Girls Gotta Eat - Heartbreak, Rejection, and Emotional First Aid with Guy Winch

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

We have another life-changing therapy session on deck. Clinical psychologist, author, and TED speaker Guy Winch joins us to talk about emotional first aid and healing yourself after heartbreak, rejection, and failure. We discuss combatting negative self-talk, texting tips for the beginning of a relationship, dealing with loneliness, how to address bothersome things with your partner including feeling sexually rejected, and more. But it's not all heavy -- we're also catching up on Rayna's transformation and Ashley being back on the dating scene, and showing some love for the men in our lives. And lastly, we're introducing a hilarious new segment: You're On Notice. Enjoy! Follow Guy on Instagram @GuyWinch and find more info on his website. Follow us @GirlsGottaEatPodcast, Ashley @AshHess, and Rayna @Rayna.Greenberg. Check our website for tour dates and merchandise. Thank you to our partners this week: Feals: Become a member at feals.com/gge and get 50% off your first order + free shipping. Helix: Get up $200 off all mattress orders at helixsleep.com/gge. Ritual: Get 10% off your first 3 months at ritual.com/gge. Quip: Go to getquip.com/gge right now to get your first refill free. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

May I make a suggestion? I wouldn't tell guys about the board. Well, I just told you. And hundreds of thousands of people, but no one I'm dating. It's a mental board. I'm not doing it. It's good. Welcome back to another episode of Girls Got to eat.

Welcome back. You got nothing? I got nothing. Oh, I feel like it's, oh, it's Labor Day. Oh, happy Labor Day. Happy Labor Day, y'all. Oh, God. Every week.

I remember to respect everybody that has been laboring. What is Labor Day about? Laborers? Yeah. You don't know. It's about people that work. It's about people that work. I've lived in this country my whole life.

Do not DM as if we're offending somebody. I really don't know. I'll just Google it. I know what the second this is over. I know what the world is. Me too. And July 4th. Labor Day.

This is embarrassing. Okay. Listen, I know about other stuff. Okay. I'm feeling sharper. I'm feeling sharper than ever. Yeah, tell people why. I feel good.

You're living my life. I am Ashley. I have been working out every day since I committed to it. I actually have not committed to anything this much in ages. Yeah. I've actually never worked out this consistently in my whole life. I've worked out eight times. But I've worked out four days in a row.

Not two days off because you and I had like a nice little weekend. You got to have a rest day, girl. Don't go too hard. Don't burn yourself out. Is that possible? Yes. is just easy. Are you going to be my friend if I post no days off? Oh my God. I'll roast you so hard. But I got all the gear. I got bike shorts with pads. I got a gel

cover on my on my bike. I met the part. I've segway to the part of the workout phase where I do a class and then I bike. I like bike to relax. Oh. That's my come down. But I'm feeling good. I eat sweet green every day this week. I'm working out. I will say I'm not. I haven't noticed like any changes in my body. I get stressed out. And I'm like, oh my God, I've worked out for one. It's like that meme. It's like I ate a salad once. Like, am I skinny yet? But I just, I don't, and I've prided myself my whole life on never being one of those people that complains about shit continuously all the time and never does anything about it. I've never done that with boyfriends. I've never done it with jobs. And so when I'm feeling like I don't look good,

when I feel like cellulite is appearing in places, I've never seen it before. I do not want to continuously talk about it constantly because I have been. And I'm at least like proud to do Something about it. I woke up this morning. I was excited to work out this morning. Yeah, that is such a great quality of you is like you're never going to be out here complaining and not do anything about it. And you're not out here continuously talking about it. You've said like two things to me. Maybe you're in your head a lot about it. I am in my head all day, every day about it. But I also like, I think it stopped me from wanting to date. And I have been talking to a lot of people about it. Yeah. You know? Well, that's what you're doing something about. I'm so happy for you. Thank you. Rain is out here doing spin classes, wearing bike shorts and eating sweet green. So we're the same person. So I'm Ashley. It's been a long road. I just wanted to like really

manipulate you before you realized I was a single white female. I wasn't even invited on that trip to Aruba two and a half years ago. Oh, this has been a long con. Oh my God. When I asked to start this podcast, you were like, the plan is falling into place. Are you know that's dirty John? When we got back to New York after Aruba and we went out to dinner at that restaurant, I actually just paid the chef for that restaurant to pretend like he knew me. You did a great job because I didn't feel like you were being pushy. Like, you really have done a great job with this. It's finally happening.

It's been three years in the making. Now that we share a bank account, now that you're part of my family. Like, you have made yourself completely indispensable in my life. Now you can't back out. You'll never have a bush like this. I don't have a bush at all.

And I'm jealous. I would love to have a bush. If you get fucking hair plugs on your, on your pussy, I will know something. Pussy plugs! I'm doing for a three-year anniversary. How do you fully morphin to me? Got a bigger bunch.

Pussy plugs. That woman's going to come in for my pussy plugs with the shield over her face like she did with your box. Oh, my God. Should we talk about our show? Oh, yes. I want to give you credit because you have always really taken the lead with our live shows when we travel to the country.

You're the one that really writes the outlines. Of course, I help and I go to the shows. But you really are such a vision. between our live shows. You're such a visionary between all the dance performances we have at the shows. And you're just, you're really good at knowing what will hit. Because there's some things that's really funny between me and you, but won't hit for a crowd. You're very good at it. So you planned this. You did so great. You made sure we had amazing equipment. You made sure that we had people here helping us with the equipment. So I appreciate all the things you did. Thanks. Yeah, it was,

we had our virtual live show. I'm just going to say this right now. Before we get into it, you can still purchase it and watch it. Probably, if you're listening Monday, probably through. this Thursday. So you can go, the link is in our bio. I put in our bio last night. I don't if you noticed. And you guys can go to our Instagram link on our bio and buy the show. And so watch it. We opened it with three dancers. They are girls we've had before. They helped. They were part of the dance team that opened our Boston show. Janelle, Alicia and Dena. And they opened with the Wop dance. And it was so fun. We just wanted to keep our, we wanted to keep it on brand and open with dancers. And we had special guests.

former guests of the show, friends of ours, Andrew Colin, Francis Ellis, and Beatrice Dixon. Also, my podcast soulmate. Yeah. It was just really fun. We had such a blast. We did it in this apartment. Thousands of you guys tuned in. And had parties together.

I really was like choking up having time. I want you to talk about this. You were like so emotional. I was like, I just, I saw, I mean, you guys seemed like it was small gatherings. It was never more than like three or four girls. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everybody had these parties.

They'd be shirkuterie spreads. They had big snack spreads. Sushi. They had like all their white claws and their wine. It's just like, sometimes I forget, like, what this show has done for this, like, community and how much they mean to us, I never forget. But, you know, how it's connected to other people with each other. And people had, like, these beautiful girls nights and they projected it on the screen and they played along with us with never have I ever. And I loved seeing the Instagram stories of everybody just, like, laughing and yelling at the TV.

And, like, it just was this really special thing. And I miss being in front of you guys. I know. But we are trying to do whatever we can to get back out there. We are working on dates. We get back out there. We're getting back out there. We don't fucking care.

We're going to do some venues that will probably be shut down the week after we leave. Like we're just like, we see comedians doing it. They're doing outdoor shows. People are traveling and they're doing shows. And we want to be a part of it. So stay tuned. Hopefully we'll have something here soon that will be an outdoor show. And we're going to be at the forefront of whatever people are doing.

Or I guess we're not because some people have been to do it. But like we are going to be. We're going to be the forefront after a few people do it first. We're going to be somewhere in the middle of the people doing it. Of the forefront. But stay. tuned for that. I love the show so much. I echo everything you said. It was like we dressed for the show. Like you had your tithies out, your black jumpsuit. Raina came over. I was already dressed in my blue

camel toe jumpsuit. And like when I opened the door, you like tear it up. We were so emotional. I just, I like, I was sitting on my couch before I came over and I was like thinking about all the stuff that we usually do before live shows. And we would like be with our friends. We got to dinner and people backstage with us and getting dressed together. And we always have people like either we go to dry bar. We have like glam squad come to our hair. And it is like such a special ritual and I like I just haven't done it with you in so long. I know. So you guys can still buy it.

Again, the link is in our Instagram bio and maybe we'll do another story or something to swipe up. I wanted to say my best guy friend Rob really helped us out with like, I mean, he's like a tech guy so he helped us with like our setup and everything and we had like a little bit of audio malfunction. He stepped right in and fixed it right away and he did the lighting

and everything and got the logo on the screen. And he also just moved to my building. He's been back and forth between here in the West Coast and I haven't seen him since your Super Bowl party. that's crazy which is so before he came back a few weeks ago and I mean you were the

made of honor yeah it was his best man his wedding yeah I love him and his wife if you want an impression of him Dylan did an impression of him on Dylan's episode oh you're bringing up Dylan

oh my God it had to happen Dylan last night text me and he was like I didn't want to say anything but a lot of you were asking me why I wasn't on the live show yeah I heard that people want to Dylan

so noted guys we we will make sure it happens but he's been here we've spent like every day together because he's about to go back again. And he moved into my building. So now we're like neighbors and it just feels like friends, like the show and it always should have been. And I've just been thinking I've gotten so close with my brother the last few months, especially this summer. He's been helping me out with a lot of things. I've been looking at buying a home. I'm not going to get

into it right now. But and then like, and then we have Francis and Andrew and like all these guys around us. And we just hype our girlfriends all the time. And still, of course, girlfriends forever. Like I'm a girl's girl. I always will be. But I just have been so thankful lately for my guy friends. And I've just been thinking to how much they contribute to my life and help me with certain things that I might have a blind spot with or that I don't have a lot of knowledge with. And it's like, I don't know. I'm just thinking about my guy friends a lot recently and like having them at the show. And we just, I've always had really close guy friends. My best friend in high school was a guy. And I had that great group of guy friends in Atlanta. And I have my best guy friends here. And it's just like,

I mean, you have Dylan and we would talk about these guys. But I just wanted to give a shout out and show some love. Because like, to men. To men. You know what? I know it's weird. It's off-brand, but I want to shout out the men. I just have been feeling, like, in my feelings about, like, Rob and Matt, Matt's my brother, but, you know, all these guys, Francis and Andrew and everybody that is, like, surrounding us. And, you know, I don't know. I just wanted to say something. It's been really nice.

Well, people say all the time, they ask us, where you do an episode on, like, can you have a platonic relationship with a guy? And it's like, yeah. You have an easier time with it than I do because every man that I meet, every man I meet, I'm like, should I suck their dick? I don't, like, that is my immediate thought with every, I mean, you always say, like, I'm more, I lead with sex a lot more than you do. So, like, I'm like, I'm like, a man, like, every guy that I meet, I'm like, could I fuck you? Probably. Then you do get to a place where you have fucked them and

and you can be friends. Yeah. But yes, I agree with you. I love the man in my life. And I think that at our age, it gets hard to maintain male friendships as a female because, at least for me, like a lot of the guys I used to be friends with got married, had kids moved away. And it's hard to maintain a relationship with a man that's married and has kids. It seems sort of weird as a single person to some people's wives and girlfriends, I mean, and they're not into it. We'll do an episode on this. We'll deep dive on this. It does depend on the partner.

Not that your guy friend should ditch you when they find somebody, but like their partner, their girlfriend, their wife, or whoever matters. And it's like, I feel so lucky that Rob's wife is just the fucking coolest. And like Caleb, my best, you know, best guy from high school, we stayed. I mean, I went to visit him in Prague. And he, he wasn't married to his girlfriend yet. They're married now. But they were serious. They lived together.

I went to Prague. She just, she was actually pregnant with their first child. She just let us go to Berlin together for the weekend. Like, I'm like, I'm just going on like an overnight trip. Like, we're sleeping in the same hotel room, just me and him. You know, like, I've been really lucky to have the girlfriends on my side. I maybe I maybe they just don't think I'm like hot enough to steal her man or maybe they're like Ashley's this four she's not going to come in here but I didn't maybe I'm

non-threatening because I'm not into into them but you don't lead with sex and you don't flirt as much and I think that like people meet you and they're like oh this is like a genuine person that just genuinely wants to be friends so I think it's your vibe and it's how that person feels about the relationship and also how their man treats them so like I do think it's normal that like a man I'm not I'm just using man and women like that man should put his wife first should put his girlfriend first ahead of you. And if that person feels that and knows that, like, Allison knows she's Rob's priority. Right. Then it shouldn't be an issue. That's what, yeah, it's, that depends on like the strength of that relationship too. So, well, maybe we'll deep dive in this

later. But anyway, I like the topic. Can't, can't recommend men enough. Can't recommend guy friends enough. I'm glad that you've read of recommending men. I want to read you this email about our live show. It came through just to like wrap up the live show in this one person's experience. And it sounds like a great guy that she found. Okay. She wrote us in the middle of the live show. live show. It's 7.30 p.m. And did she set where she was living? It's 7.30 p.m. I'm watching the live girl's got to eat. My bumble boy wanted to come over. So I was like, okay. He'll come over at like 11, which is what he usually does. No, he gets to my apartment at 7.30.

So she's right. For like the pregame. Yes. No, she's in a different time zone. So we had already started. I want to say her time we started at 7. Oh, so he came in like 30 minutes into the show. Okay. All right. He gets my apartment decides, decides he wants to be horny. So this is what happens. He went down on me while my AirPods are in listening to the girls got to eat. You love to see it. Sincerely coming live.

I love her. Yeah. What a treat. We're watching this. My only issue is she had her AirPods in. I wish we would have been on the big screen, speakers out. So he was hearing us while he was going down on her too. Maybe she didn't want him to be too turned on.

Can you imagine? The stuff that we were talking about was really R-rated. So I think they could have listened to it like porn. I mean, if you guys missed it, you can still get it. I mean, I like it to the Super Bowl. She's like, you can come over, but this is staying on. I love that you just said that. More than the Super Bowl.

That is so true. It's just like I watch it. Just any spectator sport without spectators these days, you know? It's so funny because I don't keep up with like sports and I just don't know what's going on. And my brother's always like, yeah, Ashley, they're playing. NBA's here. The NHL's here. Matt's like, got to watch the Flyers game.

I'm like, the sports are happening? Wait, the girls that danced in our show. I was DMs with one of them the other day. I was like, what's the deal with basketball? And I go, I'm sorry, I like, I know of Google, but I have you. So exactly. All right. Well, we have this amazing episode for you guys today that we are so excited about.

We already recorded it. We actually have to hurry up because we have to finish this intro because you have a date. I have a date. I don't know if you want to help me complete this sentence. but is my first date since March. Not really since March. Like the last time I interacted with a guy where he like kissed me on the mouth was March. But we also kind of low-key broke up.

So I don't really call that date. I feel like my last like actual real day. It was probably date. Oh my God. Trish just came out. I think my actual real last real day was Valentine's Day, which is like sounds pathetic. But it's, I mean, we've been in a pandemic. At least it was Valentine's Day.

We also left the country. We left Valentine's Day. So my last real date was Valentine's Day. I'm with somebody that I was dating, went to Australia, or went to L.A. And I went to Australia that day, came back. It was a pandemic. Went to my parents.

And then it's been the summer. And I don't know, the summer's flown by. It's kind of weird. I feel like it was just your birthday, I feel like. I'm going to hit you with my last real date. Oh, God. I know what it was in Australia. Oh, I forgot about that.

Oh. Damn it. That wasn't my. I was going to say my last date. I was the only one that knew. was a date. It was Matthew Hussey in L.A. Right before we got in the plane.

What are you saying this? Yeah, but I think I was the only one that was a date. He was just having coffee with a friend. He just was having coffee with a buddy. I was like, we went on a date. It was great. That was my last.

But you are wrong. I am wrong. Because you went on a date in Brisbane, Australia, while I watched the Love is Blind finale alone in my room. I haven't... Like official serious...

Sounds like a loser guy. I've hooked up with people all summer, okay? You've been doing great. I'm doing great. I just mean like a very... proper date. Well, also, we don't need to justify this. It's been a pandemic. Like, some people aren't even meeting new people. And clearly, you know, be safe, whatever you're doing. But, like, I finally was like, I'm just going to really kind of hit the apps and, like, try to meet people,

you know? And so I have a date tonight. Um, that's, like, really all I'm going to say about it. Because I'm sure at this point, this guy's in love with me and he's going to be listening. Yeah. Next week, he's in love with you. For sure. Um, you're doing the most important thing that you can do on a first day, which is tacos. We're doing tacos. And this is, and this is, Friday as we record this. So like plenty of time to hate him by Sunday. Or to be in love with him by Monday. Babe, if you're listening. I got to tell you something that happened. I got to tell you something that happened. It happened on Friday night. I went out to dinner with a couple friends and this guy who I was dating around, I used the term dating very losing. We want three dates. We fucked a bunch.

Right around 2016. So he came out to dinner with some friends and I the other night. It's totally platonic. He is in a very serious relationship for somebody else. But he was. hanging out with us and he told me one of the reasons that he's he backed off from our relationship is that I babed too soon. Meaning I called him babe. Sorry, my mouth fell open. I wasn't not. Of course you did. I know. I knew that you were not going to be like, that's rude. Sorry. You're my best friend. I'm supposed to support you and I'm like, he's right. I can see it. And honestly, all I thought in that moment was I am so grateful for this podcast because, like, I see all of the things I did. You are laughing so hard.

I can't believe it. Oh, my God. He told me I babed too soon. I'm glad that you understood that because I was like, does this make sense when I say out that I babed too soon? How soon? I don't remember. I mean, we really, like, casually hooked up for, like, less than two months. And I was not, I don't think either of us looked at each other as a.

serious prospect for a relationship. So I probably might have said it. Sorry, I can't imagine myself saying it other than sarcastically. I can't either. Like, I don't know. I can't picture you. I just can't picture it. I wouldn't have said it as a serious thing. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Because like, he's awesome. I really like it, but it wasn't like a serious thing. Yeah. It just made me laugh really hard. And but I was thinking like, I'm so glad for this podcast because like I remember like he kind of like ghosted out on talking to me. and I remember I did that thing where I like read every single text message

and like what happened here? And a girlfriend of mine was like, you're too comfortable. You're too comfortable with him. And I was like, no, no. Because I like, and I asked him to like come over after I went to this dinner or something. I was like, hey, I can just like stop by after I go to this dinner. And he didn't seem like so cool about it.

And she said you made yourself like too available. We've been talking about this a lot. Yeah. So, yeah. So nothing has changed. Raina's working out her body and her dating game. Yeah. I'm going to work out with our guest today.

So yeah, I just, I wanted to tell you that. It's so funny. I babe too soon. It reminds me you're saying, I love you by accident during sex, which we discussed on the live show and was so fucking funny. Someone wrote in what never, one of the never have I ever someone submitted was like never had I love you during sex instead of or instead of I fucking love you or instead of I fucking love. I love. I love you. I love.

I love you. Oh my God. That is so bad because you want to say I love fucking you. Or I love your dick. Like all kinds of things. All kinds of the day I love you. Yeah. And it's like...

I'm writing and drag twice. I did it twice in the fall. I did it twice with two different people in the fall. And I just like... Both the times I was dead sober. Yeah. It's hard to recover from it. You just keep going.

That is funny. You couldn't even blame it on being drunk. No. Broad daylight. Dead sober. Oh, my God. Doggy style. In case you guys were curious.

But yeah, you didn't have to look at it. If you are looking somebody in the eye and you accidentally say it, that's hard to come back from. You need to have a discussion. Oh my God. If you're just facing the headboard, it never happened. And you can be like, you didn't even hear me right. First of all, that first guy doesn't believe that I love him. The second guy probably doesn't believe he's deserving of love.

So neither of them believed that I loved that. He knows them a family. It will never not be funny. I don't know. Sometimes you get mad. I never know. Whatever mood you're in. Whenever I say, he doesn't have a family.

One time I got mad. All right, well, are you ready to introduce our guests? I am very excited to introduce our guests today. It's been a long time coming. We have a great guest in the House studio with us and doing today. He is a clinical psychologist. He is the author of multiple books, including emotional first aid and how to fix a broken heart. He is an in-demand keynote speaker whose first TED Talk,

why we all need to practice emotional first aid, has been viewed nearly 11 million times, including by me, and it's rated as one of the most inspiring TED Talks of all time. Plus, he has his own podcast. Dear Therapist, please welcome to the show, Guy Wynch. Thank you for having me. All the way from Israel. Thank you for being here. Yes. Thank you. This is how we get our therapy. By the way, this is our whole scam is that we just interviewed therapists. It's a scam until we get the bill in the mails. I'm just saying what you are. Oh my God. Why? I'm nervous now. The invoice.

Yeah, we're so glad to have. Have you, Rayna, do you want to ask your favorite question? What gives you the way? Every time we have somebody on the show, we want them to sort of give themselves credit in terms of, you know, we always say what gives you the right?

So what gives you the right to talk about these things? We're going to talk about emotional well-being and heartbreak and loss and loneliness and things like that today. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what qualifies you to talk about this. Degrees? Exactly.

Work in the degrees, you say? So I'm a psychologist. and a writer and a speaker. As you said, I have 30 years experience talking to people and doing research about this issue of emotional health and working with patients. And so I feel I have a decent vantage point about what's going on with us, period, you know, like in general, but also with us specifically and in different situations. And I find that it's not often that we get a real kind of honest, yeah, here's the way this

actually is kind of perspective from a psychologist because psychologist's favorite response to questions is it depends. And it's our favorite response because it depends. But there are some truths that we can get to. So hopefully we'll get to some actual facts and truths.

Yeah. Ashley and I were talking yesterday about what we are personally looking for in a therapist and we want somebody to explain to us what's going on rather than us explaining to them what's going on. I feel a therapist, I feel therapist should do that more than And many therapists do.

Many therapists are very much in the, I'm going to nod a lot, school of therapy, which is great. I'm actually all for nodding. I got an A in nodding back in graduate school. But words, we should use our words. I love that. Well, why don't you explain to us

what practicing emotional first aid means? I will. I do want to say that this came out of this observation, really, of the fact that we have this favoritism towards our physical health. at the expense of or actually while ignoring our psychological health. And one of the examples I give is that if you get a cut on your arm, most people are savvy enough to know if that requires anything.

Maybe this requires a band-aid. I can tell if it requires a big band-aid. I can tell if I think I might need a stitch. I can tell or if I really need to hail a cab really quickly to get to the ear, I can tell. So we can actually tell in the difference between the cuts, physical cuts we sustain, like what's the severity, what's the depth, what do I need? to do. When it comes to emotional wounds, which we sustain regularly and all the time in all kinds of domains of life, we're not even clear that we've been wounded. We can't even distinguish what an

emotional wound is necessarily, what it isn't, how to know whether that's something that requires any kind of treatment or what kind of treatment. We are so behind in our psychological sophistication when it comes to understanding emotional injuries and certainly applying emotional first aid as compared to our sophistication when it comes to physical injuries. And that is a gap that needs to be closed. And how do you help people realize their pain, I guess? I mean, or close that gap? So look, so in general, the way we respond emotionally and psychologically

is such that, you know, we feel emotional pain, we feel emotional distress. That is pretty universal. In other words, if you went through a breakup, it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what country you're in, if you really care about this person and you just got dumped, it is going to hurt and it's going to hurt significantly. Now, based on your culture, on your age, on your ethnicity, whatever different things, you might have a different way of expressing it. But your internal experience, our emotional DNA, as it were, is going to be very, very similar. And because of that similarity, it's

possible for someone like me to come and say, well, here's the general truths about these things, because this is what your emotional experience is going to be. And if it hurts for a very long time, I mean, if you start to question your value and you start to question yourself worth and you start to feel like I can't tolerate rejection. So actually, I'm going to stop dating for six months to a year because that's a great solution. Becoming isolated and lonely is not the best way, by the way, that was sarcastic. Becoming isolated and lonely, not a good approach when you're hurting. But so there are all kinds of ways in which we experience a certain amount of emotional pain and distress,

but the way we deal with it usually comes from ignorance. And one of the most unfortunate aspects of our psychology is that when we are in emotional distress, our instincts are going to be off. They are going to protect us, quote, unquote, by getting us to avoid the very thing that we're actually after. So like the person who just got dumped wants to avoid dating, or you just applied for this job and you didn't get it, so you're like, I'm not going to apply for jobs anymore. Or, you know, our tendency, unfortunately, is to avoid the thing that calls pain, which is, of, and the thing that we were going for as a goal, and that stymies us and frustrates us. And so we really have to be aware of how our mind responds to emotional distress, to emotional wounds so that we can be aware of what we should and should not do to heal more

quickly and to soothe the emotional pain we're feeling. I think that's so interesting how you talk about how you're avoiding the thing that you really want. And I think so much of the common knowledge, especially during a breakup, I wrote somebody back the other day who emailed us and said, I'm going through this terrible breakup. And I wrote her back. And I said, you know, I know this is terrible and you're in so much pain, but it will pass. I used to hate when people said that to me and I hated that that was my response to her. But, you know, I think that sometimes we don't know how to like explain to somebody how to move forward,

what the time period should be, exactly how upset you're allowed to be on a scale of 1 to 10. And something that you talked about a lot was how you take those emotions and apply it to future situations. So if you feel like you failed in this situation, that's quote unquote, failed at the relationship that you'd like assume that you'll fail in the next one or something. That was just interesting. Well, no, but it's absolutely true. In other words, you will come with trepidation to the next one. And by the way, you just use the sentence.

Like you're not sure how much pain you're supposed to feel. There is no amount of pain you're supposed to feel. You feel what you feel. Again, it's not about what's normative because everyone really hurts. So to the extent that it's very, very painful for you, it's efficient, whether that compares to the other person doesn't really matter much in that sense. But it's just about how upset you are and what you need to do with it. And by the way, when it comes to breakups, time is a great healer?

By no means is it the only one. And it's one of those examples of there are many actions we can actually take to accelerate healing if we knew what they were. That's why I speak and write books and do interviews and all these things so that more people will know what they are. Can we go through some of those steps? Yes, specifically about breakup. Are we starting with the fun stuff? Great, let's do that. Sure, let's do that.

I think we can. Your book How to Fix a Broken Heart, I'm assuming you go through steps and the normal feelings that everybody goes through. Yes, so here are some of the things to keep in mind when you've gone through a breakup. And by the way, some people, you just might have been dating someone for five years,

have been married for 10, or you might have had a date or two or three, but you got so attached and so hopeful that you can feel really devastated when that doesn't work out. But here are a few things you have to keep in mind. First of all, our natural tendency after we get rejected is to enumerate every single fault we have

in our effort to understand why it happened. Well, I'm not this enough, and I'm too much of that, and maybe I shouldn't have said this, and I knew I should have worn clean underwear that day, which you should do every day. But whatever the thing is that you're going through of your faults and your mistakes and your inadequacies, it's a very natural thing to do.

and what I talk about, for example, in my TED talk, is that that would be akin to getting a cut on your arm and taking a knife and going, oh, I can make this deeper. Let's do that. It's absolutely the wrong thing to do. It's a very strong impulse. And that impulse, again, comes from our efforts to try and understand and give meaning to what happened. Only it sends us down the wrong path. It must be something deficient about us. And sometimes it is, but more likely, it's about the fit. It's about the match. It's about the circumstance. It's about the quality of the relationship about the other person, whatever it is. And so that tendency to beat ourselves up is something we actually have to curtail. And then we actually have to do the opposite. Our self-esteem needs reviving in that moment, not savaging. We're not joining Fight Club. So what we really need to do is find ways to remind ourselves of our value, of what we bring to the table as dating or relationship partners.

And that's a very counterintuitive process because I don't know many people who naturally, well, I just got dumped. I'm going to make a list of how great I am in a lot. all kinds of different ways. I would do that. Excellent. Good. I'm giving you, I am giving your commendation of emotional health right now.

Actually does it every day about. Breakups for your own activity. If you don't need a breakup to do it, it's slightly different. So that's one thing that we need to pay attention to after breakup. Another one is that to the extent that we've been in the relationship for a while, that's going to leave a lot of voids. We haven't had to figure out what we're going to do on a weekend for a long time necessarily with our partner, but not.

not by ourselves. We hadn't had to figure out, well, if it's just me, then what do I want to have for dinner? Or what was the toothpaste that I was using before? Or now there's this big gap on the wall where that used to be. And so we need to actually fill the voids in the real world and within ourselves in terms of our identity, in terms of who we are, how we define ourselves. Because we can have been through a lot of change. And some of that is related to the person that we've lost.

and some of it might not be, which of that we want to retain, which of that would we like to dump. So there's a lot of actual work and thinking we need to do to reconstruct, to reformulate, to recover after a heartbreak. I start to do this totally useless exercise all the time after a breakup where I go through every single communication we had and I read every text message and I think, why did I say it like that?

Why didn't I put myself out there out there more? What did I ask for something? Why didn't I shut the fuck up about something? why did I pick that fight? And I make myself crazy. And I remember my mother, who's also a psychologist, said to me once, you know, it doesn't matter. You can like evaluate these things forever, but it's not, like you have to evaluate why you accepted so little or why, you know, why you stayed in this for so long. And that was very helpful for me. It hasn't stopped me from doing it. But I think we all have a tendency to sort of try to do that. And I would say you probably feel like that's a worthless exercise as well.

No, actually, I'm going to agree with your mom. In other words, there are things of value that you want to learn from a breakup. And, you know, if it's happened after two days, there's not much for you to learn. But in a relationship, and even if you're the one doing the breaking up, there are things to learn. Like, what did I compromise on in this relationship that I shouldn't next time? What did I tolerate that I really shouldn't? What needs? You said, you know, what I should have asked for this? Yes, if that's something that's important, you should have asked for that. So what was the thing that stopped you from asking? What was the fear that stopped you? Did you know how to go about doing it? Or had you just mentioned it a lot of time, people were saying, no, no,

I verbalized my needs. I'm like how. And like I hinted heavily by raising an eyebrow. That's not verbalizing. That's not really that clear to the other person because they think you can raise an eyebrow from any reason. So to actually do a little bit of a post-mortem and to understand, okay, what are the lessons I want to take here to my next relationship? What corrections do I want to institute in how I conduct myself in the next relationship? That's useful. That you can do rather quickly. That apparelty doesn't take six months. If it's in the six-month time, you're still thinking about But look, look at this text. Here they said that they really loved me.

Why a week later did they break? Because look, I haven't here. I'm going to show you because I've shown you 10 times. I'm going to show it again. Why did they say that? That is the exercise that's not very useful. I'm sure you hear this with anybody you speak to and we hear it too. And I think it's a natural thing that people think when they are hurting so badly from a broken heart.

And they are just like, I just never want this to happen again. I just can't, I never want to feel this pain again. What would you say to that person? Is it just, well, it might, and that's just the risk you take when you open up your heart? Or do you have any advice for the person that is asking, how can I ensure I never feel this broken and dead inside again? By remaining alone and having a different version of broken and dead inside, those are the options. In other words, to open yourself up, to be vulnerable, to love someone is a risk.

It's a risk you should take. You should be a measured risk. It should be a thought through one. It should be a risk that you... There's a lot of vetting, I think, needs to go into relationships that does not. That people actually, you know, miss a lot of red flags. They don't consider...

Well, we're just starting out, so I'll address these things if it gets serious. Well, at that point, you've already accepted them, so there's not much harder to address them. I don't say one thing, just to go back for a minute, about that thing, because one of the things that really plagues people is that text message.

Because now, you know, like in the age of text, you can actually go back and look at the evidence, quote, unquote, and like a detective, you know, like everyone's like CSI now. Look at the forensic analysis of what went wrong. But here's actually what happens. When you're actually in a relationship with someone and you would do the same, if you're thinking of leaving it, you don't voice that when you first have the thought. You know, like no one wakes up sitting at breakfast and goes,

past the cornflakes. I was thinking of leading you. Anyway, pass the milk. That's not how it happens. You don't just voice it. It's a plan. It's a cooking. It's a process that somebody goes through until they're ready and until they are.

They usually will not a person know. There might be some emotional distancing that's going on or that kind of thing. Withdrawal of energies and somebody might tell something's up. But that's the whole point. They won't tell you until they're ready. And so very much a week before they can send you a lovely text or go on vacation with you. I spend a lovely weekend in which you think, oh, this is lovely. And then it's, wow, out of the blue.

but it wasn't out of the blue for them. They were planning that, and they were just like, you know what, you've been looking forward to that weekend for so long. I don't want to do that to you before that weekend. I'll go on that weekend and give you a nice week, and I'll do it for you after. There's often a kindness in it, not always, but sometimes there is.

There's a consideration. But that's why it's always a blindside, because they will let you know when they're ready and they will kind of fake it to not lead you on until they are. We did a whole episode on that. You did, excellent. Yeah, it's called So You got blindsided because I think we've all felt that. And we tend to think that feels like a little bit more of a male behavior.

But, you know, we hate to generalize so much. But in terms of when women get quote unquote blindsided, we're like, that guy's been thinking about that for quite some time, just like you said. Yeah. And look, it's an exit. And this is something women do as well, you know, as men. And like, I don't know how many times you were the one to break up a relationship

or listeners. But if you are and you're a woman, then you probably, you know, you probably hopefully try to work in a relationship. tried to voice dissatisfactions and make changes. But at some point when you made up your mind, you probably strategized when is the time to do it. And there were circumstance and there were holidays and there were all these other factors that came into it.

And it's just a natural way of thinking. So what do you say to a person? Because we always tell people you're not expected to be a detective. You don't have to check in with your partner or temp check them every day. Are you going to leave me? Am I okay? But, you know, what do you say to a person? It's like, I should have seen this.

I should have seen that my partner wasn't happy. I should have seen that they were going to leave me. Do you say to them, no, you shouldn't have? Or do you say them you should have been checking in more? And I know that every situation is very different. But, you know, for somebody that says, why didn't I see this? I'm with this person every day. What do you say?

So I say that it's possible that you couldn't see it. But did you feel something? Did you feel a little bit more emotional distance? Did you feel the efforts subside? Do you feel the enthusiasm, when? Were there any kinds of small changes in behaviors? They always used to make you pancakes on Sunday. and for the past few weeks it's been toast.

I don't know. I'm just, but, you know, there's small little things that you can look at because when somebody is deciding when and how to leave, there is a withdrawal of emotional energies, an emotional investment that happens much, and this is obviously very different,

but much in the same way, that when you're looking for a new apartment, you start to disinvest from the apartment you're in, it starts to annoy you more, because now you're looking forward to the new one. We can't love two apartments at the same time. And I'll take a second apartment. Yeah, me too.

I'm just, the apartment's different. Yeah, we know. But you know what I mean? In other words, like we have a finite reservoir of emotional resources. And so when we are starting to invest them elsewhere,

they have to be withdrawn from somewhere. So that sometimes people can think back and go, hmm, thinking about it that way, yeah, there were little things that I did notice. But like I said, most of the time you didn't notice

because you weren't given the signs on purpose so that it would happen at the time to the other person. because otherwise it would force the issue before they were ready and they didn't want that either. Right. And sometimes you're choosing to ignore them. I mean, everybody has a different level of confrontation and bringing things up in a relationship.

So we hear that a lot of, yeah, I did see this. I didn't know these things were happening, but I was scared to bring them up and I didn't actually want to admit that they were happening. And so I think that if you get into a situation like that with a relationship, then you're better for the next one, you know, when you might be a little less scared. to bring something up when you see those cracks in the foundation start. Because I think you see that all the time.

Like, we never want to not validate someone's experience, but there's always a little bit of like, did you see anything happening here? And if you really drag it out of people, sometimes they finally admit, like, yeah, I did. But I didn't want to admit to myself that it was even happening. Or you can just say, yeah, I know, but it was stressed at work. So I thought it was that.

I know that they were having a problem with their mom. So I thought it was that. And their best friend was this. I mean, it's hard to, you know, we can see someone, you know, preoccupied, but we can't mind read and know why. So we can find much more benevolent reasons than, oh, because they're losing interest in me. But then sometimes it's like on the flip side, you always think it's about you and it's not, you know, like it's kind of like, you know, Raina coming in and me telling, me knowing she's like a little off for whatever reason. And my immediate thought is, is she

mad at me and it just has nothing to do with me. I think we have a tendency to go the other way too where you think everything has to do with you and it actually is that they're stressed at work or that their mom is sick you know? So it's like... Yes, but that's where communication comes in, right? Especially when it comes to friendships, partnerships and relationships.

It's fair to say is everything okay? You seem a little laugh and then your job brain would be to say yes, X, Y, and Z or to say, well frankly, you pissed me off really yesterday and then you're actually talking about it.

But that's what I meant to say to her. Wait, really? No. Are we working through this in real time? She was like, are you okay? And I was like, that conversation in the car really upset me. Not anything you said. Yeah, we just, we worked through some stuff on a car ride yesterday, not with each other,

but in our romantic relationships. Anyway, we're not, while we have you, guy, if we could actually. Yes, let's, let's make it count. Work on our relationship. Sorry to be rail you. We want to give people permission also to, you know, maybe you didn't see anything in the moment. My fiancee left me. He blindsided me pretty hard.

But I would say after several months of thinking about it, I was like, oh, of course all the signs were there. But it took me a while to stop A, blaming myself, and B, have sort of like an aerial view of what happened. And it's okay if the second day after somebody leaves you, you're not like, oh, I totally see what

happened. That's not possible. That's not natural. Look, I work with couples who sit in my office every week threatening to lead each other. And then when one of them finally does it, the other one is stunned, shocked I tell you. They just didn't see it happening. And I'm like, because you discussed it every week.

No, but I didn't think they were serious. I'm like, well, apparently they were. But it's very easy to feel surprised by these things. That's not unusual. So something that you talked about, unless you want to, I'm going to ask a question. You see if you like it. Something that you talked about that I liked you sort of, again,

like giving people permission to feel certain things is what happens in your mind after you've like quote unquote failed at a relationship or been rejected and like the self-talk. And if you want to talk a little bit about like what just like a natural normal like negative self-talk happens during that process. That's exactly what I was going to ask. I was thinking more even like there's such a spectrum of breakups and there's everything from like a light rejection to a massive, you know, breakup after being together in a committed relationship. And I think sometimes a lot of the little rejections can build up and make you really closed off and just. want to throw your hands in the air and give up and also just think you're not worthy of finding somebody. Like we

we've been in this place too and we know a lot of other of our listeners and everybody has of just like where is he? Where is she? Why isn't it working out? Why is it just rejection after rejection and breakup after breakup and nothing ever works out? And so yeah, I think a lot of that results in a negative

self-perception, self-talk and how do we work through that? Yeah, so there's a big dynamic that often happens which becomes really reciprocal And that is, for example, you had this breakup. You're very hesitant. You know, you don't know if you want to go through that again. You meet someone and it seems to be going well.

Then there's some issues there, but you ignore them because you just want this one to work out well. And you also don't put forth any expectations or demands because you just want it, you know, to work out well. And then you stay with it, even though you really shouldn't. Or you, you, and what comes across to the other person is, is, wow, she's not making any demands on me whatsoever. You know, that's in the bag for me. And when people feel early on it's in the bag, the most natural human tendency is to lower your effort,

because you can. And we have a tendency to put forth as much effort as is required. What is required is up to you. So if you're not setting a bar, the person you're with isn't going to meet it. Now, it's that very fine threading of a needle in which you set a bar that's manageable and that's reasonable without being too difficult or without being too demanding

or without being too controlling, there's where the nuance comes in. But a lot of times what the mistake people make is they just make it too easy for the other person and then the other person doesn't appreciate them and then that keeps happening. And the more it happens, the easier they make it because they don't want it to happen again and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So we have to pay attention to those kinds of dynamics.

And by doing that, the mistake you're making, beyond letting the person think that, oh, you're going to be easy for them so they don't have to make many efforts. But the mistake you're making is actually what happens in the early stages of a relationship is it's like wet cement. It dries very quickly and it gets very hard once it does. So the dynamics, the power shifts, the expectations get set up very, very quickly. and if you don't address the things you don't like, it's going to be much harder to do once the cement dry. So it's actually important in the early stages of a relationship

and be nice about it and be very, very even light about how you bring stuff up. Even just flagging something is good. But don't let things slide that you wouldn't accept in a long-term relationship because it's going to be much harder to change them when you're in the long-term relationship. Absolutely.

And if somebody's been acting a certain way for months and all of a sudden you get upset because you've been upset for months. You know, it's, I don't want to say it's not fair. You can always tell somebody you don't like how they're behaving, but it's sort of like, but I've been doing this for months. Like, where did this come from? It is hard to sort of like move the goalpost then at that point.

Very hard. Literally 10 times harder than doing it at the beginning. Yeah, that's, um, I love the cement example. And I think maybe some people think like it's so new. I don't, you know, I don't want to bring this up. right away. It's not that serious yet. But then I kind of think, okay, but it is new. So this is kind of when the person should be trying the hardest. You know, like in my mind, like, why was this person not putting in any effort this early on? Like, that's a huge red flag. So

let's talk about why you're feeling a lack of effort at the point when there should be the most, at a point when someone is trying to date you. Right. And you should assume that this is them at their best. Right. Right. Exactly. Thank you for pointing to words. Let me be clear about something. I am not suggesting that on date number two, you sit down and say, we need to talk because

that's going to be able much. You just need to flag it. And I'm going to give you an example just about how lightly it's okay to do it. Because by flagging it, you're reserving the right to object to it later on. If you didn't flag it, less so. So the flagging isn't such. So like the person that says has a lateness issue. And first date, there were five minutes late.

Five minutes are early to go. Second day, they're 10 minutes late. You don't have to say you're 10 minutes late, even, if you don't want to have that conversation. All you can say is problems with the subway. Something as light as that, and they go, oh, yeah, it's enough. You gave the message, right? So you just kind of call attention to it in the lightest, smileiest, kindest way. It's sufficient to flag it as I reserve the right to talk to you about this if this keeps happening,

is the subtext of that. And that's all you need to do at the beginning. Huh. And I think it's probably what we hear the more is not necessarily late to a date. It's more communication. It's they don't text me back in a timely manner or they're not respecting my time

or they're not prioritizing me. And so I'm trying to think of some advice. Let's talk about text because that is where most of it happens, right? Okay, let's do it. The date went super well. Why did it take you 48 hours to send me a text about it.

Right? And so when somebody does and say, oh, I had a great time, I'd like to see you again, but it took 48 hours. How quickly are you responding to that text? As relieved as you are to get it, how long would you wait?

If somebody waited 48 hours, I'd be pretty butt hurt. I would be like, okay, how did you not think about me for two days? It's a bummer. It is. I think I'd be bummed, but I'm willing to give it a shot if I really like the person, and I honestly would respond within like five minutes.

And I think a quick address it in what way? I might not address it the first time. I'm not the psychologist, so you tell me what I'm doing wrong, but the first time it happens, I might be okay with it and acting like I'm not mad by withholding a text message for 12 hours because you do that. They know you're mad, and it sends the message in the wrong way. And I'm all about don't do it mad. Do it light, do it funny.

You can say something like, oh wow, it took you 40. hours to come down from that high. I'm so glad you're finally able to communicate. Like, you know, you can say something amusing or if it's in even like 24 hours, but that seems too long. You know, you can wait a bit. First of all, if you respond immediately, the message is, I've been waiting for you to text me. I'm eager. You're absolutely conveying that. The other thing I tell people to watch out with text messages is it's very convenient that we have it. Count the lines. If you're writing 10 and they're responding with two, don't write 10 again. because it's conveying a disproportionate amount of effort,

which is going to play out in other ways as well. We were talking yesterday about being too available, and I am too available, which is probably why I would respond in five minutes. But I think I'm trying to not convey that I'm like super mad. And again, for me, this is the one time it happened. This is not a pattern. That's a different story.

But yeah, I think that the 10, you know, you should mirror if somebody is saying five things to you or one. And that I think can sort of wrap up the availability. ability a little bit. Right. And the other option is that you respond kindly and you go on the second date and after the second date to the extent that it goes well, you say, by the way, just to let you know, I'm the kind of person that if I don't hear from you for another 48 hours, I'm going to lose interest because I'm going to assume that it's not that urgent for you. So I'm just letting you know that if you're interested, act quick. With a smile. Yeah, with a smile. Yeah, I mean, I dated someone that I just, I felt like he sometimes he wouldn't respond to a text that I felt was deserving. Like, I felt like he just kind of dropped off in a mid-conversation, you know, and it, I did. I just made a light comment about it, like, as in it's noted. And we didn't, we didn't get to a point where it would have been a serious, like,

hey, this bothers me talk because, you know, a pandemic happened. But had it gotten to that point, I think it would have been like, hey, I enjoy communicating with you. You know, I just, I feel like sometimes I send things that are a deserving of a response, you know, we're bantering back and forth and it makes it just, it doesn't feel great. And I think that's an easy thing to say. And some people don't know that they're doing that because it wasn't intentional. This wasn't like a guy that was a player, you know, a fuckboy where it was, he had a million

other girls. He was texting. I think it was just, he was probably just distracted and didn't think about it. So sometimes it could be the latter. It could be an asshole of a guy that knows exactly what he's doing. and sometimes it's just a matter of mentioning something that maybe they didn't realize they were doing. And look, the other thing I believe in

is actually giving people the answer. So for example, saying in that situation, look, I know you can get really busy, but if we're in the middle of the conversation, I promise you, it'll be absolutely fine with me. If I get a one vertex saying busy, I will assume that, oh, you're just, this is a placeholder, you'll respond later.

You're just letting me know that you can't at the moment, which would be great. Otherwise, I'm not guessing about what's going. So to get people that this would work for me kind of formula, I think it's a very fair thing to do. I love that. And I think that ultimately I want to validate texting as a form of communication. I think sometimes people try to unvalidate it to make you feel a little crazy and gaslight you a little bit. It's just texting. It's like it's just texting. It's like our main form of communication these days. As opposed to what? We're not doing something. Right. Right. So I think sometimes maybe I'm just going to use a woman and a man in this example, but a woman

might feel a little silly saying something like that. Like, I don't like when you drop out of a text conversation with me, and she may feel a little silly bringing that up. And in reality, we communicate primarily via text so much that that's like you walking out of the room while I'm still talking. If we were to put it into, you know, so. It is. But do it lightly, right?

I mean, you can just show the phone and say, you see we're in the middle of the conversation and here, right here we have texts as interrupt us. We have you just going dark, found clear reasons. Even if you're doing it with a smile, because look, what guys don't, especially, but women either. We don't like to feel, don't, don't, you know, blame us. Don't tell us we're assholes. Don't like make a big deal of it, especially if it's the first time.

And I might have had a good reason. So it's the lightness of the communication, which is fine. And some people like, but it isn't a light thing. And I'm like, but that's the stage of the relationship. Stage of the relationship is key. And I also believe in you're trying to convey a message. It doesn't really matter whether you say big or small. if the small is more effective because it makes people less defensive,

use the small. Your message gets across more efficiently, whereas let's talk and the person immediately goes into defensive posture and I go, we're going to have a lot of these because this is going to be exhausting. And they don't know that. But if you're just very light about it, it allows them to change. But the other thing I want to point out is that then look for the change. In other words, if you're pointing out something lightly and then it happens again,

then you need to point it out again. Because if you don't, they'll be like, well, she seemed upset about that one, but I guess it's fine because she wasn't upset about the other one. I like the idea of doing it lightly. Otherwise, I think for me at least it could spiral into this power dynamic of like this person did leave me hanging on the last conversation. I said this funny, smart thing you should have responded to and you didn't. And now I'm mad.

And now the next time you say something to me, I'm going to want to withhold my funny response because I'm tepid that you're going to do it again. You didn't answer my phone call the last time. And for me it spirals into this like who could fuck with the other person a little bit more. and have the upper hand. And yeah, I like the advice to just say something early on and then look for the change.

And I think if the person likes you enough, respects you enough, they will address it even if you said it in a light manner. What did I do the other day? That guy sent me a, he sent me like a kind of a sexy pick but he hadn't responded to something nice. I'm just very curious about what a kind of sexy. You want to see that.

It wasn't that sexy. Okay, right. Because it was sometimes there's an effort at a sexy pick and you're like, no, no, no. It was like a joking sexy pick. But something we'd You look at it in bed late at night by yourself? No.

I might. Just because I know what's under there. Okay. But it was two days prior, a day prior, whatever it was, probably the day before, maybe two days. I had made like a funny joke about something that mentioned my boobs, like whatever. And so when I got his picture two days later, I said in a light way, like, oh, is this your response to the thing about my boobs?

You know, like it was kind of like a joking way. And he immediately did take it and digest it and say, like, oh, I don't know if it wasn't like an I'm so sorry, apology, but he at least addressed why he didn't respond to that. I think he said like, oh, I'm so sorry. I must have been distracted. I always, you know, want to respond to your boobs. Like it was like a silly thing. That's great, though. Hopefully it was noted. That's exactly what you need. Right. Right. Even if he had said, oh, wow, yeah, I didn't respond to that. Sorry. Or even without the story, oh, yeah, right, shoot, I didn't respond to that. It's noted. And then

if it's noted, you do want to see a change in behavior. Because if it's noted and you don't, that's a whole other thing. But then what are we? What do we do when they don't change at all? Can you bring it up again? And then by time number three, you say, hey, let's talk by the three strike rule because you're dangerously close to getting booted out of the game. You know, I was talking to a friend the other day, and I sort of liken this. Every person you meet, you have this blank whiteboard and everything you learn about them.

You're just putting it on the board, right? You're just throwing it up on the board, there's good and bad columns. And, you know, sometimes you connect it with the little red stretch. You're like, well, this thing sucked, and it's because of this thing. And, you know, not everything has to be a big fight. but eventually you step back from the board and you say like what's going on here. And I think that if like this person consistently ignores my cute naked pics

and me flirting and the funny, interesting things I say, then you make a judgment call about the relationship overall. May I make a suggestion? I wouldn't tell guys about the board. Well, I just told you. And hundreds of thousands of people, but no one I'm dating. It's a little scary. It's a mental board.

I'm not doing it. A mental board is good. But you wouldn't say that to a guy. You think I have like a beautiful mind board? With the headlines, remote papers, and narrowing in on the serial killer. Like I'm John Nash.

No, this is not a beautiful mind. It's a mental whiteboard. Mental is good. It's one of rain as metaphors and guys shit all over it. Yeah. I'm kidding.

No, no, that was on me. I got to believe on that one. I want to tell guys about, I just want to tell you about more of my metaphors. No, I thought of it the other day this beautiful metaphor. I couldn't wait to tell you about it. I wanted to say something too.

I just thought about like 48 hours to respond after a first date. I think sometimes women tend to, you know, romanticize and fantasize and think that you're going to fall in love in the first date and the person's going to wake up thinking about you and I think that's unrealistic. And so maybe we should all assume that people are busy

and they're dating multiple people. again a little weird right now during COVID, but there could be a totally fine, acceptable situation where you had a really great date with somebody. They woke up the next day, they went to work, they went to the gym, they were busy, they had another date that night with somebody else, and then two days later came around,

and they were like, I really like that person. I'd like to see them again. I think sometimes we want everybody to fall in love with us, and that's unrealistic, and we don't act like that either. So I think sometimes it's just a matter of, not falling in love with somebody after the first date. And sometimes it takes a day or two for them to be like, that was fun.

You know, I'd like to do that again. And I think sometimes relationships can be much more of a slow role than this hot and heavy first date, wake up the next morning, text the person thinking about you, can't wait to see you again. You know, I think taking a step back and being like, this is not a big deal. We all have shit going on, you know. But here's what I really like about what you said. And I think this is something people should do much more of. you could spend those two days going through all the case scenarios as we said about what's wrong with you what's not good enough why not come up with that or any other kind of explanation that's actually much more benign much more in your favor because i did contact you in two days time or even on a day and a half period where you don't know that yet be like i don't know uh certainly they're not chomping at the bit but it's possible that they just got called into the meeting and then this happened and that happened and then they decided you know what yeah she was at

actually kind of nice. Let's call her again. Find an explanation that serves your self-esteem. That makes you feel better about yourself. Because if you're going to fill the gap, fill it with something that actually benefits your emotional health rather than something that takes away from it. That's a choice you can make. Okay. So I love that. And I asked this a little bit before, but I want to get into it more when you're feeling rejected. Because I would feel a little rejected after 48 hours, not hearing from somebody. And I think that what Ashley said is probably more. the case, which is that you're a stranger and they don't know you and they're busy. But I think if you are feeling a little rejected, like, how do you manage all this like self-talk and like what is normal? And if you could like give us some tools for like dealing with that. So let me just actually say something about rejection. I want people to know because it's not that well known. So a lot of experiments have been done with rejection in which they wanted to

see. Why is it the rejection hurts so much? Even slight, rejections are really painful. And so researchers wanted to see why that is. And so what they did is they created an experiment in which they created, they evoked, you know, they had Confederates that actually reject the person showing up for the experiment unbeknownst to them. So it's a rigged rejection. It's a mild one.

It takes place in a waiting room. It's a very, very mild one. Okay. But here's what it is. So, you know, you're sitting, you're waiting for an experiment and there are two people sitting next to you waiting for their experiments. They are research Confederates. you don't know that.

There's a ball on the table. One of them takes it, tosses it to the other. The other one takes it, tosses it to you. You toss it back to the first person. He tosses it to the second. And then they don't toss it to you again. They start tossing among themselves. So after one round, you got excluded from the stupid ball.

I would be like it's because I'm not good at sports and they knew it. They must have known. But here's what happens that when they take people into the actual experiment, they find that people report significant drops in self-esteem, significant experiences with emotional pain, significant feelings of anger and frustration and other kinds of things. So what they wanted to do is see like, all right, well, what happens if we say to them,

hey, those two people who are waiting are actually from a group you despise. So they told the black subjects, oh, those people were members of the KKK. And they told the Jewish subjects, those guys were when you're Nazis. and, you know, they told Taylor Swift it was Kanye West, whatever. I'm just saying that they...

But the point is that it didn't change the emotional pain people experienced. In other words, finding out that the people who rejected you are people you actually despise didn't alleviate it. And then they went so far as to tell people like, those are our research confederates, it actually didn't happen. And it took people still a while to get over the emotional pain of it, even if it wasn't real and they knew. it. In other words, we are very, very hardwired to experience rejection as painful. So much so that

when they put people in functional MRI machines, they compare the pathways in the brain that respond to that kind of emotional pain versus physical pain and found that they were incredibly similar. The assumption was that these emotional pain pathways literally piggyback on pathways of physical pain. Here's my last proof of concept. They gave one half of the people of the subjects a sugar pill and the other half Tylenol, unbeknownst to them, and the people who got Tylenol reported less emotional pain from the rejection, because that's how similar it responds in our brain. It really hurts.

So the idea is like, first of all, what we do when we're really hurting, even from mild rejections, if you go, well, I must be a loser, or like, you know, what's wrong with me, that this is hurting so much. We are wired to feel that way. The reason, by the way we are, the assumption in terms of evolutionary psychology, is that rejection was an early warning sign.

And we were in nomadic tribes, you know, to be ostracized from the tribe would be a death sentence. We couldn't survive by ourselves. And so people, so rejection was an early warning sign that you might get voted off the island. And then the people who experienced rejection as more painful were more likely to change their behavior, stay and pass along their genes. And those who did not respond to that as painful were ostracized and died. And so over generations after generations, that became. supercharged so that there was an evolutionary advantage to experiencing rejection as extremely

painful because it got us to get along better, to comply better, and then therefore stay to pass along our genes. And so now we're stuck with that legacy that we find rejections extremely painful, even if they're mild, even if they didn't happen. And knowing that is important because at least you know why you're hurting. At least you know part of it is not on me or, in fact, not about the other person. It's not that they're that great. It's that I am wired that way, even if I hated them, I'd still be in some amount of pain. Yeah, I was hoping this would come into a positive thing of like, this, we're just human and this is what it is.

Exactly. But what you do have to do is you, you know, you talk about self-talk. And this was the example I gave it what I liked about what you said earlier. Find the explanation in your head that doesn't come at your expense. It doesn't make you feel worse, number one. Number two, find ways to reaffirm your self-esteem. So, for example, I said this to pay. parents all the time. When your kid comes home from school and, oh, mommy, they didn't invite me to

the party. Oh, it doesn't matter what other kids think. Or they made fun of me. It doesn't matter what other kids think. Well, it's going to hurt that kid because right rejection hurts regardless. So telling them that they shouldn't feel the pain, their feeling is not going to be helpful. What would be is cancel your plans, invite their best friend over for a play date right now to remind them that they're accepted, appreciated, loved by some people. And that would be a direct one. to soothe their pain rather than telling them they shouldn't have it. So I think that people go on like one or two dates with a person, three dates, and they get quote unquote rejected, somebody doesn't call you after.

And it does feel really bad. And sometimes I feel myself like, why does this person doesn't even know me? Why do I care if they rejected me? They're barely, they know the minimum amount about me to reject me, but it still feels so bad. And like maybe the solution to that is like, go out with another person, remind yourself that you're valuable or remind yourself all the things that are valuable to you just on a piece of paper. Yes, and that's a good exercise.

I'll say more about it in a second. But the idea is that if you're going, like people say to me, oh, it was three dates, they must not have found me attractive. And I'm like, did you change that much between date two and three? Because unless there was a big gap and you did something very drastic, you are the same person they invited out. So it's not about that clearly. What it can be about is that you had that convention. about drugs and you said you're very anti-drug and it turns out their best friend as a drug dealer.

That can be a possibility. What it can be about is that you said that, you know, you have this experience with something that they have just in a really bad association with. You don't know. Or they got back with their ex, you know, or they found somebody. Back with me. It's like a million, there's a million reasons. We just always say people take things too personally.

Find the ones that don't make you feel bad about yourself because there's so many more of those that of the others, it's just not necessary to choose. And really what the science tells us is it's mostly about fit. It's about chemistry. It's about they have this formula in their head of the person they need to be with has to be able to do X, Y, and Z, which is idiosyncratic and personal to them. And you didn't fix one of the X's or the Y's or the C's. Who cares which one?

Yeah, I think probably a pretty common situation. And I felt like I dealt with it when I moved to New York and started using the dating apps is just all those light rejections. You know, you match with somebody and maybe they don't ask you out or they don't respond to you, you know, like they delete the match or you set up a date and then they bail and we do that too. So it's it that goes both ways. But I like that you said that we're hardwired that we shouldn't feel bad that it makes us feel rejected by a stranger. But I think what we've done a lot on this podcast is giving those people the tools of the self-talk of like it's, it's, you know, you live in a big city. There's a million people. Everyone's

dating. It's not personal. There's a million reasons they could have gotten off the app or maybe they didn't think you were good looking and that's fine because you don't think certain people are good looking too. Like I think there's so many different ways to use the narrative to not necessarily lie to yourself but not take it so hard, I guess. So you're able to function and keep getting out there, I guess. And I think sharing experiences helps too and reminding yourself that everybody's getting rejected and you know, in some of the like the prettiest, coolest people get rejected, it happens to everybody, because sometimes you can feel like you're the only person in the world that's like a reject. Right. And what people would say was like, no, but I have a

friend who's never been rejected. And I'm like, no, you don't. Well, maybe they do, but how many friends do you have who have been rejected a thousand times? In other words, why look for the one person that's going to make you feel bad about yourself? If you can, you know, look at people and feel like, you know what? No, I'm just like everyone else. Why do I need to look at the one exception and feel bad about myself? Yeah. So how do you like resist the urge to ruminate on this? How do you resist the urge to sit at home and beat yourself up like that? The urge to ruinate or the negative thought is very difficult to control. What you can control is you can insert a positive one alongside it.

You can have the worry. You can have the negative thought of maybe they didn't find me attractive enough. That just pops in your head. What you can add into that is, but you know what, if that were true, they wouldn't have asked me on a second date. Or if that were true, they wouldn't have spent all that time flirting with me after that second date before they just ghosted me and disappeared for reasons unknown. So in other words, you can always add in a positive, more compassionate and self-compassionate

thought to the automatic negative one that will pop into your head. And that's your job. Your job in terms of emotional health is to battle your mind when your mind is trying to do not your bidding. But again, your mind's goal here is like if you're hurting, it's like a hot stove. you know like if you're going to touch that again I'm going to make you very anxious and remind you how painful it is so you don't do it that's what happens when you get rejected your mind is like I'm going to remind you how painful this is you don't make that mistake again but you actually want to make that mistake again

so you have to battle it and say I'm going to put in the positive thought I'm going to put in the neutralizing thought I'm going to put in the counter explanation purposefully and I'm going to be very diligent about not letting myself get swept up into all kinds of really unclear speculative ideas that will just make me feel crappy for no real reason. I also just think, I mean, if we're just talking about the apps, it does, it does get easier. You do, you start,

your mind starts to be a little more wired to know that this is how this works. And like, I don't know, I just, like anything, you know, the more it happens, the more it kind of, you understand that that's just like how it is, you know, and you can't take every rejection, at least for me, you know, like, I think

I used to take it a lot harder. And I've realized that this is just a bunch of strangers in, that live in my phone. And I, this has nothing to do. with me. Plus, a lot of people are on the dating apps without any intention of dating. Right. With none. To build up their self-esteem. They're literally just bored. So in other words, it's not as if that people that matched with you were necessarily, you know, they just like the picture. It's a compliment, but they didn't have any intentionality behind it.

So just take it as a compliment. Yeah. So one of the best exercises you mentioned, like make a list, is that for self-affirmation, there's a difference between positive affirmation. and self-affirmation. Positive affirmation is the, you know, the old Al Franken, Stuart, whatever his name is Smalley, from Saturday Night Live, who looks into the mirror and goes, you know, doggone it, you're going to be a successful person, right?

The positive affirmations are the ones you find on refrigerator magnets and calendars. It's like, yeah, I'm going to be successful. I'm a beautiful person inside and out. The problem with positive affirmations is what the research tells us, is that they only work for a specific group of people in terms of improving self-esteem. Any guesses what that group is? I will tell you, people with high self-esteem.

Oh, people with high self-esteem. Because it's people who can look in the mirror and go, I'm beautiful and I'm going to be successful in the world as my oyster, that believe it. But when your self-esteem is low, which is when people tend to use positive affirmations, then you're actually saying something very contrary to what you believe. You don't believe that you're feeling.

You don't believe you're beautiful. in that moment. You don't believe you're going to be successful when you just got rejected for a promotion. So saying to yourself, I'm going to be successful. I'm going to be successful. It's not compelling.

And your mind will reject it because it's the opposite. It will actually make you feel worse. So what does work? So positive affirmations, generically don't. Self affirmations do because self affirmations have to be adapted to what you know

to be true about yourself. So, for example, after a rejection, sit down, make a list of at least 10 things that make you a good, dating or relationship prospect and it can be I'm emotionally available I'm a good listener I make incredible muffins I'm great in bed I like this I like that whatever great with mother-in-laws whatever it is make a list but these are things you actually know about yourself that are true

these are things you know you bring to the table and then choose one of them and write a quick essay and the writing here is important and an essay I mean a paragraph really paragraph or two about why that quality is important how you've exhibited in the past or how you might exhibit it the future. And that is an exercise that has been shown to really boost your self-esteem because you just spent 10, 15 minutes focusing on what you bring to the table and what somebody will appreciate. And that's what you just reminded yourself of instead of the opposite, right, of all the negative stuff. So that's that self-affirmation exercise is again opposed to self-positive affirmation. That self-affirmation exercise is a great way to revitalize self-esteem after a rejection or a

failure. It feels more measurable to me than just I will be successful. It's like, well, what does that mean? At what, doing what? What does success mean? You know, it feels more measurable. Or if you're like, I'm beautiful and you don't really believe that. You can at least be like, I have great hair or maybe like, exactly. I have beautiful eyes. You know, like this. So if you're an employee, you can be like, I have a great work ethic. I'm reliable. I'm responsible. I have a great skill sets. And that's reminding yourself like there will be some employer that will appreciate that at some point. So is there a point when all of the shifting of the rejection narrative and all the affirmations are too much and you actually need to reflect on your issues? I guess is there a point

in which you're diluting yourself? You know, is there a point where you need to be like, okay, every person has dumped me and they've said along the lines of the same thing or, you know, is there any point where you have just gassed yourself up too much? Well, look, first of all, as I said, when you leave a relationship or are left by one, it is good to do some thinking about what you might need to do differently, what you might have learned from that about yourself, about what your needs are, about dynamics, about the other person. And so some takeaway is actually very useful.

I'm not saying just immediately say, well, that wasn't me, et cetera, et cetera. People who tend to turn to self-affirmations are people who are feeling bad about themselves. Because, I mean, yeah, the research shows that people who feel good about themselves benefit from them, but they're not the ones that typically turn to them, you know, as much. So if you're finding the need to journal on a daily basis about why you're okay, then there's a need there. And it's not common for somebody with low self-esteem who's feeling bad about themselves

to catapult in the other direction and suddenly become a real dick, you know, become real full of themselves. And that just doesn't happen that much. You don't really see people go from really low self-esteem to incredible pride or narcissism. And that's not usually the way that happens. Like anything, you start to reflect on a pattern. You know, I keep having the same breakup with the same guy or I keep getting fired in the same way or, you know,

and it's just like that. But they have to be takeaways there, right? A, why you want to that same guy? What are the mistakes you might be making? Like, give it some, if that, if you see it generally in psychology, if you see a pattern, explore it, try and understand it. Where does it come from? What does it represent?

What does it mean? What's it about? why are you doing it, how you're justifying it. Ask yourself all these questions because there's amazingly important information to be found in that. Okay, so we want to talk a little bit about loneliness

just because the state of the world. I mean, we would address it anyway, but I think especially during this time of COVID and the pandemic, during these unprecedented times, people are lonely. I mean, they're getting back out there more, but I mean, people were quarantined and they were alone, and we were hearing

from so many single people that they felt more alone than ever. And we just wanted to touch on that and see what you had to say. So I have, look, I have two things to say. And one of them is a little scary, but it's fact. So let's, let's start with a scary. And the scary is that loneliness is a very dangerous condition. Much more so than we realize. Lowniness has a huge impact on our physical health. chronic loneliness increases our likelihood of an early death by anywhere from 26 to 31 percent depending on the study it will literally kill us it is responsible for a huge risk of all kinds of diseases cardiovascular and otherwise it absolutely screws with our immune system it is

devastating in terms of the health and longevity consequences that it has, it is considered to be the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day in terms of its impact, long-term impact on our physical health. So that's a scary stat. Why it's important for people to know is because cigarette packs come with warnings. Loneliness does not. So most people don't think of it as, oh, this is actually a really unhealthy situation, both psychologically and physically, and one that requires action. And I'm saying the scary part so that people understand that to the extent that you feel lonely and to the extent that you've been feeling it for a while, you absolutely need to do something about it. Now, it's very difficult to do something about it and why people

get trapped in loneliness is because you become so raw emotionally. It feels like rejection all the time. Because every minute the phone doesn't ring, every friend who's not contacting you feels like a rejection when you're lonely. When you're lonely, you just feel like, wow, don't care. And what tends to happen, therefore, is you don't reach out because you just don't want to put yourself up for more rejection, which again reinforces it because, and then when a friend finally does contact you, you're so annoyed and upset with them that you respond in a way that's either a voidant or hostile, and then they're like, oh, you know, the lonely person is the one that will force themselves to go to the party, but it's so convinced. No one wants to talk to them

that they'll park themselves on the side by the hummus and the vegetable dip, and with a scowl on their face and no on behold, no one's approaching because it looks scary. And so the thing to do and what you really need to understand when you're feeling lonely is that it does require a leap of faith. You do have to take into consideration that it will feel like people care less than they actually do. It will feel like your friendships are less valuable than they actually are. And so when you approach people, do it with a smile. And when you're doing it over text or email, add a smiley face because your tendency is going to say, I haven't seen you in three months. which if you just have that, I haven't seen you in three months, sounds accusatory and hostile,

but I haven't seen you in three months, smiley face sounds like I miss you. I miss you, yeah. And it's a big difference. And so just be aware that you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. You have to reach out. And the secret here is to connect emotionally, to have meaningful conversations. You know, like if you're just going to go to a movie with a friend, you're not going to feel that connected necessarily. So talk about the movie afterwards.

discuss it a bit, share something, ask them, feel that connective tissue. And that's what you need to work on because it's dangerous. You want to really not get stuck in that too long. Yeah, you said something in your TED Talk last night that really stuck with me about emotional loneliness versus physical loneliness. And I think that, I mean, I stayed in New York City and I lived by myself through the three months during quarantine. I think people were really worried about me being alone all that time.

But I didn't feel that bad because I didn't feel emotionally lonely. I made a real effort to talk to Ashley, of course, every day. Every minute. I had Zoom dates with my family every night. I was constantly on the phone with somebody. I was reading a book. I was doing things to make my day better. And I never really was able to verbalize why I didn't feel so lonely.

It's because I think I felt like I was loved and people cared about me. But I like that you're giving credit to the fact that you can be around people all the time and still feel really emotionally lonely. So you do have to do the work to build those type of relationships. It's not even just. just about being physically around people. Right. In other words, there are plenty of introverts

and other people who actually are fine being alone. To be alone is not being lonely. Lonely is defined purely subjectively. It's about how much you feel the emotional disconnection from people around you. And to the extent that you don't, you're not lonely, even if you're alone in quarantine for three months.

But you can be in quarantine in a house of 10 people and feel lonely if you don't feel that any one of them is really seeing you. I'd love to state the difference. I think sometimes lonely gets mixed up, in being single. And I love that you addressed just general reaching out to friends

feeling like nobody cares. But I worry sometimes that people want a relationship so badly. Like they feel this screaming void. And it's like that's all they care about. So it's like they're even reaching out to friends less and family less. And so it's like all they want is that romantic relationship.

And so it's like they're just desperately trying to find that so much that they don't even try so much with the people that do care about them. And I don't, I guess you know, advice there is just to, yeah, yeah, just to reach out. Plus a significant proportion of a 50% to forget the numbers specifically, but over 50% of people who report being lonely are actually married. I love that you said that.

Thank God you said that. Not because of that, but I think some people will say it's lonely or being in a bad relationship than being just alone. Correct. It can be because if you, and let's just talk about like sexual rejection in a marriage, right? Because that can be extremely painful too. Because if you're lying there in bed every night that. nothing happens is a night you feel rejected.

And when you come home and you're sitting on one end of the couch with your iPad and they're sitting on the other end of the couch with a laptop, and it's all very transactional to get the milk, to pay the bills, you move the car, then it's like it's just not, it just feels incredibly isolated and disconnected. And then people really need to pay attention to it and then actually like scoach over on the couch and take your partner's hand. now they might, after a while look at you like, oh, oh, what did you do?

Did you crash the car? Why are you doing that? And they'll, because they're not used to it either, but then you can just say, no, you used to sit together and watch something together. Let's put our stuff down and find something we can both enjoy and talk about it like we used to. In other words, find ways to reconnect. I'd love to maybe even touch on that a little bit more since it came up and that's sexual, physical rejection because I think it hurts so badly.

I mean, I'm only a woman so I can only speak on behalf of us. I know for men too, but I think... It's not a treat for men either, yeah. Yeah, it's just, I can picture a married couple scenario where maybe it might feel a little easier to grab their hand, but I think so many people you feel so rejected that your stubbornness kicks in and you can't even imagine touching them, you know, nevertheless, actually having sex. So is there a place to start verbally that's, that you recommend where you haven't had sex in while you're feeling rejected sexually that we can offer people?

Absolutely. I mean, first of all, that is a conversation. that's not something you're doing when you're rushing to get to work in the morning or when you're feeding the kid or, you know, that's something that you actually want someone's full attention. And I would start that conversation by saying, hey, let's, I want something I want to bring up with you, do it. Let's sit down from it. Let's put our phones aside. They always know it's important if you ask them to put the phone aside.

And you can say, look, it's been a while since we've had sex. And it's something that's been on my mind. And I wanted to ask you about you and see kind of what that's about for you, what's going on or what thoughts you have about it. And I'm saying that very specifically. In other words, you want to start an inquiry with a question. You don't want to assume what it's about. You don't want to come and say, is it me?

Did I put on weight? Do you not like the hair? Don't start that way because you're just introducing ideas. And if they have something more complicated going on, they'll go, yeah, it's the new haircut. Right. Yeah, don't give them an excuse. Say, like, you know, what, I just wanted to hear from you. Like, what's, you know, that's something that's just what your thoughts are about it.

and then let them start from wherever they start and if they get really clammy on you know, clammed up or monosyllabic like oh I don't know I just I guess there's been a long I don't know like if they're in denial about it you can say like is it not something that you've thought about is it not something that you've missed then

because it's something that I do so can we talk about it and so it should be very calm even gracious conversation so try not to wait too long till you're so you're so like you've got such a reservoir for that you'll, you know, and, and keep it about that.

If they say, well, you know, I've been really busy at work, you can say, yeah, you've been busy at work and other times and our sex life hasn't dropped off this much. Is there anything else going on? No, it's just work. Then what can we do about it? Because that's not going to change necessarily in the next period. So what is it? Can we do?

Do we need to carve out more time? For me, I can tell you I'd like to have a romantic evening before we kind of just jump into bed. So maybe we can find time for dinner. late night. Try and become constructive in the suggestions, but this is a two-way street. So try and actually have a conversation about it and try and understand what's going on with your partner and then come to some kind of understanding with them. And I like that you said something actionable, which is, you know, we talked about this with somebody named Dr. Emily Morse in the spring also about, you know,

if you're not having sex with your partner, don't just be like, well, we should do this more before bed. It's like, no, make a romantic plan. Do something to like spice it up. Do something exciting. clean the house for your partner, make dinner. I like that your advice is not just like, okay, well, we'll just make an effort to just do it a few more times before we go to bed. Like, romanticize this. Woo me.

One exercise I've given couples who, it's a big production and it's for couples who've been together for a while, but those who've done it have just loved it. And that is to recreate your first, not your first date, but the first moment where there was real sexual chemistry. And so if it's so, it was in that, bar, try and find that bar or recreate that moment. Try and dress in the outfits at the time,

even if it's 20, 30 years ago, try. And if you were at the bar and they came in and came over and spotted you, plunge yourself at the bar, plan it all out, strategize it. If it was at a friend's party, wait for the next party to happen and then recreate it there. But I literally make it a production of reliving and together planning and reliving that first moment of electrical chemistry. and it can be very empowering to kind of go back in time to that moment where you're like, wow, really charged by that person. Well, and I think the reminiscing and the discussing... It'll happen naturally if you go to that bar,

I mean, it's tough to go to a bar right now, but you go to that restaurant, you're going to start saying, remember when we were here and you order that, you know, like it's going to, that doesn't even, that'll just happen naturally. I love that idea. We haven't heard that yet. I could talk to you forever. This has been really so wonderful when we've been working to have you on the show for a long time

so we're so excited and I honestly cannot wait to read your books and get all your baseball cards and know everything about you. My time on first base was really my glory day. But if you would like to, if you can tell people where they can find you. Obviously your books are available on Amazon and small retailers

which you should be supporting. Yeah, independent bookstores, absolutely. Black Island stores, even more. So my website is guy wench.com and on it you will find links to pretty much what you might need. I have three TED Talks, which you can find links to again on my website. I write the Dear Guy Advice column for TED. It's science-based advice. So there are always links to articles, but it's any topic that you might want.

If you have an issue for that, you can write to Dear Guy at TED.com. I also have a new podcast with Lori Gottlieb, the author of maybe you should talk to someone. It's called Dear Therapists. And it's an advice podcast in which we do two interesting things. We choose a letter. We bring the person on to discuss with them what their issue is, have a little bit of a kind of mini-session. Then we give them actionable advice that they have to implement within a week.

And then they have to report back on what happened. So that's the part that you never really get an advice. You never actually find out, well, did they do it and what happened? So here you do. And that is, dear therapists, it's where ever you get your podcasts. and if you want to be a guest on that, you write to Lori, L-O-R-I-N-G-G-U-I-E-R-Media.com but that means you have to come on and talk to us

and we can use fake names. We use fake names all the time, so that's fine. I feel like you're inviting me, and yes, the answer is yes, I will come back. Excellent. Yeah, right in. I'm ready. Thank you so much.

And Ashley, we did a good time reading your column in the car yesterday on our drive. And, of course, all the information about your podcast, your books where people can find you will be in our episode description and on our website as well. Wonderful. Yes. Well, thank you so much for your time, Guy. We really loved it. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure and thank you for being so much fun and asking really interesting questions and it's been really fun talking to you. All right, great. Thank you so much. All right, guys, well, we hope you enjoyed that interview. We have one more fun segment for you.

So we will be right back. And we're back. We recorded that all. all together. That was so awkward. Do you want to explain the impetus for this segment today? Yes. So we were trying to figure out what would be fun and light, but also go with what we discussed with Guy. So what we came up with was how we were talking about things that your partner does

that are frustrating or annoying, that aren't necessarily deal breakers, but that you say like you're on notice. I think we said that with him. You're telling somebody like, you're on notice. Like, I'm making a note of this. I'm going to remember this. Three strikes you're out, basically. I'm going to put it on the board.

that he thought was a real thing. Your serial killer whiteboard. He was like, I wouldn't tell people you do that. I'm like, you know that I'm kidding, right? I'm like, fucking adult guy. I don't. Guy's also kind of hard. Raina is a low-key crush on guy.

I don't know if you guys. He keeps saying, his vibe is like what I want for you. He's like super smart and assertive and like he gives tough love. I mean, he, I don't, he's like assertive. He doesn't sugarcoat things, but it's not off-putting. Right, yeah. There's a word for this, but you know what? I don't have the word on me.

We'll ask Francis. I'm sure he knows it. Whatever Francis is. His big words. But yeah, I like his energy for you. I like it too. I was Loki attracted. Also, he shares an office with Esther Perel, so I'm attracted to who he keeps company with.

Yeah. Nobody's rejected us more than her. But anyway, what we decide on was a game. What we did, a segment called, You're on notice. And you guys, we didn't even really give you any direction. But of course, our listeners came through, as always, with the funniest shit. Some of it wasn't. Well, you talk about the answers we got. Well, we got, in my mind, this was going to be like weird, funny habits and like quirks that

your partner's had. So of course, like we got, we're going to read you the funny ones. We got a million of leaves socks on the floor, washes, doesn't wash their hands. I have to go to the bathroom. Won't wash a dish. Leaves cabinets open. Nails clipping. nail clippings all over the place. Hair on the sink, toilet seat up. What towels on the bed, door open when they poop, leaves peeve on the floor, leaves beer cans in the shower. So we got a lot. Oh. No. Overwhelming a amount of those. So I'm a. we feel for you ladies, you are in good company,

but we wanted to read you some really unique ones. Do you want to kick it off? All right, you're on notice. My boyfriend is an athlete and will only have sex in positions that help him in sports. What? What do you think those positions are?

I've been dying to ask you. Literally no idea. What, like, doggy style? Because it's like, because he can like stand and squat a little. Because he's the quarterback. Or holding her up, I get like picking her up.

Oh, if he's exercising. Yeah. getting his biceps in. Okay. I think that you're right. It's weird. I don't like it. I wouldn't put up with it.

I just, even if it's true, like why did he tell you? Like, you're going to lay there, Tyler, while I ride you. And that's what we're going to do. You're going to do nothing

for your body career and you're going to like it. And you can work out after or before or whatever, but I'm going to ride you so I can get off. Okay? He's like,

I haven't fulfilled my Tom Brady fantasy. We can't stop this right now. Okay, this made me laugh out loud. his stress relief is prank calling people. Like Pizza Hut in the middle of bum fuck Alabama. Why? I cannot live. What if you walked in on your man and he was on a prank phone call with Taco Bell?

I just think it's so crazy that she said it's his stress relief. Like how he's like, I had a really tough day at work. I got to come home and make some prank calls. Like so you have to work out. Some people go to the gym. Some people smoke a cigarette. He's like, I got to call that pizza. He's like, I got to call fast food places.

All right. I have a tip for you. I send you this guy sometimes. It's Hey Berg. It's Evan Burger on TikTok. And he does a perfect rendition of Donald Trump and Barack Obama. And he was prank calling pizza places and negotiating with them as Donald Trump. Oh, that is funny. It's pissed your pants funny.

It's crazy funny. I got to watch that. Also, very hot. Okay. We didn't have any recommendations this week. That's your only recommendation. Okay. Never refilling the Brita filter.

I am the backbone of this household. I can feel that. Because I come over here and I use your Brita filter every day. And you pour it in a mug because you can only reach the mugs. right as ever used to glass because she can't reach up Ash is always like why are there so many coffee cups around my place? I feel like we could do like a longer deep time this

her man says yeah I was planning on working out today for the last six months. Yeah. I mean it's like funny but it's like that that can fuck relationships up. I think we should do like an episode eventually about like dealing with your partner because I think that could come with an issue.

That could be an issue. Yeah. Narrates a show as we're watching the show like, yes, baby, I can see it too. What does she mean by that? And what kind of show are we talking? He's giving like commentary. He's like telling her what's happening in the show.

I would appreciate it. Because I get confused. I would appreciate it too because I only have to pay attention to anything that's happening. Like ask Corey what it's like to watch a show or go to the movies with me. All I do is ask questions. She's like, please can you shut the fuck up? I would love a show. I'm a serious, important question.

Have we ever gone to a movie together? I don't think we have. Not once in three years. We've never entered a movie theater. We've never penetrated a movie theater together. We haven't. Not once. He says, you're not wrong instead of telling me I'm right.

Nope. How much would that make you want to kill somebody? I wonder if he's like, if it's just the way that he says that. Like, I wonder if he says that to like his family, his friends, or if it's like he can't tell a woman she's right. Like, I wonder which, you know. It's the most I'm sorry but of explaining it's like, you're not wrong. I'm just saying it's like, you know what I mean?

Okay, there's two ways. It's, you're not wrong, but, or it's him saying like, you're not wrong. You know, like, you write. Like, it depends on the tone. Like, if it's more light. I can't imagine the middle of fights. I was like, you write. But it's, okay.

No one I ever fought with that chill. Okay. He uses his fork like a shovel. Well, this has happened to you. It happened to me so early on. We talked about this and definitely the first, did we talk about it? about him? I actually don't know. We've talked about him a bunch, but I don't know.

Yeah, so the guy I was casually dating, having sex with the very beginning of the podcast, the younger guy, he held his fork, like his fist around the fork. Honestly, I was so put off by it. I wasn't into him. Like, I don't know that it would have been a deal breaker, but it added to the things I already wasn't into. It was bad. It's just sort of like a level of like, where have you been all your life? Like, no one has corrected this behavior. I don't, if that's, if that's, if that's, how your parents, like, raised you or whatever. Like, you just got to fix it, dude.

It's so noticeable. And I'm wondering if, like, everyone is so shocked that no one says anything. Like, I feel like that's a behavior that people, like, would correct. But, like, maybe no one says anything. Yeah. Okay, I'm excited to read this one and then share something. Um, he doesn't use dipping sauces when he eats chicken nuggets. Monster.

I, I mean, I can go raw, like, I can go raw dog nuggets. Never. Ever. You remember the summer on your birthday? We were talking about the rose in the thorn of our quarantine. And I said that I discovered a lot of dipping sauces for chicken wings. I'm sorry, chicken tenders. That was my rose of the whole quarantine.

I discovered a lot of dipping sauces. That's how passionate I am about chicken nugget dipping sauces. I wonder if he just doesn't use them like he's never really gotten into them or he's like anti-dip. If you're an anti-dip, okay, he eats the entire shrimp, including the tail. You can eat it. If it's deep fried, you can eat it. all over Asia, it is like pretty common to like deep fry shrimp and it's sort of like shatters in your mouth.

Like it's crunchy like crab. Yeah, like sort of like that. It's just it fries the shell. But I'd be curious what the preparation on the shrimp is. Yeah, like is he just like he gets like a bowl of pasta and he's like I'm just going to eat these tails. I hate taking the tails off though when they give you the tails. Ashley, do not get me started on shrimp preparation. Okay, I'll talk about this forever.

Why are we leaving tails on shrimp in hot dishes? I'm going to reach my hands into a hot soupy dish full of hot pasta in a nice restaurant to dislocate the shrimp tail as a nice restaurant. Yeah, but you tell me, I mean, we both worked in restaurants, but you have more than I did it.

Isn't it to show that the shrimp is like fresher or some shit? No, I mean, to me, the shells add a lot of flavor. Like, so there is, it's just like when you like roast off chicken bones in a stock. Like, it adds, just take them off though. Just take them off for me. I didn't come here to do work. I'm paying you to do the work for. me and I don't like to do any work. Okay, I don't want

peel and eat shrimp. I don't want to pick a crab. I don't want to barbecue my own food. I'll do this forever. Fish and bones. Get it the fuck out of here. I don't want it. Chicken wings. I'll never fuck with a chicken wing. I can't eat around bones and skin. I'll talk about this forever. Those are, like, it's still different to eat a chicken wing than to me have to

take a tail off a shrimp in my hot Alfredo pasta. Right. It's only in a nice restaurant in a hot soupy dish. Chepino. Chapino. Boiling hot lava. I got to pick lobster meat out of a shell in Chupino. You heard it here first.

I will talk about shrimp shells forever. Okay. Scratches his balls and then sneakily smells it. He's not subtle. We all do this gross stuff. The stuff I do in the privacy of this home is disgusting. I would never do that like in front, like with anybody even in the vicinity. I smell like basically everything that's going on, but like alone in the privacy of

my own grossness. This wouldn't be a deal worker for me. It's just like, guys, you're fucking gross. But so are we. Okay. He recovers. This is really one of my favorites. He recovers from everything with, but listen, that's just a me thing. It is the ultimate argument to get out of anything. Or it's just like, yeah, you can just say it about anything. Like, if there are any sort of disagreement. Well, that's just, that's, anything on this list. You could come back from it. I, it's so, oh, I'm so glad this is, we're here. Okay. I want to remind you all that the name of this, is you're on notice as though all that was the joke I was going to make.

I'm glad you did it. You're on notice as though everything on this list is something that people can control. This girl writes. He doesn't have any siblings. You're on notice for being an only child. What? Like, what are you supposed to do about that? He's like, yeah, I'm an only child.

She's like, you're on notice. trouble son. I mean, listen, I understand some people read this slide to mean, like, things I don't like, here's things that bother me. I mean, I think some people have in their head, like, I want a partner that has a large, robust family. The last guy I fucked, dated, was an only child. He could get after it. He can get it. Because you didn't have to waste all that time with siblings. You just spent all of his time masturbating and looking at porn. There is definitely differences between people that are only children and people that have, and people that have siblings, but it's like, if you really like somebody, you should work,

you can work on that. Like, it's not, he's on notice. Really shouldn't be. I just want to whoever wrote this to know. This has made this entire segment worth it. I know. Okay. He tells me the laundry is done instead of taking it out of the dryer.

Also, he waves his penis in my face while I'm on Zoom. Is it in, are the, is the penis in a pair of boxers? She gave no detail. He pulls his dick out where you're talking to your boss? I just, I saw this thing about the laundry and I was like, I don't care about this. And I saw that she had a second submission and I was like, oh, she didn't lead with that either. She started with the laundry. I just, is he coming up and like humping the air with pants on or does he bring his dick out while you're talking to your co-workers?

There's a difference. At the very least, I think he's wearing gray sweat pants or like gym shorts with no boxers. Like, I think he's like swinging the dick against the pants at the very least. Yeah. He doesn't like her comment on any of my Instapix. He doesn't have social media. still. That's so funny. That's like he never picks me up for dates. He also doesn't have a car.

Like it's just like, what do you wanted to do? She's like, I don't care. I'm going to be mad about it. He's on notice. She's on notice. You better get an Instagram, Tyler. I need a new name. Brennan. You better get a fucking Instagram, Brennan. You're on notice. Brennan. Okay.

Oh, he doesn't brush his teeth in the morning. I wrote that down for you. I was like, when does, but when? Just at night? totally unacceptable. How? I've never heard. I've heard of people that don't do it at night. Like, I don't think that that's like the craziest thing in the world.

Doesn't it's like your face? You're so upset. Okay. I want to, is he just brushing once a day? No, absolutely not. Get out of this relationship. Is he brushing him after he? Sometimes, I used to sometimes just wake up and have breakfast and then brush my teeth

after that. I always brush my teeth after my coffee. Yeah. So it sounds like he's just a once a day. in which case, like, you, we're telling you now, fucking run. No one cares more about the smell of your teeth than Ashley. No one cares more about dental hygiene than me. He insists on eating before he'll have morning sex with May.

I wonder if this is like a health issue. Like, he's low blood sugar. Like, one time I was having sex with my ex in the shower and I, you know, I passed out. I'd like get a Pop-Tart. Like he brought, like, my face went pale and I, like, fainted. Like, I wonder if he, knows himself enough to be like if I start pumping away, all faint. I never told you this.

Like he needs to get his sustenance. I never told you this. The guy that I dated, who doesn't have a family, he has to get up in the middle of the night and have like a fool meal every night. It's like three in the morning. What? Not a snack. He gets up and makes himself like fully makes himself a meal, like a sandwich. I mean, he's like six, four. He's a big dude. He's sex. He's a Yeah. My brother is 6.7. Rob is 6.5. Dylan is 6.6. None of them have to wake up and have dinner at 3 a.m. It was so weird. It was like, I really took a minute to wrap my head around this where I was like, do you like make the food ahead of time and like leave it in the fridge so you're not making a full meal? And he's like, no, I'd like to make the meal. Okay. He wears plaid shorts. This is not 2008 anymore, Trevor. I can't imagine it. I can't. I can't imagine it. I can't. I can't even imagine a plaid short coming out.

Right. Like, where do you even buy that? He probably had... Guys, like, it's not about that. It's that they just are still wearing their shit from back then. Oh, yeah. Some girl said her boyfriend had four outfits. It's better than two-shirt trend.

If two-shirt-tren had four outfits? What an embarrassment of riches for him? Wait, what was that guy's name? What do we call him? Three-shirt-trent? Three-buffalo shirt-trent. We met this guy. One year ago, Minneapolis.

His name was Trent. And I said, I know a Trent. He had two shirts. And then their friends were like, he doesn't have that many more than two. And they said he had three shirts with buffaloes on them. So we call him three buffalo shirt, Trent. That's who his name is in your phone is three. Okay.

Places music so loud in the car, but still wants to talk over it. What are we doing here? I have never ridden in a car silent. I have music on at all times. But when someone's in the car with me, we're talking. The music is like low background noise. It has to be low. And you know what?

Don't be one of these people. I hate the people and you know who you are who when the directions come over, like when the directions pop up on like the loudspeakers, you talk louder. Bitch, I'm trying to hear this. I don't care about your story. I need to go. I need to know which root I'm turning down. Oh, like the GPS comes on and they just start.

They just talk louder to try to like make sure they're talking over. And it's like your story, Jessica can wait. Okay. the last one. We'll do a deep dive on this later, but he doesn't go down on me. I've only dated one person and it was a pretty serious problem. Yeah. I mean, it reverberated. I put him on notice and then we broke up.

It reverberated through our whole sex life. He didn't like that and he wasn't a particularly like adventurous person, sexually. Like most Jews, I have to fist bite them out of my pussy. Right. Okay. Can we say one more? This is the longest episode, whatever. You guys can, where are you going to go?

Where are you? We had, are you, I don't know if I'm going to. remember this because this was towards the end of the meet and greet. We were, we, we, we had some drinks. This girl said that her, her friend went on a date during the show, right? So she, her friend bailed on her to go on a date. Right.

And I guess her friend texted her midway through the show. And the guy had laced his fingers through her toes. Which like, you know, like holding hands, but hand and foot. Uh-huh. Was he going down or I can't, no, I can't remember. I can't remember because I'd had, I've had two. glasses of wine, which you know, you were a little drawing towards the end. But she goes, I was supposed to watch this with my friend and she bailed. She's on the state with this guy. And the last update I got was that he had laced his fingers through her toes. Maybe she got some nice feet. So best of luck to them. Yeah, best of luck to listen. That guy will eat your pussy. Then we were like, oh my God, is that a thing that is a guy like he's holding on by like holding hands with your feet while he eats your bog? That's, that's how I envision it. Like that's the only way that he's like down there. Or do you think that she was just her feet were, laying on his lap while they were watching a movie and he just held her.

He started to. And he locked his fingers. I mean, you have nice toes. Has anybody ever wanted to do that with your toes? Look at this. Your little toes are poking out the top. You had your leg foot on your man. This guy's lap trying to get closer to him and he just holds your foot with his hand.

I can't relate because my toes would touch somebody and they'd be like, this is gross. Get it out of here. Also, he probably is a foot fetish. All right. well, guys, well, thanks for listening to this longer episode. You can still purchase the live show for a few more days this week. That link is in our Instagram bio. And it's also if you just go to On Location Live and go to On Demand, you should see it there.

And Girls Gotta Eat Podcast.com is our website, merchandise and tour dates and all those things. Hopefully new tour dates soon. Girls Got to Eat podcast on Instagram. Ash Hess, Raina. Greenberg, Girls underscore Gotte Eat on Twitter and YouTube. com slash Girls Got to Eat. Kill it. I need to take a breath.

Yeah, that's all. That's it. Have a good week, guys. Bye.