Sara Foster Has Never Been on a First Date

There are a few places you may recognize Sara Foster from. For one, she and her sister, Erin Foster, are favourites on the famous-people-loving-famous-people Instagram page, Comment by Celebs. Or maybe, if you have a comprehensive understanding of celebrity, you recognize the Foster sisters for their familial connections to reality royalty: as the daughter of famed music producer David Foster, she’s a former step sister of the Hadid models and the Jenner brothers, making her once removed from the Kardashians. And if you already knew that, there’s a good chance watched her and Erin’s VH1 parody reality series, Barely Famous, where the siblings satirize these Hollywood connections. (If you haven’t, you have permission to leave this page and watch it now. Here’s the kind of humour you can look out for…)

In 2017, the Sara and Erin Foster were named the co-creative directors of Bumble, the feminist dating and social app where women make the first move. Back in September, when Sara stopped by Toronto for a Bumble dinner, we caught up over lunch at Soho House to chat about meet cute stigma, the perks of online dating and the details of her own digital love story.

Have you ever been on a Bumble date?

I’ve never been on a date. I should take that back. I’ve never been on like a first date.

Wait, what?

Every relationship I’ve ever been in has been from through a group friendship type thing.  Does that make sense? I’ve never been on like a blind date or a first date, where I’m just getting to know somebody. But if my husband and I break up, I will be on Bumble swiping for strangers.

Swiping for strangers is pretty much the norm now. Do you think there’s still a stigma?

There used to be this stigma on it. I mean, I had friends who met their significant others online and would sort of whisper it. Now it’s totally different now. Now everyone is like, “Oh yeah, we met on Bumble.” You know what I mean? Now it’s almost the opposite stigma. Erin doesn’t want people to know she met her boyfriend in a gym, she feels like that’s kind of embarrassing.

But then there’s the idea of finding a friend or business connection online [with Bumble BFF or Bumble Bizz]. We’re still in that zone where it feels a little bit, I don’t know. But I think a year from now it’s going to be normal. I met my best friend on Bumble.

Have you ever fallen for someone over text? Like, you got into a relationship without really having any face-to-face interaction? 

That’s actually how [my husband] Tommy and I fell in love. We fell in love over email. We met in New York with mutual friends—just one time. And then I went to Prague to do a movie. So we had two and a half months where we didn’t see each other, but we emailed everyday. We didn’t even talk on the phone. We literally fell in love over email.

So essentially you were online dating.

After I got back from Prague, we were like in a full relationship. We were in love and we had never kissed. We’d only met for like a brief second at Nobu in New York. That was thirteen years ago.

Have you ever tried to go back and look at the messages? 

Oh no. I would faint. We called each other embarrassing names like, baby-lu, poop-a-ly. I would probably puke. I might read them and go, “It’s been great. It’s been a great thirteen-year run. We have two kids and I never wanna see you again.”

Do you think it’s easier to fall for someone when you’re hiding behind a screen?

You’re so much more open. At least I am, because I’m insecure. I’m so much more open over text or over email. You’re just stripped away and you can really get to know somebody. I know myself, I would be very self-aware on a first date. Does my hair look good? Is my makeup running? Is this good light? You’re not yourself in that moment.

With Bumble, how long do you think you would message someone before it’s time for us to meet up? I feel like some app users will message people for weeks, and others want to meet the next day. 

I sort of love the idea of a couple weeks, where you really sort of develop an interest in the other person. I can’t even imagine going a blind date where we have had no interaction. I know nothing about the person, no contact…some people are into that. I don’t know. I love the idea of messaging a little bit and getting to know each other, so that when you show up there is already a kind of bond.

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