August 12, 2024 • 32 mins
Dr Wendy is talking about her wedding,social media protecting the youth, finding love on LinkedIn and company love contracts. It's all on KFIAM-640!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k
I AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show on I AM six forty live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio App. Okay, if you have been listening to
my show for the ten years ten years. I think
it's going to be ten years in September, which is
(00:22):
like in a minute, ten years that I've been on
k I AM six forty. You know that I have
a PhD in clinical psychology. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a
psychology professor, not a therapist.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
But I'm a little bit obsessed with the science of love.
I have spent three decades of my life reading every
little bit of scientific research that there is on dating, mating,
and relating and the wide spectrum of how people couple
up or triple up or whatever it may be with
them right, And I feel like I've educated myself very well.
(00:57):
I also feel that I've done a very good job
of taking scientific information and turning it into language everybody
can understand. And I want to be very clear, this
does not mean that I dumb anything down. This means
that I try my best to not use psychobabble and
(01:18):
instead just say, in plain English, this is what the
research says. Now, why you might ask have I spent
three decades of my life studying this subject and continuing
to do so, And I will tell you it is
because I had so many relationship problems in my own life,
(01:39):
from a young woman onwards. I have been when people say, well,
have you been married, have you been divorced? Have you
ever really had an affair? One?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Have you been?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I've been everything from a mistress to a girlfriend, to
a wife, to a live in girlfriend, to a divorcea
to a survivor of domestic violence, a survivor of financial abuse.
And you're like, well, it sounds like that that's all
your fault and your poor choices that you made. Yes,
I did make a few porn choices. Are you holding
(02:09):
your pearls when you say that poor choices? Because they
were unconscious choices. And I want us to all stop
judging each other and understand that our model for love,
our idea in our head for love, is formed in
the first three years of life, and then we go
(02:30):
out in our adul romantic life and we say, hmm,
that person feels familiar. You know, love is not about
finding happiness, it's not about finding pleasure. Love is about
finding the familiar. And sadly, through most of my decades
of single life and married life and living in life
(02:52):
and divorce life and single mother life and everything else,
I was finding the familiar in people who would leave
me with feelings of loss abandonment, sometimes highly criticized, because
in my early life that was what love felt like.
(03:15):
You see, kids are going to love their parents no
matter what. And this is not to put down my parents.
I think I had great parents. Like every parent, they
did the best they could with the tools they had.
But because of life circumstances, my dad was in the navy,
and he was gone. He was gone more than six
to eight months a year, in a very inconsistent pattern,
(03:38):
gone for three weeks, back for two days, gone for
three months, back for three weeks. You know, it was craziness.
And this is the nineteen sixties where there was nobody
had help.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
The village wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
We were always sort of the strangers moving around all
the time. There was no giant village of cousins because
we were moving so much, and so half time, my
frazzled mother with three children under the age of three,
stop right there, three children under the age of three,
I'm sure would leave the three of us in a
playpen while she would just go vacuum to tune out
(04:12):
the screaming. And I was at the bottom of the
toddler tumble because I was the only girl. So I
had brothers who were doing very naturally normal, high testosterone brotherly.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Things like beating me up.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And there's my model for love, longing for a man
who would come back and save me, but being pummeled
by what was there at the moment. Now, nobody's fault here.
This is the nineteen sixties. The term parenting as a
verb was never even coined until the nineteen seventies. It
(04:46):
wasn't something you did. It was just you were a
parent because there was a git around. But you didn't parent.
You didn't try to enrich their lives, you didn't try
to help shape their mental health. You just fed them
until they got up. Right was the time. And so
after many many decades suffering all kinds of relationships that
(05:07):
you would judge me is for making poor choices. I
went to therapy. I was in therapy on and off
for eighteen years, and I learned about myself and I
shared everything in my books. I've written three books about relationships.
I did a dissertation on attachment theory. I know more
about attachment theory as it relates to me than maybe
even my therapist. So the question is why did I
(05:31):
study it? Because I was obsessed with healing myself. But
at the same time, I knew that I wasn't alone,
that other people were struggling men and women with attachment
I need to use the word disorders, but attachment pain,
attachment injuries. And I am so happy to tell you.
If you've been following me, you know that back in December,
(05:54):
I proposed to my boyfriend live on air. We've been
together four years, and this weekend we tied the knot.
We got married. Yes, I'm missus now. No I'm not
taking his name, and no he's not taking my name.
(06:14):
Why was I able to make this commitment Because I
reached a stage in my personal journey where I could
tolerate kindness, where I could learn to accept care and
know that it was okay and that I deserved it.
And the world wasn't going to fall apart and he
wasn't going to abandon me. But it was a very
(06:36):
long journey for me. And the reason why I continue
to do this show, continue to talk about relationships is
because I want everyone to have the feeling I have,
and that feeling is trust, security, and a sense of calmness.
(06:58):
Now we are all also to people of a certain age,
and people's needs change across the lifespan when they're choosing partners.
You know, when till Death Do Us part was invented,
death was pretty imminent, and if you're having a kind
of grayish marriage.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Death might be pretty imminent.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
He hates it when I make that joke, by the way,
but I love it because a relationship is an exchange
of care, and care can take many different forms, and
the care that we're both anticipating in the future is
real care in the last third of our lives. So anyway,
congratulations to me, Congratulations to my wonderful new husband. Oh
(07:39):
my god, husband, I can't believe I'm saying that after
all these years. All right, on this show, I want
to talk a bit a lot about love here and there,
but also stay tuned because I have a very special
guest at the end of the show, Who's going to
talk to us about not only ray marriage, but gray divorce. Yeah,
(08:03):
I want to prevent that. Okay, gray divorce. Hey, it
may be natural for some, but not if you've got
married when you're already gray. Look, I'm not gray. I
color my hair. I just want to say, you can't
even see a gray hair. You're listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on k
I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So,
if you follow me on social media, specifically TikTok, you
know that I've got a million followers.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
You know probably if you've been following me for a while,
that my brand is slowly in transition. So here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
When you get stuck in one space on social media,
it becomes everything. And the truth is, I'm so much
more than relationship advice. Although I love to give relationship advice.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Here's my theory.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
By the way, about my little identity transformation here. During
all the years that I was single and had attachment
injuries and was in therapy and was in graduate school,
trying to put an intellectual eye on love to ultimately
(09:21):
heal myself right, And so I wrote three books on relationships.
I did a dissertation on attachment theory. I became obsessed
with our romantic attachment style and how we could heal
early life trauma that could lead to us finding constantly
being attracted to partners who hurt us. So I really
(09:43):
walked my walk. I don't know if you've ever heard
that saying. I think it's from the book Jonathan Livingston
segul we teach best what we most need to learn,
And so I would every time I would learn something new.
And you know, my career as a journalist a real
taught me how to take scientific information and put it
into language everybody could understand. So I blogged, and I
(10:06):
do podcasts, and I go on radio, and I write
books and I talk about wow, this aha moment, Oh
my gosh, just well, look what I learned. People with
an avoidant attachment style are mostly attracted to people with
an anxious attachment style, and there's this constant running all
the time in their relationship and nobody's really happy. But
those relationships tend to last a really long time, by
the way, because the running becomes the glue instead of
emotional intimacy. Anyway, that would be one example of what
(10:29):
I might have put in a TikTok video. So when
I met my fiance during the pandemic and we you know,
I continued to do all the things I've been teaching
you guys for the last ten years on KFI. I
did them. I did them because I've been teaching them.
We teach best what we most need to learn. And
(10:50):
I was able to build a secure attachment for the
first time in my life. I literally this morning, we
were in bed and I said I was going somewhere
for the day and he was going somewhere for the day,
and I said, oh, I'm not going to see you
all day and he's and I said, I don't think
I've ever had this kind of feeling where I didn't
even want to take a day off from somebody, And
(11:11):
he said me either, never had this feeling. So now
that I have what's called a secure attachment, I find
myself just a little a little less interested in lot,
you know, hardcore relationship advice, although you'll notice coming up
later in the show, I have a lot of stuff
for happily together couples to keep it happily together. Right,
(11:31):
So we're going to talk about whether a relationship can
survive cheating. Ten topics you should be talking about to
make your relationship stronger, et cetera. I'm still learning that, Okay,
still keeping it with you. But anyway, So on TikTok, lately,
you know i'd circle around. I say this to my
students too. I get off on side railroad trains of
stories and then I circle it back. We're talking about
social media and kids. So on my TikTok, I've been
(11:55):
doing lots of videos talking about how I'm changing, And
one of the videos is describing a road trip I
took during COVID with two teenagers to eight different states,
and I at one.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I've attended many Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Protests because it was during those days, and one of
them was up in a tiny town in Montana, and
I showed video of this and I was really quite
astounded at how many people came.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Out fully armed.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Well, I just showed the video right very few seconds
of it, TikTok banned me, warned me, shut me down.
It was the craziest and I couldn't figure out why
I got this warning.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I was just talking about a road trip and.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Teenagers and what we ate and where we stayed. But
then one of my I posted another video saying does
anybody know why my last video was taken down? And
then they said they don't allow pew pews. That's the code,
that's the code that the robots can't understand pew pew.
Apparently that means again anywhere on TikTok. So I was
both happy about this news and upset. My wonderful video
(13:01):
that I spent a long time editing got taken down.
By the way, it did get put back up because
I edited out that particular scene, So if you want
to go look at it, it's up.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
There on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So, you know, as our government is trying harder and
harder to protect kids, and there's all these rumors that
TikTok is going to be banned because the Chinese are
spying on us and our kids, and they're dominating and
manipulating and controlling the brains of our youth.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
All very true.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
By the way, I think the social media companies are
starting to get nervous and take some personal responsibility. The
data is undeniable, this infinite scroll that young brains enacting.
They're scrolling and scrolling and scrolling where they stay engaged
in those videos as long as possible. The research is
(13:50):
clear that this is not okay for kids. You see,
because of children's brain development, they don't have a fully
developed prefrontal cortex that's impulse control. They don't have the
ability to stop themselves or regulate their behaviors. Right, we
get mad at them that they're on their phones too long,
and that's like saying, why do you keep eating all
that sugar when we're the ones feeding it to you? Right,
(14:12):
So they're addicted. They're addicted mom and dad. So technology, now,
there have been some of the tech companies have enacted
forty four changes across different platforms to improve youth safety
and well being. So this includes things like listen up.
Instagram has announced that it will filter comments considered to
(14:34):
be bullying. So now, because of good AI and the robots,
it'll scroll through the comments if it looks like it's nasty,
then they're just going.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
To get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It's also using machine learning to identify bullying photos. I
wonder what's a bullying photo. Maybe when they take someone's
face and do weird things with it or whatever and
making fun of them.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Also, YouTube is now going to alert users when their
comments are deemed defensive, so you'll get a little note
saying we don't like this on this platform, and YouTube
promises to remove hate speech now. Privacy is another issue right.
Instagram says it will notify miners when they are interacting
(15:20):
with an adult who has been flagged for suspicious behaviors.
Owannder of miners would be alerted about me because I
got flagged for the gun thing. You never know, I
might be in a system now as a bad person.
Not that I send dms to minors anyway. And it
also does not allow adults to this one to message
(15:44):
miners who are more than two years younger than they are,
you know, the two year gap. You know why because
that conforms to the statutory rape thing. So statutory rape
is like, obviously you can't have sex with somebody under
the age of eighteen, but if you're nineteen, you could
have sex with a seventeen year old. That's to keep
the nineteen year olds and their girlfriends from going to
(16:05):
jail for that, right, So it's two year gap. The
other thing they're trying to do is improve time management.
So many of the platforms YouTube Kids has in fact
turned off auto play. You know how when you get
on YouTube and it goes from one video to the
another video to another video. Won't do that for kids.
They have to search and select the new one, which
takes time. They're also going to have more notifications telling
(16:27):
people like, you've been on too long, But I'm telling
you that doesn't work. There's this guy on TikTok who
jumps and he goes, hold up, now you've been scrolling
for too long, and as soon as I see him.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I just swipe past him. So I don't really think
that works.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Hey, speaking of social media, when we come back, there's
an unlikely social media platform you probably use every single
day that's now the number one platform being used to
find love. Let's talk about how you could use it
if you're single. When we come back, you are listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on k I Am
six forty We're live everywhere on the iHeart app.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
AM six forty. Well, the way that people meet and
mate in the mating marketplace seems to have changed. I
think people are getting sick of traditional dating apps. I
don't know why, by the way, because I used Bumble
and I found my love on Bumble. But I do
(17:28):
want to say this, it's not about the dating apps
that are bad. People always say I hate the dating apps.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
They're bad.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
It's not about the apps, it's about the skill. And
I've done lots of segments in the past where I
talked about how to use dating apps. Well, I'm going
to continue to continue to teach that, so stay with me. Also,
you know, I do this Patreon zoom group every Wednesday
night at six thirty, So if you ever want to
come on, you can ask me any questions about dating apps,
(17:57):
et cetera. I'll be happy to even weigh in on
your profile. I'll tell you what you can do. But
new research this week from datingnews dot Com also published
on Datingadvice dot com says that the number one platform
that people are looking.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
For mates on is Kayla. You're not going to believe this.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
LinkedIn really LinkedIn the business more on Instagram? Uh huh wow,
more than Instagram. Okay, So let's talk about dating and
mating in the workplace. According to research from getnuxs dot org,
twenty two percent of married couples in America met through
work and fifty two percent of employees have been involved
(18:42):
at one point or another in a workplace romance.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
A survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, they
found that a quarter there's about twenty five percent, folks.
One in four of US workers reported that they are
open to having a workplace romance. And just last year,
Forbes Advisor commissioned a survey of two thousand employed Americans
and they found that sixty percent of adults have had
(19:08):
a workplace romance, and of those, forty three percent married
someone they worked with. Now, this is a problem because
we are post me too now hashtag me too. Human
resources departments know that romances at the workplace can be
a legal nightmare. So it kind of makes sense to
(19:28):
me that LinkedIn has exploded as an online mating marketplace.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Let's think about it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Since the pandemic, everyone had to pivot right and go
online for everything their work, et cetera. So people moved
from water cooler conversations at the office to emails, DM zooms,
even online networking events. I'm going to go out on
a limb here and tell you that I would say
that evolutionary psychologists would argue that the whole darn reason
(19:57):
why people have occupations, professions, and work is less about
basic survival and much more about increasing their mate status
in the eyes of others.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
When I was on the dating apps, there was no
such thing as an employee, no such thing as a coworker.
There were founders, vps, managers, consultants. I mean, I had
a handyman once and I said, what do you put
on your app profile that you do?
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And he goes, oh, that I'm in construction management. Okay,
why not? That's what people do now.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
If you compare a LinkedIn profile with a dating app profile,
you get so much more. In LinkedIn, you can do
a deep dive into somebody's background. You could estimate their income,
you can look at their whole network of people they
even might mention their hobbies, any volunteer work they do.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Schooling is a good one.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
What if they went to your alma Mada and you
can call them up and go, hey, I'm an alumni,
or what if they're from your hometown. All that is
in most LinkedIn profiles. So here are the best benefits
from meeting on LinkedIn. In my opinion, I'm going to
tell you the best way to do it. After this
Number one, you can find someone with real world common interest.
They could be from a specific industry that you might
be in. They might be doing charity work your college. Also,
(21:19):
it allows you, when you scroll through LinkedIn profiles, to
find really targeted commonality rather than what I would like
to call the pithy self promotion that people write on
dating app profiles. I mean, who doesn't love sunset, walks
on the beach? Gag me, I'm done with it, right hiking,
(21:41):
Let's go hiking right now. Another benefit of LinkedIn is
that you can really vet people. I know that the
dating apps in recent years allow people to connect their
profiles with their Instagram profiles, so you can kind of
see who their friends are. See if you know someone
in common, but on LinkedIn, their professional network is right
there before your eyes. You can investigate them through real
(22:02):
world contexts. You can look at their comments, you can
see who they're reviewing. And here's the best part about LinkedIn.
Just want to say it, get it out there. There's
no HR policy to worry about. Since the advent, as
I mentioned of the me too movement, workplace romances have
become a nightmare for human resource departments. Many companies have
even enacted love contracts or complete romance prohibitions in their
(22:25):
employment contracts. So so far, I mean until next month,
I guess I don't know. LinkedIn doesn't have any HR
hall monitor to get nosy about you noodling?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
So how do you do it?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
First of all, I do want to say this, do
not send a private DM to a stranger on LinkedIn
with anything flirty. You wouldn't do it if you met
somebody in a restaurant or a grocery store. Why would
you do it online? So the first thing you do
if you identify somebody who's attractive to you is you
follow them, and then you become a watcher. You follow
(23:01):
them and you ask yourself what posts are they commenting on?
How active are they on the site. What can you
learn about them by what they're posting? Just watch them
for a while and it sounds creepy, but this is
what people do. Okay a second. Now you're going to
enlist your mutual connections. They have a thing on LinkedIn
mutual connections. You click on them and you see who
you know in common. So are you intimate enough with
(23:22):
any of those people to get some information? Could you
send them a simple message saying like, hey, so and
so singled you know? Or could you introduce me or whatever?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
You can? You see the network right there.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Now, when you get brave, you can finally send a
private message. Now, please make it short and sweet and
keep the topic on business at first. Include a mention
of whatever your common interest is. You know, maybe you
have the same you work for the same charity, you
went to the same university, whatever, same hometown, whatever.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
But don't be flirty.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
It's creepy when a complete stranger sends a flirty kind
of DM, and then all you do is you watch
for their response. Do they reciprocate? When they reciprocate, do
they extend the conversation by asking you a question? If
they're Kurt short perfunctory or worse, completely silent. You got
(24:13):
your answer, don't pursue further. Okay, silence is an answer.
And then my suggestion would be getting the real world fast,
find a professional pretense to get on the phone or
zoom and then you know. Then you got the advantage
of visuals right and voice, and your brain will be
able to pull in more information about whether this person
(24:34):
is right for you. So then it gets back to
real world dating. That's how you do it. Don't be creepy,
keep it light, keep it on business. You want to
keep them as a business contact if it doesn't work out, right,
But I totally understand why people are doing it. Alrighty,
when we come back, let us talk on the same
note about why your company needs a love contract, because
(24:59):
there's some Shenana agains going on when it comes to
love in real world workplaces.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You are listening to the Doctor wendywallsh Show on KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on k
I AM six forty we're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You know, in life and in our culture, rules are
changing all the time, and it's really important that we
keep up with the changes in our culture. Remember, the
very existence of a human being is every day and
(25:38):
sometimes in every moment, making a decision between your personal
survival you might call it selfishness and the survival of
the tribe. Because we are not meant to be alone.
We are wired to bond, we are wired to have
social support. In fact, the worst thing for humans is isolation.
We learned that during quarantine, and so we also have
(25:58):
to keep our ear to the ground of the tribe
says is acceptable. You know, before the break, I was
talking about how LinkedIn is now one of the most
powerful platforms where people are finding love, and I think
that's sort of a digital way of people moving away
from being direct in workplaces. In workplaces, it is very
(26:22):
important that we understand that people need to feel safe
in a work environment. Now that doesn't mean that you
cannot meet somebody at work, but it does mean that
if you do make an overture to somebody, who better
be on your level, meaning not somebody under you, and
you're the manager, Okay, can't do that. That's sexual harassment
(26:42):
for sure. If you hold any kind of power over
a person, influence even for a promotion, their paycheck, whatever,
you can't ask.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Them out, just don't, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
But if they're in another department and on around the
same level, of course you might meet somebody. However, you
don't want them to feel uncomfortable. So if you make
a little overture and it's not responded to, then move away.
That's actually I think employment lawyers would agree with me
that that's not considered sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is continual
(27:13):
or it is quid pro crow. If you don't do this,
then you're not going to get this promotion, or it's
like this toxic environment where you're constantly people are making
comments about your body all the time. Right. I have
a coworker, not here, not here, at another place who
always mentions if I've lost weight or gained weight every
time I see them, And I don't know if you're
(27:34):
aware that women lose and gain four or five pounds
on a regular basis. That's just our life. That's what
women do, and it irritates me every time. So I
finally de tend to gently say, hey, you know, nowadays
we don't talk about women's bodies at all in the workplace.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
It just like I said, it real sweet and cute
and he stopped. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
So many companies to protect themselves from all the sexual
harassment lawsuits that have flown around is they write a
love content tract for their employees. Now, these things have
been used for decades, but since the Me Too movement
in twenty seventeen, their use is pretty widespread in a
lot of industries. It's essentially a legal document. It's signed
(28:14):
by two employees who are having a romantic relationship, and
your original employment contract might say something like if you
enter into a romantic relationship in the workplace, you must
report it to HR and then you will be asked
to sign a love contract. The whole reason it's designed
to protect the company from claims right and also from
other coworkers witnessing. Would you guys get going on and
(28:38):
calling that a hostile work environment. There is nothing more
uncomfortable when you're trying to get your job done to
see two colleagues canoodling over by the water cooler. So
the love contract might have rules about that too, So
The love contract should prohibit all kinds of sexual harassment
as I mentioned, including quid pro quo and toxic environment.
(29:03):
They also make you both admit that the relationship is
consensual and that it won't have a negative impact on
your work at all. It also may include the possibility
of department transfer. So if you do fall in love
with the office and you do report it to HR
as you were told you're supposed to do, one of
(29:23):
you might have to be transferred. That might just be
a rule. At our company, their HR department says, I mean,
I'm not talking about our company, iHeart. I mean they're
whatever high hypothetical company I'm talking about. Their HR department
might say, here, at our company, as soon as you
admit that you're in a romantic relationship, one of you've
got to go, not leave the company, but will facilitate
a transfer. It also this istant important part. So relationships
(29:48):
at the office usually aren't so bad until it ends right,
and then people don't want to work with the person
and it's a.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Toxic environment there.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So the love contract might include things about what happens
that ends that protects employees from inappropriate conduct retaliation.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Also, of course, love.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Contracts are going to include limitations on public displays of
affection at the office.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
This is gross. Don't be kissing in the hallway, that's
just weird.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
So according to research, there are plenty of reasons why
HR departments need to have love contracts. One study showed
that one in four employees are open to having an
office romance, and one in five married couples in America
actually met at work. So even if you do lay
down the law and attempt to say enforce a no workplace.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Dating at all rule, that rule is going to be broken.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
There are exceptions in love contracts, like you can't date subordinates.
That's a lose lose for the subordinate. You got to
know that. And also remember, love gets messy. There's gossip
around the office. It's going to happen when it starts.
There could be envy, jealousy, resentment.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Ugly breakups.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
This can be a big problem for companies and for
HR departments. So it's really important that to avoid all
this drama that companies set up some specific guidelines.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I personally think it's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I think in everybody's employment of contract it should be Look,
if you date anybody at the office. You've got to
disclose it to us, and if you don't, then that
could lead to termination of your contract. And then if
you do, you'll be asked to sign a love contract
in some way. Let's face it, workplace romances are land mines, okay,
(31:41):
but we're doing it like one in four people, right,
it's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
All right.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
When we come back, I'm going to go to my
social media and I'm going to be answering some of.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Your relationship questions.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh, at Dr
Wendy Walsh, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok wherever. Just send me a message.
I'm not going to say your name on air, we'll
keep it private, but send me a question. I'll be
happy to answer it. You are listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty We Live
everywhere on.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
The iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always
hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven
to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on
the iHeartRadio app.
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k
I AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show on I AM six forty live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio App. Okay, if you have been listening to
my show for the ten years ten years. I think
it's going to be ten years in September, which is
(00:22):
like in a minute, ten years that I've been on
k I AM six forty. You know that I have
a PhD in clinical psychology. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a
psychology professor, not a therapist.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
But I'm a little bit obsessed with the science of love.
I have spent three decades of my life reading every
little bit of scientific research that there is on dating, mating,
and relating and the wide spectrum of how people couple
up or triple up or whatever it may be with
them right, And I feel like I've educated myself very well.
(00:57):
I also feel that I've done a very good job
of taking scientific information and turning it into language everybody
can understand. And I want to be very clear, this
does not mean that I dumb anything down. This means
that I try my best to not use psychobabble and
(01:18):
instead just say, in plain English, this is what the
research says. Now, why you might ask have I spent
three decades of my life studying this subject and continuing
to do so, And I will tell you it is
because I had so many relationship problems in my own life,
(01:39):
from a young woman onwards. I have been when people say, well,
have you been married, have you been divorced? Have you
ever really had an affair? One?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Have you been?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I've been everything from a mistress to a girlfriend, to
a wife, to a live in girlfriend, to a divorcea
to a survivor of domestic violence, a survivor of financial abuse.
And you're like, well, it sounds like that that's all
your fault and your poor choices that you made. Yes,
I did make a few porn choices. Are you holding
(02:09):
your pearls when you say that poor choices? Because they
were unconscious choices. And I want us to all stop
judging each other and understand that our model for love,
our idea in our head for love, is formed in
the first three years of life, and then we go
(02:30):
out in our adul romantic life and we say, hmm,
that person feels familiar. You know, love is not about
finding happiness, it's not about finding pleasure. Love is about
finding the familiar. And sadly, through most of my decades
of single life and married life and living in life
(02:52):
and divorce life and single mother life and everything else,
I was finding the familiar in people who would leave
me with feelings of loss abandonment, sometimes highly criticized, because
in my early life that was what love felt like.
(03:15):
You see, kids are going to love their parents no
matter what. And this is not to put down my parents.
I think I had great parents. Like every parent, they
did the best they could with the tools they had.
But because of life circumstances, my dad was in the navy,
and he was gone. He was gone more than six
to eight months a year, in a very inconsistent pattern,
(03:38):
gone for three weeks, back for two days, gone for
three months, back for three weeks. You know, it was craziness.
And this is the nineteen sixties where there was nobody
had help.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
The village wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
We were always sort of the strangers moving around all
the time. There was no giant village of cousins because
we were moving so much, and so half time, my
frazzled mother with three children under the age of three,
stop right there, three children under the age of three,
I'm sure would leave the three of us in a
playpen while she would just go vacuum to tune out
(04:12):
the screaming. And I was at the bottom of the
toddler tumble because I was the only girl. So I
had brothers who were doing very naturally normal, high testosterone brotherly.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Things like beating me up.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And there's my model for love, longing for a man
who would come back and save me, but being pummeled
by what was there at the moment. Now, nobody's fault here.
This is the nineteen sixties. The term parenting as a
verb was never even coined until the nineteen seventies. It
(04:46):
wasn't something you did. It was just you were a
parent because there was a git around. But you didn't parent.
You didn't try to enrich their lives, you didn't try
to help shape their mental health. You just fed them
until they got up. Right was the time. And so
after many many decades suffering all kinds of relationships that
(05:07):
you would judge me is for making poor choices. I
went to therapy. I was in therapy on and off
for eighteen years, and I learned about myself and I
shared everything in my books. I've written three books about relationships.
I did a dissertation on attachment theory. I know more
about attachment theory as it relates to me than maybe
even my therapist. So the question is why did I
(05:31):
study it? Because I was obsessed with healing myself. But
at the same time, I knew that I wasn't alone,
that other people were struggling men and women with attachment
I need to use the word disorders, but attachment pain,
attachment injuries. And I am so happy to tell you.
If you've been following me, you know that back in December,
(05:54):
I proposed to my boyfriend live on air. We've been
together four years, and this weekend we tied the knot.
We got married. Yes, I'm missus now. No I'm not
taking his name, and no he's not taking my name.
(06:14):
Why was I able to make this commitment Because I
reached a stage in my personal journey where I could
tolerate kindness, where I could learn to accept care and
know that it was okay and that I deserved it.
And the world wasn't going to fall apart and he
wasn't going to abandon me. But it was a very
(06:36):
long journey for me. And the reason why I continue
to do this show, continue to talk about relationships is
because I want everyone to have the feeling I have,
and that feeling is trust, security, and a sense of calmness.
(06:58):
Now we are all also to people of a certain age,
and people's needs change across the lifespan when they're choosing partners.
You know, when till Death Do Us part was invented,
death was pretty imminent, and if you're having a kind
of grayish marriage.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Death might be pretty imminent.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
He hates it when I make that joke, by the way,
but I love it because a relationship is an exchange
of care, and care can take many different forms, and
the care that we're both anticipating in the future is
real care in the last third of our lives. So anyway,
congratulations to me, Congratulations to my wonderful new husband. Oh
(07:39):
my god, husband, I can't believe I'm saying that after
all these years. All right, on this show, I want
to talk a bit a lot about love here and there,
but also stay tuned because I have a very special
guest at the end of the show, Who's going to
talk to us about not only ray marriage, but gray divorce. Yeah,
(08:03):
I want to prevent that. Okay, gray divorce. Hey, it
may be natural for some, but not if you've got
married when you're already gray. Look, I'm not gray. I
color my hair. I just want to say, you can't
even see a gray hair. You're listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on k
I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So,
if you follow me on social media, specifically TikTok, you
know that I've got a million followers.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
You know probably if you've been following me for a while,
that my brand is slowly in transition. So here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
When you get stuck in one space on social media,
it becomes everything. And the truth is, I'm so much
more than relationship advice. Although I love to give relationship advice.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Here's my theory.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
By the way, about my little identity transformation here. During
all the years that I was single and had attachment
injuries and was in therapy and was in graduate school,
trying to put an intellectual eye on love to ultimately
(09:21):
heal myself right, And so I wrote three books on relationships.
I did a dissertation on attachment theory. I became obsessed
with our romantic attachment style and how we could heal
early life trauma that could lead to us finding constantly
being attracted to partners who hurt us. So I really
(09:43):
walked my walk. I don't know if you've ever heard
that saying. I think it's from the book Jonathan Livingston
segul we teach best what we most need to learn,
And so I would every time I would learn something new.
And you know, my career as a journalist a real
taught me how to take scientific information and put it
into language everybody could understand. So I blogged, and I
(10:06):
do podcasts, and I go on radio, and I write
books and I talk about wow, this aha moment, Oh
my gosh, just well, look what I learned. People with
an avoidant attachment style are mostly attracted to people with
an anxious attachment style, and there's this constant running all
the time in their relationship and nobody's really happy. But
those relationships tend to last a really long time, by
the way, because the running becomes the glue instead of
emotional intimacy. Anyway, that would be one example of what
(10:29):
I might have put in a TikTok video. So when
I met my fiance during the pandemic and we you know,
I continued to do all the things I've been teaching
you guys for the last ten years on KFI. I
did them. I did them because I've been teaching them.
We teach best what we most need to learn. And
(10:50):
I was able to build a secure attachment for the
first time in my life. I literally this morning, we
were in bed and I said I was going somewhere
for the day and he was going somewhere for the day,
and I said, oh, I'm not going to see you
all day and he's and I said, I don't think
I've ever had this kind of feeling where I didn't
even want to take a day off from somebody, And
(11:11):
he said me either, never had this feeling. So now
that I have what's called a secure attachment, I find
myself just a little a little less interested in lot,
you know, hardcore relationship advice, although you'll notice coming up
later in the show, I have a lot of stuff
for happily together couples to keep it happily together. Right,
(11:31):
So we're going to talk about whether a relationship can
survive cheating. Ten topics you should be talking about to
make your relationship stronger, et cetera. I'm still learning that, Okay,
still keeping it with you. But anyway, So on TikTok, lately,
you know i'd circle around. I say this to my
students too. I get off on side railroad trains of
stories and then I circle it back. We're talking about
social media and kids. So on my TikTok, I've been
(11:55):
doing lots of videos talking about how I'm changing, And
one of the videos is describing a road trip I
took during COVID with two teenagers to eight different states,
and I at one.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I've attended many Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Protests because it was during those days, and one of
them was up in a tiny town in Montana, and
I showed video of this and I was really quite
astounded at how many people came.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Out fully armed.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Well, I just showed the video right very few seconds
of it, TikTok banned me, warned me, shut me down.
It was the craziest and I couldn't figure out why
I got this warning.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I was just talking about a road trip and.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Teenagers and what we ate and where we stayed. But
then one of my I posted another video saying does
anybody know why my last video was taken down? And
then they said they don't allow pew pews. That's the code,
that's the code that the robots can't understand pew pew.
Apparently that means again anywhere on TikTok. So I was
both happy about this news and upset. My wonderful video
(13:01):
that I spent a long time editing got taken down.
By the way, it did get put back up because
I edited out that particular scene, So if you want
to go look at it, it's up.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
There on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So, you know, as our government is trying harder and
harder to protect kids, and there's all these rumors that
TikTok is going to be banned because the Chinese are
spying on us and our kids, and they're dominating and
manipulating and controlling the brains of our youth.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
All very true.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
By the way, I think the social media companies are
starting to get nervous and take some personal responsibility. The
data is undeniable, this infinite scroll that young brains enacting.
They're scrolling and scrolling and scrolling where they stay engaged
in those videos as long as possible. The research is
(13:50):
clear that this is not okay for kids. You see,
because of children's brain development, they don't have a fully
developed prefrontal cortex that's impulse control. They don't have the
ability to stop themselves or regulate their behaviors. Right, we
get mad at them that they're on their phones too long,
and that's like saying, why do you keep eating all
that sugar when we're the ones feeding it to you? Right,
(14:12):
So they're addicted. They're addicted mom and dad. So technology, now,
there have been some of the tech companies have enacted
forty four changes across different platforms to improve youth safety
and well being. So this includes things like listen up.
Instagram has announced that it will filter comments considered to
(14:34):
be bullying. So now, because of good AI and the robots,
it'll scroll through the comments if it looks like it's nasty,
then they're just going.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
To get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It's also using machine learning to identify bullying photos. I
wonder what's a bullying photo. Maybe when they take someone's
face and do weird things with it or whatever and
making fun of them.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Also, YouTube is now going to alert users when their
comments are deemed defensive, so you'll get a little note
saying we don't like this on this platform, and YouTube
promises to remove hate speech now. Privacy is another issue right.
Instagram says it will notify miners when they are interacting
(15:20):
with an adult who has been flagged for suspicious behaviors.
Owannder of miners would be alerted about me because I
got flagged for the gun thing. You never know, I
might be in a system now as a bad person.
Not that I send dms to minors anyway. And it
also does not allow adults to this one to message
(15:44):
miners who are more than two years younger than they are,
you know, the two year gap. You know why because
that conforms to the statutory rape thing. So statutory rape
is like, obviously you can't have sex with somebody under
the age of eighteen, but if you're nineteen, you could
have sex with a seventeen year old. That's to keep
the nineteen year olds and their girlfriends from going to
(16:05):
jail for that, right, So it's two year gap. The
other thing they're trying to do is improve time management.
So many of the platforms YouTube Kids has in fact
turned off auto play. You know how when you get
on YouTube and it goes from one video to the
another video to another video. Won't do that for kids.
They have to search and select the new one, which
takes time. They're also going to have more notifications telling
(16:27):
people like, you've been on too long, But I'm telling
you that doesn't work. There's this guy on TikTok who
jumps and he goes, hold up, now you've been scrolling
for too long, and as soon as I see him.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I just swipe past him. So I don't really think
that works.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Hey, speaking of social media, when we come back, there's
an unlikely social media platform you probably use every single
day that's now the number one platform being used to
find love. Let's talk about how you could use it
if you're single. When we come back, you are listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on k I Am
six forty We're live everywhere on the iHeart app.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
AM six forty. Well, the way that people meet and
mate in the mating marketplace seems to have changed. I
think people are getting sick of traditional dating apps. I
don't know why, by the way, because I used Bumble
and I found my love on Bumble. But I do
(17:28):
want to say this, it's not about the dating apps
that are bad. People always say I hate the dating apps.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
They're bad.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
It's not about the apps, it's about the skill. And
I've done lots of segments in the past where I
talked about how to use dating apps. Well, I'm going
to continue to continue to teach that, so stay with me. Also,
you know, I do this Patreon zoom group every Wednesday
night at six thirty, So if you ever want to
come on, you can ask me any questions about dating apps,
(17:57):
et cetera. I'll be happy to even weigh in on
your profile. I'll tell you what you can do. But
new research this week from datingnews dot Com also published
on Datingadvice dot com says that the number one platform
that people are looking.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
For mates on is Kayla. You're not going to believe this.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
LinkedIn really LinkedIn the business more on Instagram? Uh huh wow,
more than Instagram. Okay, So let's talk about dating and
mating in the workplace. According to research from getnuxs dot org,
twenty two percent of married couples in America met through
work and fifty two percent of employees have been involved
(18:42):
at one point or another in a workplace romance.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
A survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, they
found that a quarter there's about twenty five percent, folks.
One in four of US workers reported that they are
open to having a workplace romance. And just last year,
Forbes Advisor commissioned a survey of two thousand employed Americans
and they found that sixty percent of adults have had
(19:08):
a workplace romance, and of those, forty three percent married
someone they worked with. Now, this is a problem because
we are post me too now hashtag me too. Human
resources departments know that romances at the workplace can be
a legal nightmare. So it kind of makes sense to
(19:28):
me that LinkedIn has exploded as an online mating marketplace.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Let's think about it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Since the pandemic, everyone had to pivot right and go
online for everything their work, et cetera. So people moved
from water cooler conversations at the office to emails, DM zooms,
even online networking events. I'm going to go out on
a limb here and tell you that I would say
that evolutionary psychologists would argue that the whole darn reason
(19:57):
why people have occupations, professions, and work is less about
basic survival and much more about increasing their mate status
in the eyes of others.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
When I was on the dating apps, there was no
such thing as an employee, no such thing as a coworker.
There were founders, vps, managers, consultants. I mean, I had
a handyman once and I said, what do you put
on your app profile that you do?
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And he goes, oh, that I'm in construction management. Okay,
why not? That's what people do now.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
If you compare a LinkedIn profile with a dating app profile,
you get so much more. In LinkedIn, you can do
a deep dive into somebody's background. You could estimate their income,
you can look at their whole network of people they
even might mention their hobbies, any volunteer work they do.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Schooling is a good one.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
What if they went to your alma Mada and you
can call them up and go, hey, I'm an alumni,
or what if they're from your hometown. All that is
in most LinkedIn profiles. So here are the best benefits
from meeting on LinkedIn. In my opinion, I'm going to
tell you the best way to do it. After this
Number one, you can find someone with real world common interest.
They could be from a specific industry that you might
be in. They might be doing charity work your college. Also,
(21:19):
it allows you, when you scroll through LinkedIn profiles, to
find really targeted commonality rather than what I would like
to call the pithy self promotion that people write on
dating app profiles. I mean, who doesn't love sunset, walks
on the beach? Gag me, I'm done with it, right hiking,
(21:41):
Let's go hiking right now. Another benefit of LinkedIn is
that you can really vet people. I know that the
dating apps in recent years allow people to connect their
profiles with their Instagram profiles, so you can kind of
see who their friends are. See if you know someone
in common, but on LinkedIn, their professional network is right
there before your eyes. You can investigate them through real
(22:02):
world contexts. You can look at their comments, you can
see who they're reviewing. And here's the best part about LinkedIn.
Just want to say it, get it out there. There's
no HR policy to worry about. Since the advent, as
I mentioned of the me too movement, workplace romances have
become a nightmare for human resource departments. Many companies have
even enacted love contracts or complete romance prohibitions in their
(22:25):
employment contracts. So so far, I mean until next month,
I guess I don't know. LinkedIn doesn't have any HR
hall monitor to get nosy about you noodling?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
So how do you do it?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
First of all, I do want to say this, do
not send a private DM to a stranger on LinkedIn
with anything flirty. You wouldn't do it if you met
somebody in a restaurant or a grocery store. Why would
you do it online? So the first thing you do
if you identify somebody who's attractive to you is you
follow them, and then you become a watcher. You follow
(23:01):
them and you ask yourself what posts are they commenting on?
How active are they on the site. What can you
learn about them by what they're posting? Just watch them
for a while and it sounds creepy, but this is
what people do. Okay a second. Now you're going to
enlist your mutual connections. They have a thing on LinkedIn
mutual connections. You click on them and you see who
you know in common. So are you intimate enough with
(23:22):
any of those people to get some information? Could you
send them a simple message saying like, hey, so and
so singled you know? Or could you introduce me or whatever?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
You can? You see the network right there.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Now, when you get brave, you can finally send a
private message. Now, please make it short and sweet and
keep the topic on business at first. Include a mention
of whatever your common interest is. You know, maybe you
have the same you work for the same charity, you
went to the same university, whatever, same hometown, whatever.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
But don't be flirty.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
It's creepy when a complete stranger sends a flirty kind
of DM, and then all you do is you watch
for their response. Do they reciprocate? When they reciprocate, do
they extend the conversation by asking you a question? If
they're Kurt short perfunctory or worse, completely silent. You got
(24:13):
your answer, don't pursue further. Okay, silence is an answer.
And then my suggestion would be getting the real world fast,
find a professional pretense to get on the phone or
zoom and then you know. Then you got the advantage
of visuals right and voice, and your brain will be
able to pull in more information about whether this person
(24:34):
is right for you. So then it gets back to
real world dating. That's how you do it. Don't be creepy,
keep it light, keep it on business. You want to
keep them as a business contact if it doesn't work out, right,
But I totally understand why people are doing it. Alrighty,
when we come back, let us talk on the same
note about why your company needs a love contract, because
(24:59):
there's some Shenana agains going on when it comes to
love in real world workplaces.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You are listening to the Doctor wendywallsh Show on KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on k
I AM six forty we're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You know, in life and in our culture, rules are
changing all the time, and it's really important that we
keep up with the changes in our culture. Remember, the
very existence of a human being is every day and
(25:38):
sometimes in every moment, making a decision between your personal
survival you might call it selfishness and the survival of
the tribe. Because we are not meant to be alone.
We are wired to bond, we are wired to have
social support. In fact, the worst thing for humans is isolation.
We learned that during quarantine, and so we also have
(25:58):
to keep our ear to the ground of the tribe
says is acceptable. You know, before the break, I was
talking about how LinkedIn is now one of the most
powerful platforms where people are finding love, and I think
that's sort of a digital way of people moving away
from being direct in workplaces. In workplaces, it is very
(26:22):
important that we understand that people need to feel safe
in a work environment. Now that doesn't mean that you
cannot meet somebody at work, but it does mean that
if you do make an overture to somebody, who better
be on your level, meaning not somebody under you, and
you're the manager, Okay, can't do that. That's sexual harassment
(26:42):
for sure. If you hold any kind of power over
a person, influence even for a promotion, their paycheck, whatever,
you can't ask.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Them out, just don't, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
But if they're in another department and on around the
same level, of course you might meet somebody. However, you
don't want them to feel uncomfortable. So if you make
a little overture and it's not responded to, then move away.
That's actually I think employment lawyers would agree with me
that that's not considered sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is continual
(27:13):
or it is quid pro crow. If you don't do this,
then you're not going to get this promotion, or it's
like this toxic environment where you're constantly people are making
comments about your body all the time. Right. I have
a coworker, not here, not here, at another place who
always mentions if I've lost weight or gained weight every
time I see them, And I don't know if you're
(27:34):
aware that women lose and gain four or five pounds
on a regular basis. That's just our life. That's what
women do, and it irritates me every time. So I
finally de tend to gently say, hey, you know, nowadays
we don't talk about women's bodies at all in the workplace.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
It just like I said, it real sweet and cute
and he stopped. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
So many companies to protect themselves from all the sexual
harassment lawsuits that have flown around is they write a
love content tract for their employees. Now, these things have
been used for decades, but since the Me Too movement
in twenty seventeen, their use is pretty widespread in a
lot of industries. It's essentially a legal document. It's signed
(28:14):
by two employees who are having a romantic relationship, and
your original employment contract might say something like if you
enter into a romantic relationship in the workplace, you must
report it to HR and then you will be asked
to sign a love contract. The whole reason it's designed
to protect the company from claims right and also from
other coworkers witnessing. Would you guys get going on and
(28:38):
calling that a hostile work environment. There is nothing more
uncomfortable when you're trying to get your job done to
see two colleagues canoodling over by the water cooler. So
the love contract might have rules about that too, So
The love contract should prohibit all kinds of sexual harassment
as I mentioned, including quid pro quo and toxic environment.
(29:03):
They also make you both admit that the relationship is
consensual and that it won't have a negative impact on
your work at all. It also may include the possibility
of department transfer. So if you do fall in love
with the office and you do report it to HR
as you were told you're supposed to do, one of
(29:23):
you might have to be transferred. That might just be
a rule. At our company, their HR department says, I mean,
I'm not talking about our company, iHeart. I mean they're
whatever high hypothetical company I'm talking about. Their HR department
might say, here, at our company, as soon as you
admit that you're in a romantic relationship, one of you've
got to go, not leave the company, but will facilitate
a transfer. It also this istant important part. So relationships
(29:48):
at the office usually aren't so bad until it ends right,
and then people don't want to work with the person
and it's a.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Toxic environment there.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So the love contract might include things about what happens
that ends that protects employees from inappropriate conduct retaliation.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Also, of course, love.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Contracts are going to include limitations on public displays of
affection at the office.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
This is gross. Don't be kissing in the hallway, that's
just weird.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
So according to research, there are plenty of reasons why
HR departments need to have love contracts. One study showed
that one in four employees are open to having an
office romance, and one in five married couples in America
actually met at work. So even if you do lay
down the law and attempt to say enforce a no workplace.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Dating at all rule, that rule is going to be broken.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
There are exceptions in love contracts, like you can't date subordinates.
That's a lose lose for the subordinate. You got to
know that. And also remember, love gets messy. There's gossip
around the office. It's going to happen when it starts.
There could be envy, jealousy, resentment.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Ugly breakups.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
This can be a big problem for companies and for
HR departments. So it's really important that to avoid all
this drama that companies set up some specific guidelines.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I personally think it's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I think in everybody's employment of contract it should be Look,
if you date anybody at the office. You've got to
disclose it to us, and if you don't, then that
could lead to termination of your contract. And then if
you do, you'll be asked to sign a love contract
in some way. Let's face it, workplace romances are land mines, okay,
(31:41):
but we're doing it like one in four people, right,
it's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
All right.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
When we come back, I'm going to go to my
social media and I'm going to be answering some of.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Your relationship questions.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh, at Dr
Wendy Walsh, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok wherever. Just send me a message.
I'm not going to say your name on air, we'll
keep it private, but send me a question. I'll be
happy to answer it. You are listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty We Live
everywhere on.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
The iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always
hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven
to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on
the iHeartRadio app.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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