Yeah. Wow. That’s so you end up, obviously Honduras happens and then you go back to Minnesota and your life begins as an engaged couple. And I can, I guess the biggest, one of the things that everybody is talking about is, and we’ll just jump to this right now, because this pretty much tells the rest of your story is the guy that you were hooking up with before.
You left to go film the show and there’s just this balance of you’ve got Dave’s sister and Dave’s friends saying, Oh no, that was her boyfriend. We know because we know him and that’s what he’s telling us. And then you have you, who’s telling your fiancee, this guy wasn’t my boyfriend and. Dave was just having a hard time grasping and, you know, it’s obviously something that he could not get over and It was something to where if he comes home and his sister and friends don’t say anything and don’t have this information It seems like you guys would have been fine.
You know, maybe there were other things that could have derailed your relationship But at that point The only thing he continuously harps on is this, you were hooking up with somebody before the show. He thought you had sex with them two days before you left. You said it was a week before you left regardless.
Here’s my take on this. You said, you were speaking with this, you, you know, you were hooking up for a couple months with this guy, but you were also going through the casting process. He knew you were going through the casting process. He was also seeing other people at the same time, so I don’t know how you could have been in a monogamous, a monogamous, exclusive, one on one relationship, and I guess it’s gotta be frustrating for you at the time, and then now having to relive it, why isn’t my fiancé believing me?
Why is he choosing to believe his sister and his friends when I’m the one that was involved in the relationship And I am telling him this wasn’t my boyfriend. So how did you navigate all that other than we saw your reaction every time? It just seemed like you were you wanted to bang your head against the wall every time you had a conversation about this
Yeah, and like, I think the thing I keep going back to is like, I don’t fault Dave for questioning me.
I would have also been very confused if the first thing, the first piece of feedback that I got about my fiancé was something along the lines of, like, a nefarious relationship. I totally understand that. My frustration is, like you said, he is hearing from me the first point of contact, like, the primary source, and then he’s choosing to believe information from second, third, fourth tier people.
And again, I was like, I understand, and I’ll continue to gather information with you, but let me be part of this conversation because there’s some wires being crossed here and some misinformation being spread, and I just want an opportunity to clear it up. Like, let’s compare stories. Let’s be in the same room together.
And so that’s where I keep kind of going back to defending, even Dave, in that way. I get it. This is a very difficult experience. You have to make insanely tough decisions with limited information. Again, he didn’t handle it the way he should have, but my frustration was more along the lines of, I just wanted the tiniest bit of trust to prove myself.
And he wasn’t giving it to you. He really wasn’t. And I’m looking at it and I’m sitting there like, Okay, he’s not giving it to her, and he also has to take into consideration, maybe he didn’t do it, and maybe he just told myself. There’s a possibility I’m going to be cast on the show, I’m not going to sleep with anybody.
But, you, as a woman who’s going through the casting process, you don’t know how many other people you’re up against. You might have a 1 in 500 chance of getting cast. What are you supposed to do? Just not live your life, not go out in Minnesota, not have fun, not possibly hook up with a guy that you find attractive, and being like, as long as you knew.
Like, I could totally understand Dave’s side, if you’d never told. The guy in question. Oh, by the way, I’m going through this process and basically sprung it on him at the end and said, oh, by the way, I’m leaving. Peace out. I’m doing on a you know, I’m, I got cast on a show, but it was open conversation between the both of you.
He was seeing somebody else. That’s where the disconnect comes in. And that’s why I think a lot of people, including myself, just don’t understand where Dave is coming from, because you’re allowed to live your life before you go on the show, because it’s. Yeah. Like you said, I think you got cast five, six days before you entered the pods is when you officially knew you were on the show, right?
Mm hmm. And that’s the timeline that, sorry.
I was gonna say, if that conversation ends up, you get that call from the show that says, Lauren, we’ve decided to go in a different direction. Then you probably just continue seeing this guy or maybe it ends or whatever. It doesn’t matter. But the point is you would have deprived yourself of at least two months of fun because you were holding out hope that you maybe would have been one out of 250 women or probably thousands of women that apply for the show.
I don’t even know what the application process is, but see what I’m saying? Like, why would you limit yourself? On such a small percentage chance of getting cast on this show.
Yeah, and even that timeline is, I think, important for this story. As like you said, number one, he, this other guy was so chill about it.
To the point that I’m like, does he even care? Like, I don’t, it didn’t really seem like he did at the time. Which I, was again, best of both worlds for all of us. And, I remember telling Dave, like he was hearing that we were hooking up like the weekend before. And I was like, no, it was like over a week before I left for the pods.
And then we left for the pods on a Sunday. I didn’t find out that I was going to be on it until Monday, like the Monday before. So I did not hook up. I like did not sleep with him when I had found out it was official. I was going on it. At that point, I was just being told, we’ll let you know, we’ll let you know, we’ll let you know.
And I even tell this, but like I, or I even tell Dave this, I had seen that guy at some point throughout the week. After I had been told that I was for sure going on it, we got ice cream together. I know that we were like friends with benefits, but I honestly thought he was like a buddy of mine. So we got ice cream and he was telling me about this hinge date that he went on the night before.
And I remember thinking, I’m so glad we’re on the same page about this. Like, I’m so glad that you’re exploring other options. I’m obviously going to go explore other options. It really almost validated how I was feeling about this very casual relationship and how he was feeling about it. And so, yeah, I truly, going into this, never would have thought this would even have been a conversation based on that timeline, everything I knew about things, and I also had a hard time wrapping my mind around why it was the end all, be all.
Yeah, it really, obviously, derailed things, and, and, us as the viewers are sitting at home just being like, why can’t I think Dave even said at one point, I’m mad at myself for not being able to get over this. I think he said that in a conversation with you. And then we’re all sitting at home screaming like, yeah, dude, exactly.
Why can’t you get over this? She is your fiance now. Like she doesn’t want to be with the friends with benefits guys. She wants to be with you.
Right. Right. And that was the other, like, I think frustrating is you see him kind of go back and forth. And that’s how I felt at the time too. It really did feel like emotional whiplash because The only time we were having these conversations about this other guy was when the cameras were rolling.
He wasn’t really helping me or, like, trying to figure things out outside of that. And if anything, outside of that, I mean, he even made a comment a couple of days before we broke up, like, I’m just really overwhelmed with everything right now. I don’t really give a shit who you slept with. And that was, like, hours before we go into the conversation with my mom.
And then, things are fine. And so I just remember, and then we’re at this, we’re bowling, and he brings it up and we’re bowling. And I was just, I thought so many times, if you wanted to problem solve this with me, we would have done this in another way. Not on camera every time you need to come back to something.
Side note, speaking of bowling, the fact that this guy won’t put his fingers in a bowling ball should be, should be grounds for breaking up with him immediately. That should have been your, that should have been a giant red flag other than Cat Stevens. That this guy won’t put his fingers in a bowling ball.
Come on, he’s too cool for that.
It’s like, okay, you want to throw the ball down and hold it like a six year old child trying to bowl. Go ahead. You look like an idiot. So, you know, one conversation that we didn’t get to see, but we heard you guys talk about was his conversation with your dad. Can you elaborate more on how the conversation with your dad went and your dad just didn’t want to be on camera?
Right. Was that the thing? Right, right.
He is, my dad is very, I think he’s just was very protective of me and of this relationship. And I think he didn’t want to, I think he really wanted to meet us and express how he meet Dave and see us together and express how he felt. without being worried about, like, how things would be edited and what would be shown.
But he really wanted to meet Dave, and my parents drove into town, stayed for the weekend so that they could meet him. And we actually met them twice. We met them for drinks one night, and, honestly, it went well. My dad, even, we’ve talked recently, and he was like, I liked Dave. I thought he answered questions really well.
It was, like, fun to see you guys together. He said a couple of things that made me question if he was fully ready for marriage, but I liked you guys. And so, the next day, we got coffee, and before they were gonna leave town, and I think my dad was just more like, before you marry someone, make sure you’re 100 percent right.
One of the things that Dave said to my dad that he didn’t really like is how we were talking about, I haven’t met anyone from Dave’s family. And Dave was like, well my dad’s really busy. He’s traveling and my dad was like, I’m really busy, but this is the most important thing in the world to me right now.
And we know our daughter and it hurts our heart to have you not have her meet your people. And I think it was just like, again, there weren’t a lot of people being really explicit and calling Dave out about that at the moment. And so I think he got defensive and didn’t want to hear that. And I think that that rattled him a little bit.
So was Dave’s plan, I mean I guess I’m trying to get inside of Dave’s head But I feel like that’s like a game of kickball going on in there So I don’t really want to try and understand him but it just seems like I don’t understand what his plan was if he was truly going to marry you and Truly going to propose and you know say yes at the altar with you at some point You had to meet his friends and his sister and he just kept saying like was his reason Actually, I’m gonna ask you What was his reason that he kept giving you as to why he wasn’t going to let you meet his sister and his friends or?
His family
at the time. He kept telling me I can’t force them to do anything. I can’t force them to be here It wasn’t until the the breakup conversation where he says well if I really wanted them here, they’d be here but up until that point all I had heard was they They have questions about you and they don’t want to be involved if it’s not going to be end game.
I guess if that’s how I’m remembering things, that was all I was being told at the time.
So I was
even like, can we call each other? Can we text each other? Like any communication at that point, I would have welcomed.
I’ve had to have been frustrating. Cause I’m assuming, you know, just by what we’ve seen in the episodes, every other couple was meeting people from families.
I mean, some were not wanting to be, you know, on camera, but there was, everybody was meeting the people that they needed to meet. Before they made a decision on whether or not they were going to say yes to a marriage with somebody like you were the only couple, you were the only person that didn’t get to meet important people on your fiance’s side.
And it just was very, very confusing. I didn’t understand it. I don’t think anybody understands. And then we find out. So in last week’s episode, you have your breakup, which was in a movie theater, which is kind of funny. It’s just, you go from a bowling alley. And I heard you say in an interview, like, Yeah, we just didn’t want to do it in the bowling alley.
So we moved to a a theater where I think people thought people kept walking in and interrupting you guys,
not the most ideal location for a breakup, but it’s fine.
Did you think going into that conversation, you were going to walk out of there broken up, or would you think it was just going to be a, Hey, we need to dive into some, some serious stuff, but.
Did you have any inclination that that conversation was going to end in the ending of your engagement?
So going into bowling, no. But then as soon as we pivoted, where he said, I’m not going to waste their time. And then I was like, then what are we doing here? And then we moved into the movie theater. I knew, I knew when we walked into this movie theater, that was going to be the end of things.
It’s funny too, I remember we were like in this public place. Bowling and we’re walking by this group of people and they knew that we were filming because they had to sign some kind of release. And this woman was like, good luck, you guys, I’m rooting for you. And I remember being like, this is not ending well, I knew in that moment that it was, we were going down.
Well, so you sit down and you have that conversation and you know, it takes a turn. He ends it. I don’t think, I don’t want to say it was kind of the way he ended it with Molly, but it was just, it wasn’t. He didn’t put his foot down. It seemed like he was just kind of like, yeah, I guess, I guess we don’t continue this anymore and, and, and here you are just like, how, how in the world did this almost get to this point after the breakup, you had said that you had written a letter to his sister, but he never gave it to her.
When did you write this letter? Can you give us just the basics of the content of this letter? And do you know why he never gave it to her?
So, I wrote the letter, oh my gosh, I don’t know, probably, okay, sometime the week before, I wrote a letter because I knew we had a night that we weren’t going to be filming, and he went to go to his family to have dinner, and I had like a Zoom call with my family, and I spent the day writing this letter, it was like a four page handwritten letter, and it just talked about, Like, I know, I think a lot, Dave kind of expressed that his sister was worried that none of this was real.
And so I just wanted to reiterate, like, these are my real feelings. This is how we got here. I’d love to be part of the conversation. I know that there’s a lot of conversations happening. There’s a lot of judgments being made. But I just would like to chat with you. And then I put my phone number. And I did tell him, this is your sister and your family, but like, this would mean a lot for me to pass this along.
And then he goes to dinner and he came back and the next day I just, I truly had a gut feeling, I was like, I bet he didn’t give it to her. And it was sitting in his jacket pocket when he got home. And, I don’t know, I think he didn’t give it to her and I think he didn’t want us to meet because I think that would have made this process much more real.
And I don’t think he was ready to go through any of the next steps. I think he had made his mind up about things much earlier than he had really, like, let on with me and was kind of going through the motions a little bit, but if those other things would have fell into place If family would have been involved and friends would have been involved, it would have had have like forced him to almost be the bad guy and make some final decisions and figure things out.
When we were watching it, a lot of the sentiment online and from the people who have commented about your relationship is it really does seem like Dave doesn’t want to be the bad guy and he’s pushing Lauren away as much as he can. So she’ll just be like, God enough. I just, I can’t do this anymore and put it on you.
So he doesn’t look like the bad guy in the moment. Did you feel like that’s what was happening?
A little bit, but like, I don’t, there’s so many hours that we spend together, both on and off camera. So, you know, you’re watching this, and even as a viewer, it’s hard to watch because if I was only making decisions about this person based on what I’m seeing on the show, of course, I would be like, why didn’t you break up with this guy three days ago?
But there were other conversations being had, and like, connections we were having, and validating emotions and things. So, It felt like that a little bit, especially towards the very end when it was the only conversation that we kept coming back to and the only conversation that was really seeing frustration from both of us, but I don’t know if I fully felt it as much at the time as I do watching it back now.
That makes sense because like you’re Just having to relive it now, it’s going to be a bizarre experience, but I think one of the biggest telling things to me was Molly’s conversation with him at what’s it called Buck Hill. Is that the name of it? Yeah. So Buck Hill happens and that’s where everybody meets up.
Some of the singles are brought back and Madison’s there and Alex is there and Mason and Megan and Molly shows up and Molly has this conversation where she pulls Dave aside and again, it’s all about this whole. Friends with benefits thing that you have going into this and my sister, man, she’s not going to approve.
But again, he told Molly specifically, you know, I know my sister doesn’t want me to get engaged, but fuck it. No one’s telling me what to do. This is my life. This is what I want, which is, which is great. But then he didn’t follow through with it because he listened to his sister and friends. He had them on one shoulder saying not good.
He had, he had you on the other shoulder saying, there’s nothing serious there. I didn’t have a boyfriend. And Molly is telling him. And the way I was looking at it was just like, why wasn’t his stance to his sister and his friends, Look, I understand your trepidations about all this. I understand you have hesitations.
I get it. But You were not there in the pods with me for 10 days. You don’t know how many hours upon hours I spent talking to this woman and falling in love with this woman, asking her to marry me. I did this because I felt it with her and I understand you guys have problems with it, but if you would just get to know her and if you would just speak with her, you would understand and you would fall in love with her like I have.
And I, I just don’t understand why that wasn’t his case other than. You know what, Lauren? I can’t get over this. I can’t get over this guy that you were hooking up with before the show. It just, it makes me think, and now looking back on it, and then seeing an interview that Dave did recently, where he basically said, I was gonna say no at the altar.
So, now we know. This guy was never gonna marry you. And, now I gotta ask you, did you think that that was the case? That he never wanted to marry you?
My AirPods just died.
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me?
Now I can hear. Yeah, yeah, I can hear.
Is the sound gonna be, my AirPods just died. Is the sound gonna Sound different? No, I
can hear you.
Okay.
I’m only hearing my, the problem is I’m only hearing my, I’m almost hearing myself in my ear a little bit. No, it went away. Okay. So yeah, put the AirPods away.
So basically what I’m saying is, let me write down a timestamp on this so I can just edit that part out a little bit. 42. Edit. Okay. So my question is now, after Dave’s doing this interview and basically saying, I was not going to say, I was going to say no at the altar. Did you feel that at the time? Were you under the impression that this guy was going to say yes or you got to a point where it’s just like, no, he’s not going to say yes to me.
I totally got to a point where I’m like, he’s not going to say yes. I think at the end of the day too, like all of those actions of him not letting me be involved in these conversations spoke to him not being ready to be married. This didn’t feel like a priority that he was willing to. Sacrifice for, which again, it’s crazy to be like, I didn’t think that I was asking him to sacrifice that much.
I do think that there is a part of him that wanted to be ready for this, that wanted to be leaning into this experience in the way that would have led to a marriage, but I just think it ultimately at the end of the day, he still had so much growth and healing to do, and he just wasn’t ever going to get.
So after this all happens and then. As I said, the bizarre experience of this whole process is in the Bachelor world, there’s about a four month turnaround from time filming ends to the time episodes or time finale night airs. You guys have a whole year. So you deal with this last February and March.
You’re obviously like, wow, went on the show, broken engagement in real time back then. How long did it take you to get over a broken engagement?
I honestly, I’ve thought about this a lot because. Like, the coolest thing about this experience, it was so quick. Like, I developed feelings for someone quicker than I ever have in my life.
But it also then meant on the other end of things, I processed through this so quickly. Like, within days, I got so much more clarity looking back and seeing things differently. I will say it still took me a few months to fully wrap my mind around everything that happened. I mean, I just felt like there was so much.
Going on at the time and like so many different moving pieces, but I really saw things differently Within days of us ending and him not reaching out and it allowed me to move on a lot more quicker I’m not a lot more quickly than any other breakup. I’ve had
and then obviously you’re allowed to live your life after after this You’re not allowed to you know, it’s not like you hey, you can’t leave the house.
You can’t date we can’t see You know, you’re allowed to do this. Have you dated, did you ever connect with anybody for from this show? Post filming.
So, yes, I, okay. I ended up one of the guys that I was talking to towards the end too, that I had, we had ended things before I decided to pick Dave was Scott from the pods and we talked for a little bit last summer.
So probably like six months after Dave and I broke up he had reached out and we. Had one on a few dates, hung out for like a couple months or so. Ultimately, we are just like very good friends. I have nothing but amazing things to say about him. And even to this day, we’re very good friends. No, other than that, I’ve dated on and off otherwise, but I do think that I knew what was coming, and I knew that I was going to have to relive this experience, and so I decided to take a little break from dating for the past few months.
So, not to bring up this guy again, but I just want to, you know, make it clear, I’m just curious, and I know the audience is probably curious, the guy, the Friends with Benefits guy before the show, he’s really inserted himself into the narrative putting out promo videos of himself, making a cast photo of himself, the whole thing is just bizarre, but, When that is happening, during filming, this guy ended up being in the same building as you and Dave.
So we, that was discussed on the show, but here, now or ever since filming ended, has there ever been anything, did you ever pick back up with that guy, or did you officially put your foot down? And just say, I don’t even want to get back into this with you. Like, where did you ever leave off with that guy once filming was over and once your engagement was over?
So he had reached out like throughout last spring and I was so still like pissed at the whole situation. I did end up having a conversation with him last summer, but it was more to be like, dude, what the fuck, like, I can’t believe you put me through that. But that was really it. I mean, truly when I left for the pods, I did not think I was going to.
I didn’t think I was never going to see him again, but I really did feel like that was the end of our time together. And obviously in the way things shook out, I had lost any interest in any of that. Did
you ever, have you ever run into him in Minnesota circles, out and about?
No. Hadn’t really run into him.
He doesn’t, I feel like he doesn’t he’s also moved since then. But he doesn’t really bop around in Minneapolis the way that
Have you run into Dave? You see him out and about?
Yeah, here and there.
Is it weird? Is it awkward?
We honestly, for the last year, usually don’t talk to each other. Okay.
So if you’re at the same bar as Dave, wherever it is, do you, does he approach you?
Do you approach him? Or you just acknowledge that you’re both there and you don’t even try and
speak to a couple conversations, but they’re like, I don’t know, like drunken bar conversations, nothing of like substance. Okay. But otherwise, for the most part, we do ignore each other. Like, I’ve become so close with other people from the cast that I spend a lot of time with.
And so, he’s also just someone that I wasn’t gonna go out of my way to interact with.
Okay, and then finally, just wanna wrap with this. As I said, filmed it a year ago. It now airs now. You got over it pretty quickly. But then a year later, you have to go through this and you have to deal with social media comments and you have to deal with people giving their opinions on your situation.
I think most of it has been in, in pro Lauren and it’s been mostly anti Dave out there, but just having to relive this experience and watch it back again, what, what emotions do you get when you watched all the episodes? Were you angry? Were you frustrated? Were you sad? Were you mad? Were you happy? Like what does someone who has to relive a broken engagement.
One year later, feel about all this.
I will, I’m so thankful for the fact that it’s been a year. Because I do feel very emotionally removed from it, for the most part. I still, like, shed some tears watching some of the frustrating conversations, but it was, I think, more of just seeing my disappointment as the time went on.
Like, I was so excited and so sure about him at certain moments. And then to see me, like, slowly fade out of that is, like, sad for me to watch. More so for my own heartbreak and my own, like, I don’t know, loss. I will say, though, I think it’s been harder on my friends and family. Because they obviously knew what I was going through.
But they weren’t in front of the camera. They weren’t in those scenes. And so they’re now watching me getting just absolutely heartbroken. And A couple, like my sister in law had reached out and been like, I just didn’t know it was that bad. And like, I, I wish I had supported you differently. But I’m like, no, I just, I needed, I would have.
Express to anyone what I knew at the time, but I think it’s just hard for them to see how painful it actually was playing out.
Well, I mean, it was great television. You’re the most, probably the most talked about couple this season on, on Love is Blind. Unfortunately I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, but I think a lot of people are probably happy it didn’t work out for you.
And I think you, looking back on it now, probably realize that Dave is, is not your, It was not your man in the long run. And I think we can all agree on that.
I wanted at the time, but it was definitely the ending that I needed.
That you needed. Exactly. So Lauren, thank you so much for coming on first love is blind interview.
I really appreciate it. Good luck with everything. Stay away from the friends with benefits guy. If he happens to pop back into your life
at any
point. And again thanks again so much for coming on. We’ll be in touch.
Perfect. Thank you so much. This was so
fun. Thanks. so much to Lauren for coming on.
One of my favorite contestants in the three seasons of this show that I’ve watched. I can’t wait to talk to more of them from this season. I don’t know if I’m going to go back and talk to people from Charlotte or people from D. C. last season. I, I don’t know. It’s just, I feel like I’m more invested in this season because I knew I was going to be getting guests so I was taking notes.
So my questions could be a little more thorough and I don’t really want to go back and watch Charlotte and DC while I did watch every episode, I watched them once and I’m going to forget too many details and whatnot, but I’m not going to say never, I might reach out to one of them on Instagram and just be like, Hey.
Would you want to come on and talk about this, but they’re removed from the show couple of years. Maybe they don’t even want to talk about it anymore. So I don’t know, but going forward, I do have a relationship with Netflix. Now their PR people are fans of the podcast. So, hopefully I’ll be able to get the people that I request and we’ll take it from there, but can’t, I can’t praise Lauren enough for.
Having to deal with Dave a year ago when this was all going down and then having to relive it. It’s just got to be a weird experience. We know this happens with Bachelor and Bachelorette, but the Bachelor and Bachelorette turnaround time is four months. These people have to wait a year from the time their life is turned upside down till it actually airing.
And especially when you have a broken engagement. Hell, it’s probably easy if you end up still with the person, then you could just be like, yeah, things have been great for the last year. All we do is, you know, we’ve moved in, we’ve started a life together. But Lauren is sitting there, having to deal with that breakup, deal with it at the time.
Now she said she was able to get over it really quickly, which is good. Then to relive it and to hear other people’s comments. You got jerks like Nick Bial calling her sloppy. Of course he calls her sloppy after he has her on his podcast, which is very convenient. Whatever. The hypocrisy, once again, is laughable.
Anyway, thank you all for listening. I really appreciate it. Please follow me on Apple podcasts. Also rate and review, but you got to hit play. It’s the only way it counts as a download daily roundup. Like I said, posted a couple hours ago, sports daily posted an hour ago for Lauren O’Brien, I’m reality.
Steve, thank you all for tuning in and I will talk to you tomorrow.
Send all links and emails to: steve@realitysteve.com. To follow me on Twitter, it’s: www.twitter.com/RealitySteve. Instagram name is RealitySteve, or join my Reality Steve Facebook Fan Page. Talk to you tomorrow.
