Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 135: Confessions Of A Reluctant Ghoster (Have You Done It?)

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

Matt and Steve talk about how ghosting happens, and why we all can not only be victims of it, but also unknowing perpetrators... *SPOILER alert for The Sixth Sense (I mean, it's over 20 years old, but ya know...here's your warning).  --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- Email us your thoughts at [e-mail] --- Don’t waste time & energy. Find love Faster: Download Your Free Guide to Learn the 3 Love Habits... → http://www.3LoveHabits.com  

Welcome to another Love Live podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, and my brother, oh brother, Stephen Hussey. Hey Matt, they just let up the US-UK border. They're gonna let it up in November, which means that maybe old Steve will be able to tiptoe stateside again. I'll tell you, Steve, it'd make life a lot easier if you were in the same podcast studio as us i got jameson here would be that'd be a good little table wouldn't it you jay me and steve all around the table you're building a little studio right we're in the process of it you can't really see it properly right now but it's gonna be it's gonna be great we're gonna rig lights into the ceiling and, uh, you know,

do a little bit of a fix it up a little interior design wise. Not that it's bad right now. It's quite nice already, but we're, we're, we're going to take it up a notch. Marvelous. Not that it matters. Who cares?

Do you know what I mean? For the listener, it's irrelevant, but for, for my comfort, for my comfort, which is what this is all about. It's yeah. It's all about making you as comfortable as possible for the two weeks of the year that

you're in la could be longer can we talk about the fact that we said 20 minutes ago we were going to do a podcast i come to sit down having you know thrown a shirt on and you come here like some sort of rugged old bear that's just woken up from a nap like we literally it's not like i surprised you with a podcast i told you 20 minutes ago let's do a podcast and jameson's here waiting as well and then we come back and you're like rubbing your eyes going sorry i've just woke up from a nap. I went to take a power nap because it's a bit late here in Britain, Matt, where I kindly accommodate your time. And, you know, sometimes you feel great.

Sensible time to take a nap, 10.30 at night. You get 20 minutes and you come back raring to go, my friend. Yeah. This is not healthy lifestyle, Steve. It's the one I've chose. It's just push through and then go and have a good night's sleep. You'll now be up till four o'clock.

No, maybe. This is not, Steve. It's like Kathy Lee and Hoda on the Today Show. I'm probably dating myself there. Do they even do the Today Show anymore? Who knows? Whoever's on TV at the moment doesn't say 10 minutes before they go on live tv i'm just gonna have a quick power nap yeah that is where

you're so wrong because that is exactly what they would do no that is exactly what they would do pop in the dressing room that's what it's all about sorry oh because you've been in more green rooms than i have well let's not make it a competition i mean what you what what evidence are you basing this on i'm not talking about the green room mate i'm talking about the stars private room where they go okay you mean kathy lee's not sitting kathy lee's not sitting there with you in the green room is she you've managed to turn this into a really sort of backhand not even backhanded just a slap in the face that it's about me not having been invited to this to the real room of the stars where what the clandestine naps happen that we the rest of us don't know about they're not coming and

sitting with you and your bit this isn't illuminati steve it's not the secret society of stars and what they do 10 minutes before they go on air. Oh, what's the mysterious? What's their what's their routine? What is that secret sauce that they do that no one else knows about? Well, they take a fucking nap in the in the stars room. The stars room. Trust me, before some big scenes, DiCaprio would have been napping in a trailer and he just gets up. Bang.

That's not fair. DiCaprio's have been napping in a trailer and he just gets up bang he's that's not fair dicaprio's never not napping dicaprio naps eats pasta and makes the best movies in the world right there you go that's what he does there you go but that's a special that's a special source that only works for dicaprio it doesn't work for the rest of us the rest of us can't walk around the rest of the year with a dad bod and be an A-list Hollywood actor in the upper echelons of Hollywood royalty. Well, I don't have a dad bod. Even Aquaman got shamed for his dad bod. Even he can't play the DiCaprio card.

DiCaprio gets photographed on a boat somewhere with just a big belly and goes i'm dicaprio what aquaman can't even play that card dicaprio gets a slight bit he loses the ridges in his stomach and there's a bunch of news articles saying oh he's let himself go if you're gonna be a superhero that's what happens that's true dicaprio is probably past the point of being chosen for for the next aquaman well he's technically i mean he's on a boat more than anyone else right he's already aquaman in his spare time sorry you know aquaman's our sailor, don't you? Yeah, but you know... You're thinking of Captain Pugwash.

I think he jumps off a boat at some point in one of the movies. He jumps off something into the water. Right. Well, should we get into it? I've got a DMm from a fella steve and he said something i thought was quite i thought was quite interesting oh before we do that let me just read a review because we've been doing this it's a little ritual why don't i read the emails because you're you're spoiling the review the reviewers here but what about the lovely emailers is there

is there a nice email is it is it somewhat terse given that you and i have not been terse so far yeah we got a nice one here let me give you it this is from good good good to know you're ready good to know you what you had it all teed up did you this email yeah we got a nice one here let me give you it this is from nikki who, Hey, Matthew, I'm usually a very passive receiver of your content and have never engaged. But this podcast, the Backburner episode really got under my skin. I'm on the other side of the Backburner relationship. I'm extremely single and continue to chat to my ex. He is not only married with two small children, but we are also on different continents this contact has been very platonic and above board because i created those boundaries but if i'm completely honest i still hope for us to be together one day the attention feels good because

i'm lonely and it keeps my fantasy alive um i know my behavior is unhealthy and i need to stop just need to get an outside perspective thanks Nikki well you know what Steve that is that is beautifully honest that is honest and I applaud it I applaud that level of honesty and vulnerability and I think that when people send us things like that that aren't dressed up and designed to make people look good or righteous or anything like that when it's just pure honesty like that i think that's really really powerful and i think that she gave a gift not just to us in being able to talk about it but i think she gave a gift to everybody else who can feel safe in that level of honesty um by hearing that she's able to confront that within herself

i think that's that's that's so so brave yeah um and and of course yeah it's it's really important that we're honest about these things to ourselves because we can slip into them unconsciously and not realize not realize that it's uh goes against our values uh until we're in it um we cannot realize that it because sometimes these things don't start by going against our values but in her case what she's really saying is it's platonic i'm not doing anything wrong but there is some there is some harboring of a of a desire there and that i'm by staying in touch with this person i'm nurturing something that is not wasting his time you know he's in something he's in a marriage with kids. It's not wasting his time. It's actually someone, it's her wasting her own time. It happens at zero cost to him, but maximum cost to her. Because you can't underestimate the space that it takes up in our mind

when secretly we think that something somewhere down the path might happen with someone that takes up an extraordinary amount of our our psychological bandwidth it's say she it was forgive me it doesn't satiate us it certainly doesn't fulfill her needs but it it just takes the edge off of a hunger doesn't it takes the edge off of a hunger, doesn't it? Takes the edge off of finding somebody else or feeling we need to. It takes up space in our life. So we now have less to give to other people. And it closes us off to possibilities to even, you know, sometimes in order to see the potential in somebody else, it requires a kind of a level of creativity. We have to be open and we have to look at what it could be and, you know, think, oh, wow, this person has some interesting qualities.

Let's get to know them better. But when we think there's already someone on the back burner, when there's someone who were like, oh, I think maybe one day, who knows, it could be whatever. That fantasy is very dangerous because it stops us from even having the urge to invest enough time and energy to get to know somebody else. Like love, people are really good at saying, well, yeah, but if something came along and like knocked my socks off then I wouldn't I'd be able to part ways with this little fantasy I have except most of the time it doesn't really happen like that this isn't a movie it someone doesn't just come along out of nowhere when we're not even trying and just blow us away and we go oh my god this is so amazing and magical and has so much potential that i'm gonna immediately sever ties psychologically with that fantasy no the way that we come to start to in most

adult relationships we come to discover that someone's really interesting or that there's more there than meets the eye. Or that, wow, I have a really interesting connection with this person. Man, I really love my conversation with this person. Oh, there's something here that upon actually asking some questions and them asking questions of me I'm starting to realize this this there's something to be nurtured here a lot of adult relations we can call it most or a lot but so many adult relationships begin that way I'm not saying there shouldn't be chemistry and all of that but they that they're grown from connection and investment and

little moments of shared experiences. Well, how are you going to bother to do all of that when you have in your mind this other thing, this fantasy that, by the way, the mundanity of someone that you just meet in a, who you said hello to in a coffee shop, but don't know yet. So can't be that invested in or attracted to yet gonna compare with the fantasy of what could be with someone you've built up in your mind yeah it's it's ridiculous they cannot compete with that you might have to make room you have to be single maybe feel that sense of being alone a bit to go oh i've got to go and do something now i've got to go and actually make something happen. Cause I haven't got my little comfort back burner relationship to give me a little hit of connection.

And I'm not doing the fantasy thing of, but they don't compare with this person over here that is in my mind. And it, and you kind of would, what what are they what are you comparing them to a literally a person that doesn't exist a person who's taken a person who's married a person who has kids a person who's not even looking the only you know I would say if there's a comparison to be made is that anyone else has more potential. But as long as we've got this fantasy, how is someone going to live up to that fantasy? We're comparing them to something that's not even real.

Speaking of things that aren't real, Steve. We talk about ghosts for a moment. Who you got? Do you like that transition jameson you like that segue well there's this there's a there's a fella steve that's casper or patrick swayze both fairly benign ghosts both quite but i'm talking about amicable as far as ghosts go. Right. Well, and Steve, you might decide that the same is true of this gentleman that I'm going to talk about. I won't name him because he didn't consent to having this talked about. He's messaged me privately, but I think it's an interesting subject that he's brought up. He said, what if you are that person who ghosts all right so we're not we're not talking about the problem with ghosts we're saying what if i

am the person who ghosts whether it's friendships or a romantic relationship i can only ever manage one thing at a time i get so overwhelmed overwhelmed. If work gets busy, my few friendships I have left suffer. If I'm trying to manage a relationship, everything else suffers. Now, I relate to this, Steve. This is not an alien concept to me. I, I, I can really relate to this guy. I feel like this is something I have suffered from in my life. And it, it gives a bit of a different angle,

doesn't it? On the, on the ghosting thing. Cause there's obviously the, this is what they call. This is what they call a Bruce Willis thing. So when you realize you're the ghost, it's a great, it's a great twist. Yeah. it's a great twist yeah it's a great twist yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly it's suddenly he's suddenly come because he's bruce willis didn't think that he didn't think he was

doing anything wrong or anything he's just going about his life but he suddenly realized um i've made that up so that's mine so buzzfeed that's mine um before you go and nick it sorry go on you know buzzfeed's not just a person i know they're not they're little beavers giant company it's not there's not what if mr buzzfeed's listening to our podcast this isn't willie wonka steve and and you're trying to like shield your candy from mr slug you're a never-ending gobstopper from slugworth i just though i just if he's listening just that is mine right that is mine i'll tell you mr buzz i will put it well this is time stamped mr buzzfeed so if you're listening to this uh you

can't use it without crediting dear steven they've probably already written about it i've probably yeah go on i think this is an interesting one because ghosting is often seen as something i suppose at worst malicious and at best incredibly selfish or cold ruthless um i i think there is a huge side to i firstly let's remove it from the context of of i suppose early dating um i think of this more as I, in fact, I think of this more as ghosting where you disappear for a little while and thenanswered threads and realizing that I have, in a sense, ghosted a lot of people. And that is a painful realization when you go, oh, if they'd done that to me, I would have been a bit hurt. You know, that might have. And in a way, as long as I'm running a million miles an hour, I don't notice that most people have ghosted.

You know, like if someone's ghosted me, I don't really notice if I'm doing lots and lots of things. But when I stop and I'm like, oh, I sent that person that thing and they didn't write back, it can be hurtful. It can be painful. I suppose that in the case of this guy, let's call him Jeff. In the case of Jeff, it's, it's a, I think one of the things that can change it for us is is empathy and honesty empathy in the sense that it's worth paying attention to how we feel when we send someone something meaningful or when we try to connect with someone and they don't get back to us because most of us feel something if

we're honest with ourselves people are very good at saying oh i don't care if that's me i don't care and it's like well if you if you truly don't care at all with anybody then it feels like you've got a major wall up i get not caring with certain people but everyone has someone in their life that if that person ghosted them, they would feel something. It would be sad or they would be hurt. So I think empathy is a big part of this. Just understanding how it, how it makes us feel when we go,

when we do all that same thing, I think also just honesty, you know, if someone, if, if you're coming back to someone after a while acknowledging that hey man i know you sent me a couple of texts i feel i feel you know shitty because i wanted to reach out and you know i got overwhelmed with work and um i left it long, but I wanted to check in and see how you are. You know, I think starting by acknowledging people. I also, Steve, I have a role for myself. I'm sorry, I didn't mean start by acknowledging people. I mean, start by acknowledging how it

might have made someone feel or the very least acknowledging you're having gone off the radar and and where appropriate you know apologizing for that i realized that ghosting people in my life unintentionally was hurting me when i I wanted to reconnect with those people or when God forbid I actually needed something from someone and then went back to the thread that I had with them and the last message was them having been quite nice to me and me having not messaged back at all and now i realize oh my god i now need to ask for something and literally the last message was me ignore it was a sign a signal of me ignoring them i have actually had that with friends and it's i had that realization of a moment where i realized oh i'm the one who let it slip i didn't get back to the last message yeah and it is a weird like flipping your perspective on its head you're like oh it was me who didn't reply yeah it's

kind of scary that you don't realize it sometimes for sure my role is this if I went to reach out to someone to ask for something and I realize that either I didn't get back to them last time or I just realized that this is the first time I'm reaching out to them in a while and that there's been no connection for a minute my rule is oh i'm not allowed to ask them i i have to actually go and check in with this person and see how they are and i defer whatever and unless it's life or death, I defer what it is I needed. I literally tell myself, it's not as important as me making a connection with this person. Cause right now all I'm, this is literally just me selfishly asking for something. So, and by the way, we all make the mistake sometimes of, of asking when we should be giving. We, we all make that mistake

or asking for something selfish when we should be connecting. Don't beat yourself up when you do this. We've all done it. I still do it to this day. I sometimes I'll send a message to someone and I'll go, man, now I read that back. That was, I, I just should have connected. That wasn't, you know, I asked for something and I shouldn't have done that. I should have just connected with this person. I've had that feeling before. It's not a nice feeling when we realize we've done to somebody else what we don't like when somebody does to us in that way. But this rule has really served me because every time I'm about to reach out selfishly, I flip it and I go, Oh, this is me reaching out selfishly. This isn't, this is about me. This is about something I want. And I haven't done anything to really

connect in this relationship and, and build a greater connection in this relationship and and build a greater connection in this relationship and give to this relationship so i say okay then i'm not allowed to ask i have to defer it like i i don't i don't have those credits in the bank i'm not like i haven't given to this relationship recently so i'm gonna now i'm not gonna not reach out i'm actually gonna get rid of my ask and i'm just gonna i'm just gonna go in and reach out to this person anyway but from purely a place of giving and and that's been a really positive ritual really positive kind of rule for me to follow yeah i love that that's really yeah it's an important flip to make my my guess jeff is that there's a friction between the way that you process your workload or the demands of your life and your needs and those needs rear their head in inconvenient ways because in moments where

you're not overwhelmed or where you find yourself at the end of a long day or on a weekend, you suddenly are craving connection. You're craving friendship or romance or familial relationships. A wasteland of unanswered texts and requests or kind words or people just reaching out to see how you are. And that then makes you feel bad. It makes you feel bad because on some level, you know that A, it's now harder to reach out to them and connect. But B, you also intuitively know that, oh, that must feel bad for them because it also would feel bad to me if it were the other way around. And I think that that's kind of your answer. I think that you could use what I'm talking about, Jeff, as a kind of, as a rule for yourself, that when I need something, instead of reaching out because I need something, I'm now going to, the person I wanted to reach out to, I'm going to figure out how I can give something to them. I'm going to figure out how

I can make them feel good right now, or just check in and see how they are and at the same time when someone messages you just in terms of practical stuff jeff i make a point of part of part of the reason i've ghosted people in the past is they'll send me a message and i immediately think to myself oh man i want to write them a nice message back. But yeah, I don't have time right now. And I don't have time to write the kind of message that I want to write. And so I'm going to leave it. What I've come to realize is a message I send back that's a 7 out of 10 is better than me sending an imaginary 10 out of 10 message four weeks later or two weeks later

after the moment has passed and they already now are hurt that a 7 out of 10 message is much more valuable especially if the people in your life get used to the fact that when they reach out to you to connect or ask how you are you you actually get back to them and check in. And that doesn't mean like, if someone says to you, if someone says to me, Matt, can you do this thing next month? If the truth of the matter is I don't want to commit right now, then that's the truth. I should say, I don't have to say it in a blunt way. I can say, Hey, you know, friend, so good to hear from you. How are you? How's your daughter? Or how's your mom? Or how's your leg? What's going on? Hey, that sounds really fun. And I so appreciate the invite.

Truth is I have so much on next month that I just honestly don't know if I can commit to this right now. I'm happy to check in with you in a couple of weeks if my time frees up. But in the meantime, don't let me hold you up because I just, you know, next month's so busy for me. I just don't know if I can commit at the moment. That one message sends you four weeks of having the thought 100 times of, oh my God, I didn't get back to that person. Oh, they asked me to do that thing and I just haven't even replied. That's a horrible feeling in your stomach to live with week after week. The little bit of discomfort now of either sending a, if someone sends you a really nice message or like, it's almost like this. If someone sends you a really nice message

and you're like, oh my God, that's such a nice message. How do I live up to that message in my reply? Send, even if you send one that's half the length, but you reply at least right now and just say, oh my God, that means so much to me. Thank you so much. And you do that. That's better than nothing. Even if you can't write an essay. And if you do write an essay a week from now, replying to that message, that's a bonus, but it's not the expectation. If someone sends you a message saying, how are you? Then write a quick message back. I'm so good friend. How you doing? Good to hear from you. Just do it now. If it's two seconds, do it now so that it's off your plate and you don't have to think about it. If it's someone making a request that you can't fulfill, then tell them,

hey, thanks so much. Message received. I've got it. I don't know right now. I can't give you an answer to this yet, but I'll think about it. And it. And, um, and if things become more clear, I'll, I'll come back to you. You come back with something that at least allows it to be off your plate mentally. So that that person's not thinking, God, I can't even believe they, they didn't pay me the respect of, of getting back to me. That's a practical set of tools for dealing with these things and i say this as someone who has undoubtedly hurt let down disappointed affected thousands upon thousands of people over the course of my life who have and certainly hundreds of people who are close to me in some way, like have some kind of relationship with me where they've expected something and I haven't

got back to them. But so many people over the course of my life will have been affected by me doing exactly what you're doing. So I say this with zero judgment, but I've come to believe that it is, it is sort of important, um, because there will be a time when we really want to be able to go back to that person and ask for advice, ask for help. We need love where we just need good conversation, where we just want to have a good time with somebody. And when we do, we don't want to be the person who feels like, wow, when that person reached out, I didn't have the time of day. And then all of a sudden I needed something and I was Mr. or Mrs. Charming. None of us want to be that kind of bullshitter. Or at the very least, even if it's not bullshit,

we don't want to be known for having completely uneven relationships with people. And that's kind of another thing you can add to this, Jeff, is make it an identity shift for yourself. I don't want to be seen as a user in my life i don't want to be seen to be using people maybe i can't be relied upon all the time but i at least have integrity in my interactions with people by being honest with them in my communication and acknowledging them of course when they reach out yeah no judgment here jeff i think i think between matt and i it's something we both uh have needed to hear at certain points

just a quick note to everyone out there that i think steve um i speak for both of us when I say one of the things we love most right now about the podcast is reading the reviews because we've been putting more effort into this frankly and having more conversations than we used to have and to know that you know we get the download numbers and that's wonderful there's a number but it's a number on a screen. When on iTunes, we actually read a review from someone, it becomes real to us, the impact that we're able to have through this medium.

So anytime you rate the show and leave us a review, it really does mean a lot to us. And we really do read every single one of those reviews. Yeah, we are regularly scanning through those. And it's very fashionable to say you don't read any of your reviews. Well, we are regularly scanning through those. And it's very

fashionable to say you don't read any of your reviews. Well, we're reading all of them. Well, the truth is that we don't get to read every comment across every platform. But because there's a particular sort of drive for us in reaching more people with the podcast, we really are reading all of those reviews right now. And it's really, really enjoyable. And of course, when you do go to leave a review, or even if you don't leave a review, subscribe to the podcast, because we want to make sure that you don't miss any of the episodes along the way.

Yeah. And also, if you want to get in touch with the show more personally, you can email us at podcast at Matthew Hussey dot com. And I am elbows deep in those emails. And I'm honestly blown away by just how many of you are listening and engaging with the show. It's honestly overwhelming. And I know we've done years of videos on social media and everything, but there's something very personal about seeing those emails come in. And every time I think, God, it's just me and Matt sitting here. It feels like we're talking to three people.

We're not. It's just crazy the amount of you who are listening and loving what we're saying. So if you have an observation, something you just want to say, a joke, anything, it can be really short. Drop us a line at podcast at MatthewHussey dot com. We love hearing from you. Oh, and Steve, I didn't even tell you this, but I had this idea for people to send us voice notes by email, letting us know either what they think of the show or like you said, just something funny or an observation about Steve. Or me. You know, it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be a dig it could be something nice or it could also be you just making fun of us whatever you want preferably something nice i mean don't even put the idea in their heads frankly well if you send us a voice note some

kind of voice recording by email we might incorporate a couple of those into the show as well. So feel free to send those. Matt, I have a question for you. We have this opportunity where Jeff is copying to being a ghost. He's Bruce Willis-ing it, as Stephen would say. But I feel like you haven't actually addressed what he should do about the women in his life that he may have ghosted. Now, are you referring to the women that he's ghosted historically or how to approach new people in his life?

I think both, if you have a take. I think there's nothing wrong with, well, I don't. There's a sort of a bit of a sleeping dogs lie, let sleeping dogs lie approach that you could apply to some people from the past especially people that you've upset you could sort of take the approach of do i really there's a there's a term in there's a in in alcoholics anonymous when they talk about the step that's you know what do they call the step where they have to go to anyone who's been harmed or affected uh and they essentially make amends right it's the step of making amends the making amends part is make amends unless it would do more harm to make amends and i suppose you could argue with certain people that if they were really into

you and you hurt them and hearing from you again is just going to reopen a wound unnecessarily then making amends in that situation could be regarded as slightly selfish you know you're needing to offload your guilt in or by going and making amends with someone who isn't thinking about you so why put yourself in their head on that particular day or week but not everyone falls into that category and there might be some people from a couple of weeks ago or a few weeks ago that we say hey i'm so sorry i completely fell off the radar um and um i wanted to apologize because that was rude of me you know that's also fine in terms of new people in your life i think if look if you find yourself i see i have an interesting well i suppose a slightly nuanced take on ghosting when it comes to dating which is that firstly it's not ghosting if you don't text someone after a date

i'm not saying in the context of someone you've been seeing really regularly and there's now a genuine kind of relationship forming but someone we've been on a couple of dates with i don't think that we should be considered a ghost if we just don't text them after that date if the same is true the other way around to me ghosting is when someone's making attempts to contact you and you are just completely ignoring those attempts. When that's the case, that becomes more egregious because now someone's left wondering, wait, what the hell? I'm literally asking if they're okay or I'm reaching out to them and they've completely ignored me that to me is a bit different but um and in those cases i think if someone's reaching

out to us it's the the kind thing to do is to let them know that we're not interested in pursuing anything more or that we don't really have the time right now to date if that's the truth um or to give at the very least give short answers that make someone realize that you're not you know this is the amount of energy you're willing to put in um you don't you know we don't owe someone an explanation on everything and and we don't owe someone our feelings all the time. But if someone's continuously trying to reach out to us and we're just ignoring them, then that's obviously poor form and fairly rude. And something that we want to try and not do. I think there's some things you do leave behind and you accept, you shoulder it.

I think there's some things you just have to decide. You don't get closure on every single error you've made. Sometimes it is nice though. So there's occasions. There's occasions where it's nice to acknowledge and not expect anything back. What about the question you always get, Matt? And I don't know if you've ever had a clear answer to this. It's kind of related.

But the people who are asking, how do you let someone down easy? I think that trying to make it not personal is the key. It's kind of like the cliche of, you you know i just didn't think we're a match is offering someone everything they need to know yeah that i you know for whatever reason it wasn't the connection wasn't there i mean it's kind of even more vague than that you're not saying the connection wasn't there you're just saying i I'm not sure we're a match, but I appreciate your, you know, you coming out to see me. I think that, I think that that is some version of that is the kindest thing that we can do because we're not, you know,

no one needs to hear from us. i'm not attracted to you in that way because that's now it's painful now it's it's already i'm we're not a match is already kind of painful but to hear that i'm not attracted to you in that way is tantamount to saying that you have no sexual appeal to me so i think that's where it gets unnecessary i think telling someone hey i just i didn't feel like we're necessarily a match but i really i appreciate your your time and i had a really lovely time that to me i think is the kindest way to let someone down i think that's an important distinction that people don't think about. We're like, oh yeah, well just, I wasn't feeling the chemistry. Exactly. Guys will

do that math real quick. If a woman says that to a guy, like, oh, that's, that's something I'm going to take with me for the next 14 years of therapy. Yeah. It's brutal saying someone saying they didn't feel chemistry. It, you may think of that in terms of oh but that's not saying someone's completely unappealing that's just saying that this person and i didn't have chemistry but a lot of people maybe even most people are not going to receive it that way what they're going to hear is i'm i'm unattractive i am not sexually appealing i'm undesirable and they take that personally so i think i don't know if off the top of my head i can think of a safer set of words than i just didn't think that we're necessarily a match um but uh if someone wants to pry

that's different if someone says to you but why don't you think we're a match that's different they're asking for an opinion and then you can be kind but you'll have to be potentially a little more honest if you want to do that but if someone hasn't asked for your opinion and all you're really doing is letting them know that their effort is is going to be wasted and that you don't want them to waste their energy then i think that this is the best way to do that all right guys well thank you so much for listening again go to askmh.com if you would like a 14-day free membership to our Love Life Club. This is the place where we go beyond the conversation of the podcast into real coaching.

For those people who are taking their goals seriously right now, who are taking their love life seriously, for those people who are really looking to improve their love for life, you feel like you want to get more out of your life and you want to be around a supportive group of people with me as your coach, with Steven as your coach on a monthly basis, then come join us. It's askmh.com is where you can go to sign up for a free 14-day membership to the Love Life Club. And you'll also, when you're on that page, get the chance to ask a question that you want answered on one of the Love Life webinars. If you can, if you have time, leave us a review on iTunes. We really appreciate them.

And we'll see you soon. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, sir. Thank you, everyone. I see the blog sites. Okay, we've Thank you, sir. Thank you, everyone.