Dating Differently Podcast
Dating Differently Podcast
Episode-01 | Dating Woes: Approaching Solutions Differently
Ever wondered how the modern dating landscape is shaping up? Are you grappling with the paradox of choice offered by dating apps, or navigating the murky waters of pandemic dating? Buckle up for a deep dive into such challenges and more, as we uncover the intricate dynamics of modern dating.
Having a clear understanding of one's needs in a relationship is crucial, but how do we achieve that? We discuss this and more as we ponder over the top dating issues today – ranging from the significance of self-awareness to the pervasive problem of ghosting. We also delve into how dating apps, although a significant part of the modern dating scene, can sometimes leave us on an emotional rollercoaster.
As we round off our discussion, we focus on the profound impact the pandemic has had on dating culture. With singles expecting increased emotional maturity from potential partners and vaccination becoming a controversial topic, the pandemic has indeed added a new layer of complexity. But fear not, as we stress the importance of open communication, empathy, and self-awareness in building successful relationships. Whether you're actively dating or simply intrigued about the dating scenario, this episode offers valuable insights. So tune in, and let's navigate these challenging waters together.
All right, valvin. So we're here at the house having a chat, and I think this is a fun day for us getting to talk through what really, what sort of problems are out there for people dating? What does the landscape look like? And so, in preparation for this, I looked up a couple of statistics and some articles that I thought would be helpful in driving your reaction as a matchmaker and my lived experience as a single girl trying to try to make her way in the world. So what really stood out to me is there was an article that talked about the five biggest issues with dating today. Okay, so here are their five One knowing what you want. Two pressure and harassment, so really centered around safety. Three pandemic dating. Four, dating apps. And five, ghosting. Okay, from my perspective, in looking at this list, I think that pandemic dating and dating apps could probably rolled into one, but let's start with your immediate reaction Knowing what you want.
Speaker 2:Okay. So knowing what you want is a big one. Sure, I often talk about a formula for being successful in dating, and that formula starts with knowing who you are. Now, once you know who you are, you got to get clear on the type of person that you're looking for. And this goes to that point.
Speaker 2:Most people don't know what they're looking for, and that's detrimental to the outcomes that they want. Because, truth of the matter is, if you spend some time figuring out what it is you need in a relationship to be happy for the rest of your life not what you want in a relationship, because those two lists are different but if you figure out what you need in a relationship to be happy for the rest of your life, then you recognize it when you see it. But if you don't spend that work, you spend a whole lot of time with other people in your company trying to figure out what it is that you're interested in and what is you like and need and that sort of thing. My point is, if you do a little bit of work, it makes it a whole lot easier to recognize the person when you find them.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about doing work and trying to figure out what you want and what you need and really separating those two out, does that look like dating a lot? Does it look like going to therapy? Does it look like having a really good friend group and maybe some empty bottles of wine? That's a great question.
Speaker 2:So think about it this way If you get to know yourself first, let's choose. Let's take one of the assessments. Like love language, my love language is acts of service. And for those who don't know what love languages means, love language is the idea of what is it that makes you feel loved? So, for instance, in my case, because my love language is acts of service, when people do things for me, it makes me feel like they love me. And just to top it off, let's go ahead and list the five love languages. Love languages are I don't think they're any particular words.
Speaker 1:Words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, like you mentioned, gifts and touch. So those are the love languages right.
Speaker 2:So hilarious that I left out physical touch.
Speaker 2:So let's just use that as an example, because my love language is acts of service. I can at least I know that something that I have to be aware of when I'm dating someone, because if I'm with a woman who has a hard time serving me and I'm not saying from a servitude perspective like it could be anything it could be like she organized my shoes or she bought me some dinner at home. Let's take it the other way. I remember the last girl I dated. I asked her to go get some Chick-fil-A for some guys that had come over to have a meeting and she looked at me with a really stank face, like seriously, like yeah. And point being, let's not get too far off the trail here.
Speaker 1:Like that's a whole other story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's not get too far off the trail. But all I was trying to say is, once you get to know yourself, now you know what to look for One of the things about what you need in a person to be happy the rest of your life. So, to your point, does it mean dating a lot? It doesn't necessarily mean dating a lot. It means knowing enough about yourself to recognize even in the beginning stages that hey, I can't deal with this person. Once you assess your attachment styles, you can assess your enneagram, you can assess your love languages. There are a number of assessments out there that you can take to learn more about yourself and you can make some really good decisions really early, without dating a whole bunch of people that this person is not good for me or is good for me.
Speaker 1:So there's a study survey that's done by matchcom every year and it's called Singles in America and they run through a whole bunch of statistics and they actually talk about investing more in themselves to lay the foundation for healthier relationships, which really speaks to this first point, and 87% of singles say it's important for both partners to partner with each other.
Speaker 1:It's important for both partners to prioritize their mental health. Two-thirds of singles want to improve their own mental health. Two-thirds of young singles are open to therapy and 81% reported they engage in self-care at least once a month.
Speaker 2:I'm curious about those statistics and if they have the breakout between men and women.
Speaker 1:Currently, from what I can see, not on the high level, maybe further into the report. But I think what's interesting is at least my friends openly talk about how important it is for the person that they're dating to have also worked on themselves in the form of therapy, and that is such a shift in the way that people approach other people in dating. I don't know if it's because I've worked on myself, so I'm a better catch, because I know what's going on with me, so you need to too. Or is it really accelerated through COVID? I think I wouldn't necessarily say that COVID made this a thing, but I do think that it has accelerated this acceptance of therapy in almost a mandatory box that you have to check off, and that's the major form of knowing yourself to be able to know what you want. And what they say they want is someone who's also in therapy to work through them any issues that they may have.
Speaker 2:So here's a challenge in the dating culture, right? I suspect and I don't know this for sure, but I suspect if you were to take 100 women who are in the dating culture and ask them if they have a therapist, there's a percentage of them that would say yes, yeah, definitely. If you were to take 100 men and ask them if they have a therapist, I suspect that number would be a lot lower. I think you're right and therein lies the problem, because you have to want to be a better person in relationships before you will go do work to become better in relationships, and men are generally not motivated in that area. And I'm not putting shade on men, it's just the way it is.
Speaker 2:I had a conversation recently with a woman and she was complaining that men don't have emotional intelligence and I asked the question. I said where would they get it from? If you think about our culture and you think about just society in general, there's not a motivation for guys to go to work. There's not a motivation for guys to go spend time in that area the way it is for women to go spend time in that area. So we fast forward 20 years when there's a whole lot of coaching and radio shows and people who have addressed women in dating and things they shouldn't do should do what they should look out for men and that sort of thing. That content didn't exist for men for a long time. It exists now.
Speaker 1:I think yeah, Okay, so second point that they make that this article brings up being one of the five biggest issues when it comes to dating today. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:So that's too vague of a question. If you will Pressure and harassment, what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 1:So what they say is in providing a statistic to explain that is that 57% of women and 35% of men have experienced some sort of harassment in their dating life, and it makes sense that it would be that you would have a higher percentage for women, because I feel like we talk about that a lot. The 35% for men I find super fascinating, because we don't really talk about men experiencing harassment or pressure in a relationship. It's usually always the other way around. Lifetime is an entire network built around that concept Hallmark a little less. So they're the happy side of things, but lifetime definitely features a lot of things that go wrong in relationships, and so I felt like this statistic to explain this concept was enlightening in a way that shed some light on the fact that men maybe possibly don't always feel in control in a relationship or in a dynamic, which is something that is really hard to think about.
Speaker 1:When we've had the Me Too movement, the Believe All Women times up, this whole women need to be uplifted a little more and protected more in relationships or in dynamics between men and women. And, granted, not everything that's happened with Me Too or Time's Up or Believe All Women was a consensual relationship, but that does carry across when you think about men and women in relationships. So what's been your experience?
Speaker 2:This is a real tough topic in cases, because one of the things I say a lot is that there's a lot of good information on both sides for a lot of good advice on the women side, a lot of good advice on the men side, or perspectives. But the problem is, when we talk about these things, there's a divide between men and women. The men are trying to tell women what they want and the women are trying to tell men what they want, but they weaponize the message. Because they weaponize the message, it puts the other person on the defense right and it turns into this divisive conversation or fight. So I put that on the table first before I start having this conversation with people.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about safety. If you were to Google the biggest threat to a woman's safety on the planet, it'll say it's a man. Men don't really know that. So when I'm talking to men, I say you have to understand that the woman that you just met has talked to 10 other men before she got to you and not all of those men were nice men. And, especially in today's day when people are online, people treat people relentlessly crazy online. But people who hang out on Facebook groups and dating apps and all of these- places on the internet.
Speaker 1:People say to other people is just ridiculous. And would you say that to someone in real life?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. So it's a conversation that I have with men. I try to help them understand that, first of all, you got to have a little bit of empathy for women and their experiences in the past. You got to start by at least being aware of that. Yes, you're a nice guy, but she doesn't know. You're a nice guy and there were three nice guys that came along before you and said they were nice guys and turned out to be asshole. So you have to be aware of that. You have to have some empathy.
Speaker 1:It's typically a red flag when they say that they're a nice guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that too.
Speaker 1:Please don't tell me, can you just show me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, listen, a lot of the guys won't say they're a nice guy. But they'll say to me I'm a nice guy, I wouldn't do that. And my conversation to them is yeah, I get it, but they don't know you. Because we live in a day and age now where a guy will meet a woman and expect her to go out on a date tonight. Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. Sure, there's a time when that's good. But you have to be aware Now, from the man's perspective, when I'm talking to a woman, me too is a big problem, huge. It's a problem on both sides. Right, men have to be careful. Men really do have to be careful because a guy spends a lot of.
Speaker 2:I generally deal with older men, right? Older men. When I say older, I really mean like 40s and up. Right, and these guys have spent a lifetime building a life, building up their purpose, going to school, being successful. Whatever the case may be, they have a lot to lose, right, and it doesn't take but one woman to accuse you of something to wipe all of that out. Right, and men have to be aware of that. I've experienced paternity fraud in my life and that was a traumatic experience for me as a young 30-something who wanted to do life the right way. My point is that conversation hits home to me because there's a safety element on the guy's side also that I have to talk to women about. I have to help women understand that the things that men care about, you have to understand and empathize that. He's had experience with other women Like one of the biggest things that men concern is specifically men who have resources. They're really concerned about the modern woman's need to have a traditional man, but they want to be a modern woman.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, definitely. That is just confusing yeah.
Speaker 2:But the whole point I'm making right now is that these are conversations that need to be had. There's no right answer or wrong answer to any of these things, because people are different and they have different needs for what they want and different outcomes. Right Going back to the safety and harassment, my experience is that men and women are afraid of each other. Right, they're afraid of each other and they're hypersensitive to each other, and that's the reason why About Good Company is a great idea, because it's an opportunity for us to put good people in a room and let them get to know each other in a low pressure situation that's safe.
Speaker 2:And it just opens up the door. When you're around good people, it helps you be a better person. I hate to say that, because that implies that you were a bad person when you came in the door and the good people are going to make you.
Speaker 1:No, it's the whole, like iron sharpens iron concept, it's being around people who are bettering themselves and pushing you to continue to better yourself. Yes, and I think this article also shared a stat that half of Americans say that it's harder to date now than it did 10 years ago or than it was 10 years ago, and I think that means something sure, in like finding your person and knowing yourself, but also the landscape is very different for men and women. Today I listened to my grandmother talk about dating and it's I promise it's in black and white. I don't understand this whole like going steady thing that she talks about. And then also she this vivid memory I have of her telling a story of how she would go. She went out with we'll say, johnny, because that feels like an appropriate name to use with that time period Johnny on Friday and then his best friend, tony on Saturday, and that was just normal.
Speaker 1:That's what everybody was doing, because they were dating virtually, because they were in it like their worlds were smaller because they didn't have the internet, which is mind blowing, but they didn't have the internet, they didn't have apps, they didn't have friends that lived across the country like we do now, and their family pretty much lived close by, so their worlds were literally smaller.
Speaker 1:So they would date people in their community and in order to find like which person in their community they hit it off with the best, they would go on a ton of different dates and they were really low pressure. Dating was really low pressure in a way that it isn't really now, which is, I think, where the going steady comes into play, because going on dates with someone was something you did on Fridays and Saturdays. Everyone did it with different people. But going steady was hey, I want to go on more dates with you, just you, and that sort of brings in the whole courting culture.
Speaker 1:We're still getting to know each other, but we want to get to know one another exclusively and that doesn't really feel like that conversation exists in the same way today, and I have just been really struck by that, and I think that's one of the reasons why a Bowel Good Company is so interesting is because it does bring a little bit of that back. When we talk about hosting events and inviting people to get to know each other, we're creating our own community where people can just talk to one another freely, with no expectations, only hope and encouragement and opportunity and taking the pressure off of exchanging numbers, but having that be something that we get to facilitate after the event, which I think speaks to some of the privacy, the protection, the safety and really taking some of that pressure away from individual interactions, and that seems really refreshing and exciting to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I agree. I can totally see how and why it's a whole lot harder today. Paradox of choice, for instance yeah, 100%, 100% of the other didn't have 2,000 choices. And I read something recently, I heard something recently that talked about how, once you get here's the example they gave. The example was, if you go to the store and you're looking for jelly and there's three choices of jelly, you'll feel a whole lot better in your decision, regardless of which one you chose. You'll feel a whole lot better about your decision when you take the grape jelly, for instance. So let's say you go into the store and there's 24 choices of jelly.
Speaker 1:That's paralyzing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not only is it paralyzing when you eventually make your choice, you have some level of doubt when you leave, then I really make the right choice. So it's tougher to be happier about your choice. So, using that in the context of Dayton today, in times past, culturally you had different values and different duty to family. There's a whole lot of things that culturally were different, so it was easier to make a choice to say this person fits in a space that would help me live the type of life that I want. Fast forward to today and unfortunately, specifically, women have, like their list is like huge.
Speaker 1:Like one of the anthropologists that I yeah, we like to come up with lists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the anthropologists that I worked with in the matchmaking industry talked about it in one of her books Mary Him, I think, is the name of the book they talked about when they did a poll of women to determine what the list of things are that they want for men. In a general sense. That list was 300 items long. They did the same thing for men. The list was six items long.
Speaker 1:Not surprised, 300 seems a little long, but six.
Speaker 2:This is generally a whole cross-section of women. They ask and just listening to the things that came up regularly, I don't know how they got to the number 300. That's crazy also. But the guys were six and most guys just need the three things. We'll talk about those later. We won't bring those up, but just those three things. Teaser for future episodes, I know, but yeah, I mean that makes it tough. And now add to that emotional intelligence. That's part of the equation now and that makes it even tougher.
Speaker 1:I do feel like that's been discussed way more recently, and so it leads me to my next three, which I'm going to batch because I think that they're stretching to make these into different ones, because I think they bleed into each other perfectly Pandemic dating, dating apps and ghosting. So when I look at pandemic dating, it marks the different Dating. The pandemic is this big dividing line between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, and this is where I think apps come into play. But prior to the pandemic, apps had a different story. They all had a different ethos. If you wanted this, then you were on this dating app. If you wanted this other thing, you were on a different dating app.
Speaker 1:I think, post-pandemic, that's gone away.
Speaker 1:They're virtually all the same, and whether it's that we just stopped trying to fool ourselves that one app where you could swipe left or right was different than another app that you could swipe left or right, and I feel like the same people are on the same.
Speaker 1:They're all on different ones, not because they want to ascribe to their specific ethos or culture, but because they get once one allotment for the day of matches runs out, they can go to the next app with another allotment and then same for the third platform and I think that has really contributed to the fatigue around dating and dating apps specifically. It's because there's just so much burnout and there's this hope, when you get your list of matches, that it's going to be different, this time is going to be different, and then when you get to the end of that list, you're let down again and you go through that with every single app and every single day, and so it's happening that high and low it's happening so fast that even if you've made no progress on your app or with finding a person and going on dates in real life, you feel like you've done so much emotionally because you've gone through all the highs and lows.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:I have a lot to say about dating apps.
Speaker 1:Go for it.
Speaker 2:That's what we're here for, and here's some information I want to share with you, just because I've got some of the inside knowledge. Do it Number one I don't think the average person understands that dating apps the technology and algorithms that are behind dating apps were built by people who understand how the brain works, and their goal is to get you to use the app Totally. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And their goal is to give you swings of high dopamine and low dopamine, that rollercoaster, that purpose of the app is to do that and most people don't understand that's the case. The people who built, who gave the science to the people who typed in the code to build these algorithms are way smarter than most of us. Right. That leads to the topic of. I'm going to use the ELO algorithm. You ever heard that term, elo?
Speaker 4:algorithm.
Speaker 2:So, in a general sense, I'm just going to explain this to you. When you're on a dating app, the dating app understands your standard of association. It understands what lane you should be in based on your attractiveness, based on your education, whatever the case may be. It understands what your frequency is and you only see people in that frequency. The ELO algorithm makes this happen. There is a higher frequency of people, but you'll never see those people because you don't have a score that puts you in that frequency.
Speaker 1:What is ELO stand for?
Speaker 2:It's a guy. So the algorithm was built around making compatible chess players.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:So it's a long story behind that whole thing, but the idea, the point I'm trying to make is, when it comes to dating apps, people don't understand that they're stuck in a tunnel. They're stuck in a lane, if you will. And how do you get out of that lane? Let me give you an example. If you're a swipe right, swipe left person, let's say I swipe right on a woman who's more attractive than me, has more going for herself, whatever the case may be, she's of a higher status. And let's say, she swipes right on me. It raises my score.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fascinating, Let me give you another example.
Speaker 2:Let's say forgive me. Let's say there's a woman that's less attractive than me and I swipe right on her and she says, no, I don't like him. She swipes left on me. That lowers my score. So these things happen and they push people in and out of these lanes. But it explains why. Because the truth of the matter is there are some very rich people on dating apps. There are some very elite people on some dating apps, right, but you'll never see them because the ELO algorithm keeps you out of their space.
Speaker 2:Very interesting Now. Tinder was the first company to be known for using the ELO algorithm. Nobody uses the ELO algorithm anymore these days, but that's because they have much more sophisticated algorithms than the ELO algorithm. But the reason I use that as an example is because I just wanted to put it on the table that people using dating apps don't understand that the goal of people who make dating apps is to keep you on the dating app. When there's a dating app that's owned by a large company and has investors, the duty is to the investors.
Speaker 2:The duty is not to the people who are using the apps. Generally speaking, when you're on a dating app that's independently owned, a lot of times those independently owned dating apps you are the stakeholder, so they really want to help you find your person. But that's a whole conversation that has to be had around dating apps. But when people understand that like dating apps, I'm not against dating apps, because they're a really good tool if you know how to use them properly and if you understand the nature of dating app Anyway. So let's put a period on that. Let's talk a little bit about pandemic dating. So when you initially said that, I thought to myself the pandemic is over. Is pandemic dating a thing at this point?
Speaker 1:But I think it depends on who you are. Definitely there's still people I've had conversations with friends or acquaintances that still talk about it Like it's April 2020. And that is just fascinating to me. So I was like oh, oh, okay. Okay, cause they were talking about their kids and now their kids are still like they've only been in like 10 consecutive days of school the whole year and you're like what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess that's a good point because I live in a bubble, sure, in the sense that I have my own home office, I don't have to leave very much, like I don't have kids, so I'm not a part of that conversation. So in my mind, the pandemic's done. I went and had my physical yesterday, walked into the doctor's office nobody was wearing a mask and like when was the last time you went to a doctor's office and nobody?
Speaker 1:had on the mask. They've stopped requiring them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in my mind, pandemic's over Same. So I understand that there are other people who live a different life, and that's one of the things that we absolutely remember in dating is that you have a lifestyle. You have like what your look, your life looks like. It's not like what everybody else's life looks like. You have to be aware of that. But anyway, I brought that up because, in my mind, what is pandemic dating? Now, we can talk about what dating looked like before and what it looked like after. Maybe that's the conversation I can have more to say about, but I don't see pandemic as a thing today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the I think one of the key points they were trying to make is the emotional intelligence aspect being higher now, where, so they say, over 80% of singles want someone that's emotionally mature, accepting of differences and comfortable with their own sexuality. I think the pandemic might have broadened some comfort levels while also expecting more from people. It's a weird I don't know, maybe I'm not saying that correctly, but it does feel like there's a little more leniency, but also some higher expectations that have come out of it. Like, I think, when you talk about the emotional maturity of people, that, like, we do expect more of that because I think we've all gone through the exact same emotional crisis. So there's maybe that's because, maybe that's why, because we all lived the exact same thing being a global pandemic, right, I think it would more refer to the impact of the pandemic on dating culture.
Speaker 4:So, for example, during the pandemic you were stuck with a person because they were in your bubble and you might discover that there are certain qualities about a person that you don't like. So it expanded or it shifted your views on dating or the things that you desire. So, post pandemic, what I'm looking for in a partner is going to be different than what I was looking for before, because now I think about, am I going to get stuck in the house with this person.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a great point. I did not even consider that, yeah.
Speaker 4:And then on the emotional bit, the things that we value now are different. Like we look at the great retirement, is it retirement? What's the word Resignation?
Speaker 1:Resignation.
Speaker 4:Retiring from work life With the great resignation that's happening because people now value their time, their health and all that differently, and it's the same in relationships. I want to spend my time with a different quality of person now, because I know what it's like to be standing on death's door, in a sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:One thing I'll add to that is like it has almost created another layer of division. Right, oh yeah, because even in the second date update podcast that we listened to, remember the episode where girl went out with a guy and she had COVID, but her response to it was, eh, it's just like a cold these days. That's the way some people feel about it. The guy found out about it and he went ballistic because he felt like she didn't care enough about people in public to even mention it, and there's a whole range of emotions around that. But it's just like the division of politics at this point. Like you, a person potentially who doesn't believe in COVID vaccines and a person who does believe in COVID vaccines, you put them on a date together If that conversation comes up it's not going to be a pretty conversation across the board.
Speaker 2:And so I guess my take on the conversation right now is that's the imprint that the pandemic left on dating, is it created another layer of division? But because it's a bigger conversation, just like politics, I tell people when I was growing up like it wasn't a thing if the husband voted for Jimmy Carter and the wife voted for Ronald Reagan, like it wasn't that big of a deal. I just agreed with this, like I like pizza and I don't like pizza, I like hamburgers type of thing.
Speaker 1:It's so not true now yeah.
Speaker 2:But now it is definitely a source of division.
Speaker 1:So what I've seen come out of the pandemic because even if we feel like the pandemic has gone away, people still have their beliefs about these things- the Match Singles in America survey asked the question about the COVID vaccine and in 2022, which is they release them every year, it said 40% definitely want their partner to be vaccinated, compared to 47% in 2021, where 36% say they don't care. That's still a really high divide.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, that's still a really high divide.
Speaker 1:And then it goes on to say that one in three singles say their dating life is currently affected by COVID, and so that can mean anything from the belief in should you be vaccinated, should you not be vaccinated? Largely, that is a topic I just straight up ignore.
Speaker 1:Don't even go there, I think, because I also work in the political space. So that is going to be the topic that is probably going to come up more often. When you say that you work in politics, that's going to come up. But that is definitely a topic too, like voting, the issue around voting they cover that, they want their, so they say that voting is hot. So they want their partner to be very cognizant and politically aware, but not compromising, which is an interesting thing that you don't really want your partner to compromise on what they're saying. 58% say it's now more important than ever to know your partner's political views.
Speaker 1:Life back set up 100% 37% say that having too strong an opinion is a deal breaker. So if you're too intense about it, nope. And the reverse just say that. 31 say it's a no go if a potential partner has no opinion. So we were looking for, like the Goldilocks of opinions here, the Goldilocks porridge of opinions, where you have one but don't be too intense about it. And 28% don't want a partner who isn't registered to vote. 24% would avoid a date who is not planning to vote. So just not going to go on a date with the person who isn't going to vote.
Speaker 1:And 22% say it's a deal breaker if their date didn't vote in the last election. So lots of feelings around voting we could go into like political persuasion and topics, but I think just the concept of voting being so important for younger people because these are that when you look at who they're polling and who they're surveying, it's millennials in generation Z, and so for a generation that is the hope every single election is on the young people. What are young people going to do? The giant question mark that exists, it's looking like voting itself is becoming more and more important when dating, which means it's going to also have a really interesting effect on electoral outcomes. So stay tuned everyone.
Speaker 2:So get out and vote.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks Match, thanks Match for having that topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because what I took away from that is if you go out and vote, if you go out and vote, you at least won't be that person who won't get dated because you didn't vote.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:That's an easy one to check the box for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your civic duty, yeah. So what about ghosting? Because that's still a thing, very much so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think ghosting is a symptom of the real problem, and the real problem is that people are cloaked by their ability to be the internet Like I'm just going to use social media and the internet as a cloak for people to treat people differently than they would in real person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and the whole idea that hurt. People like the men and women alike don't understand the detriment of ghosting, Because it really has a mental effect on the person that you ghost and you don't have to do it. Let's put emotional intelligence as part of this conversation. If you're an emotionally intelligent person, you should be able to have a conversation with a guy and say, hey, things aren't really working out.
Speaker 2:Now let me caveat that by saying this. I have a Facebook group with 1,000 people in it and I asked a question Women, have you ever respectfully turned a guy down and he turned around and attacked you? Most of the women say yes.
Speaker 1:Wow, really.
Speaker 2:Most of them say yes. I asked the same question of men hey, men, have you ever respectfully turned a woman down and got attacked and crickets on that post? So part of the problem when we talk about ghosting is that a lot of times women don't want to deal with the abuse, with having to turn a guy down. And another conversation I have to have with guys Guys get angry because why not just tell me that you're not interested? Because guys are taught to be confident and persistent. But then there's you go.
Speaker 2:There's a thin line between being persistent and being harassing, right, and guys don't know where that line is and they don't understand the detriment of ghosting. It's hurtful and it makes men angry at women. Now they're going to go treat the next woman based on something that happened with the last woman, and women are the same, like men mistreat women and then the woman turns around and takes that damage to the next person that she deals with and it becomes a perpetual thing. So at the end of the day, I think ghosting is just a. It's a symptom of a bigger problem that we don't really. We aren't as civil as we used to be, and it's easier to be less civil online when you don't have to look at the person. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:There's no ownership to it.
Speaker 2:And let me just say this one of the things that I liked about the idea of good company is because is I think that we have an opportunity to improve the culture. I think about this being a velvet rope society, if you will Like. Not everybody can come in here and once you get in here, behave, because if you don't behave, then you get put back on the other side of the velvet rope. And you want to be on this side of the velvet rope because this is where some really good people are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:You talked about women ghosting men out of fear. Why do men ghost?
Speaker 2:A lot of times women will ghost because of safety. A lot of times men ghost because men men don't care. I characterize ghosting as I went on a date with you. We had some conversations and the next day I thought it was business as normal and I can't find you Like you don't respond to any of my text messages. I call you and I get voicemail 100% of the time, like I reach out to you on chat and you just don't respond.
Speaker 1:Lots of mediums of communication you've used in this example.
Speaker 2:You basically just disappeared off the face of the planet without any notification.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's an accurate description of ghosting.
Speaker 2:I said men don't care, I guess I don't. This is dangerous waters for me. In this conversation there are two women sitting here. No, not necessarily, because I know people are listening to this podcast and there's the nature of men that women don't understand there is a nature of men that women don't understand and they could leave this conversation hating all men.
Speaker 2:If I say something like men don't care, I don't really mean men don't care, but a lot of guys don't know how to deal with the emotions of women. They don't understand the emotions of women. That's one of the things I was saying before. I talk a lot about verbal violence, women being verbally violent. Women don't understand the words, how words affect men. Men need to be respected the whole status thing. Like women have gotten to this place where they just want to demasculate men Is that the right word? Demasculate, emasculate and they don't understand the damage of emasculation, the verbal violence thing. I'll give you an example. This is not a real world example. This is just my recollection of what I remember the example being. But you'll get the point.
Speaker 2:The guy said something I really don't think this relationship is going the right way.
Speaker 2:Maybe he even told her I don't really feel like we could be there, whatever he was being calm about that thing and she went off into small dick energy and started just really started emasculating the guy and trying to break him down.
Speaker 2:You didn't even do this and all of that kind of stuff and the reason I'm bringing this up is because that guy who got attacked, he got a verbal attack from a woman and he has to take that to his next situation. So I'm going to date this next girl and I'm less inclined to be honest with her about how I feel because she may verbally attack me. I don't want to use the word fear I don't have a better word to use right now. A guy has to be concerned about the violence of women and when I say the violence of women I'm only talking about verbal violence and a lot of the time women will turn around. And the reason I don't want to use the word fear is because it's not fear that men have it's fear, but it's not fear of the woman, it's fear of the situation.
Speaker 1:Like the emotional situation.
Speaker 2:The situation that it can put him in. I'm trying to figure out how to bring this home. I'm not intimidated by a woman screaming and cussing at me. I'm not intimidated by that. I'm not afraid of that. But I am afraid of the fact that if she takes it too far and I have to protect myself, I'm in trouble now. Okay, interesting.
Speaker 2:It's a dynamic that guys feel upfront in a lot of these situations and it looks like fear of the woman is not fear of the woman, it's fear of the potential situation, so the situation that I'm about to be in like the dangers for me.
Speaker 2:Going back to the whole ghosting thing again, it's a symptom of the problem, the cultural problem, that people don't pay attention to the damage that they leave behind. And women want men to treat them better, but they treated the last dude like crap. So I say the measure of kindness, miss Lady, is how you treat the guy that you're not attracted to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because this goes into a whole other conversation about depicts and all that kind of stuff. Like I've said to women before, there's not that women don't like depicts. Women just don't like depicts from the men that they don't like.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've gone through these five. Would you agree with these five or would you have made a change?
Speaker 2:If you asked me what the five biggest problems with dating is today. I'd probably come up with a different list. I like the first one.
Speaker 1:For sure, you're the first one, definitely.
Speaker 2:When it comes to dating and relationships. You've heard me say this before. People need to understand that they need relationship skills. That's not even on most people's radar that I need better skills for relationship. I'm putting dating and relationships in the same bucket because I'm not trying to address people who just want to date for the rest of their lives, addressing people who want to actually be in relationships. It's just like anything else. If you want to be good at tennis, you got to go find some information and get a coach. Learn how to play tennis, practice it and get better. If you want to bake a cake, you have to start with one thing to bake a cake Before you're motivated to go find some information about baking a cake. If you are really bad at baking a cake, you're not going to want to keep baking a cake. If you suck at it really bad. If you get really good at it, you'll enjoy it. People enjoy doing things that they're good at and they hate doing things that they're not good at.
Speaker 1:Can you? Because, if you love relationships and dating in the same bucket to talk about, there are other ways for you to stretch a muscle that would be useful in dating, in your relationships your friends or with family members, or Because I think that's there's still. If you think about what makes you good in a relationship self-awareness, empathy, communication All of those things can be learned, whether it's in your professional life, in supervisor training, recognizing that something is wrong with your direct report and going in with an open mind of without assigning blame but hey, I noticed you're awful little today. What's going on? Or even in your relationship with your family. You have so much history with your family. Going in with an open mind of this is how I'm feeling right now. Is this inaccurate? Are you meaning to give this off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's a key point there. You started off with self-awareness, empathy, and what was the third one? You remember?
Speaker 1:Communication.
Speaker 2:Communication. Let's just take those three. Yeah. First step is you have to first recognize that those things are important to understand about yourself. You have to. You know what I'm saying. I venture to say there are 100 single people who don't even know what self-awareness means. They've never heard of it, never thought to go down that they don't want to bake a cake. They haven't thought about it.
Speaker 2:You get what I'm trying to say and that's the point that I'm making, or the point that I'm trying to make, is that hopefully, this episode will bring awareness to the fact that people need awareness of the things that they need to work on for themselves to move forward. Most people have heard you need good communication skills.
Speaker 1:What does that look like?
Speaker 2:in real life yeah.
Speaker 1:It's still, I think, a mystery to many people who talk about the value of communication.
Speaker 2:Right. Right.
Speaker 1:If you have a stream of text messages, it's a forethought in planning. Or I've got a busy week this week. I'd really like to see you. What does your? These are some times that I have availability. Does this fit with your schedule? That's forethought. That ticks a whole bunch of boxes. A you value me. B you value my time and your time and what openness you have in your schedule you'd like to spend it with me. Three you care enough about the work that I'm doing and what you're trying to do that you're going to plan ahead. There's a lot that's said in that very simple statement that, oh, that feels good. That feels good in my deep soul. Quality time is a love language of mine. When you take the time to think through that and put it forward on a calendar, which also the calendar invites, are also a love language of mine, because it's time, it's quality time, right. All of that tells me so much more than hey, you're important to me. It's a nonverbal time commitment thing that happens. It says a lot without saying enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you made a really good point that people you say good communication isn't necessary. Some people will take that to mean communicate a lot.
Speaker 1:Totally. That's not what that means. The quantity of communication, not the quality of it. The quantity is not a quality.
Speaker 2:Yes, the point is just to nail this point home. The point is, people have to want to be better at these things. Number one they have to be aware of the fact that they need to be better at empathy and self-awareness and communication. They have to be aware of that first, and then they have to want to be better communicators, have empathy and be self-aware. Then they have to do it, then they have to do it. That could be a challenge also, because the average person doesn't know who to turn to or where to go to get better at communication and empathy and self-awareness.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of stuff out there, but people don't have the roadmap to get there. So I'll leave this point with the same way. People are embracing therapy. I really think people should embrace coaching a little more because, totally agree, date coaching with a good coach will change your life. Yeah, it will change your life, but it's just like therapy, right? You can go to a therapist and not be. I've been to therapists that I don't like. They didn't work for me. We're not a good fit, right? So find a good dating coach, because if you really want to get better at dating, find a dating coach. I can't make it any simpler. I don't understand why that that shouldn't be hard for people to understand, right Because I wanted to play golf when I first moved to North Carolina in 2003. I never played golf before, but before I went out I said let me go find a golf coach, because if I start off right and I don't develop bad habits, I can get good at this thing quickly.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. How's your golf game now?
Speaker 2:My golf game is trash right now, but that's not because of my coach. So the beginning part was really applicable. Listen, because you still have to practice.
Speaker 1:You still have to go do the work. Sure, sure, sure, get the reps in.
Speaker 2:The only thing I was making is that we say a lot, get to know yourself. We don't make. I won't say we don't make it easy. We can say get to know yourself, but you've got to want to go find what that means right, Different levels of that.
Speaker 1:I feel like now and I'll say this to close out our conversation about the biggest issues with dating I feel like now the language around getting to know yourself is there's a lot more around that, a lot more language that we've gotten and that has been developed through the concept of date yourself. What do you want to do? How do you spend your time? What can you do to better yourself? How do you respond in certain situations? Why do you respond that way? Where do you want to be?
Speaker 1:The conversation about where do you want to be in five years. It feels so vast and sometimes overwhelming for a lot of people. But there's also who do you want to be when you're 60, which is a question that I was posed to be by my coach, my executive coach. That's really framed up all of our conversations as who do I want to be when I'm 60 and am I getting any closer to that, to who that person is and that character and that approach to life and value of other humans? I think the language it's broadening the language that we're using around get to know yourself, which is, I think, making it a little bit more approachable.
Speaker 2:I hope what people take away from this episode is awareness and the motivation to understand that that relationship skills is a thing Relationships skills is a thing, and you'll be much happier. I hope that people get out of this conversation that number one yeah, you should work on yourself, but we want to help guide you, to help you understand what that looks like, how you can work on yourself, get to know yourself. I'm actually giving a roadmap to get to know these things, and you can keep this in your pocket. It's not something you have to share with somebody. However, you can also share it with somebody if you want it to, if you thought it necessary.
Speaker 1:We've talked a lot about some of the biggest issues with dating and I think your points about how you would add to that list or maybe substitute some stuff in is. I think it's great. What would be the big takeaway? What would you at the end of this podcast, what do you want people to do Aside from join About Good Company and go to our website AboutGoodCompanycom?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people can do without professional help. These assessments are available. There are assessments for love languages. There are assessments for enneagram. There are assessments for attachment styles. There's Myers-Briggs assessment. These assessments help you get to know each other. Not all of them are easy and some of them cost a little bit of money, but at the end of the day these are real scientific ways to get to know yourself. And once you know yourself you can understand if and where you need to make some course corrections or changes.
Speaker 1:Is there one of those that's your favorite that you feel like informs? Because I really like the love languages one, and I think there are whole schools of thought where you can do it, as in a relationship or as a single person. And, honestly, something to keep in mind is that your results are going to be different in different phases of your life, because you're not a stagnant human, and so if you've taken these before, go back and do them again. Love languages is one of my favorite because I feel like it's a little easier to explain and to grasp and there are tons of podcasts about them. And then also, my absolute favorite is enneagram. I feel like I've talked to you about that all the time and there's so much that you can learn about yourself from an enneagram. There's just a lot of Because it's more behavioral and I think that's really helpful when you're dealing with how do you respond to stuff, what do you do in certain situations, why are you reacting?
Speaker 1:That way, you can go really deep, from your wings to your triangle, to a healthy version of yourself, to an unhealthy version of yourself, and that just really helps me when I see patterns start to arise when I'm really stressed or I'm in an unhealthy place. What is my immediate go-to and how am I going to respond, and what do I need to do to put in guardrails to protect myself from doing that?
Speaker 2:So let's talk about those two just for a quick moment. So the enneagram is really good. I would probably point people to love languages first only because it's easier and it's a whole lot lighter.
Speaker 2:One caveat I'll put on love languages is you may not know this, but the scientific community, they don't believe in the love languages. But let me say that a different way. There's no science or research behind love languages and because of that it doesn't get as much credibility amongst the researchers and scientists. However, I can tell you, if you were to ask me the assessment that changed my life immediately, I would say love languages. It changed my life overnight. Now my recommendation would be to go read the book and take the assessment.
Speaker 1:Sure, the book's not long.
Speaker 2:The book's not long and it's in audio. I've listened to the audio book twice, at least twice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our big audio book lovers over here.
Speaker 2:But it will change the way people. It will change the way you treat people. It will help you understand why people treat you the way they do good, bad or indifferent. It just enlightens. But this is the beginning of getting to know yourself. Is participating in some of these assessments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a crawl before you walk, it's a walk before you run, type of thing. Enneagram gets you a little deeper, like when you're ready to know more about yourself. Go take that enneagram, and we'll talk about other assessments in later episodes. But let's start there. Let's go do love languages and if you're feeling ambitious, go ahead and do an enneagram.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you.