Love-ly: Exploring Modern Relationships

“No foreplay. We’re literally just going straight in.”

That’s comedian Salma Hindy, and honestly? It’s the perfect way to kick off this week’s episode.

Salma grew up as the daughter of an imam in Toronto, enforcing the rules harder than anyone. Then, somewhere between removing her hijab, quitting engineering, moving to New York, and being disowned by her father, she had to figure out who she actually was, and how to start dating.

This week, Mehak (@whathemehak) sits down with Salma (@salma.hindy) for one of those conversations that really goes there. Salma opens up about being estranged from her father, the two years of celibacy she chose and what prompted them, and why vaginismus is NOT a vagina Christmas (it’s quite the opposite). She shares how ayahuasca helped her heal her relationship with men, why she always dates younger, what exactly a “chuckle fucker” is, and her biggest pet peeve in modern dating. And she makes the case for living by design instead of living by permission.

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Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production. For advertising inquiries, email [email protected].

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At 18, Kayden Kross walked into a strip club to save a pony from a meat auction. Twenty years later, she’s behind the camera, making films about the part of sex nobody can see.

Mehak sits down with Kayden, an award-winning writer and director and the founder of the studio Deeper, in a week when the Cornell case has left many of us angry and wondering why so few people seem surprised. Kayden explains why consent changes moment to moment, why a yes from five seconds ago doesn’t carry forward, and what the kink community gets right with its rule that a no can never become a yes mid-scene.

She traces her path from a Northern California megachurch to Penthouse, Vivid, and the director’s chair, and opens up about the end of her 14-year relationship with a fellow performer. She also explains why copying what you see in porn means performing for a ghost audience that isn’t even in the room.

They also get into why performers lose their second language once they’re aroused, what “fawning” really means, and the one thing that still makes her gag behind the camera after two decades.

This is a reminder that consent isn’t a box you check only once, and lying about why you’re in the room is the least attractive thing you can do.

Follow Kayden @thekaydendaily on Instagram, find her studio work at deeper.com, and visit gasplighting.com for details on the Gasplighting gallery event, October 15–17 in downtown LA.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok | @whathemehak_ on IG

Producer: Saadia Khan and Shei Yu | Content Writer: Mehak | Editorial Review: Saadia Khan | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Love-ly Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art Design: Josephine Chai | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan

Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us! Don’t forget to subscribe!

🔗 Subscribe to Hyphenly, our newsletter with hot takes, heartfelt stories, and all the feels of living in between cultures. Come for the nuance, stay for the vibes. 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]

Follow Us: 📸 @lovelythepod on IG | @immigrantly on TikTok

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production. For advertising inquiries, email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Content warning: this episode includes mentions of sexual assault.

In May 2025, Mehak sat down with Srijan Makkena, a psych student and content creator who’s been speaking out about the quiet (and not-so-quiet) ways misogyny shows up, especially in South Asian communities.

They talk about everything from family double standards and emotional repression to childhood trauma, healing, and what real love looks like when you’ve done the work. It's raw, real, and full of moments that might hit closer to home than expected.

Follow Srijan @srijanmakkena on Instagram and @srijanstopscrolling on TikTok.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok | @whathemehak_ on IG

Credits: Producer: Shei Yu | Content Writer: Mehak | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Love-ly Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Josephine Chai | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan

Subscribe & Listen to Love-ly on Apple Podcasts — $3.99/month or $34.99/year for ad-free episodes and more. Leave a Review: If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify — it helps more people find us.

🔗 Subscribe to Hyphenly, our new newsletter with hot takes, heartfelt stories, and all the feels of living in between cultures. Come for the nuance, stay for the vibes. 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]

Follow Us: 📸 @lovelythepod on IG | @immigrantly on TikTok

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production. For advertising inquiries, email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heather Orr and her partner had spent six months asking each other whether their relationship was worth fighting for. She asked if they could start therapy. He said they were fine the way they were. That was her answer.

In this episode, Mehak sits down with Heather Orr, a lawyer, activist, and creator known online as @hope_peddler, to ask: how much of what we want in love is actually what we want, and how much is the life we were taught to want?

Heather explains why, as a lawyer, she will never let a court have a say in her romantic life, why she thinks most of the centering of men happens once couples move in together, and why she hasn't dated in four years. She and Mehak get into patriarchy vs. matriarchy, whether women are naturally more egalitarian or just socialized that way, and Heather's theory that hetero relationships are where women's life force gets handed over. Mehak doesn't agree with everything, and that's the point.

They land somewhere hopeful: after all this deconstruction, could we be headed for a love renaissance?

Follow Heather @hope_peddler on Instagram and @hope_peddler on TikTok.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok | @whathemehak_ on IG

Credits: Producer: Shei Yu | Content Writer: Mehak | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Love-ly Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Josephine Chai | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan

Subscribe & Listen to Love-ly on Apple Podcasts — $3.99/month or $34.99/year for ad-free episodes and more. Leave a Review: If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify — it helps more people find us.

🔗 Subscribe to Hyphenly, our new newsletter with hot takes, heartfelt stories, and all the feels of living in between cultures. Come for the nuance, stay for the vibes. 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]

Follow Us: 📸 @lovelythepod on IG | @immigrantly on TikTok

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production. For advertising inquiries, email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Michael Brandt has spent his career studying faces. And he still says attraction has almost nothing to do with symmetry.

In this episode, Mehak sits down with Dr. Michael Brandt, facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Form Face and Body in Toronto, to talk about "iPhone face," the beauty standards social media has pushed us all toward, and why he'll turn down a procedure before he'll lose his judgment.

Dr. Michael opens up about the scar and the hair loss that shaped his own path into medicine, the patients who show up with a partner's ultimatum instead of their own reason, and the "revenge glow-up" requests he gently talks people out of. He breaks down the gender differences in what men and women ask for, debunks the collagen-stimulation trends flooding TikTok, and explains why he thinks nobody is obligated to disclose what they've had done. Along the way: the thread lifts he refuses to perform, the Michael Jackson effect, and why the best provider is the one who knows how to say no.

This one is a reminder that looking better might open a door, but it's never the whole house. Attraction is a state of mind, and the right person will love the face you have now and the one you'll have in forty years.

Follow Dr. Michael Brandt @dr.m.brandt on Instagram, and visit Form Face and Body in Toronto to learn more or book a consultation.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok

Follow us on IG⁠ @lovelythepod⁠ &⁠ @immigrantlypods⁠

Producer: Saadia Khan and Shei Yu | Content Writers: Mehak | Editorial Review: Saadia Khan | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Love-ly Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover art design: Josephine Chai | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan

Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us! Don't forget to subscribe!

🔗 Subscribe to Hyphenly, our newsletter with hot takes, heartfelt stories, and all the feels of living in between cultures. Come for the nuance, stay for the vibes. 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]

Subscribe to our Immigrantly Uninterrupted Channel for ad-free listening

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production

For advertising inquiries, please email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yasmin Elhady's back, and she’s bringing the truth bombs!

In her return to Love-ly, attorney, comedian, and Muslim Matchmaker host Yasmin Elhady sits down with Mehak for a hilarious, heartfelt, and brutally honest conversation about modern love.

From dismantling silly dating “icks” to exposing overconfidence, Yasmin shares how self-trust, spirituality, and the “three A’s” attraction, admiration, and adoration shape healthy relationships.

She opens up about protecting your energy, setting standards without closing your heart, and why confident women attract exactly the kind of partners they deserve.

If you're in DC, go check out Yasmin's new show, Not Exactly a Nun, at Woolly Mammoth Theatre — six performances only, September 25th through October 4th. Follow her @yasminelhahahady for tickets and updates.

Hosted by Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok and @whathemehak_ on Instagram

Produced by Saadia Khan and Shei Yu. Written by Mehak. Theme music, sound design, and editing by Lou Raskin. Other music by Epidemic Sound. Cover art design by Josephine Chai. Executive Produced by Saadia Khan.

Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help more people find us. Don't forget to subscribe.

Follow us on IG @lovelythepod and @immigrantlypods. Twitter @Immigrantly_pod. TikTok @immigrantly.

Subscribe to our Immigrantly Uninterrupted Channel for ad-free listening.

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production.

For advertising inquiries, please email [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when life changes you, but you still want to stay open to love?

Mehak brings on Robin Ducharme, relationship educator, former matchmaker, and founder of Real Love Ready, who's spent years interviewing some of the biggest names in love about what it actually means to truly love someone.

Robin opens up about her most recent breakup, three months out from losing her mother, and how partners show up — or don't — through grief. They talk about the importance of play in relationships, the "relational literacy" she learned growing up in a house with an open-door policy, and what she's really looking for on a first date: most importantly, being present and grounded in the moment.

Mehak and Robin get into dating in your 30s and 40s, why it gets easier once you love yourself first, and Robin's early accidental career as a matchmaker for her best friend. Plus, they review Robin's new dating profile and close on a reminder that a relationship can be the best one you've ever been in — and still not built to last.

You can follow Robin and Real Love Ready on Instagram @realloveready. Check out the Real Love Ready website for more information on her book, "Real Love Ready," and the In Bloom summit in Vancouver.

Hosted by Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok

Produced by Saadia Khan and Shei Yu. Written by Mehak. Theme music, sound design, and editing by Lou Raskin. Other music by Epidemic Sound. Cover art design by Josephine Chai. Executive Produced by Saadia Khan.

Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help more people find us. Don't forget to subscribe.

Follow us on IG @lovelythepod and @immigrantlypods. Twitter @Immigrantly_pod. TikTok @immigrantly.

Subscribe to our Immigrantly Uninterrupted Channel for ad-free listening.

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production.

For advertising inquiries, please email [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeffre Behm went on a first date from a dating app, drove to a mini golf course, and spent the whole night realizing neither of them actually wanted to be there. He didn't know her well enough to suggest something they'd both enjoy, so they defaulted to what they thought a "date" was supposed to look like. It's the kind of story that sounds small until you realize how many of us are doing the exact same thing.

In this episode, Mehak sits down with Jeffre Behm, dating and relationship content creator, educator, and the founder of Love School, to ask why dating feels like a second job when we say we want love more than ever. They get into why Jeffre no longer believes in soulmates, the blurry and constantly shifting line between friend and romantic partner, and "practice dating," the trend of going out with people you'd normally swipe past just to lower the stakes.

This one is a nudge to stop treating dating like a performance review and start treating it like getting to know a person. Also, a challenge: the next time you're in an elevator, say hi.

You can find Jeffre on socials @jeffrebehm on Instagram and TikTok.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok

Producer: Shei Yu | Content Writers: Mehak | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Love-ly Theme Music: Lou Raskin |Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover art design: Josephine Chai

Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us! Don't forget to subscribe!

Follow us on IG @lovelythepod & @immigrantlypods

Twitter @Immigrantly_pod

TikTok @immigrantly

Subscribe to our Immigrantly Uninterrupted Channel for ad-free listening

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production

For advertising inquiries, please email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summer's ending, everyone around you is coupling up, and suddenly "almost right" starts to feel right enough. Here's your reminder to get pickier, not less.

This week, Mehak (@whathemehak) is joined by Evelyn Alvarez (@ripeness), a New York–based entrepreneur, doula, community leader, mother, and one of the tías on Project Pulso's matchmaking show, Tía's Choice. As the first-generation daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, Evelyn brings a rare mix of warmth, humor, and hard-won wisdom to conversations about dating, identity, and womanhood.

Evelyn and Mehak get into dating for the story rather than the ending, diminishers vs. illuminators (and the red flag of a date who never asks a follow-up question), and what Tía's Choice reveals about what we're really after. Their advice? Have fun, be a little selfish, and get your confidence from your life — not male attention.

Follow Evelyn @ripeness on Instagram.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok | @whathemehak_ on IG

Subscribe & Listen 🔗 Immigrantly Uninterrupted on Apple Podcasts — $3.99/month or $34.99/year for ad-free episodes and more 🔗 Subscribe to Hyphenly, our new newsletter with hot takes, heartfelt stories, and all the feels of living in between cultures. Come for the nuance, stay for the vibes.

Leave a Review: If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify — it helps more people find us. 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]

Follow Us: 📸 @lovelythepod on IG | @immigrantly on TikTok

Credits: Producer: Shei Yu | Content Writer: Mehak | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Love-ly Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Josephine Chai | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production.

For advertising inquiries, email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fresh off a wholesome, "emotionally regulated" Valentine’s Day with her friends, Mehak (@whathemehak) dives into a deep conversation about why romantic love has become a "performance of adulthood" and a "social status symbol" in 2026.

Joining the conversation is content creator Alexa V. (@lifewithlex444), who discusses her decision to opt out of intentional dating in 2026. She opens up about her journey since being diagnosed with rumination OCD and shares a truly jaw-dropping dating horror story.

Together, they unpack the exhaustion of modern dating and the freedom found in choosing yourself over a societal timeline.

Connect with Alexa @lifewlex444 on Instagram and @lifewithlex444 on TikTok

Hosted by: Mehak ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@whathemehak⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on TikTok and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@whathemehak_⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on IG

Producers: Saadia Khan and Shei Yu | Content Writers: Mehak | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Love-ly Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover art design: Josephine Chai | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan

🔗 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to Hyphenly⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,  our new newsletter with hot takes, heartfelt stories, and all the feels of living in between cultures. Come for the nuance, stay for the vibes. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

👉 Please share the love and leave us a review on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to help more people find us!  Don’t forget to subscribe!

 If you'd like to share your thoughts about this episode or any other episode, you can contact [email protected].

Follow us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@immigrantlypods (IG)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@immigrantly⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TikTok) | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@love_lypod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Love-ly is an Immigrantly Media Production.

For advertising inquiries, email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices