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Modern Love
Your Worst Dates Ever: With Joel Kim Booster
00:32:55
It felt as if the dating world hit a breaking point this year. With news headlines like “Is Dating a Total Nightmare for You Right Now?” and “Why the Young and the Single Can’t Commit to Dating Apps” appearing frequently, it became clear that there was a lot of pent up frustration. We gave you all the opportunity to let it out, and asked you to send in voice memos about your worst dates. We enlisted the help of the actor Joel Kim Booster, who hosts the podcast Bad Dates, to turn your worst dates into tidbits of wisdom for a brand-new year of dating in 2025. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.
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- [00:00]
T. Rowe Price Narrator
At T. Rowe Price, Global teams leverage extensive experience to see investment potential differently. Instead of fast answers. They understand that the true road to confident investing is curiosity. It's what drives them to ask smart questions about our ever changing world, like how can clean water transform farmland? Can healthcare innovations create a healthier world? How will AI be part of a new tomorrow? Troprice's curiosity runs deep and with it comes the power to help you invest more confidently. Better questions, better outcomes. T. Rowe Price. Learn more@troprice.com Curiosity.
- [00:37]
Anna Martin
Love now and did.
- [00:38]
Co-host
You fall in love last night?
- [00:39]
Anna Martin
Just fell I love her. Love was stronger than anything.
- [00:42]
Co-host
You love for the love love and.
- [00:44]
Joel Kim Booster
I love you more than anything love.
- [00:46]
T. Rowe Price Narrator
You're still love love.
- [00:50]
Anna Martin
From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Every week we've been bringing you stories and conversations inspired by the Modern Love column. We talk about love, lust, heartbreak and all the messiness of relationships. And mess is how a lot of people would describe the dating world. This past year I kept seeing headlines all over the place about how bad dating has gotten. Stuff like is dating a total nightmare for you right now? Or how to declutter your dating life. It's been a year that's felt like people are finally fed up with situationships, with cuffing season, with ghosting, endless swiping. There's just a lot of pent up frustration and we wanted to give you all the opportunity to let it out.
- [01:34]
Michelle Monroe
The worst date I've ever gone on made me feel pretty hopeless about how men think about women.
- [01:39]
Co-host
So I opened the car door and literally trash just comes spilling out.
- [01:43]
Joel Kim Booster
So basically the rest of the night I was alone in the stands while Amanda was down on the field with her friend Dani.
- [01:53]
Anna Martin
But it turns out it's not just this past year. Bad dates haunt us. Some of you had vivid memories of horrible dates from decades ago.
- [02:03]
Laura Faye Tenenbaum
It was 1980 and I was a 19 year old when I was in high school. Back in the late 70s, I was crazy about this guy named Joe.
- [02:11]
Anna Martin
It wasn't in 2024 that I had my worst date. But the date was so bad, even though it was 10 years ago, that it just won't leave my memory bank. So we wanted to turn some of your bad dates into little tidbits of wisdom we can take with us into the new year. And to do that, we brought on an expert, the host of a podcast called Bad. Comedian and actor Joel Kim, Booster Joel's got some surprising takes on your bad dates and talking to him honestly, I started to feel a little bit optimistic, like maybe all these horror stories are preparing us for something better in 2025. I hope. Stay with us.
- [03:04]
T. Rowe Price Narrator
How could market forces impact investment strategies? Tune into the Angle from T. Rowe Price for sharp insights on today's key trends. From the blue economy and AI to the impacts of the US Election. This award winning podcast brings you an information edge with thought provoking questions to changing market themes and gives curious investors dynamic perspectives from their global investing team and special guests. Better questions, better insights. Listen and subscribe to the Angle on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and learn more@troperice.com TheAngle podcast Holidays Got you stressed? Take a meditative moment and bake cookies anytime with Instacart. Feel your shoulders drop and your breath deepen as you realize you won't have to go out for groceries. Whisk yourself away on smooth waves of batter. Allow the familiar fragrance to waft through your home and your mind. Dissolve your anxieties with cookie recipes from New York Times Cooking. Get ingredients delivered in as fast as 30 minutes through Instacart. Find a recipe at nytcooking.com instacart.
- [04:14]
Anna Martin
Joel Kim Booster welcome to Modern Love.
- [04:17]
Joel Kim Booster
Oh my goodness, it's so nice to be here. I am such a big fan.
- [04:20]
Anna Martin
We are so excited to have you here. For listeners that might not know, you host a podcast called Bad Dates where your guests share stories about the worst dates they've ever been on.
- [04:30]
Joel Kim Booster
Yeah, real nightmares from the trenches.
- [04:32]
Anna Martin
Oh my God. Real night. Is that the tagline? Official tagline?
- [04:34]
Joel Kim Booster
Yeah. Should be. Should be literally.
- [04:36]
Anna Martin
Okay, well you can put it on the merch. Do it. And today we're going to do a kind of special Bad Dates edition of Modern Love. We asked our listeners to send in your worst dating stories and we're going to listen to them. We're going to weigh in on them. We're going to hopefully solve some dating problems. Does that sound good to you, Joel?
- [04:54]
Joel Kim Booster
Oh, that sounds perfect. That sounds like exactly why I got into this business.
- [04:59]
Anna Martin
Okay, we really booked the right guest. So first of all, I want to know from sort of a anthropological perspective, what is it about bad dates that interest you so much?
- [05:10]
Joel Kim Booster
I want to specify that on our show, dates is an umbrella term that we use to encompass everything from actual first dates or dates where you're, you're meeting for dinner, etc. But also hookups. For me, the thing that's fascinating about all of these stories is the vulnerability that goes into sitting down with a stranger and trying to like, dig Deep to find a connection, you know, and it is like there's nothing quite similar to it. And it is like something that we are told from the time that we are very young, that it is something that we should be seeking and finding and the struggle to be seen and more often than not, the struggle to see someone else for who they actually are underneath all of the layers of performance that they're putting on for you in the beginning stages of a date. It's fascinating, it's theater, and I love it.
- [06:03]
Anna Martin
I mean, I love what you're saying. You're saying that there's a real bravery in dating to sort of go on these dates and to not know, you know, how you'll fare and whether it will be great or horrible. And then when it goes so poorly to sort of dust yourself off and go back out on a date again, like, that's brave too.
- [06:22]
Joel Kim Booster
That's very brave. And I think the difference between dates with a potential romantic partner and like meeting a new friend or something or a business relationship is the stakes feel so much higher. Say that any other social interaction that you have, because this could be your future, you know, your future is on the line with every first date. And like. And people feel that. People feel that in their bones. And that's what makes so many dates so bad, is the stakes feel. And then because of that, you act in ways that are often so out of pocket and crazy.
- [07:01]
Anna Martin
Wow.
- [07:03]
Joel Kim Booster
And oftentimes out of character. Sometimes deeply in character, it's actually. Sometimes you're revealing parts of your character that you've been trying to hide for so long. But the crazy comes out because you feel the heaviness of what is at stake.
- [07:17]
Anna Martin
You know, you're sending a shiver down my spine when you said this could be your future. You know, but it's so true. It's like as much as we can, or I'll personalize, like, as much as I can tell myself to take it lightly. Like, the thing I am seeking is a long term partnership. And so. You're so right. Like, that pressure we put upon ourselves to perform can, as you said, make us act in absolutely out of pocket ways. Now I just have to ask you, because you are clearly such an expert and this must come from some amount of lived experience. What is your worst date story? Can you share, like a bad date that you've been on?
- [07:54]
Joel Kim Booster
Yeah, no, I can definitely share a bad date story. So I will set up a little context about me is that I gave up on dating, like pretty much in my twenties.
- [08:02]
Anna Martin
How Old are you now?
- [08:04]
Joel Kim Booster
I am about to turn 37. So it's been. I would say it's been a decade almost since I went previous to meeting my partner, who I met when I was, like, four years ago. So, like, 34, 33. But the problem was for me, and that I realized really quickly into adulthood, is that if I can't picture myself spending the rest of my life with you within the first 15 minutes of meeting you, then I'm out. I'm sorry. For that reason, I am out. You know, I will not be making an investment today. Like, it just didn't seem tenable to me. So I say all this to say is that on my show, like, the reason hookups count is because I would have nothing to talk about if I didn't include simple hookups and less, like, romantic dates. And so the story I'm about to tell you is a hookup story. And it is the third day that I moved to New York City from Chicago. Getting my bearings. I adjusted on my first. I. At this point, I am 20. I must be 27. And I was excited. I was on the apps. I was like, let's get this going. Like, I'm new to this city. Like, I want to, you know, make a new friend, so to say. And so I talked to this guy on an app, and we're going back and forth, and, like, you know, I knew he was in an open marriage, and that was fine. I wasn't looking for anything serious. That was. That was totally cool with me. So I show up to his house on the Lower east side, and he greets me. Everything feels normal. The chemistry feels right. And then he sits me down in the living room, and he says, oh, by the way, we will have to hook up in here in the living room today because my husband's home, and he's a little bit of a racist.
- [09:46]
Anna Martin
What?
- [09:49]
T. Rowe Price Narrator
No.
- [09:52]
Joel Kim Booster
And he goes on. And I was like, wait, excuse me? And he goes on to explain that, like, you know, we're open and he doesn't care that I'm hooking up, but, like, if he saw me with you, he'd be sort of upset. What? I know.
- [10:07]
Anna Martin
And did you get the can I. Did you get the hell out of there?
- [10:12]
Joel Kim Booster
I left saying it was because of the couch and not because of the racist in the other room. I was gonna point that out. And he. I think he knew obviously what the real reason was. And even if he didn't, he was very like, yeah, I figured. And I just have to say, like, if this is Your situation you gotta disclose. There's like, of course. That seems to be the problem, I find with so many of the bad date stories that we receive on my podcast is that there's just not enough context before you get there, you know, and people really disagree on the kinds of contexts that are important to lay out for the person before the first date or the first meeting. And, you know, this was a big one. This was a big one.
- [11:00]
Anna Martin
That is okay. That's really bad.
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Joel Kim Booster
Yeah. No, he really level set for me what New York dating and hookups would be like, and that was helpful.
- [11:12]
Anna Martin
I feel like we should hear from our listeners because they too have been on some very bad dates. Let's cue up this first one. This first one. This first one is kind of like a bait and switch from a good first date to a horrible second date.
- [11:28]
Michelle Monroe
I'm Michelle Monroe. My pronouns are she, her, and I live in Los Angeles. It was our second date. We'd actually known each other for a couple months after we met playing soccer and I eventually asked him out. Our first date, I got all dolled up and we went to go watch standup comedy. After the show, we went to a bar and he held my hand. He asked me questions, he listened to my answers, actually asked follow up questions to the things I said. And I remember feeling so heard and seen and respected. I had so much hope for him for our second date. He asked me out for lunch after morning soccer. As we left the field, I had made cookies and I gave them to him as a little gift. And he told me he was actually fasting to lose weight, so he probably wouldn't eat them. And he also wasn't going to eat at lunch, but he was super happy to watch me eat. Very weird. But I was super hungry, so we went. He talked at me for 28 minutes about how much he loved ChatGPT. So just to get a word in, I asked him if he'd ever used ChatGPT to research fasting. He assured me that he had. And then he proceeded to talk about how impressive he is because he can fast for days, still be surrounded by everything. He loves to eat and it doesn't shatter his willpower. And then he said something that almost made me lose my appetite. He said he struggles to empathize with women who are trying to lose weight because why don't they just fast for four days and drop 10 pounds? This is pretty offended by his comment. And I interjected again and said, actually, men and women lose weight differently. And he called bullshit. And I Said, you should ask ChatGPT. So he did. He took out his phone, he asked Chatgpt, and holy shit, I was right. He'd never known that. Never even considered that genetics might play a role or hormones. He just always assumed that women were weak willed. It was like going out with Dr. Jekyll and then second date was Mr. Hyde.
- [13:35]
Anna Martin
Okay, what do you think happened here? How does a guy go from Jekyll to hide like that? Like, was he just on his best behavior for the first date and then he let the sort of curtain fall for the second? What do you think happened?
- [13:49]
Joel Kim Booster
Well, first of all, when she dropped the tidbit about how he was obsessed with Chatgpt, I immediately looked off into the middle distance and it was, that's where I thought it was gonna end. Honestly, I was like, that's bad enough. That's simply terrible. But I think what happened on the first date is actually quite clear based on the information that we've gotten from the first date, which is he asked ChatGPT, how do I perform well on a first date? And ChatGPT spat out, listen, ask questions, ask follow up questions, hold their hand, go to, you know, like. And then I think he simply thought, I got it.
- [14:31]
Anna Martin
That is such a plausible theory. That never occurred to me whatsoever. That is so true. He was like, hi, Chatgpt, there's a cute girl from soccer. Like, what do I do? I think most of us can probably relate to trying to be in our best behavior for the first few dates with someone, and then we sort of slowly start to show our real selves. Hopefully our real selves are not like what this guy was revealing. When do you think is the best time to start revealing these sort of parts of yourself that maybe aren't your best qualities to a new person you're dating? Do you have a theory or a thought about that?
- [15:08]
Joel Kim Booster
Well, I think it's like it's a balance, right? Because you don't want to get too far into the relationship without peeling back enough layers that they, you know, it's like a sharp left turn. Suddenly three years in and you reveal that you are a huge Jordan Peterson fan, you know, which is, it sounds like, you know, he's, he's a fan of the Rogan sphere, I can guarantee you, just from the, the pseudoscience of it all, the fasting of it all, the not believing women, that seems, that seems likely. But I do think it's like, it's a gradual laying out. It's sort of like a three for them, one for Me sort of situation is like, you balance everything out with like, as you're revealing all of these amazing, like, sort of nuanced, layered, vulnerable parts of yourself, you then sort of, once you're at that point of comfortability, then you can sort of start dropping sort of the more unsavory parts of your personality, I think is fair.
- [16:09]
Anna Martin
Yeah, that's great advice that I feel like the guy in our next date should follow. And I feel like the guy in the first date and the guy in this date would really get along.
- [16:19]
Mindy Bell
Hi, my name is Laura Faye Tenenbaum. My pronouns are she, her, and. I live in Burbank, California. The worst date I've ever been on was fixed up with this guy by one of my girlfriends. The problem was he talked endlessly about himself and he'd just gotten his scuba dive certification and he was acting like the king of the sea, bragging on and on and on about how awesome he was as a scuba diver. And he never asked me anything about the ocean. Turns out I have a master's degree in marine science. I have over 3,000 dives. I taught scuba diving. And I just sat there not saying anything about any of that because he continued to brag about himself and never asked me a thing about anything about myself.
- [17:19]
Joel Kim Booster
Wow. Very thematically connected.
- [17:21]
Anna Martin
Truly. I mean, I was gonna say, like, maybe also the takeaway for this is just always assume that the person sitting across from you has a PhD in the thing you're talking about. And maybe that would really put you in your place. You know what I mean? Like, that could be a good way to operate in the world.
- [17:35]
Joel Kim Booster
I have to say two things though. That May, you were really suspenseful. I know this sounds terrible. And listen, I want to preface this by saying this guy is a shithead. She's completely right. No second date for him. Obviously he was in the wrong here. But two things I will say, and this first one is not a defense, right? People who scuba dive, God, do they love to talk about it. And God, and it's because. It's because they have to go through that certification process.
- [18:11]
Anna Martin
I know it's like a minute, but.
- [18:13]
Joel Kim Booster
Boy, do they love to talk about it. While they're going through the certification process, they can't shut up about it. And it's because they have to leave every Friday night activity by saying, I'm so sorry, I have to be up at 7 because I'm getting my scuba certification and I gotta get out there. I will say, so what he should have done immediately when he brought it up is been like, oh, do you scuba? Like do you know, like, you know, as he's talking about it, like that's obvious. That's the right answer. But I will say that she could have, yes, given him a little test a little like she could have interjected and given him the information. I think she's right that the real test that he failed immediately was not doing that work himself. And I don't want to put labor on women to do this work himself, but it would have been an interesting thing. I wonder how he would have if he would have course corrected right. You know, because this so many adult men are little boys and they're just so excited, they're just so excited to talk about their scuba certification. They cannot help themselves. Or like I just can't believe that he never said anything that like it would come up. It would seem natural for her to be like, oh, as someone who is an expert in this field, like you're wrong about that or you're right about that or a lot of people don't know about this and like things like that. But again, completely theoretical. I think she's in the right. I'm always interested to see how little things, little changes like that might change their behavior as well.
- [19:45]
Anna Martin
After the break, we'll hear about a date with parental supervision and how much would you put up with for Mariah Carey concert tickets? Stay with us.
- [20:01]
T. Rowe Price Narrator
Build the retirement you want with actionable insights from T. Rowe Price on the award winning confident conversations on Retirement podcast. Tro Price uses the power of curiosity to explore topics like how the psychology of money influences financial behaviors, how to maximize savings through retirement, and the unretirement trend. Get insights to help confidently navigate your retirement planning journey. Better questions, better insights. Listen to confident conversations on retirement on your favorite podcast platform or visit troprice.com podcast do you like podcasts, music and audiobooks? Because when you subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, you get all three in one app. Imagine listening to your favorite podcasts and music on the go to work, school, the gym, or better yet, vacation. Now imagine being on vacation with your favorite audiobook from Audible and then listening to a new one every month from a huge selection of popular titles. That sounds like a pretty good vacation, right? Audible is now included in Amazon Music Unlimited. Download the Amazon Music app now to start listening terms apply.
- [21:19]
Anna Martin
Okay, Joel, we're onto our next string of bad dates here. And for this next one, there is a surprise guest. Let's do it.
- [21:28]
Laura Faye Tenenbaum
This is Mindy Bell. It was 1980 and I was a 19 year old, outgoing, friendly bar waitress who was serving a table of rowdy college boys. And they were celebrating that one of them was turning 21 that night. He was attractive, painfully shy because he couldn't even make eye contact with me. One of the other guys said to me, don't you think Jeff's cute? I did, but I really only played along, hoping for a bigger tip. He'd like your phone number to call you for a date, but would you go? Would you give him your number? He actually did seem okay and kind of different from the others. And so I said, yeah, sure, let's go. So I chose a small pizza place around the corner, and I arrived early the next day and he was already in a booth. And I slid into the booth across from him and had barely broken the ice when this slightly older woman walked in and came over to our table and started taking off her coat. Jeff said, hi, mom. We haven't ordered yet. What kind of pizza do you want? I was speechless. So really, my date was with both of them. And although I had much more to say to mom than the mama's boy, I felt kind of obligated to tell him after we parted. You must be pretty new at this whole thing. But for future reference, don't invite your mom along on the first date.
- [22:58]
Anna Martin
It's so cute. It's so okay.
- [23:00]
Joel Kim Booster
What I love about this story and Dan Savage, I don't know if he coined the term or the idea, but, like, campsite rules apply where you want to leave the person in better shape or as good a shape as you found them. And I love that she did this work with this man. Again, not something that she. Not the labor. Not labor that she should have had to do or was obligated to do by any means. But very kind of her to have that conversation with him because oftentimes I feel like we just cut and run, cut our losses and run and don't give the note. It's a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to do because it's an extra layer of investment in someone you have no interest in seeing. Again, I am a huge proponent of the campsite rules. Like, I'm constantly giving the note.
- [23:47]
Anna Martin
Like, you've given feedback to people after, like, a bad date. You've been like, wait, can you give me an example of when you did that?
- [23:53]
Joel Kim Booster
No, not always bad. It depends on the bad date. Like, I didn't tell the guy who had a racist husband. You know, I was younger at that point, but I am Especially in sexual situations, and especially when I'm having sex with someone who's maybe a little more inexperienced than I am. I'm always saying, like, hey, just so you know, like, lube is important, and the fact that you didn't have any is a problem. I've told people straight up, you need to remove X picture from your profile because you don't look like this. And always, always, always in the context of you look better than this photo suggests. And I have told men straight up post coitally, like, hey, just so you know, like, you are so much more attractive than this photo. And I want to let you know, real service, she saved this man maybe a lot of grief. And, like, I think she's a hero for that. And I think it's a brave thing to do. I think it's, again, like, labor that she did not need to take on. And the fact that she did speaks volumes about her.
- [24:51]
Anna Martin
You and this woman share a lot. You and this woman share a lot.
- [24:54]
Joel Kim Booster
We're heroes. We don't all wear capes.
- [24:56]
Anna Martin
Yeah, okay. Our last one is a. It speaks for itself. It's a doozy.
- [25:04]
Co-host
The worst date I ever went on. I was in my mid to late 20s, and I had an on and off relationship, mostly off, but sometimes on, with a guy who I knew was just bad news. And I came home from work one day and I was just gonna. My plan was just to shampoo my carpets and watch Frasier and everything was gonna be fine. And then he calls and says, hey, I have tickets to go see Mariah Carey. He was in pharmaceutical sales and would often get freebies. And why don't you meet me down at the arena and we can go. And I said, okay. And I hung up the phone. And I was thinking, I don't know, this guy is super cheap. You know, nothing is free. I'm gonna end up regretting it at the end of the night. But then I thought, I love Mariah Carey. I'm gonna go. So I quickly got myself together and we meet at this restaurant that is adjacent to the arena. When I walk into the restaurant, he was in there holding court. He had bought people rounds of drinks and was just being a real showman. Didn't offer me so much as a glass of water, and he was just, okay, you ready to go? Let's go. So we walk a block to the arena, and he goes into a concession stand, buys himself something to drink again, offers me nothing. And immediately I started thinking, this is why I stopped messing with him, because he was super cheap. And just always wanted to get something for nothing and just really didn't care. So I ignore it. And finally we're sitting down. I'm like, great, I love Mariah Carey. Let's get into this music. He then starts chatting me up about, oh, you look like a swimmer. Did you swim in high school? And he's just chatting with me as if we're over dinner. And so I look at him, and I'm just like, oh, you know, we can talk about it later. You know, I just want to enjoy the show. And so he's like. He kind of shrugs, and he's like, okay. And I can just feel him just staring at me the whole time. I did my best to enjoy the show. Eventually, the show ends, and what he says is, you know, I'll drive you to your car. You come to my car, and I'll drop you to your car. And we get to his car, and then I look inside, and it looks like he had been living in his car the whole time. And I'm reminded, okay, he's in pharmaceutical sales. He does spend a great deal of time in his car. So I open the car door, and literally, trash just comes spilling out. And so I said, don't worry about it. You know, I'll just. I'll just walk tomorrow. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't worry about it. I'm gonna take. I'm gonna take you. I'm gonna take you. And I'm like, no, seriously, it's fine. He does not bother to pick up the trash. He says, I just want to use the bathroom first. I said, I'm not sure there's a bathroom in the parking structure. He unzips his pants and is now peeing on the same trash that falls out of his car. I look at him, and I was completely horrified. People can see him peeing on this trash like a savage. And I was just humiliated. And I could not wait for the date to be over. I was glad that he was. I cried all the way home because I did not follow my own instincts about this guy not being, like, worth me coming down. I had a perfectly fine plan for the night, and it was like one of those things you learn in your 20s, like, you know, you know, about listening to your gut. Like, it was the worst. I don't think I even spoke to him again after that.
- [28:12]
Joel Kim Booster
Wow. Wow, that is. That is so tough to hear because, like, Frasier is such a good show. You know, like, to think about what she could have had.
- [28:28]
Anna Martin
She could have Been shampooing her carpets. I love that.
- [28:31]
Joel Kim Booster
And there was no dvr, There was no streaming, There was no way to. She missed a perfect three act farce. Perfect to live out her own. And that is such a bummer.
- [28:44]
Anna Martin
The thing is, like, at the beginning of this story, she says, like, she didn't even really want to go out with him in the first place. Like, she had a bad feeling about it. She just loved Mariah Carey's music so much, which.
- [28:55]
Joel Kim Booster
That's a testament. Mariah Carey right there.
- [28:57]
Anna Martin
Yeah, it's just a testament to Mariah Carey. The Mariah Carey tickets aside, Adrienne, the woman who told us this story, was still giving this guy who she knew was not the best for her another chance. Do you think a lot of people end up having bad dates because they're giving someone, like, one more opportunity to prove themselves?
- [29:20]
Joel Kim Booster
That's the biggest reason why is that I refuse to give people the second chance because it's a gut check thing. And you got. I don't listen to your God. And I will say this too. And I think this worked out slightly in her favor. But, like, I find movies and concerts and any sort of performance first date to be a mistake unless there is some component on either side of it where you actually can communicate. Now, this worked out in her favor because she was just able to enjoy the concert and then just had to suffer through some pee on trash. But I think it would have been a much more painful experience for her if she was sitting across from him at a table and had to like, actually engage with him. And sometimes people reveal themselves early on in a way that is like, thank God. Thank God she saw him pee on that trash right when she did.
- [30:10]
Anna Martin
Oh, God, she saw him pee on the trash. I mean, she said she cried on the way home, which I understand. It's like dating can be so traumatic. Traumatic and demoralizing. It's just this pileup. I mean, that was a really extreme case. Like, it's just. It's very exhausting.
- [30:25]
Joel Kim Booster
Well, because it's an investment. It's an investment of time, energy, money, vulnerability, all of these things. It's why no matter what the situation is around a breakup, if you've been with someone for three years and you break up, even if it's amicable, it is sad because that is so much investment in someone else. And to what end at this point?
- [30:47]
Anna Martin
Okay, wait, well, that's my question to you is like, I want you to continue that and give us a little light at the end of the tunnel. Like, what advice can you give to people to sort of get through the slog or the exhaustion that dating can sometimes be? Like, I'm looking to you to inspire those of us who are not engaged. I'm happy for you. Who are not engaged, who are still out here, like, trying to put ourselves out there, like, inspire us. Why should we keep doing this?
- [31:14]
Joel Kim Booster
Well, I think, like, my biggest advice is to protect your peace and trust your gut. Like, life is so short, the world is ending. You know, watch Frasier. Stay at home and watch Frasier. You know, like, that is like a huge thing is that, like, don't force yourself. Don't force a square peg into a round hole and do not kill yourself and trying to do that. Like, and I think the other thing for me is, is that, like, understand what you're actually looking for. I think a lot of people are sort of like, he could. This could work without really understanding. And I had a really, like, specific list of qualities that I was looking for. And if you go into dating with that intentionality, and it can be a list of a hundred qualities, in my case it was three. I wanted someone who could keep up with me energetically, who I could take anywhere and would fit into any social situation without me having to worry about them either being bored or needing me to sort of hold up the social end of the obligation or embarrass me in front of my friends. And I wanted someone who within the first 15 minutes of meeting them, did not bring up how disgusting they thought homeless people was, which was sort of a catch all for a lot of different political leanings. But that specifically is shockingly hard to find in la. And so I literally just had those three things in mind. And I met this guy and he. And he was. He also happened to be incredibly fucking attractive and kind. And. But the thing is, like, I had those three things to fall back on and it was like, check, check, check. I know I can at least like pursue this a little bit more. And so I think, like, it's. Dating is only worth it if you set the intention and this person is meeting that intention. Like, if it's just too much investment to not have something specific on your mind that you are looking for. And of course, sometimes it takes some trial and error to forget that out. But knowing yourself is a huge part of it. Like, so many people go on dates and they don't know themselves well enough. They have not taken the time to get to know themselves and their needs and their wants to even be in the position to be dating. And so, you know, I think that's why people end up on bad dates. I think that's why a lot of people are bad at dating on the other side. But I also think that's why a lot of people find themselves on bad dates with people that are just fundamentally not right for them. And they know that, or they should know that, but they just haven't done enough solo work to get there.
- [33:51]
Anna Martin
I'm, like, nodding. I'm thinking about these dates I have scheduled and if I have to cancel them based on what you're saying. Joel Kim, Booster, thank you so much for this. I came in thinking we were just gonna gab, but you really gave me so much wisdom. You gave me a lot to chew on. Honestly. I'm feeling more optimistic. So thank you. Thank you so much for today.
- [34:15]
Joel Kim Booster
I mean, take it all with a grain of salt. Look at my life and, you know, I am engaged, but like, there's a lot else that led me to this place and not all great decisions. So, you know, take it all with a grain of salt. And everybody's different and everybody's story is different.
- [34:32]
Anna Martin
Thank you so much to everyone who sent in your bad date stories. They were so fun to listen to. In some cases, they were very hard to listen to you all, you're troopers. Here's to better dates in 2025. Modern love is produced by Riva Goldberg, Davis Land, Emily Lang and Amy Pearl. It's edited by Lynn Levy and our executive producer, Jen Poyant. Production management by Christina Josa. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music by Man Marion Lozano. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez and Afim Shapiro. Studio support from Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman. Special thanks to Mahima Chablani, Nelka Loughley, Jeffrey Miranda and Paula Schuman. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.