Carly Waddell Opens Up About Dating After Ending Engagement

Carly Waddell is shedding insight into her dating life after ending her engagement to lawyer Todd Allen Tressler.

“OK, I need you guys real fast to go on a journey with me about how I’m just like not good at this dating thing that we’re supposed to be doing in life and how I tried the other day and it just like really backfired,” Waddell, 40, said in a Saturday, November 29, Instagram video.

Waddell explained that while she was out with her brother, sister-in-law and friend, the group saw a “cute guy” who she thought she had a connection with.

“I feel like we were kind of locking eyes. I don’t know, he was kind of far,” Waddell recalled. “But anyway, I was like, ‘OK, I think I’m going to give him my phone number.’”

After tracking down a piece of paper, Waddell wrote down her phone number — but left off her name so he “doesn’t look [her] up.”

“I don’t know. That’s a whole other issue,” Waddell said about her decision to remain somewhat anonymous. “Anyway, so I walk back into the bar that he was at and he’s not there. And it’s just like a table of his friend and maybe his parents, I’m not sure. And I get really close to the table and I see he’s not there and instead of just being a normal person, I literally just ran out of the bar.”

Waddell, who appeared on season 19 of The Bachelor, quipped that the experience was reminiscent of being a middle-schooler who “couldn’t talk to the cute guy at his locker” because she “got too nervous.”

“A Dating Journey with Carly (watch the video and come back for the end),” Waddell captioned her post. “The end of the story is my sister in law went back in and gave him my number and he never called….😂 The good news is, I sorta tried! Baby steps 😂.”

Waddell’s dating story comes one month after she confirmed that she was no longer engaged to Tressler.

“I’m always real with you guys, so I’m going to be real with you now. I’m not wearing a ring,” Waddell said in an October Instagram video. “I did break off my engagement about a month ago. We are living in a new city.”

She continued, “It’s not a decision that I personally made overnight. It was really bad timing because the kids had just started school and sports and all the things. You know what? It is what it is.”

Waddell shared that she feels “very at peace” with the decision.

“My kids are loving life in the new place,” she said. “Honestly, dating after divorce and dating with kids is super difficult. You have to make tough decisions for yourself and for your family. So, that’s where I’m at.”

Waddell was previously married to fellow Bachelor in Paradise season 3 alum Evan Bass from 2017 to 2020. The exes share daughter Bella, 7, and son Charlie, 6.