Interview with Jyst founder Emily Listfield

I am the co-founder of Jyst  a crowd-sourced, anonymous dating advice app for women. I started it because I was dating again after a long time and was sending a million questions (and yes, men’s texts) to my friends – and co-founder! –  for opinions. Every woman we met was doing the same. But friends aren’t always available or objective. It seemed a natural to create a supportive, snark-free environment where women could help each other through the confusion of modern relationships.

When my (then) husband and I were first dating, he made me a copper flower with one petal. (He was an abstract sculptor whose works were in major museums.) It hung on my wall for years before he mentioned that the petal was symbolic of  “She loves me, she loves me not.”  I never realized that – and he never realized I didn’t get the symbolism. Talk about subjective reality.

A boy who had a crush on me in grade school gave me the skin his snake had shed as a gift. Yuck.

Well, if I had all the answers, I wouldn’t have started Jyst!  So, to be self-serving, go on it and get honest advice from smart, kind women. But other than that, my advice is – don’t expect someone to change. And, it’s usually true that men tell you everything you need to know on the first date.

Dinner with friends. They support me and make me laugh.

When I was in 1st grade, I had a crush on a boy named Michael. I invited 6 girls – and one boy, him!  – to my birthday party. Needless to say, he was a little, well, uncomfortable. Talk about not playing the odds!

I don’t know about ‘better than ever’ but I was widowed suddenly with a six year old child (years ago.) It took a lot of work to get my daughter – and myself – through it. But I ended writing a novel about it that received a fair amount of attention. The act of writing helped me come to terms with what had happened and own the story. And most important, my daughter got through it and thrived.