Moore Style - The Importance of Intentional Dating with Lee-Michael Pronko

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Lee-Michael Pronko, the creator of the Heartstring Dating App, joins us today for an entertaining conversation about intentional dating! If you feel like dating isn’t going the way you’d like it to, make sure to join us as Lee-Michael gives us practical dating tips and ways to improve our online profiles. We also talk about the use of video in dating apps, the importance of getting clear on what you want in a partner, and what it is like dating as a single dad. This episode has incredible advice that you can use to positively impact the way you date, even if you aren’t into online dating, so tune in!  In this week’s episode, we discuss: [01:45] About Lee-Michael [02:16] How Lee-Michael got into the dating industry [04:08] Using video in dating apps [09:25] Dating apps and authenticity - who are you looking to attract? [11:51] Dating as a single dad  [14:24] Dating preferences and getting clear on what you want [16:58] Lee-Michael’s top 4 deal breakers [21:15] The importance of communication, vulnerability, and being present [26:11] Parenting and compatibility [31:33] Heartstring Dating App  [34:39] Lee-Michael's favorite date   Connect with Lee-Michael Pronko: Website  Heartstring Dating App Heartstring Dating App Instagram Instagram Podcast

Hi, everyone. I'm your host, Celeste Moore, and you are listening to the Down and Dirty podcast, aka the Double D's of dating. This is a podcast for navigating the ins and outs of modern midlife dating. Here, we will discuss the challenges that men and women face in today's dating world. Like many industries, this one is forever changing, and I believe this platform will help those who need or want it. Today, it is the best time to take control of your desired outcome, whether it is a marriage, significant other, life partner, or just to gain the confidence in dating once again. Every other week, we will dive in and talk about different viewpoints that seem to be challenges in today's dating arena. So let's get into today's episode.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Down and Dirty podcast. As always, I am your host Celeste Moore. And real quick, I want to say a big thank you to everybody who is continuing to tune in and listen to these episodes because I truly hope that you're able to bring what you've learned today back into your relationships. Please don't forget to leave a review and give the show a five-star rating because that just really helps the show get more recognized more and in turn it helps everybody. But before I jump into today's episode, I want to introduce my guest today. I'm so excited to introduce you to Lee Michael Pronko. He's a single dad who has a few businesses in the dating industry. He is a CEO of Heartstrings Dating.

He is the founder and dating coach of Date With Us HQ and is a fellow podcaster on the show Heartstrings Podcast. And I know he has a few other things in the works as always, but welcome Lee Michael. I want to thank you for being on today's show. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. You know, I'm going to rate this show a six plus rating. Yes. All right. I did something right. Yeah. A hundred percent. Amazing. So I want to get to know a little bit about your backstory. I would love to know more about why you got into the dating industry and how. It's a great question. I feel like if you have an hour, we can get into it.

But I'll condense it for show's purpose, you know? Yeah, no. I mean, you said it out the gate that I'm a single dad. And I think a couple of years ago when I first became a single dad, I realized how difficult it was to date with current dating apps. I just found that I couldn't really get a sense of someone's vibe, right? And I talk about the same message all the time. but I think that current dating profiles really provide this low resolution view of who someone

is. It's very difficult to tell your story, especially there's, you know, 300 million daters dating now. And I felt like as a single dad, I just didn't want to waste my time, you know, because I value my time, especially with my son and working with all these entrepreneurial things. I wanted to know, like, how can I get to in-person the fastest way possible? And for me, video is the answer. So I basically undertook this last two year journey to build a dating app a video only dating app and model some of the stuff we see on like tiktok and instagram right we use those platforms all the time 90 of content online is consumed by video why aren't we doing that in dating i just think it would make it much more effective so that was kind of the catalyst to

springboard me to where i am today and it's transformed a lot into the purpose which is i want to help people facilitate better connections and showcase who they are and part of that is building in confidence right in video and you put yourself on video when you make content as a content creator you build confidence in communicating and that will translate into every other aspect of your life whether it's dating work your relationship so for me it's kind of more from not only creating a better resolution view into who we are and helping people tell their story differently but also empowering them to communicate better and build more confidence yeah i love that what has been some of the feedback from daters? Do they seem to have a higher rate of successful

dating or what's kind of been some of the feedback from this? Yeah, I think there's a couple of ways to answer that question. The first one is we haven't been alive for that long to be able to give you metrics around what are the success rates, but I can tell you what the feedback is and I can tell you what I see or the behaviors, not just from their communication. I think number one to sell people on video in a dating app context is much more difficult and there's a couple reasons for that people are used to the lazy model of throwing in a couple of shitty photos in their dating app profile on a friday night when they've had a glass of wine or get their friends to swipe for them and maybe not be as intentional that's fine that's a way to do it

right no judging people that do that but i think we're not used to putting in a little bit more effort sometimes around dating and video really makes you go the extra distance because you got to be intentional about, hey, here's the content I'm going to make. And then you've got to execute on that content. I mean, you could also be spontaneous, right? Like, for example, if you're out with your friends at a concert, I don't know, throw up a video of that. Or if you play music, throw up a video of yourself making music. Like there's lots of ways to approach it. But I think that's been part of the challenge is socializing video in a dating app context. And we can see other dating apps are starting to do that now by adding video capabilities but for me it's a full

end-to-end all video right so it's just like tiktok it's a full screen bleed you upload videos 15 seconds long and people need support in doing that and what i've discovered is people need support not just in creating videos but in in showing up to be able to create the video from an image perspective their personal brand the content they want to showcase and so we basically developed an entire system to support that as well from a dating coaching perspective right and that's where date with us comes in but the long game and the message is still the same that i do believe fundamentally if you do use video and put yourself out there and you're more intentional and you're able to view daters putting in videos in their dating profile you're going to end up with better

results in the future in terms of connecting because it mirrors to closest in real life just how we are right when you meet someone I don't know about right you see them then you hear them then you approach them you want to learn a little bit more and then you go from there so right I mean essentially you're not just only taking a 2d picture you're actually you know someone is coming to life and you're able to see their mannerisms for a second see how they project themselves I think there's so much in that like that 15 seconds so you can really tell about somebody which is huge right I mean oh I see him playing guitar oh well he didn't look so great in that like one picture that is I don't know his bio picture but him playing the guitar was like oh

yeah I think I might be able to go on a date with him you know yeah I mean in guitar if you play guitar I'm sure most women if you're a man would be into you because of that single reason I mean guitar speaks to the heart you know speaks to the soul so yeah and I think part of it too is I'm not saying everybody's making creator content quality videos and you don't have to I think that's the problem there's a lot of people get hung up on like how do I do it what do I do it it's like yes we can always refine and make good quality videos just like photos right like of course we want to get the best quality photos as we can in a dating profile but I actually think it's about telling a consistent story so for example you sometimes I see people's profiles with a lot of

travel photos, right? And they'll have a whole profile of just travel. And it may not showcase them up in personal, like a headshot, like you see in a LinkedIn or whatever. But what it does is it tells the story that they're probably, they're traveling all the time. They're adventurous. They love life. Like they like to have fun. And that I think is more compelling than having perhaps like one good headshot. And then the rest of your photos are just, you look maybe 20 in one of them. Maybe you took one five years ago. There's no consistent personal brand. And I think having a consistent personal brand is actually going to stand out more and i'll give you one example this is a great experiment that my co-host for the podcast alish and i did she

built a profile she had this collection of doorbell photos of her ringing the doorbell over a series of like a couple months and so it was just her in different outfits going to the doorbell of her friend's house and it would capture her every time she rang the doorbell so she'd have like the dog in one of them she'd like was dropping something in the other one like i don't remember all of them but like, it was really fucking cool. And I was like, yo, we're making a full hinge profile based on this. And like, the amount of likes and comments on that whole profile was amazing, because it demonstrated like, people are like, holy shit, I've never seen a profile that's like this cool before. And it's just all these doorbell photos. And like, that's an example for me that

demonstrates the power of like telling a story. And the story is in her case, the story is like, hey, she has a time based series of photographs all taken the same way. And it kind of tells a unique story of like here's how she dresses on different days you can see a bit of her dog but it's all framed in that one way so for me I think that actually is a much more effective approach than you know you get one photo and you update it and yeah you have three old old photos it's better to keep it minimal and less and yeah and more you know for me so no I agree I mean I think the biggest issue for let's just say me I'm checking out profiles and like you said there's there could be 10 years, 20 years. A guy like posted a picture of him in college and he's like

in his fifties. I'm like, why would you do that? I get like, maybe you're proud of that moment, but I don't need, that's how I'm going to see you like moving forward. So the whole age thing, the whole like the line of the height, and I'm sure women do the weight, you know, there's all of these things, but it's like at the end of the day, I'm going to meet you hopefully, or we're going to meet and someone's going to like call you out and then that's just like the worst way to start a relationship if you will if it goes and moves past that it's like okay well why would you lie about that just to like get me on a date and you're wasting people's time you already started this like place where you're kind of not making stuff up but maybe you're not revealing the truth

in a way that's accurately reflective of where you are now right and maybe they just don't realize that. And I think part of it too, is the coaching piece where helping people realize like, well, who do you want to attract? It's not just a matter of telling your story. That's one level, right? It's like, well, who are you trying to attract into your life? Because the way that you frame your story is going to present itself and appeal to certain people that otherwise may or may not be interested. So you want to tap into like, what is the type of woman? And that takes a lot of work or men, whatever it is. That takes a lot of work to frame that too. So I think there's multiple levels and approaching how you craft a good dating profile to be effective and i think a lot of people

are just crap shooting like they have no clue right and partly because the algorithm too probably doesn't favor them especially if they're not getting swiped on right their evil rating is going to go down and you know they're not getting on the standout or whatever and it's just i don't know i think at the end of the day if they did kind of a two-part thing where they're like okay how do i best authentically showcase who i am and that may involve some work right working with a dating coach to get new photos, get new videos, build intentional prompts that speak to what I'm looking for and think about what is the person I want to attract and then try that as a science experiment for like a month and see, are you getting results? If not, well, time to change it.

How many people do you with that haven't been on dates like for years or haven't even had matches on dating apps and I feel bad for them. I'm like, guys, like this is why we're here, you know? Yeah, exactly. So on a little bit more of a personal note, what and how has it been for you dating as a single dad? I knew we were going to get into this one. We're not skipping this. My favorite one. Man, I mean, I talk a bit about this on the podcast and that's kind of why. That's also why, you know what, part of why I started this journey too was to reflect on my own experiences as a single dad dating and share those insights to see if, hey, maybe they help other people on their dating journey.

But for me, I mean, it's already hard because it's not hard. Let me rephrase that. It's challenging to discover lifestyle alignment. i think that's like that's a key one for like that's my like usual assessment actually my my triage is always like are they like comedic and fun do we have like a fun comedic banter that's like the first level then the second level would be do they live a healthy and active lifestyle and that can be different for everybody it doesn't need to fit into my frame but that's like a key component of like do they live that daily and then the third would be respecting

boundaries and lifestyle alignment so like understanding like there's nothing personal here I'm just chasing freedom and that takes a lot of work and time and energy and I can dedicate priorities and make priorities but that requires trust and experience with that person so you have to be able to sit it out and see it through to get to the like good end result of like more time for you so usually people don't make it past I don't know it's a little bit personally here I stopped dating like honestly five months ago six months ago because I just felt like it was a distraction from the journey yeah so it's and it's already difficult and I'm just like you know what part of me doesn't want to be on dating apps anyway because I have my own and I'm not dating

on my own dating app but it's just that it's just not it's very difficult you know and it's not difficult perhaps to go on dates and meet people and I love meeting people and I love talking with people but again like I'm looking for a queen I don't want to just date and get a dopamine period so I just I'm happy to be patient because I know where I'm at now so dating is tough and I again you know for me it's just I'm just patient now whereas previously perhaps it was in a different season and the season I'm in now is just I'm content you know okay if this doesn't work for you okay right I mean that's a good place to be though right because I think from what I'm hearing you say is that you know exactly what you want and like you tried for a little bit it's gonna

happen right but you've got other priorities so i mean just just for you knowing exactly what it is that you want is huge because a lot of people don't know they they're on the apps right and they're not quite clear and you gotta get really fucking crystal clear and i mean and there's certain areas where i'm talking about clarity right like the values beliefs alignment you know life goals stuff like that because you know you can't be dating someone when those kind of components are completely off kilter so yeah i mean it takes experience too to learn i guess and sort that out i think some of the challenge i see with a lot of men too though is when they don't have clarity they can miss opportunities that would actually be beneficial for them to

get date experience so that's one thing i think you do need to go on dates and meet different types of people to help you refine but where i'm at now is i've already done that enough times so that i haven't i have maybe perhaps a very disciplined and like set framework of for my mindset but that's because i've gone through all those experiences that i've now can be quite rigid on like i'm very adaptable but i i know exactly what i'm looking for and i just don't want to settle anymore whereas previously i think it's important to maybe sometimes you need to change your mindset and and loosen up some of the like frame that you're operating under just to be able to meet some people and get some experience especially if you don't have a lot of experience

again not a judgment it's just that there's a mindset shift and i'll give you an example for some men that i've coached right like their mindset may be that they want a certain type of woman that looks a certain way right you know the blue-eyed green-eyed blonde-haired woman right and it's like that's that was their thing and i'm like that's cool but guess what like if you haven't been on a date in x amount of months or years we need to start from where you're at and starting from where you're at means it's okay to go on dates with people that aren't that archetype for a couple reasons one you're going to learn more about yourself two you're going to gain some experience talking about people and going on dates and three you have no idea how it could

work out maybe the archetype you had in your mind of what you wanted is not at all what works for you so stop starting from like a material perception based perspective and maybe start from like like first like hey my one goal is to go on like a fun date okay cool i don't even know what that person's gonna look like next you know then like get to the stage where perhaps i'm at i'm like i know exactly what i like and within five minutes or less of talking to someone i can pretty much basically be like all right like is this going to advance to in person or is it not you know yeah no i love that and what would you say your three deal breakers are because everybody has everybody has like a list but they're okay so let me preface everybody has like say 10 but

there's three that are absolute no way if this if this quality or if this is something that you have i will definitely not date you yeah i think there's no i'm not going to do them in any order here but i think there's kind of two that immediately send out one is kind of like a complainer victim mentality i think that's like you know i understand everybody has challenges and I have my own set of challenges every day. And so I think part of it is recognizing that you need to take responsibility. So if you're always complaining about your life

or you don't like it or you're not happy, you can always choose to change it. So if you hate your job, like I don't want to hear about it 100 times, you know, like happy to support through tough moments. But if you're hungry about something else and passionate about something else, just change your life then.

Like you can do it. And happy to support throughout that, right? So I think that's kind of one. It's like a negative. So essentially it's a negative mindset. I just don't like people that have a negative mindset because it's it's draining it's like the energy is just exhausting you know I want to be positive I love life like I celebrate the blessings so that's number one and some people mistake that too though I'll give you an example I've

actually recently encountered this people would mistake that as perhaps being too perhaps naive or like you know I used to be very nihilistic about life I have a philosophy degree I was like a realist very nihilistic about things and I'm like I do this because I think there's a way to balance like being very practical about the reality of life but also being like hey we can celebrate blessings or if there's a problem let's turn it into a solution or like you know yes yeah it sucked yeah it's painful yeah i'd heard great well what are we gonna do about it right and maybe that's because i'm a man and i'm more solution oriented i just like i try to celebrate and be grateful for where i'm at and so if someone can't appreciate those things i'm not

naive though i'll say it like it is but i think that's an important quality it's just like to be able to shift your mindset and that really to the second one which is like communication if they literally can't communicate about i would say like the vulnerable stuff so like you know a lot of people have a challenge communicating about sexual stuff sexual health you know emotions being vulnerable and that again comes through time and experience but i think that that's important quality to be able to know how to approach communicating with someone and being like hey do you need me to listen right now do you want my feedback do you want me to hold space for you do you want me to like push you like what would you like not push you physically but like

motivationally you know right so i think that's an important part and i think that's something i personally have struggled with on my own side is something i've worked through to get better at and now i value especially in the early days being able to have upfront candid conversations about whatever it could be anxiety could be things that are coming up for you and if someone can receive that and communicate with you on that i think that that's really important so if they can't do other those two things and then again the third thing is like if i know right away if you're not living a healthy and i don't mean when someone's like oh yeah i i work out and i'm like they work out like once every month or something i'm talking about like their daily life as a practice of you

don't need to work out but just something right like physical and mental for your own well-being okay maybe the last one actually yeah this is an important one i'm like the list is appearing now but i try not to have lists honestly but those are three fundamentals but the fourth would be good social bonds you know like I think in the past women that I've dated who didn't have a good social bond network we struggled a lot with like the attachment styles and just just becoming their whole life world and I think it's really important that people have a good network if they don't have I question out the gate if they don't have like good friends family is one thing you can't always choose your family and I get it I've had my own challenges but it's very clear to me

if someone doesn't have a strong social network of friends. And I don't mean acquaintances. I mean, like you can be like, hey, I've been friends with this person for five years, 10 years, and I'm going out with them or doing stuff with them. So those are kind of my key tools. Oh, yeah.

I mean, you're basically, you know, setting the preface for that high value woman, you know, and I always hear this like, high value man, high value woman. But it's really about having a sense of identity, sense of self. You're talking about like communication is everything, right? I mean, you've got to have trust and respect. And like you said, holding space, being vulnerable is actually something that's a strength. Right. And it's been perceived for so long as a weakness. Oh, if you're vulnerable, tell each other your feelings, especially for a man. All right. The man was never able to, you know, break down at any point. Right. Because he's supposed to be the strong one the whole time. That's not true. It's like, please, like, show your emotion. Be able to to have those moments.

I'm not saying all the time, but have those moments and have that safe space, right? Yeah, I think as a man, though, like you need to be able to know when to differentiate where you need to go to your bros and be like, okay, here, like, bring that stuff up with them and or you hit the gym or you go box, whatever it is that you need to do to work on the stuff you need to work on. But I think there's an important element where like, you need to be able to also communicate that maybe those things are coming up for the you just know, you just don't need to give them the blast in the immediate moment.

Sometimes maybe step back that, oh, I got to go resolve this, but then share after that like, hey, this is what's coming up for me. And I think actually this leads into, here's another one actually, this is a good one, is they need to be able to be present. And you know what? After having a child and realizing the importance of presentness and spending time with your child, and what I mean is there is no other moment in life, right? The true task, and I said this on the podcast, the true task of life is to celebrate the everyday mundane present moments. And that's like are you dialed in when you're cooking food are you dialed in when you're with your son at the park or your daughter are you and then that translates to a very practical sense when you're

with your person or like are you dialed in when you're having sex are you mentally present and physically present are you dialed in when they're talking to you are you eating dinner together and not looking at your fucking phone you're like there's nowhere else to be right and so i think that that if they can't do that because i see a lot of people and it's it's just how they're habituated and it's it's our society right but it's like if you can't like why are you looking at your phone when you're eating dinner with your friends like why can't you just or with your partner like can't you just put your phone away and celebrate the moment that you're with this person like and you know what I do honestly I laid out super clear right up at the gate I'm

like look I think how did someone say it to me the other day she said something and I said listen I'm like I was like perfect I was like as long as when we're eating dinner we don't look at our phones or when we're having sex and like we don't bother our phones or we're in no i'm serious i'm serious i was like as long as like when i'm with you in your bed or like it's like i'm going to bed or we're eating dinner like these are the two times that like i'm not going to look at my phone and i would appreciate it it's like you did the same because i'm giving you my full 110 presentness every other time is is game time and we could talk about making adjustments where i need it but like that's how i operate and so i mean those are intimate times and times to actually build some

connection right i'm laughing because something really came up for me that i'm going to share with everybody here when i was 22 in a relationship hot amazing sex but anyways my boyfriend at the time answered his fucking phone not on one occasion multiple occasions while in the act at like two, three in the morning. I mean, we're obviously young. So like, are you kidding right now? So, you know, that was, that was young and dumb and naive. And of course never would I allow that shit. But the next one was when you talked about, you know, at dinner or you're at dinner with your friends, but I, how many times have I gone to restaurants and a couple is clearly on a date. I don't know like where they're at in the relationship, if it's very new or if it's, you

know it's multiple years and they're just on their phone they're not making eye contact they're not speaking they're both on their phones looking in their lap and i'm like just like uber some food to the house or something like this would say that i'm sure aren't you supposed to be social aren't you supposed to like talk to each other how's your day like what's going on it's insane or just celebrate the space like you know that's another thing i think a lot of people get uncomfortable in celebrating the space and that means some awkward like meditation i'm staring at you like i just mean like celebrate the experience in space it's not meant to be deep either like this is just meant to be pretty simple it's like enjoy the time you have with that person because

it could be the last fucking time like not to be morbid but like here's the truth would you want to spend it with your hunchback like typing to somebody or looking at instagram who cares those people mean nothing to your life you know so it's like i don't know i just think that we miss out on a lot of really cool moments and you could actually you could actually make things fun too right like there's tons of things you can do to spice up conversation in the moment too if you felt like you ran out of topics but yeah i mean it's just that's a huge piece to me and so i said i set that up i call it out right up front like when i'm going to see someone no it's important i mean it's your time like you said to to be together so whatever that looks like but

yeah i think that's really crazy have you dated anybody that's single parents or people that want children are you open to having children in your next relationship or what does that look like for you you're trying to get to a relationship i'm not talking about children yet yeah i mean let's see yeah i dated tons of not tons i did it a couple single moms my experience has been that they are really great people and you know what kudos to all the single moms are there because i can tell you also kudos to the single dads single dads don't get a lot of at least from my from what i see i don't hear a lot of people bigging up single dads and it's a fucking hard job so all around it's a hard job and there's different challenges for each but single moms

like nine out of ten moms that i've spoken with regardless of the circumstance or context so i don't know the relationship most of the dads have been mia or they're losers and to be honest with you like it's just so mind-boggling to me as a dad and i place a premium on showing up for my son and making sure that you know he has what he needs and i co-parent very well with my co-parent we've we built a good relationship because we focused on wanting to do things differently but i just hate hearing that shit when someone tells me the dad's not in the picture i'm like man what a loser so i just even if it was your fault even if you'd like even if you had a bad relationship with your ex like figure it out so you can at the very least show up for your child because they're counting on

you and the world needs good men to be able to show the future that like i'm not saying they don't need great moms of course they do women are amazing but it's like this is so important and i'm a lot of these people are just missing out on the opportunity to change their life and show up for their kids. And so that pisses me off. So I've seen a lot of single moms with no dads in the picture. And yeah, I mean, look, it was fun. And I think for me, there's something about a single mom that's definitely very attractive. It's like, because you can relate as a single parent, but there's some kind of thing that single moms have. It's like a sexy allure or something. I don't know what it is, but it just is what it is. But I don't think it's for me. I'm not saying it

would say no to it like I'm always open to it but I just because I can regulate my time and relationship with my co-parent and we have a really good open dialogue we can adjust the schedule on the fly it's really convenient for me to be able to be like hey you're entering my life and you don't have kids so like I can make adjustments no problem and we can really find alignment if needed I'm not asking anyone to come into my life as like a stepmom or anything like that so that's really convenient but when you enter into like a partnership with another person who has kids there's a little bit more complexity I think now you have their schedule like your schedule so yeah I don't know for me it's not what I I'm putting out to attract per se and I have

nothing against single moms either again I've dated them I just yeah perhaps it's not the best fit at this point but who knows right again I'm not setting that up I'm just yeah I was just curious like kind of where you're at and I and I asked this just because I'm in a different dynamic like I'm not having any more children and my daughter's a teenager, you know, I'm just in a different place at like a dating, a newly dating person. And so, you know, all of these things arise, right. In some shape or form. What about you though? Are you open to anyone? I'll tell you when I first started dating, I was like, I don't want anyone with kids. Like I was also kind of in that same mind frame. Like I don't want to be someone else's mom. I don't

have that responsibility. Like I'm an amazing mom. I have to say it's probably the best thing I do in the world is being a mom, but I'm also a sole parent. I'm not a single parent. My daughter's father has not ever been in the picture and it's hard as shit. It's like, I don't have to share. I don't have to whatever deal with all that, you know, but now obviously I have a teenager. Look, I think I see it very differently now. It depends if I date someone a little younger, a little older. I'm not going big older anymore, guys. Sorry. What's the age bracket here? What are we looking at? So the age bracket, I was used to be very flexible.

Now I'll do 10 younger, which is like, yeah, I could do that. And maybe five older. What's 10 younger? Well, yesterday was my birthday. No, sorry. Sunday was my birthday. And I'm a big four, seven. So 37.

Because I think it's still like a good age, unless he wants to biologically have children, then we kind of workshop. I don't make the cloud I turned 36 and on October 24th sorry oh you're so young yeah but you don't want to date someone who's 47 I mean that you know I don't know you get to a certain age and you're like age is a number right if you're like you said if you're healthy your values align and whatever and you think you're hot and sexy and all that good stuff I guess why not give it a try and the crazy thing is I have all these young guys hitting me up on the app and I'm like I put my parameters see that's what I'm saying I'm telling you young like look I know I'm 36 like

I get it it's just crazy I'm like 18 24 26 they're trying to I don't want to be your sugar mama that's not what I want sorry dude I mean I don't want to teach you anything I hope the guy that I'm dating knows what he's doing and if not he can have a little guidance but I'm not going to be mrs robinson they're just trying to maybe get a story for their friends you know oh for sure yeah like i hooked up with the old lady dude his mom's got it going on but i'm so excited about your dating app because i think it's so needed i think the video part is just genius because you really can get to know someone super fast and i love that you also add the coaching in there and i love your podcast like i'm so excited to you know listen to more

of them because i think like you said you're just like organic with the you're having stories on there that people can relate to and i think that's just kind of where people are really needing um needing us you know 100 i feel like part of it is just like it's this whole journey to like it's gonna sound so like mushy you know but it's like healing myself you know like i swear to god it's like my own healing journey is like this extension of creating this app and like talking on the podcast i love the podcast it's not work for me that's like just like fun you know it's like an alish is great like we have a good banter a good dynamic so yeah i've just been a bit hiatus but we're gonna be picking it back up uh you know summer happens and oh yeah that's how it

is yeah no on the dating app again it's always slow nobody wants to use a dating app when there's not that many users it's always how it is and video is part of it that's why we're building this whole thing, right? We're building an ecosystem of supporting coaching and personal dating brand and, you know, supporting the creation of video reels for people's dating profiles and giving them guidance. And I think that's just kind of showing a new culture that we can embark on of dating. And when we arrive in that culture where a lot more people are leveraging video to sell themselves in a dating app context, we will have a much better dating culture that's more authentic more intentional and better at assessing potential matches I don't know about

you but like when I've been in the dating apps I feel like I see people that I've seen there years ago and it's like are we just coincidentally in at the same time or like have you been there the whole time and I'm always just wondering you know like like what is going on are we not good at like assessing probably not so I think a lot of it guys keep their like no offense to all guys right but I do think quite a bit of guys have their profile up for a long time even if they're like kind of dating somebody because they want to keep their options open and this is kind of some of the feedback that I've gotten and I'm like just take it down and then if you want to like actively date again change your pictures change it up so that it doesn't look like I know you

were on this dating app for 10 years so I don't know I mean yeah there's I feel like everybody probably does that i'm just like i just depend on who you are like my perspective is always like if you're actively focused and you know what you want and like what's the point of just having that as an additional level of distraction it's like too much mental energy like it's like chatting with it's just exhausting so i'm like you know what get rid of it and focus in but only only you know best not you but like whoever you are listening right you know what works for you so yeah well i love it i can't wait to pop on your show see what we can do but tell me okay so one two more questions last one is what is your what was one of your favorite dates and what was it man again

juicy eh fuck if you're listening to this podcast you know what not you but yeah honestly i i recently spent like four days in a row with someone it was fuck i've never done that and it was amazing just kind of really good natural connection and so we just hung out for the last not the last four days isn't yesterday but recently and it was just like a one continuous date basically and yeah it was cool it was cool to just do that kind of thing and experience a bunch of different activities together it's also like i'm like okay hopefully this wasn't seasonal but it's like basically you know it's the end of summer sort of like getting in that last weekend of sun and stuff like that so i would say that was honestly the best date i've been on in a really

long time four days of activities that sounds fun i'm getting into the weeds of what those activities are but yeah it's down and dirty no i mean i gotta no and that's just you're a gentleman no but this is the important thing that you know and this is a lesson learned from both the podcast and from just dating like i have my own personal boundaries right and like i want to respect the person that i because i've worked the hard way sometimes i say too much and i'm like you know what i want to keep that respect and privacy and especially because i'm interested so i'm like fuck this i don't want to ruin that you know like i respect that i respect that no i love that well i'm so happy that you had a four day date i'm looking for one of those again mine was like

five days but this was years ago and i was like i didn't i i was like why am i going home what's going on that'd be too much fun sometimes you gotta just go with it i think that's a good lesson two years like i think there's a level of man it's such a it's like you gotta have that awareness you know like the flow like what's the flow right and then you know we've had a bit of space since then and now we're just getting back into maybe more of a a different day-to-day cadence like of like based on work and life right but it's like that's another important element of having awareness to know how to like when the time is to like be in that flow with someone just like when you're creative or whatever getting a flow state and that was like the flow state and so we like really

maximize that experience and then let it kind of fizzle out and not forcing anything and just letting it naturally unfold and I think that's an important piece that you learn from dating yeah for sure no that's a really that's a good point there okay so where can people find your services if they want to have successful video reels for their dating apps and or follow you yeah i mean i've been a little light on socials because that is exhausting these days but they can find us on datewithus.com it's pretty straightforward and heartstring app in the app store google play check it out and then you just search the same thing in instagram heartstring app or date with us you can find me lee michael bronco but the only thing you're

to see on there is me from the podcast so that's it and yeah a couple things too right like coming up like I said we're launching that hinge profile mastery so I know we're going to get you on there for some image stuff so we're going to get that out the door another resource for daters and tools to you know step up their game their personal branding and tell a better story so looking forward to get out the door for sure well thank you so much for coming on to the show today and thanks for sharing your stories. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. We'll talk soon. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. Come and hang out with me on Instagram at Celeste Moore image. Let me know your thoughts on today's episode because I always love hearing

from you all. You can find all the links and resources in the show notes of the episode on my website, celestmore.com. Okay, that's all for now. I'll see you in the next episode. See you next time, friends.