Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 155: THIS Mindset Keeps You Single (+ Matt's thoughts on being engaged)

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Can you be "too picky" in love? What is the difference between having standards and just being annoyingly judgmental? Matt and Stephen sit down to talk about: When to be picky vs. when to be open-minded when falling in love How true commitment changes your view of relationships The things that really matter when choosing a partner The cognitive bias that keeps you with the wrong person --- Join us on our virtual retreat on March 18th-20th! Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com and spend a magical 3 days with us transforming your confidence and relationships... --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey ---  Email us! You can get in touch with the show and give your feedback/thoughts at [e-mail] --- FREE download: “9 Texts No Man Can Resist” http://www.9texts.com FREE download: “5 Compliments to Get Him Addicted to You” http://www.SayThisToHim.com

How you define commitment shapes your entire reality of how you make decisions. welcome to the love life podcast with me matthew hussey and my brother stephen hussey welcome peaches puddings pickles plums and pears and you are back with the two frayers if you speak french that means brother hello matthew so we're gonna are we actually going to use that? That's in. That's straight in the podcast. That's how it works. You wrote an email the other day to our entire mailing list and called them pickles in the email. I did, sir. Now that got sent without any approval from me

because I might have changed the word pickles had I had the chance to see it before it went out that's why people hide things from you so that so the mistakes like that don't happen what mistakes like me removing the word do you know not everyone knows our personalities steve that could just be a brand new person on the mailing list whose first email they got refers to them as pickle it's quite sweet isn't it it's affectionate i mean if you hear your tone of voice maybe but in an email i don't know if it reads the same well fair enough steve before we get started today will you do us the honors of reading an email from one of our listeners yes well we've had a

lovely one in the email inbox podcast at matthewhussie.com if you want to send us one this is from miss bell who says i just wanted to let you know that you have gotten me through the hardest divorce and hardest two years of my life i listened to a certain four of your podcasts what if he changes for someone else what if I feel bad for a toxic partner? When to quit a relationship and how to tell you're in a relationship with a narcissist over and over every day. It seems like you can see my life

and are telling me just what I need in that moment, day or week. Your voices are so calming and easy to listen to. I've been in therapy for a year and while that has been helpful, I feel like you have been an added bonus and you cover things my therapist has not. I could add a lot more that I have learned,

but this is long enough. Thank you again. Keep doing what you are doing because it is making a difference. That's from Miss Bell. Thank you so much, Miss Bell. We really appreciate that. And if, of course, you have something you'd like to tell us,

you can email podcast at matthewhussey.com. Well, I got a little question for you, Matt. Last time we did this podcast together in the same room, you were a single man? On a contract, it would probably call me, I would have to refer to myself as a single man on a contract it would probably call me i would have to refer to myself as a single man but i don't think that my now fiancee would appreciate you saying i was a single man yeah well no you were not you're not a single man i'd have to tick the box at a doctor's office

that says single on a passport or a doctor's office you were single but um you are now engaged since we last spoke i am indeed steve so is this podcast gonna change is this it is it is it a new vibe now is it is this like oh he's the bachelor and he's the married one and they're gonna talk about love is is that is it a new shtick um i don't i don't think so i don't want to be you know like when someone's been doing something for five minutes and all of a sudden they have all the wisdom on that thing right it's like if you just became a vegan if you just became a vegan, if you just became a vegan and now every episode talks about veganism. Exactly. Exactly. Or it's like you do one, you do one surfing lesson and all of a sudden you talk to everyone about the wonders of surfing.

It's not, I haven't earned that. So I think I'm i just i'm really i'm really happy i feel really excited about where i am in my life right now well let me just as a as a man you know i'm a man who has so far this at this age uh avoided marriage not gotten married yet don't say it like that you've already shown your hand there no i i mean avoided just in the it's not a pejorative sense you've not gotten married i've not gotten married um but to say you've avoided it suggests a viewpoint i've been dodging proposals everywhere um the uh what i want to ask you is does it does it feel different when you are engaged does something change in the brain is it a different feeling is it a different headspace hmm that's a great question for me well on one hand, because I wouldn't have done it

had it not felt like a natural and organic progression of where we were already and the kind of bond and future we were, the bond we have and the future we were planning. It felt very natural. I always think that it's funny in movies and tv shows where someone is just so unbelievably shocked by a proposal you know like when the woman is just like completely shocked by the idea that he's proposing i always think some feels like something's gone wrong here.

Like this is a big, this is a, this is a big decision and you guys haven't even talked about the idea or it's not like it's not been communicated in any way. It feels like if, if an engagement or if marriage is an organic progression of where the relationship is at, it probably, the timing might be surprising that it was this month and not three months from now. But the idea that someone's proposing to you, it seems odd if that's a complete shock to me. But your fiance was surprised when you did it. Yes. Yeah. She was shocked.

She said, she said, you have really thrown a Hail Mary here. It is very fast. And I just. No, she didn't say, no,

she didn't. She was just shocked. I think at the fact that this thing that we had talked about was actually occurring and i think that in a in. I knew that I was going to get down on one knee and propose. And yet I could not have predicted how nervous I was when it happened. You know, Steve, I, I've, I've thought this is going to be just, it's going to be another, it's going to be a speech to one. And I've been speaking for a long time and I know this is going to happen. And I also feel confident that she's going to say yes. So what is there to be nervous about? What is there to create that kind of shakiness that I felt?

I could literally feel my hand shaking with the ring in it. But I think that the gravity of it still somehow took me by surprise in the moment and the meaning of it and and also i suppose from my side and from any man's side the feeling that you don't get a redo of that moment makes it a bit scary and you know that this moment is going to be a story that's going to get told so you want to get it right but i do think that despite the fact that it felt like an organic progression there's still there still feels like there's something there's some extra thing there's some extra well there is of course an extra commitment that's been made but you know in my hesitation is that her and I had already made that commitment to each other before that

you know we had already discussed being together forever before that so it's not like it was a new concept it just felt like a sort of codification of what we already felt and had said to each other but that is the part that gives it that extra meaning and i no doubt will feel that even more so after getting married and john turtle tub who you know steve who is a friend of ours uh who is a movie director who directed a national treasure and while you were sleeping and cool runnings cool runnings my favorite the three ninjas oh yeah classic and he said to me that he said a couple of really interesting things about marriage because for me I'm always fascinated by, you know, what things mean and why things are important, especially as when it comes to ceremony or something that would be seen as traditional. because I'm not religious and because I'm not necessarily heavily spiritually inclined, although maybe I am, but I just don't like to label it that way. But you know what I mean.

It's not, you know, I don't have those traditional reasons for doing something. I have to find my own meaning in something, especially if it's institutionalized, which the part of me that is slightly rebellious, the part of me that is slightly contrarian, the part of me that doesn't like to involve institutions in my personal life especially voluntarily um is skeptical and so i you know it was important for me to understand why, why do something like this?

Why is it, why is it not enough just to say we want to be together and then do that? And, and by the way, for anyone out there who does that, I actually still think that that's great and wonderful. And I don't, you know, I have have I don't have any judgment in either direction I I totally get that there's a part of me that that speaks to but this friend of ours he said to me in a world where we can kind of have anything we want, and it's so easy to drop things as soon as it's not interesting anymore, as soon as it's not quite as exciting anymore, as soon as it's not convenient anymore. He said, we need things that are more difficult to get out of

we need life to be made a little more difficult to just drop things to drop commitments that we have because it's so easy these days to drop any commitment we have. And that there is something about marriage that takes your finger off the trigger. People get divorced, right? It's not like marriage stops people from not being from from ever breaking up but it as he put it it takes your finger off the trigger when you have an argument when things get difficult you don't just have that escape hatch that's readily available that at any point you say, ah, screw it, I'm done. And he believes that to be a really good reason to get married in some ways the reasons a younger me would see as the problems with getting

married he sees as the important part of getting married yeah i remember there's a line in a philip roth novel where one of the guys says he says the the commitment in marriage is the excitement and if that doesn't excite you then you have no business being married right which is really interesting because that's something that we spoke about on our commitment masterclass for our love life, which is this idea that how you define commitment shapes your entire reality of how you make decisions. There's a couple of different definitions of commitment in the dictionary, and I won't get these perfectly right, but the sentiment will be there. One of them is being dedicated to a cause. And the other definition is the state of obligation that restricts freedom. Well, both of those could be considered apt definitions of commitment but which of those you believe in which of those you really relate to will absolutely define how you see the thing if marriage or a relationship is a cause

to which you are dedicated then it feels more akin to fighting for something you believe in, which feels noble and beautiful. If, and important, if you believe in commitment as an obligation that restricts freedoms, then you have the sense of being out of control, having to do something and having to give up freedoms. What could be more attractive than freedoms? I want freedoms, right? Freedoms, freedom is such a positive word. So when you associate commitment with the loss of that word then it feels like a trap it's quite interesting isn't it that you know there are a lot of people who would be afraid or avoidant of commitment in relationships who would equally very much romanticize being incredibly dedicated and cutting off everything else for their passion or for their whatever they consider their purpose in life or their art or their work and i understand maybe

they think sometimes that conflicts with romance or whatever but they they're not afraid of cutting off options in those areas where they're saying this is my thing this is what my life is dedicated to and of course you know a lot of the fears that people have around commitment are around the idea that they are going to lose fundamental parts of themselves or what's important to them that is going to change their life in ways that that make their life unrecognizable and then the way they'll no longer have access to all of these things that are important to them and i and to segue a little bit into something i think is a really interesting subject that that overlaps with what we're talking about.

If we don't pick the right teammate for a long-term relationship, then it can mean those things. If we pick the wrong teammate, then it can mean the loss of ourselves. It can mean the loss of all these things that are really important to us, which speaks to the importance of picking the right person in the first place. And a question that I had for you today, Steve, that I think would be worthwhile discussing is, what are the right things to be picky about how do you relate to the idea of pickiness for yourself and what in terms when you're coaching people because obviously

you're part of coaching an enormous number of our members every month what to you is the right level of pickiness are people getting hurt in their dating lives right now because they're too picky i tend to find that in the early parts of a relationship people harm themselves by being too picky when they're not dating at all when they're not dating at all when they are talking about getting out there or they say it would be nice to meet someone that's almost like the stage where people get to peak pickiness level because i guess it seems like work to go out there's a lot of inertia and i think there becomes this sense of well if i'm gonna even do this this person better be perfect like these are all the things i want and here's my checklist here's my laundry list of traits i need in a person they need to be this height they

need to look like this uh this is how i want their style and their fashion sense to be. And I want this job, this degree. And of course, dating apps allow us to literally apply that criteria, right? Because when you're on a dating app, you literally can treat it like shopping for something off of a shelf. And you can apply your list of criteria to that thing. It can literally tell you how tall someone is or what they look like or what their fashion sense is like or what they're into. You can literally apply your criteria in real time to this seeming buffet of options. Yeah. And I've noticed doing, you know, when i have used dating apps they've often been the most successful or fruitful like i've had a relationship before that came from a dating app

but it was it was not that oh i saw her on tinder and they seem so perfect it was more like i went i want to actually give some people a chance and go on some dates here and see if they're fun like it starts as low criteria as that like i find them attractive they seem nice and that's the test at the beginning that's all you're really looking for i have this phrase i've used before which is be super open-minded about who you meet, but be really selective about who you invest serious emotion in. And I think at the beginning, that's where you don't want pickiness. Pickiness can just destroy people. It becomes like its own form of... I think you can't think about things in the abstract you can't think about a great

relationship in the abstract because you know you're never gonna sit and give anyone an hour or give them a chance or go on another date if you are hoping to be blown away by like the moment you speak to them that just tends not to happen it tends to be something you develop you learn about them you find new exciting things about them and then ultimately you're choosing right ultimately you are i think you are choosing that this person is someone you want to invest more in and i think that's the key is like when are you willing to choose that well it's interesting steve there is an article on the bbc that by brian lufkin that talks about the idea that people aren't actually as picky in reality

as they think they are when describing who they would date. When people do pick a partner, research shows hidden biases mean we'll actually give people a chance, even if they don't quite meet our criteria. Right. Yes. And I think that's interesting because dating apps, no doubt, make us much more picky than we are in reality. And I think anyone can kind of run this experiment. If you imagine going on a dating app and how you swipe through people so liberally in such a kind of laissez-faire fashion, and then consider how you are if you're at a party and someone introduces you to someone.

You're far more likely to give that person that you've been introduced to in real life a moment, a chance, than you are on a dating app where that person may not even make it into your, I'm going to send them a quick high folder. Yeah. And it might even be for weird reasons. Like you'll see one movie they said was their favorite movie. And you're like, Oh God,

really that one? Like, Oh, roll your eyes. Oh, that's so like cliche. But if you met someone at a party who is great, you wouldn't reject them

on the basis that their favorite movie like made you roll your eyes a bit you you'd you'd be like oh i don't care like this is really fun i'm having a great time or they're a couple of inches under the height that you've decided you want for yourself and that becomes a reason not to choose someone. And this is the, that's what's really interesting is that perfect partners aren't picked in the margins. If you met someone who was a couple of inches under what you thought you wanted your height to be, or the person's height to be, and they ended up being so many amazing things in a relationship. And you had an amazing time with them and chemistry and whatever. The chances at that point of you walking away because they're not quite the right height or the height that you'd predetermined

was important. It's almost never going to happen or i would argue if it does happen then you've got to start looking inward and saying okay what's happening with me that i am treating my love life like a thing to be optimized instead of finding someone who is an amazing partner. If I find a fantastic partner, what's going on with me that I am optimizing in this way that I'm still telling myself it's not quite right because they don't have this thing or that thing. Yeah. I almost think you're not looking for it. The mistake is to think you're looking for a perfect person but you're actually looking for an amazing fit someone that fits you really well that fits the pieces of your jigsaw really well and that's a very different thing one of the

phrases this article uses is it's not about the partner you choose, but the partnership you build, which I think is extraordinarily important. Now, I don't think that you can just choose any partner. We have to choose a partner with the right stuff and then look at the partnership we're building with them and see if the partnership is one that is meeting our needs. If the partnership is one that can make us happy. But that's a very different thing from spending our whole lives optimizing in terms of the partner. It says here in this article, Steve, maybe it's not that helpful to search and search for a partner who looks good on paper, but it is helpful once dating someone to look for early signs that the relationship is turning out to be healthy and supportive. That I think is a real shift away from whether someone meets all of the criteria we thought we wanted which some of

which are hangovers from when we were young and had this shopping list of unimportant things that someone had to be and we never actually revisited that list to see how many of them were important. I heard it said recently by whom I have no idea that perhaps happiness is letting go of the things you thought your life was supposed to be and embracing the life that you have and i think that can be applied to the search for a partner as well i i think a lot of unhappiness is created by holding on to things we thought we had to have and instead embracing the reality of how wonderful something or someone or a partnership that we're in is that is already in front of us yeah and i think i think i like that fact you're saying about i don't know what the exact quote you said is but actually checking in through the progression like if you're being supported if you are still still feeling like your partner you have love because those are the things

that are ultimately the the glue the fundamental the thing that's going to make you feel good in a decade or that now is does my partner have my back do they care about do we care about each other's needs do Do we make an effort for each other? And if there's a part where people aren't picky enough, it does more tend to be when things go on and on and they just start to think, well, I really admire this person or I'm really attached to them, but they're not checking in does this person have certain behaviors that are really toxic that are hurting my life does this person run me down or do things that make me feel you know just just make me feel bad about myself and that's where people get into

toxic scenarios because of and all kinds of internal issues that stop them leaving but that's in a way where people aren't picky enough. It's like you want to be picky on those things, right? And check in throughout that those needs are actually being met. I think something where I know something a lot of women go through is they may have been single for some time or they may have been kind of in and out of short-term relationships that haven't panned out. They know they want to meet someone. It's extremely important. It may

even be the most important thing in their life right now, the idea of meeting someone, but they find themselves currently with someone who maybe, Steve, checks some of those boxes that you've said are important, but they don't feel alive with that person. And it's, I think, a very common thing for people to feel that I don't feel excited in the way that I might like. I don't feel alive with this person, but they are supportive and they are kind and they are good to me.

But I just don't feel that thing that I want to feel. There was a wonderful book. The title was just a fantastic title. It was too good to leave, too bad to stay. Oh yeah, I loved that book. That describes how so many people feel and not necessarily because of toxicity, but because I just don't feel energized enough by this relationship. And it's. Can be a very hard. Hard thing. To try to get. Perspective.

On whether. We need to put energy. Into the relationship. Or whether we need to leave the relationship. Because it's never going to energize us. In the way that we need. To be happy. Long term.

But it's a particular kind of pain when people feel that this person is lovely. And I just don't seem to be feeling what I would like to feel. And is that because they've, in a way, have they not been picky early on about that? Is that something they didn't select for early on? Or is that just a common thing that happens? It's interesting you say that, Steve, because this article mentions something called progression bias, which is the idea that one of the things that gets us into relationships is the bias we have toward continuing with it

once we've already spent some time with a person, investing in a person. And there are a number of reasons for that. One of them is when you have shared history with someone when you have shared moments when you've been through things together there is a kind of narrative there's a story that's been built up there that supports the idea of this relationship as being somehow important uh it substantiates the relationship it It lends gravity to it. But there's also the very fact that once we've spent time with someone, once we've gone further down the road with them, it becomes more difficult to leave. Either because we'll be heartbroken or they'll be heartbroken or it's just difficult to disentangle your lives.

You know, the more you go down the road and there are there are various uh different ideas that this is seen as similar to the article mentions the status quo bias you know the bias we have toward things the way they are the fact that we're resistant to change if it means change it's easier to stick with what we're doing right now or the sunk cost bias, which is the idea that if I've already invested time and energy into something, I need to now justify it by continuing with that path. Same thing that someone has in a casino is the thing that makes them keep gambling. I've lost a hundred dollars on this table. I need to keep gambling. I need to keep investing more money to get my $100 back,

especially if I lose $1,000, I need to keep going because it's now that much more important that I get a win out of this. People in the stock market do this, Matt. It's known as a fallacy where you think you have to make back your loss on the same stock

that you lost money on. Where instead of taking the money out and putting it somewhere better, you think I have to win the money back on this stock. Exactly. And that happens in relationships too, of course. The progression bias is also likened in some way to the idea of satisficing, which is a term given to not maximizing or optimizing a situation, but instead going for good enough. It's good

enough to stick with. So I'll no longer feel the need to maximize the right choice. This, what I have right now is good enough. Progression bias has both a positive effect and a darker effect depending on the situation the positive effect you could argue of the progression bias is that if it weren't for some kind of progression bias we may never stick with anything once we have and we've talked about this we talk about it in our program the momentum texts it's actually one of the techniques that we have is and we've talked about this, we talk about it in our program, the Momentum Texts. It's actually one of the techniques that we have is build your story with someone. Because if you know how to build your story with someone, then it's much more likely to turn into a real commitment. By the way, for anyone who wants to check that out, MomentumTexts.com is the program. We talk about the idea that building your story leads to

commitment because when you have story with someone, it's one of the things that gives meaning to a relationship. It gets us more invested. And that could be a very positive thing. Your story with someone can be the reason that you get through hard times with them. You've invested in them. You've, you've through hard times with them. You've invested in them. You've, you've been through difficult times together. You've weathered storms together. You've been through certain moments in life that are important together. That can be something that makes you get through those, that turbulence in a relationship and come out the other side. So in that sense, the progression bias can be a very beautiful thing. Where the progression bias can get darker is if you don't leave someone who's

toxic or who's treating you poorly, who's making you unhappy, anxious, sad, stressed, feel alone, isolated, because you figure, well, I've just invested so much time and energy in this person that I need to keep going with it. Or in the case that you're talking about, Steve, if you never give a thought to whether a relationship really has the potential to make you happy in the first place, not because someone is treating you badly but because you aren't actually feeling anything you're not focusing on the right things as it moves forward in the case that we're talking about you're not focusing on the fact that there is no chemistry at the outset right that you know that that you might be getting the right things in terms of being treated well, but you're not getting any chemistry. And I don't think that while I agree that qualities like teamwork, kindness, someone being supportive, someone caring about you as a person and caring about your happiness, while I agree those are all very important qualities for a relationship for a

romantic relationship having some form of of sexual chemistry is also essential yeah yeah if it's to stay an intimate relationship over the short term and not essentially become a friendship. And if we pay no attention early on to the fact that we have certain good qualities, but we don't have any chemistry with this person, then we can still just carry on down the road with them for months on end to the point where now the progression bias takes over and we find it hard to extricate ourselves from a situation that actually isn't right and the you know jameson you made this great point earlier that that in fact just maybe make that point now in terms of how you see the idea of serial monogamists fitting into this concept of the progression bias?

I had actually never heard of that bias until we were looking at that article. And it just made a whole lot of sense to me of like, ah, this is why some people swing from one relationship right into another one, because they immediately get invested in someone and maybe they just fall in love easily. But that little inch of investment turns into another inch and they just keep progressing and you can yeah there can definitely be a dark side to that you can take that too far you can easily get stuck into something and just feel like there's no way to go anywhere but forward yeah in in a way there's a in a way there's a potential advice here for people in early dating it's almost like be really open-minded but quit early quit quit quit fast if it's not working early on and like don't be picky at the very

beginning so you don't meet anyone make sure you meet lots of people but quit early if you think there's not chemistry if you think there's certain things that you're not feeling that you want to feel yeah and i don't think early has to be end of date one but it doesn't you don't have to wait till date seven. Right. You know, you may not always know for sure what your chemistry level is based on a conversation with someone. Sometimes people need a minute to loosen up, to, to be comfortable, to bring then authentic selves to the table. So sometimes going on a second date can be valuable, especially when you're not sure. If you go on a date and you're a hundred percent sure that you don't feel anything

and that it truly is just, there's no, there's no match there. Okay, fine. If you're not sure then going on a second date can't hurt but if you're still not feeling if there's if there is no chemistry there then continuing to do it because there's nothing else going on can be a dangerous thing and to jameson's you know speaking speaking on Jameson's point, if we are really deeply afraid of being alone or if we can't stand the idea of being alone, which is kind of a hallmark of serial monogamists, we are much more likely to succumb to the progression bias because the moment we have someone in our vicinity we'll we'll take them over anybody right now over nothing right now i should say and we may convince ourselves this is this i think is a really dangerous phenomenon is telling yourself this is better than nothing for now but i know it's not good for me for the long term, or I know I'm not going to be satisfied here in the long term, or I know that I'm not going to feel enough in the long term, but it's, you know, there's no one else right now. So let me just

enjoy it. And by the way, friends will say that to you. They'll be like, just enjoy it for what it is. Don't you don't have to overthink everything or whatever. Well, the progression bias would suggest otherwise. Because if you say this is just for the moment and I'm just going to enjoy it because there's no one else around right now, the danger is that by investing more time and energy in this person who you already know, it doesn't feel right. You're now actually more likely to get sucked into a relationship that's not right that's going to get more and more difficult to walk away from yeah yeah there is certainly a balance to be struck between writing people off too quickly based on certain superficial factors or them not adhering to some. Preordained list that we have that someone has to be.

And. Continuing with someone when we know that we're not happy. Because it just feels comfortable right now. It, it just is, uh, something that feels soothing in the short term, but ultimately is going to, that soothing feeling is going to turn into a nagging fear and anxiety and regret that we have let things come so far and we now have to find a way out. And all the time you're doing that, you are not making room for the right person to come in. Yeah. Look, I think it's really interesting. I'm curious to know what our listeners think of this, please email us your thoughts on this subject and further questions you have on this subject, things you're struggling with on the, you know, we, maybe we've been

talking and you've kind of a burning question has come up about all of this that you want to ask us. And I'd love to hear if people feel they are too picky or not. I'd love to hear that. Send that, send your question or just how you feel. Have you come to any conclusions about yourself and your pickiness to podcast at matthewhussey.com and try and keep your email to reasonable length, you know, a hundred words, 50 words, 200 words, certainly no essays because we've then it's really difficult for us to read them out and have the time to do that. But, but tell us what you think of this, because I, I really do have a deep concern for dating today because we are living in a world where there is more choice than I think we were ever designed to be able to cope with. And the abundance of, whether you want to call them real

options or not, the abundance of perceived options is staggering. And it makes it really hard in a decision where the stakes already feel so high to know if we are making the right choices. I have really come to believe that what makes things special in life is the meaning we give them, the way that we shape them, and what we invest in them. Not simply special being presented to us on a platter. Now, I do think that the person we come across in life that is going to make us happy has to where the decision is just made for us by fate or feeling or destiny or whatever you want to call it, is a really, really destructive notion because it removes agency from us as people. Agency is in decision-making, whether it's a person or a place you want to live, agency is saying, I have a role to play in choosing something and making it spectacular.

My job is not to travel the world and then when I just feel this is the place I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life. I settle there. Removes any agency from us. And it's making a decision. I think this is a very missed point in so many things. And I'm not the first one to say it.

But making a decision, exercising that agency is something that imbues a situation with meaning. That you chose that thing, that career, that place to live, that person, and then decided to go all in on it. There's beauty in that. That is the thing that imbues it with so much meaning. But so many people go through life waiting for life to give them meaning. I need to find the career that gives me purpose. I need to find the place to live that just speaks to me, that is my place, that makes me feel good. I need to find the person that gives my life meaning.

But that's to be a kind of a victim to meaning instead of choosing meaning and and what could be more meaningful in a world where we could have so many potential partners what could be more meaningful than saying I'm choosing to build a story with this person. This is the story I choose. And I think that all the investment that comes afterwards, all of the commitment that comes afterwards comes as a result of deciding that you're going to make that story really important. That commitment is the inevitable result of deciding the meaning of a story as opposed to the result of something coming to you preordained. Life doesn't, unfortunately, I just don't think life gets to be that simple. You can be so many different things

in life. You could be a fisherman, you could be an accountant, you could be a lawyer, you could be a speaker, you could be a writer. You could be so many different things. I don't think life gets to be as simple as something just chooses you. We go through life and we exercise agency. And the search for a partner is no different. At a certain point, we stop. And it's not that we stop and we say, it's not that we stop on somebody and we say, this is good enough. It's that we stop on somebody and we say, I'm going to make this great. We're very powerful and we have the ability to make

things great in life. We all have our own magic. We all have our own ability to make things great, but we have to exercise that ability. It doesn't mean that it can be with anyone. We still have to find someone who has a similar attitude towards making a relationship great or will be the one doing all the work. And that doesn't work. We still need to find someone with whom we have some chemistry. Doesn't need to be the greatest chemistry of all time. There's someone you have chemistry that makes it a romantic relationship or you have a friendship. And it still needs to be someone who has an outlook on life or values that synergize with your own.

It doesn't have to be all the same, but they have to be able to be compatible with your own. It doesn't have to be all the same, but they have to be able to be compatible with your own. But the pool of people that that describes is far greater than the scarcity that people imagine is the case when they think of trying to find their ideal partner. And I actually fundamentally believe. That when we.

Develop a healthy relationship with ourselves and our own flaws. And when we find ourselves ready for a real relationship. More people become right. Because I do think that when we constantly applaud, almost applaud the fact that I'm just too picky, I'm just, my problem is I'm too picky. It's kind of, if we're not careful, it becomes another way of saying, I'm kind of a judgmental asshole. And it's done under the righteous label of I'm too picky. And I think that we've all been through those phases where we're incredibly judgmental of people and everyone feels wrong for us because we're so judgmental. Everyone loves saying, you know, when you raise your standards in life and when you grow and when you read and when you do self-development and when you do all of these things, your pool of people shrinks and it's hard to meet someone who's on your level.

That's a really easy thing to say. I've even said that in the past. I think it's a bit of a cop-out because I actually think the more open you become as a human being, the more you accept yourself and your own flaws and your own history and your own weaknesses and don't see certain things with shame and disgust when you aren't disgusted by yourself and the things that you've done or you are, then you start looking at other people with less disgust, with less contempt, with more openness, with more love. You start actually seeing more good in other people. When you accept yourself more, it's hard not to accept other people more. And so when we become really ready, more people become right.

Matt, would you like us to read one of our lovely iTunes reviews from our apple podcast listeners i'd bloody love that steve so this is from devanit seven uh who says i saw clips of love life with matthew hussey on tiktok well that tiktok that tiktok works paying off for us then uh and i wasn't dancing steve no no not yet one of the one of the few people on tiktok not dancing that's true um she says what matthew was saying instantly piqued my interest and i started listening to the actual podcast a few months ago there has been so much helpful inspiring and captivating information that has truly helped me grow as a person

and i feel like i'm ready for what I am looking for. I listen to why people disappear when you show interest three times and I definitely recommend it. Especially if you're in a place where men or women are constantly disappearing in your life or even if you're in a different place when it comes to love. There's something that might help you grow as a person or in your relationships. I look forward to hearing Matthew and Stephen give advice every week and I thank them for everything they have taught me. Well, thank you so much, Devanit7. And it's everyone listening,

you know, leaving lovely iTunes reviews. We read all of them and all your emails. So it really, really means the world. Thank you very much. It does. Thank you so much, everybody. If you do want to leave us a review, please go to iTunes. Uh, it does help spread the message about the podcast to other people. If you're listening and it's helping you, then it, uh, is likely to help

other people in your situation as well. So help us please tell more people about it. I also want to let everyone know the things that I was speaking about in terms of self-acceptance and how that changes the way that we approach our love lives. It changes the way that we approach other people is a real muscle that we can work on. If you have struggled in your life to love yourself, if my God, if you've struggled to like yourself, if the idea of loving yourself isn't even on your radar, because you're struggling to like yourself in general, if you continuously beat yourself up over things that you do wrong or things you say wrong or mistakes you believe you've made in your past that to this day you regret and you continuously castigate yourself for. These are

things that will affect everything in your life because our relationship with ourself shapes everything. It shapes our happiness, our sense of peace, how we approach life in general, our confidence, our personal power at work, in love. If you want to learn how to build that self-acceptance and self-love muscle, that is the deep work that I do with people on my virtual retreat. It's three days of coaching immersion. And this is a very timely announcement because it is coming up very, very soon in March from the 18th to the 20th. If you have not booked your call yet to talk to one of my team, please go and do that now. They'll tell you all about the program. They'll talk to you about your goals, what you're trying to achieve right now, what's holding you back, and they'll help you understand how the program could help. I hope to see you there. Please go to

mhvirtualretreat.com to learn more, find out all about the program. And I sincerely hope that we get to spend three whole days of coaching together from the 18th to the 20th of March. you