Source: Janeé Bolden / Janeé Bolden
Stars Of OWN Network Dating Show Talk About Dating On TV
Will Packer had a hit on his hands with OWN’s “Ready to Love” and the show actually ended in two love matches. Alexx, who found his match with Ashlee and Mike and Shea, who seemed to fall in love at first sight. Weeks before the cast reunited to revisit the ups and downs of the show, BOSSIP sat down with Mike and Shea to talk about the experience.
BOSSIP: Do you think you two would have met if you hadn’t done the show?
Shea: I don’t see how we could have, because I have a certain route and I don’t detour, I don’t hang out. I worked for the radio station but even then I chose not to be out, I’d be in the station running the boards. I’m just not a going out person. And I enjoy naps.
BOSSIP: You guys were locked in from day one — was it love at first sight?
Shea: For me the attraction was there, Mike did something that I don’t typically like, he did the come here [motions with her finger].
Mike: Soon as she walked in.
Shea: And that was it. The conversation was fun, it wasn’t too heavy. He wasn’t trying to interrogate me, he had roots going back to the Midwest and he was funny and I could laugh.
BOSSIP: Do you think it’s really that hard dating in Atlanta?
Mike: Anything with Black folks gets a bad rap. Africa, Atlanta. I think Atlanta is a beautiful place, it’s the Wakanda of America. It’s thriving. You’ve got a bunch of young black entrepreneurs, the government is not holding you back.
For me, as far as dating was concerned, because I don’t go to clubs, I don’t go to lounges, I’ve been here four or five years and people are like, where have you been?
I go to bed at like 10. And if I go to the gym I’m not going to ask someone to remove their headphones to talk to me, I’m not shy or anything like that. I think people don’t self reflect enough, they just put it on the location. Because if you’re having problems dating in Atlanta, you’ll have problems in California or anywhere else.
BOSSIP: What do you think made you guys’ situation go so much more smoothly than some of the others?
Shea: What I like about Mike is we bounce a lot of ideas off each other, we both have unconventional lifestyles. I might say, ‘I can’t go to dinner, I’m too tired,’ and he’s fine with that. I’m not at a point anymore where I’m pressed about anything. If he’s busy I trust him, if I don’t see him today I’ll see him tomorrow.
Mike: And it makes a man miss a woman. I’m not used to that. You don’t want it to become like washing dishes, damn I gotta wash the dishes. I don’t have to check in, She’s checking on and I like that about her.
Shea: He has to have his personal space. You need to have your space on your own, outside of me and I gotta respect that, just like I may not want to be bothered everyday all day long either. We’ve got to respect each other’s boundaries and personal space. I do that with my son. I built a room in my garage for him to have his own little man cave so he doesn’t have to be up under me all the time.
This show is about compatibility, not a competition. People keep saying it’s a competition. All of the women are beautiful. All the women have something to bring to the table. Mike isn’t going to work for every chick and every dude is not gonna work for me. I understood that early on.
BOSSIP: One of the conflicts you had was that Mike wants kids and Shea, your first experience with motherhood was rough. How did you guys work past that?
Shea: It was rough. He [her ex] put me through it, but I had to take into account he was young, we both had no idea what we were doing, we both were young. We weren’t compatible. It would be like buying a house with someone and then being like, no you do it, you got it.
Mike: I think the misconception was that I was asking for a child right now. We don’t know each other well enough to say ‘Hey let’s have a child,’ it’s more so of — she had postpartum depression. I didn’t know anything about that, a lot of men don’t, so it was just like ‘Why wouldn’t you want to have a child?’ When she broke it down to me I had to understand from that aspect. I never had a child before. So I just had to understand and be patient. She’s open now, so now that we know she is open, when we get to that point we’re like okay, first we’re going to get married, because marriage is supposed to come before a baby. I didn’t wait 39 years to just throw a baby in somebody.
I really do want to have a baby, but I didn’t want to let this woman go because everything about her is so dope. That’s why I learned patience too, because it was something so strong I took the time to find out why. I understand now and with time she said, ‘I could see you being a good father, so if we get to the point of marriage I would be willing to have children with you.’
Hit the flip for more from this beautiful couple.
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