Love Life with Matthew Hussey - How to Date When You Don’t Love The Way You Look| Rewind

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

What if your looks aren’t the real reason you’re struggling in dating?In this episode, we unpack the belief that you’re “not attractive enough” and how that thought turns into a cycle of anxiety that keeps shifting from one insecurity to the next. We talk about why fixing your appearance won’t create lasting confidence, how to stop chasing validation, and what actually matters when it comes to finding love.If you’ve ever felt overlooked or like you don’t get the same attention as others, this episode will help you rethink your value and how to date with it.---►► Every Friday, Matthew Hussey writes a personal letter to help you strengthen the three most important relationships in your life—with others, with yourself, and with life itself. Sign up for free at TheThreeRelationships.com►► Watch the Replay of my FREE event "The Year Of Love". It is not too late to change your year, and this is the place to do it JoinYearOfLove.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm going to start things off with somebody who said that one of the things that where confidence has held her back is thinking that her appearance is the reason why she can't seem to succeed when dating. I kind of want to speak to that and speak to people who don't necessarily feel like their looks is their asset and the thing that they, the sword they get to wield in order to get attention and get validation from people. And I want to speak about that really because I think that's definitely a very common thing that kept coming up. When we become anxious about our looks, and if you think about it,

insecurity can quickly morph into an anxiety, right? The anxious thought is, I'm never going to find anyone because I'm not attractive enough physically. And that anxiety can be a kind of constant over the course of our lives, and it's always looking for a new thing to attach itself to. And it's worth paying attention to the new things that it likes to find to attach itself to

because there will have been something in your life that you used to worry about physically that you've stopped worrying about at some stage. And it's not because that thing went away, it's because your anxiety just latched onto a new thing. And said, that thing doesn't matter anymore, but this one, this is the reason you're never going to find love. And I can literally track through my life different things, different parts of my body, my face, my hair, my height, all different things that that anxiety latched itself onto at different times. I remember, never told this story. I remember being in London. with my dad one day.

And I remember seeing a doctor. And I can't remember why I was seeing the doctor. The reason I was seeing the doctor was something like legitimate. But my dad was with me. And he knew that one of the insecurities I'd brought to my dad when I was little was that I was really vainy. Like the, if you looked at my stomach and my chest, I had like, like just, you could see veins. I was translucent. And I remember being at the doctors, and my dad knew that I wanted to ask the doctor if there was like something I could do.

And because I was insecure because I thought I don't look good with the shirt off because of all my veins. And my dad sort of gave me a nudge and said like, go on up, you know, you can ask him. And I said to the doctor, well, I have these veins, you know, and the doctor said, well, pull up your shirt, and pulled up my shirt. And there was like, all these blue veins everywhere. And he was like, I was like, is there like a way to, you know, do something about them? And he was like, well, you know, it's perfectly normal. And as you get older, you know, that will change.

And, you know, they'll still show in some places, but you might find the ones that show now don't show as much. And I was like, okay. And I remember leaving that situation. And it didn't, I did, it's not like I went away feeling super secure about it. But I've never, like, since then, I don't know what year I stopped thinking about the veins on my body. But it has never featured in my life since. But it, that same thing that went to the veins went to something else when something else was available. And it's always looked for something.

something else when something else is available. And as we get older, it looks for a new thing again. And suddenly a new mole will appear somewhere or a new thing will get added to your face that you never saw coming or your body or whatever. And that will latch on to that. So it's worth noting that I think, Stephen, your advice is really good. I think that idea that you should do your best with what you have and then move on. Stop looking in the mirror after. that. I think the advice to find role models is really good advice. Find people who have fit your profile and they're doing just fine. They, you know, they found love or they're happy or they're not focused on it or they're confident or they're, you know, super attractive in spite of that and

or with that, it would be a better way of saying it. You know, find those people because role models really help rob us of our excuses. And then lastly, I would just add number three, know that the anxious thinking around looks, even if you solved one thing, would start looking for something else. And that's, you know, I mean, that's the story of anyone who goes too far with cosmetic treatments, isn't it? That you think by fixing this one thing, you're going to suddenly have arrived somewhere and never need to fix anything else again. And then you look for something else and something else and something else because that's what that anxiety does to us.

But what if you feel like even though you become more accepting of yourself and you do the best you can, as you say, and then you don't look in the mirror, you still don't get any attention? Because I know that's a lot of people. We get a lot of people reaching out to us saying that that's their experience of dating. I'm a big believer in, firstly, the role models thing still comes in really handy there because you may be getting less attention than other people,

but there's someone who is in the same boat as you, and they figured it out. They either figured out how to be happy and not let that stuff get to them. They figured out how to accept themselves. They figured out how to find love. They figured out how to go and really connect with people. and those people are, it's really worth, like those are your people.

Get curious about people like that because you have a lot to learn from someone like that. That's, I can tell you now, if I found myself in a wheelchair tomorrow, I would immediately seek out people who had conquered that. I would immediately seek out who has, you know, in this, this time when I am now going to naturally, reflexively tell myself I am so limited, who here is in the same boat and is living more than I was living when I wasn't in a wheelchair? I would seek out people like that because I'd know those are my people. These people have achieved a Jedi-like status with this thing that I need to understand and learn.

that there's nothing about that that is a patronizing polyana style response to everyone's beautiful on the inside no no no no some people get more attention than others if you're a person who doesn't get a lot of attention for your looks seek out role models who are in the same boat and yet getting a different result or experiencing a different quality of life or a different quality of emotions and then become obsessed with their mindset become obsessed with how they see their looks, become obsessed with how they see their life, how they see their appeal, how they see their value. Very, very, very important. And you know what's funny about this really good advice to just play the hand you're dealt.

You know, everyone's dealt different cards. It's just true. And I'm glad that you brought it up, Audrey, because I'm glad we can just say that, yeah, not everyone's got the same hand. but you know the hands change not only as you get older but they change in different environments where is your best hand being dealt when can you actually like play your cards and yeah you might not be the pool might not be your place to go if you're like young and you're a woman and being judged constantly on looks because that's like the big thing then well then maybe you just go in a different environment and think of it as not your your dealt one hand like your whole life.

You're dealt one hand multiple times a day. And how can you play it this hour, this hour, in this 15 minute period, in this 10 minute period? That's really interesting. I love that. And I think start thinking about what attention you value the most. Because I know if you take, you know, we put content online. I know that there are certain very,

on the nose bumper sticker style quotes that I could put on Instagram that would get a ton of likes. And they would be so middle of the road, not interesting to me, lowest common denominator positivity. And they'd get a lot of likes. But that's not the attention I want. So I'd actually rather have less likes and post something I want to post because I value those likes more. And life is very much the same. There might be someone who's very attractive physically who gets a ton of attention. But it doesn't mean it's all the right attention.

It doesn't mean it's all the attention you want. It doesn't mean you need that much attention to be happy. It doesn't mean they can hold the attention. It also doesn't mean they can hold the attention. Yeah. that's for sure. Ask yourself like, what's the attention I want? Am I trying to win the looks contest? Or am I just trying to find someone in life who really, really appreciates the brand that is me, who really appreciates the package that I come in with all of its nuance and all of its

idiosyncrasies and everything that makes me uniquely me? Because if I'm looking for that person, I don't need attention from everyone. I just need to keep going until I find that person. And that's a really important thing. When we're 21 years old, we just want attention. Right. But when we get to a certain point in our lives where we realize, no, no, no, I'm not looking for attention.

I'm looking for love. Then you really don't need to worry that you don't get the same attention as somebody else. You don't even need to worry that you get one one hundredth of the attention of somebody else. You just need to worry about finding love. And finding love is is a game to be patient about so that you can actually find someone who loves you for who you are. As try it as that may sound as a conclusion, it is playing the long game to find someone who genuinely falls in love with the package that is you instead of playing the short game of I'm not getting attention. How do I get more attention right now? Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you

enjoyed it. Before you go, make sure that you do this one thing today. I promise you that every week you are missing out by not doing what I'm about to say. I send a private email to a group of people who have registered for it every single Friday. The email is called the three relationships and every email is packed with advice on how you can improve in the three core areas of life. Your relationship with other people, your relationship with yourself and your relationship with life itself. People really look forward to this email. It's not the kind of email people skip. People look forward to it in their inbox every Friday.

Go over to the three relationships.com to sign up for that email for free. By the way, the three in that domain is the number three, not the word three. So the three relationships.com. And I will see you in your inbox this Friday. Thank you for listening, everyone. I'll see you in the next episode. Be well and love life.