December 26, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode of The Tudor Dixon Podcast, relationship expert Dr. Wendy Walsh explores how the post-pandemic world has reshaped dating, intimacy, and romantic relationships for young people. She examines the influence of social media and dating apps on real connection, the evolving expectations of men and women, and why communication skills matter more than ever. Dr. Walsh also discusses family pressures during the holiday season and how younger generations are redefining intimacy, love, and commitment in today’s culture.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. We have a treat today.
We've been talking so much about young people and how
there's been a challenge with young people connecting and we
don't see as many romantic relationships. So we thought we'd
bring on an expert to talk about it, and we
have an expert from iHeartRadio. She is on Iheartradios KFM
or KFIAM six point forty in Los Angeles. It is
(00:23):
the Love and Relationship Ship Expert, doctor Wendy Walsh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hi, how are you. I'm great? How are you good? Good? Good?
Always happy? Around this time and year to be talking
about love because so many people are expecting engagement rings.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Oh I never even thought about that, but I guess
that's true, and I think, actually, I feel like I'm
at the point now where I have a lot of
my friends who are expecting their children to be getting
engaged around this time. But they also I've heard from
so many moms of young men in our area I'm
in the Midwest, and moms of young men who say
(01:00):
they are struggling to figure out how to connect to women.
So what are your best suggestions for love people or
love relationships connection in young people today.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, let's set the stage for what's happening culturally, especially
around gen Z. Right. So this is a group of people,
young people who literally lost three years of social development
during the kandemic. When we came back to the college classroom,
I'm a psychology professor. I would put students into discussion
groups and they couldn't even look each other in the
(01:32):
eye or talk to each other. They were just staring
at their phones while in discussion groups. So I see,
and I have young adult daughters. I see the stress
and the fear and the widespread social anxiety. So they
go to the apps, right, because that's what they know.
They're digital natives. But the apps do something else to
their brains. It creates, first of all, paradox of choice.
(01:54):
So we know one thing about the human brain. The
more choice we have, the harder it is to make
a choice. And dating apps keep fall, keep feeding you
at this endless supply of potential mates. Secondly, they unfairly
take the people with the I would call the top
mate value different for men and women. So younger, hotter,
(02:16):
whatever in women and men maybe more money or deeper.
Voices are tall, and they get the illusion that anybody
can have access to this small ten percent of the population,
and it leaves this other population feeling mostly rejected on
dating apps. So my biggest the biggest trend that's happening
though with gen Z is they're going off dating apps.
(02:38):
In twenty twenty six, we're going to see more and
more I r L in real life meetings, and that
means they're joining clubs, they're joining churches, they're finding ways
to meet young people in the real world. But for
parents who are worrying about their kids, you know, coupling up,
it's going to be delayed in this group. It's already
(02:59):
we've seen in a trend of many generations where people
aren't marrying, and I think the average age of first
time marriage for men has gone up to thirty now, okay,
it used to be twenty two, twenty four, right, and
we may even see it move further. But here's the
good news. The research shows that the later you marry,
(03:20):
the more developed your prefrontal cortex is for making decisions,
and the happier, the more satisfied, the safer, the healthier
your marriage will be. So parents need to not stress.
These guys are going to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, and certainly I think my friends are like, I
don't want to push my kid. I don't want to
I feel like there's there is an anxiety there. But
I guess we haven't really identified that that anxiety might
just be that in person connection, because that is something
that I think we have kind of not necessarily acknowledged
the fact that there was this period of no connection,
(03:55):
and it was encouraged no connection. It was encouraged to
have a digital connection and with your grandparents, with your friends,
you could only connect. And I see this with my kids.
I have four girls. I see them. They connect on
the phone, they connect through FaceTime, and they're not going
out as much.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
They don't.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
When I was a kid, we drove and we all
hung out together. We wanted to see each other. Now
we'll all get together and play a game on an app.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, they're very, very isolated, and we have to remember
that those three important years were crucial developmental years for
social development. What adolescents and young adults do developmentally is
they're separating from their family of origin. They're taking with
them some of the great lessons from their family of origin,
(04:41):
but they're starting to create sort of a new family
of peer groups as they self individuate, as they become,
as they figure out what their identity is going to be.
So they missed three crucial years of development and it's
going to be a while before they catch up. It's
also important for gus to realize, and well guys and
(05:02):
girls to realize that it is not dorky, It is
not weird to get on the phone and have a
conversation with somebody. I've been actually coaching some young adult
women in New York City who are ready to get married.
They're thirty years old, they got great careers, and I'm like,
don't waste your time getting all dressed up on a
date to go on a date with a stranger. Your
time is way too valuable for that. Get on the phone, hell,
(05:24):
a little conversation you can know And they're like, oh,
that's so weird. But what's interesting is as they match
with guys on the apps and they do suggest a
phone call, the guys are so happy because they don't
have to spend any money on this. Remember, we're also
talking about a generation who economically feel very insecure. The
price of housing, the gig economy, the fact that they're
(05:46):
delaying the onset of their economic independence means that guys
who used to strut their money and pay for expensive
dates just can't afford to do that. So the smart
guys are figuring out other ways to make a woman's
life better, whether it's fixing something on her car, walking
her dog for her, doing whatever. They're showing that they
(06:07):
can sacrifice time and talent for her and that's kind
of the new way for this generation. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I wonder if it is as women become more competitive
in the workplace and they are getting more of those
CEO or executive level jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And maybe men.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
We're hearing that men are staying even out of universities,
they're not as much going to universities. They're getting more
of the blue collar jobs and they're working their way
up through the manufacturing sector. Is that intimidating and is
that making it harder for those men to connect with
a woman if they feel like, oh, she's more successful
than I am, or she's on a different track than
(06:44):
I am.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, that's a really great question to talk about social
class here. So we've seen the feminization of college campuses
for the last few decades. I teach on one trust
me for every guy that graduates college, there are two
or three women in America. Really, Yeah, been going on
for twenty years, so yes, women are moving up. Women
actually make up the majority of the American workforce. Now.
(07:07):
Now we're not in enough boardrooms, we don't own enough capital,
but there are more female employees than there are male employees.
There is this wonderful trend on social media that I
love seeing where blue collar wives are touting the wonderful
virtues of their blue collar husbands. It's great, you should
check it out search online. But they're saying, you know,
(07:28):
blue collar men are loyal, they loved a parent, they
can fix anything at the zombie apocalypse comes, they've got
enough duct tape, and they're truck trust me. I mean,
they are just like touting the protective side of masculinity
versus the resource side. Although we know that electricians and
plumbers make a ton of money, right, Yeah, us need
(07:48):
to convince those college educated women that it's certainly not settling,
it's certainly not a step down. In fact, ladies, your
idea of a power man just might be a guy
who can power a stroller. All right, So it's really
important that we start to create sort of get rid
of all our discrimination based on social class and man,
(08:10):
don't be intimidated by these ways. How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Though? I mean, because there has been such there's always pressure.
We were talking about this the other day about we
had someone on that was talking about ozebic and they
were like, you know, it is crazy because the people
that I've talked to that have lost weight say they
are treated so differently. And I think it's similar to this.
If you are wearing a suit or if you have
(08:34):
a blue jacket was your name on it, people are
looking at those two people differently. You know, if you're
in the overalls and the coveralls and you're going to
the shop every day, or if you're wearing the suit
and tie, there is just a I guess, a preconceived
notion of whether or not you're you're successful, and that's
not right.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But how do you change that? Yeah, Tudor, you are
all over my soapbox. Trust me, I am standing every
day on social media telling women this message. I actually
I was a single mother for twenty years dated a
lot of bad boys went off the market for very
decades because I didn't want to expose my daughters to
a potential bad mistake I would make romantically. So when
(09:18):
I dipped back into the mating marketplace once my girls
were in high school, I found an amazing husband. He
happens to make less money than me, but guess what,
he loves laundry and dishes. Oh and it's a funny thing.
And all of a sudden, I went from having these
two other humans living in my house who did nothing
around the house to a guy who carries his weight
(09:38):
and then some. So I am just I've never been
so happy as I am.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And I think that's a message that we don't talk
about and women in general. I'm glad you are talking
about it because I think that women who have tried
to have it all have found that if you don't
have that at home, if you don't have that person,
that is sharing. Because we have now started to share
the income, women and men are both bringing home the bacon.
(10:06):
They're both trying to contribute to the economic status of
the household. But it seems like women are still falling
into the category that everything else at home is your
responsibility too. How do we start talking to women about
it's okay to want somebody that will help you. How
do we start talking to men about your woman needs help.
I was just talking to someone else about I read this,
(10:28):
and my audience will say, you just talked about this,
But I read this and it really hit home with
me that a man put on social media. My wife
said she was concerned about Christmas, and I said, don't worry,
It'll come together. And I kept telling her that and
she was getting more and more stressed. And on Christmas Eve,
I went down and found her wrapping the gifts and
it struck me, it's only going to come together because
my wife is Christmas and I'm not helping exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So now we're having conversation about gender roles. And I
really think that young men, if they try to not
showcase themselves as being such a traditional male that like
women saying, how is he going to be helpful to me?
If they can actually show a greater diversity of what
it is to be masculine. We don't need to put
(11:14):
men in a man box, and young men don't want
to be put in a man box. And I will
say this about women. The biggest danger of patriarchy was
that it swims in women's heads too. Women have this
idea that they're going to get educated, they're going to
have a big career, and then they're going to come
home and have a prince in a castle who makes
more money than they do. And that's just not reality.
It's not going to happen, So I think, you know,
(11:36):
my favorite example is my daughter did her semester abroad
in Stockholm, and I went to visit her there, and
they have a really interesting childcare policy in Stockholm. A
family gets eighteen months of paid leave when a baby comes,
but one parent's not allowed to take it all. You
have to split it in some form. So what's risen
(11:58):
because men are being legislated as parents actually happy to
have the time off work and parent is You see
these roving bands in Stockholm of muscled, tattooed, bearded guys
wearing babies, showing up in groups at the coffee shops
changing diapers together, and I'm just like, wow, this is
this is where we're headed. When we can all just
be human beings and understand there's work that needs to
(12:21):
be done in the house and out the house, and
we just need to talk to each other about what
we like to do best. For instance, I mentioned those
non traditional gender roles in my own marriage. But yet
I just hate taking out the trash and my husband
is fine with that. So there's a traditional gender role
we're fine with. Right, you just have to talk about everything.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. I saw a video recently that
you did about shreking. I don't know what you're talking about.
You said, You're like, shreking is not what is shreking?
So shreking is twofold?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
What it is this idea that you're dating someone less
than you in this case maybe not as physically attractive,
where I tell women to just open up their world.
But secondly, there's another meaning to it with a young generation.
When a woman has been shreked, it means that she has,
in her mind dated below her value a guy who
didn't make as much money or wasn't as good looking,
(13:21):
and he's still dun'd her. There was still no commitment there, right,
and so she goes, I was shrecked, right, like I
lowered my standards and still right. But I think the
problem isn't about standards or lowering. It's about young people
not having the skills to fall in love and have
(13:42):
an intimate connection, to prevent ghosting, to prevent situationships. It
will happen. I mean that will happen, preventing that when
people learn to be open, honest, and vulnerable from the beginning.
In fact, on my very first coffee date with my
now husband, because I know these things, I said to him, Hey,
(14:02):
you know, instead of us starting off telling each other
just how great we are, why don't we each start
by telling a story about why we think we're completely undateable.
And he went, oh, okay, you go first. So I
told a story that was very intimate, and then he
shared a story about himself. So we started out with
(14:23):
honesty and authenticity. Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
That is something that I think young people are struggling
with because you can create a persona online. And I
see this with why I see more with young women,
but probably because I follow young women more than I
follow young men, but especially with the whole like this
is my bridal shower and this is my wedding, and
there's a focus on the show of everything and not
(14:49):
the relationship. And I see that crushing people once they
get into marriage and they realize, you know, it's all
about the I have the perfect dress, I've had the
perfect I have the perfect venue, I'm having a baby,
I have the perfect gender reveal, and the days aren't perfect.
I mean the reality of every mother we know. We
(15:09):
go home and you are pulling your hair out, trying
to stay up past the kids and get them get
them food, and get them washed, and get everything ready
for them. Life is actually really it's not social media.
So when these women get past these moments where they
get through these beautiful social media events and then they
(15:33):
actually get to life, are you seeing that they weren't
prepared for what a relationship is.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Well many people. Yes, I mean they don't have relationship skills,
as I said, because they lost three years of development. Secondly,
they come from a generation of divorce where the parents'
way of solving conflict was to simply separate instead of
learning how to work through conflict. So this is their lesson, right,
and I think that, But I want to remind everybody
that relationships cantills can be learned. You may have an
(16:03):
anxious attachment style or an ambivalent attachment style from early
childhood stuff, but you can change and you can learn
how to behave. And that's a lot of what I
think what I teach both on my radio show in
the classroom and on my social media basic communication skills.
Here's a quick one for you. So whenever you want
to tell your partner something maybe a little bit critical,
(16:25):
maybe a little bit negative, you always begin with a
communication sandwich, which begins with a layer of love, followed
by a layer of something a little hard to chew on,
backed up by another layer of love. So it goes
like this, Hey, honey, one of the things I love
about you is you're such an amazing provider. And it's
so great that I have this security and confidence seeing
how hard you work. And I love to see how
(16:47):
hard you work. But the kids have been noticing that
you haven't been able to make their baseball games or
their ballet recitals, and we would love to see more
of you there, because, you know what, we're super proud
of you and we want to show you off at
those spaces too. Communication sandwich. How can he complain about
that criticism? Instead of you're never there, I'm always there alone,
you don't show up at his things right well.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And that's something that a lot of people. We've gotten
to a point of absolute words are used way too often.
This is the you are always or you are never,
and we see that always every day.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
In the political world.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And the political world has infiltrated culture like never before
because of social media, and so I think that that's
a whole other issue in relationships. But I think that
we are taking a cue from what we see on
the infotainment. You know, it's not news anymore, it's a
twenty four hours of information entertainment, and we see people
(17:44):
fighting like it's always this or it's never that. That
is coming into our homes, and it seems like it's
becoming a really dangerous place because there is no gray area,
there's no compromise, there's no discussion, there's no compliments anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And I think you're absolutely right. It comes from the
top down. It's a cultural issue, but we as a
bottom grassroots people need to learn to be kind again,
learn to be understanding. You know, I'm gonna give everybody
a little tip. I follow a social media channel on
Instagram called Global Positive News. They post probably ten times
(18:24):
a day, So in my feed of all the negativity
and all the awfulness, there are these amazing, heart warming
stories of people who literally risk their lives for others
or recovered from something, or change something positively. Global positive
news keeps your brain in a place of people are
mostly good. Yesterday I noticed they posted about a guy
(18:45):
who walked twenty seven countries, No, he walked for twenty
seven years, something like eighty one countries and refuse to
take any wheel to transportation unless he literally had to
take a boat or couldn't get across something. And he
said that he found that when he ran out of
money or inability to move, that ninety nine point nine
(19:07):
percent of human beings were kind and helpful all the
way around the world. And that's our natural state to
be a good person. And in our relationships, what is
a romantic relationship. It's an exchange of care, and we
have to think of all the ways that we can give.
I believe that love is an action word, it's a verb.
(19:29):
It's a verb to give.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
So I've read that men are very responsive to what
you just said, that that sandwich conversation, and I don't know,
I haven't seen as much about how women respond to it.
I would imagine we respond very similarly. But for women
it's sometimes we are sometimes used to getting bogged down
and we forget to go to our husband's and say hey,
(19:54):
you really helped me today, Hey I appreciate this about you.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Or even just say you look really great that outfit.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
We get to the point where we forget that they
need affirmation as well. So how do we remind women
that the relationship when it comes to affirmations. I think
we're used to being the ones that are like, come on,
pour it on us, but.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
We have to diss amount too, right exactly, I think
all humans thrive when they get positive encouragement. In fact,
relationship trick number two, you want to transform your relationship.
Catch your partner being good, Catch them being good all
day long. When you catch them being good, and especially
for the little things, hey, hun, thanks thanks for passing
the salt, or thanks for doing that. That's so sweet
(20:35):
of you. Besides the fact that it's a positive reward
system for them, so they start to do more good
things because they like the reward system. Besides that, it
reminds your own brain of why you're there, so you
continue to value your partner. If you spend your life
looking at your partner thinking what have you done for
me lately, you are on a road to a breakup
(20:57):
or divorce. The thing that keeps long term committed people
together is they actually kind of overvalue each other. They
believe that they've got a catch, and they keep focusing
on the fact that they have a high value made.
And that is a wonderful brain trick that we can
all do it.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That's a I think that's an interesting thought. Let's take
a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tutor
Dixon Podcast. In a world where we seem like we
focus on becoming a victim, and I was recently talking
about this from a political standpoint, on both sides, there
has been this push for this is why you should
(21:39):
be angry, this is why you deserve to be angry,
and I do think that that becomes a part of
our culture in relationships too, and I've seen too many
It's kind of like a social contagion too. In relationships.
If my friend is unhappy, I can find reasons to
be unhappy. I don't know that this happens so much
with men, but I certainly see it with women, where
(21:59):
you can your friend wants a divorce, and then you
get there and then everybody kind of is unhappy and
it sort of like goes through the community like a storm.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, I mean, you've got good intuition, but let me
tell you there's data to back you up both marriage
and divorce. So weddings and divorces are highly contagious among
social communities, up to six degrees of separation, meaning that
a couple you don't even know could impact your relationship.
But going back to politics and the negativity and the anger,
I want to remind you that anger is an activating feeling.
(22:35):
It makes people vote, makes people go to the balls. Right.
So I always tell my students when they send out
those student ratings of teachers where they're supposed to rate
their professor, and every school does it, and part of
our salary is based on that, and our job security
is based on that. I always tell the students, remember
the small percentage of students, and this is just not
(22:57):
about my ratings, but all your professors, the percentage of
students who are unhappy and angry about the quality of
education they received in that class, are going to rush
to their keyboard because anger is an awful place to keep,
this awful thing to keep inside. We want to get
it out of us, and so they rush to keyboards
to get it out of their bodies. So I said,
if you had a great time in this class, you're
(23:19):
going to sit back and go, yeah, that was pretty
good and not do anything about it. It's like a
restaurant yelp review. If you come out of a restaurant
and have bad service, you're going to run to Yelp.
If you come out satisfying and feel good, you don't
run to Yelp. So it's really important that the people
who have good feelings make those feelings be known online,
in surveys and at the ballot box when they're voting.
(23:41):
That's how I always judge my Amazon purchase.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I'm like, Okay, I got to look at the reviews
and see what people say, and then I've got to
drop the few that are just total psychos that clearly
had something that made them nuts exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
You know what. I think it's either Yelp. I think
it's Yelp or Google reviews. You can actually click on
the reviewer and see all their past Oh don't really,
and if they're all negative, I'm like, forget this person
only complaints. So that's why in my case what I
leave a lot of Google reviews. I try to balance
positive and negative. So when people go to look at
my profile. They'll be like, Oh, I trust her.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
She's kidding you. That's so funny because you're so right.
I never if I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I never.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm not a big review lever regardless, but I wouldn't
go to just be like this was wonderful. I love
these genes.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
You know. That just doesn't strike me.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So maybe I should up my review system so that
I can help people out before I let you go.
We are this is the holiday season. We have everybody
seen family. There are going to be those people who
are going to be asked when are you going to
meet someone? Or when are you getting married? What's the
next step? Or when are you having kids? How do
(24:49):
you handle all those questions from family members.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
So one of the clients I work with is a
website called datingadvice dot com where I provide a lot
of expertise for them, and they just ran a survey
about who's you know, who's thinking they're going to get engaged,
how long they've been together, et cetera. I was particularly
shocked to learn and this was a third survey of
one thousand single men and women. That's seventy percent of
(25:14):
single women said they would pay for their own engagement
ring if they could get at this Christmas. This is
how badly women want a commitment okay, and that men
are not signing up for commitment a because they feel
they haven't launched and can't afford a relationship or marriage,
et cetera. Also because there's a high supply of sex
in the economy. You used to have to guys used
to have to get married to have sex, not anymore.
(25:35):
And so so my advice though regarding family and Christmas
is if you are an older adult, please don't ask
that question. Just don't ask it of any single names.
That's a good thing ask. But secondly, if you are
a single person or anybody coming back to family, remember
what happens when you come back to your family of
(25:57):
origin as an adult. Everybody becomes twelve years old. Again,
that old family system from way back when gets activated
in your brain. So it's okay to limit your time,
limit the kinds of conversations. Decide you know my husband
and are going to get a hotel instead of staying
at your house. Mom, don't worry, so that you can
create safe boundaries around yourself, especially if you've come from
(26:21):
a childhood where there's been a lot of pain and trauma. Right,
you don't need to completely throw yourself back into that,
but mostly try to enjoy. Try to enjoy, eat the food.
Don't think about dieting right now. There's a Sempic in January.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
That is yes, hilarious, that's that's what I'm like. Oh
my gosh, this is that time. It is that time
of year when you think all about all of the
things I'm going to eat and all the things I'm
going to regret that I did eat. But yes, just enjoy.
This is the it's the It is sometimes the happiest
time of the year. It can be the most stressful.
Try to make it the happiest. Enjoy your friends, enjoy
(26:58):
your family, and try to find I'd love.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's right, it's coming. Everybody deserves love, everybody.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I agree, absolutely. And one other thing I wanted to say.
You were saying that sex comes easy. Also, we're hearing
the young people aren't even having sex now that this
is like this, the youngest generation, they have no interest
in that intimacy. And I kind of wonder if that
is also because they have been disconnected from one another,
(27:27):
if they like physical touch is not connecting the way
it used to. But I guess that's a whole other podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
But I do the podcast. We need to talk about
the high supply sexual economy. We need to talk about
how technology and pornography have become a surrogate relationship in
some ways. So that's a whole other pod.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Gosh, I didn't think about that. Maybe that is why
these young people are like, I don't need it. I
don't even know what it is. That's, yes, a whole
other podcast. Doctor Wendy Walsh, thank you so much for
being on today.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Good to see you.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Good to see you too, and thank you all for
joining the Tutor Dixon podcast. You can get this episode
and others at the Tutor Diixon podcast dot com or
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
or you can watch it on YouTube and run rumble
at Tutor Dixon. Make sure you join us next time,
and have a blessed day.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. We have a treat today.
We've been talking so much about young people and how
there's been a challenge with young people connecting and we
don't see as many romantic relationships. So we thought we'd
bring on an expert to talk about it, and we
have an expert from iHeartRadio. She is on Iheartradios KFM
or KFIAM six point forty in Los Angeles. It is
(00:23):
the Love and Relationship Ship Expert, doctor Wendy Walsh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hi, how are you. I'm great? How are you good? Good? Good?
Always happy? Around this time and year to be talking
about love because so many people are expecting engagement rings.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Oh I never even thought about that, but I guess
that's true, and I think, actually, I feel like I'm
at the point now where I have a lot of
my friends who are expecting their children to be getting
engaged around this time. But they also I've heard from
so many moms of young men in our area I'm
in the Midwest, and moms of young men who say
(01:00):
they are struggling to figure out how to connect to women.
So what are your best suggestions for love people or
love relationships connection in young people today.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, let's set the stage for what's happening culturally, especially
around gen Z. Right. So this is a group of people,
young people who literally lost three years of social development
during the kandemic. When we came back to the college classroom,
I'm a psychology professor. I would put students into discussion
groups and they couldn't even look each other in the
(01:32):
eye or talk to each other. They were just staring
at their phones while in discussion groups. So I see,
and I have young adult daughters. I see the stress
and the fear and the widespread social anxiety. So they
go to the apps, right, because that's what they know.
They're digital natives. But the apps do something else to
their brains. It creates, first of all, paradox of choice.
(01:54):
So we know one thing about the human brain. The
more choice we have, the harder it is to make
a choice. And dating apps keep fall, keep feeding you
at this endless supply of potential mates. Secondly, they unfairly
take the people with the I would call the top
mate value different for men and women. So younger, hotter,
(02:16):
whatever in women and men maybe more money or deeper.
Voices are tall, and they get the illusion that anybody
can have access to this small ten percent of the population,
and it leaves this other population feeling mostly rejected on
dating apps. So my biggest the biggest trend that's happening
though with gen Z is they're going off dating apps.
(02:38):
In twenty twenty six, we're going to see more and
more I r L in real life meetings, and that
means they're joining clubs, they're joining churches, they're finding ways
to meet young people in the real world. But for
parents who are worrying about their kids, you know, coupling up,
it's going to be delayed in this group. It's already
(02:59):
we've seen in a trend of many generations where people
aren't marrying, and I think the average age of first
time marriage for men has gone up to thirty now, okay,
it used to be twenty two, twenty four, right, and
we may even see it move further. But here's the
good news. The research shows that the later you marry,
(03:20):
the more developed your prefrontal cortex is for making decisions,
and the happier, the more satisfied, the safer, the healthier
your marriage will be. So parents need to not stress.
These guys are going to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, and certainly I think my friends are like, I
don't want to push my kid. I don't want to
I feel like there's there is an anxiety there. But
I guess we haven't really identified that that anxiety might
just be that in person connection, because that is something
that I think we have kind of not necessarily acknowledged
the fact that there was this period of no connection,
(03:55):
and it was encouraged no connection. It was encouraged to
have a digital connection and with your grandparents, with your friends,
you could only connect. And I see this with my kids.
I have four girls. I see them. They connect on
the phone, they connect through FaceTime, and they're not going
out as much.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
They don't.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
When I was a kid, we drove and we all
hung out together. We wanted to see each other. Now
we'll all get together and play a game on an app.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, they're very, very isolated, and we have to remember
that those three important years were crucial developmental years for
social development. What adolescents and young adults do developmentally is
they're separating from their family of origin. They're taking with
them some of the great lessons from their family of origin,
(04:41):
but they're starting to create sort of a new family
of peer groups as they self individuate, as they become,
as they figure out what their identity is going to be.
So they missed three crucial years of development and it's
going to be a while before they catch up. It's
also important for gus to realize, and well guys and
(05:02):
girls to realize that it is not dorky, It is
not weird to get on the phone and have a
conversation with somebody. I've been actually coaching some young adult
women in New York City who are ready to get married.
They're thirty years old, they got great careers, and I'm like,
don't waste your time getting all dressed up on a
date to go on a date with a stranger. Your
time is way too valuable for that. Get on the phone, hell,
(05:24):
a little conversation you can know And they're like, oh,
that's so weird. But what's interesting is as they match
with guys on the apps and they do suggest a
phone call, the guys are so happy because they don't
have to spend any money on this. Remember, we're also
talking about a generation who economically feel very insecure. The
price of housing, the gig economy, the fact that they're
(05:46):
delaying the onset of their economic independence means that guys
who used to strut their money and pay for expensive
dates just can't afford to do that. So the smart
guys are figuring out other ways to make a woman's
life better, whether it's fixing something on her car, walking
her dog for her, doing whatever. They're showing that they
(06:07):
can sacrifice time and talent for her and that's kind
of the new way for this generation. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I wonder if it is as women become more competitive
in the workplace and they are getting more of those
CEO or executive level jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And maybe men.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
We're hearing that men are staying even out of universities,
they're not as much going to universities. They're getting more
of the blue collar jobs and they're working their way
up through the manufacturing sector. Is that intimidating and is
that making it harder for those men to connect with
a woman if they feel like, oh, she's more successful
than I am, or she's on a different track than
(06:44):
I am.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, that's a really great question to talk about social
class here. So we've seen the feminization of college campuses
for the last few decades. I teach on one trust
me for every guy that graduates college, there are two
or three women in America. Really, Yeah, been going on
for twenty years, so yes, women are moving up. Women
actually make up the majority of the American workforce. Now.
(07:07):
Now we're not in enough boardrooms, we don't own enough capital,
but there are more female employees than there are male employees.
There is this wonderful trend on social media that I
love seeing where blue collar wives are touting the wonderful
virtues of their blue collar husbands. It's great, you should
check it out search online. But they're saying, you know,
(07:28):
blue collar men are loyal, they loved a parent, they
can fix anything at the zombie apocalypse comes, they've got
enough duct tape, and they're truck trust me. I mean,
they are just like touting the protective side of masculinity
versus the resource side. Although we know that electricians and
plumbers make a ton of money, right, Yeah, us need
(07:48):
to convince those college educated women that it's certainly not settling,
it's certainly not a step down. In fact, ladies, your
idea of a power man just might be a guy
who can power a stroller. All right, So it's really
important that we start to create sort of get rid
of all our discrimination based on social class and man,
(08:10):
don't be intimidated by these ways. How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Though? I mean, because there has been such there's always pressure.
We were talking about this the other day about we
had someone on that was talking about ozebic and they
were like, you know, it is crazy because the people
that I've talked to that have lost weight say they
are treated so differently. And I think it's similar to this.
If you are wearing a suit or if you have
(08:34):
a blue jacket was your name on it, people are
looking at those two people differently. You know, if you're
in the overalls and the coveralls and you're going to
the shop every day, or if you're wearing the suit
and tie, there is just a I guess, a preconceived
notion of whether or not you're you're successful, and that's
not right.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But how do you change that? Yeah, Tudor, you are
all over my soapbox. Trust me, I am standing every
day on social media telling women this message. I actually
I was a single mother for twenty years dated a
lot of bad boys went off the market for very
decades because I didn't want to expose my daughters to
a potential bad mistake I would make romantically. So when
(09:18):
I dipped back into the mating marketplace once my girls
were in high school, I found an amazing husband. He
happens to make less money than me, but guess what,
he loves laundry and dishes. Oh and it's a funny thing.
And all of a sudden, I went from having these
two other humans living in my house who did nothing
around the house to a guy who carries his weight
(09:38):
and then some. So I am just I've never been
so happy as I am.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And I think that's a message that we don't talk
about and women in general. I'm glad you are talking
about it because I think that women who have tried
to have it all have found that if you don't
have that at home, if you don't have that person,
that is sharing. Because we have now started to share
the income, women and men are both bringing home the bacon.
(10:06):
They're both trying to contribute to the economic status of
the household. But it seems like women are still falling
into the category that everything else at home is your
responsibility too. How do we start talking to women about
it's okay to want somebody that will help you. How
do we start talking to men about your woman needs help.
I was just talking to someone else about I read this,
(10:28):
and my audience will say, you just talked about this,
But I read this and it really hit home with
me that a man put on social media. My wife
said she was concerned about Christmas, and I said, don't worry,
It'll come together. And I kept telling her that and
she was getting more and more stressed. And on Christmas Eve,
I went down and found her wrapping the gifts and
it struck me, it's only going to come together because
my wife is Christmas and I'm not helping exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So now we're having conversation about gender roles. And I
really think that young men, if they try to not
showcase themselves as being such a traditional male that like
women saying, how is he going to be helpful to me?
If they can actually show a greater diversity of what
it is to be masculine. We don't need to put
(11:14):
men in a man box, and young men don't want
to be put in a man box. And I will
say this about women. The biggest danger of patriarchy was
that it swims in women's heads too. Women have this
idea that they're going to get educated, they're going to
have a big career, and then they're going to come
home and have a prince in a castle who makes
more money than they do. And that's just not reality.
It's not going to happen, So I think, you know,
(11:36):
my favorite example is my daughter did her semester abroad
in Stockholm, and I went to visit her there, and
they have a really interesting childcare policy in Stockholm. A
family gets eighteen months of paid leave when a baby comes,
but one parent's not allowed to take it all. You
have to split it in some form. So what's risen
(11:58):
because men are being legislated as parents actually happy to
have the time off work and parent is You see
these roving bands in Stockholm of muscled, tattooed, bearded guys
wearing babies, showing up in groups at the coffee shops
changing diapers together, and I'm just like, wow, this is
this is where we're headed. When we can all just
be human beings and understand there's work that needs to
(12:21):
be done in the house and out the house, and
we just need to talk to each other about what
we like to do best. For instance, I mentioned those
non traditional gender roles in my own marriage. But yet
I just hate taking out the trash and my husband
is fine with that. So there's a traditional gender role
we're fine with. Right, you just have to talk about everything.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. I saw a video recently that
you did about shreking. I don't know what you're talking about.
You said, You're like, shreking is not what is shreking?
So shreking is twofold?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
What it is this idea that you're dating someone less
than you in this case maybe not as physically attractive,
where I tell women to just open up their world.
But secondly, there's another meaning to it with a young generation.
When a woman has been shreked, it means that she has,
in her mind dated below her value a guy who
didn't make as much money or wasn't as good looking,
(13:21):
and he's still dun'd her. There was still no commitment there, right,
and so she goes, I was shrecked, right, like I
lowered my standards and still right. But I think the
problem isn't about standards or lowering. It's about young people
not having the skills to fall in love and have
(13:42):
an intimate connection, to prevent ghosting, to prevent situationships. It
will happen. I mean that will happen, preventing that when
people learn to be open, honest, and vulnerable from the beginning.
In fact, on my very first coffee date with my
now husband, because I know these things, I said to him, Hey,
(14:02):
you know, instead of us starting off telling each other
just how great we are, why don't we each start
by telling a story about why we think we're completely undateable.
And he went, oh, okay, you go first. So I
told a story that was very intimate, and then he
shared a story about himself. So we started out with
(14:23):
honesty and authenticity. Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
That is something that I think young people are struggling
with because you can create a persona online. And I
see this with why I see more with young women,
but probably because I follow young women more than I
follow young men, but especially with the whole like this
is my bridal shower and this is my wedding, and
there's a focus on the show of everything and not
(14:49):
the relationship. And I see that crushing people once they
get into marriage and they realize, you know, it's all
about the I have the perfect dress, I've had the
perfect I have the perfect venue, I'm having a baby,
I have the perfect gender reveal, and the days aren't perfect.
I mean the reality of every mother we know. We
(15:09):
go home and you are pulling your hair out, trying
to stay up past the kids and get them get
them food, and get them washed, and get everything ready
for them. Life is actually really it's not social media.
So when these women get past these moments where they
get through these beautiful social media events and then they
(15:33):
actually get to life, are you seeing that they weren't
prepared for what a relationship is.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Well many people. Yes, I mean they don't have relationship skills,
as I said, because they lost three years of development. Secondly,
they come from a generation of divorce where the parents'
way of solving conflict was to simply separate instead of
learning how to work through conflict. So this is their lesson, right,
and I think that, But I want to remind everybody
that relationships cantills can be learned. You may have an
(16:03):
anxious attachment style or an ambivalent attachment style from early
childhood stuff, but you can change and you can learn
how to behave. And that's a lot of what I
think what I teach both on my radio show in
the classroom and on my social media basic communication skills.
Here's a quick one for you. So whenever you want
to tell your partner something maybe a little bit critical,
(16:25):
maybe a little bit negative, you always begin with a
communication sandwich, which begins with a layer of love, followed
by a layer of something a little hard to chew on,
backed up by another layer of love. So it goes
like this, Hey, honey, one of the things I love
about you is you're such an amazing provider. And it's
so great that I have this security and confidence seeing
how hard you work. And I love to see how
(16:47):
hard you work. But the kids have been noticing that
you haven't been able to make their baseball games or
their ballet recitals, and we would love to see more
of you there, because, you know what, we're super proud
of you and we want to show you off at
those spaces too. Communication sandwich. How can he complain about
that criticism? Instead of you're never there, I'm always there alone,
you don't show up at his things right well.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And that's something that a lot of people. We've gotten
to a point of absolute words are used way too often.
This is the you are always or you are never,
and we see that always every day.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
In the political world.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And the political world has infiltrated culture like never before
because of social media, and so I think that that's
a whole other issue in relationships. But I think that
we are taking a cue from what we see on
the infotainment. You know, it's not news anymore, it's a
twenty four hours of information entertainment, and we see people
(17:44):
fighting like it's always this or it's never that. That
is coming into our homes, and it seems like it's
becoming a really dangerous place because there is no gray area,
there's no compromise, there's no discussion, there's no compliments anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And I think you're absolutely right. It comes from the
top down. It's a cultural issue, but we as a
bottom grassroots people need to learn to be kind again,
learn to be understanding. You know, I'm gonna give everybody
a little tip. I follow a social media channel on
Instagram called Global Positive News. They post probably ten times
(18:24):
a day, So in my feed of all the negativity
and all the awfulness, there are these amazing, heart warming
stories of people who literally risk their lives for others
or recovered from something, or change something positively. Global positive
news keeps your brain in a place of people are
mostly good. Yesterday I noticed they posted about a guy
(18:45):
who walked twenty seven countries, No, he walked for twenty
seven years, something like eighty one countries and refuse to
take any wheel to transportation unless he literally had to
take a boat or couldn't get across something. And he
said that he found that when he ran out of
money or inability to move, that ninety nine point nine
(19:07):
percent of human beings were kind and helpful all the
way around the world. And that's our natural state to
be a good person. And in our relationships, what is
a romantic relationship. It's an exchange of care, and we
have to think of all the ways that we can give.
I believe that love is an action word, it's a verb.
(19:29):
It's a verb to give.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
So I've read that men are very responsive to what
you just said, that that sandwich conversation, and I don't know,
I haven't seen as much about how women respond to it.
I would imagine we respond very similarly. But for women
it's sometimes we are sometimes used to getting bogged down
and we forget to go to our husband's and say hey,
(19:54):
you really helped me today, Hey I appreciate this about you.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Or even just say you look really great that outfit.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
We get to the point where we forget that they
need affirmation as well. So how do we remind women
that the relationship when it comes to affirmations. I think
we're used to being the ones that are like, come on,
pour it on us, but.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
We have to diss amount too, right exactly, I think
all humans thrive when they get positive encouragement. In fact,
relationship trick number two, you want to transform your relationship.
Catch your partner being good, Catch them being good all
day long. When you catch them being good, and especially
for the little things, hey, hun, thanks thanks for passing
the salt, or thanks for doing that. That's so sweet
(20:35):
of you. Besides the fact that it's a positive reward
system for them, so they start to do more good
things because they like the reward system. Besides that, it
reminds your own brain of why you're there, so you
continue to value your partner. If you spend your life
looking at your partner thinking what have you done for
me lately, you are on a road to a breakup
(20:57):
or divorce. The thing that keeps long term committed people
together is they actually kind of overvalue each other. They
believe that they've got a catch, and they keep focusing
on the fact that they have a high value made.
And that is a wonderful brain trick that we can
all do it.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That's a I think that's an interesting thought. Let's take
a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tutor
Dixon Podcast. In a world where we seem like we
focus on becoming a victim, and I was recently talking
about this from a political standpoint, on both sides, there
has been this push for this is why you should
(21:39):
be angry, this is why you deserve to be angry,
and I do think that that becomes a part of
our culture in relationships too, and I've seen too many
It's kind of like a social contagion too. In relationships.
If my friend is unhappy, I can find reasons to
be unhappy. I don't know that this happens so much
with men, but I certainly see it with women, where
(21:59):
you can your friend wants a divorce, and then you
get there and then everybody kind of is unhappy and
it sort of like goes through the community like a storm.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, I mean, you've got good intuition, but let me
tell you there's data to back you up both marriage
and divorce. So weddings and divorces are highly contagious among
social communities, up to six degrees of separation, meaning that
a couple you don't even know could impact your relationship.
But going back to politics and the negativity and the anger,
I want to remind you that anger is an activating feeling.
(22:35):
It makes people vote, makes people go to the balls. Right.
So I always tell my students when they send out
those student ratings of teachers where they're supposed to rate
their professor, and every school does it, and part of
our salary is based on that, and our job security
is based on that. I always tell the students, remember
the small percentage of students, and this is just not
(22:57):
about my ratings, but all your professors, the percentage of
students who are unhappy and angry about the quality of
education they received in that class, are going to rush
to their keyboard because anger is an awful place to keep,
this awful thing to keep inside. We want to get
it out of us, and so they rush to keyboards
to get it out of their bodies. So I said,
if you had a great time in this class, you're
(23:19):
going to sit back and go, yeah, that was pretty
good and not do anything about it. It's like a
restaurant yelp review. If you come out of a restaurant
and have bad service, you're going to run to Yelp.
If you come out satisfying and feel good, you don't
run to Yelp. So it's really important that the people
who have good feelings make those feelings be known online,
in surveys and at the ballot box when they're voting.
(23:41):
That's how I always judge my Amazon purchase.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I'm like, Okay, I got to look at the reviews
and see what people say, and then I've got to
drop the few that are just total psychos that clearly
had something that made them nuts exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
You know what. I think it's either Yelp. I think
it's Yelp or Google reviews. You can actually click on
the reviewer and see all their past Oh don't really,
and if they're all negative, I'm like, forget this person
only complaints. So that's why in my case what I
leave a lot of Google reviews. I try to balance
positive and negative. So when people go to look at
my profile. They'll be like, Oh, I trust her.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
She's kidding you. That's so funny because you're so right.
I never if I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I never.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm not a big review lever regardless, but I wouldn't
go to just be like this was wonderful. I love
these genes.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
You know. That just doesn't strike me.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So maybe I should up my review system so that
I can help people out before I let you go.
We are this is the holiday season. We have everybody
seen family. There are going to be those people who
are going to be asked when are you going to
meet someone? Or when are you getting married? What's the
next step? Or when are you having kids? How do
(24:49):
you handle all those questions from family members.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
So one of the clients I work with is a
website called datingadvice dot com where I provide a lot
of expertise for them, and they just ran a survey
about who's you know, who's thinking they're going to get engaged,
how long they've been together, et cetera. I was particularly
shocked to learn and this was a third survey of
one thousand single men and women. That's seventy percent of
(25:14):
single women said they would pay for their own engagement
ring if they could get at this Christmas. This is
how badly women want a commitment okay, and that men
are not signing up for commitment a because they feel
they haven't launched and can't afford a relationship or marriage,
et cetera. Also because there's a high supply of sex
in the economy. You used to have to guys used
to have to get married to have sex, not anymore.
(25:35):
And so so my advice though regarding family and Christmas
is if you are an older adult, please don't ask
that question. Just don't ask it of any single names.
That's a good thing ask. But secondly, if you are
a single person or anybody coming back to family, remember
what happens when you come back to your family of
(25:57):
origin as an adult. Everybody becomes twelve years old. Again,
that old family system from way back when gets activated
in your brain. So it's okay to limit your time,
limit the kinds of conversations. Decide you know my husband
and are going to get a hotel instead of staying
at your house. Mom, don't worry, so that you can
create safe boundaries around yourself, especially if you've come from
(26:21):
a childhood where there's been a lot of pain and trauma. Right,
you don't need to completely throw yourself back into that,
but mostly try to enjoy. Try to enjoy, eat the food.
Don't think about dieting right now. There's a Sempic in January.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
That is yes, hilarious, that's that's what I'm like. Oh
my gosh, this is that time. It is that time
of year when you think all about all of the
things I'm going to eat and all the things I'm
going to regret that I did eat. But yes, just enjoy.
This is the it's the It is sometimes the happiest
time of the year. It can be the most stressful.
Try to make it the happiest. Enjoy your friends, enjoy
(26:58):
your family, and try to find I'd love.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's right, it's coming. Everybody deserves love, everybody.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I agree, absolutely. And one other thing I wanted to say.
You were saying that sex comes easy. Also, we're hearing
the young people aren't even having sex now that this
is like this, the youngest generation, they have no interest
in that intimacy. And I kind of wonder if that
is also because they have been disconnected from one another,
(27:27):
if they like physical touch is not connecting the way
it used to. But I guess that's a whole other podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
But I do the podcast. We need to talk about
the high supply sexual economy. We need to talk about
how technology and pornography have become a surrogate relationship in
some ways. So that's a whole other pod.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Gosh, I didn't think about that. Maybe that is why
these young people are like, I don't need it. I
don't even know what it is. That's, yes, a whole
other podcast. Doctor Wendy Walsh, thank you so much for
being on today.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Good to see you.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Good to see you too, and thank you all for
joining the Tutor Dixon podcast. You can get this episode
and others at the Tutor Diixon podcast dot com or
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
or you can watch it on YouTube and run rumble
at Tutor Dixon. Make sure you join us next time,
and have a blessed day.
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