- Source: Zach Dilgard / TV One
Originally published on HelloBeautiful
We’ve seen Too Hot To Handle, Love Is Blind, 90 Day Fiancee, Love Island, and even Love After Lockup, but now TVOne is presenting a new-age form of dating that gets your best friends involved and it stars LisaRaye McCoy. Introducing Asking For A Friend, a modernized self-contained dating show where two single-and-ready-to-mingle besties choose blind dates for one another. The kicker? Each blind date is a double date and each hour-long episode is chock full of fun surprises and unpredictable outcomes.
When TVOne was searching for a host for their new dating show, they knew that LisaRaye was the right voice for the job; their eyes were specifically on her. “Of course, that feeds a girl’s ego. That’s always great when a network calls you and says it’s you that we want because that takes away all the competition and all the other fluff,” LisaRaye revealed to HelloBeautiful.
“When they told me it was a dating show, I understood why they chose me, first of all, because my single life is just as big as my career. It’s just as relevant as that. Everybody wants to know who I’m doing it to and who is doing it to me.” says LisaRaye
The Player’s Club star continued, “Right now, with the placement of racism, equality, brutality, and everything that’s going on right now that we’re fighting for, boycotting for, and voting for, the world needs love. Love is universal. Everybody’s looking for love. Everybody wants love. We’re trying to find love and I thought that this was a refreshing, light way to approach putting couples together to find love.”
Bringing her full and unapologetic self to the hosting gig, LisaRaye was fully present in her personality with the narration of the show – and we would not expect anything less. Ahead of the premiere of her television show, the new TVOne host exclusively caught up with HelloBeautiful about how she gets ready for a first date, what she looks for in a potential suitor, and the importance of self-love before giving love to another.
LisaRaye On normalizing alternative dating methods on television:
There are so many people that have been successful in the way that they have met their significant other, and there’s so many people that have been unsuccessful. Those people are looking for ways to be able to find their person. If it works for you, then it might work for me, so that means online dating or a blind date. If you normalize it and realize that now others are doing it, and you won’t be the only one, then you won’t feel left out.
When it’s a fun type of energetic type of way to be able to easily do something, then it doesn’t seem like you hitting the pavement and you hitting me over the head with it. It should be fun, it should be easy, it should be a natural flow to something. Pretty much how the conversation should go when you meet your person. If it’s not a flow to it, then it’s like, yeah, get out of there.
LisaRaye on double dates and blind dates:
Both and any. Let’s be honest, we do have online dating, we have social media. I don’t think that any of my friends have been able to hook me up with anybody, but I’m open. I’m open to trying different ways. I don’t think any way is terrible because you just might find what you’re looking for. I would definitely go on a blind date because it could be fun. I’m a people person; I just like relationships, period. If something comes out of that, that somebody that I want to see more of, then hey, I take it from there. I’m not opposed to it.
LisaRaye on dating since the pandemic:
We’re not all the way out. Some of the dating places that you would go to accompany your significant other is still kind of off limits. I kind of still don’t want to be in public with so many people like a concert. I want to do more intimate things because I don’t care to have a movie date for my first date. That’s just hell sitting up watching TV in another forum, we not talking, and we’re not getting to know each other. I’d love to do something that enables us to be able to have a conversation with each other and engage in each other where I can see, can you make me laugh?
Are you witty? Are you spontaneous? Are you fun? I need to know what is your idea of a first, second, and third date? I don’t want to ask for anything that I can’t give either. I want to be able to give just as much of [myself] as I’m requiring him to give to me and wherever either one of us falls short, we’ll pick it up like a yin to the yang. Dating for me has changed because I’m a little bit more open, meaning I’m ready to mingle a little bit. I would love to go and start going to happy hours because happy hours are job people, people that got jobs. Because they’re getting off work.
I’ve been pushing myself to open up and do more because I don’t know where I’m going to find him, because hell, if I did know, I’d probably be standing on the corner looking for him. I don’t know if it was going to be the grocery store. I don’t know if I may see him at the spa. I don’t know if I may see him at a restaurant while I’m just simply eating by myself.
I don’t know, but I tell you this, I’m going to be well put together because I don’t really go anywhere while I’m not put together. I never go anywhere where I feel like, oh my God, you caught me looking like this or not at my best. I’m not that kind of girl, and that may come with maturity too. He’s going to eventually see me like that anyway, so if you catch me like that, then more power to you.
LisaRaye on self-love before pursuing a relationship:
If you don’t know how to love yourself, then how are you expecting for someone else to love you? If you don’t know who you are or what you want, how do you even know what to ask for? If you know how to love yourself, you’re teaching them how to love you because they’re automatically seeing what you are accepting and what you’re doing for yourself in your own life. I totally believe in that because I have a certain lifestyle myself. If you coming into my life and you can’t get with what I’m even already doing for myself, then there is absolutely no need for you to waste my time.
LisaRaye on what she looks for in a partner:
I need him to be God-fearing because I need him to know what his place is. Not just in society, but within our home, within the union of our relationship, which is the king, which is the provider, which is guiding me. I have to follow, I have to trust, I have to love, I have to have faith that we can grow equally yoked and grow together. I need him to be that so he can lead the family. I need him to be a family man because I have an awesome grandbaby that I’m like the second mother to, and that is love unconditional so she will definitely be around. I need him to be generous in every way, not just financially, but generous with his heart, generous with his knowledge, generous with being a companion, and wanting to travel and see the world and cater to me. I want him to be my friend. I want us to like each other.
LisaRaye on the importance of dating someone with her definition of success:
I need him to be successful. That goes without saying. I need him to have a certain amount of success because I need him to know what my lifestyle is and get used to what it is already. I don’t want anybody coming into my life that they don’t know and they are oblivious to what it is I do, how I do it, on what level I do it on. That’s a turnoff to me because I’m not trying to be a teacher. I’m trying to be a significant other, not a mother. Period. Exclamation point.
I had someone that I was kind of interested in and he just did not know how to date me. He always falls short of a promise or an angle of trying to give to me, and it just wasn’t at my caliber. It was almost like when you get a woman a dozen roses. If you get me nine, then I’m like, well wait a minute. There’s three missing. It’s like it’s supposed to be a dozen. It was always a step behind what I’m used to, what would get me excited, or what would keep me engaged. I just was like, “look, you seem like a great person, but you’ve fallen short in so many other smaller areas that’s adding up to me till it’s not equaling up.”
LisaRaye on Galentine’s Day and celebrating her sisters and best friends:
I do that all year round because I don’t believe in just a day of that. I know that the day is designated for that, but it’s not that much more special to me than any other day that I may call and say, ‘Hey, let’s go to dinner. I want to treat you to whatever. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s have some downtime. Let’s have a girl weekend.’ Galentine’s Day is for me to sit up in the bed and eat chocolates and see which ones I like the most.
On the first date fit checks and glam:
I’m going to be LA chic. I’m not going to be Hollywood glam because that’s a little too much for me. That’s the girl that’s on TV and you’ll get plenty of time to see her. Nine times out of 10, you’ve done Googled me anyway and know who I am.I don’t want to be that spruced up. I want to have a natural look. I want to have the look [where] you see that I did put some effort into knowing that I’m going in public and meeting someone for the first time, but not so much where you see the actress. I’m not acting in my real world. When I walk up, I need you to be pleasantly surprised to know that this is how I look on an everyday basis.
LisaRaye on feeling comfortable in your own body before you begin dating:
I would say this, I don’t think we as ladies [are] ever satisfied with what we have. We always trying to improve and get the new improved model, whether that’s working out, staying on a strict diet, changing your diet, eating better, or just drinking more water to hydrate. We’re always trying to look for better, but what I’ve learned and what I’ve been hearing is that guys don’t look at us the same way that we even critique ourselves. We’re looking at that cellulite pocket and dimple on our butt. They could care less. Now, I’m not so convinced that they could care less and so I care more. I don’t want that cellulite pocket there, but if it does come and it is coming in years to come, I prefer to find somebody that loves me as I am. If all those things start coming, the change will happen while we’re together.
Catch LisaRaye on TV One’s Asking For A Friend at 8PM EST /7PM CT on Thursday nights.
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