January 10, 2024 • 60 mins
Ever wondered how the modern dating landscape is shaping up? Are you grappling with the paradox of choice offered by dating apps, or navigating the murky waters of pandemic dating? Buckle up for a deep dive into such challenges and more, as we uncover the intricate dynamics of modern dating.
Having a clear understanding of one's needs in a relationship is crucial, but how do we achieve that? We discuss this and more as we ponder over the top dating issues today – ranging from the significance of self-awareness to the pervasive problem of ghosting. We also delve into how dating apps, although a significant part of the modern dating scene, can sometimes leave us on an emotional rollercoaster.
As we round off our discussion, we focus on the profound impact the pandemic has had on dating culture. With singles expecting increased emotional maturity from potential partners and vaccination becoming a controversial topic, the pandemic has indeed added a new layer of complexity. But fear not, as we stress the importance of open communication, empathy, and self-awareness in building successful relationships. Whether you're actively dating or simply intrigued about the dating scenario, this episode offers valuable insights. So tune in, and let's navigate these challenging waters together.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, valvin.
So we're here at the househaving a chat, and I think this
is a fun day for us getting totalk through what really, what
sort of problems are out therefor people dating?
What does the landscape looklike?
And so, in preparation for this, I looked up a couple of
statistics and some articlesthat I thought would be helpful
(00:20):
in driving your reaction as amatchmaker and my lived
experience as a single girltrying to try to make her way in
the world.
So what really stood out to meis there was an article that
talked about the five biggestissues with dating today.
Okay, so here are their fiveOne knowing what you want.
(00:40):
Two pressure and harassment, soreally centered around safety.
Three pandemic dating.
Four, dating apps.
And five, ghosting.
Okay, from my perspective, inlooking at this list, I think
that pandemic dating and datingapps could probably rolled into
(01:01):
one, but let's start with yourimmediate reaction Knowing what
you want.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay.
So knowing what you want is abig one.
Sure, I often talk about aformula for being successful in
dating, and that formula startswith knowing who you are.
Now, once you know who you are,you got to get clear on the
(01:29):
type of person that you'relooking for.
And this goes to that point.
Most people don't know whatthey're looking for, and that's
detrimental to the outcomes thatthey want.
Because, truth of the matter is, if you spend some time
figuring out what it is you needin a relationship to be happy
for the rest of your life notwhat you want in a relationship,
(01:51):
because those two lists aredifferent but if you figure out
what you need in a relationshipto be happy for the rest of your
life, then you recognize itwhen you see it.
But if you don't spend thatwork, you spend a whole lot of
time with other people in yourcompany trying to figure out
what it is that you'reinterested in and what is you
(02:11):
like and need and that sort ofthing.
My point is, if you do a littlebit of work, it makes it a
whole lot easier to recognizethe person when you find them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So when you talk about doing work and trying to
figure out what you want andwhat you need and really
separating those two out, doesthat look like dating a lot?
Does it look like going totherapy?
Does it look like having areally good friend group and
maybe some empty bottles of wine?
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So think about it this way If you get to know
yourself first, let's choose.
Let's take one of theassessments.
Like love language, my lovelanguage is acts of service.
And for those who don't knowwhat love languages means, love
language is the idea of what isit that makes you feel loved?
So, for instance, in my case,because my love language is acts
(03:04):
of service, when people dothings for me, it makes me feel
like they love me.
And just to top it off, let'sgo ahead and list the five love
languages.
Love languages are I don'tthink they're any particular
words.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service,
like you mentioned, gifts andtouch.
So those are the love languagesright.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So hilarious that I left out physical touch.
So let's just use that as anexample, because my love
language is acts of service.
I can at least I know thatsomething that I have to be
aware of when I'm dating someone, because if I'm with a woman
who has a hard time serving meand I'm not saying from a
(03:49):
servitude perspective like itcould be anything it could be
like she organized my shoes orshe bought me some dinner at
home.
Let's take it the other way.
I remember the last girl Idated.
I asked her to go get someChick-fil-A for some guys that
had come over to have a meetingand she looked at me with a
really stank face, likeseriously, like yeah.
(04:10):
And point being, let's not gettoo far off the trail here.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Like that's a whole other story.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, let's not get too far off the trail.
But all I was trying to say is,once you get to know yourself,
now you know what to look forOne of the things about what you
need in a person to be happythe rest of your life.
So, to your point, does it meandating a lot?
It doesn't necessarily meandating a lot.
It means knowing enough aboutyourself to recognize even in
the beginning stages that hey, Ican't deal with this person.
(04:40):
Once you assess your attachmentstyles, you can assess your
enneagram, you can assess yourlove languages.
There are a number ofassessments out there that you
can take to learn more aboutyourself and you can make some
really good decisions reallyearly, without dating a whole
bunch of people that this personis not good for me or is good
(05:01):
for me.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So there's a study survey that's done by matchcom
every year and it's calledSingles in America and they run
through a whole bunch ofstatistics and they actually
talk about investing more inthemselves to lay the foundation
for healthier relationships,which really speaks to this
(05:24):
first point, and 87% of singlessay it's important for both
partners to partner with eachother.
It's important for both partnersto prioritize their mental
health.
Two-thirds of singles want toimprove their own mental health.
Two-thirds of young singles areopen to therapy and 81%
reported they engage inself-care at least once a month.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I'm curious about those statistics and if they
have the breakout between menand women.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Currently, from what I can see, not on the high level
, maybe further into the report.
But I think what's interestingis at least my friends openly
talk about how important it isfor the person that they're
dating to have also worked onthemselves in the form of
therapy, and that is such ashift in the way that people
(06:21):
approach other people in dating.
I don't know if it's becauseI've worked on myself, so I'm a
better catch, because I knowwhat's going on with me, so you
need to too.
Or is it really acceleratedthrough COVID?
I think I wouldn't necessarilysay that COVID made this a thing
, but I do think that it hasaccelerated this acceptance of
(06:44):
therapy in almost a mandatorybox that you have to check off,
and that's the major form ofknowing yourself to be able to
know what you want.
And what they say they want issomeone who's also in therapy to
work through them any issuesthat they may have.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So here's a challenge in the dating culture, right?
I suspect and I don't know thisfor sure, but I suspect if you
were to take 100 women who arein the dating culture and ask
them if they have a therapist,there's a percentage of them
that would say yes, yeah,definitely.
If you were to take 100 men andask them if they have a
(07:26):
therapist, I suspect that numberwould be a lot lower.
I think you're right andtherein lies the problem,
because you have to want to be abetter person in relationships
before you will go do work tobecome better in relationships,
and men are generally notmotivated in that area.
(07:48):
And I'm not putting shade onmen, it's just the way it is.
I had a conversation recentlywith a woman and she was
complaining that men don't haveemotional intelligence and I
asked the question.
I said where would they get itfrom?
If you think about our cultureand you think about just society
in general, there's not amotivation for guys to go to
(08:11):
work.
There's not a motivation forguys to go spend time in that
area the way it is for women togo spend time in that area.
So we fast forward 20 yearswhen there's a whole lot of
coaching and radio shows andpeople who have addressed women
in dating and things theyshouldn't do should do what they
should look out for men andthat sort of thing.
That content didn't exist formen for a long time.
(08:33):
It exists now.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I think yeah, Okay, so second point that they make
that this article brings upbeing one of the five biggest
issues when it comes to datingtoday.
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
So that's too vague of a question.
If you will Pressure andharassment, what does that mean
exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So what they say is in providing a statistic to
explain that is that 57% ofwomen and 35% of men have
experienced some sort ofharassment in their dating life,
and it makes sense that itwould be that you would have a
higher percentage for women,because I feel like we talk
(09:17):
about that a lot.
The 35% for men I find superfascinating, because we don't
really talk about menexperiencing harassment or
pressure in a relationship.
It's usually always the otherway around.
Lifetime is an entire networkbuilt around that concept
Hallmark a little less.
So they're the happy side ofthings, but lifetime definitely
(09:37):
features a lot of things that gowrong in relationships, and so
I felt like this statistic toexplain this concept was
enlightening in a way that shedsome light on the fact that men
(09:59):
maybe possibly don't always feelin control in a relationship or
in a dynamic, which issomething that is really hard to
think about.
When we've had the Me Toomovement, the Believe All Women
times up, this whole women needto be uplifted a little more and
(10:21):
protected more in relationshipsor in dynamics between men and
women.
And, granted, not everythingthat's happened with Me Too or
Time's Up or Believe All Womenwas a consensual relationship,
but that does carry across whenyou think about men and women in
relationships.
So what's been your experience?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
This is a real tough topic in cases, because one of
the things I say a lot is thatthere's a lot of good
information on both sides for alot of good advice on the women
side, a lot of good advice onthe men side, or perspectives.
But the problem is, when wetalk about these things, there's
a divide between men and women.
The men are trying to tellwomen what they want and the
(11:06):
women are trying to tell menwhat they want, but they
weaponize the message.
Because they weaponize themessage, it puts the other
person on the defense right andit turns into this divisive
conversation or fight.
So I put that on the tablefirst before I start having this
conversation with people.
So let's talk about safety.
(11:27):
If you were to Google thebiggest threat to a woman's
safety on the planet, it'll sayit's a man.
Men don't really know that.
So when I'm talking to men, Isay you have to understand that
the woman that you just met hastalked to 10 other men before
she got to you and not all ofthose men were nice men.
And, especially in today's daywhen people are online, people
(11:53):
treat people relentlessly crazyonline.
But people who hang out onFacebook groups and dating apps
and all of these- places on theinternet.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
People say to other people is just ridiculous.
And would you say that tosomeone in real life?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So it's a conversation that Ihave with men.
I try to help them understandthat, first of all, you got to
have a little bit of empathy forwomen and their experiences in
the past.
You got to start by at leastbeing aware of that.
Yes, you're a nice guy, but shedoesn't know.
You're a nice guy and therewere three nice guys that came
along before you and said theywere nice guys and turned out to
(12:30):
be asshole.
So you have to be aware of that.
You have to have some empathy.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It's typically a red flag when they say that they're
a nice guy.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, and that too.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Please don't tell me, can you just show me?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, listen, a lot of the guys won't say they're a
nice guy.
But they'll say to me I'm anice guy, I wouldn't do that.
And my conversation to them isyeah, I get it, but they don't
know you.
Because we live in a day andage now where a guy will meet a
woman and expect her to go outon a date tonight.
Yeah, and.
I'm not necessarily sayingthat's a bad thing.
Sure, there's a time whenthat's good.
(13:03):
But you have to be aware Now,from the man's perspective, when
I'm talking to a woman, me toois a big problem, huge.
It's a problem on both sides.
Right, men have to be careful.
Men really do have to becareful because a guy spends a
(13:25):
lot of.
I generally deal with older men,right?
Older men.
When I say older, I really meanlike 40s and up.
Right, and these guys havespent a lifetime building a life
, building up their purpose,going to school, being
successful.
Whatever the case may be, theyhave a lot to lose, right, and
(13:46):
it doesn't take but one woman toaccuse you of something to wipe
all of that out.
Right, and men have to be awareof that.
I've experienced paternityfraud in my life and that was a
traumatic experience for me as ayoung 30-something who wanted
(14:07):
to do life the right way.
My point is that conversationhits home to me because there's
a safety element on the guy'sside also that I have to talk to
women about.
I have to help women understandthat the things that men care
about, you have to understandand empathize that.
He's had experience with otherwomen Like one of the biggest
(14:30):
things that men concern isspecifically men who have
resources.
They're really concerned aboutthe modern woman's need to have
a traditional man, but they wantto be a modern woman.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Oh, yeah, definitely.
That is just confusing yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
But the whole point I'm making right now is that
these are conversations thatneed to be had.
There's no right answer orwrong answer to any of these
things, because people aredifferent and they have
different needs for what theywant and different outcomes.
Right Going back to the safetyand harassment, my experience is
(15:09):
that men and women are afraidof each other.
Right, they're afraid of eachother and they're hypersensitive
to each other, and that's thereason why About Good Company is
a great idea, because it's anopportunity for us to put good
people in a room and let themget to know each other in a low
(15:29):
pressure situation that's safe.
And it just opens up the door.
When you're around good people,it helps you be a better person
.
I hate to say that, becausethat implies that you were a bad
person when you came in thedoor and the good people are
going to make you.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
No, it's the whole, like iron sharpens iron concept,
it's being around people whoare bettering themselves and
pushing you to continue tobetter yourself.
Yes, and I think this articlealso shared a stat that half of
Americans say that it's harderto date now than it did 10 years
ago or than it was 10 years ago, and I think that means
(16:07):
something sure, in like findingyour person and knowing yourself
, but also the landscape is verydifferent for men and women.
Today I listened to mygrandmother talk about dating
and it's I promise it's in blackand white.
I don't understand this wholelike going steady thing that she
(16:28):
talks about.
And then also she this vividmemory I have of her telling a
story of how she would go.
She went out with we'll say,johnny, because that feels like
an appropriate name to use withthat time period Johnny on
Friday and then his best friend,tony on Saturday, and that was
(16:49):
just normal.
That's what everybody was doing,because they were dating
virtually, because they were init like their worlds were
smaller because they didn't havethe internet, which is mind
blowing, but they didn't havethe internet, they didn't have
apps, they didn't have friendsthat lived across the country
like we do now, and their familypretty much lived close by, so
(17:11):
their worlds were literallysmaller.
So they would date people intheir community and in order to
find like which person in theircommunity they hit it off with
the best, they would go on a tonof different dates and they
were really low pressure.
Dating was really low pressurein a way that it isn't really
(17:32):
now, which is, I think, wherethe going steady comes into play
, because going on dates withsomeone was something you did on
Fridays and Saturdays.
Everyone did it with differentpeople.
But going steady was hey, Iwant to go on more dates with
you, just you, and that sort ofbrings in the whole courting
culture.
(17:54):
We're still getting to know eachother, but we want to get to
know one another exclusively andthat doesn't really feel like
that conversation exists in thesame way today, and I have just
been really struck by that, andI think that's one of the
reasons why a Bowel Good Companyis so interesting is because it
(18:15):
does bring a little bit of thatback.
When we talk about hostingevents and inviting people to
get to know each other, we'recreating our own community where
people can just talk to oneanother freely, with no
expectations, only hope andencouragement and opportunity
and taking the pressure off ofexchanging numbers, but having
(18:39):
that be something that we get tofacilitate after the event,
which I think speaks to some ofthe privacy, the protection, the
safety and really taking someof that pressure away from
individual interactions, andthat seems really refreshing and
exciting to me.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, absolutely, and I agree.
I can totally see how and whyit's a whole lot harder today.
Paradox of choice, for instanceyeah, 100%, 100% of the other
didn't have 2,000 choices.
And I read something recently,I heard something recently that
talked about how, once you gethere's the example they gave.
(19:17):
The example was, if you go tothe store and you're looking for
jelly and there's three choicesof jelly, you'll feel a whole
lot better in your decision,regardless of which one you
chose.
You'll feel a whole lot betterabout your decision when you
take the grape jelly, forinstance.
So let's say you go into thestore and there's 24 choices of
(19:39):
jelly.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
That's paralyzing.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, not only is it paralyzing when you eventually
make your choice, you have somelevel of doubt when you leave,
then I really make the rightchoice.
So it's tougher to be happierabout your choice.
So, using that in the contextof Dayton today, in times past,
(20:03):
culturally you had differentvalues and different duty to
family.
There's a whole lot of thingsthat culturally were different,
so it was easier to make achoice to say this person fits
in a space that would help melive the type of life that I
want.
Fast forward to today andunfortunately, specifically,
(20:25):
women have, like their list islike huge.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Like one of the anthropologists that I yeah, we
like to come up with lists.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, one of the anthropologists that I worked
with in the matchmaking industrytalked about it in one of her
books Mary Him, I think, is thename of the book they talked
about when they did a poll ofwomen to determine what the list
of things are that they wantfor men.
In a general sense.
That list was 300 items long.
(20:54):
They did the same thing for men.
The list was six items long.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Not surprised, 300 seems a little long, but six.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
This is generally a whole cross-section of women.
They ask and just listening tothe things that came up
regularly, I don't know how theygot to the number 300.
That's crazy also.
But the guys were six and mostguys just need the three things.
We'll talk about those later.
We won't bring those up, butjust those three things.
Teaser for future episodes, Iknow, but yeah, I mean that
(21:23):
makes it tough.
And now add to that emotionalintelligence.
That's part of the equation nowand that makes it even tougher.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I do feel like that's been discussed way more
recently, and so it leads me tomy next three, which I'm going
to batch because I think thatthey're stretching to make these
into different ones, because Ithink they bleed into each other
perfectly Pandemic dating,dating apps and ghosting.
So when I look at pandemicdating, it marks the different
(21:58):
Dating.
The pandemic is this bigdividing line between
pre-pandemic and post-pandemic,and this is where I think apps
come into play.
But prior to the pandemic, appshad a different story.
They all had a different ethos.
If you wanted this, then youwere on this dating app.
(22:19):
If you wanted this other thing,you were on a different dating
app.
I think, post-pandemic, that'sgone away.
They're virtually all the same,and whether it's that we just
stopped trying to fool ourselvesthat one app where you could
swipe left or right wasdifferent than another app that
you could swipe left or right,and I feel like the same people
are on the same.
(22:40):
They're all on different ones,not because they want to ascribe
to their specific ethos orculture, but because they get
once one allotment for the dayof matches runs out, they can go
to the next app with anotherallotment and then same for the
(23:00):
third platform and I think thathas really contributed to the
fatigue around dating and datingapps specifically.
It's because there's just somuch burnout and there's this
hope, when you get your list ofmatches, that it's going to be
different, this time is going tobe different, and then when you
(23:21):
get to the end of that list,you're let down again and you go
through that with every singleapp and every single day, and so
it's happening that high andlow it's happening so fast that
even if you've made no progresson your app or with finding a
person and going on dates inreal life, you feel like you've
(23:42):
done so much emotionally becauseyou've gone through all the
highs and lows.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I have a lot to say about dating apps.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's what we're here for, and here's some
information I want to share withyou, just because I've got some
of the inside knowledge.
Do it Number one I don't thinkthe average person understands
that dating apps the technologyand algorithms that are behind
dating apps were built by peoplewho understand how the brain
works, and their goal is to getyou to use the app Totally.
(24:14):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
And their goal is to give youswings of high dopamine and low
dopamine, that rollercoaster,that purpose of the app is to do
that and most people don'tunderstand that's the case.
The people who built, who gavethe science to the people who
typed in the code to build thesealgorithms are way smarter than
(24:37):
most of us.
Right.
That leads to the topic of.
I'm going to use the ELOalgorithm.
You ever heard that term, elo?
Speaker 4 (24:46):
algorithm.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
So, in a general sense, I'm just going to explain
this to you.
When you're on a dating app,the dating app understands your
standard of association.
It understands what lane youshould be in based on your
attractiveness, based on youreducation, whatever the case may
(25:08):
be.
It understands what yourfrequency is and you only see
people in that frequency.
The ELO algorithm makes thishappen.
There is a higher frequency ofpeople, but you'll never see
those people because you don'thave a score that puts you in
(25:28):
that frequency.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
What is ELO stand for ?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's a guy.
So the algorithm was builtaround making compatible chess
players.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So it's a long story behind that whole thing, but the
idea, the point I'm trying tomake is, when it comes to dating
apps, people don't understandthat they're stuck in a tunnel.
They're stuck in a lane, if youwill.
And how do you get out of thatlane?
Let me give you an example.
If you're a swipe right, swipeleft person, let's say I swipe
right on a woman who's moreattractive than me, has more
(26:01):
going for herself, whatever thecase may be, she's of a higher
status.
And let's say, she swipes righton me.
It raises my score.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Oh, that's fascinating, Let me give you
another example.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Let's say forgive me.
Let's say there's a womanthat's less attractive than me
and I swipe right on her and shesays, no, I don't like him.
She swipes left on me.
That lowers my score.
So these things happen and theypush people in and out of these
lanes.
But it explains why.
(26:38):
Because the truth of the matteris there are some very rich
people on dating apps.
There are some very elitepeople on some dating apps,
right, but you'll never see thembecause the ELO algorithm keeps
you out of their space.
Very interesting Now.
Tinder was the first company tobe known for using the ELO
(26:59):
algorithm.
Nobody uses the ELO algorithmanymore these days, but that's
because they have much moresophisticated algorithms than
the ELO algorithm.
But the reason I use that as anexample is because I just
wanted to put it on the tablethat people using dating apps
don't understand that the goalof people who make dating apps
(27:20):
is to keep you on the dating app.
When there's a dating appthat's owned by a large company
and has investors, the duty isto the investors.
The duty is not to the peoplewho are using the apps.
Generally speaking, when you'reon a dating app that's
independently owned, a lot oftimes those independently owned
dating apps you are thestakeholder, so they really want
(27:43):
to help you find your person.
But that's a whole conversationthat has to be had around
dating apps.
But when people understand thatlike dating apps, I'm not
against dating apps, becausethey're a really good tool if
you know how to use themproperly and if you understand
the nature of dating app Anyway.
So let's put a period on that.
(28:03):
Let's talk a little bit aboutpandemic dating.
So when you initially said that, I thought to myself the
pandemic is over.
Is pandemic dating a thing atthis point?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
But I think it depends on who you are.
Definitely there's still peopleI've had conversations with
friends or acquaintances thatstill talk about it Like it's
April 2020.
And that is just fascinating tome.
So I was like oh, oh, okay.
Okay, cause they were talkingabout their kids and now their
kids are still like they've onlybeen in like 10 consecutive
(28:36):
days of school the whole yearand you're like what?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, I guess that's a good point because I live in a
bubble, sure, in the sense thatI have my own home office, I
don't have to leave very much,like I don't have kids, so I'm
not a part of that conversation.
So in my mind, the pandemic'sdone.
I went and had my physicalyesterday, walked into the
(29:02):
doctor's office nobody waswearing a mask and like when was
the last time you went to adoctor's office and nobody?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
had on the mask.
They've stopped requiring them.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, so in my mind, pandemic's over Same.
So I understand that there areother people who live a
different life, and that's oneof the things that we absolutely
remember in dating is that youhave a lifestyle.
You have like what your look,your life looks like.
It's not like what everybodyelse's life looks like.
You have to be aware of that.
But anyway, I brought that upbecause, in my mind, what is
(29:32):
pandemic dating?
Now, we can talk about whatdating looked like before and
what it looked like after.
Maybe that's the conversation Ican have more to say about, but
I don't see pandemic as a thingtoday.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, I think the I think one of the key points they
were trying to make is theemotional intelligence aspect
being higher now, where, so theysay, over 80% of singles want
someone that's emotionallymature, accepting of differences
and comfortable with their ownsexuality.
I think the pandemic might havebroadened some comfort levels
(30:15):
while also expecting more frompeople.
It's a weird I don't know,maybe I'm not saying that
correctly, but it does feel likethere's a little more leniency,
but also some higherexpectations that have come out
of it.
Like, I think, when you talkabout the emotional maturity of
people, that, like, we do expectmore of that because I think
(30:36):
we've all gone through the exactsame emotional crisis.
So there's maybe that's because, maybe that's why, because we
all lived the exact same thingbeing a global pandemic, right,
I think it would more refer tothe impact of the pandemic on
dating culture.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
So, for example, during the pandemic you were
stuck with a person because theywere in your bubble and you
might discover that there arecertain qualities about a person
that you don't like.
So it expanded or it shiftedyour views on dating or the
things that you desire.
So, post pandemic, what I'mlooking for in a partner is
going to be different than whatI was looking for before,
(31:16):
because now I think about, am Igoing to get stuck in the house
with this person.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Oh, that's a great point.
I did not even consider that,yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
And then on the emotional bit, the things that
we value now are different.
Like we look at the greatretirement, is it retirement?
What's the word Resignation?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Resignation.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Retiring from work life With the great resignation
that's happening because peoplenow value their time, their
health and all that differently,and it's the same in
relationships.
I want to spend my time with adifferent quality of person now,
because I know what it's liketo be standing on death's door,
in a sense.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, that's a great point, Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
One thing I'll add to that is like it has almost
created another layer ofdivision.
Right, oh yeah, because even inthe second date update podcast
that we listened to, rememberthe episode where girl went out
with a guy and she had COVID,but her response to it was, eh,
(32:22):
it's just like a cold these days.
That's the way some people feelabout it.
The guy found out about it andhe went ballistic because he
felt like she didn't care enoughabout people in public to even
mention it, and there's a wholerange of emotions around that.
But it's just like the divisionof politics at this point.
(32:44):
Like you, a person potentiallywho doesn't believe in COVID
vaccines and a person who doesbelieve in COVID vaccines, you
put them on a date together Ifthat conversation comes up it's
not going to be a prettyconversation across the board.
And so I guess my take on theconversation right now is that's
(33:05):
the imprint that the pandemicleft on dating, is it created
another layer of division?
But because it's a biggerconversation, just like politics
, I tell people when I wasgrowing up like it wasn't a
thing if the husband voted forJimmy Carter and the wife voted
for Ronald Reagan, like itwasn't that big of a deal.
I just agreed with this, like Ilike pizza and I don't like
(33:29):
pizza, I like hamburgers type ofthing.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It's so not true now yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But now it is definitely a source of division.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
So what I've seen come out of the pandemic because
even if we feel like thepandemic has gone away, people
still have their beliefs aboutthese things- the Match Singles
in America survey asked thequestion about the COVID vaccine
and in 2022, which is theyrelease them every year, it said
(33:59):
40% definitely want theirpartner to be vaccinated,
compared to 47% in 2021, where36% say they don't care.
That's still a really highdivide.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
Yeah, absolutely, that's still a really high
divide.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And then it goes on to say that one in three singles
say their dating life iscurrently affected by COVID, and
so that can mean anything fromthe belief in should you be
vaccinated, should you not bevaccinated?
Largely, that is a topic I juststraight up ignore.
Don't even go there, I think,because I also work in the
(34:35):
political space.
So that is going to be thetopic that is probably going to
come up more often.
When you say that you work inpolitics, that's going to come
up.
But that is definitely a topictoo, like voting, the issue
around voting they cover that,they want their, so they say
that voting is hot.
So they want their partner tobe very cognizant and
(34:57):
politically aware, but notcompromising, which is an
interesting thing that you don'treally want your partner to
compromise on what they'resaying.
58% say it's now more importantthan ever to know your
partner's political views.
Life back set up 100% 37% saythat having too strong an
(35:17):
opinion is a deal breaker.
So if you're too intense aboutit, nope.
And the reverse just say that.
31 say it's a no go if apotential partner has no opinion
.
So we were looking for, likethe Goldilocks of opinions here,
the Goldilocks porridge ofopinions, where you have one but
don't be too intense about it.
And 28% don't want a partnerwho isn't registered to vote.
(35:41):
24% would avoid a date who isnot planning to vote.
So just not going to go on adate with the person who isn't
going to vote.
And 22% say it's a deal breakerif their date didn't vote in the
last election.
So lots of feelings aroundvoting we could go into like
political persuasion and topics,but I think just the concept of
(36:05):
voting being so important foryounger people because these are
that when you look at whothey're polling and who they're
surveying, it's millennials ingeneration Z, and so for a
generation that is the hopeevery single election is on the
young people.
What are young people going todo?
The giant question mark thatexists, it's looking like voting
(36:27):
itself is becoming more andmore important when dating,
which means it's going to alsohave a really interesting effect
on electoral outcomes.
So stay tuned everyone.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So get out and vote.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, thanks Match, thanks Match for having that
topic.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, because what I took away from that is if you go
out and vote, if you go out andvote, you at least won't be
that person who won't get datedbecause you didn't vote.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
That's an easy one to check the box for.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, your civic duty , yeah.
So what about ghosting?
Because that's still a thing,very much so.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, and I think ghosting is a symptom of the
real problem, and the realproblem is that people are
cloaked by their ability to bethe internet Like I'm just going
to use social media and theinternet as a cloak for people
to treat people differently thanthey would in real person.
(37:31):
Yeah, yeah, and the whole ideathat hurt.
People like the men and womenalike don't understand the
detriment of ghosting, Becauseit really has a mental effect on
the person that you ghost andyou don't have to do it.
Let's put emotionalintelligence as part of this
(37:52):
conversation.
If you're an emotionallyintelligent person, you should
be able to have a conversationwith a guy and say, hey, things
aren't really working out.
Now let me caveat that by sayingthis.
I have a Facebook group with1,000 people in it and I asked a
question Women, have you everrespectfully turned a guy down
(38:15):
and he turned around andattacked you?
Most of the women say yes.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Wow, really.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Most of them say yes.
I asked the same question ofmen hey, men, have you ever
respectfully turned a woman downand got attacked and crickets
on that post?
So part of the problem when wetalk about ghosting is that a
lot of times women don't want todeal with the abuse, with
(38:46):
having to turn a guy down.
And another conversation I haveto have with guys Guys get
angry because why not just tellme that you're not interested?
Because guys are taught to beconfident and persistent.
But then there's you go.
(39:06):
There's a thin line betweenbeing persistent and being
harassing, right, and guys don'tknow where that line is and
they don't understand thedetriment of ghosting.
It's hurtful and it makes menangry at women.
Now they're going to go treatthe next woman based on
something that happened with thelast woman, and women are the
(39:27):
same, like men mistreat womenand then the woman turns around
and takes that damage to thenext person that she deals with
and it becomes a perpetual thing.
So at the end of the day, Ithink ghosting is just a.
It's a symptom of a biggerproblem that we don't really.
We aren't as civil as we usedto be, and it's easier to be
(39:52):
less civil online when you don'thave to look at the person.
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
There's no ownership to it.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
And let me just say this one of the things that I
liked about the idea of goodcompany is because is I think
that we have an opportunity toimprove the culture.
I think about this being avelvet rope society, if you will
Like.
Not everybody can come in hereand once you get in here, behave
, because if you don't behave,then you get put back on the
(40:23):
other side of the velvet rope.
And you want to be on this sideof the velvet rope because this
is where some really goodpeople are.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
You talked about women ghosting men out of fear.
Why do men ghost?
Speaker 2 (40:40):
A lot of times women will ghost because of safety.
A lot of times men ghostbecause men men don't care.
I characterize ghosting as Iwent on a date with you.
We had some conversations andthe next day I thought it was
(41:01):
business as normal and I can'tfind you Like you don't respond
to any of my text messages.
I call you and I get voicemail100% of the time, like I reach
out to you on chat and you justdon't respond.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Lots of mediums of communication you've used in
this example.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
You basically just disappeared off the face of the
planet without any notification.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah yeah, that's an accurate description of ghosting
.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I said men don't care , I guess I don't.
This is dangerous waters for me.
In this conversation there aretwo women sitting here.
No, not necessarily, because Iknow people are listening to
this podcast and there's thenature of men that women don't
understand there is a nature ofmen that women don't understand
(41:51):
and they could leave thisconversation hating all men.
If I say something like mendon't care, I don't really mean
men don't care, but a lot ofguys don't know how to deal with
the emotions of women.
They don't understand theemotions of women.
That's one of the things I wassaying before.
I talk a lot about verbalviolence, women being verbally
(42:13):
violent.
Women don't understand thewords, how words affect men.
Men need to be respected thewhole status thing.
Like women have gotten to thisplace where they just want to
demasculate men Is that theright word?
Demasculate, emasculate andthey don't understand the damage
(42:37):
of emasculation, the verbalviolence thing.
I'll give you an example.
This is not a real worldexample.
This is just my recollection ofwhat I remember the example
being.
But you'll get the point.
The guy said something I reallydon't think this relationship is
(43:00):
going the right way.
Maybe he even told her I don'treally feel like we could be
there, whatever he was beingcalm about that thing and she
went off into small dick energyand started just really started
emasculating the guy and tryingto break him down.
You didn't even do this and allof that kind of stuff and the
(43:24):
reason I'm bringing this up isbecause that guy who got
attacked, he got a verbal attackfrom a woman and he has to take
that to his next situation.
So I'm going to date this nextgirl and I'm less inclined to be
honest with her about how Ifeel because she may verbally
(43:46):
attack me.
I don't want to use the wordfear I don't have a better word
to use right now.
A guy has to be concerned aboutthe violence of women and when
I say the violence of women I'monly talking about verbal
violence and a lot of the timewomen will turn around.
(44:08):
And the reason I don't want touse the word fear is because
it's not fear that men have it'sfear, but it's not fear of the
woman, it's fear of thesituation.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Like the emotional situation.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
The situation that it can put him in.
I'm trying to figure out how tobring this home.
I'm not intimidated by a womanscreaming and cussing at me.
I'm not intimidated by that.
I'm not afraid of that.
But I am afraid of the factthat if she takes it too far and
I have to protect myself, I'min trouble now.
(44:47):
Okay, interesting.
It's a dynamic that guys feelupfront in a lot of these
situations and it looks likefear of the woman is not fear of
the woman, it's fear of thepotential situation, so the
situation that I'm about to bein like the dangers for me.
(45:10):
Going back to the whole ghostingthing again, it's a symptom of
the problem, the culturalproblem, that people don't pay
attention to the damage thatthey leave behind.
And women want men to treatthem better, but they treated
the last dude like crap.
So I say the measure ofkindness, miss Lady, is how you
(45:35):
treat the guy that you're notattracted to.
Yeah.
Because this goes into a wholeother conversation about depicts
and all that kind of stuff.
Like I've said to women before,there's not that women don't
like depicts.
Women just don't like depictsfrom the men that they don't
like.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Okay, so we've gone through these five.
Would you agree with these fiveor would you have made a change
?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
If you asked me what the five biggest problems with
dating is today.
I'd probably come up with adifferent list.
I like the first one.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
For sure, you're the first one, definitely.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
When it comes to dating and relationships.
You've heard me say this before.
People need to understand thatthey need relationship skills.
That's not even on mostpeople's radar that I need
better skills for relationship.
I'm putting dating andrelationships in the same bucket
(46:45):
because I'm not trying toaddress people who just want to
date for the rest of their lives, addressing people who want to
actually be in relationships.
It's just like anything else.
If you want to be good attennis, you got to go find some
information and get a coach.
Learn how to play tennis,practice it and get better.
If you want to bake a cake, youhave to start with one thing to
(47:09):
bake a cake Before you'remotivated to go find some
information about baking a cake.
If you are really bad at bakinga cake, you're not going to
want to keep baking a cake.
If you suck at it really bad.
If you get really good at it,you'll enjoy it.
People enjoy doing things thatthey're good at and they hate
doing things that they're notgood at.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Can you?
Because, if you loverelationships and dating in the
same bucket to talk about, thereare other ways for you to
stretch a muscle that would beuseful in dating, in your
relationships your friends orwith family members, or Because
(47:52):
I think that's there's still.
If you think about what makesyou good in a relationship
self-awareness, empathy,communication All of those
things can be learned, whetherit's in your professional life,
in supervisor training,recognizing that something is
wrong with your direct reportand going in with an open mind
(48:16):
of without assigning blame buthey, I noticed you're awful
little today.
What's going on?
Or even in your relationshipwith your family.
You have so much history withyour family.
Going in with an open mind ofthis is how I'm feeling right
now.
Is this inaccurate?
Are you meaning to give thisoff?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yeah, yeah, there's a key point there.
You started off withself-awareness, empathy, and
what was the third one?
You remember?
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Communication.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Communication.
Let's just take those three.
Yeah.
First step is you have to firstrecognize that those things are
important to understand aboutyourself.
You have to.
You know what I'm saying.
I venture to say there are 100single people who don't even
know what self-awareness means.
They've never heard of it,never thought to go down that
(49:07):
they don't want to bake a cake.
They haven't thought about it.
You get what I'm trying to sayand that's the point that I'm
making, or the point that I'mtrying to make, is that
hopefully, this episode willbring awareness to the fact that
people need awareness of thethings that they need to work on
for themselves to move forward.
(49:28):
Most people have heard you needgood communication skills.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
in real life yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
It's still, I think, a mystery to many people who
talk about the value ofcommunication.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Right.
Right.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
If you have a stream of text messages, it's a
forethought in planning.
Or I've got a busy week thisweek.
I'd really like to see you.
What does your?
These are some times that Ihave availability.
Does this fit with yourschedule?
That's forethought.
That ticks a whole bunch ofboxes.
(50:00):
A you value me.
B you value my time and yourtime and what openness you have
in your schedule you'd like tospend it with me.
Three you care enough about thework that I'm doing and what
you're trying to do that you'regoing to plan ahead.
There's a lot that's said inthat very simple statement that,
(50:22):
oh, that feels good.
That feels good in my deep soul.
Quality time is a love languageof mine.
When you take the time to thinkthrough that and put it forward
on a calendar, which also thecalendar invites, are also a
love language of mine, becauseit's time, it's quality time,
(50:43):
right.
All of that tells me so muchmore than hey, you're important
to me.
It's a nonverbal timecommitment thing that happens.
It says a lot without sayingenough.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, but you made a really good point that people
you say good communication isn'tnecessary.
Some people will take that tomean communicate a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Totally.
That's not what that means.
The quantity of communication,not the quality of it.
The quantity is not a quality.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Yes, the point is just to nail this point home.
The point is, people have towant to be better at these
things.
Number one they have to beaware of the fact that they need
to be better at empathy andself-awareness and communication
.
They have to be aware of thatfirst, and then they have to
want to be better communicators,have empathy and be self-aware.
(51:27):
Then they have to do it, thenthey have to do it.
That could be a challenge also,because the average person
doesn't know who to turn to orwhere to go to get better at
communication and empathy andself-awareness.
There's a lot of stuff out there, but people don't have the
roadmap to get there.
So I'll leave this point withthe same way.
(51:48):
People are embracing therapy.
I really think people shouldembrace coaching a little more
because, totally agree, datecoaching with a good coach will
change your life.
Yeah, it will change your life,but it's just like therapy,
right?
You can go to a therapist andnot be.
I've been to therapists that Idon't like.
(52:10):
They didn't work for me.
We're not a good fit, right?
So find a good dating coach,because if you really want to
get better at dating, find adating coach.
I can't make it any simpler.
I don't understand why thatthat shouldn't be hard for
people to understand, rightBecause I wanted to play golf
(52:31):
when I first moved to NorthCarolina in 2003.
I never played golf before, butbefore I went out I said let me
go find a golf coach, becauseif I start off right and I don't
develop bad habits, I can getgood at this thing quickly.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
You know what I mean.
How's your golf game now?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
My golf game is trash right now, but that's not
because of my coach.
So the beginning part wasreally applicable.
Listen, because you still haveto practice.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
You still have to go do the work.
Sure, sure, sure, get the repsin.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
The only thing I was making is that we say a lot, get
to know yourself.
We don't make.
I won't say we don't make iteasy.
We can say get to know yourself, but you've got to want to go
find what that means right,Different levels of that.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
I feel like now and I'll say this to close out our
conversation about the biggestissues with dating I feel like
now the language around gettingto know yourself is there's a
lot more around that, a lot morelanguage that we've gotten and
that has been developed throughthe concept of date yourself.
(53:39):
What do you want to do?
How do you spend your time?
What can you do to betteryourself?
How do you respond in certainsituations?
Why do you respond that way?
Where do you want to be?
The conversation about where doyou want to be in five years.
It feels so vast and sometimesoverwhelming for a lot of people
(54:01):
.
But there's also who do youwant to be when you're 60, which
is a question that I was posedto be by my coach, my executive
coach.
That's really framed up all ofour conversations as who do I
want to be when I'm 60 and am Igetting any closer to that, to
who that person is and thatcharacter and that approach to
(54:22):
life and value of other humans?
I think the language it'sbroadening the language that
we're using around get to knowyourself, which is, I think,
making it a little bit moreapproachable.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
I hope what people take away from this episode is
awareness and the motivation tounderstand that that
relationship skills is a thingRelationships skills is a thing,
and you'll be much happier.
(54:57):
I hope that people get out ofthis conversation that number
one yeah, you should work onyourself, but we want to help
guide you, to help youunderstand what that looks like,
how you can work on yourself,get to know yourself.
I'm actually giving a roadmapto get to know these things, and
you can keep this in yourpocket.
(55:17):
It's not something you have toshare with somebody.
However, you can also share itwith somebody if you want it to,
if you thought it necessary.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
We've talked a lot about some of the biggest issues
with dating and I think yourpoints about how you would add
to that list or maybe substitutesome stuff in is.
I think it's great.
What would be the big takeaway?
What would you at the end ofthis podcast, what do you want
people to do Aside from joinAbout Good Company and go to our
(55:48):
website AboutGoodCompanycom?
Speaker 2 (55:52):
There's a lot of people can do without
professional help.
These assessments are available.
There are assessments for lovelanguages.
There are assessments forenneagram.
There are assessments forattachment styles.
There's Myers-Briggs assessment.
These assessments help you getto know each other.
Not all of them are easy andsome of them cost a little bit
(56:12):
of money, but at the end of theday these are real scientific
ways to get to know yourself.
And once you know yourself youcan understand if and where you
need to make some coursecorrections or changes.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
Is there one of those that's your favorite that you
feel like informs?
Because I really like the lovelanguages one, and I think there
are whole schools of thoughtwhere you can do it, as in a
relationship or as a singleperson.
And, honestly, something tokeep in mind is that your
results are going to bedifferent in different phases of
(56:48):
your life, because you're not astagnant human, and so if
you've taken these before, goback and do them again.
Love languages is one of myfavorite because I feel like
it's a little easier to explainand to grasp and there are tons
of podcasts about them.
And then also, my absolutefavorite is enneagram.
I feel like I've talked to youabout that all the time and
(57:09):
there's so much that you canlearn about yourself from an
enneagram.
There's just a lot of Becauseit's more behavioral and I think
that's really helpful whenyou're dealing with how do you
respond to stuff, what do you doin certain situations, why are
you reacting?
That way, you can go really deep, from your wings to your
(57:29):
triangle, to a healthy versionof yourself, to an unhealthy
version of yourself, and thatjust really helps me when I see
patterns start to arise when I'mreally stressed or I'm in an
unhealthy place.
What is my immediate go-to andhow am I going to respond, and
what do I need to do to put inguardrails to protect myself
(57:50):
from doing that?
Speaker 2 (57:52):
So let's talk about those two just for a quick
moment.
So the enneagram is really good.
I would probably point peopleto love languages first only
because it's easier and it's awhole lot lighter.
One caveat I'll put on lovelanguages is you may not know
this, but the scientificcommunity, they don't believe in
the love languages.
(58:12):
But let me say that a differentway.
There's no science or researchbehind love languages and
because of that it doesn't getas much credibility amongst the
researchers and scientists.
However, I can tell you, if youwere to ask me the assessment
(58:33):
that changed my life immediately, I would say love languages.
It changed my life overnight.
Now my recommendation would beto go read the book and take the
assessment.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Sure, the book's not long.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
The book's not long and it's in audio.
I've listened to the audio booktwice, at least twice.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, our big audio book lovers over here.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
But it will change the way people.
It will change the way youtreat people.
It will help you understand whypeople treat you the way they
do good, bad or indifferent.
It just enlightens.
But this is the beginning ofgetting to know yourself.
Is participating in some ofthese assessments.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, love it.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Yeah, and it's a crawl before you walk, it's a
walk before you run, type ofthing.
Enneagram gets you a littledeeper, like when you're ready
to know more about yourself.
Go take that enneagram, andwe'll talk about other
assessments in later episodes.
But let's start there.
Let's go do love languages andif you're feeling ambitious, go
ahead and do an enneagram.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
All right, thank you.
All right, valvin.
So we're here at the househaving a chat, and I think this
is a fun day for us getting totalk through what really, what
sort of problems are out therefor people dating?
What does the landscape looklike?
And so, in preparation for this, I looked up a couple of
statistics and some articlesthat I thought would be helpful
(00:20):
in driving your reaction as amatchmaker and my lived
experience as a single girltrying to try to make her way in
the world.
So what really stood out to meis there was an article that
talked about the five biggestissues with dating today.
Okay, so here are their fiveOne knowing what you want.
(00:40):
Two pressure and harassment, soreally centered around safety.
Three pandemic dating.
Four, dating apps.
And five, ghosting.
Okay, from my perspective, inlooking at this list, I think
that pandemic dating and datingapps could probably rolled into
(01:01):
one, but let's start with yourimmediate reaction Knowing what
you want.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay.
So knowing what you want is abig one.
Sure, I often talk about aformula for being successful in
dating, and that formula startswith knowing who you are.
Now, once you know who you are,you got to get clear on the
(01:29):
type of person that you'relooking for.
And this goes to that point.
Most people don't know whatthey're looking for, and that's
detrimental to the outcomes thatthey want.
Because, truth of the matter is, if you spend some time
figuring out what it is you needin a relationship to be happy
for the rest of your life notwhat you want in a relationship,
(01:51):
because those two lists aredifferent but if you figure out
what you need in a relationshipto be happy for the rest of your
life, then you recognize itwhen you see it.
But if you don't spend thatwork, you spend a whole lot of
time with other people in yourcompany trying to figure out
what it is that you'reinterested in and what is you
(02:11):
like and need and that sort ofthing.
My point is, if you do a littlebit of work, it makes it a
whole lot easier to recognizethe person when you find them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So when you talk about doing work and trying to
figure out what you want andwhat you need and really
separating those two out, doesthat look like dating a lot?
Does it look like going totherapy?
Does it look like having areally good friend group and
maybe some empty bottles of wine?
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So think about it this way If you get to know
yourself first, let's choose.
Let's take one of theassessments.
Like love language, my lovelanguage is acts of service.
And for those who don't knowwhat love languages means, love
language is the idea of what isit that makes you feel loved?
So, for instance, in my case,because my love language is acts
(03:04):
of service, when people dothings for me, it makes me feel
like they love me.
And just to top it off, let'sgo ahead and list the five love
languages.
Love languages are I don'tthink they're any particular
words.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service,
like you mentioned, gifts andtouch.
So those are the love languagesright.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So hilarious that I left out physical touch.
So let's just use that as anexample, because my love
language is acts of service.
I can at least I know thatsomething that I have to be
aware of when I'm dating someone, because if I'm with a woman
who has a hard time serving meand I'm not saying from a
(03:49):
servitude perspective like itcould be anything it could be
like she organized my shoes orshe bought me some dinner at
home.
Let's take it the other way.
I remember the last girl Idated.
I asked her to go get someChick-fil-A for some guys that
had come over to have a meetingand she looked at me with a
really stank face, likeseriously, like yeah.
(04:10):
And point being, let's not gettoo far off the trail here.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Like that's a whole other story.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, let's not get too far off the trail.
But all I was trying to say is,once you get to know yourself,
now you know what to look forOne of the things about what you
need in a person to be happythe rest of your life.
So, to your point, does it meandating a lot?
It doesn't necessarily meandating a lot.
It means knowing enough aboutyourself to recognize even in
the beginning stages that hey, Ican't deal with this person.
(04:40):
Once you assess your attachmentstyles, you can assess your
enneagram, you can assess yourlove languages.
There are a number ofassessments out there that you
can take to learn more aboutyourself and you can make some
really good decisions reallyearly, without dating a whole
bunch of people that this personis not good for me or is good
(05:01):
for me.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So there's a study survey that's done by matchcom
every year and it's calledSingles in America and they run
through a whole bunch ofstatistics and they actually
talk about investing more inthemselves to lay the foundation
for healthier relationships,which really speaks to this
(05:24):
first point, and 87% of singlessay it's important for both
partners to partner with eachother.
It's important for both partnersto prioritize their mental
health.
Two-thirds of singles want toimprove their own mental health.
Two-thirds of young singles areopen to therapy and 81%
reported they engage inself-care at least once a month.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I'm curious about those statistics and if they
have the breakout between menand women.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Currently, from what I can see, not on the high level
, maybe further into the report.
But I think what's interestingis at least my friends openly
talk about how important it isfor the person that they're
dating to have also worked onthemselves in the form of
therapy, and that is such ashift in the way that people
(06:21):
approach other people in dating.
I don't know if it's becauseI've worked on myself, so I'm a
better catch, because I knowwhat's going on with me, so you
need to too.
Or is it really acceleratedthrough COVID?
I think I wouldn't necessarilysay that COVID made this a thing
, but I do think that it hasaccelerated this acceptance of
(06:44):
therapy in almost a mandatorybox that you have to check off,
and that's the major form ofknowing yourself to be able to
know what you want.
And what they say they want issomeone who's also in therapy to
work through them any issuesthat they may have.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So here's a challenge in the dating culture, right?
I suspect and I don't know thisfor sure, but I suspect if you
were to take 100 women who arein the dating culture and ask
them if they have a therapist,there's a percentage of them
that would say yes, yeah,definitely.
If you were to take 100 men andask them if they have a
(07:26):
therapist, I suspect that numberwould be a lot lower.
I think you're right andtherein lies the problem,
because you have to want to be abetter person in relationships
before you will go do work tobecome better in relationships,
and men are generally notmotivated in that area.
(07:48):
And I'm not putting shade onmen, it's just the way it is.
I had a conversation recentlywith a woman and she was
complaining that men don't haveemotional intelligence and I
asked the question.
I said where would they get itfrom?
If you think about our cultureand you think about just society
in general, there's not amotivation for guys to go to
(08:11):
work.
There's not a motivation forguys to go spend time in that
area the way it is for women togo spend time in that area.
So we fast forward 20 yearswhen there's a whole lot of
coaching and radio shows andpeople who have addressed women
in dating and things theyshouldn't do should do what they
should look out for men andthat sort of thing.
That content didn't exist formen for a long time.
(08:33):
It exists now.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I think yeah, Okay, so second point that they make
that this article brings upbeing one of the five biggest
issues when it comes to datingtoday.
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
So that's too vague of a question.
If you will Pressure andharassment, what does that mean
exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So what they say is in providing a statistic to
explain that is that 57% ofwomen and 35% of men have
experienced some sort ofharassment in their dating life,
and it makes sense that itwould be that you would have a
higher percentage for women,because I feel like we talk
(09:17):
about that a lot.
The 35% for men I find superfascinating, because we don't
really talk about menexperiencing harassment or
pressure in a relationship.
It's usually always the otherway around.
Lifetime is an entire networkbuilt around that concept
Hallmark a little less.
So they're the happy side ofthings, but lifetime definitely
(09:37):
features a lot of things that gowrong in relationships, and so
I felt like this statistic toexplain this concept was
enlightening in a way that shedsome light on the fact that men
(09:59):
maybe possibly don't always feelin control in a relationship or
in a dynamic, which issomething that is really hard to
think about.
When we've had the Me Toomovement, the Believe All Women
times up, this whole women needto be uplifted a little more and
(10:21):
protected more in relationshipsor in dynamics between men and
women.
And, granted, not everythingthat's happened with Me Too or
Time's Up or Believe All Womenwas a consensual relationship,
but that does carry across whenyou think about men and women in
relationships.
So what's been your experience?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
This is a real tough topic in cases, because one of
the things I say a lot is thatthere's a lot of good
information on both sides for alot of good advice on the women
side, a lot of good advice onthe men side, or perspectives.
But the problem is, when wetalk about these things, there's
a divide between men and women.
The men are trying to tellwomen what they want and the
(11:06):
women are trying to tell menwhat they want, but they
weaponize the message.
Because they weaponize themessage, it puts the other
person on the defense right andit turns into this divisive
conversation or fight.
So I put that on the tablefirst before I start having this
conversation with people.
So let's talk about safety.
(11:27):
If you were to Google thebiggest threat to a woman's
safety on the planet, it'll sayit's a man.
Men don't really know that.
So when I'm talking to men, Isay you have to understand that
the woman that you just met hastalked to 10 other men before
she got to you and not all ofthose men were nice men.
And, especially in today's daywhen people are online, people
(11:53):
treat people relentlessly crazyonline.
But people who hang out onFacebook groups and dating apps
and all of these- places on theinternet.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
People say to other people is just ridiculous.
And would you say that tosomeone in real life?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So it's a conversation that Ihave with men.
I try to help them understandthat, first of all, you got to
have a little bit of empathy forwomen and their experiences in
the past.
You got to start by at leastbeing aware of that.
Yes, you're a nice guy, but shedoesn't know.
You're a nice guy and therewere three nice guys that came
along before you and said theywere nice guys and turned out to
(12:30):
be asshole.
So you have to be aware of that.
You have to have some empathy.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It's typically a red flag when they say that they're
a nice guy.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, and that too.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Please don't tell me, can you just show me?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, listen, a lot of the guys won't say they're a
nice guy.
But they'll say to me I'm anice guy, I wouldn't do that.
And my conversation to them isyeah, I get it, but they don't
know you.
Because we live in a day andage now where a guy will meet a
woman and expect her to go outon a date tonight.
Yeah, and.
I'm not necessarily sayingthat's a bad thing.
Sure, there's a time whenthat's good.
(13:03):
But you have to be aware Now,from the man's perspective, when
I'm talking to a woman, me toois a big problem, huge.
It's a problem on both sides.
Right, men have to be careful.
Men really do have to becareful because a guy spends a
(13:25):
lot of.
I generally deal with older men,right?
Older men.
When I say older, I really meanlike 40s and up.
Right, and these guys havespent a lifetime building a life
, building up their purpose,going to school, being
successful.
Whatever the case may be, theyhave a lot to lose, right, and
(13:46):
it doesn't take but one woman toaccuse you of something to wipe
all of that out.
Right, and men have to be awareof that.
I've experienced paternityfraud in my life and that was a
traumatic experience for me as ayoung 30-something who wanted
(14:07):
to do life the right way.
My point is that conversationhits home to me because there's
a safety element on the guy'sside also that I have to talk to
women about.
I have to help women understandthat the things that men care
about, you have to understandand empathize that.
He's had experience with otherwomen Like one of the biggest
(14:30):
things that men concern isspecifically men who have
resources.
They're really concerned aboutthe modern woman's need to have
a traditional man, but they wantto be a modern woman.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Oh, yeah, definitely.
That is just confusing yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
But the whole point I'm making right now is that
these are conversations thatneed to be had.
There's no right answer orwrong answer to any of these
things, because people aredifferent and they have
different needs for what theywant and different outcomes.
Right Going back to the safetyand harassment, my experience is
(15:09):
that men and women are afraidof each other.
Right, they're afraid of eachother and they're hypersensitive
to each other, and that's thereason why About Good Company is
a great idea, because it's anopportunity for us to put good
people in a room and let themget to know each other in a low
(15:29):
pressure situation that's safe.
And it just opens up the door.
When you're around good people,it helps you be a better person
.
I hate to say that, becausethat implies that you were a bad
person when you came in thedoor and the good people are
going to make you.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
No, it's the whole, like iron sharpens iron concept,
it's being around people whoare bettering themselves and
pushing you to continue tobetter yourself.
Yes, and I think this articlealso shared a stat that half of
Americans say that it's harderto date now than it did 10 years
ago or than it was 10 years ago, and I think that means
(16:07):
something sure, in like findingyour person and knowing yourself
, but also the landscape is verydifferent for men and women.
Today I listened to mygrandmother talk about dating
and it's I promise it's in blackand white.
I don't understand this wholelike going steady thing that she
(16:28):
talks about.
And then also she this vividmemory I have of her telling a
story of how she would go.
She went out with we'll say,johnny, because that feels like
an appropriate name to use withthat time period Johnny on
Friday and then his best friend,tony on Saturday, and that was
(16:49):
just normal.
That's what everybody was doing,because they were dating
virtually, because they were init like their worlds were
smaller because they didn't havethe internet, which is mind
blowing, but they didn't havethe internet, they didn't have
apps, they didn't have friendsthat lived across the country
like we do now, and their familypretty much lived close by, so
(17:11):
their worlds were literallysmaller.
So they would date people intheir community and in order to
find like which person in theircommunity they hit it off with
the best, they would go on a tonof different dates and they
were really low pressure.
Dating was really low pressurein a way that it isn't really
(17:32):
now, which is, I think, wherethe going steady comes into play
, because going on dates withsomeone was something you did on
Fridays and Saturdays.
Everyone did it with differentpeople.
But going steady was hey, Iwant to go on more dates with
you, just you, and that sort ofbrings in the whole courting
culture.
(17:54):
We're still getting to know eachother, but we want to get to
know one another exclusively andthat doesn't really feel like
that conversation exists in thesame way today, and I have just
been really struck by that, andI think that's one of the
reasons why a Bowel Good Companyis so interesting is because it
(18:15):
does bring a little bit of thatback.
When we talk about hostingevents and inviting people to
get to know each other, we'recreating our own community where
people can just talk to oneanother freely, with no
expectations, only hope andencouragement and opportunity
and taking the pressure off ofexchanging numbers, but having
(18:39):
that be something that we get tofacilitate after the event,
which I think speaks to some ofthe privacy, the protection, the
safety and really taking someof that pressure away from
individual interactions, andthat seems really refreshing and
exciting to me.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, absolutely, and I agree.
I can totally see how and whyit's a whole lot harder today.
Paradox of choice, for instanceyeah, 100%, 100% of the other
didn't have 2,000 choices.
And I read something recently,I heard something recently that
talked about how, once you gethere's the example they gave.
(19:17):
The example was, if you go tothe store and you're looking for
jelly and there's three choicesof jelly, you'll feel a whole
lot better in your decision,regardless of which one you
chose.
You'll feel a whole lot betterabout your decision when you
take the grape jelly, forinstance.
So let's say you go into thestore and there's 24 choices of
(19:39):
jelly.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
That's paralyzing.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, not only is it paralyzing when you eventually
make your choice, you have somelevel of doubt when you leave,
then I really make the rightchoice.
So it's tougher to be happierabout your choice.
So, using that in the contextof Dayton today, in times past,
(20:03):
culturally you had differentvalues and different duty to
family.
There's a whole lot of thingsthat culturally were different,
so it was easier to make achoice to say this person fits
in a space that would help melive the type of life that I
want.
Fast forward to today andunfortunately, specifically,
(20:25):
women have, like their list islike huge.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Like one of the anthropologists that I yeah, we
like to come up with lists.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, one of the anthropologists that I worked
with in the matchmaking industrytalked about it in one of her
books Mary Him, I think, is thename of the book they talked
about when they did a poll ofwomen to determine what the list
of things are that they wantfor men.
In a general sense.
That list was 300 items long.
(20:54):
They did the same thing for men.
The list was six items long.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Not surprised, 300 seems a little long, but six.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
This is generally a whole cross-section of women.
They ask and just listening tothe things that came up
regularly, I don't know how theygot to the number 300.
That's crazy also.
But the guys were six and mostguys just need the three things.
We'll talk about those later.
We won't bring those up, butjust those three things.
Teaser for future episodes, Iknow, but yeah, I mean that
(21:23):
makes it tough.
And now add to that emotionalintelligence.
That's part of the equation nowand that makes it even tougher.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I do feel like that's been discussed way more
recently, and so it leads me tomy next three, which I'm going
to batch because I think thatthey're stretching to make these
into different ones, because Ithink they bleed into each other
perfectly Pandemic dating,dating apps and ghosting.
So when I look at pandemicdating, it marks the different
(21:58):
Dating.
The pandemic is this bigdividing line between
pre-pandemic and post-pandemic,and this is where I think apps
come into play.
But prior to the pandemic, appshad a different story.
They all had a different ethos.
If you wanted this, then youwere on this dating app.
(22:19):
If you wanted this other thing,you were on a different dating
app.
I think, post-pandemic, that'sgone away.
They're virtually all the same,and whether it's that we just
stopped trying to fool ourselvesthat one app where you could
swipe left or right wasdifferent than another app that
you could swipe left or right,and I feel like the same people
are on the same.
(22:40):
They're all on different ones,not because they want to ascribe
to their specific ethos orculture, but because they get
once one allotment for the dayof matches runs out, they can go
to the next app with anotherallotment and then same for the
(23:00):
third platform and I think thathas really contributed to the
fatigue around dating and datingapps specifically.
It's because there's just somuch burnout and there's this
hope, when you get your list ofmatches, that it's going to be
different, this time is going tobe different, and then when you
(23:21):
get to the end of that list,you're let down again and you go
through that with every singleapp and every single day, and so
it's happening that high andlow it's happening so fast that
even if you've made no progresson your app or with finding a
person and going on dates inreal life, you feel like you've
(23:42):
done so much emotionally becauseyou've gone through all the
highs and lows.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I have a lot to say about dating apps.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's what we're here for, and here's some
information I want to share withyou, just because I've got some
of the inside knowledge.
Do it Number one I don't thinkthe average person understands
that dating apps the technologyand algorithms that are behind
dating apps were built by peoplewho understand how the brain
works, and their goal is to getyou to use the app Totally.
(24:14):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
And their goal is to give youswings of high dopamine and low
dopamine, that rollercoaster,that purpose of the app is to do
that and most people don'tunderstand that's the case.
The people who built, who gavethe science to the people who
typed in the code to build thesealgorithms are way smarter than
(24:37):
most of us.
Right.
That leads to the topic of.
I'm going to use the ELOalgorithm.
You ever heard that term, elo?
Speaker 4 (24:46):
algorithm.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
So, in a general sense, I'm just going to explain
this to you.
When you're on a dating app,the dating app understands your
standard of association.
It understands what lane youshould be in based on your
attractiveness, based on youreducation, whatever the case may
(25:08):
be.
It understands what yourfrequency is and you only see
people in that frequency.
The ELO algorithm makes thishappen.
There is a higher frequency ofpeople, but you'll never see
those people because you don'thave a score that puts you in
(25:28):
that frequency.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
What is ELO stand for ?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's a guy.
So the algorithm was builtaround making compatible chess
players.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So it's a long story behind that whole thing, but the
idea, the point I'm trying tomake is, when it comes to dating
apps, people don't understandthat they're stuck in a tunnel.
They're stuck in a lane, if youwill.
And how do you get out of thatlane?
Let me give you an example.
If you're a swipe right, swipeleft person, let's say I swipe
right on a woman who's moreattractive than me, has more
(26:01):
going for herself, whatever thecase may be, she's of a higher
status.
And let's say, she swipes righton me.
It raises my score.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Oh, that's fascinating, Let me give you
another example.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Let's say forgive me.
Let's say there's a womanthat's less attractive than me
and I swipe right on her and shesays, no, I don't like him.
She swipes left on me.
That lowers my score.
So these things happen and theypush people in and out of these
lanes.
But it explains why.
(26:38):
Because the truth of the matteris there are some very rich
people on dating apps.
There are some very elitepeople on some dating apps,
right, but you'll never see thembecause the ELO algorithm keeps
you out of their space.
Very interesting Now.
Tinder was the first company tobe known for using the ELO
(26:59):
algorithm.
Nobody uses the ELO algorithmanymore these days, but that's
because they have much moresophisticated algorithms than
the ELO algorithm.
But the reason I use that as anexample is because I just
wanted to put it on the tablethat people using dating apps
don't understand that the goalof people who make dating apps
(27:20):
is to keep you on the dating app.
When there's a dating appthat's owned by a large company
and has investors, the duty isto the investors.
The duty is not to the peoplewho are using the apps.
Generally speaking, when you'reon a dating app that's
independently owned, a lot oftimes those independently owned
dating apps you are thestakeholder, so they really want
(27:43):
to help you find your person.
But that's a whole conversationthat has to be had around
dating apps.
But when people understand thatlike dating apps, I'm not
against dating apps, becausethey're a really good tool if
you know how to use themproperly and if you understand
the nature of dating app Anyway.
So let's put a period on that.
(28:03):
Let's talk a little bit aboutpandemic dating.
So when you initially said that, I thought to myself the
pandemic is over.
Is pandemic dating a thing atthis point?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
But I think it depends on who you are.
Definitely there's still peopleI've had conversations with
friends or acquaintances thatstill talk about it Like it's
April 2020.
And that is just fascinating tome.
So I was like oh, oh, okay.
Okay, cause they were talkingabout their kids and now their
kids are still like they've onlybeen in like 10 consecutive
(28:36):
days of school the whole yearand you're like what?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, I guess that's a good point because I live in a
bubble, sure, in the sense thatI have my own home office, I
don't have to leave very much,like I don't have kids, so I'm
not a part of that conversation.
So in my mind, the pandemic'sdone.
I went and had my physicalyesterday, walked into the
(29:02):
doctor's office nobody waswearing a mask and like when was
the last time you went to adoctor's office and nobody?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
had on the mask.
They've stopped requiring them.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, so in my mind, pandemic's over Same.
So I understand that there areother people who live a
different life, and that's oneof the things that we absolutely
remember in dating is that youhave a lifestyle.
You have like what your look,your life looks like.
It's not like what everybodyelse's life looks like.
You have to be aware of that.
But anyway, I brought that upbecause, in my mind, what is
(29:32):
pandemic dating?
Now, we can talk about whatdating looked like before and
what it looked like after.
Maybe that's the conversation Ican have more to say about, but
I don't see pandemic as a thingtoday.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, I think the I think one of the key points they
were trying to make is theemotional intelligence aspect
being higher now, where, so theysay, over 80% of singles want
someone that's emotionallymature, accepting of differences
and comfortable with their ownsexuality.
I think the pandemic might havebroadened some comfort levels
(30:15):
while also expecting more frompeople.
It's a weird I don't know,maybe I'm not saying that
correctly, but it does feel likethere's a little more leniency,
but also some higherexpectations that have come out
of it.
Like, I think, when you talkabout the emotional maturity of
people, that, like, we do expectmore of that because I think
(30:36):
we've all gone through the exactsame emotional crisis.
So there's maybe that's because, maybe that's why, because we
all lived the exact same thingbeing a global pandemic, right,
I think it would more refer tothe impact of the pandemic on
dating culture.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
So, for example, during the pandemic you were
stuck with a person because theywere in your bubble and you
might discover that there arecertain qualities about a person
that you don't like.
So it expanded or it shiftedyour views on dating or the
things that you desire.
So, post pandemic, what I'mlooking for in a partner is
going to be different than whatI was looking for before,
(31:16):
because now I think about, am Igoing to get stuck in the house
with this person.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Oh, that's a great point.
I did not even consider that,yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
And then on the emotional bit, the things that
we value now are different.
Like we look at the greatretirement, is it retirement?
What's the word Resignation?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Resignation.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Retiring from work life With the great resignation
that's happening because peoplenow value their time, their
health and all that differently,and it's the same in
relationships.
I want to spend my time with adifferent quality of person now,
because I know what it's liketo be standing on death's door,
in a sense.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, that's a great point, Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
One thing I'll add to that is like it has almost
created another layer ofdivision.
Right, oh yeah, because even inthe second date update podcast
that we listened to, rememberthe episode where girl went out
with a guy and she had COVID,but her response to it was, eh,
(32:22):
it's just like a cold these days.
That's the way some people feelabout it.
The guy found out about it andhe went ballistic because he
felt like she didn't care enoughabout people in public to even
mention it, and there's a wholerange of emotions around that.
But it's just like the divisionof politics at this point.
(32:44):
Like you, a person potentiallywho doesn't believe in COVID
vaccines and a person who doesbelieve in COVID vaccines, you
put them on a date together Ifthat conversation comes up it's
not going to be a prettyconversation across the board.
And so I guess my take on theconversation right now is that's
(33:05):
the imprint that the pandemicleft on dating, is it created
another layer of division?
But because it's a biggerconversation, just like politics
, I tell people when I wasgrowing up like it wasn't a
thing if the husband voted forJimmy Carter and the wife voted
for Ronald Reagan, like itwasn't that big of a deal.
I just agreed with this, like Ilike pizza and I don't like
(33:29):
pizza, I like hamburgers type ofthing.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It's so not true now yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But now it is definitely a source of division.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
So what I've seen come out of the pandemic because
even if we feel like thepandemic has gone away, people
still have their beliefs aboutthese things- the Match Singles
in America survey asked thequestion about the COVID vaccine
and in 2022, which is theyrelease them every year, it said
(33:59):
40% definitely want theirpartner to be vaccinated,
compared to 47% in 2021, where36% say they don't care.
That's still a really highdivide.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
Yeah, absolutely, that's still a really high
divide.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And then it goes on to say that one in three singles
say their dating life iscurrently affected by COVID, and
so that can mean anything fromthe belief in should you be
vaccinated, should you not bevaccinated?
Largely, that is a topic I juststraight up ignore.
Don't even go there, I think,because I also work in the
(34:35):
political space.
So that is going to be thetopic that is probably going to
come up more often.
When you say that you work inpolitics, that's going to come
up.
But that is definitely a topictoo, like voting, the issue
around voting they cover that,they want their, so they say
that voting is hot.
So they want their partner tobe very cognizant and
(34:57):
politically aware, but notcompromising, which is an
interesting thing that you don'treally want your partner to
compromise on what they'resaying.
58% say it's now more importantthan ever to know your
partner's political views.
Life back set up 100% 37% saythat having too strong an
(35:17):
opinion is a deal breaker.
So if you're too intense aboutit, nope.
And the reverse just say that.
31 say it's a no go if apotential partner has no opinion
.
So we were looking for, likethe Goldilocks of opinions here,
the Goldilocks porridge ofopinions, where you have one but
don't be too intense about it.
And 28% don't want a partnerwho isn't registered to vote.
(35:41):
24% would avoid a date who isnot planning to vote.
So just not going to go on adate with the person who isn't
going to vote.
And 22% say it's a deal breakerif their date didn't vote in the
last election.
So lots of feelings aroundvoting we could go into like
political persuasion and topics,but I think just the concept of
(36:05):
voting being so important foryounger people because these are
that when you look at whothey're polling and who they're
surveying, it's millennials ingeneration Z, and so for a
generation that is the hopeevery single election is on the
young people.
What are young people going todo?
The giant question mark thatexists, it's looking like voting
(36:27):
itself is becoming more andmore important when dating,
which means it's going to alsohave a really interesting effect
on electoral outcomes.
So stay tuned everyone.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So get out and vote.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, thanks Match, thanks Match for having that
topic.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, because what I took away from that is if you go
out and vote, if you go out andvote, you at least won't be
that person who won't get datedbecause you didn't vote.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
That's an easy one to check the box for.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, your civic duty , yeah.
So what about ghosting?
Because that's still a thing,very much so.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, and I think ghosting is a symptom of the
real problem, and the realproblem is that people are
cloaked by their ability to bethe internet Like I'm just going
to use social media and theinternet as a cloak for people
to treat people differently thanthey would in real person.
(37:31):
Yeah, yeah, and the whole ideathat hurt.
People like the men and womenalike don't understand the
detriment of ghosting, Becauseit really has a mental effect on
the person that you ghost andyou don't have to do it.
Let's put emotionalintelligence as part of this
(37:52):
conversation.
If you're an emotionallyintelligent person, you should
be able to have a conversationwith a guy and say, hey, things
aren't really working out.
Now let me caveat that by sayingthis.
I have a Facebook group with1,000 people in it and I asked a
question Women, have you everrespectfully turned a guy down
(38:15):
and he turned around andattacked you?
Most of the women say yes.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Wow, really.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Most of them say yes.
I asked the same question ofmen hey, men, have you ever
respectfully turned a woman downand got attacked and crickets
on that post?
So part of the problem when wetalk about ghosting is that a
lot of times women don't want todeal with the abuse, with
(38:46):
having to turn a guy down.
And another conversation I haveto have with guys Guys get
angry because why not just tellme that you're not interested?
Because guys are taught to beconfident and persistent.
But then there's you go.
(39:06):
There's a thin line betweenbeing persistent and being
harassing, right, and guys don'tknow where that line is and
they don't understand thedetriment of ghosting.
It's hurtful and it makes menangry at women.
Now they're going to go treatthe next woman based on
something that happened with thelast woman, and women are the
(39:27):
same, like men mistreat womenand then the woman turns around
and takes that damage to thenext person that she deals with
and it becomes a perpetual thing.
So at the end of the day, Ithink ghosting is just a.
It's a symptom of a biggerproblem that we don't really.
We aren't as civil as we usedto be, and it's easier to be
(39:52):
less civil online when you don'thave to look at the person.
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
There's no ownership to it.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
And let me just say this one of the things that I
liked about the idea of goodcompany is because is I think
that we have an opportunity toimprove the culture.
I think about this being avelvet rope society, if you will
Like.
Not everybody can come in hereand once you get in here, behave
, because if you don't behave,then you get put back on the
(40:23):
other side of the velvet rope.
And you want to be on this sideof the velvet rope because this
is where some really goodpeople are.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
You talked about women ghosting men out of fear.
Why do men ghost?
Speaker 2 (40:40):
A lot of times women will ghost because of safety.
A lot of times men ghostbecause men men don't care.
I characterize ghosting as Iwent on a date with you.
We had some conversations andthe next day I thought it was
(41:01):
business as normal and I can'tfind you Like you don't respond
to any of my text messages.
I call you and I get voicemail100% of the time, like I reach
out to you on chat and you justdon't respond.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Lots of mediums of communication you've used in
this example.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
You basically just disappeared off the face of the
planet without any notification.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah yeah, that's an accurate description of ghosting
.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I said men don't care , I guess I don't.
This is dangerous waters for me.
In this conversation there aretwo women sitting here.
No, not necessarily, because Iknow people are listening to
this podcast and there's thenature of men that women don't
understand there is a nature ofmen that women don't understand
(41:51):
and they could leave thisconversation hating all men.
If I say something like mendon't care, I don't really mean
men don't care, but a lot ofguys don't know how to deal with
the emotions of women.
They don't understand theemotions of women.
That's one of the things I wassaying before.
I talk a lot about verbalviolence, women being verbally
(42:13):
violent.
Women don't understand thewords, how words affect men.
Men need to be respected thewhole status thing.
Like women have gotten to thisplace where they just want to
demasculate men Is that theright word?
Demasculate, emasculate andthey don't understand the damage
(42:37):
of emasculation, the verbalviolence thing.
I'll give you an example.
This is not a real worldexample.
This is just my recollection ofwhat I remember the example
being.
But you'll get the point.
The guy said something I reallydon't think this relationship is
(43:00):
going the right way.
Maybe he even told her I don'treally feel like we could be
there, whatever he was beingcalm about that thing and she
went off into small dick energyand started just really started
emasculating the guy and tryingto break him down.
You didn't even do this and allof that kind of stuff and the
(43:24):
reason I'm bringing this up isbecause that guy who got
attacked, he got a verbal attackfrom a woman and he has to take
that to his next situation.
So I'm going to date this nextgirl and I'm less inclined to be
honest with her about how Ifeel because she may verbally
(43:46):
attack me.
I don't want to use the wordfear I don't have a better word
to use right now.
A guy has to be concerned aboutthe violence of women and when
I say the violence of women I'monly talking about verbal
violence and a lot of the timewomen will turn around.
(44:08):
And the reason I don't want touse the word fear is because
it's not fear that men have it'sfear, but it's not fear of the
woman, it's fear of thesituation.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Like the emotional situation.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
The situation that it can put him in.
I'm trying to figure out how tobring this home.
I'm not intimidated by a womanscreaming and cussing at me.
I'm not intimidated by that.
I'm not afraid of that.
But I am afraid of the factthat if she takes it too far and
I have to protect myself, I'min trouble now.
(44:47):
Okay, interesting.
It's a dynamic that guys feelupfront in a lot of these
situations and it looks likefear of the woman is not fear of
the woman, it's fear of thepotential situation, so the
situation that I'm about to bein like the dangers for me.
(45:10):
Going back to the whole ghostingthing again, it's a symptom of
the problem, the culturalproblem, that people don't pay
attention to the damage thatthey leave behind.
And women want men to treatthem better, but they treated
the last dude like crap.
So I say the measure ofkindness, miss Lady, is how you
(45:35):
treat the guy that you're notattracted to.
Yeah.
Because this goes into a wholeother conversation about depicts
and all that kind of stuff.
Like I've said to women before,there's not that women don't
like depicts.
Women just don't like depictsfrom the men that they don't
like.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Okay, so we've gone through these five.
Would you agree with these fiveor would you have made a change
?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
If you asked me what the five biggest problems with
dating is today.
I'd probably come up with adifferent list.
I like the first one.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
For sure, you're the first one, definitely.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
When it comes to dating and relationships.
You've heard me say this before.
People need to understand thatthey need relationship skills.
That's not even on mostpeople's radar that I need
better skills for relationship.
I'm putting dating andrelationships in the same bucket
(46:45):
because I'm not trying toaddress people who just want to
date for the rest of their lives, addressing people who want to
actually be in relationships.
It's just like anything else.
If you want to be good attennis, you got to go find some
information and get a coach.
Learn how to play tennis,practice it and get better.
If you want to bake a cake, youhave to start with one thing to
(47:09):
bake a cake Before you'remotivated to go find some
information about baking a cake.
If you are really bad at bakinga cake, you're not going to
want to keep baking a cake.
If you suck at it really bad.
If you get really good at it,you'll enjoy it.
People enjoy doing things thatthey're good at and they hate
doing things that they're notgood at.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Can you?
Because, if you loverelationships and dating in the
same bucket to talk about, thereare other ways for you to
stretch a muscle that would beuseful in dating, in your
relationships your friends orwith family members, or Because
(47:52):
I think that's there's still.
If you think about what makesyou good in a relationship
self-awareness, empathy,communication All of those
things can be learned, whetherit's in your professional life,
in supervisor training,recognizing that something is
wrong with your direct reportand going in with an open mind
(48:16):
of without assigning blame buthey, I noticed you're awful
little today.
What's going on?
Or even in your relationshipwith your family.
You have so much history withyour family.
Going in with an open mind ofthis is how I'm feeling right
now.
Is this inaccurate?
Are you meaning to give thisoff?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yeah, yeah, there's a key point there.
You started off withself-awareness, empathy, and
what was the third one?
You remember?
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Communication.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Communication.
Let's just take those three.
Yeah.
First step is you have to firstrecognize that those things are
important to understand aboutyourself.
You have to.
You know what I'm saying.
I venture to say there are 100single people who don't even
know what self-awareness means.
They've never heard of it,never thought to go down that
(49:07):
they don't want to bake a cake.
They haven't thought about it.
You get what I'm trying to sayand that's the point that I'm
making, or the point that I'mtrying to make, is that
hopefully, this episode willbring awareness to the fact that
people need awareness of thethings that they need to work on
for themselves to move forward.
(49:28):
Most people have heard you needgood communication skills.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
in real life yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
It's still, I think, a mystery to many people who
talk about the value ofcommunication.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Right.
Right.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
If you have a stream of text messages, it's a
forethought in planning.
Or I've got a busy week thisweek.
I'd really like to see you.
What does your?
These are some times that Ihave availability.
Does this fit with yourschedule?
That's forethought.
That ticks a whole bunch ofboxes.
(50:00):
A you value me.
B you value my time and yourtime and what openness you have
in your schedule you'd like tospend it with me.
Three you care enough about thework that I'm doing and what
you're trying to do that you'regoing to plan ahead.
There's a lot that's said inthat very simple statement that,
(50:22):
oh, that feels good.
That feels good in my deep soul.
Quality time is a love languageof mine.
When you take the time to thinkthrough that and put it forward
on a calendar, which also thecalendar invites, are also a
love language of mine, becauseit's time, it's quality time,
(50:43):
right.
All of that tells me so muchmore than hey, you're important
to me.
It's a nonverbal timecommitment thing that happens.
It says a lot without sayingenough.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, but you made a really good point that people
you say good communication isn'tnecessary.
Some people will take that tomean communicate a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Totally.
That's not what that means.
The quantity of communication,not the quality of it.
The quantity is not a quality.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Yes, the point is just to nail this point home.
The point is, people have towant to be better at these
things.
Number one they have to beaware of the fact that they need
to be better at empathy andself-awareness and communication
.
They have to be aware of thatfirst, and then they have to
want to be better communicators,have empathy and be self-aware.
(51:27):
Then they have to do it, thenthey have to do it.
That could be a challenge also,because the average person
doesn't know who to turn to orwhere to go to get better at
communication and empathy andself-awareness.
There's a lot of stuff out there, but people don't have the
roadmap to get there.
So I'll leave this point withthe same way.
(51:48):
People are embracing therapy.
I really think people shouldembrace coaching a little more
because, totally agree, datecoaching with a good coach will
change your life.
Yeah, it will change your life,but it's just like therapy,
right?
You can go to a therapist andnot be.
I've been to therapists that Idon't like.
(52:10):
They didn't work for me.
We're not a good fit, right?
So find a good dating coach,because if you really want to
get better at dating, find adating coach.
I can't make it any simpler.
I don't understand why thatthat shouldn't be hard for
people to understand, rightBecause I wanted to play golf
(52:31):
when I first moved to NorthCarolina in 2003.
I never played golf before, butbefore I went out I said let me
go find a golf coach, becauseif I start off right and I don't
develop bad habits, I can getgood at this thing quickly.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
You know what I mean.
How's your golf game now?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
My golf game is trash right now, but that's not
because of my coach.
So the beginning part wasreally applicable.
Listen, because you still haveto practice.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
You still have to go do the work.
Sure, sure, sure, get the repsin.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
The only thing I was making is that we say a lot, get
to know yourself.
We don't make.
I won't say we don't make iteasy.
We can say get to know yourself, but you've got to want to go
find what that means right,Different levels of that.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
I feel like now and I'll say this to close out our
conversation about the biggestissues with dating I feel like
now the language around gettingto know yourself is there's a
lot more around that, a lot morelanguage that we've gotten and
that has been developed throughthe concept of date yourself.
(53:39):
What do you want to do?
How do you spend your time?
What can you do to betteryourself?
How do you respond in certainsituations?
Why do you respond that way?
Where do you want to be?
The conversation about where doyou want to be in five years.
It feels so vast and sometimesoverwhelming for a lot of people
(54:01):
.
But there's also who do youwant to be when you're 60, which
is a question that I was posedto be by my coach, my executive
coach.
That's really framed up all ofour conversations as who do I
want to be when I'm 60 and am Igetting any closer to that, to
who that person is and thatcharacter and that approach to
(54:22):
life and value of other humans?
I think the language it'sbroadening the language that
we're using around get to knowyourself, which is, I think,
making it a little bit moreapproachable.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
I hope what people take away from this episode is
awareness and the motivation tounderstand that that
relationship skills is a thingRelationships skills is a thing,
and you'll be much happier.
(54:57):
I hope that people get out ofthis conversation that number
one yeah, you should work onyourself, but we want to help
guide you, to help youunderstand what that looks like,
how you can work on yourself,get to know yourself.
I'm actually giving a roadmapto get to know these things, and
you can keep this in yourpocket.
(55:17):
It's not something you have toshare with somebody.
However, you can also share itwith somebody if you want it to,
if you thought it necessary.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
We've talked a lot about some of the biggest issues
with dating and I think yourpoints about how you would add
to that list or maybe substitutesome stuff in is.
I think it's great.
What would be the big takeaway?
What would you at the end ofthis podcast, what do you want
people to do Aside from joinAbout Good Company and go to our
(55:48):
website AboutGoodCompanycom?
Speaker 2 (55:52):
There's a lot of people can do without
professional help.
These assessments are available.
There are assessments for lovelanguages.
There are assessments forenneagram.
There are assessments forattachment styles.
There's Myers-Briggs assessment.
These assessments help you getto know each other.
Not all of them are easy andsome of them cost a little bit
(56:12):
of money, but at the end of theday these are real scientific
ways to get to know yourself.
And once you know yourself youcan understand if and where you
need to make some coursecorrections or changes.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
Is there one of those that's your favorite that you
feel like informs?
Because I really like the lovelanguages one, and I think there
are whole schools of thoughtwhere you can do it, as in a
relationship or as a singleperson.
And, honestly, something tokeep in mind is that your
results are going to bedifferent in different phases of
(56:48):
your life, because you're not astagnant human, and so if
you've taken these before, goback and do them again.
Love languages is one of myfavorite because I feel like
it's a little easier to explainand to grasp and there are tons
of podcasts about them.
And then also, my absolutefavorite is enneagram.
I feel like I've talked to youabout that all the time and
(57:09):
there's so much that you canlearn about yourself from an
enneagram.
There's just a lot of Becauseit's more behavioral and I think
that's really helpful whenyou're dealing with how do you
respond to stuff, what do you doin certain situations, why are
you reacting?
That way, you can go really deep, from your wings to your
(57:29):
triangle, to a healthy versionof yourself, to an unhealthy
version of yourself, and thatjust really helps me when I see
patterns start to arise when I'mreally stressed or I'm in an
unhealthy place.
What is my immediate go-to andhow am I going to respond, and
what do I need to do to put inguardrails to protect myself
(57:50):
from doing that?
Speaker 2 (57:52):
So let's talk about those two just for a quick
moment.
So the enneagram is really good.
I would probably point peopleto love languages first only
because it's easier and it's awhole lot lighter.
One caveat I'll put on lovelanguages is you may not know
this, but the scientificcommunity, they don't believe in
the love languages.
(58:12):
But let me say that a differentway.
There's no science or researchbehind love languages and
because of that it doesn't getas much credibility amongst the
researchers and scientists.
However, I can tell you, if youwere to ask me the assessment
(58:33):
that changed my life immediately, I would say love languages.
It changed my life overnight.
Now my recommendation would beto go read the book and take the
assessment.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Sure, the book's not long.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
The book's not long and it's in audio.
I've listened to the audio booktwice, at least twice.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, our big audio book lovers over here.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
But it will change the way people.
It will change the way youtreat people.
It will help you understand whypeople treat you the way they
do good, bad or indifferent.
It just enlightens.
But this is the beginning ofgetting to know yourself.
Is participating in some ofthese assessments.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, love it.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Yeah, and it's a crawl before you walk, it's a
walk before you run, type ofthing.
Enneagram gets you a littledeeper, like when you're ready
to know more about yourself.
Go take that enneagram, andwe'll talk about other
assessments in later episodes.
But let's start there.
Let's go do love languages andif you're feeling ambitious, go
ahead and do an enneagram.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
All right, thank you.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.