May 27, 2024 • 31 mins
Dr. Wendy's wedding is coming up FAST! We are talking tips to relieve bridal stress. PLUS, are you into a single parent? Here are some signs that a single parent may not be the right match for you. What is a vagus nerve? It's not a wild party. We know and we are teaching you how it evolved in us over time and how it could be affecting our relationships. ALSO why are we fooled in love? We are talking about all of it on KFIAM-640!
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(00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to KFI AM six forty the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show on demand on theiHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy
Welsh Show on KFI AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. I'm
doctor Wendy Walsh. If you're newto my show. I have a PhD
in clinical psychology. I'm a professor, not a therapist, and I am
(00:21):
obsessed, you know that, obsessedwith the science of love. I read
new studies all the time. Youknow. Some of my followers send me
emails and notes on social media,and one guy sent me a thing this
week. He goes, could itbe possible that they could be experimenting with
a vaccine that makes people like notcheat, a cheating vaccine? And I'm
(00:43):
like, that's a good, goodidea, because guess what, it's already
in development. There's actually they're testingon men and oxytocin no spray or no
spray laced with oxytocin the bonding hormone, and in studies, when men use
it, they find their own partnerfar more attractive than other people, just
saying, hey, but you shouldknow that everything I do. That I've
(01:06):
written three books on relationships, andif you've read them, you know me
better than I know me is usedas an act of catharsis, as I
am experientially going through what you're goingthrough. So guess what, Well,
you know, I'm engaged, I'mgetting married, I'm a woman of a
certain age. I'm going to tellyou what age. It's up there,
(01:27):
all right. I have been asingle mom for almost twenty years, and
I decided to put my kids first. Now it's not for everybody, but
I decided to not really date,and if I did, it was little
romantic compartments that my kids never knewabout when they were away or camp or
whatever. But I didn't really exposemy children to any potential, you know,
(01:49):
bad romantic choice that I might make. And so now I feel like
it's my time. In fact,I used to say to friends, don't
worry, Someday I'm gonna have akick ass retirement relationship. Well, nobody's
retiring, but at least we're gonna. We're gonna get there. So during
the beginning of COVID, I metthe man in my dreams and we are
planning a wedding for this summer.I have become quite aware about I have
(02:13):
become a little bit of a bridezilla. Now I understand the whole moniker of
bridezilla. What it is is this, we want our day or days.
If you're doing a destination wedding likewe are with it goes on for days.
We want everything to be perfect.Now, I am a natural planner,
so you should. I should letyou know. I have spreadsheets going
(02:35):
already. I have contact lists,I have budgets, I have crazy things.
I have you know, Pinterest boards. I am so organized. But
the question is will I be ableto handle it if it doesn't go as
expected? Well, I turned tothe authority on all of this, brides
dot Com, of course, andgot a little bit of advice from them
(02:57):
that I'd like to share with you. If you are planning your own way,
we if you are planning a weddingfor an adult daughter or son,
let's talk about what we need todo. Focus on priorities, Okay,
instead of spending a lot of mentalenergy like I've been nitpicking on every detailed,
detailed detail. I look at thebouquet, right, I'm going to
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do this flower wholesaler and do aDIY thing. But I have pictures and
pictures and pictures of how I wantit to be. I've taken pictures of
the mock up place, setting ofthe table I am. So you know
what, let's just think about thestuff that's the non negotiables. So,
in other words, our budgets arebudget. We're not going over our budget,
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right, that's it. That meanswe take things away. We don't
add things on because we get excited, and obviously we want everyone to have
some food, so food should comefirst. So the best advice is focus
on priorities, focus on just whatmatters, and don't fall down the rabbit's
hole of trying to make everything hypedetailed. But there's a big communication piece.
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Weddings are community events, whether thereare parents pitching in money, friends
pitching in money paying for things.I have my two best friends. If
you can imagine this, how lovedI am and honored I feel. My
two best friends are paying for thewelcome party. They are literally buying the
wine and the charcotere boards and everything. So I have an open line of
communication with them where I clearly toldthem, you know, anything over this
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budget I am going to pick up, So don't think it's going to get
out of hand. If it does, if people order more or whatever,
it's on me. Have good communicationwith all those people. Be very clear.
Now here's the thing. When peoplepay for something, they want to
have a little control too, Soyou're going to have to have a conversation
about what they can and cannot control. My girlfriends are totally cool. They're
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just like, where do we sendthe chat? Co're fine, We're good.
Whatever you want to do. Alsobreak it down into small steps.
I do that. Some days I'mjust working on food. Food, sometimes
invitation lists, sometimes accommodation. I'vebeen really busy on the accommodation part.
I want to make sure everybody's gota bed, But don't try to get
overwhelmed by all the details. That'sa good one. And also choose the
(05:13):
right support system. So, okay, this is how detail oriented I am.
We only have an hour before weget to the venue to set up
the tables. Can you imagine?And I'm going to be off somewhere looking
in a mirror fixing my eyelashes.I'm not going to be able to do
those tables the way I envision them, So, of course I set up
a mock table. I took verydetailed pictures of it, and I'm going
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to have twelve bins for twelve tables, and it's going to have the centerpieces
in it. It's going to havethe wineglasses in it, the place setting
is going to have it, thename cards, everything. And so I
found twelve friends and I'm gonna go. You're each in charge of a table,
and one of them is an interiordecorator, another one's a professional wedding
planner, so they can do thefinal eyeball of the room to make sure
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everything's not crooked, the table clawsand whatever. I literally said, would
you be a table decorator? Ifound that team and they're going to do
it. The other thing Bride's Magazinesuggests is we hire a wedding planner.
I can't afford to do that.But I have a friend who is on
her part time in her private life, a wedding planner for people, and
she says she would never do itfor money because she could never make enough
(06:20):
money to do it with the amountof work it is. She only does
it for love. So the dayof she's in charge, I mean Basically,
I have to take my fingers offthe controls. That's all I have
to do. Get off the controlsand let her take all over. The
other bit of advice that Bride's Magazinegives that I need to hear is continue
(06:43):
to date your partner while your busywedding planning. If the only conversation is
have you done this? Have youpaid for this? Is this happening?
Then you're going to be at eachother's throats, you know. My sweet
Julio said the other day, hesaid, we should go for a picnic
some Sunday like we used to dodoing during COVID. Our whole dating started
with picnics because we're all outdoors.Wasn't that romantic? So I think I'm
(07:04):
gonna have to pack up picnic.We didn't do it today, We'll have
to do it next Sunday. Whynot? Why not? Hey? When
we come back. I mentioned thatI was a single mother for almost twenty
years and that I didn't date,and I tried to date a little bit
here and there without my kids knowingabout it, but it never worked out
because a lot of those guys werenot prepared to date a single parent,
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a single parent. If you're agood parent, your kids should come first.
So when we come back, let'stalk about when you should not date.
A single parent should not. Hereare the signs you're not ready for
it. You're listening to The DoctorAndndywall Show and KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on
(07:53):
demand from KFI AM six forty.Welcome back to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show
six forty, Live everywhere on theiHeartRadio App. I want to tell you
a story. One time, mykids were getting older and I thought I
would dip my toe into the datingworld. I know, because there's a
bunch of guys out there are goingto be like, what do you mean
You didn't date for eighteen years?Remember that dinner I paid for? I
(08:16):
tried. Okay, I tried,but my kids always came first. And
when you're a single parent, youcan't just pick up and run away for
a romantic weekend because dinner dates haveto go somewhere at some point. And
if I did, then the waymy children would punish me when I came
back, it was just not worthit. And the money I would have
(08:37):
to pay for childcare. It wasn'tworth it anyway. At a certain age,
my kids were getting older. Ithink my youngest one was ten and
my oldest one was fifteen, Andso I had a dinner date planned with
a guy, and it was decidedthat we would go in my neighborhood where
we could literally walk out to therestaurant. We had some nice restaurants near
the place. So we have adinner. It's a really lovely dinner.
(09:00):
Have appetizers, we have main course, we have dessert. We're just in
the middle of dessert, and myphone rings. Now at this point,
it's probably like nine thirty, quarterto ten. The ten year old is
home by herself, but I'm aroundthe corner and she goes, Mom,
(09:20):
when are you coming home? Areyou almost finished? And I did things
bombs are supposed to say, Yeah, we're just on dessert, honey,
we just have to get the check. I'll be a few minutes. You're
okay by yourself, And I watchedmy date's face fall literally like, ugh,
I guess this date's over paid fordinner for nothing, right. I
(09:41):
could just see I could see whathe was thinking at that time. He
had no concept of what a bigdeal it was to even go around the
corner and leave a ten year oldalone for two hours. It was a
big event for us. I actuallyexpected her fifteen year old sister to be
home on time, but she waslate, and you know how it happens.
So let's talk about if you're thinkingof dating a single parent, what
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you need to know. And thiscomes up. Actually, we have a
couple people in my Zoom group thatmeets on Wednesday night and they ask this
question a lot about it. Theymeet people who have children and how do
they negotiate that? Right? Sonumber one, if you are jealous of
their kids, you should not bedating them. Look, we don't like
to share a partner. Nobody likesto share your partner with somebody else,
(10:28):
and some people are more jealous thanothers. Right, but I will tell
you that a good parent, andI assume if you want to potentially have
a long term relationship with this person, you'd want them to be a good
parent because you will eventually be theirnext child or you'll have a child together.
Right, they're gonna look, comeon, I'll be your mommy if
you be my daddy. That's kindof what relationships are, right, So
(10:50):
nobody likes sharing. But if you'recompletely jealous that they put their kids first,
then you're gonna have a really hardtime. I will say you should
stop and acknowledge. I think thefeeling of jealousy is one of the most
dangerous feelings. If we don't acknowledgeit, experience it, and even express
it and talk about it and justcome clean about our feelings, we might
(11:11):
be able to get through it.But hey, if you're jealous of their
kids, don't date them. Allright. Oh here's another big one.
All you like spontaneity in a relationship, you want to just surprise them at
work with some flowers and say I'mtaking you out to dinner tonight, or
you just say, hey, Igot tickets for us to go to this
other city this weekend. Let's goto this show that's taken place in Phoenix
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or Portland or whatever. Let's justgo. No, it doesn't work with
a single parent, no way.Spontaneity. Everything has to be planned.
Childcare needs to be planned, drivingto all their sports events on weekends needs
to be planned. There's so muchthat needs to happen. So if you're
somebody who wants to be a jetsetter or grab a quick romantic lunch out
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of the blue. No, notgonna happen with a single parent. You
can't surprise them. Can't surprise them. Oh here's a big, big one.
This comes up a lot in myparenting. My parenting no they're not
parenting grows my Patreon group where wetalk about people who are in relationships with
people who have kids, and theymay both have kids, maybe a blended
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family, etc. If you resentthe fact that you have to bite your
tongue about parenting issues, then youshould not be dating a single parent.
Now I have a couple examples.So, my younger brother, when his
boys were teenagers, met a womanwho had teenage boys, and the sense
of kids were all round the sameage, and they were heading towards the
(12:43):
end of high school. Before youknow it, they moved in together.
I think they got married, maybewhen the very last one was a senior
in high school or something, andthey moved them all in together, and
they made a decision that they wouldform a blended family, and that they
would never refer to the kids asmy kids. They would refer to the
kids always as our kids, andthey would continue to present a unified front,
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so they would have private conversations intheir own room about how to discipline
one of their four kids. Okay, so that works for only a few
couples. The rest of them,it works better to say, look,
I'm in charge of my kids,you're in charge of yours, or you
don't have kids and you don't parent, so how would you know what we've
(13:26):
been through? You know. Likeone of the things I say to Julio
all the time is he'll be like, you know, maybe he'll be criticizing
something about one of my kids,and I'll say, you know, you
weren't here the last twenty years.You didn't see that this actually is progress,
that this is actually a step forward. She's doing better than she was
doing before. But you know,a relationship between a parent and child takes
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years to build, and a strangercan't just step in there and start being
a director. So you better learnto bite your tongue. Also, along
the same lines of Spon teneity,that you want to control the timing of
the relationship. So I remember onetime a friend of mine, he had
three kids and she had one,I think, and they were young adult
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in high school age, and theywere planning, you know, they were
going to date for this amount oftime, then they were going to live
together for this amount of time,and then they're going to get married on
this date. Well it all fellapart. They ended up living together for
longer, they ended up planning thewed and canceling it twice. And as
he said, there are six peoplein this decision, four young adults in
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us, and everybody's lives are gettingin the way. And so eventually they
did marry and they are happy,and the nest got empty. But you
can't control the timing when there arethe needs of other people involved. Maybe
one is going to end up spendingan extra year at school, maybe one
needs more parenting for a little longerbefore they launch. And here's probably the
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biggest reason why you should not datea single parent. If you just don't
like kids. I mean, thereare people out there who don't like kids.
I don't know. If you watchBill Maher, it's I mean,
I think his comedy is great,but I just cringe every time he talks
about how much he hates kids.You know, he was a kid,
and you know he became a comedianbecause he had a bad childhood and that's
why he hates kids, because hedoesn't you know, his memories of his
(15:18):
childhood are bad. I can guaranteeit. I'll just diagnose him publicly.
Why not. So if you don'tlike kids, please don't date somebody with
children, please please. This isnot a good idea. All right,
when we come back, let's talkabout stress. I am also a professor
of health psychology, and I'm goingto teach you how to activate your vegas
nerve. No, it's not whatyou think. You're listening to the Doctor
(15:39):
Wendywall Show on k I AM sixforty one Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh ondemand from KFI AM six forty Welcome
back to the Doctor Wendywall Show onKFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. So. I teacha number of things at cal State Channel
Islands. One of the is Iam honored to teach, and probably my
(16:02):
favorite one actually is called Psychology ofHealth Counseling. I'm actually teaching it by
zoom this summer. So if anyof my students are listening. You can
still sign up because let's just getthrough it this summer, shall we?
It'll be fun. One of thesections I teach in how psychology is coping
with stress. You know, whatis a stress war, what a stress
(16:22):
due to the body, and whatkind of anxiety does it create? I
feel, in some ways post COVIDthat we as a culture have entered an
age of anxiety. So many peopleexperience chronic anxiety right now, and it
is so correlated with our health outcomes. Now we know that what anxiety does
(16:47):
is it triggers our body's stress response, and when that happens, our body
releases stress hormones. You probably heardof them, Adrenaline, cortisol, really
important stress hormones that you need ifyou're running from a lion or a bear.
Okay, but you don't need it. If you're sitting in traffic,
you don't need it. If you'resitting at a computer, you don't need
(17:07):
it. If you're trying to getto sleep and you're ruminating about why he
didn't call back, that is astress you don't need. You don't need
that cortisol or adrenaline. So whathappens is chronic anxiety starts to prolong the
exposure to these hormones, and thatcan result in health issues. So here
are the big ones. When youhave chronic anxiety, you can get suppression
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of the immune system. So ifyou're constantly getting colds and flus could be
anxiety related. You could get psychosomaticdisorders like stomach aches, chest pains,
headaches. And I want to stopand remind everybody, especially my students who
might have gotten this wrong on mylast exam. This is the question.
See if you can answer it.Producer Kayla, are you with me,
(17:52):
I'm going to give you a test. Okay, If somebody has a psychosomatic
disorder, it means they're imagining theirsymptoms. True or false? True,
false, till it's false. Fiftypercent of my students, even after I
teach it, still answer true.When you have a psychosomatic illness, it
(18:14):
means psycho means psychological, somatic meansthe body. It means the emotional brain
colludes with the body and makes itsick. Now, you may go to
the doctor and the doctor say Ican't find the reason for your pain,
but the pain is real and thehealth outcomes are real. In fact,
as children chronic anxiety can even impactgrowth and development. So we have to
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learn to make the connection between ourphysical symptoms and our psychological symptoms. Right,
But there are things that we cando to calm ourselves down. And
what we need to do is learnhow to stimulate what's called our parasympathetic nervous
system. So you know biology oneoh one, folks, the role.
You have an automatic nervous system,right, It's got two sides. The
(19:04):
parasympathetic nervous system, I'm sorry,not stimulated to calm it down. Sorry,
I got it backwards. You don'twant to stimulate it, you want
to calm it down. The parasympatheticnervous system is sometimes called rest and digest,
and the sympathetic nervous system is calledfight or flight. Right, So
(19:25):
your sympathetic nervous system is the onethat increases your heart rate. It does
make you more alert because you've gotto look out for that lion or tiger
or bear that's chasing you. Andit does release activating hormones like neuropinephron and
epinephron that can make you run reallyfast if you need to outrun a lion,
tiger, or bear, but notif you're sitting on the one oh
one mad because you're not moving andyou're going five miles an hour. Okay,
(19:47):
So the parasympathetic nervous system controls ourheart. It slows down our heart
rate, it slows down our digestivesystem, it slows down our respiratory system.
In a minute, I'm going totell you one big trick that will
only take you about sixty seconds todo that will actually activate your parasympathetic nervous
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system right away. It's not comfortable, you're not going to want to do
it, but if you try itwhen you have anxiety, it will really
work. But before I get there, let's talk about what research has said
can help activate our sympathetic nervous system. Spending time in nature. There's lots
of research to show that spending timein nature is good for your health.
It actually increases immune system cells.Getting a massage. I am overdue.
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I've actually been back to you know, trying to get back in wedding shape.
I've been going to agree. Igo to Studio MDR. It's my
favorite. There are five locations thatthey didn't pay me to say this.
I just love them so much,and honestly, I've only gone eight times
and I've lost five pounds, andI have clinched in my belt an inch
of two and not cha two.Yeah. But anyway, I need a
massage because I'm stiff. Every inchof my body hurts. Because that is
(20:57):
a total body workout. You canlisten to relaxing music. So at the
end of my busy day, Icome home and I love to cook.
That's my hobby. It's relaxing forme. But I cannot cook unless there's
quiet jazz playing in the background.And I've lit a candle, you know,
for Mother's Day? Do you remember, did I tell you? Producer
(21:18):
Kayla gave me a beautiful scented candle, So now I'll light it when I
cook dinner later. Just smell wonderful. It does mell wonderful. So listen
to relaxing music. It can helpstimulate your sympathetic nervous system. The other
big one our relationships. Increase yoursocial connections with others. Laugh with them,
be funny. One of the reasonswhy Producer Kayla and I have such
a good relationship is before we startany live show, we tell some stories
(21:44):
of our week and laugh our buttsoff. Don't we They're tragic stories,
but we find a way to laughat them. Right. I don't have
to tell you that you can stimulateyour sympathetic nervous system by meditating, exercising,
and of course taking a few deepbreaths. Now here's the prescription I
promised you. Here's how you canactivate your vegus nerve. Okay, your
vegus nerve is the most important toolyou have in your toolbox to reduce anxiety.
(22:11):
It's called the cold water plunge.It's also known as the diving reflex
or the mammalian dive reflex. Sohere's what it is. When your face
comes into contact with cold water,especially around the nose and the mouth,
it triggers sensory receptors in the skinand they signal the receptors of the brain
to signal a trigeminal trigeminal nerve thatyou didn't know you had to trigeminal nerve,
(22:37):
did you. Here's what it does. Basically, it instantly slows down,
so it imagines that you're drowning incold water, and so it tells
the body just get oxygen to thebrain and nowhere else. Calm down.
Everything. We can't waste time onbreathing, digestion, anything else going on.
Let us just calm down and survivewith the brain. So here's what
you do. You take a bigold mixing ball in your cupboard. You
(23:00):
fill it full of cold water.You add ice cubes. Let us sit
for a few minutes so it getsnice and cold. You take it big
deep breath, and you hold yourbreath, and you put your whole face
in the cold water. Yes,your forehead, yes, your chin,
yes, your eyes, nose,and mouth, and you hold your breath
for at least fifteen seconds underwater.I know if you're a vapor and smoker
you probably can't hold your breath thatlong, but let's assume you can.
(23:22):
And then you take it out.You gasp, you take a few deep
breaths, you relax, You waitabout thirty seconds, and you do it
again. Do it up to threetimes. If you're feeling anxiety, I
promise you the cold water plunge wouldchange your life. Don't say I didn't
tell you. Don't say I don'thave you back. I know how to
reduce anxiety for you. All right, when we come back. Maybe you
(23:45):
have anxiety around love. Guess whatwe fool ourselves sometimes when we're looking for
love. Let's talk about the tricksour brain plays on us. You're listening
to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show onKFI AM six forty one, Lave Everywhere
on the iHeartRadio Apple. You're listeningto Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty Welcome back to theDoctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six
(24:06):
forty Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I want to tell you about this
dissertation that I read recently from aresearcher in the Netherlands. Her name is
Ileana Samara. I like people toget credit for their work because dissertations are
so hard. You know, inorder to get your PhD in clinical psychology,
you have to mount a research study, and a lot of students do
(24:27):
small, quick, easy ones.But I was a dumb student and I
did a whole longitudinal study where Ifollowed one hundred pregnant women for a year
and I looked at the relationship betweentheir own romantic attachment style and their ability
to breastfeed. My hypothesis was thatthose with a insecure attachment style or avoidant
(24:48):
attachment style would be less likely tobreastfeed. What I found out is that
people with an avoidant attachment style areless likely to sign up for such studies.
So that particular group was small,but I did get to talk about
the statistical significance of an instrument Imade. When you think instrument, you
think I took some fire and metaland made an instrument. No, it
(25:11):
just means a test, a testthat I made that had good reliability and
validity. Anyway, So I'm readingthis dissertation because it's right up my alley.
It is about the kind of tricksour brains play on us. And
some of the stuff that Samara didhas been proven in other studies, but
it was interesting to see what shedid. She got a group of people
(25:33):
together, ten men, ten women. That's good and manageable. You can
do that, And over four sessionsshe had them do some different experiments and
one was a speed dating experiment.And so she wanted to answer the question
how do we form romantic bonds?Right? Does our brain really get us
the best mate or does it perceivecertain things as attractive and then we follow
(25:56):
it? So she found duh,that people respond faster to attractive faces.
She figured out this with the fiveminute speed dating thing, that if somebody
had she showed all the guys andthe girls the pictures ahead of time,
so they knew, so she knewwhich ones they felt most attractive, and
then when they saw them in reallife, they're very quickly to respond.
(26:18):
They're very animated. But here's aninteresting thing about human nature. So when
you meet somebody, did you knowif you like them, you unconsciously mirror
them. If they tilt their head, the other person tilts their head.
If you know, put a handon a hip, they'll put their hand
on. They'll start watching that,and it means that they like each other.
They'll mirror exactly what they're doing.With one interesting exception, if the
(26:41):
well not really an exception. Thinkof it this way, the person.
If the person's gaze goes to anotherdirection, maybe they see something across the
room, the other person will followtheir gaze. Right, that's the indicator.
I'll follow their gaze. We guesswhat, which she proved in her
dissertation is not if they're looking ata really hot person, that really hot
person can look at a fire happeningacross the room and the person won't take
(27:04):
their eyes off the attractive person.They hold the gaze too long. This
is the brain tricking you, trickingyou into thinking it's just so lovely to
stare at this person. Why lookat anything else right now. The other
thing, she asked, she waslooking for something called the over perception bias.
(27:26):
This has been proven in other studiestoo, so she basically after they
did the speed dating thing, sheand her colleagues asked all the participants,
all the men and all the women, whether they had interest in the people
they saw, and whether they thoughtthat interest was mutual. And guess what.
(27:48):
Men overestimated the likelihood that their datewould want to see them again.
You know, we have always knownabout this over perception by I often say
it is largely responsible for many casesof sexual harassment in the workplace. Men
are psychologically wired to think almost everywoman is into them, literally like,
(28:11):
oh, yeah, she wants togo with me. I can tell.
Now you have to ask evolutionarily whythis is. Think of it this way.
Dudes have a hard life in heterosexualrelationships. They have to find a
woman they find attractive, although researchhas shown they find men find way more
women attractive than women find men attractive. It's we're more selective on our side.
(28:36):
But anyway, they find a womanwho's attractive, then they have to
have the guts to go and talkto her, and then they have to
say the right thing that makes hernot think like they're weird, and then
they have to ask her out.That takes a lot of courage, It
takes a lot of bravery. Somother Nature said, you know what,
We're going to prime you by sayingyou know what, She's probably going to
say yes, Just go for it. She's probably going to say yes.
(28:57):
I call the over perception by it'scalled the sexual over perception bias, the
thing that keeps one dude in thestrip club too long. His buddies leave
after the bachelor party and they're like, come on, dude, we gotta
go, we gotta go. He'say, no, I want to wait till
she gets off because I think she'sreally into me. Man, I think
she really is. Look at her. Look how she's looking at me.
(29:17):
I think she's in. They're like, no, she's there for the money,
dude, No, no, no, really, I'm just gonna wait
till she gets off. Okay,see what happens, right, And they
leave and shrug their shoulders. Butevery once in a while there's a dude
who thinks that way, and that'sprobably why women who are exotic dancers usually
have someone walk them to the car, because there's one of those dudes out
there. It's also sometimes sadly responsiblefor sexual harassment at the workplace. The
(29:41):
guys will be like, but she, she gave me all those signals like
I thought she was into me.I'm like, oh, my heart breaks
for that nerdy guy who didn't know. A smile doesn't mean that we want
to have sex with you. Asmile just means we're in a good mood,
or the sun is out, orwe like the dress we're wearing that
day. I don't know, likereally guys, but that is how guys
(30:03):
are wired. So obviously, thebig limitation of this study is that the
researcher only did heterosexual couples. Bisexualand homosexual couples get studied less often.
But it's really interesting when some ofthat research does come out. So I
want you to be careful when you'reout there in the world when you're looking
(30:23):
for love. Don't get stuck onthe most attractive person in the room.
Understand that they might not like youas much as you like them, and
that you have to be able tohandle rejection sometimes. Move on, find
somebody in your league. You've gotthis. Hey, when we come back,
I'm going to my social media toanswer some of the questions that you
guys have been sending me in yourDMS. Love that you're listening to the
(30:47):
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AMsix forty. We live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. You've been listening toDoctor Wendy Waalsh. You can always hear
us live on KFI AM six fortyfrom seven to nine pm I'm on Sunday
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadioapp.
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to KFI AM six forty the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show on demand on theiHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy
Welsh Show on KFI AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. I'm
doctor Wendy Walsh. If you're newto my show. I have a PhD
in clinical psychology. I'm a professor, not a therapist, and I am
(00:21):
obsessed, you know that, obsessedwith the science of love. I read
new studies all the time. Youknow. Some of my followers send me
emails and notes on social media,and one guy sent me a thing this
week. He goes, could itbe possible that they could be experimenting with
a vaccine that makes people like notcheat, a cheating vaccine? And I'm
(00:43):
like, that's a good, goodidea, because guess what, it's already
in development. There's actually they're testingon men and oxytocin no spray or no
spray laced with oxytocin the bonding hormone, and in studies, when men use
it, they find their own partnerfar more attractive than other people, just
saying, hey, but you shouldknow that everything I do. That I've
(01:06):
written three books on relationships, andif you've read them, you know me
better than I know me is usedas an act of catharsis, as I
am experientially going through what you're goingthrough. So guess what, Well,
you know, I'm engaged, I'mgetting married, I'm a woman of a
certain age. I'm going to tellyou what age. It's up there,
(01:27):
all right. I have been asingle mom for almost twenty years, and
I decided to put my kids first. Now it's not for everybody, but
I decided to not really date,and if I did, it was little
romantic compartments that my kids never knewabout when they were away or camp or
whatever. But I didn't really exposemy children to any potential, you know,
(01:49):
bad romantic choice that I might make. And so now I feel like
it's my time. In fact,I used to say to friends, don't
worry, Someday I'm gonna have akick ass retirement relationship. Well, nobody's
retiring, but at least we're gonna. We're gonna get there. So during
the beginning of COVID, I metthe man in my dreams and we are
planning a wedding for this summer.I have become quite aware about I have
(02:13):
become a little bit of a bridezilla. Now I understand the whole moniker of
bridezilla. What it is is this, we want our day or days.
If you're doing a destination wedding likewe are with it goes on for days.
We want everything to be perfect.Now, I am a natural planner,
so you should. I should letyou know. I have spreadsheets going
(02:35):
already. I have contact lists,I have budgets, I have crazy things.
I have you know, Pinterest boards. I am so organized. But
the question is will I be ableto handle it if it doesn't go as
expected? Well, I turned tothe authority on all of this, brides
dot Com, of course, andgot a little bit of advice from them
(02:57):
that I'd like to share with you. If you are planning your own way,
we if you are planning a weddingfor an adult daughter or son,
let's talk about what we need todo. Focus on priorities, Okay,
instead of spending a lot of mentalenergy like I've been nitpicking on every detailed,
detailed detail. I look at thebouquet, right, I'm going to
(03:21):
do this flower wholesaler and do aDIY thing. But I have pictures and
pictures and pictures of how I wantit to be. I've taken pictures of
the mock up place, setting ofthe table I am. So you know
what, let's just think about thestuff that's the non negotiables. So,
in other words, our budgets arebudget. We're not going over our budget,
(03:42):
right, that's it. That meanswe take things away. We don't
add things on because we get excited, and obviously we want everyone to have
some food, so food should comefirst. So the best advice is focus
on priorities, focus on just whatmatters, and don't fall down the rabbit's
hole of trying to make everything hypedetailed. But there's a big communication piece.
(04:02):
Weddings are community events, whether thereare parents pitching in money, friends
pitching in money paying for things.I have my two best friends. If
you can imagine this, how lovedI am and honored I feel. My
two best friends are paying for thewelcome party. They are literally buying the
wine and the charcotere boards and everything. So I have an open line of
communication with them where I clearly toldthem, you know, anything over this
(04:26):
budget I am going to pick up, So don't think it's going to get
out of hand. If it does, if people order more or whatever,
it's on me. Have good communicationwith all those people. Be very clear.
Now here's the thing. When peoplepay for something, they want to
have a little control too, Soyou're going to have to have a conversation
about what they can and cannot control. My girlfriends are totally cool. They're
(04:49):
just like, where do we sendthe chat? Co're fine, We're good.
Whatever you want to do. Alsobreak it down into small steps.
I do that. Some days I'mjust working on food. Food, sometimes
invitation lists, sometimes accommodation. I'vebeen really busy on the accommodation part.
I want to make sure everybody's gota bed, But don't try to get
overwhelmed by all the details. That'sa good one. And also choose the
(05:13):
right support system. So, okay, this is how detail oriented I am.
We only have an hour before weget to the venue to set up
the tables. Can you imagine?And I'm going to be off somewhere looking
in a mirror fixing my eyelashes.I'm not going to be able to do
those tables the way I envision them, So, of course I set up
a mock table. I took verydetailed pictures of it, and I'm going
(05:34):
to have twelve bins for twelve tables, and it's going to have the centerpieces
in it. It's going to havethe wineglasses in it, the place setting
is going to have it, thename cards, everything. And so I
found twelve friends and I'm gonna go. You're each in charge of a table,
and one of them is an interiordecorator, another one's a professional wedding
planner, so they can do thefinal eyeball of the room to make sure
(05:56):
everything's not crooked, the table clawsand whatever. I literally said, would
you be a table decorator? Ifound that team and they're going to do
it. The other thing Bride's Magazinesuggests is we hire a wedding planner.
I can't afford to do that.But I have a friend who is on
her part time in her private life, a wedding planner for people, and
she says she would never do itfor money because she could never make enough
(06:20):
money to do it with the amountof work it is. She only does
it for love. So the dayof she's in charge, I mean Basically,
I have to take my fingers offthe controls. That's all I have
to do. Get off the controlsand let her take all over. The
other bit of advice that Bride's Magazinegives that I need to hear is continue
(06:43):
to date your partner while your busywedding planning. If the only conversation is
have you done this? Have youpaid for this? Is this happening?
Then you're going to be at eachother's throats, you know. My sweet
Julio said the other day, hesaid, we should go for a picnic
some Sunday like we used to dodoing during COVID. Our whole dating started
with picnics because we're all outdoors.Wasn't that romantic? So I think I'm
(07:04):
gonna have to pack up picnic.We didn't do it today, We'll have
to do it next Sunday. Whynot? Why not? Hey? When
we come back. I mentioned thatI was a single mother for almost twenty
years and that I didn't date,and I tried to date a little bit
here and there without my kids knowingabout it, but it never worked out
because a lot of those guys werenot prepared to date a single parent,
(07:28):
a single parent. If you're agood parent, your kids should come first.
So when we come back, let'stalk about when you should not date.
A single parent should not. Hereare the signs you're not ready for
it. You're listening to The DoctorAndndywall Show and KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on
(07:53):
demand from KFI AM six forty.Welcome back to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show
six forty, Live everywhere on theiHeartRadio App. I want to tell you
a story. One time, mykids were getting older and I thought I
would dip my toe into the datingworld. I know, because there's a
bunch of guys out there are goingto be like, what do you mean
You didn't date for eighteen years?Remember that dinner I paid for? I
(08:16):
tried. Okay, I tried,but my kids always came first. And
when you're a single parent, youcan't just pick up and run away for
a romantic weekend because dinner dates haveto go somewhere at some point. And
if I did, then the waymy children would punish me when I came
back, it was just not worthit. And the money I would have
(08:37):
to pay for childcare. It wasn'tworth it anyway. At a certain age,
my kids were getting older. Ithink my youngest one was ten and
my oldest one was fifteen, Andso I had a dinner date planned with
a guy, and it was decidedthat we would go in my neighborhood where
we could literally walk out to therestaurant. We had some nice restaurants near
the place. So we have adinner. It's a really lovely dinner.
(09:00):
Have appetizers, we have main course, we have dessert. We're just in
the middle of dessert, and myphone rings. Now at this point,
it's probably like nine thirty, quarterto ten. The ten year old is
home by herself, but I'm aroundthe corner and she goes, Mom,
(09:20):
when are you coming home? Areyou almost finished? And I did things
bombs are supposed to say, Yeah, we're just on dessert, honey,
we just have to get the check. I'll be a few minutes. You're
okay by yourself, And I watchedmy date's face fall literally like, ugh,
I guess this date's over paid fordinner for nothing, right. I
(09:41):
could just see I could see whathe was thinking at that time. He
had no concept of what a bigdeal it was to even go around the
corner and leave a ten year oldalone for two hours. It was a
big event for us. I actuallyexpected her fifteen year old sister to be
home on time, but she waslate, and you know how it happens.
So let's talk about if you're thinkingof dating a single parent, what
(10:05):
you need to know. And thiscomes up. Actually, we have a
couple people in my Zoom group thatmeets on Wednesday night and they ask this
question a lot about it. Theymeet people who have children and how do
they negotiate that? Right? Sonumber one, if you are jealous of
their kids, you should not bedating them. Look, we don't like
to share a partner. Nobody likesto share your partner with somebody else,
(10:28):
and some people are more jealous thanothers. Right, but I will tell
you that a good parent, andI assume if you want to potentially have
a long term relationship with this person, you'd want them to be a good
parent because you will eventually be theirnext child or you'll have a child together.
Right, they're gonna look, comeon, I'll be your mommy if
you be my daddy. That's kindof what relationships are, right, So
(10:50):
nobody likes sharing. But if you'recompletely jealous that they put their kids first,
then you're gonna have a really hardtime. I will say you should
stop and acknowledge. I think thefeeling of jealousy is one of the most
dangerous feelings. If we don't acknowledgeit, experience it, and even express
it and talk about it and justcome clean about our feelings, we might
(11:11):
be able to get through it.But hey, if you're jealous of their
kids, don't date them. Allright. Oh here's another big one.
All you like spontaneity in a relationship, you want to just surprise them at
work with some flowers and say I'mtaking you out to dinner tonight, or
you just say, hey, Igot tickets for us to go to this
other city this weekend. Let's goto this show that's taken place in Phoenix
(11:35):
or Portland or whatever. Let's justgo. No, it doesn't work with
a single parent, no way.Spontaneity. Everything has to be planned.
Childcare needs to be planned, drivingto all their sports events on weekends needs
to be planned. There's so muchthat needs to happen. So if you're
somebody who wants to be a jetsetter or grab a quick romantic lunch out
(11:58):
of the blue. No, notgonna happen with a single parent. You
can't surprise them. Can't surprise them. Oh here's a big, big one.
This comes up a lot in myparenting. My parenting no they're not
parenting grows my Patreon group where wetalk about people who are in relationships with
people who have kids, and theymay both have kids, maybe a blended
(12:22):
family, etc. If you resentthe fact that you have to bite your
tongue about parenting issues, then youshould not be dating a single parent.
Now I have a couple examples.So, my younger brother, when his
boys were teenagers, met a womanwho had teenage boys, and the sense
of kids were all round the sameage, and they were heading towards the
(12:43):
end of high school. Before youknow it, they moved in together.
I think they got married, maybewhen the very last one was a senior
in high school or something, andthey moved them all in together, and
they made a decision that they wouldform a blended family, and that they
would never refer to the kids asmy kids. They would refer to the
kids always as our kids, andthey would continue to present a unified front,
(13:05):
so they would have private conversations intheir own room about how to discipline
one of their four kids. Okay, so that works for only a few
couples. The rest of them,it works better to say, look,
I'm in charge of my kids,you're in charge of yours, or you
don't have kids and you don't parent, so how would you know what we've
(13:26):
been through? You know. Likeone of the things I say to Julio
all the time is he'll be like, you know, maybe he'll be criticizing
something about one of my kids,and I'll say, you know, you
weren't here the last twenty years.You didn't see that this actually is progress,
that this is actually a step forward. She's doing better than she was
doing before. But you know,a relationship between a parent and child takes
(13:48):
years to build, and a strangercan't just step in there and start being
a director. So you better learnto bite your tongue. Also, along
the same lines of Spon teneity,that you want to control the timing of
the relationship. So I remember onetime a friend of mine, he had
three kids and she had one,I think, and they were young adult
(14:13):
in high school age, and theywere planning, you know, they were
going to date for this amount oftime, then they were going to live
together for this amount of time,and then they're going to get married on
this date. Well it all fellapart. They ended up living together for
longer, they ended up planning thewed and canceling it twice. And as
he said, there are six peoplein this decision, four young adults in
(14:35):
us, and everybody's lives are gettingin the way. And so eventually they
did marry and they are happy,and the nest got empty. But you
can't control the timing when there arethe needs of other people involved. Maybe
one is going to end up spendingan extra year at school, maybe one
needs more parenting for a little longerbefore they launch. And here's probably the
(14:56):
biggest reason why you should not datea single parent. If you just don't
like kids. I mean, thereare people out there who don't like kids.
I don't know. If you watchBill Maher, it's I mean,
I think his comedy is great,but I just cringe every time he talks
about how much he hates kids.You know, he was a kid,
and you know he became a comedianbecause he had a bad childhood and that's
why he hates kids, because hedoesn't you know, his memories of his
(15:18):
childhood are bad. I can guaranteeit. I'll just diagnose him publicly.
Why not. So if you don'tlike kids, please don't date somebody with
children, please please. This isnot a good idea. All right,
when we come back, let's talkabout stress. I am also a professor
of health psychology, and I'm goingto teach you how to activate your vegas
nerve. No, it's not whatyou think. You're listening to the Doctor
(15:39):
Wendywall Show on k I AM sixforty one Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh ondemand from KFI AM six forty Welcome
back to the Doctor Wendywall Show onKFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. So. I teacha number of things at cal State Channel
Islands. One of the is Iam honored to teach, and probably my
(16:02):
favorite one actually is called Psychology ofHealth Counseling. I'm actually teaching it by
zoom this summer. So if anyof my students are listening. You can
still sign up because let's just getthrough it this summer, shall we?
It'll be fun. One of thesections I teach in how psychology is coping
with stress. You know, whatis a stress war, what a stress
(16:22):
due to the body, and whatkind of anxiety does it create? I
feel, in some ways post COVIDthat we as a culture have entered an
age of anxiety. So many peopleexperience chronic anxiety right now, and it
is so correlated with our health outcomes. Now we know that what anxiety does
(16:47):
is it triggers our body's stress response, and when that happens, our body
releases stress hormones. You probably heardof them, Adrenaline, cortisol, really
important stress hormones that you need ifyou're running from a lion or a bear.
Okay, but you don't need it. If you're sitting in traffic,
you don't need it. If you'resitting at a computer, you don't need
(17:07):
it. If you're trying to getto sleep and you're ruminating about why he
didn't call back, that is astress you don't need. You don't need
that cortisol or adrenaline. So whathappens is chronic anxiety starts to prolong the
exposure to these hormones, and thatcan result in health issues. So here
are the big ones. When youhave chronic anxiety, you can get suppression
(17:30):
of the immune system. So ifyou're constantly getting colds and flus could be
anxiety related. You could get psychosomaticdisorders like stomach aches, chest pains,
headaches. And I want to stopand remind everybody, especially my students who
might have gotten this wrong on mylast exam. This is the question.
See if you can answer it.Producer Kayla, are you with me,
(17:52):
I'm going to give you a test. Okay, If somebody has a psychosomatic
disorder, it means they're imagining theirsymptoms. True or false? True,
false, till it's false. Fiftypercent of my students, even after I
teach it, still answer true.When you have a psychosomatic illness, it
(18:14):
means psycho means psychological, somatic meansthe body. It means the emotional brain
colludes with the body and makes itsick. Now, you may go to
the doctor and the doctor say Ican't find the reason for your pain,
but the pain is real and thehealth outcomes are real. In fact,
as children chronic anxiety can even impactgrowth and development. So we have to
(18:41):
learn to make the connection between ourphysical symptoms and our psychological symptoms. Right,
But there are things that we cando to calm ourselves down. And
what we need to do is learnhow to stimulate what's called our parasympathetic nervous
system. So you know biology oneoh one, folks, the role.
You have an automatic nervous system,right, It's got two sides. The
(19:04):
parasympathetic nervous system, I'm sorry,not stimulated to calm it down. Sorry,
I got it backwards. You don'twant to stimulate it, you want
to calm it down. The parasympatheticnervous system is sometimes called rest and digest,
and the sympathetic nervous system is calledfight or flight. Right, So
(19:25):
your sympathetic nervous system is the onethat increases your heart rate. It does
make you more alert because you've gotto look out for that lion or tiger
or bear that's chasing you. Andit does release activating hormones like neuropinephron and
epinephron that can make you run reallyfast if you need to outrun a lion,
tiger, or bear, but notif you're sitting on the one oh
one mad because you're not moving andyou're going five miles an hour. Okay,
(19:47):
So the parasympathetic nervous system controls ourheart. It slows down our heart
rate, it slows down our digestivesystem, it slows down our respiratory system.
In a minute, I'm going totell you one big trick that will
only take you about sixty seconds todo that will actually activate your parasympathetic nervous
(20:11):
system right away. It's not comfortable, you're not going to want to do
it, but if you try itwhen you have anxiety, it will really
work. But before I get there, let's talk about what research has said
can help activate our sympathetic nervous system. Spending time in nature. There's lots
of research to show that spending timein nature is good for your health.
It actually increases immune system cells.Getting a massage. I am overdue.
(20:36):
I've actually been back to you know, trying to get back in wedding shape.
I've been going to agree. Igo to Studio MDR. It's my
favorite. There are five locations thatthey didn't pay me to say this.
I just love them so much,and honestly, I've only gone eight times
and I've lost five pounds, andI have clinched in my belt an inch
of two and not cha two.Yeah. But anyway, I need a
massage because I'm stiff. Every inchof my body hurts. Because that is
(20:57):
a total body workout. You canlisten to relaxing music. So at the
end of my busy day, Icome home and I love to cook.
That's my hobby. It's relaxing forme. But I cannot cook unless there's
quiet jazz playing in the background.And I've lit a candle, you know,
for Mother's Day? Do you remember, did I tell you? Producer
(21:18):
Kayla gave me a beautiful scented candle, So now I'll light it when I
cook dinner later. Just smell wonderful. It does mell wonderful. So listen
to relaxing music. It can helpstimulate your sympathetic nervous system. The other
big one our relationships. Increase yoursocial connections with others. Laugh with them,
be funny. One of the reasonswhy Producer Kayla and I have such
a good relationship is before we startany live show, we tell some stories
(21:44):
of our week and laugh our buttsoff. Don't we They're tragic stories,
but we find a way to laughat them. Right. I don't have
to tell you that you can stimulateyour sympathetic nervous system by meditating, exercising,
and of course taking a few deepbreaths. Now here's the prescription I
promised you. Here's how you canactivate your vegus nerve. Okay, your
vegus nerve is the most important toolyou have in your toolbox to reduce anxiety.
(22:11):
It's called the cold water plunge.It's also known as the diving reflex
or the mammalian dive reflex. Sohere's what it is. When your face
comes into contact with cold water,especially around the nose and the mouth,
it triggers sensory receptors in the skinand they signal the receptors of the brain
to signal a trigeminal trigeminal nerve thatyou didn't know you had to trigeminal nerve,
(22:37):
did you. Here's what it does. Basically, it instantly slows down,
so it imagines that you're drowning incold water, and so it tells
the body just get oxygen to thebrain and nowhere else. Calm down.
Everything. We can't waste time onbreathing, digestion, anything else going on.
Let us just calm down and survivewith the brain. So here's what
you do. You take a bigold mixing ball in your cupboard. You
(23:00):
fill it full of cold water.You add ice cubes. Let us sit
for a few minutes so it getsnice and cold. You take it big
deep breath, and you hold yourbreath, and you put your whole face
in the cold water. Yes,your forehead, yes, your chin,
yes, your eyes, nose,and mouth, and you hold your breath
for at least fifteen seconds underwater.I know if you're a vapor and smoker
you probably can't hold your breath thatlong, but let's assume you can.
(23:22):
And then you take it out.You gasp, you take a few deep
breaths, you relax, You waitabout thirty seconds, and you do it
again. Do it up to threetimes. If you're feeling anxiety, I
promise you the cold water plunge wouldchange your life. Don't say I didn't
tell you. Don't say I don'thave you back. I know how to
reduce anxiety for you. All right, when we come back. Maybe you
(23:45):
have anxiety around love. Guess whatwe fool ourselves sometimes when we're looking for
love. Let's talk about the tricksour brain plays on us. You're listening
to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show onKFI AM six forty one, Lave Everywhere
on the iHeartRadio Apple. You're listeningto Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty Welcome back to theDoctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six
(24:06):
forty Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I want to tell you about this
dissertation that I read recently from aresearcher in the Netherlands. Her name is
Ileana Samara. I like people toget credit for their work because dissertations are
so hard. You know, inorder to get your PhD in clinical psychology,
you have to mount a research study, and a lot of students do
(24:27):
small, quick, easy ones.But I was a dumb student and I
did a whole longitudinal study where Ifollowed one hundred pregnant women for a year
and I looked at the relationship betweentheir own romantic attachment style and their ability
to breastfeed. My hypothesis was thatthose with a insecure attachment style or avoidant
(24:48):
attachment style would be less likely tobreastfeed. What I found out is that
people with an avoidant attachment style areless likely to sign up for such studies.
So that particular group was small,but I did get to talk about
the statistical significance of an instrument Imade. When you think instrument, you
think I took some fire and metaland made an instrument. No, it
(25:11):
just means a test, a testthat I made that had good reliability and
validity. Anyway, So I'm readingthis dissertation because it's right up my alley.
It is about the kind of tricksour brains play on us. And
some of the stuff that Samara didhas been proven in other studies, but
it was interesting to see what shedid. She got a group of people
(25:33):
together, ten men, ten women. That's good and manageable. You can
do that, And over four sessionsshe had them do some different experiments and
one was a speed dating experiment.And so she wanted to answer the question
how do we form romantic bonds?Right? Does our brain really get us
the best mate or does it perceivecertain things as attractive and then we follow
(25:56):
it? So she found duh,that people respond faster to attractive faces.
She figured out this with the fiveminute speed dating thing, that if somebody
had she showed all the guys andthe girls the pictures ahead of time,
so they knew, so she knewwhich ones they felt most attractive, and
then when they saw them in reallife, they're very quickly to respond.
(26:18):
They're very animated. But here's aninteresting thing about human nature. So when
you meet somebody, did you knowif you like them, you unconsciously mirror
them. If they tilt their head, the other person tilts their head.
If you know, put a handon a hip, they'll put their hand
on. They'll start watching that,and it means that they like each other.
They'll mirror exactly what they're doing.With one interesting exception, if the
(26:41):
well not really an exception. Thinkof it this way, the person.
If the person's gaze goes to anotherdirection, maybe they see something across the
room, the other person will followtheir gaze. Right, that's the indicator.
I'll follow their gaze. We guesswhat, which she proved in her
dissertation is not if they're looking ata really hot person, that really hot
person can look at a fire happeningacross the room and the person won't take
(27:04):
their eyes off the attractive person.They hold the gaze too long. This
is the brain tricking you, trickingyou into thinking it's just so lovely to
stare at this person. Why lookat anything else right now. The other
thing, she asked, she waslooking for something called the over perception bias.
(27:26):
This has been proven in other studiestoo, so she basically after they
did the speed dating thing, sheand her colleagues asked all the participants,
all the men and all the women, whether they had interest in the people
they saw, and whether they thoughtthat interest was mutual. And guess what.
(27:48):
Men overestimated the likelihood that their datewould want to see them again.
You know, we have always knownabout this over perception by I often say
it is largely responsible for many casesof sexual harassment in the workplace. Men
are psychologically wired to think almost everywoman is into them, literally like,
(28:11):
oh, yeah, she wants togo with me. I can tell.
Now you have to ask evolutionarily whythis is. Think of it this way.
Dudes have a hard life in heterosexualrelationships. They have to find a
woman they find attractive, although researchhas shown they find men find way more
women attractive than women find men attractive. It's we're more selective on our side.
(28:36):
But anyway, they find a womanwho's attractive, then they have to
have the guts to go and talkto her, and then they have to
say the right thing that makes hernot think like they're weird, and then
they have to ask her out.That takes a lot of courage, It
takes a lot of bravery. Somother Nature said, you know what,
We're going to prime you by sayingyou know what, She's probably going to
say yes, Just go for it. She's probably going to say yes.
(28:57):
I call the over perception by it'scalled the sexual over perception bias, the
thing that keeps one dude in thestrip club too long. His buddies leave
after the bachelor party and they're like, come on, dude, we gotta
go, we gotta go. He'say, no, I want to wait till
she gets off because I think she'sreally into me. Man, I think
she really is. Look at her. Look how she's looking at me.
(29:17):
I think she's in. They're like, no, she's there for the money,
dude, No, no, no, really, I'm just gonna wait
till she gets off. Okay,see what happens, right, And they
leave and shrug their shoulders. Butevery once in a while there's a dude
who thinks that way, and that'sprobably why women who are exotic dancers usually
have someone walk them to the car, because there's one of those dudes out
there. It's also sometimes sadly responsiblefor sexual harassment at the workplace. The
(29:41):
guys will be like, but she, she gave me all those signals like
I thought she was into me.I'm like, oh, my heart breaks
for that nerdy guy who didn't know. A smile doesn't mean that we want
to have sex with you. Asmile just means we're in a good mood,
or the sun is out, orwe like the dress we're wearing that
day. I don't know, likereally guys, but that is how guys
(30:03):
are wired. So obviously, thebig limitation of this study is that the
researcher only did heterosexual couples. Bisexualand homosexual couples get studied less often.
But it's really interesting when some ofthat research does come out. So I
want you to be careful when you'reout there in the world when you're looking
(30:23):
for love. Don't get stuck onthe most attractive person in the room.
Understand that they might not like youas much as you like them, and
that you have to be able tohandle rejection sometimes. Move on, find
somebody in your league. You've gotthis. Hey, when we come back,
I'm going to my social media toanswer some of the questions that you
guys have been sending me in yourDMS. Love that you're listening to the
(30:47):
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AMsix forty. We live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. You've been listening toDoctor Wendy Waalsh. You can always hear
us live on KFI AM six fortyfrom seven to nine pm I'm on Sunday
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadioapp.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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