Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： (RE) Committed

00:00:00.000 Today's Sunday Nice Things is a very special episode and you'll see why in a minute. It's

00:00:10.560 actually an episode of my other podcast, Committed, but with a very special twist. One inspired by my

00:00:17.960 longtime co-writer, editor, and friend, Christine Pride's new book, All the Men I've Loved Again.

00:00:24.500 here it is

00:00:26.340 hey everyone

00:00:29.480 this is Jo and you are listening to Committed

00:00:32.300 or actually

00:00:33.580 you're listening to Re-Committed

00:00:36.180 because right now

00:00:38.280 we're bringing you a very special

00:00:40.520 series on the Committed feed

00:00:42.300 of second chance love

00:00:44.380 stories

00:00:44.860 and it's inspired by a very good

00:00:48.000 friend of mine's own second chance love story

00:00:50.400 that also inspired

00:00:52.220 her new novel

00:00:53.100 all the men I've loved again.

00:01:14.120 Today I'm joined by my co-author, my former editor, and a dear, dear friend that I love

00:01:21.240 so so much christine pride to talk about her own second chance romance which inspired all the men

00:01:28.740 i've loved again hi christine hi joe so happy to be here i'm so happy to have you i mean i could 0.79

00:01:34.200 sit and shoot the shit with you all day long for for the purposes of this podcast i'm going to have

00:01:39.240 to pretend that i haven't lived this love story with you side by side since the beginning side 0.99

00:01:47.760 by side since the beginning. And many of you know that Christine is my longtime editor. She was my

00:01:55.120 longtime editor, who then became my longtime book collaborator. And I've watched her fall

00:02:03.500 madly in love over the past few years. And I've watched her juggle the same two men that she 0.89

00:02:12.040 dated in her 20s again in her 40s and this is my favorite kind of second chance romance

00:02:18.320 because it's just got plot out the wazoo you see why I had to write a book about it

00:02:25.520 I think I mean I will say I think I was one of the first people that was like this is a novel

00:02:31.400 and you're gonna write it you were but that's how your mind works right this is content to go do it

00:02:36.820 but it was very inspiring and in fact Joe this book wouldn't exist or this romance wouldn't exist

00:02:43.680 without you and we are not like them because I mean spoiler alert but the reason that my partner

00:02:55.360 and I reconnected and have this second chance romance is because I joined Instagram solely

00:03:03.260 because we were publishing this book and then he ended up reaching out to me on instagram so it is

00:03:09.000 really um kind of surreal how these dots have connected over the last five years it's a little

00:03:15.660 bit sliding doors it's very no it's not a little bit sliding doors it's very sliding doors okay

00:03:21.900 so i mean that's my pitch for the screenplay i don't know who's writing that or who's gonna

00:03:26.760 write that but i've got ideas for this transition to the screen yeah yeah totally all right so let's

00:03:32.800 start at the very beginning, though, you're Christine Pride, you're in your 20s. What was

00:03:39.660 going on then? Who were you dating then? So this is 1999. So we have to go back to last century.

00:03:46.780 You know, with the flashback hands. And I had recently graduated from college. So I was still

00:03:54.820 dating my college boyfriend. And we were together the last two years of college and we were trying

00:04:00.860 to figure out how we were going to make our romance last in the real world with all suddenly

00:04:09.160 these adulting complications. And he was going to law school, and I was looking to move to New York.

00:04:17.740 So we were together, but in that kind of chaotic period of what happens next, what happens now.

00:04:25.380 and then i came up to new york to interview for a job at nbc news and i'm in i want to set the

00:04:35.240 scene that i'm in my um powder blue limited power suit um if you like the limited the limited of

00:04:49.560 of course, everybody's, you know, fashion, late 90s, early 2000s fashion icon. It really wasn't

00:04:56.760 powder blue, though, is maybe more smurf blue. But you get the idea. So I'm feeling very fancy,

00:05:03.800 Joe, I'm in my power suit. And I take the train up from DC, where I was living, still with my

00:05:09.600 parents after graduation. And I hop on the cellar, and I come up to New York to interview for this

00:05:15.460 job. And the person who interviews me is much to my surprise, a cute, nerdy, smart, black guy, 0.72

00:05:27.640 who I thought was so much older than me because he lived in New York and had a job. But turned out

00:05:32.600 he was only four years older than me. And it was just one of those situations where, you know,

00:05:39.240 it was like the immediate sparks fly.

00:05:42.800 This is a job interview, but what's going on here type of vibe.

00:05:49.720 Which I love and would probably not be allowed in 2025.

00:05:56.160 Right, exactly.

00:05:58.080 Well, you know, I think when you go into a job interview,

00:06:00.380 obviously you're in one mindset, but you, you know,

00:06:03.920 it's like a bad porn setup or at least a bad rom-com setup.

00:06:09.240 where, you know, the cable guy knocks at the door and happens to be hot, you're not really expecting

00:06:14.260 the person who interviews you for a job to necessarily be a romantic prospect by any means.

00:06:20.660 No, not at all. Not at all. Yeah. Okay.

00:06:22.780 All right. So, so what happens next?

00:06:27.120 So spoiler alert, I don't get the job. I go back to DC and I'm still intent on moving to New York.

00:06:35.560 So I find another job. I moved to New York months later. So now we've we've entered the 21st century and I moved to New York and we had, you know, sort of kept in touch via email.

00:06:51.440 the polite, oh, thank you, you know, for the opportunity email kind of

00:06:55.380 morphed into a more friendly, shall we say, email exchange. And so when I moved to New York, we

00:07:05.540 started, say, hanging out. And we dated for a few months from there with a lot of other,

00:07:12.780 you know, complications, 9-11 happened in the meantime.

00:07:17.540 um there was a lot going on in that period um and you know obviously things were still

00:07:24.520 complicated with my college boyfriend too so there was a lot to sort out so did you finally

00:07:30.280 go on dates we did so we went on dates when I moved to New York and actually maybe I think we'd

00:07:38.060 only been on a couple dates it's so hard because on one hand it feels like it's yesterday but on

00:07:45.200 On the other hand, you know, this was over 20 years ago.

00:07:48.380 So remembering the details and the timing and everything has been like a little bit of a challenge.

00:07:54.100 But one notable thing that is very memorable that happened is he left to go to Paris for three months on sort of a work sabbatical.

00:08:05.800 And while he was there, I mean, we'll go back in time, Joe.

00:08:10.580 remember this is before texting, before even cell phones were easy to use, meaning it was like

00:08:17.520 roaming and the 75 cents a minute charges and all of that. So what did we do? We wrote letters

00:08:25.540 back and forth in Paris, like actual letters when he was there. And so that looking back is such a

00:08:33.540 memorable and meaningful part of, you know, sort of the time we spent together, which again, a lot

00:08:39.420 of it was separated since he was gone for those three months. But there's something, as you and

00:08:44.420 I have talked about, there's something really special about writing letters. It just hits

00:08:50.500 different. It just hits different. Are there any things that you still remember from some of those

00:08:55.420 letters? Well, here's the thing. I do not have my letters anymore. I don't know what happened to

00:09:02.660 them. I mean, I'm pretty sentimental. So I can't believe I hadn't kept them. But I also have moved

00:09:09.800 a lot. And you know, life happens. But he still has them. So he has my letters that I wrote to

00:09:16.600 him. So I've read some of those. And it really is so fascinating to have this time capsule of my

00:09:27.960 23-year-old self, you know, and my 23-year-old voice and what I was thinking about and caring

00:09:34.760 about at 23. It's really, it's really fascinating. And it's very touching that he kept the letters

00:09:41.700 all these years too. That's so sweet. And I want to get back to him keeping these letters.

00:09:47.900 But first, I want to talk a little bit about what was going on with your college boyfriend at this

00:09:52.720 time. So he went to law school in Texas. So there was also the distance situation. And you know,

00:10:03.340 it's so funny about that time period is, and this is, you know, something that I really try to

00:10:08.860 capture and talk about in the novel. So all this is fictionalized, but the themes are still really

00:10:14.360 there, which is you're changing so much in your early 20s, really trying to figure out,

00:10:22.620 you know, sort of who you are and who you're going to be. I mean, these big high sticks

00:10:27.320 decisions about what jobs you're going to get and where you're going to live and, you know,

00:10:32.620 sort of what kind of life are you going to have, what kind of person you're going to be. I mean,

00:10:36.540 these are very intense soul searching times. And it's really hard to do that with another person.

00:10:46.260 I mean, some people obviously make it work and marry their college sweetheart and live happily

00:10:51.040 ever after. But for us, there was a lot of how are we going to figure out how to merge our lives?

00:11:00.040 And what is that going to require of the other person, right?

00:11:03.620 Moving and sacrifices.

00:11:06.820 And, you know, we just weren't ready for all that.

00:11:11.720 And that became clear in those first, you know, months and years after college.

00:11:17.880 So we were obviously still very connected emotionally and we loved each other very much.

00:11:25.860 the practicalities of how to make it work were overwhelming um to us and so you know it didn't

00:11:34.380 in the end um at that time period but it always felt like there was a little bit of unfinished

00:11:42.560 business there you know which then makes sense for what happens next but it never felt like okay

00:11:48.480 you know this is over and I'm never going to see this person again and then what starts happening

00:11:53.460 with Ian, he goes to Paris, you guys kind of have a little thing. But spoiler, you don't end up with

00:12:00.240 either of these guys in your 20s. I don't. And for those reasons that we talked about, or I just

00:12:05.260 mentioned, I think it was just, I was in a state of really trying to find myself. And I mean,

00:12:14.440 you remember what that's like. It's just so daunting to think about, you know, how you're

00:12:21.880 going to build a career. Um, I was very ambitious. I had just moved to New York, um, which is not a

00:12:28.920 hard or is a hard city to find your way in period. Um, and so I, I was just focused on that. So it

00:12:38.060 just, they say that timing is everything and that's the, one of the biggest cliches there is, 0.99

00:12:42.980 but it's a cliche for a reason because it's true. It just did not feel like the right timing, um,

00:12:48.820 on either account. Okay, I want to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to fast

00:12:55.520 forward 20 years, I'm going to do like the Wayne's World, like, and you're gonna see these guys again.

00:13:09.740 Hi, Christine Pride here. After writing two books with your friend in mind, Joe Piazza,

00:13:15.400 I've written a solo debut novel. All the Men I've Loved Again is a coming-of-age love story

00:13:21.800 about a woman who dates two men back to back in her 20s and then the same two men again in her

00:13:28.080 40s. It's a heartfelt tale of first love and second chances and I hope you'll check it out.

00:13:34.540 All the Men I've Loved Again is available on July 8th wherever books are sold.

00:13:38.600 okay we're back christine when we left you it was the turn of the millennia

00:13:49.560 and you had been vaguely dating these two dudes but stopped dating both of them because you're

00:13:58.860 trying to find yourself as a busy career girl in new york city this is this part of it is the setup

00:14:04.740 for a Hallmark movie, is what it is. And then fast forward 20 years later, you found yourself

00:14:12.020 in so many ways. Who were you then? Yeah, so 20 years later, you know, it's

00:14:18.620 the blink of an eye kind of thing. If you see the movie montage, right? It's like I had built this

00:14:25.320 great career as an editor, working at, you know, several different publishing houses, publishing

00:14:31.080 great books, including yours. I had this great set of friends, really close girlfriends from

00:14:39.300 all aspects of my life. I had been perpetually but happily single. I often joke that in my 30s,

00:14:52.060 I probably went to 35 weddings, no joke.

00:14:58.180 And, you know, all of them single.

00:15:01.280 It's a little bit like, you know,

00:15:02.640 always the bridesmaid, never a bride type situation.

00:15:05.760 Except luckily I wasn't a bridesmaid in all these weddings

00:15:08.660 because I would have gone broke.

00:15:11.100 By being single,

00:15:14.160 and this is something you and I have talked about,

00:15:15.920 was, you know, sort of the kind of defining characteristic, right?

00:15:21.180 of of my life in some degree I still identify as a single woman um but it's just I had this

00:15:30.860 independent spirit um and my life felt very full so it wasn't like I was actively um you know

00:15:37.360 trying to find a romance uh except the pandemic hit and you know we were all doing some I don't

00:15:47.360 know, wacky things in the pandemic. It sort of shook everything up, uh, in all different kinds

00:15:53.000 of ways and caused people to think, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? Et cetera, et cetera.

00:15:57.660 And in that context, I reconnected with my college boyfriend who in the last, um, 20 years had gotten

00:16:06.320 married, had two kids and then gotten divorced. Um, and so we found ourselves both single in

00:16:13.640 2020 um and so we we reconnected in the pandemic you know when everyone was having the the long

00:16:21.760 wine-fueled zooms um with with all their family and friends or in my case long-lost lovers um

00:16:30.340 that's that's what we got up to so that is happening in the in the pandemic and i

00:16:35.840 i was here for this part i i was i was around uh we were working on some we were probably working

00:16:44.200 i know but i think we were probably we were i think yeah we were working on that and then

00:16:49.680 you know thinking about the next one and we were we were doing so many things and and you're

00:16:54.540 traveling to connect with this ex of yours yes on on empty uh flights i remember it was like i don't

00:17:04.860 know that spring maybe I can't remember summer 2020 when remember when traveling was so shameful

00:17:14.520 right you were like sneaking around because it just seemed terrible that even though quarantine

00:17:20.120 was up but there was there's a lot of judgment about traveling and there was so much judgment

00:17:24.480 everyone was traveling and everyone was lying about it okay yes yes so I was on I just remember

00:17:29.740 being on this I mean this huge you know American Airlines flight LaGuardia to Houston that maybe

00:17:36.840 had eight passengers on it felt like a very surreal experience but yes I was um flying back

00:17:44.920 and forth Houston um you know just sort of give this second chance a real go and in the middle of

00:17:55.860 the pandemic and you and I working away on our projects um and then fast forward just a little

00:18:04.740 bit the our book came out that fall of 2021 and as I mentioned I had only joined Instagram or

00:18:14.680 any social media at all for the first time in 2018 so I was like very new still under duress

00:18:22.080 you just yeah you didn't want to do that kicking and screaming um as you know but

00:18:29.280 um ian had reached out to me then on instagram you know what did the kids say he slid into my dms

00:18:37.900 he slid into your dms that is you know that's what the kids say because we wrote it on the

00:18:42.400 in the younger book totally but you know i can't ever say that as an earnest expression i almost

00:18:49.080 have to say you know what the kids say because I feel too boomerish saying and then he slid into

00:18:54.700 my dms yeah yeah yeah that it doesn't sound right coming out of your mouth actually never say it

00:18:59.700 again wouldn't be great but that's what happened so he reached out and um this was you know the

00:19:07.900 whirlwind I mean do you remember just that time our tour sitting down with Deborah Roberts for

00:19:14.320 gma it was such an exciting hectic um wonderful time um and that was that late october then

00:19:22.980 and then in november i was going to visit my family in um for thanksgiving in the maryland

00:19:29.900 suburbs and he happens to be from the maryland suburbs as well so he was there and we decided

00:19:36.160 to meet up fully masked at um where else a cheesecake factory at the mall I mean obviously

00:19:44.620 the only obvious yeah and at that point we hadn't seen each other in I mean over a decade um there

00:19:54.860 was a time when he had had a business trip to New York and you know I think we saw each other for

00:20:00.180 a very casual lunch or dinner what have you but we we reconnected then and I just sort of the rest

00:20:09.160 is history the rest is history so you guys reconnected and you were still kind of connecting

00:20:17.620 with your college boyfriend how did you make the choice or who actually no wait who because I'm

00:20:28.460 I'm not going to spoil this. Who did you end up choosing?

00:20:34.160 What you're really asking me, Joe, with that timing question is how messy are you? I see you

00:20:40.140 asked it the polite way. Because I'm polite. No, you're not. You're just trying to make me look

00:20:46.520 good for the podcast, which I appreciate. No, but really, though, it kind of happened the same way

00:20:53.600 It happened, you know, 25 years ago, where it was more of a kind of back to back situation.

00:20:58.820 My college boyfriend, I think, you know, in reconnecting, we sort of both realized the

00:21:07.760 same kind of complications existed between us.

00:21:12.580 I mean, the distance namely.

00:21:14.560 um but you know also when you you kind of pick up where you left off um you can see the same

00:21:23.660 fault lines right or you can see the same things that you might have stumbled upon as a couple

00:21:29.760 before still exist um but there's also logistics that he ended up I feel like these stories sound

00:21:38.060 so dramatic, but he ended up shipping off to Kuwait, um, for a, a JAG deployment. Um, and so

00:21:50.120 that was also a little bit of a factor, um, which is funny because when Ian and I first were dating

00:22:00.360 And back in the day, when I mentioned 9-11, Ian had gone to Afghanistan for a long stretch of time after 9-11 happened.

00:22:12.360 And so there's a good amount of strange international geopolitical upheaval involved in both of these relationships.

00:22:24.520 so you do end up reconnecting with Ian Ian is your current partner it's been five years which

00:22:32.820 seems crazy because sometimes when I tell the story I'm like and then Christine just reconnected

00:22:37.440 with this guy and now they're together and I'm like oh no it's been five years it's been half

00:22:41.120 the time of my marriage that's so funny I mean but it's it's time is so abstract at this point

00:22:47.200 And I think our timing or time got all wonky during the pandemic.

00:22:53.340 And I sort of haven't recovered from that.

00:22:56.520 And time also passes differently in middle age.

00:22:59.940 I don't know.

00:23:00.240 It's very strange.

00:23:00.880 But all to say, I'm with you.

00:23:02.560 It feels like it was yesterday that we reconnected.

00:23:06.220 And it also feels like yesterday We Are Not Like Them came out.

00:23:09.560 I mean, it's so weird that it's been five years.

00:23:13.680 It's so weird that it's been five years.

00:23:15.480 So you guys reconnected.

00:23:16.400 did you think it was going to be a long term kind of thing? Or were you like, okay, this is a fling?

00:23:22.360 Yeah, that's what's interesting. When you when you're, you know, sort of date two people back

00:23:26.800 to back, particularly people that you know, so well, from your past, and that you, you know,

00:23:33.580 love and respect so much. I'm in a way, it was just clear to me where my heart was. And it was

00:23:46.040 clear to me that this is my person. And I think that's so interesting, the couples that we've

00:23:54.380 talked to, you know, in this podcast, that keeps coming up. And I find that fascinating, where

00:24:01.400 no matter how many years they've been apart, they have described this feeling of, well,

00:24:08.280 that was my person, or, you know, I always kind of knew life had gone in different directions,

00:24:14.640 but there was something in them that recognized that this person was, I mean, maybe you could say

00:24:21.660 a soulmate if you believe in that kind of thing, but there's something significant about this

00:24:28.460 connection. And for me, it presented as almost like a recognition, you know, I mean, I had this

00:24:35.740 very strong, very powerful sense of this is it, which is something heretofore, I'd only,

00:24:45.800 you know, heard about in rom-coms or, you know, Hallmark movies or thought it was like a little

00:24:51.720 bit of a romantic urban legend that you really get that feeling. But I, but I definitely did.

00:24:59.080 Okay, we are going to take one more quick break. And when we get back,

00:25:01.980 I want you to tell us about where you're at now.

00:25:05.740 okay we are back you have the same love triangle in your 40s that you did in your 20s you choose

00:25:21.780 one of the guys it's been five years and now you're in it you're you're in the thick of it

00:25:27.500 and you're even publishing a novel called all the men i've loved again based loosely based

00:25:34.740 off this whole situation where are you at now what is your romantic status your relationship status

00:25:40.540 if you if we still did that kind of thing on Facebook yeah it's complicated actually it is

00:25:47.600 complicated um only because you know this also came up with the couples that we talked about

00:25:53.460 when you connect with somebody whether it's a reconnection or you just meet somebody for the

00:25:59.300 first time in your 40s, 50s, 60s, there are just so many different complications and different

00:26:06.700 factors than in your 20s, right? You're at different places in your careers, presumably

00:26:12.600 farther along where there are more demands of your, you know, time and practical logistics play

00:26:21.180 a huge role. And that has come up too with these other couples that we talked to where most of the

00:26:27.960 time they were not living together right or living in the same place um when you reconnect

00:26:32.940 often you have scattered i to you know in our case different coasts um and so there's just

00:26:41.400 logistics real estate um my partner has a daughter um there's you know blended family

00:26:50.460 considerations. There's just a lot to, to, um, navigate, um, you know, caring for aging parents,

00:26:58.860 um, losing parents, um, you know, the last five years has brought a lot. And so, um, it's, it's

00:27:07.880 not, I wouldn't say it's not quite as simple as merging lives or growing together in your twenties.

00:27:14.720 is it's just very um different there are different complications and so we are um navigating all that

00:27:22.840 but you know in a very meaningful way and all the challenges that come up um in our relationship

00:27:31.400 feel certainly surmountable but also you know this is just what grown-up relationships look like

00:27:39.100 totally just so much more work uh but also i think the payoff is bigger when you're a grown

00:27:48.360 up one of the things that we are asking couples uh that we are interviewing in the next couple

00:27:54.800 of episodes is do you think it would have worked if you'd gotten together like really gotten together

00:27:59.500 in your 20s or do you think you had to live a life first before getting together with this person

00:28:05.620 what do you think about that question? I really think that timing is everything and I mean again

00:28:14.840 such a cliche but so true um and I this is where the sliding doors factor comes in I mean who knows

00:28:23.080 and you know part of the the beauty and agony I think of getting to middle age is looking back

00:28:31.120 and wondering about all your decisions, right?

00:28:33.760 If I had chose differently here or there,

00:28:36.200 what would have happened?

00:28:37.660 Like your life was a choose your own adventure.

00:28:40.560 But for me, I think everything unfolded

00:28:45.940 exactly how it should have.

00:28:49.440 I don't have regrets about that.

00:28:53.560 It's a little bittersweet to think of time lost,

00:28:57.240 meaning we could have been spending,

00:29:00.100 you know we could have had more years together um but at the same time who knows right we might have

00:29:07.740 gotten married at 26 and divorced at 32 you know um so it's an impossible question obviously to

00:29:17.900 know the answer to but my gut instinct is that the people that we are and the life experiences

00:29:25.680 that we've had have strengthened each of us and made us a better couple than we would have been

00:29:32.840 25 years ago. I love that. How does Ian feel about you writing the book?

00:29:39.840 Mixed feelings. He is a much more private person than I am, of course. But the,

00:29:48.000 which is why he's not here with me talking about this right now um but um you know you can't

00:29:56.580 you get him to completely confessional people I guess in a relationship um and the whole

00:30:03.180 opposites attract thing I guess is true there yeah I mean Nick Astor just accepts who I am

00:30:07.300 I guess to some degree it's a hazard of being with a writer but I know I know he meets people

00:30:13.960 all the time that are like oh my god I feel like I know you and he's like I know you do

00:30:16.800 it's funny um but in that I was really cognizant in writing this book Joe that though the initial

00:30:28.700 premise is you know too based on my life so you know a woman dates two people in her 20s and two

00:30:35.540 people in her 40s but beyond that everything else was so heavily fictionalized and that was really

00:30:40.900 important to me because I am not writing a memoir I had no interest in writing a memoir

00:30:45.080 and so it really had to be the story itself had to be very far from my actual life and that meant

00:30:52.040 really making Cora the main character very different than who I am we are very different

00:30:58.200 people which was you know fun to create but in that regard then Cora as a fictional person would

00:31:06.500 then not be attracted to or connect with the same type of men I would, right? And, and

00:31:15.220 different people. And so then the next step to that was really creating fully formed love interest,

00:31:26.780 but out of whole cloth. And, and the challenge was, of course, to, to make them both

00:31:33.840 appealing and viable right part of I think the beauty of the story and you know what I experienced

00:31:41.860 in real life is to be truly um torn and to for the reader in this you know going along the story

00:31:50.960 to really not know um who Cora is going to choose and to I hope the reader has strong opinions about

00:31:59.600 who she should choose, right?

00:32:01.860 That they feel very invested

00:32:03.260 in Team Aaron or Team Lincoln.

00:32:08.640 And so that's been fun to see

00:32:11.280 when early readers have,

00:32:13.060 you know, as we know,

00:32:14.500 Joe, readers have strong opinions.

00:32:16.520 And so it's so fun

00:32:17.640 when they have strong opinions

00:32:18.640 about Koro's love life.

00:32:21.620 I love that.

00:32:22.200 I love that.

00:32:22.780 And I think this book tour

00:32:23.680 is going to be really,

00:32:24.900 really fun for you.

00:32:26.220 And I know that this mini series

00:32:29.020 of committed, recommitted is going to be fun for us because we have a lot of fun couples

00:32:34.560 who first met in a lot of different ways and who then lived a life and somehow found their way

00:32:43.260 back to each other. And I'm just so excited to share them with you guys.

00:32:48.540 Yeah, these couples, I mean, I loved each of them and I love how different their stories are. I mean,

00:32:56.160 obviously, everybody's love story is so unique, but I love the common themes that kept coming up

00:33:02.960 between them. And it's just such a celebration of love and fate and timing. And that's also I'm

00:33:14.780 excited to go on tour, because I want to hear everybody's stories of, you know, first love and

00:33:23.640 the one that got away and people's crushes. And the one thing that kept coming up for me as I took

00:33:31.500 myself back to college and falling in love in a real way for the first time is how impactful that

00:33:39.680 is, right? Your first love really leaves a mark and it kind of shapes and affects every love that

00:33:49.320 comes after it for better or worse it's such a heightened profound experience um and it was

00:33:55.960 really fun um to revisit that experience on the page and I think I've done it in a way that

00:34:03.220 people will relate to and you know remember their first loves from back in the day I don't know if

00:34:11.580 you want to tell us about your first love Jo but you know I don't have to I'm good I'm good we

00:34:18.880 didn't we didn't really reconnect although I did actually funnily enough I did recently find

00:34:25.260 pictures of him when I was cleaning out my mom's house and there were pictures of like his family

00:34:30.640 pictures from when he was growing up and I forget why I had them like a like little kids soccer

00:34:36.040 picture and stuff like that and so I reached out and I was like I should probably send these to

00:34:40.820 you I don't want them uh and so I am I am mailing them to him so wow yeah but I'm happily married

00:34:48.860 right now so but I think that's but it just goes to show you though and and with technology and

00:34:55.660 everything in this day and age we really don't lose touch with people anymore right it's just

00:35:00.120 like so easy to know what people are doing and find them and you know like you say I found this

00:35:05.460 and I want to send it to you and that would have been unthinkable you know 20 years ago either

00:35:10.780 totally well my my high school boyfriend is not on social media at all so I have no idea

00:35:16.560 what he's been up to and his email address is the same yahoo address that he used in high school

00:35:22.680 it's it's a crime for our exes not to be on social media it's not right it's not right

00:35:29.420 none of mine are yeah i do not like that one of my exes has a very very very common name

00:35:36.880 um and so it's almost impossible to google but um you know it just even not romantic like people

00:35:45.420 and high school. I just, I want to be able to know what everybody is doing. I want to know what

00:35:50.980 everybody's doing all the time. Okay. Also, it doesn't seem fair because I'm the most public

00:35:55.200 person ever. And so people know what I'm doing. I deserve to know what they're doing.

00:36:01.460 I totally agree. I don't know how to make it happen for us, but I totally agree.

00:36:06.820 All right. Get everybody or get ready, everybody buckle up for ReCommitted. It is going to be a

00:36:13.640 joyous ride and we can't wait to go on it with you grab your copy of all the men i've loved again

00:36:29.500 wherever books are sold committed is executive produced and reported by me joe piazza and in

00:36:37.580 this case of recommitted by christine pride our show is executive produced by ramsey yunt and if

00:36:43.680 you have any recommitted or committed stories you can email us at joe at influentialmedia.biz

00:36:51.000 have a great day

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - June 22, 2025

Sunday Nice Things： (RE) Committed

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