Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 106: Should He Come Over On The First Date(s)?

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

It's always a question: How fast should you move when it comes to intimacy?  The answer: it depends on what your goals are...  Matt and Steve talk about the value of inside vs. outdoor dates early on in a relationship, how to find out what their intentions are, and what kind of "progress" really matters in dating.  --- Join us on our virtual retreat on March 19-21! Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com and spend a magical 3 days with us transforming your confidence and relationships... (EARLY BIRD SPECIAL OFFER - book your spot before April 30th and get 25% off + special exclusive bonuses! Claim your ticket here) --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- Also, we love to hear from you! You can email the show at [e-mail]! 

And if you consistently find that they're not interested in any other activity than hooking up at the end of the night, then you start to get your answer about the lack of progression. And ideally, we don't get ourselves into that situation in the first place. Matthew we had a wonderful follow-up email from Regina who emailed in her question last week and she says dear Matthew oh my god my God, OMG. Thank you. But now, just to set some context for this, I was a bit worried that Regina, Regina sent in an answer to a question we asked, didn't she? We asked like, what's a more vulnerable, what's a vulnerable human moment you've had with someone? Cause we said

being vulnerable and being human on a date is a good thing. So send us an example of you being vulnerable and human. And Regina famously on the podcast, um, she sent in an email and said, well, I went, I was with someone and I said, um, I've been dumped three times. Um I sort of went on a little bit of a rant about that and said, I'm not entirely sure that's what I meant by vulnerability. And then I was worried, wasn't I, that I was a bit harsh. So not harsh in that I was wrong, just harsh in that I just didn't want Regina to not email in again. Yeah, well, we got an email very quickly and she said, thank you for reading my email. Discussing about what I did made me realize that I need to be careful on the language that I use in the future. The failed relationships that I've

experienced have affected me. It just stuck in my head that they had left me. You made me realize to see it in a different light. Don't worry, Matthew. You were not too harsh on me. Thank you for the practical advice you gave me about love languages. You guys are brilliant. More power. I can't wait to attend a virtual retreat this coming September.

Like everyone else here. I'm really glad to hear that, Regina. You're a great sport. Thank you for emailing in in the first place that was brave that was a human moment this is a human moment you emailing in and talking to us about this

so I think that's great I think last you know one of the points we made the other on one of the last podcasts was this idea that over self-deprecation isn't the same as vulnerability excessive self-deprecation isn't the same as vulnerability excessive self-deprecation as jameson and i have put it in the past self-defecation is is uh not the same as

true vulnerability and i think sometimes people are you know when you say to someone you look beautiful and they're like oh no i look I look terrible. That's not vulnerability. That's just all you're doing is inviting a perspective on yourself based on your own insecurities. Instead of just appreciating that perspective that someone has on you, you're saying, no, no, no, you don't get to view me through your lens. You have to view me through my lens. And then we're just asking someone else to view us through the prism of our own insecurities. Yeah, vulnerability ain't turning your sword on yourself, giving you a wound and going, ah, look how vulnerable I've been.

That's just poor use of a weapon. So next email um so we got an email in uh that simply reads too early to go to his place that's a subject line um now the person's name was in the email name but they didn't sign off with it so i'm just gonna respect as if they wanted to be anonymous so they said when it comes to the early stages of dating i.e first month or two what would you say is the right balance between having exterior dates versus dates where you go to one another's place part of me wonders whether getting to the in-home dates too quickly or doing those too frequently in the beginning gets you to the couple-y stage prematurely, which may scare the guy off. Hope to hear your thoughts on this.

Sincerely, one of your original followers. I don't know how OG that means, but you could be back to 2009, in which case, big respect. I mean, Steve, I could have been 17. Right. When she joined. You'd never even seen a woman's home at that age. Well, maybe you had, but... Not a lot.

I think there's not just a danger of you getting to the coupley stage too quickly and scaring him off. There's a danger of you getting to the coupley stage too quickly and scaring him off. There's obviously the danger of getting to the casual categorization where it's just kind of all very easy. Yeah, well, those are two different things, right? Those are two different kinds of risk. Right.

Yeah. Coupley is like scaring him off by getting to the coupley stage too quickly you might be inviting him to dinner with your parents right but inviting him over or going over to his house doesn't necessarily get you to cut to the coupley stage that's going to scare him off right um it just might get you to the you know friends with benefits stage or you know just hanging out at each other's homes and it all being very very easy and frictionless amazon prime or friction full amazon prime and recline as i'm calling it now just just to not be basic and say netflix and chill let's go amazon prime and recline that's not catching on. And how much is Bezos paying you?

You are. No comment. There is some under the table money coming from Bezos there. Oh yeah, Jeff's got a lot of his skin in this podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Amazon. It's not. It's not ignored.

Buy shit you don't need. It's not brought to you by Amazon. Can you imagine. It's not ignored. Buy shit you don't need. It's not brought to you by Amazon. Can you imagine that as Amazon's slogan? So sorry, I'm interrupting. Buy shit you didn't even

know you needed. I, well, let me answer this question finally. I would say the progression of things, we want a progression that's organic and organic means

two things in a sense. It means not racing to, okay, wait, let me back up for a moment. there's what you want to do and there's what's prudent to do i don't like that the word prude is in prudent but i don't mean any connotation with that it's not intended there's what's what you want to do and what's prudent to do you may want to you know go very quickly with someone because you like them that doesn't always mean that it's prudent to do that you might want to jump someone that you just met five minutes ago it doesn't mean it's prudent to do that. It might not even mean that's safe to do that. Right. So I'm just going to extremes here to illustrate this point. And I would say this to people, people make this gendered in a way that I think is, is, um, unhelpful and actually a distraction, because I would say this to both men and women that I would say to a guy, if you really like someone,

you maybe don't want to have, don't want to be in a rush with, you know, the things that you might normally do if you were being more casual because allowing things to grow more organically in some ways allows allow things to unfold in a bit more of a meaningful way and it allows you to kind of attach a little more meaning to each stage of it that's not to say that you can't sleep with someone quickly and then sort of retroactively and, you know, from that point on, start to create meaning around those events. And there are plenty of people that end up together that moved incredibly fast in the beginning.

So I'm not saying that can't happen, but it sometimes can be a bit of a distraction from the getting to know each other part when when a lot of heavy intimacy and um fast forwarding stages becomes a kind of surrogate for real connection and actually getting to know each other and the time that you spend you know and that's not to say you could do that going to each other's houses, right? It's not, you don't have to have some, I'm not about rules. You don't have to have some rule that says I can't go to someone's house or they can't come to mine. It's just that sometimes it's misleading when you get into a relation or into a dynamic with someone in the

first month or two where you're just always like what it becomes is just a very sexual relationship with nothing else going on at the same time. You know, you, you know each other's bodies a lot better at the end of a month, but you don't know each other's minds a lot better. Yeah. And it's an illusion of progress. Yes, exactly. There's an, there's an intimacy that's happened that can certainly make you invested and it can absolutely mean there are now feelings involved and you can get hurt,

but that doesn't, you know, you could still ask yourself, how well do we know each other? How much time have we taken to actually have conversation? You know, relationships, good relationships, relationships with solid foundations arise out of an abundance of conversation. You know, you're in conversation with another person in a way that helps you extract their values, demonstrate yours, gauge your compatibility, to what extent you really do think the same way, to what extent you have a similar outlook on life, to what extent your goals, your futures are aligned in what you want, at least where you are now. Those things arise out of conversation and intimacy can blind you to the fact that you haven't actually been having any conversation right you mean physical physical sex or intimacy physical intimacy yes sexual intimacy yes they can blind you to the fact that you haven't

had any real uh intellectual or emotional intimacy that arises out of conversation as opposed to emotional, emotional intimacy that arises out of a physical connection. Yeah. Um, and then of course there is the argument of how, you know, is when you go and start spending time at each other's houses, are you giving it to someone too? There's that whole argument, right? The whole, is it too easy for someone? Am I, am I not in a relationship with someone, but I'm giving them everything as if I'm in a relationship with them. And is that going to make them not want to progress to the next level with me that I'm going to their house, sleeping with them, they're coming to mine and so on. I don't, we all know that life is a bit more nuanced than that. You know, it's not, it's not about making, for me at least, everyone has to make their own mind up.

But for me, it's not about making some rule, like I'm not going to go to your house until blah, blah, blah. It's more, I think, it's more looking at the situation with an honest eye and saying, has this become about one dynamic that is continuing whilst no other part of the dynamic is actually progressing? Like, am I just getting the phone call at the end of the night or the text to come over on a Saturday night, but we're actually never doing anything else. Like we're not going to the movies, not that that's been a grand old activity we've been able to do in the last year, but you know, we're not going out for a walk, you know, uh, you know, doing something that is like going for coffee, sitting outside and having a chat at a restaurant or whatever.

It's if we're not, if we're never doing any of those things, why is that? Is it because they don't feel, you know, maybe, maybe we've both gotten into this kind of dynamic where it feels sort of unnatural to do those things. And I need to take responsibility for changing up that dynamic instead of just being like, I'm not coming to your house anymore. Instead of suggesting, Hey, do you want to go for breakfast tomorrow? I know this great place, or do you want to go for a walk? And do you want to go on a hike together? Or do you want to go for a walk in the park tomorrow? You know, and if, if you consistently find that they're not interested in any other activity than hooking up at the end of the night, then you start to get your answer

about the lack of progression. And ideally we don't get ourselves into that situation in the first place. And by that, I don't mean that you never, you know, you always hold off on any physical intimacy until you see everything else, because that's up to everyone's personal rules and standards. But what I mean is ideally you wouldn't get into a situation where you realize that after four weeks you've only been going to each other's houses to sleep together and nothing else has happened because you want to like you want to be moving both in tandem yeah if if you're going to do it that way and you don't if you if you only from the beginning just someone comes over at 10 p.m and

you sleep together it's not that I've definitely heard of couples who slept together really early and stayed together and they said oh we got we slept together in the first few nights so it's not like you say it's not about hard and fast rules but it's just that if that's the only thing that happens at the beginning then you kind of have no gauge on their intentions and if they have any interest in moving things in another direction if you suddenly after four weeks suggested hey why don't we go do this with my friends on uh this weekend and they're like i don't want to do that like then you realize oh it was just about coming over and sleeping together

and they actually don't want a part of my life at all. It shouldn't come as a shock that they don't want to do any of those things with you after you've already gotten really physically and emotionally close to them. Right. Do you know, that means you've, you've skipped a whole portion of organic relationship building. Yeah. And, and by the way, if you ask someone, this is super important. If you ask someone who feels easily used

or if you feel like it would make you feel resentful or it would make you feel hurt to go down a physical road with someone and then none of that is forthcoming, none of the spending time together, getting to know each other, having real conversation, progressing the that is forthcoming, none of the spending time together, getting to know each other, having real conversation, progressing the relationship is forthcoming,

then don't do that at that stage. See if you have the other things first. See if they are even interested in spending any time with you on that level. Gauge if they are interested in asking you real questions and spending time getting to know you because those tend to be signs that someone is open to an actual relationship. You know, one of the surest signs that someone is looking for something meaningful is when they're actually

trying to have conversation with you and get to know you, because they're not in the stage of trying to mindlessly hook up. They're actually in the stage of not wanting to waste their time with the wrong person. So they will try to get to know you more and they will be open to spending some time together because sleeping with you, although important to them, right? How many men is it not important to like want that sexual connection and women too, but we know men can rush. You want to have a tendency to want to rush into that, that, that may still be high on his list, but so will the other stuff. Or it may even be that the other stuff is higher on his list that no longer is it like, I just want to jump into bed with you, but it's like, well, I actually am looking for someone serious. So my primary motive is actually trying to get to know you to see if we're compatible. So do you think then you need to think about your balance of, hey, we're doing the in-home dates too much i guess the answer is you need to you need to look

at a what someone's intent is and one of the ways you can look at that is when you actually suggest doing things other than that and taking some time to actually do some wholesome things where you have quality time different experiences times outside of just sex physical and look let's make something clear this last year has in a sense people who don't want an a date to equate to sex will have had to redefine redefine what the in-home date actually means. Because if you take London in the height of winter, when everything was on lockdown and about the only activity you could actually do outside of your home was take a walk in a park on a freezing cold day, wasn't the sexiest date in the world. Right. Right. So it's natural to be like, but the date

is going to be in home because that's all we have. But then you have to redefine what that means. Of course, by the way, that's not a good idea necessarily, especially for a woman with someone that they barely know. Right. We should state that it's not the same for a man having an in-home date with a woman as it is for a woman having an in-home date with a man that she doesn't already know is safe and can be trusted um so bear with me so but i think that we have to say an in-home date doesn't have to equate to physical intimacy but you know sometimes sometimes that needs to be made clear to someone yeah yeah you know like this and it doesn't have to be as as blatant as well, well, if you come over, this doesn't mean sex, right? It can just be, look, I normally, you know, if, if for example, it was as a result of the fact

that there is a complete lack of options where you are right now, and a walk is unfeasible, which I would always say that you should be starting with dates outside the home. But like, if you really were going to do that with someone that you've spoken to a lot and you feel you've made that assessment and you feel you want to do that, then you can still say to someone like, let's, you know, we can, we can hang out and have some dinner, but I just want to let you know, like under normal circumstances, this, this wouldn't be something I would do this quickly. And I'm only saying that because, you know, uh, I, I'm someone who likes to take things slow and, um, you know, I just didn't want there to be any kind of expectations around

it. Cause I'm, you know, in normal, in the normal time, I would be doing something different, but I do think that the world is changing a little bit now. So I feel like that's becoming less and less necessary as a thing. So maybe, maybe that's already not necessary. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for that. And, um, you know, I'm, I'm glad you're, uh, still getting through dating during this pandemic. Um, I'm very,

it makes me quite optimistic about the future of future of love. Uh, well, thank you so much. And, uh, I hope that helps and stay safe out there. If you're dating during these fraught times,

uh, of pandemic and whatnot. And, uh, yeah, we'll see you on the next episode. If you haven't already and you really want to come join our virtual retreat, we are doing an early bird special. We currently have 25% off and we only have that till 30th of April. So this is the time to grab your ticket. If you know you

want to make a big change this year not just in your relationships but your confidence your goals where you're going everything in your life this is the event to come on go to MH virtual retreat and you'll get 25% off and some awesome bonuses, including, I believe, a little Q&A with you, Matt. Yeah, I'll be doing a Q&A with everyone who signs up on the early bird list. Awesome. Well, that is in September 24th to 26th. If you want to go grab your ticket, mhvirtualretreat.com. And we'll see you then.