First Dates & Soulmates: A Romance Podcast

The 1970s gave us Star Wars, Watergate, the sexual revolution, and what critics apparently decided to call romantic comedies. Nikki and Meg are back with the next chapter of Rom-Coms Through the Ages, and this week’s entries are Grease (1978) and Annie Hall (1977). Nikki and Meg discuss: * Why Grease is ‘50s nostalgia dipped in ‘70s cynicism and how the candy colours and hand jive are doing a lot...

If you’re into your 100th reheat of Heated Rivalry and you’re looking for your next favourite, Nikki and Meg have you. This week they’re breaking down what actually makes the Game Changers series work and the emotional formula underneath the fandom. What they get into: * The “soft, squishy boy hiding behind a stoic fuckboy facade” formula and where else you’ll find it in the wild * Secret relation...

Pride Month isn’t over yet, and Nikki and Meg are closing it out with the corner of the rainbow nobody’s putting on a deep dive: asexual romance. The A doesn’t stand for ally, y’all; it stands for a whole spectrum of stories where the spice dial gets turned down and the intimacy dial gets cranked all the way up. Listen in for: * What actually fills the space in a romance when sex isn’t the payoff,...

It’s Pride Month, and Nikki and Meg are spending it with a lesbian fight club and a bunch of gays on vacation. This week’s episode is a double feature: Bottoms (2023) and Fire Island (2022), two queer comedies with 98% and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes respectively that somehow flew under the radar until now. Both films skip the coming-out arc entirely. Both are messy, funny, and a little absurd. And bot...

Queer historical romance isn’t a revision of history; it’s a restoration of it. Meg and Nikki sit down with queer historical romance author Joanna Lowell to talk about what it actually takes to write trans and queer characters into the Victorian era with both rigour and heart . Meg and Nikki dig in with Joanna on: * Why Joanna set A Shore Thing in the 1880s specifically and what that decade was do...

Nikki packed a mic, a tripod, and a willingness to approach total strangers at a romance book signing. What she came back with was a full day of candid conversations with authors and audiobook narrators about the genre they love, and what they think the rest of the world is finally starting to catch up on. What came out of those conversations: * What it actually takes to produce a romance audioboo...

It’s the anniversary episode! Two years. 108 episodes. Top 10 search rankings for some things that will never be repeated in polite company. Nikki and Meg are celebrating the second anniversary of First Dates and Soulmates with a full retrospective, a reveal of the show’s new direction, some extremely revealing SEO data, and a genuinely sweet conversation about why they’re still doing this. What’s...

The Off Campus adaptation has arrived on Amazon Prime, and Nikki and Meg watched all eight episodes in five days because once it started, stopping wasn’t really an option. Their verdict? An 8 out of 10 (Meg holds out for an 8.5) with some genuine craft praise and sharp criticism for where the final episodes lost the thread. Listen in for: * Why Meg thinks the Justin-as-musician swap was actually t...

The romance genre has been quietly running a masculinity experiment for years, and Nikki and Meg are here to analyze the data! This week, they’re breaking down the himbo: the handsome, kind, not-always-the-sharpest-tool-in-the-shed hero who may actually be the most politically interesting archetype in contemporary romance. What you’ll catch in this episode: * Why the word “bimbo” was originally It...

Smut has a quality problem and Allison Whaley, founder of Bothered Stories, is fixing it one well-written, high-heat short story at a time. She joins Nikki and Meg to make the case that erotica deserves the same craft and editorial standards as the romance novels you’re already staying up too late to finish. * Why passive voice in a sex scene is basically a crime, and the actual editorial rules Bo...

Nikki and Meg are going full film critic this week with the 1960s instalment of their Rom-Coms Through the Ages series and one of them refused to pay $4 to finish My Fair Lady. She has zero regrets. What Nikki and Meg get into: * Why The Apartment‘s CC Baxter is the golden retriever hero of 1960s Hollywood and how he holds up against every mediocre romantic lead they’ve covered so far * The coerci...

Nikki and Meg are going full galaxy brain this week with a breakdown of Space Romance as a genre: where it came from, why it exploded during the pandemic, and what it’s actually doing underneath all the fated mates and dick spurs. What Nikki and Meg get into: * The abduction to fated mate pipeline and how it makes the kidnapper a good person?! * The Little Mermaid parallels of interspecies communi...

Sometimes a book doesn’t need 500 pages to wreck you emotionally. Sometimes it just needs two hours and a really tight word count. This week, Meg and Nikki are pulling back the curtain on the romance novella and what it actually takes to write one. Returning guest Megan Flatt (writing as AJ Claremont) is back on the pod and they’re all getting into: * Why constraint is the actual art form and what...

Episode 101 kicks off with a deceptively simple question that nearly broke Threads: does romance require a happily ever after? Nikki and Meg are firmly in the yes camp. HEA or HFN required, or else it’s a love story and it belongs on a different shelf. But the more interesting conversation is about what “happy” actually means now versus what it meant when the Romance Writers of America first put t...

Episode 100 is here. Nikki and Meg are popping every metaphorical champagne bottle and celebrating the way all great romance milestones should be celebrated : with live reactions, hot takes, and a deep dive into the most iconic romance moments ever put on screen. To mark the occasion, Nikki pulled together a set of YouTube clip compilations covering the top rewatched romance movie scenes, the grea...

Nikki has put Meg back in the hot seat as her romance author persona Bailey Seaborn to celebrate the release of “Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Playwright”, the third full-length novel in the All or Nothing universe. This episode dives into: * The pandemic romance-novel dreams about Chris Evans-type hometown reunions to a massive dual-timeline story that became the emotional center of the entire series *...

Meg & Nikki celebrate Second Chance Month with a rewatch of Sweet Home Alabama, starring Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, and Patrick Dempsey. This episode breaks down: * Hidden identities and the “reinvent yourself in Manhattan” fantasy * Small-town roots vs. big-city ambition * The ethics of not mentioning you’re still married * Whether the reunion is romantic… or just nostalgia with humidity The...

This week on the show Meg & Nikki deep dive into second chance romance trope with a deep dive: the emotionally volatile, nostalgia-soaked, “but what if this time?” category of love stories. This is not just “they loved each other once.” This is: * Why shared history creates instant emotional gravity * The “we’ve already suffered” bonding mechanism * The rupture: it cannot be something dumb like “m...

Meg and Nikki are back in the ton to close out Bridgerton Season 4 with Part 2 : the grief arc, the jail that wasn’t dramatic enough, the cottage proposal, and women choosing themselves. This episode breaks down: * The longing and insane chemistry between characters * The jail scene we deserved vs. the legal logistics we got * Francesca’s grief arc and why Episode 7 quietly owns the season * How t...

Today Meg & Nikki are talking about a trilogy that made their top Tingly Awards this year: Atrous by NR Walker (Code Red, Code Blue, Code Word). This episode explores: * The pressure of fame on romantic relationships * The difference between rock band chaos and boy band polish * What happens when talent outpaces emotional maturity * The original band dynamic (talent? yes. therapy? no.) * How publi...

It’s Nikki’s birthday pick, and we’re talking reality TV romance: where NDAs are tighter than the contracts, producers are messier than the contestants, and love has to survive the edit. This episode breaks down: * Why reality TV is the perfect romance framework: fake dating, forced proximity, public vs private selves, producer interference, villain edits, and love as performance * How romance sto...

This week, Nikki and Meg finally dive into Morning Glory Milking Farm: the monster romance that launched a thousand awkward recommendations and at least one “wait… is this actually good?” group chat spiral. We talk: * Monster anatomy (briefly), consent (extensively), capitalism (of course), and why this book works far better than it has any right to. * From Minotaur milking logistics to Violet’s d...

The first four episodes of Bridgerton Season 4 are here and they might be the strongest opening since Season 1. SO MANY SPOILERS. Nikki and Meg break down: * Benedict Bridgerton as a flawed hero (and why the internet needs to relax) * Upstairs vs. downstairs storytelling (maids, money, power, respect) * The Lady Whistledown problem now that everyone knows who she is * Violet Bridgerton’s late-in-l...

We’re continuing our march through the Bridgerton universe with Benedict’s book, An Offer From a Gentleman, the Cinderella-inspired romance featuring a masquerade ball, a missing glove, and one heroine who absolutely refuses to become a kept woman. Listen in for: * Cinderella romance tropes and secret identity reveals * Sophie Beckett as a heroine with principles and punch * Why “I’ll take care of...

It’s awards season, romance-style. Nikki and Meg are back with the second annual Tingly Awards, where spreadsheets fear us and yearning reigns supreme. This episode is a full retrospective of everything that gave us tingles in 2025: books, series, tropes, authors, movies, TV, rereads, rabbit holes, and the unhinged emotional damage we willingly signed up for. Once you do something twice, it’s a tr...