Having an adventure together is a proven way to get closer to your girlfriends. Appearing on Oprah together definitely qualifies! We couldn’t wait for Melissa Mellott to share this Real Girlfriends story and we know you’ll enjoy it.

by Melissa Mellott

I have an amazing group of girlfriends – educated, funny, quirky, beautiful … and single and looking for love. Conversations in a week can look like a scene from Sex in the City – talk of careers, mishaps from blind dates (”did he really say that?”) and bikini waxes (”what’s a landing strip”?) and analyzing our love lives, all done in the “privacy” of over-the-cubicle comments (during breaks of course) or in a cozy coffee shop sipping a cappuccino.

Recently while browsing the Oprah website, I came upon a link: “Do you need dating advice?” Given recent conversations with my girlfriends, I think I double-clicked in a millisecond. After a quick two minutes of venting dating dilemmas on the Oprah site (it was great therapy), I moved onto another distraction.

You can imagine my surprise when I got a call the next day from Jason, an Oprah producer, who asked if my girlfriends and I would want to be on that Friday’s LIVE show via Skype to talk about dating with Steve Harvey, the author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment. And in a matter of a couple days, three of my (Oprah-crazy and boy-crazy) girlfriends were prepping with Jason for Friday’s LIVE show via Skype.

Anticipation

“And Skyping in from my favorite city Santa Barbara are Melissa and her friends with dating questions” was going to be the introduction, according to Jason, as he prepped us through the Skype session.

Giddy giggles, high-pitched voices, talk of what we would wear and ask, all had us 30-somethings being such … girls.

Thursday night, we were all anticipating the early morning LIVE taping at 7:00 am. And then … hours away from getting our dating woes answered and getting to talk with Oprah, my cell phone rang and it was Jason explaining that we had been bumped due to “breaking news” (He warned us of this possibility from the beginning because it is LIVE). Despite our disappointment, all of us felt like the past few days had been such a celebration of our singlehood and friendship. You can imagine how much we laughed when we watched the Oprah show that Friday afternoon only to find out that we had been bumped because of Paula Deen dropping her drawers (accidentally on her t.v. show). Perhaps Paula’s booty is more entertaining than a group of gorgeous single gals from Santa Barbara?

Strangely enough, my gal pals and me were not too upset by getting bumped; as amazing single-luck would have it, Jason offered Oprah tickets to us! Given the fact we had each been trying to get Oprah tickets since we were 20 years old, it took us another millisecond to pick a date, get a flight and take an adventure trip to Chicago!

Adventure

Can I just tell you this was a girl’s dream come true?! It was a perfect weekend in Chicago, we stayed downtown, ate way too much pizza, took an architectural tour…and oh yeah, went to the Oprah Show! We had our camera-ready outfits on and got up-close audience seats! The show was a Friday live-chat show and Robin Thicke was a guest; we were so close to Oprah and she was vibrant (and only several feet from us!) After the show wrapped, we were chosen to be part of a summer promotion taping, so we got to take a tour of the back studio, meet more producers and just hang out longer – this was getting better and better (You may see our cute faces on summer commercials promoting the Oprah show!) It was a wrap … we were on girlfriend cloud 9, just floating through Chicago. That trip was in May; we still are giddy about it and every woman we know wants us to tell the story again!

Here’s the thing – being at the Oprah show was a dream come true for all of us; it was truly amazing, but the adventure and anticipation of getting there and all of the things we went through together as friends were the most fun. It was an incredible bonding experience!

Melissa Mellott is a regular GirlfriendCelebrations contributor and blogs about spa health at SpaDefined.

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