This is an All Ears English podcast episode 59, three phrases to use when dating in America.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts.
Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Dating is a great conversation topic to bring up with native speakers.
Today get three new English vocabulary phrases to talk about your dating life.
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Hey, Michelle.
How's it going?
Hey, Lindsay.
I'm good.
I'm good.
How are you?
Awesome.
I'm excited to talk about dating today.
We've talked about dating a few times on the podcast, but today it's all about vocabulary you can use when you talk about your dating life.
How's your dating life?
How's my dating life?
Pretty either great or not great.
I mean, I mean, depending on how you think of it great in the way that it led me to my husband, not great in the way that I don't really like date anymore because I'm married.
So I would say it's pretty good.
Oh, my God.
What's it what's it like to date in New York City?
Oh, it's definitely fun.
There's always stuff to do.
And like it's kind of interesting because you know, typically you don't always do the touristy stuff.
But sometimes, when you're first dating someone like you know, we did, you know, ice skating at Rockefeller.
No, at...
Yeah, Rockefeller Center was, like, our second date.
And then, like, one date, I think.
I may have told you this at once.
But we did like a tourist.
You know night where we like.
We went to the Olive Garden and Times Square.
Like, things that, like.
Yeah.
And we wore I Love New York shirts and like things that we normally wouldn't do.
But because you're dating, it's kind of like you do those things because it's different and fun in that kind of way.
So that's at least how it was for me.
Oh, my God.
I think it's so funny that you went to the Olive Garden in Times Square.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because it's true.
Tourists would do that.
And you should never do that, guys.
Don't go to a chain if you come to New York City.
Do not do that.
Unless that franchise, that chain is really exotic to you, which I guess it could be if our listeners are from abroad.
It could be exciting, but it's not true.
Or there are some like New York City chains, you know, like New York.
So like those kinds of things.
But like, yeah, like an Applebee's like, oh, yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
That's funny.
I love that you guys kind of came up with creative date ideas.
You know, active dates, kind of fun dates, theme based dates.
That's very, very cool.
I love it.
Guys, in the last episode, if you didn't listen to 58.
We talked about the unspoken rules of dating in English in America, in the United States of America.
So today let's get into some vocab that our listeners might need to have a conversation about dating.
All right, let's do it.
Okay, so...
The first thing, so I love this, is to set someone up.
So this is to arrange a date between two people who you think may end up having a romantic connection.
Lindsay?
Have you ever set anyone up?
Oh my God.
Like I said Michelle, before we had this conversation, I have never done that, but you have.
I know you have been a matchmaker.
I've been a matchmaker.
Tell us about it.
Those people are married now.
That's amazing.
You have the magic touch.
They are married and they have two children.
And thank you.
Are you a godmother or something?
No, no.
And I like do like, yeah, no, I'm not like a godmother.
But like, you know, I'm very...
Actually unfortunately, I haven't even met their newest baby, because I haven't been able to get down there.
But, yeah, I see pictures and, you know, they, yeah, it's great.
Aww.
Oh, that's so cool.
That's so cool.
And what was it that you how did you know these two people were going to hit it off?
How did you know?
Because sometimes it's hard to know what someone's type is.
I know what my type is.
And so I would tend to think, you know, that person would get along with someone else.
But I don't know what other people like.
People are very nuanced in their romantic attractions, aren't they?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's true.
I mean, I don't know.
I just had a feeling, honestly, like they're both like very funny people.
And I know him for my entire life since preschool.
And yeah, the girl was a roommate of mine.
And pretty early on, I said, oh, you should meet my friend.
And I introduced them over video chat and then, yeah, the rest is history.
So you set them up.
So it sounds like what you're saying.
When it comes to being a matchmaker or setting people up, it's really just an intuition thing.
Yeah, I think so, because sometimes I mean I've had other things where, like I was hoping, like oh, maybe this will work out and it doesn't.
But like I just had some sort of feeling and it could have not worked out.
But I mean, it did.
Like I I just I don't know.
I I.
Maybe something came to me.
I don't know.
Something came to you.
I love it.
Well, it worked out.
I'm sure that they're very thankful.
Yeah, they're a great couple.
Yeah.
What would be the next phrase for our listeners?
I mean, these phrases are fantastic, guys.
If you want to talk about your dating life or someone else's dating life, they're really good.
So what's the second one, Michelle?
All right.
So the second one is better half.
Lindsay, what does that mean if you call someone your better half?
Yeah, this is just a funny way of saying your life partner.
You know your romantic partner, whether it's your husband or wife, the person you're married to, or maybe just the person you're dating.
I think it's more common, though, Michelle, when you're married.
What do you think to say this?
It's a more common.
Yeah, I think more common when you're married.
I would agree with that.
Yeah.
And I hear this being said, too, by like men more often.
I think I just like older middle aged men will say this about their wives.
I feel like in general.
In general I do agree that it's kind of like an older like, maybe in a little bit of a
An older generation vocabulary.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that's fun.
I mean, guys, we have listeners of all ages and it can apply.
You could say this if you're younger too.
What are you saying when you're saying my better half?
Well, it's like oh, I mean you think of like.
Usually, you know, a life partner is like two halves of a whole right.
Like a lot of times, you know, you think of that, you think of the heart and into two and right.
So like you're saying my better half, it's like, oh, like we are one and this is my better half.
Like it's like complimenting the other person.
Yeah, for sure, for sure, although i don't know if i subscribe to that idea of you know, being like you know the whole idea like i'm not whole unless i have this person.
That seems dangerous to me.
Yeah i, i agree, and i was thinking about that.
I was, as i was saying it, as you know, something like not like thinking of yourself as like not a complete person without the other person is scary.
It is scary.
And and I think that yeah, we want to think of ourselves as whole, people who compliment each other, but not necessarily.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But the good thing is, when you're saying better half, you're kind of expressing that you're being humble, that you know you respect your partner and they're kind of amazing.
That's kind of what you're saying.
Right, Michelle?
Yeah, exactly.
It's also just an expression.
So it's not like, you know, I don't think most people are thinking into it that deeply.
I think it's just evolved into an expression over time.
And yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Totally.
I love it.
So what would be the third, Michelle?
What's the third thing?
And this is very controversial and detrimental to people sometimes.
The third thing is to ghost someone, to ghost someone.
So this is when you go on an end date with someone and then they disappear without saying why they stopped communicating.
So yeah, to ghost someone, it's.
The idea is like you're like a ghost and you just disappear like a ghost.
Right, Lindsay?
Right.
Yeah, I think this is becoming more and more common with the anonymity of online dating big cities, right.
Cities like New York, you may never see the person again if you don't want to.
And so yeah, I mean in the old days I'm sure that no one did this, because you would always see the person or they'd hear through the grapevine or something.
Yes.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
No, it is very mean.
It is very mean.
I mean, I think, you know, it's do you think people more commonly ghost people if they've gone out on just a couple of dates or like do you think people ghost if they've been out for many dates?
Oh, my gosh.
I think it's tricky because people have different expectations of how serious things are at different benchmarks, right?
Like if... I don't know.
I think if there's one date or even two...
And let's say it was an okay date and things were fine.
I don't know if it's necessarily ghosting or really bad ghosting if someone doesn't get back in touch after the second date because there isn't that much of a commitment at that point, you know, right right, right right.
But if you're ghosting after a while, that's yeah, a month, two months, that's bad, that's bad and that just means that you don't know how to communicate, like you're afraid to say yes, the truth, which is that you're just not interested.
I think that's why a lot of people ghost.
I think you're right.
And we've all been rejected.
We've all rejected other people.
It's just it's part of life.
It's part of dating.
We just have to do it and get used to it.
Rip the bandaid, you know, the bandaid for sure.
But yeah, I remember in my dating life.
Yeah.
Once in a while, just things didn't work out.
And I was so sad.
I was so bummed.
Yeah, it's hard.
It's hard.
It's hard.
It's really hard.
It's a jungle out there, Michelle.
It's a jungle.
It is.
It is.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So you want to do a role play with some of these expressions?
Yes.
Let's do it.
So in this case, we are on a phone call and I'm asking you Michelle, about your current love interest.
Okay.
All right.
So tell me about your date last night.
Oh, it was just a last minute thing.
Mike invited me out for a quick drink on Saturday night.
Hmm.
You've been seeing this Mike guy for a few months now.
How'd you meet him?
Oh, Melissa set us up.
She arranged for both of us to be at an art gallery opening a few months ago.
Ooh, so are things getting serious?
Eh, not really.
I didn't hear from him for a whole week after we went out the first time.
I thought he was ghosting me, but he eventually got in touch.
Jeez.
Oh, well, I guess time will tell.
Might better have his calling.
I gotta run.
Okay.
Well, we'll catch up later.
Bye.
Bye.
All right.
So, guys, I was on the phone.
That's why we did the bye bye thing.
Right.
So you wouldn't just hang up when you're on the phone, of course.
So let's go back through it, Michelle.
What did we say first or what did you say?
All right.
Well, I said Melissa set us up.
So she she introduced us basically.
Yeah.
And guys, the quick thing to look at here is the grammar.
Right.
Set up.
Right.
The present tense set up in the past tense being the same.
Right.
Set us up.
Right, right, right, right.
Exactly, exactly.
And then we get into the ghosting, right, Lindsay?
What did I say?
You said, I didn't hear from him for a whole week after we went out for the first time.
I thought he was ghosting me, but eventually got in touch.
Right.
I thought he was.
And we're using the past progressive here.
So really good.
We're using lots of different grammar here, guys.
So write this down.
Absolutely.
And then uh, you said i guess time will tell my better half is calling, i gotta run.
So the person you're in you could be married or your life partner or whatever it is exactly exactly.
So that's like a call waiting type of thing.
Or the call comes in and i gotta go and i gotta run.
All right, i gotta run.
And that's a good bonus phrase michelle, for today i gotta run, i gotta run.
I got to run.
Yes, exactly.
We don't actually mean like I'm going running right now.
Like we're just like, oh, I got to run.
I got to go.
Right.
Exactly.
Do you use that sometimes?
Yeah, of course.
Do you?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I would say I got to run or I got to go.
Or if I'm in a physical place, I got to head out.
But we'll talk about those in another episode.
Right, Michelle?
Absolutely, Lindsay.
Oh my gosh, this was fun to talk about dating today.
This was fun.
It's always a good topic.
And guys, I think our next episode is also about dating, I believe.
So come back for our next episode and make sure you hit follow on this podcast right here, because it's a new way to learn English.
Michelle, what do we focus on here at All Ears English?
Guys, we focus on connection, not perfection.
We want you to focus on those relationships that you're building.
We don't want you to be sitting with your textbook frustrated and focusing on all the grammar.
You don't build those connections, right?
There's certainly, you know, we want you to learn.
We want you to learn all these things, but we want you to learn in a way that is focusing on those you know relationship building, techniques and connection.
Yep.
You got it, Michelle.
That's exactly it.
So guys, hit follow if you want to learn in this brand new way.
All right, Michelle.
Thanks for hanging out today.
All right, Lindsay.
Have a good one.
I got to run.
All right.
Me too.
Talk to you later.
Bye.
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