Chapter Twenty-Nine The Last Episode
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Last Episode
[CECILY NARRATION] I’m Cecily Foster, and this is the final episode of Twenty Dates from Palmetto Media and Fitness West. Today we’re wrapping up a story about my life, my dating coach, twenty guys I went out with, and one other guy I haven’t said anything about quite yet. I’ll be back after this.
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Welcome back. Have you ever been really, really wrong about something in front of a lot of people?
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I was wrong about a lot of things when I started working with Eliza Cassidy. I was wrong about her, for one thing. I figured she would give me a makeover and introduce me to a bunch of guys. I didn’t expect her to teach me very much. But write this down in case anybody ever asks you how the story ended: Eliza Cassidy is really smart. She’s reinvented her business every year for the last six or seven, because that’s what her world demands. She told me that when we were first getting to know each other.
[ELIZA CUT: I never know what the future is going to be. I barely know what the present is. I’ve had accounts die on five or six platforms. You just keep going, it’s the only option. ]
[CECILY NARRATION] She’s also very determined. She knows how to ask for things. She doesn’t agree to take on a job if she doesn’t want to do it. She doesn’t listen to people who think she’s going to fail, not ever. She will never, ever accept that anybody else can guard a door she needs to walk through to get to where she’s going. It would be a big mistake to pretend I didn’t learn from her, even if maybe it wasn’t the things she intended to teach me. She just didn’t find me the right person. I really tried. We both did. And when I listen back to the conversations I had with my producers after these dates, I can hear myself. Trying.
[CECILY CUT] It was fine. He’s a nice guy…. I guess I’m not sure what to say.
[CECILY CUT] Yeah, I don’t know. He’s definitely good-looking. Um, seems very into his job.
[CECILY CUT] It’s possible I’m just in a bad mood. He seems like a good person.
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[CECILY NARRATION] But it wouldn’t be a finale without a twist ending, so let’s cut to the chase. The truth is that I found myself a guy. I didn’t just find him once. I kept finding him again and again. And again. I was not trying to, I was just out in the world, being a kind of nosy and curious person, which, to be honest, is a thing I like about myself. Anyway, I met this guy, and it sounds funny now, but I guess I thought it would be more honest to pretend that didn’t happen than to admit it did.
I don’t want to tell you too much about him, because he didn’t ask for this. But you’d all like him, I’m pretty sure. I started to spend some time with him, and I realized that all I wanted to do was spend a lot more time with him.
I wasn’t trying to go behind anybody’s back. He knew about the show, he knew about all these dates. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But to make a long story short, I should have taken better care of that whole situation. I should have taken better care of him.
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[CECILY NARRATION] I didn’t, so I’m single again. I’m not seeing Michael anymore. See, it’s not enough for a guy to have great qualifications. And sometimes the food really does make something seem like a better date than it was. That’s just a tip, from me to you. I wish him well.
But I am hopeful. More hopeful than I’ve been in a very long time. Because if I can be as happy once, with anybody, as I was in little moments with this guy I met all by myself, then I can do it again. And I know now that there’s no method. You can throw twenty blind dates at me, and none of them will take. I could spend months and months on apps, looking, and there would be no guarantees then either. I honestly never needed a dating coach, and I definitely didn’t need a makeover. I just needed to know when to stop looking. Because this guy liked me—we liked each other—and even if it didn’t work out, that was the best thing that could have happened. The next time I am happy, I will make that the most important thing. The next time I find something I’ve been looking for, I will stop looking for it.
Thank you so much for listening. Twenty Dates was hosted by me, Cecily Foster, and written and produced by me, Julie Nazari, Charlie Harper, and Abby Bohm. Eliza Cassidy is at ElizaCassidy.com, on Instagram at RealElizaCassidy, and on YouTube at ElizaDoesItAll. Special thanks to Toby Dennis, Molly Cozer, Cody Cassidy, everyone at Madeline’s, and Buddy the Dog.