Pictures: Selina Nunn
Four years on from her time on The Bachelorette New Zealand, Dr Lesina Nakhid-Schuster might have found her “forever person” in new beau Tom Brodie.
After breaking from tradition by deciding not to choose anyone on the popular reality show, Lesina, 36, kept her standards high. And just 10 months ago, she met Tom, 38, on a dating app, and their whirlwind romance has seen the ear, nose and throat doctor finally swept off her feet.
Recently, Christchurch bloke Tom, a building project developer, invited Lesina down from her home in Palmerston North for a magical mystery weekend.
“He surprised me for my birthday,” smiles Lesina. “It was so sweet. He didn’t tell me anything. He just booked my flights to Christchurch, then picked me up from the airport. And he had bought all my favourite foods to take along too.”
A couple of hours later, they ended up at a lakeside hotel in Lake Tekapo.
“We got up early the next day and went to Mount Cook. I’d never been before. It’s one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. We went for a walk and he just had all these surprises in store.”
Coincidentally, it was the same weekend the aurora australis could be seen in the sky and Lake Tekapo just happens to be home to the Southern Hemisphere’s largest Dark Sky Reserve. It was the perfect time and location for some seriously romantic night-sky viewing!
“Tom had booked a star-gazing tour and the whole night was just so weirdly… what’s the word? Perfect!”
Tom also planned dinner, where he presented Lesina with yet another surprise.
“He made me wait in the bathroom and when I came out, he had one of those personalised cakes with a picture of us on it,” she laughs. “It was really cute and cheesy – but so cute!”
However, the best surprise of all was yet to come, in the form of a scrapbook Tom had put together of all their shared memories.
“I didn’t know that he’d kept all these things,” says Lesina. “For our first date, we went to Holy Moly mini golf and he’d kept the scorecard.
“He said he wouldn’t usually keep something like that, but he had this vision in his head of pulling it out one day. His exact words were that he fell pretty hard, like straight away. And he thought to himself, ‘I’m keeping this’.
“He spent two weeks working on this whole scrapbook and when he gave it to me, I cried and then he cried.”
The final surprise came on the Sunday, when he presented Lesina with another present, some earrings, before whisking her off to go ice skating.
“It was all just so very cute!” gushes Lesina.
When asked if Tom has always been sentimental, Lesina says apparently not.
“Do you know what’s funny? His sister sent me this message on the Sunday and I know it word for word because I keep staring at it. It said, ‘Oh, my God, did he make a scrapbook for you? Lesina, he is so in love with you. I’ve never seen him so affectionate and caring ever.’
“I was like, ‘Wow!’ Knowing that his family is surprised by that just makes me feel super- loved. I love that text.”
Despite going through some tough times on The Bachelorette, Lesina credits the show with helping her to develop her relationship skills. She even believes it might have led her to her true love after all.
“I think the show helped me be a better person,” she says. “It helped shape me into the person I am today. When I met Tom, that sort of felt like a domino effect. In that respect, I’m very grateful for the show.”
After the series, Lesina received a lot of feedback from viewers who took it upon themselves to show her where she was lacking in terms of communication skills.
“I took it pretty hard in the beginning, but then I took a lot of it on board. I was like, ‘OK, if everyone’s saying one thing, then maybe it’s true’. Doing that work actually made dating strangely way more fun for me.”
Lesina explains the criticism was often around her holding back from revealing her true feelings.
“I wasn’t that giving of myself,” she explains. “So when I dated after the show, I definitely felt better opening up and expressing how I feel about things.
“But also, some of the feedback was just bulls**t. Some things that people said, I was like, ‘I know myself and that’s not true!’”
For now, Lesina and Tom are doing the long-distance thing, but they hope to move in together in the not-too-distant future.
“Tom wants kids and so do I, but I’m not sure if I’m ready for it yet,” confides Lesina. “It’s reassuring knowing that it’s something he wants, though. I know there’s biological pressure, but it’s not something I want to rush into. We have to find a way to live together first!”
