Jenna Bush Hager is determined to get Hoda Kotb to meet up for coffee with the mystery man she hooked up with on a flight earlier this year after Hoda said she was “scared” of taking the step.
In a scene straight out of a romantic comedy, Hoda shared on TODAY on Nov. 9 that she had been keeping in touch via text with a man she met briefly on the plane. She told TODAY in August that they were both “crying” and the conversation was “firing on all cylinders” before they parted ways after the flight.
On Nov. 9, Jenna asked guest host Hoda for an update on the unnamed man. The duo also reunited at the Cannes Film Festival in France in May.
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“He asked me to meet him a few times but I didn’t want to,” Hoda said. “And I’ll tell you why I don’t do it. One, I’m probably scared. Two, I guess I enjoy flirting where you don’t know what it is but it could be something. And sometimes when you realize it’s not a thing, it’s not that fun anymore.”
“So I guess I’m just keeping it as a thing,” he continued. “Really, if I were to swallow a truth pill right now, I’m 62, I have two young children, and I believe the love part of my life is an upcoming part. I’m not saying, ‘Oh, that’s it.'”
Hoda shares daughters Haley, 9, and Hope, 7, with ex-partner Joel Schiffman. Even though he remains single, he is still open to the possibility of love.
“This is what I’m thinking about my future relationship life because I’ve been thinking about it,” he told Jenna. “I believe that throughout my life there will be a person who shares more with me than the things that were important in my youth. I want someone like a deep spiritual connection, a deep emotional connection.
“I think this is coming and I think I have to take risks to get it,” he added.
Jenna thinks it’s time for one of these risks. The next time the man on the plane contacted Hoda, he told her she had to leave.
“Because my friend is brave and does things that scare her, so I want you to go on that coffee date,” Jenna said.
“Okay,” an emotional Hoda said. “I’m going to go on a coffee date.”
“We have to cry in 30 minutes or this isn’t us,” Jenna joked.