Love Life with Matthew Hussey - (Rewind) How To Stand Out In Modern Dating

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Do you keep getting flat responses to your text messages? Or find it hard to get things moving in the early stages of dating?  In this episode, Matthew and Stephen talk about why trying to play it too cool can be counter-productive in dating, and how you can show your personality to stand out and create connection in the first few conversations. --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- ►► Discover the 3 Secrets to Taking Control in Your Love Life. Go Here to Get Your Free Guide → http://www.3LoveHabits.com

Steve, can you imagine if we got on YouTube and like waited for people to like show up and just, well, I'll tell you more about myself when you leave more comments. Welcome to the Love Life Podcast. It's me, Matthew Hussey. Enjoy this classic clip from our archives. And if you want to let me know what you think or how this podcast is helping you, don't forget to leave me a review on iTunes under the Love Life podcast. Enjoy. Whatever room you're going into to meet someone, whether it's Instagram, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, a bar, the key is the energy you bring to the room. What's the energy you bring to the dynamic and what is it communicating to the people you're talking to? And don't worry if it scares off a lot of the wrong people. Don't worry if a lot of people, you know, are like, get on the phone. No, I'm not interested in doing that. Don't worry about those people because they're already showing

themselves not to be that. I'm not saying literally within three messages, you should say, what's your number? Let's get on a phone call. But if you've been talking to someone for a week and there's still no whiff of like, you're actually having a lot of texting back and forth and there's no whiff of like anything progressing to even just like a voice note or something, you know what I mean? Like any progression. I'm always, I always just think, how do people respond to a little more progression? And I do, by the way, I do think one of the problems on dating apps is that it's a game of chicken where everyone is trying to like, you know, it's like who can try less instead of

thinking, let me, let me do, not let me try harder, but let me, I see, I think people confuse showing more with trying harder and they're not the same thing. Showing more. If I, Steve, if I were texting and I leave you a voice note, it can take the same amount of time as writing a text. Except when you hear my voice, you feel more connected to me and you feel like I'm in the room with you for a brief second. It's not trying harder, but it is showing more. I'm painting myself in three dimensions now. And I think that people, I'm not telling people to try harder, but to show more. It takes me the same amount of time to write out a text that tells you nothing about me as it does

to tell you something about somewhere I am and something that's going, you know, that's on my mind or an experience I'm having with my brother or my sister or my best friend right now or whatever. It takes the same amount of time and effort to show a little more. But one of them makes you feel like you're more connected to me and creates the opportunity for you to show more of yourself because I give you a license to show more of yourself when I show more of myself. And one of them keeps us where we are because I'm communicating with you, but I'm saying nothing. Yeah. And when you get those tiny, boring, flat, one-line answers, you think like, I don't see a human being here. There's not a person here I can get any sense of or get excited about. Steve, the amount of time I've had people show me their messages and they're like,

why is it not progressing? And I'm like, you're not saying anything. There's no, there's no, like, you're not doing anything to build a connection here. You're not saying, and by the way, they aren't either, but I'd rather reveal a little more of myself and my personality and see if people come with me, then hold back and never show any of myself and say, well, they didn't draw it out of me. So they're not serious. I'd rather learn someone's not serious because I actually dare to show a little more of myself. And I realized they're not willing to do the same in return. I'd rather people find out someone's not serious that way than by holding back and being like, no one's drawing my personality out of me.

No one's inviting me to speak more. Steve, can you imagine if we got on YouTube and waited for people to show up and just, well, I'll tell you more about myself when you leave more comments. You imagine getting on a live and being like, well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to say a lot about my, I'm not going to reveal a lot about myself to you on these lives until, you know, you guys ask about me. It's like, that's not, that's not how value works. Yeah. And it's such a, sorry, go on. We've revealed ourselves over time proactively. Yeah.

And there are some people that don't care and that's fine. I'm not, I'm trying to invest in people that don't care. Yeah. If it were a one-on-one friendship and I kept, and I was showing more about myself and that person didn't show any interest or curiosity or, you know, didn't return with things about themselves or whatever, then I wouldn't keep investing in that situation. But I'm not going to hold back on showing me in all of my color because I'm worried that, well, I just don't want to show too much.

It's not about trying harder. It's about showing more. For sure. Totally agree with that. And I think people don't because they get scared of rejection or they think, well, what if it doesn't come back? And that, if there's a disadvantage to dating apps, it can be that it can hit your self-esteem because it can feel like getting rejected a lot more. And that is a kind of negative of them. And you kind of have to take that part and accept that's part of what that game is but then you've

kind of gotta you've gotta do something to put yourself out a bit you have to put a bit of skin in the game like not literally you have to put a bit of something on the line just even if you're like a bit of a message that shows something say Say, I love that you really love X. That's so cool. Tell me about, you know, this is what I'm really passionate about. Just something like that gives you a bit more of color that someone could be like,

oh, there's flesh and blood here. There's something. I like that person's more than the person who said, hi, you know, the first message. Hi. All right. here we go. William Zinser in the book on writing well said he is always looking for the, when he's critiquing other writers, when he's reading their stuff in articles, you know, he sees a paragraph or two

of grandiosity and them trying to sound intelligent and witty and whatever else, trying to be a great writer. And then there's a moment where he'll read a line in paragraph three where a writer says, I'll never forget the day when I dot, dot, dot. And he said at that point, he says to himself, aha, a person. Yeah. That's the moment on a dating app. When you're writing to people, you have to create that moment as soon as possible. Forget the grandstanding, forget all of the, like trying

to be impressive and trying to be like this, this, you know, that's what people do on Instagram, right? Here's, here's my cars. Here's my watches. Here's my money. Here's my this, here's my that, whatever. That's not what makes a connection. No, no. It's the moment where someone, we write something and someone says, aha, a person. The moment where someone says, what are you up to? And you say, I'm building Ikea furniture with my niece and she just keeps throwing it all over the place. And I'm now sitting here exhausted. You know, aha, a person, a person with a niece, a person with a relationship that's important to them in their lives, a person

who has emotions, a person. That's what we're looking for. That's what builds connection. Impressing isn't the same as connecting. This, I think, is pretty much the final call for the live retreat in 2023. It's happening from the 9th of October until the 15th. Go to mhretreat.com to get your space now. We're down to the last handful. So this is it. Don't lose any more time. Come join us and I'll see you in Florida in just a few weeks.