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Craig Conover opened up about dating after his split from Paige DeSorbo while appearing on a podcast last week.
Over six months after the Summer House cast member broke up with him following three years of dating, Craig, 37, addressed rumors regarding his alleged now-ex-girlfriend, seemingly referring to Natalie Buffett, explained his ideal dates, and shared what is to come on the upcoming 11th season of Southern Charm while also looking back on his appearance on Kristin Cavallari‘s live podcast.
“There’s no guidebook for this,” Craig said of dating on the June 25 episode of The Toast, via clips shared by Xoxo Bravo Girl on Instagram. “I don’t have any hard rules. I don’t have any hard lines.”
When it comes to what went wrong with Natalie, Craig admitted he wasn’t fully healed from his split from Paige.
“I was seeing a really nice girl — she will be someone’s perfect person. I just wasn’t ready to date,” he shared. “She’s just a wonderful person, but I really was like, ‘I have some healing to do. I have to go find myself again.’”
Speaking of his appearance on Watch What Happens Live earlier this year, during which he confirmed he was seeing someone to host Andy Cohen, 57, Craig clarified that he meant he wasn’t dating around.
“When Andy asked if I was dating, I was just like, I don’t ever talk to more than one person at a time. It was my way of saying I’m not just like out there dating a whole bunch of people. And then the tabloids, like, ran from that,” he recalled. “[They] posted this girl’s picture and name. And I was like, to this day, I’ve never even said her name just trying to [protect her privacy] … [because] she didn’t sign up for that.”
As he looked to the future, Craig said that when it comes to dating, he typically meets women at bars.
“I’m actually pretty shy when it comes to talking to someone blindly. So I loved meeting people at the bar through mutual friends,” he explained. “You’ll have to wait and watch next season, but I’ve never just asked someone to go on a dinner date that I hadn’t kissed before. To me, that’s very intimate to go have dinner with someone in a restaurant … I’d rather go to the bar or do an activity. I’m a big fan of activity dates.”
When Southern Charm returns for its 11th season, Craig said that fans will get to see him in the months that followed his breakup from Paige.
“You get to see, like, the next chapter of my life … Objectively, when you’re not the 37-year-old, you’re like, you have your whole life in front of you. But, as the 37-year-old, I think it’s like, ‘Alright, what are we doing here?’ I think you just gotta be kind to yourself and patient and just be like, ‘Look, it’s no big deal. You’ve got your health. You’re very fortunate.’ I know that it will all work out one day, but I can’t visualize it yet,” he admitted.
Also on the episode, via Page Six’s Virtual Reali-Tea on Instagram, Craig said that before appearing on the podcast of Kristin, 38, he was assured that Paige questions would be off-limits.
“Kristin and I are really close friends … [And] she was like, ‘Hey, will you come do my podcast?’ And I was like, ‘Sure,’ and I was like, ‘I just don’t want to talk about Paige,’ and Jerry’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have an agreement. Everything’s fine.’ But then I think because it got a TV deal, it got bigger. And so the first question was about Paige.”
Reflecting on the appearance, Craig said he felt like he was “going to die on stage” since he hadn’t yet spoken of his and Paige’s split.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m stuck on this stage and there’s so many cameras’ … It was a really fun show and everyone was excited but like, I like, I just … when I walk off stage I say, ‘That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,’ and they air it,” he explained.
“I hadn’t talked about the breakup at all and only did the show because they said they wouldn’t ask me about Paige, and then it looks like I went there to talk about the breakup,” he added.
