “Are you still single? Why are you still single?”

Nancy 18:57

Can we all agree not to do that to each other? Everybody listening: just don’t ask that question. That’s not very nice. You might be well intended, but think about the impact.

Jodi 19:08

It often is well intended, but it’s never received well.

Then the fourth one is that we live in an ageless society and society celebrates youth over maturity, unfortunately. So sometimes you will encounter men, if you are looking to date a man who is on his profile, let’s say 60 and he’s looking for someone who is 30. So he is not looking for a mature woman who is really more age appropriate for him. And that is too bad for him. I say, feel sorry for him because there are tremendous, mature Gen X women out there in the world, and so ageism plays a role.

Then there’s the fifth deterrence, the fear of getting hurt again. It’s unfortunate that we feel hurt when relationships come to a close, but a door has to close for another to open, right?

Nancy 20:12

It takes bravery to keep going. I mean, I have so much respect for people who just keep staying open and pursuing this. It’s a character-building thing for people who already have a whole lot of character.

Jodi 20:28

Exactly. I agree. For the women who have been dating longer than others, or longer than they typically thought they would, I have actually coined the term “seasoned dater” for these ladies and men, because they know their stuff. They’ve been out there for a while and they are, as I said earlier, to be honored, and celebrated as you’ve acknowledged. The last one is community support and we’ve touched on that already.

Nancy 21:00

Talk a little bit more about that.

Jodi 21:01

It is harder to find those wingwomen. Your friends from early days are probably busy in their jobs, busy raising families, all of that, and they’re just not available to go out, to talk about what’s going on your dating life and life in general. And so you may find yourself needing to meet women at that point in life who are available to do things and be present. Sometimes it’s easier to find men because there’s an app than it is to find women.

Of course, the pandemic has made this all harder.

Nancy 21:37

Well, I was going to say that’s the big Number Seven that kind of overrules all the rest of them. What were the stories that you heard over the past year? How did people work around it – if they did?

Jodi 21:47

They did, and they did it really skillfully, and they did it with bravery. There are a whole slew of the stories on the podcast. I will mention one of them. It’s a story about a woman named Penny, who’s in her early 40s, and she’s a special Ed teacher. She also does something called cosplay. Do you know what cosplay is?

Nancy 22:10

Yes, do you want to tell everybody who is listening who might not know?

Jodi 22:13

As I understand it, cosplay is a community of folks who dress up as different characters from different comics and other genres, and they come together at Comic Con, and have a blast around these characters. Obviously, there was no Comic Con during the pandemic.

So a lot of these people moved to Facebook and created Facebook groups, and Penny asked some people in a Facebook group to create a video for Star Wars Day for her kids in her class. A guy named Jay created a video, and they started to talk, and they started to text, and he lives on the other side of the country from her. This is all happening during the pandemic, during lockdown. So they start texting all day, and then they turn to calls, and then they turn to video calls for hours and then she has a birthday. They’ve never met in person. She invites him to her birthday with her family on Zoom and the two of them have never met in person, but they eventually do. He flies across the country when the restrictions start to lessen, and long story short, they are now a couple.

Nancy 23:34

It’s awesome. Here’s to Penny.

Jodi 23:36

Absolutely.

Nancy 23:37

I mean, we’ve talked about the things that make it particularly difficult for people dating in midlife. Is there anything that is advantageous to being in your 40s and 50s when you’re dating? Anything that makes us better at it?

Jodi 23:49

Absolutely. This is not a doom and gloom scenario, whatsoever. Think about who you were in your 20s versus who you are in your 40s or 50s.

You are a different person and you know so much better who you are, what’s important to you, and you show up often without being as concerned about the unimportant things that you used to be caring about. So you show up with more confidence and you’re more present for you, and that is a very powerful thing about dating at this point in life.

Nancy 24:23

I feel like one of the things that comes out of these discussions that I have is that a lot of us understand our boundaries so much better. We know what we’re good at and we know what we accept, we know where we are our best selves. And we also know what doesn’t fall into that definition and we can say no a lot more easily.

So I wonder if people at midlife have that advantage of being able to say at the end of a first date, “Nice guy. Not a fit.” Or, “This isn’t going to go any further,” or it is, and just have that clear sense I think back to people I knew in my 20s and myself in my 20s… sometimes you let the relationship roll on for an awfully long time even though you knew it was going to go to an exit ramp eventually. But it was just easier to just let it roll, maybe until the wheels came off. Do you think that’s true?

Jodi 25:10

I think it’s 100% true. Yes.

Nancy 25:13

Efficient daters.

Jodi 25:14

More efficient daters. As we age, we come to understand that time is also precious, right? So does it make sense to spend that time with someone who might be a very nice person, but not your person? I mean, spend time with them romantically. Certainly spending time with them in general, fine. But if you’re looking for a partner, that is not the best way to spend your time necessarily.

Nancy 25:38

Well, I loved the collection, because I think in whatever kind of relationship you’re in, married, single, whatever, I think we’re all curious how other people are living their lives, how other people are navigating some of the same things that we navigate.

So, I think anybody who’s single and feeling frustrated with dating, or just wants to know that they’re part of a bigger community would enjoy this book. But I’m married 29 years, and I enjoyed it, too and I was like, I need to up my game on that front. My husband’s going to bear the benefit. Maybe I’ll show up on time somewhere for a change.

In fact, one of the stories I got all excited because I was sure they were going on a first date to where Andrew and I went on our first date, and then the guy got the tickets to the punk show the night before and ended up taking her like on an earlier first date. But when they were going to hear music in Tempe, I’m like, “That’s what we did on our first date! I bet they were going to Chuy’s!”

Jodi 26:37

Wow, that’s where you went. Oh my gosh.

Nancy 26:40

I won tickets on the radio to a Goo Goo Dolls concert in 1990 and walked up to this boy who I had been falling around campus for days and said, “Hey, I got these free tickets. Do you want to go to the show with me?” The Goo Goo Dolls were so bad in 1990 that we left went got a coffee and that was the first date. So thank you for being terrible, 1990 Goo Goo Dolls.

Jodi 27:05

Exactly. What a great story.

Nancy 27:05

Through all these conversations that you’ve had about first dates, has there been any sort of overarching advice that you would be able to share with my listeners?

Jodi 27:16

Absolutely. Much like you, at the end of my podcast, First Date Stories, I asked the guest what advice she has for listeners. And I have received a whole slew, a whole range of advice, as you’d expect.

However, there are really four bits of advice that have bubbled to the top that have most often been mentioned and one especially, it really touches on a lot of what we’ve discussed. It is: first off, look at dating as a growth experience, and just go in with no expectations.

The second is, and we’ve talked about this too: leave if you’re uncomfortable.

The third is to take care of you and know who you are when you show up and just are living life.

The big one, the one that I’ve heard most often, is to be open. Be open to meeting different types of people, be open to where you meet them, be open to what you want. And it may not be what you think you want, so really be open in your life and how you approach things.

Nancy 28:24

That’s great. What is the date the book’s coming out?

Jodi 28:27

It’s coming out September the 14th.

Nancy 28:31

But I bet it’s available for pre order now, so go ahead and put that in your shopping basket.

You worked as a marketing executive for many years, at what point did you think, hey, I want to support single people at midlife and start a media company? Because it’s not an obvious…not everybody does that.

Jodi 28:47

No, it is not that obvious for sure.

I’ve been a marketing professional for a lot of years. I worked in high tech for many years and then I left to start my own marketing consulting business. When I left to do that, I took on a dual track career, I did the marketing consulting, and I did property management. And as I was moving forward through all of this, I came to the point where I thought, there’s just got to be somebody who addresses this void that I spoke about earlier, to try to fill it.

At the same time, I was part of a short story writing group that I had co-founded, just as a creative outlet, and we wrote about all sorts of different topics. But I just kept coming back to the topic of first dates, and then I started to ask people about their stories randomly, and they started to tell them to me. And I would continue to write these stories on and off, and then it got to one point where I realized based on survey I had done – because remember, I’m a marketer of other people – that there really was a need here. So I decided to put the consulting on hold and to go forward with this First Date Stories initiative.

Nancy 30:04

I love that, because I think a lot of us at this stage of life have another passion, another call, and it feels really scary to pursue it sometimes. There’s the road more traveled, more clearly marked… and then there’s the one you took, there’s the one a lot of people take, that’s really just trusting that if things are going to work out, you’ll figure out what you’re going to do with it. And I think it’s great, because the work that you’re doing now benefits other people.

Jodi 30:34

That’s why I’m doing it. I really want to help women, I have walked down this path, I have lived that journey and while I was out there, dating in my late 30s into my late 40s, I just kept thinking, “This has got to be better than it is. This has got to be more connected than it is.” There were so many fabulous women out in the world, where the heck are they? How do we bring them together?

What happened, Nancy, actually is I was fortunate enough to attend a fundraising event where Anita Hill was speaking. I sat in the audience, and I marveled at her, and I thought to myself, wow, this woman, she did not ask to be sexually harassed. She did not ask to be called before the Senate Judicial Committee. She did not ask to become the butt of jokes. She didn’t ask for any of it, but what did she do? She turned it on its head. She took what happened to her life journey and she became an advocate for women who are the receiving end of sexual harassment.

Now, I am no Anita Hill, I’m not comparing myself to her in that way. I’m just saying she inspired me. And I was in kind of the formative stage of all of this. I had just started to think, “Okay, this book is going to take a while to come out. What else can I do here?” Then I heard her talk and I said, yeah, I need to move forward with this.

Nancy 32:02

Right. Well, it’s that midlife question we have of: what is my purpose? What is my legacy? For you, it’s creating this connection and creating this sense of understanding that, as you said, is missing for so many women in midlife.

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned in the process?

Jodi 32:21

Well, the most surprising thing, I guess, is that it takes a heck of a while to produce a book.

Nancy 32:28

When did you start on First Date Stories?

Jodi 32:31

I really started full on four years ago and when you’re taking a more traditional publishing path, it takes a while.

Nancy 32:39

You mentioned you dated in your 30s and late 40s – you found your Mr. Yes. Jodi characterizes them as Mr. No, Mr. Maybe and Mr. Yes.

Do you think that hearing and reading all of those first date stories and analyzing what worked and didn’t, made you ready for your Mr. Yes when he arrived on the scene? Or did that happen first? Were you looking at that in retrospect?

Jodi 33:02

It happened in the middle.

Nancy 33:04

Okay.

Jodi 33:05

Yes, all of this helped.

But really, I think dating is a skill, okay? You’ve got to be out there doing it to get better at it, and I done a heck of a lot of it. There was that aspect.

But the interesting thing was, when we met, I was not thinking at all about dating. I met him in an event where dating wasn’t even on my mind. I had already gone out with a guy for lunch that day on a date and I showed up to this networking event, just to quickly be at this networking event, and then to move on to watch a San Francisco Giants playoff game. There is something that a seasoned dater hears again, and again, from someone who says, “It’ll happen to you when you least expect it” and I would do the internal eye roll.

Nancy 34:01

I’m doing it right now and I’m married. I would punch somebody who said that to a single person I know. Shut up.

Jodi 34:06

Yes, but you hear it.

Nancy 34:08

I’m sure.

Jodi 34:09

I never ever really believed it until it happened to me.

Nancy 34:15

You said dating is a skill. As a seasoned dater, what secret skill could you tell people listening right now? Like, what’s the number one tactic that you think people maybe people don’t know about? Your ninja skill?

Jodi 34:30

I think a ninja skill is to be able to talk to anybody. When you’re out dating for a long time, you become a really good communicator, which has a lot of benefits in all other aspects of your life.

Nancy 34:44

Sure.

Jodi 34:45

So when you are a good communicator, you are good at picking up what’s going on with other people, you’re being able to connect with them around different things that you’re sensing, and you also end up often being a really good listener and that’s also a really important ninja skill. Then the other one, if I’m going to add a bonus…

Nancy 35:05

Bonus ninja skill coming your way.

Jodi 35:08

Don’t judge someone when you meet them right away – unless there is a very obvious reason to do so like, suddenly you immediately don’t feel safe or something like that. But otherwise, none of us wants to be judged at the gate. You don’t want to be judged. It’s not right for someone to judge you. Don’t judge them. Give them time to present themselves. Because often, we’re not our best selves right away on a first date.

Nancy 35:35

Imagine the nerves.

Jodi 35:36

Tons of them. Yes, of course, people put a lot of pressure on themselves when they go out on a first date, as though this next person they’re going to meet is going to be their forever partner. That is just the wrong, wrong way to be thinking. I would think as I entered that cafe, that restaurant, that bar, that venue, whatever it was… I didn’t think this early on, but ultimately, I got to the place of, “I’m showing up to hopefully have a good time, but at least to learn something, to meet someone who has something interesting to share with me so that I can expand my view of the world. Heck, if we actually find chemistry and connection, that is such a bonus.”

Nancy 36:24

That is such great advice, beyond the dating realm. In everything you do, show up and see what you can learn from people. I think that’s wonderful.

Jodi 36:33

Now we can show up again and be together again, which I know we are all really happy to be able to do.

Nancy 36:41

I was in a restaurant last night, it was packed to the gills, I got nervous and left again. But still it was good to see other people having fun.

Alright, Jodi Klein. The book is called First Date Stories. You want to tell everyone where they can find it?

Jodi 36:54

You can find information about the book, you can find the podcast and you can find the blog at firstdatestories.com

Nancy 37:02

Alright, Jodi, what one piece of advice do you have for people younger than you, or do you wish you could go back and tell yourself?

Jodi 37:08

I would go back and tell myself to stop comparing your life journey with other people’s. Stop comparing yourself with the Joneses. Don’t be concerned with how their journey matches up with your journey. Let the Joneses do the Joneses and you do you.

Nancy 37:27

Forget about the Kardashians too. No one needs to keep up with the Kardashians. I love that advice. Alright, well, I’m wishing you best of luck with First Date Stories. Are you going to be out doing book tours or anything? Are you going to be on the road at all?

Jodi 37:39

I will be and we’re also going to be holding some virtual events. I ask the listeners to please check out, firstdatestories.com/book where we’re going to have all the information about the upcoming events around the launch of the new anthology.

Nancy 37:55

I’m so excited you’re going to be actually out in bookstores again. I’ll leave links to everything in the show notes. Jodi Klein, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Jodi 38:03

Nancy, this has been an enormous treat. Thank you.

[MUSIC]

Nancy 38:10

I really loved this idea that seasoned daters become more skillful in making connections, in listening, and in reading people. Pretty much every aspect of midlife has some kind of downside and that’s all you ever hear about. I just wish we could work harder to recognize and celebrate the upside stories, too! So I hope you feel uplifted by Jodi pointing that out.

And like I said, I just had a feeling Midlife Mixtape listeners might have a couple of stories of their own. So sure enough, here’s a sampling. Everybody will still send in the mail when I had to record this episode. So if I don’t include your story, believe me I read it and I loved it.

There were of course the hilarious and hellacious first dates. I think they were hellacious if you were on them, but they are hilarious if you weren’t, like these:

Risa wrote in and said, “I dated a real clown once. He lived up the street and asked me on a date. Even though I had a boyfriend, he was away at college, so this guy had been to clown college somewhere, so guess where he took me? The circus! We went backstage to see the elephants, then sat in the front row. One of his clown buddies sat in my lap at one point and squished himself into my boobs. He had liquor on his breath and stubble under his makeup. My date thought it was a good time. I did not. Never saw him again.” Here comes the punch line. “I married the boyfriend.”

He might have been at college, but he wasn’t wearing clown make-up.

Okay. I love this one from Carrie. Carrie says, “She went shopping at Structure for some khakis (a lot to unpack in that alone). She ended up scoring a date with guy who worked there and when he picked me up in his very fancy Audi, I sat very quietly the whole ride to wherever we were going and he finally asked me if I was ok and I confessed that I thought I might have just peed my pants. Well, it was actually just that he had the seat butt warmer on, but I had never experienced that brand new feature that cars had. I drove a Ford Probe for Peet’s sake. We are still Facebook friends.” Happy ending. You didn’t pee in his car.

Speaking of cars, Arnebya has got one for us. “I had a date with a fireman. I was 21, he was 25. I had no interest in dating but a friend was dating his friend, so I agreed to one date. He picked me up, said he needed to stop at home for just a minute. I stayed in the car. He went inside for 5, 10, 15 minutes. I knocked on the door and opened it. This fool was laid out across his bed. “You took longer than I thought to come in. You’re very patient.” Arnebya answered, “I also can’t drive but I’m about to if you don’t get up and take me home right now.” Arnebya says, “I suppose he thought I was joking because a few minutes later he was running barefoot behind his swerving brand new car that I was ‘driving.’ I had to call a friend to pick me up because I refused to get back in his car. Never spoke to him again.”

In the “never spoke again” category, here is Lance with a story. “So, about a year after I graduated college, I got set up with a friend’s cousin. We hit it off and decided to make a real first date happen. She had an infant but I didn’t know that the child’s father was in the picture. I show up to pick her up and dude confronts me in her driveway. One thing leads to another and police show up. I have to sit on a curb for 30 minutes while the cops decide who goes to jail and why. I got to go home and I lost her number.”

Remember how Jodi said not to judge? Here’s your proof, in these first date stories that didn’t seem promising AT ALL…or did they?

Vikki says, “I finally got up the courage to call this cute woman and ask her out on a date and she told me she couldn’t go because she did laundry on Saturday nights. I asked if she could maybe do it another night and she said no. I took the hint and said “Ok. Well maybe another time…” Right before I hung up she said, “Wait! I think I can try to do it on Sunday.” We did go on that date and I inexplicably brought her brownies. The date went pretty well. We’ve been together 28 years.” Woo-hoo, Vikki and Luisa!

Ellen says, “On our first date, he wore a blue plaid shirt. On the second date I thought, is that the same shirt? Third day, oh, for fucks sake! This dude only has one shirt. I still have the shirt, and we’ve been married 25 years.”

Okay, Michelle had a story for us. She says, “He took me to Pizza Hut! Should have had me running in the other direction but instead, I married him. We will celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary in September. Wait!! Weren’t you at our wedding?”

Full disclosure, the guy who took her to Pizza Hut is my cousin Mark, and there was an Electric Slide at that wedding 18 years ago. My cousin Mark on his dad’s side of the family is Scottish, so I’ll never forget the sight of the groom and all his attendants in their kilts doing the Electric Slides. It was a very Dance-Floor-Meets-Brigadoon kind of a moment.

This is a good one. Carolyn wrote in and said, “Under the guise of borrowing his floppy disk [so we already know what decade this took place in, right?] I asked a guy I was crushing on in my computer science class to my sorority formal. Fast forward a few weeks and we are at the formal, his chivalry forces him to basically shotgun a bottle of champagne to avoid it spraying all over my velvet dress. A little later in the evening while getting comfortable together on the couch, he proceeds to fall asleep WHILE kissing me. Truly, even had a little snore. Now, fast forward 37 years later, and that same scenario (minus the champagne) may have happened just last night with the same guy.” Aaww, I love that story.

Here’s Liz. She says, “I went out on a blind date with this guy (dinner and a movie) and we were both Robin Williams fans, so we decided to see Dead Poets Society right up there with Terms of Endearment for saddest movie endings, EVER. Liz said, I cried ALL of my mascara off to the point where I was sobbing, the guy handed me a handkerchief and my first thought was, wow, I never dated a guy who carries an actual handkerchief. And after I blew all the snot into his handkerchief and tried to give it back, he says no. It’s alright. You keep it. We were engaged 4 months later and to this very day, I can say he had me at handkerchief.”

Then of course, there were some first dates where things were just right from the start.

Beth wrote in and said, “My sophomore year in college, I went out to the bar with a childhood friend and her friends. None of us were 21 or had a fake ID so we took turns finding someone to buy us pitchers all night. When it was my turn, someone pointed out a guy who had bought for them on another night so I went up and asked him. He said yes, if he and his friend could come sit with us. We talked for a while and when Walk Like an Egyptian came on we went out to dance. We were inseparable after that night. Fast forward 34 years and we’re celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary next month. I totally lucked out meeting such a good guy, in a bar, at 19 years old and I count my blessings every day.”

David wrote in and said, “When I was a counselor, the day camp unit head agreed to go on a picnic with me one weekend. We rode our bikes 8 miles along the canal to a park. I had a backpack full of apples, grapes, and cheese. She brought a bottle of wine and it was pretty perfect. We’ve reenacted the ride every 10 years of our marriage. My father pointed out that every time after the first, I was old enough to buy the wine, too.”

Finally, here’s one from Chantel who says, “Cute fraternity boy asked me out. Dinner at Snuffers (everyone’s favorite) and then off to a movie.” Are there murders that happen at Snuffers? It makes me think of snuff films. Who names their restaurant Snuffers? Chantel, please contact me. Let me know.

“It was cold,” she says, “and he turned the seat warmers of his Peugeot on.” Oh no, we know where this is going to go, but this is different. “The movie was Beaches and he said he loved it as much as I did. Kissed me on the steps of the…” oh God, you are asking me to remember what these Greek letters are, Theta Omega, maybe? XO. What’s XO? “Kissed me on the steps of the XO house and left me questioning that high school boyfriend WHO I always assumed I’d reunite with after college. Fast forward 32 years, we still watch a movie every Friday night together, but the sappy dramas have been replaced by Marvel heroes.”

I’m saving the best three first dates stories for last, because they’re specifically about finding someone at midlife:

Elaine says her first date was “restaurant for lunch with margaritas. Putt, putt golf two rounds. Dessert at the local Gelato place. More drinks that evening.” They hung out for 8 hours “and at the end of the evening just said, ‘Okay, see you later’, basically.” She says, “It wasn’t supposed to be a date but it was. I was not even divorced yet. That was 5 years ago and we’ve been married for two!”

Here’s one from Ruth. She says, “I asked my Bumble match to go on a sunrise hike on a Sunday morning. It was in November, so it wasn’t super early, like 7:15am. He agreed! The sky lightened from dark grey to light grey as the sky was so overcast that there was no sign of the sun. We went on the hike anyway, continued out to breakfast, and we’ve been dating for 8 months!”

So I would like everyone to pause for a second. I’m going to be quiet in a second. We’re going to wish Ruth well. We’re going to wish her success in this relationship that she managed to create during the pandemic. Go. Alright. Ruth, I hope you felt that one.

And the last one from Steven. “Back in 2015, I asked the local librarian to coffee. She said yes, then changed her mind via text. But she said to say hello whenever I was in the library. We texted a couple of weeks later when I was on a looking at colleges with my son. She texted after we got home to see how the tours went.

I then asked her how she was doing and she said not well, as her pet rabbit of 11 years had died. I offered to bring her a comforting children’s book, Liplap’s Wish, to help her with her grief. That gesture piqued her interest so she then asked me to coffee. We talked for 4 hours at Rustic Bakery on a Saturday afternoon. Went out to dinner 6 days later. Then in 2017, seven years after I’d been widowed, I married the second love of my life.”

Let me know what you thought about this episode, or send me your own great First Date Story, I love reading them! You can find me on social media @midlifemixtape on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And you can always email me at [e-mail]

Thank you so much, everyone, for tuning in today. I hope you have a wonderful week!

[“Be Free” by M. The Heir Apparent]

The post Ep 103 “First Date Stories” Author Jodi Klein appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .