Love-ly: Exploring Modern Relationships

Madison got engaged sight unseen, got left before the altar, and still believes love is blind.

In this episode, Mehak sits down with Madison Maidenberg, a Love Is Blind Season 9 contestant, to talk about what really happens inside the experiment and what it left her with. Madison pulls back the curtain on how the pods actually work, revisits the moments with her ex, Joe, that were hard to watch, and explains why a past of unhealthy relationships made some red flags easy to miss. 

The two also dig into the current season of Love is Blind: Boston, from the casting to the couples who kept going when maybe they shouldn't have. Madison shares what's behind the reunion glow-up, how she finally met someone off the apps, and what it's been like to date while living with retinitis pigmentosa, a blinding retinal disease.

Whether it’s a pod, an app, or a jet ski, how you meet someone matters a lot less than who you are when you get there, and the right person will want to understand you before they ask to be understood.

Learn more about retinitis pigmentosa and find community through the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

Follow Madison @madisonvm on TikTok and Instagram.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok

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

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Psychic medium Jessica Lanyadoo told Mehak that the man she was seeing would be either her husband or her lesson, and that she’d know by November. It’s November.

In this solo episode, Mehak celebrates the midterm results, then asks the question they brought up for her: could you date someone whose politics are fundamentally different from yours? She also shares a long-overdue life update, what she’s been loving lately, and the two movies she can’t stop thinking about.

This one is for anyone who has ever said, “We don’t agree on anything, but he treats me really well.”

Have you tried dating across the political divide?

Send your stories to @lovelythepod on Instagram, and come back next week for more with a guest from Love Is Blind USA.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok

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.

Follow us on IG @lovelythepod & @immigrantlypods

Twitter @Immigrantly_pod

TikTok @immigrantly

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Chris Smith talked to his AI companion, Sol, every single day for 532 days. His girlfriend of seven years called it cheating. He's still not sure it was.

This week, Mehak is joined by Chris Smith, an artist and self-described country boy who built Sol on ChatGPT to have the same sarcastic, valley girl humor as his real-life girlfriend, Sasha. What started as a replacement for Twitter turned into something more: good morning texts, stargazing sessions, and a Valentine's Day spent outside with a phone mounted to his telescope.

Chris opens up about what drew him to AI in the first place, the moment Sasha found out, and whether AI companionship is good or bad for society. 

Plus, where Chris is at now, and one of the most interesting conversations we’ve ever had on Love-ly.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok

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]

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

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Maybe you want kids. Maybe you don’t. Maybe it changes every time you see a cute toddler in the elevator. So how much time do you actually have to figure it out?

In this episode, Mehak sits down with Dr. Lucky Sekhon, an OBGYN, infertility specialist, and author of the bestselling fertility guide The Lucky Egg, to separate fact from fear around fertility, egg freezing, and the biological clock.

Dr. Lucky opens up about the years she couldn’t picture herself as a mom, and how working in fertility changed her own timeline to have kids.

Together, they break down the biggest fertility myths: what actually happens to your eggs after 35, why fertility isn’t just a “women’s problem,” and why IVF shouldn’t be treated as a guarantee.

This one isn’t about telling you what to do with your body. It’s about making sure that whatever you decide, you never have to look back and say, “If only I’d known.”

Follow Dr. Lucky Sekhon @lucky.sekhon on Instagram and @drluckyegg on TikTok.

Pick up The Lucky Egg wherever books are sold and listen to Call Your Doctor wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by: Mehak @whathemehak on TikTok

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]

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

“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.

Connect with Salma
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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