Hoda Kotb Reveals She Ended Brief Romance After Three Dates and What She Is Looking for Now

Hoda Kotb is opening up about a short-lived romance she recently broke off.

Three months after revealing she was set to go on a new third date with a new suitor, the Today show anchor — who celebrated her 60th birthday earlier this month — revealed why things didn’t work between the pair during an appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show.

“This person, who’s a lovely human being, has a lot of things that are being worked out. … I think what I’m looking for [is] more kind of just simplicity,” she explained of the man, with whom her Today co-host Jenna Bush Hager set her up.

The news anchor added she is pulling back on her tendency to be “a fixer in life,” explaining, “Sometimes you’re like, ‘You know what? Let’s just pause that instinct because that is my instinct. I’ll help. I’ll make it better. What do you need? How can we do it?'”

She noted that the romance has been “tabled beautifully, like nothing funky, all good.”

"He's very cute by the way, extremely handsome," she added before telling host Jamie Kern Lima that she would show her a picture of him.

While Kotb — whose engagement to Joel Schiffman ended in 2022 — said she has “not yet” met anyone new, she is open to the possibility. 

“I think I’m into the addition process — someone who’s adding and not subtracting,” she explained of what she is looking for in a new suitor. “Like, in this moment, I just want addition, because I feel like when I kind of map my days out and see what free time do I really have, it’s so limited that you want to make sure that when you have it that you’re spending it with someone who’s in the addition business of your life.”

In May, Kotb shared on The Drew Barrymore Show that she and a new man were set to go on a third date.

“I think it was just the kind of fun of talking about something that wasn’t kids and wasn’t work,” Kotb — who co-parents daughters Hope, 4, and Haley, 7, with Schiffman — said at the time. “It was just life, and I missed that. And he’s really handsome.”

“I’m different now than I was,” she added. “For me, I feel like I have a lot of buckets that I want someone to fill, like, an emotional bucket is fun, a spiritual bucket. There’s so many buckets in life, and I think, sometimes, if you think about your person, like, I think I realize in my life that there’s more that I want.”

Last month, she opened up to PEOPLE about her priorities when it comes to her dating life.

"It's so funny because everyone's got their skin in the game. A friend asked me, 'What do you have room for?' Which is a very important question to ask yourself when you're looking for whatever it is," she shared. "She goes, 'Truthfully, if you could have anything, what would you have space for?' And I said, 'I have space for a Thursday night date.' She says, 'Then that's what you should look for.' In other words, don't seek out."

Despite expressing interest in getting back out there, Kotb found her friend's advice on determining what she has space for to be "very interesting."

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"Sometimes you're looking for something that you don't have space for at this point, because, you know, I'm totally occupied with my kids and running around with work and all the things. Where's the time?" she said.

"But then, all of a sudden, she said that and that made it clearer to me," she added. "I'm like, 'Oh, so that's what I want. That's what I want. I want a Thursday night date.' So I do that."