Joan Vassos Reveals Her Relatable Reason for Joining “Golden Bachelorette” and Non-Negotiables for a Future Partner

"I feel like life is better when you share it with somebody... I just don't want to go to the work of going on a dating website," the Golden Bachelorette told Susan Noles and Kathy Swarts

Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos wants nothing to do with dating apps — hence why she joined the show.

“I really want love,” Vassos, 61, said on the May 8 episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour podcast. “I want to have somebody in my life. I feel like life is better when you share it with somebody. I truly believe all of that."

"As far as my heart being completely open, I think it's nine-tenths of the way there," she continued. "So, I think I just need to spend a little more time in like an environment like The Bachelor environment. I so am not… like I really want to find love. I just don't want to go to the work of going on a dating website.”

Vassos told Golden Hour co-hosts Susan Noles and Kathy Swarts that “if there was another way” to find love besides using dating apps, she “would be open to it.”

Related: The Golden Bachelorette Names The Golden Bachelor's Joan Vassos as Lead

“If there was like, a speed dating, OK — like remember the old speed dating thing that people used to do? I would love to try that, but I don't think they do it anymore,” she said. “Or I would love to go to an event that had like a bunch of people just like me and you guys, like men and women, all of our age, and you just could walk around with a glass of wine and talk to each other. Like, I feel like that's so much more natural and you really get to know somebody.”

The private school administrator recalled a date she went on with a man that she met on a dating app, who didn’t look in real life like he did in his pictures.

“I was meeting this man to sit at the bar at a restaurant and have a drink,” Vassos explained. “And I looked around, and I was like, oh, I guess he's not here. And I went and sat down and I see this man waving from across the bar at me, and I'm looking and it doesn't look anything like his picture. He looks completely different. And so, I just feel like that is kind of typical of what you get when you do online dating. So what else do you do?”

Vassos claimed to be “very social,” but stated that “in the normal, everyday interaction of being out with friends and whatever, I haven’t met anybody.”

She likened using dating apps to having a full-time job. “And I have a full-time job,” Vassos told Noles, 67, and Swarts, 70. “So to stay on top of the messages and being, you know, witty and having a good, like, you know, repertoire with somebody with you know, it takes a lot of time and a lot of thought. And if you don't answer then I think, you know, you feel like you're being rude to them. But you're at work.”

Ultimately, Vassos has found that “dating is still” hard at her age. “I haven't figured out the formula yet,” she said.

Still, Vassos knows the qualities she wants in a future partner.

“I'm OK with a bald guy. My husband, my late husband, was bald, and I thought he was very sexy, so that's fine,” she said of her husband John, who died in January 2021 from pancreatic cancer. “Got to have all your teeth, that's good. I want somebody who's fit. I want somebody who takes care of themselves. I want somebody who is active.”

The mom of four believes that at this point in her life, “I’m probably better at judging” a potential partner than she was when she dated before marrying her husband.

“I can go on probably one date and not like, be lured by, maybe they're really attractive, or you know, maybe I think that they drove a really nice car,” Vassos told Noles and Swarts. “Like, those are things that probably would have mattered way more to me when I was younger, and those things are important. You know, I want somebody who's attractive, but I probably will give I know, I will give them a lot more time and spend a lot more energy trying to get to know them.”

Related: Golden Bachelor's Kathy Swarts Says Gerry and Theresa Are 'Doing What They Have to Do' By Getting Divorced (Exclusive)

Vassos appeared on the inaugural season of The Golden Bachelor, but left during Week 3 to be with her daughter who had just given birth. ABC announced on Tuesday, May 14, that Vassos will take the lead as the first Golden Bachelorette when the reality series premieres this fall.

“Positively overwhelmed by all of the love and support!” Vassos wrote on her Instagram Stories on May 17. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you all!”

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The Golden Bachelorette will air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC this fall.

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