75 First Dates, a Tinder Tour, and the Dating App Playbook That Actually Works (feat. Alex Jacobs)

75 First Dates, a Tinder Tour, and the Dating App Playbook That Actually Works (feat. Alex Jacobs)

This week Holly is joined by Alex Jacobs — NYC-based tutor, musician, the friend-of-her-best-friend she somehow went to Oberlin with for four years without ever meeting, and a certified, gold-medal, dating-app savant. Alex spent his 20s in New York in a string of serial monogamous relationships, drumming in indie bands, and at one point touring the country in a pop duo with a girl he matched with on Tinder. Then at 33 he was properly single for the first time in his life, went on 75 first dates, did actual research into the apps, and met his current girlfriend — on Tinder — by gaming the algorithm in ways he is now generously sharing with the rest of us. In this episode: the band era and Saturn return collapsing at once, the worst dates of his life (including the tiptoe-maxing incident), his dad's pre-internet pickup strategy, and the full dating app optimization framework. Photos, prompts, swiping, parameters, why you should never pay, the bottom-age-range hack — all of it. Find Alex Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sandykpax/] Soundcloud [https://soundcloud.com/sandy-kpax] Find Necterine Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/_necterine/] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@_necterine] Substack [https://necterine.substack.com/]

Found God Through a Situationship. Lost Her Mind Shortly After. (feat. Natasha Hunt Lee)

Natasha Hunt Lee — musician, events princess behind Stargirls, and LA lifer — pulls up to spill one of the most unhinged dating arcs we've had on the show. We get into growing up in LA with parents who'd never been alone for more than three months in their lives, the cousin's-best-friend-turned-decade-long-relationship she eventually had to blow up, the 6AM DJ ambush at a Hollywood Hills house party that made her believe in God right before he detonated her, and the therapist who broke her brain with one sentence and somehow rebuilt it. Plus: fat kid syndrome, the optical violence of growing up in LA, why she'd rather be cheated on than ghosted, and the line we're stealing forever — if you're confused, it's a no. This one is for anyone who's ever intellectualized their way out of feeling something, called chaos chemistry, or had to learn the hard way that avoidance and over-giving are the same animal in different outfits. About Natasha: Natasha Hunt Lee is a musician and the events princess behind Stargirls. Follow her on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/natashahuntlee?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%253D%253D&utm_source=qr] Follow Stargirls [https://www.instagram.com/stargirlsloveyou/] Find Necterine Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/_necterine/] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@_necterine] Substack [https://necterine.substack.com/]

Turns Out He's Not Emotionally Unavailable, He's Just Never Met Himself (feat. Mick Silver)

Holly met Mick Silver about two years ago when he was on a panel at the very first Necterine event — fresh out of grad school, dropping the kind of insights that made Holly walk away thinking, I need to keep talking to this person. Two years later, here we are. Mick is a therapist in LA who specializes in working with men, which means he has a front-row seat to what's actually going on underneath the male loneliness epidemic — and spoiler: it's not that men don't know how to talk to women. It's that they don't know how to talk to themselves. In this episode, they get into why so many men have turned their coping mechanisms into entire lifestyles, why "I just go with the flow" is almost always a trauma response in a flat-brim hat, and why anger keeps showing up as the only emotion men are culturally allowed to feel. Mick breaks down attachment styles, the conflict-allergic dating culture we're all swimming in, and why ghosting after a vulnerable moment usually has nothing to do with the person who got ghosted. They get into the friend group red flag and what it tells you about how a man sees women, why male friendships often happen sideways — in cars, on walks, mid-Formula One race — and what's actually being protected when men say they have commitment issues. Plus: dating in your 30s and why it's better, actually; why "there's no one left out there" is a lie you've told yourself to avoid your own apartment; and what it means to stop abandoning yourself before expecting anyone else to show up. Connect with Mick Mick's Website [https://www.itsaboutpraxis.com/about-mick-silvers] Mick's Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sitwithmick/] Find Necterine Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/_necterine/] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@_necterine] Substack [https://necterine.substack.com/] Rate and review After Thot on Apple Podcasts or Spotify - it helps more than you think :)

Turned Him Down for Seven Years. Plot Twist: He Was the One the Whole Time. (feat. Kate Van Horn)

Holly met Kate Van Horn during a psychic training over COVID — which tells you basically everything you need to know about the kind of friendship this is. For months they sent voice notes back and forth all day, and Holly had a front-row seat to Kate's full dating thot era: the rotation of guys, the dates that went sideways, the almost-its, and the specific kind of chaos that comes with being completely ready for something real while still figuring out what that even means. In this episode, they finally get to put it all on record. Kate's long-term relationship history before Holly knew her — moving in with someone within two months of reconnecting, leaving without looking back, landing in LA and immediately complicating things with a roommate. The men who were great on paper and emotionally unavailable in practice. The anxious attachment spiral she could see clearly and couldn't stop anyway. And then Kam: her college friend-with-benefits who she turned down repeatedly for years, who she finally ran into in Arizona — and whose DMs she slid into first. They get into what actually felt different about Kam, why calm and steady kept getting misread as boring, and what it means to be in a marriage that's real and not perfect. Plus: what Holly's best friend's parents had to do with it, the Halloween costume origin story, and why Kate still has every text she and Kam ever sent from college on a found laptop. Find Kate Van Horn Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kate.van.horn?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@kate.vanhorn?_r=1&_t=ZP-95vuGylVEEB] Substack [https://intuitivelivingbykatevanhorn.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips] Find Necterine Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/_necterine/] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@_necterine] Substack [https://necterine.substack.com/] Rate and review After Thot on Apple Podcasts or Spotify - it actually helps more than you think

The Dating Coach Had a Situationship Era Too. Here's What She Found on the Other Side. (feat. Hannah Ehrlich)

Hannah Ehrlich has spent the last decade helping people find love — building frameworks, coaching clients, matching strangers, and asking the hard questions most people avoid on a first date. And like the rest of us, she's still been in the situationships, still made excuses for the avoidants, still had to learn it the hard way. She's on the other side now. She looks annoyingly good there. This week Holly and Hannah get into all of it: dating across four cities, why knowing exactly what you want doesn't stop you from making excuses for the wrong person, what it actually feels like when the right one shows up, and why your attachment style might be a lot more flexible than you think. Spoiler: she lived. Let's get into it. About Hannah Ehrlich Hannah Ehrlich is the founder of Coupled [https://coupled.me/], a relationship coaching and matchmaking community built around the idea that finding the right person starts with knowing yourself. She also works in the VC and founder world, where she thinks about how the muscle you use to find the right partner — in business and in life — isn't actually that different. She's dated in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and LA, which means she has opinions. Find Hannah on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/coupled.me?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==] Learn more about Coupled [https://coupled.me/] Find Necterine Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/_necterine/] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@_necterine] Substack [https://necterine.substack.com/]