Without risk, there is no reward. The Last Blind Date proves that old saying true as it hilariously details author Linda Yellin’s transformation from a woman who is hurt by marriage to a woman who is happily fulfilled by marriage. This real-life romance is Yellin’s true account of meeting “The One,” the risks she took for love and the reward that came with the gamble. We spoke with the author to get her take on blind dates, hookup men and why the saying, “the bigger the risk, the greater the reward” was definitely true in her case.

 

100hookup: Tell us about “The Last Blind Date”

Linda Yellin: Well, the last blind date was Randy Arthur, my only ever hookup boyfriend and now husband. Randy lived in New York. I lived in Chicago. We were fixed up over the telephone by friends who lived in California. Pre-100hookup. Pre-airport security. I met him at the gate holding one of those little signs with his name on it. He walked off the plane with his fly unzipped. I was too embarrassed to tell him; didn’t know him well enough to tell him, so I let him walk through O’Hare that way.

The other “The Last Blind Date” is the name of my memoir about falling in love, packing my bags, and moving to the city that eats its young.

 

100hookup: What inspired you to write the book?

Linda Yellin: I’d written a novel, Such A Lovely Couple years ago about my first marriage. All my husbands get books written about them. I might have to find a third husband to write my next book. But my dear, sweet novel was on the bottom of the last shelf of the bookstore along with Emíle Zola and the dust bunnies. Pre-Amazon. Pre-anything. By the time anyone got to the “Y’s” they’d bought two other books and gone home.

I love the book and want the poor thing to get read. I figured the only way that would happen is if I wrote another book that people read and loved and then discovered the novel. It’s really just one big masterminded plot.

 

100hookup: Why do you recommend taking risks when it comes to love?

Linda Yellin: Nobody hated dating more than me. I was awful at it. The worst. I have no doubt that if I were on 100hookup (aside from really pissing off Randy); I’d love the emailing part and hate the actual-showing-up-for-coffee part. But it’s really hard to meet someone sitting home watching Grey’s Anatomy and ordering in Chinese, so I’d make myself get out there on those coffee dates.

At the very least you can enjoy a good cappuccino. And if I hadn’t made myself tell everyone I knew that I wanted to meet someone, I’d have never been open to some guy from New York. Although I was home eating Chinese when he called.

 

100hookup: What is the greatest risk you ever took?

Linda Yellin: Probably selling my condo when I left Chicago. I cut off my safety net…no place to return if my hookup boy didn’t work out. Oh yes, and once I let a guy I sat next to on a plane drive me into Manhattan from the airport. I remember walking across the dark LaGuardia parking lot and getting into his car and thinking, “this is stupid, Linda.”

 

100hookup: What is your best advice for our readers when it comes to their own love life?

Linda Yellin: My mother once told me that if I ended up with a hookup guy she’d drop dead from the shock. I had no interest in killing off my mom, so I specialized in Christians. But then I met Randy. And she was right: hookup boys make the best husbands.

 

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