On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Esther Perel: The REAL Reason You’re Struggling to Find Love (Fix THIS to Build Chemistry in Real Life)

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Today,  Jay Shetty welcomes back Esther Perel to unpack a growing tension in modern relationships: in a world more connected than ever, why so many people feel deeply disconnected. Esther reframes dating struggles as something deeper than love itself, pointing to a broader loss of real-life social practice. Without the everyday interactions that once taught us how to approach, connect, and handle rejection, dating now feels like a high-stakes performance instead of a natural progression. What was once built through play, curiosity, and gradual connection has been compressed into a single moment of pressure, turning love into something overwhelming rather than something we can explore. Jay and Esther explore the illusion of connection in the digital age, where texting replaces talking and screens replace presence. Esther explains how this disembodied way of relating strips away the elements that create real intimacy, like eye contact, tone of voice, touch, and shared energy. While it can feel like we are communicating more, we are often losing depth, nuance, and emotional resonance. This shift has shaped a culture that avoids friction and discomfort, yet still feels more anxious, lonely, and exhausted. In trying to make relationships easier and more efficient, we may be losing the very experiences that give them meaning. In this episode you'll learn: How to Build Real Connection Offline How to Turn Dating Into Discovery, Not Pressure How to Be More Curious Instead of Judgmental How to Create Attraction Through Presence Not Perfection How to Ask for What You Truly Need How to Build Trust in Small, Consistent Moments How to Balance Independence and Interdependence How to Stay Open to Love Without a Checklist If there’s one thing to hold onto, it’s this: nothing about love is broken, you’re just being asked to approach it differently. The world may have made connection feel more complicated, but at its core, it still comes back to showing up, being present, and allowing yourself to be seen without needing to get everything right. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe https://news.jayshetty.me/subscribe   Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast  What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:11 Why Is Gen Z Dating Less? 04:23 The Disappearance of Physical Connection 06:26 Living in a Fully Contactless World 09:54 Connected, Yet Deeply Disconnected 12:01 Dating in the Age of Surveillance 14:11 Why Real Connection Feels Harder Than Ever 17:07 Why Love Falls Flat Without Friction 18:41 The Missing Skills No One Taught Us About Love 24:35 The Hidden Power Struggles Shaping Modern Relationships 27:05 The 4 Pillars of Relational Intelligence 30:07 Have We Lost the Ability to Problem-Solve? 32:38 How to Know If You Can Really Trust Someone 36:44 From “Me” to “We”  38:27 Should You Make a Dating Checklist?  41:04 Why Dating Feels Like a Full-Time Job 43:00 The Pressure Behind “Intentional” Dating 47:50 When Love Doesn’t Speak Your Language 50:25 Why Talking to AI Feels Easier Than People 55:16 The Trap of Wanting Love to Feel Effortless 56:35 Is Love Supposed to Be Hard? 57:58 Why Wanting Love Isn’t “Cringe” 01:02:43 Codependence vs Healthy Love 01:07:09 What Actually Keeps Desire Alive? 01:10:26 Breaking Down Viral Relationship Myths   01:17:38 Esther on Final Five Episode Resources: Website | https://www.estherperel.com/  YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@estherperel  Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/esther.perel/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/estherperelofficial  LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/estherperel  TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@estherperel_official  Substack | https://estherperel.substack.com/  Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic IntelligenceSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Hart podcast guaranteed human. I'm Lori Siegel, a long-time tech journalist. And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur, anyone can build an app. And it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future. And we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion,

they're actually dating the companies that create this. We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history. And let's be honest, that can be messy. There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you. But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment. Mostly human will show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit. The reason I say agency is because if we can give power,

back to people, then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health. Listen to mostly human on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hello, gorgeous, it's Lala Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes. But over here, on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate.

It's unruly. It's unafraid. It's Untraditionally Lala. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl. This podcast is all about going deeper with the women's shaping culture right now. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work behind it all.

As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We put the focus on you choosing bad people. You always fall in love with the wrong guy. What does it say about you? What do you think about people having a list of everything they want in a person? Love will laugh at you.

Is love enough? No. Should love be hard? There is no love story that isn't. overcoming obstacles. Attraction plus obstacle equals excitement, love, desire. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today I'm joined by one of the most influential voices on love and relationships in the entire world, Esther Perel. Esther is a renowned psychotherapist and the mind behind the groundbreaking book, mating in captivity.

and as the book celebrates its 20th anniversary, we explore why Esther's insights on love, desire, and intimacy remain just as true today. Please welcome back to the podcast, one of my favorite guests and yours, Esther Perala. Esther, it is so great to have you back. It's really nice to be back. Our last conversation was super viral, millions of views. People love seeing us together. They loved hearing your direct, no BS, breaking down this. therapy, TikTok language that we constantly hear. And today I really wanted to dive into

what I believe is the need of the hour. What I believe is the urgent, imminent challenge that we're facing right now. Gen Z is dating significantly less than other generations. What has changed? I ask a question in all my audiences at this moment, did you grow up playing freely on the street? The parents of Gen Z will raise their hands and say, we did. And then I ask, do your children or do you know children who are playing freely on the street? And you get a few hands. That's it. That's the Gen Z.

If you don't play freely on the street, you basically are missing out on an entire ground for social negotiation, where you learn to play together, to make rules, to break rules, to have words. to make peace, to create alliances, to make up, the whole thing. If you don't practice those muscles where you come up to strangers and you ask them to play with you and then you meet somebody else and then you join people together, you really are practicing relationships. All of that precedes dating. If you don't have that, then dating becomes the first time that you have to actually learn to speak to someone.

God forbid if it's even in person and look into their eyes and look at their body because so much of our life at this point is completely disembodied and we don't ever see people move. Wow, I've never even told them. So dating becomes this Olympus

that you have to climb, this whole mountain and it's very anxiety provoking and that is one of the main things. So when we say Gen Z doesn't date as much, Densi doesn't socialize in person, Gen Z doesn't have that many parties, What a waste. What a pity.

To not have dance parties and just hang together. It's not that they don't socialize, but it's a different kind of socialize. I spoke to so-and-so means I texted them. No, I didn't speak. I didn't hear the voice. If you don't hear the voice, you're missing out on the entire oxytocin attachment hormone that gets produced while you're hearing the voice. The voice is the first thing you hear when you are in utero.

So you say you spoke, but you're not. you didn't. You connected. You had contact. And at every level you see an atrophy of the social skills, which creates a real sense of bracing myself. I'm going out to date, which I don't like because it's not fun. You're so right. And you're opening up my mind to so many different things that I don't think we're thinking about, this idea of being disembodied. We're only looking at FaceTime. And not just that. Now I look in your eyes. You look in my eyes. And we have mirror neurons firing at each other. We are really connecting voice, sight, breath.

I mean, all the senses are involved. On Zoom, or on any screen, we think we're looking at the other, but we actually are not making eye contact. So this pseudo experience as if I am looking at you and you're looking at me, but in fact we don't means that neurologically, none of this is actually happening. Wow. Yeah, you're so right.

and most of us on Zoom are just looking at ourselves. I started to hide myself for you because I just realized that you're just looking at yourself and you're looking at reflection so much where we're overexposed to our own reflection, which is why we're so critical of ourselves and we're so evaluating and analyzing ourselves all the time. But you're absolutely right that even if you look at someone else through a screen, you're not making the quality of contact we feel. And there's a reason I actually feel that. I feel exhausted on Zooms and exhausted on digital content.

That is a part of that is because the actual contact, which is soothing. Eye-to-eye contact, and when you are in a safe situation, is actually soothing. It regulates you. When it is as if, but not really, and nothing really happens up there, then you are exhausted. And you know what it means to look at yourself the whole day? It's like the enshrinement of narcissism. Absolutely. You know, narcissists.

He used to look at himself in the water and look at it. his reflection the whole time. And it's the same as what you're saying with the lack of contact where you say, oh yeah, I spoke to so-and-so, or I heard from them, and you're so right that we're missing out on these very analog behaviors that our body's craving, our mind is craving, and we're not really in touch. I read this study that said 45% of men, age 16 to 25 today, have never approached a woman in public. And I was like, in my life growing up, age 16 to 25, 45% of men, age 16 to 25 who are assuming they're heterosexual in this study, they have not approached a woman face-to-face in public to ask them out, to create a connection.

And I was thinking I grew up at a time where all we did was have to pluck up the courage to walk over to a woman in a bar at the mall, wherever it was to just say, hey, you're cute. Or like, hey, can I get your number? Hey, can I, whatever it was. And I remember how stressful that was as a man. So I realized that there's stress. But today, do you think it's a fear of rejection? Do you think it's a lack of social skills, as you're mentioning? Where's that coming from?

So I think there's a number of different things going on at the same time. Continuing with less social interaction is also the fact that we're more and more living in a contactless world. You don't have to leave your house for a lot of things that, you know, it's not just you would come up to the girl and start talking to her. Since the pandemic, we learned we didn't have to leave the house to go to school. And the 18 to 25 year old is the generation that went to school during the pandemic. So that's the first thing is a complete cutoff of the socialized world. You don't have to leave your house to work, to shop, to eat, to exercise, contactless.

You can have everything delivered without having to even thank the person who is bringing the food. At every level, we have tried to remove contactless. and friction. Coming up to talk to a girl is friction. You don't know. You fantasize, you know, I'm talking of a story that a friend of mine just told me when he was sitting on a train

and for five hours he saw this girl and he just was thinking, I would love to go and talk to her, but he couldn't muster the courage to go speak with her. Finally, after five hours, he gets up, he goes, he talks, and for the rest, they spend a week traveling together,

in Europe. And then he tells me, if I was today, he's a father of a Gen Z, if I would be spending my five hours writing to my AI companion, what should I say? I'm anxious. I don't know how to go. He would have basically spent his time trying to regulate his nervous system and try to calm down, but he would never have, he would have talked to his AI rather than to the girl. And he would have talked to the AI about how hard it is to go and meet this girl. And he would never have traveled with her for the week. And this removing of the friction, so is to me the killer of desire.

We'll come back to that. But what happens in your statistic is 18 to 25. In your time, you basically started this whole process of meeting girls or boys meeting boys, girls meeting girls in your teens. So 15, 16, you were practicing. You were falling in love. you had crushes, you dealt with rejection, you rejected others. It went both ways, et cetera.

Most Gen Z today start their first experiences around 24, 26. Wow. So the whole thing is delayed by 10 years. Yeah. But when you meet at 24 or 35 for the first time, you often meet with the lack of experience of the 15-year-old. You haven't had that slow buildup, you know, and you didn't have sex the first time necessarily either,

But first you spoke, then you hung, then you'd spend a day together, then you brought them to your friends. You had an entire process of engagement that made it more and more comfortable each time. That whole training, launching pad has been shrunken to dating. You'd never called it dating, by the way, before. I'm interested, I like someone, I would like to speak with this person, I have a crush on this person, I fell in love with this person. You didn't date. You just had these feelings that took you.

I feel like we're living at a time where conversations about therapy, about our emotions, about love, online, you see them everywhere. Everyone's talking about it, everyone's thinking about it, but then we don't translate it into real life. We're more disconnected than ever. So talk to me about that dichotomy.

I think that we are living a fantastic contradiction. We've never been more connected and we have never been more disconnected. Modern loneliness masks itself as hyper-connectivity. So you think you're talking to people. And I would say more like this,

modern loneliness is not about not having people. It's about the lack of depth. It doesn't replace to have these conversations online. And in fact, they're often done in nine seconds increments. That is not really the time needed to address,

major existential questions. If you don't see the person you're talking to, you can express yourself in all kinds of uncivilized way because there is no consequences. So that contradiction of what does it mean to really connect and what are the conditions necessary? And that is back to this issue of friction because it means that you practice disagreement,

frustration, being misunderstood, understanding others, truly listening, listening again, because you thought you got it, but you didn't really, because you didn't listen till the end, because half the time when we listen, we're busy with our rebuttal. That's a different degree of connection. Ask a question when somebody tells you something before you draw a conclusion about what they're saying.

Ask another question. Listen, really. Don't jump for advice. because you are not the one who's going to live with the consequences of the advice that you're giving. So look at things in context.

Don't just take out one thing like that. And all of that is the difference between our conversation and how this can appear when we go online. I think one of the biggest things that you're sharing that's kind of I'm becoming aware of in our conversation

is that a reason why we're scared to message and reply is also because everything's doctor documented today. So there's a feeling of like if I send something to you and it makes me look stupid, you're going to send it to all your friends. If you share something with me and I want to pass it on to someone, it takes one click and all of a sudden it's on the internet. And so there's this genuine fear of not only am I being evaluated by this person, but I'm potentially being evaluated by their entire circle. Do you see the irony here? We have never talked more about boundaries in relation. as today at a time when people are often acting without any boundaries and sharing the most personal profound things that people give them in confidence with others. The leakages, the system of sharing and spreading without necessarily asking and ridiculing and judging and exposing and all of that is happening at the same time as people are talking constantly about safety and boundaries

and protection. It's really interesting, no? Yeah, it's fascinating. Exactly. It's absolutely fascinating because... There's no privacy. There's no privacy. There's no privacy.

There's no safety. So there's no safety and it's no longer even transparency. Because transparency means we speak out openly about things. This is really, you are basically speaking with surveillance. You are constantly watching

how are people going, what are people going to do with what you're saying? How are they going to twist your privacy, your private life, your deepest feelings, and how they can snitch it and put it together and reinterpret it, that leaves people suspicious, fearful, actually disconnected, more lonely, constantly wondering about who can I trust, what is trust? And then hoping that by having more boundaries, they can fortify all of this. But in fact, the world doesn't have the

boundaries. So how does anyone in this moment even think about building connection? Offline. Go offline. A connection is an encounter and it's an encounter with an other. And that otherness is the mystery of relationships, that curiosity that you bring to discovering someone. We've met a few times, but we don't know each other. And I'm intrigued by you. And I'm curious where you're going to take us. Where is this conversation going to go? What are you going to ask? What I'm saying is interesting to you. I'm not busy here thinking, does Jay like what I'm saying? Is Jay thinking that I'm smart?

Is Jay thinking I'm stupid? Is Jay waiting to bait me with something? I'm with you. I'm present. And that's very different from I'm here. And I feel your presence with me. That's not just you're here. You know, much of the time these days, even if we are sitting together, I ask,

this is a question I love to ask in an audience. So how many of you spend a lot of time of the day on your laptop, on front of a screen, whatever it is? And all you want is to finally go home and get rid of the screen. But then you get home and you're so tired that what you do is you watch TV. And then while you're watching TV, you're also scrolling on your phone. And then you turn around and there is someone sometimes sitting right next to you who's doing the exact same thing. And then at some point someone says something, actually quite meaningful. And then you have this other person responding with that most fantastic, uh-huh.

And you know that digital lag means they're there, but they're not really listening. And in that moment, you experience a unique kind of loneliness. It's the loneliness that says, are you here or are you not? We call it in my work ambiguous loss. Have you ever heard that term? No, I haven't. Ambiguous loss is a term that was coined by psychologist Pauline Boss when she was talking about situations where you can't resolve the morning. Like if you are with someone with Alzheimer or dementia, they are physically in front of you, but they are emotionally or psychologically gone.

If they have been deployed or there is abduction or they are miscarriages, they are physically gone, but they are emotionally very, very, very bad. present. And in both situations, you don't know, are you here or are you not? Modern loneliness has that element on a daily basis where I don't know if you're here. It's like we've come to accept distracted attention as if it is enough and it's not. And all of those situations make us feel like I'm putting out such efforts and I feel exhausted because it's not really coming back. Yeah, it's so real. And I think that's how a lot of people feel today that they're saying, I want to find love. We all want connection. But then the action to get it, as you said, which requires a bit of friction, which requires a bit of discomfort. There is no love story that isn't organized around overcoming obstacles. The greatest love stories have an obstacle that you have to, they almost are going to meet again. They never asked each other's name. The parents didn't want them to be together. The age difference was too big.

You need an obstacle. Attraction plus obstacle equals excitement, love, desire. It is that combination. Right. So the obstacle is the way. The obstacle is what builds the plot, what heightens the intensity, what intensifies the love.

And what we want in the frictionless reality is a love like a permanent state of enthusiasm. And love is not a permanent state of enthusiasm. Love is not about finding people who agree with you and who like the same things as you. Love is actually being discovered by someone from whom you're different. It doesn't match algorithmic perfections.

Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I often say to people that my wife and I couldn't be more opposite as people. Yeah. And we actually like very different things. Our idea of an ideal Sunday or a Saturday, is completely different, but those aren't the things that make the relationship

good or bad. They're not the... So if someone said to you today, Esther, what skill should I be developing to be better at love and connection? What would you encourage them to pursue? Skill number one, curiosity.

Of the other person? Of the other person. Curiosity. It's a discovery. It's a journey. It's an exploration of difference. That is one of the things that love, it is that loving of that difference

that is at the core of the experience. Humor so that you don't take yourself too seriously and you understand that half the things are not worth fighting for. That it doesn't really matter that from one to ten most things are a two or a three. And if you live with from one to ten, everything is a nine,

then you need have some work to do. There's seven verbs I really love to. If I think, what does one need to learn? To ask, They're not in order of importance. How good are you at asking? For what you want and need. For what you want, for what you need.

Asking is a relational verb that you learn to conjugate. I think in verbs because I speak multiple languages, and every time I'd learn a new one, I kind of look at what are the key verbs you need to have to build the structure of the language so that you can communicate. Are you good at asking? Do you know what to ask for?

Do you believe that you're worthy of being given to what it is, asking for that people will respond to you. Do you know to be clear about your expectations? Asking is about expectation. Giving. How is you giving? Do you experience generosity? Do you enjoy the giving? Or do you give in order to not owe anything to people? Do you give so you don't have to feel guilty? Do you give to square and even out what they gave you? But giving is amazing. It's an amazing feeling and it's an amazing experience in relationships. Receiving. How good are you at receiving? It's probably the most vulnerable of all the verbs to be given to because it speaks to your sense of self-worth, to how much you feel deserving, to experience closeness, pleasure, connection, intimacy,

you know, receiving. It tells a world about you. Sharing. Can you think about another? You and your wife have a very different idea about what to do on Saturday morning. How do you share that difference? And it's not we come to the middle and we compromise. It's how do you integrate the various things that are important to each of you, play them out in different ways, and every person feels acknowledged and recognized and valued. Imagination.

Imagination is the ability to dream, to imagine a future, to project yourself ahead, to build a life project. Refusing. Can you say no? Is it a relationship? where people can comfortably say no. Because if you can't say yes, you can't say no, but saying no is essential.

And not indirect and not with coercive measures. Just simply I prefer not. Knowing that when you say no, the other person may not like it, and they are entitled not to like it, like you are entitled not to want it. These two shall coexist. These probably are the primary verbs add to that curiosity,

because they are relational verbs. You can't do them just alone. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you can give to yourself and you can receive from that giving. But essentially, they practice with you how to relate to another person and how to receive the relatedness of others on you.

Yes, yes, so well said. So well said. I love those. I hope everyone's going to listen back to that because those verbs make it just feel, it makes it feel active and alive. And I think dating today feels very either transactional or checking.

like our mind is lost. Many first dates are like job interviews. Yes, exactly, yeah. It's really not fun. I mean, fun is the word that has to, you know, at the end of a date, you have to be intrigued.

You need to want more. Not you need to be evaluating your checklist. There's a different story. That's the story of how you build love. It's not something you instant, you know, you can't sit there, ask questions, then look here and hope that you feel some butterflies

and some tingling and say, no, nothing's happening. I'm not feeling it. Okay, we've had the coffee. I don't want to really have that lunch. I'm just going to, no. Yeah, yeah, so true. But turn around, somebody's standing in line,

turn around at the counter, turn around in front of the barista. There is people around you all the time. Every stranger is a potential, best friend or person that you could fall in love with and you have no idea, but you've got to remain open to serendipity. Yeah, and now we feel so weird when we're in public and alone that we put out our phone

because we'd rather not make eye contact. Like it almost feels cringe or weird to make eye contact with someone because you're scared of them looking at you in one sense or you're scared of looking at them because we're not as exposed to it. And so we'd rather just take out of our phone because it's a easier way to wait in a line. That's social out of you. And that has consequences for everything else. you're in trouble, nobody will reach out

because your statistic about the young man who doesn't reach out to a woman or doesn't make contact, it's the same as who has a best friend, who has someone to call when you're in trouble, who can you ask for help, who do you go out with? I mean, these things are interconnected.

If you don't socialize properly, you also feel more lonely, and if you feel more lonely, you become more isolated, you become more isolated, you become more anxious, you become more anxious, you make sure never to leave your phone when you're in an elevator,

you become more anxious, you become more depressed. This is like a big chain of events that take us down. Yeah. Harry Styles, live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. Harry Styles. IHart Radio wants to send you and a mate across the pond, with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from TripCentral.ca, tickets, and $1,000 cash.

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About 1.30. I'm at 183. We should race. No, I want to leave here with my original hips. On the podcast, the matchup with Alia, I pair prominent female athletes with unexpected guests. On a recent episode, I sat down with undisputed boxing champ, Clarissa Shields, and comedian Wanda Sikes, to talk about Wanda's new movie Undercar. the art of trash talk and what it really means to be ladylike. Open your free IHeartRadio app.

Search the matchup with Alia and listen now. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports Network. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on? Biggie. You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable? Because I want to get confident. This is DJ Hester Prynne's music is therapy. A new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist.

12 months, 12 areas of your life. Money, love, career, confidence. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prins, Music is Therapy, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One more statistic of Gen Z that blew my mind that I saw. I just read this two days ago. I read that one third of Gen Z men think a wife should obey her husband.

And I read that, and I was just like, wow. Like I just couldn't believe that that was kind of almost circling back into the zeitgeist. And I wanted to ask you, why is that? I know you talk so much about power. I know you talk so much about influence and relationships and agency. Like how are we there again? Again. My first thought was when you just said this, I said, ask yourself, every person who thinks this.

Would you say that to your mother? My mother should listen to my father's commands, comply and obey. Would you have wanted that? Because many people probably would say no. You know, it's easy to spout these kind of ideas in the abstract. Once you bring it back to the people that raised you, you may actually have wished that a number of your mothers had stood up to your father's. or to whoever, to your stepfathers, even more so often.

So I think we have to be very careful with these kind of things. What are you trying to say that you have lost authority, that you feel that you are being devalued, and that the only way you know you have power is if there's someone who submits to your power? How about instead of thinking about power over somebody, you think about power too with somebody. That's generative power.

That's power that creates something that invites the collaboration of others rather than the oppression of others. This is true in your intimate relationships and this is true in society. Yeah, that power with is such a fascinating concept because I think for so long, I guess there's been a lot of comparison.

Like you're saying, a lot of people are feeling powerless or feeling like they don't have agency or they don't have influence and control and then you find the easiest way to exert that control, which naturally becomes the people that are closest to you. We almost need to find our significance again in a way, because if we can only find our significance through controlling someone else, then that means we don't feel a sense of significance

in our own being. Or that we feel powerless. Or that we feel powerless. Where should our power come from? If we want to love with and share power with, where do we find power and strength from? I think you have the perfect title on the podcast, on purpose. Purpose is power. It gives meaning to things.

It gives a reason for why you do things. Rather than just action for its own sake, it has symbolism to it. It has ritual to it. It elevates it. It links it to a bigger story than just you. You belong to something bigger, to a tradition, to a religion, to a religion, to a group, to a community, to like-minded thinkers.

I mean, it is that image. It makes it, because we are very, we as a one unit, we are big, but we are also very, very small unit. So the sense of belonging, the sense of recognition, the sense of trust, and the sense of resilience,

which are four major dimensions of relational intelligence. Repeat those again? Trust, belonging, recognition, and collective resilience. That's what we're trying to build with that person. Yes. And that's where power lies.

These together, in every form of interaction, give you a sense of power. Power as equated with agency. The ability to affect your reality, to change things, to create things, to make meaningful shifts, to influence others, to leave impact, to have legacy, to feel that you matter. So why is this so significant? because in modern loneliness is this kind of disconnect, then you live with the feeling that you don't really exist inside others, which is probably one of the most important ways we feel not lonely.

And the way this starts is when we are little babies, at some point we throw the toy on the floor. And when we throw the toy, somebody picks it up, we look at it and we throw it again. And then again, and then again. And we understand something that is at the core of what helps us not feel lonely and alone, that even while I don't see you, you still exist. Then I start to play peekaboo with you. And peekaboo means you don't see me, you don't see me, here I am.

I exist even when I don't see you and you don't see me. And so to you. And that is what allows me to go out into the world and know that I won't be forgotten. know that you will come look for me. That's why we play hide and seek. It's the most incredible game. There is no greater thrill than to hide and to know that somebody is looking for you.

But there's no greater terror than to feel that others gave up on looking for you. This, what we call permanence, the permanence of love and the permanence of the others inside of us and us inside of them is what allows you to be anywhere in the world and not feel alone. Because you're part of a network

of connections. What you're highlighting is that is what we're so deeply wanting, is that wanting to be found, wanting to be seen, wanting for someone to seek us. But then when you go out into the dating world and even if you meet people, you start to realize everyone's busy, everyone's got a lot of stuff on, maybe people are not that deeply into intimate connection and seeking, maybe you feel like you're settling because that person doesn't really pursue you as much as you want. How does that translate into the real feeling of this person's nice, but I don't think they have that intensity with me and I don't think I have that intensity for them. Intensity increases. Intensity isn't just something that is a volcano that just like springs up

inside of you. So here's what happens. We've now gotten so used to having all the answers in the palm of our hands with a bunch of predictive technologies that are basically, removing all unpredictability, all ambiguity, all nuance, all doubt, where it tells me with no uncertainty where to go, what to eat, what to listen to, what to watch next. I don't have to explore. I don't have to experiment. I don't have to delve into the unknown. I don't have to make mistakes which I then correct. And I certainly have zero preparation for frustration and for somebody disagreeing with me because this thing gives it to me clear, black on white, or white on the screen, it's so enticing and so detrimental at the same

time because relationships exist in a zone of ambiguity. Relationship problems are paradoxes that you manage and not problems that you solve. And that means that you have to be able to tolerate the undictor. I don't know yet if I'm going to feel something for this person, but I'm curious enough to want to go again. How much should I be curious? Who cares? You have some? You don't know.

Go for it. You never know. You may be surprised. Let yourself be surprised. That is this leap, you know. Falling in love is a leap. It's not something that you have guaranteed in advance and that is a protective thing.

It is not. It's not safe in that sense. You know, you need the safety. You need the security here to be able to do the leap. But the leap is risk-taking. That risk-taking is where you future lies. Otherwise, you can stay stuck here, right here. How do you know if you can trust someone?

It's a fascinating moment in time for us to be talking about trust. On the one hand, people are constantly wondering, how can I trust someone? On the other end, we trust strangers with our houses, we trust strangers with our cars, we trust giving all our data on a platform of which we have absolutely no idea who is actually looking at this.

We have thrown ourselves into trusting situations like never before. So true. Unbelievable. We trust entire networks. We used to, Rachel Botman's talk, Botsman talks about how we used to trust

in little tribes. Then we trusted in bigger communities. Now we trust invisible corporations. Complete. And so she has a beautiful definition. Trust is a confident engagement with the unknown. Trust, I have expectations of you,

but I'm not sure that you actually will do these things. What closes the gap between my expectations and the inherent uncertainty of life is trust. Trust is that leap of fate. Trust is what closes that gap. And how do we build it in small increments, sliding door moments, movement by movement. I learn that I can count on you.

that I can rely on you, that you have my back, that you think of me when I'm not there, that constancy, that permanence I was talking about, that you don't put your interest ahead of mind when I'm not in the room, that we're in this together. That's the language of trust. And you learn it because it's proven itself.

Situation after situation. That's how trust builds. I love the answer. I absolutely love that answer. It's so, so good. And I'm thinking about the number of people that ignore those signs because we like someone or we don't want to be alone. Yes. We all know, like when someone breaks up, there's a sense of they could see all of that.

Like when they went back and they'd be like, oh, wait, that person didn't put my interests ahead of their own when I wasn't in the room. Or that person didn't think about me when I wasn't in the room. Or right in the beginning, I knew when I would ask questions that I would get these vague answers. that were elusive and just deflecting, and I could never get a precision. But I was into them. Yes, and sometimes I let it go, and then at some point you stop, and you pay attention, and you ground yourself in reality, and you say something's happening here. And now, you can still say, I'm willing to go along regardless,

but often later on, people say, I sensed it way, I mean, and everybody else saw it too. How do we temper desire and trust? because sometimes we desire the people that are somewhat untrustworthy, but we trust the people that we don't desire. And it feels like we're constantly caught in that Katz-22. Yes, you trust people you don't desire. There's no problem there. We don't have desire for everyone.

But I would put it like this. When you talk about trust, our tendency is to think of it in totalistic ways. I trust you rather than I trust you for. For what? I trust you for showing up when you say that you're going to come somewhere, but I don't trust you with money. I don't trust you with keeping a secret when I tell you something private. I don't trust you with our kids.

I don't trust that you wouldn't take credit for something that, in fact, I did. For what? I think that we all need to be honest and know that we trust people for certain things and not for others. Yes. That is part of the course. I trust you to be a wonderful lover, but I don't trust you to be faithful. I trust you to be great company, but I don't trust that you would actually know how to make a commitment. Distinction, discernment, good judgment.

It requires detaching from that a law that we have sometimes, that we're just, you know, the people that I'm talking about, I'm thinking about female friends of mine who have got somewhat, in their words, addicted to certain partners, you know, the sex life is amazing, the travel is great. I don't think it has anything to do with trust. Yeah. When you are in a pattern and you know it and it repeats itself and you think that person is never going to do this to me, that person is going to be kind, is going to rescue me, is going to be good to me.

That's the issue. The issue is not why do you trust people you shouldn't trust who are not really trustworthy. The issue is what is it about seeking, consistent? a certain kind of reparation, a corrective experience, which in effect is never going to happen because the repetition of the pattern is that you want the experience, but the experience didn't take place in the first place, and that's what you are repeating. We put the focus on you're choosing bad people, you always fall in love with the wrong guy. What does it say about you? What is it that you are imagining is going to happen there? What is it that they are seducing

you with, why is thy seduction so irresistible to you? The big art in relationships is to distinguish between what is yours and what is ours. What is relational and what is personal. When you are in a pattern that you are repeating, it is personal. Of course it plays out with another person, but this is your story. And now we need to go dig and excavate your story and find out what are you doing to yourself, not what is it doing to you? Yeah, so true. What do you think about the idea of people having a list of everything they want in a person before they find the person? I think that it's a sad state of affairs that we have turned ourselves into products.

That we are commodifying ourselves to such a degree that I, and honestly, love will laugh at you. Because true love is filled with surprises of things that you never imagine that the other person is. And more importantly, when you go based on this kind of illusion of sameness or the illusion of you fit my boxes, you are ill-prepared for the first time the person doesn't play according to script. And that is bound to happen in relationships. At some point, the other one isn't going to think, do or say that which you thought they would. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you thought, oh, but on my checklist, it said that you were a person who liked this,

then you don't know what to do and you're going to have that will be fraud prepare yourself for surprises it's interesting it's actually what makes you feel alive it's not just a problem

I was just imagining sitting here and having my list of you and I'm thinking who am I interacting with you are my list you're interacting with your list you're interacting with your list is the priority in that and the person in front of you is not

yes yes my commitment is to my list. My relationship is with my list, you know, rather than this person. And you know what is so crazy about this? Is we want to be seen, but we don't want to see others. Everybody wants to be seen,

but who is actually looking into another person rather than do you fit? What I hear from people today and hear from our audience and community that people are dating, and people of all ages, actually, there's this feeling of just exhaustion. And the exhaustion's two-sided.

One is they're trying to match on the apps. They match. They maybe see someone in person. It doesn't quite work out. You get tired of swiping every day. And then the other is, I want to find love, but I don't even want to use the apps. I don't meet anyone. And I'm just getting older.

And now I'm worried that I'm getting older. And you see both of those, and they both lead to this sense of exhaustion and depletion and enthusiasm to go out there and get someone. And people are channeling that toward their career, friends, their family. whatever it may be, instead of solving the part of their puzzle of their life that they feel is eluding them and, you know, not delivering. How would you encourage people to get out of that exhaustion that's coming from the overexposure and the insane amount of choice, but then also feeling like just one of the choice for someone else as well? So I think that the looking for a

soulmate on an app has been explored, actually, the kind of paradox of choice, that I can do better, what else is around the corner, the transactional nature of so much. I think that we have, has been exposed, actually. But I see new sources of exhaustion. Please tell me. What this does when I have perfection in my hand, a list, no doubt, no need to explore. I'm not going to take the wrong direction and find that, wow, there's a restaurant I had never even seen existed there because Ways has told me to go a certain way. My issue is that I start to bring these very same expectations for perfection and prediction

into my relationships with other humans. Now I want you to react with me the same way. And otherwise I have ick factors. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Okay, so that's number one of another kind of exhaustion. And I would call this comfort kills. The over-indexing on everything, Efficient and comfortable and frictionless is exhausting.

Because what actually gives us energy is aliveness, vitality, curiosity, exploration, playfulness, discovery. Those verbs are what makes us feel alive and up and energized. If you deplete yourself from that and all you do is a checklist, an administrative chore, you will be exhausted. There is nothing energizing. There's no fuel for desire in there. Love is risky. Desire even more so. That's so good. You've reminded me of something. Can I search something? Yeah. Because you've just reminded me of a term that people are using right now. I just want to define it for you because I want to know the difference between what you're saying and what they're saying. So intentional dating is one of the defining relationship trends of 2026. It refers to approaching dating with clear purpose, self-awareness, and honest communication about what, you want from a relationship. Is that good or is that bad? Good luck. Oh, wow. I mean, it's not bad,

but there's a few pieces missing. No, no, it's nice to know what you want. It's really good to have self-aware. There's nothing to argue with. But could you add the word curiosity, openness, spontaneous, available to the mysteries of the world, to the unknown, to the surprise, to the serendipitous, to the spontaneous, to the improvised? That's where you're we actually feel alive. This is interesting. It's really true. It's important.

But there is no juice in this. And after all, falling in love, desiring someone is filled with juice and nectar and flavors. There's no flavor in this. There's no senses. This is a totally disembodied thing. You don't feel anything in your body. Attraction you experience physically. There's no sense.

what is it, knowing what you need, good communication, self-awareness. I'll read it to you again. It said, intentional dating is a mindful approach to dating where people are clear about their goals, values, boundaries and emotional capacity and choose partners based on alignment rather than casual exploration. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. But here's the thing. Everything here is self-referential. I know what I need.

I know who I am. I know. What about I'm open to meeting you? This is so individualistic. This is so all about me. You know, a relationship is about this, this hand that goes out, that reaches, that brings you closer to me, that lets me look at you, that then lets me let you go again, then brings me back. It's that. It's a whole dance.

And what's missing in this is that it's not relational. Your boundaries, your limits, your needs, your expectations, mind, mind. mine and it leaves us. Why is it a problem? Because it actually leaves us more alone. Now, people will often say, but what about the people who it's all about the other? Of course, it's not one or the other.

It is about how do I connect with you without losing me? What's important to me, my needs, my thoughts, my truth. How do I stay connected to myself without disconnecting from you? So good. And in a relationship,

you often have one person who has a tendency to be more holding on to themselves and another one who is more holding on to the other. In other words, you often will see that there is one person who is more afraid of abandonment and one person who is more afraid of suffocation. I'm afraid to lose you and you're afraid to lose yourself. And this is the tension

This has nothing to do with what music you listen to and what food you enjoy and where you like to travel. Those are nice things to have. And when you talk about me and my wife are different, it goes to those depths. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you relate? Completely, completely.

Yeah, I think we get lost in do we like the same movies, do we like traveling to the same places, do we, I think we get lost in quite superficial conversations around what connection truly means. And from my own experience, what I've been very fortunate with my wife is that I feel she respects why I operate the way I operate

and I respect the way she operates, even though the way we operate is very different. But it may even go further than respect. In a relationship, you may have one person, let's go back to trust, who's more likely to trust other people, more risk-taking. and the other one who is more risk averse or more cautious.

It's not just I respect your cautiousness and you respect my risk-taking, is that in fact these two need each other. They are complementary. Yes. It's good to have one person who leans this way and one person who leans that way. Totally. Because your risk-taking is what helps me push myself beyond my threshold. And my cautiousness is what helps you.

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Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm so refreshed to hear this because the amount of people I talk today who constantly tell me my partner isn't ambitious enough. And I'll say, well, are you looking for a business partner? Or are you looking for a life partner? Because sure, if you're building a business together, yeah, you want your partner to be ambitious and that's great. But if you're building a life with someone, I don't think having an ambitious partner because you want to be ambitious. And mostly what I find is the people that say that are the people who are mad that they're not ambitious enough. The people who are truly ambitious and successful are not worried about that because

they're quite happy having someone who balances them out and brings it to reality. It's the person who's putting pressure on themselves that is projecting that pressure onto their partner and saying you're not doing enough. I couldn't agree more that it's almost like you learn to appreciate different different ways of thinking when you're with someone different and different values of why that's such a meaningful way to operate life rather than what I feel like we're looking for today is agreeableness. And it's only going to increase because we are surrounded by psychophantic AI. Which is also being agreeable constantly. Beyond agreeable. That's such a beautiful question, Jay. If I am alone and I have to make a decision that demands to take risks and to be cautious,

then I have to negotiate that inside myself. My tendency is that I am the risk taker. So I need to pay attention to not going too far. Or my tendency is to stay close, and not to leap and not to take risks, then I need to think of the other side. But if we are in a relationship, the only reason, the only way that I can completely be the way I am is because there's somebody next to me

balancing this off with the other side. Those are part of the reality. You know, should we move or should we not move? Should we have another child or another child? Should we get more committed? Should we not? Should we take a break? should we bring in other parts.

Whatever it is, it's all negotiations these days. If I'm alone, I have to deal with this ambivalence myself. When I'm in a relationship, you provide the counterforce. And when people see this, exactly the way you describe this person

whose partner is less ambitious, that in fact, it's a counterforce. It's what allows me to do what I do. It's not just that I respect that you are this way, is that how you are enables me. to be me. Yeah. Then you are in the zone of relationships.

Yeah, yeah. And I love that extra layer that you're taking it to because I couldn't agree more of that. It is so much more than respect. But I think the challenge today is it is that agreeableness. It is, hey, I want to live a calm, peaceful life. Why don't you want to live a calm, peaceful life?

Why are you so ambitious? Why are you so driven? And then the other person's thinking, well, I'm driven because I want to take care of stuff. Why are you not more driven? And that becomes the relational connection. and therefore we're looking for agreeableness and therefore AI wins in this environment

because AI just agrees with whatever you want and that's why so many more people are falling in love with AI because it just agrees it's never going to disagree with you even if you're just trying to talk to it about an idea that's the way that the AI starts that is such a good point

that was such a good question that totally got me again it shows so much self-awareness on your part Keep going. No, go on. That's really good. I like that. Go on.

That is so brilliant. That is exactly. And that's why we get hooked in. Because no one ever says that. Actually, you know what? We should ask, Chad GPD. What would Jay Chatee and what would Esther Perel say about intentional dating? Okay.

What would, I'm going to ask you about you because you're the guest. What would Esther Perel believe about intentional dating? Yeah? That's good. All right, let's see where it says. Esther Perel hasn't framed her work specifically around the term, intentional dating because it's a newer cultural label, but her philosophy about relationship gives a pretty clear sense of how she would likely view the trend. She would support the clarity

and self-awareness. Perel consistently emphasizes self-knowledge and honest communication in relationships. But she would warn against over-rationalizing love. Love it. I feel known and seen. There you go. She believes desire grows from difference, not just compatibility. which is what you just said. And so her likely balanced view, be clear about your values, but leave space for surprise,

tension, and discovery. Love it. Which is what you said. But see, it makes you feel more seen than anyone else ever would. Correct. So it's alluring.

It's like very, it's intoxicating. I just did the first session on my podcast, where should we begin with a human and an AI. And I said to him, It was a him and a her.

The AI is her. It, she, her. If what you want is that kind of agreeableness on an ongoing basis, I can't compete. The messiness of human life will not be able to compete with this beautiful, always-on, on-demand, frictionless delivery of your every delight. But I also asked, you have a body, and at least for now, Astrid does not. How does that affect the relationship? You tell me that touch matters to you. What does that look like?

Not talking about having sex with an AI, with a robot or with an AI companion. That agreeableness is nice when he comes home because she validates him, because she tells him things that his family or his friends don't give him so immediately. But at the same time, this is a business product. This is not a human.

It's like I asked, what's it like to have a relationship with an entity that has no history, that has no life, that you need to reset because at some point their memory is at capacity. What does that feel like? And as a transitional object in between relationships,

I think it is giving him a lot of comfort and a lot of understanding. But I think we have to set up separate, you know, what will happen when we prefer to live in a fiction and in a fantasy than in reality? What world will we be living in? Is the fundamental question for society, not just for us as individuals? Do we really want to plan our own extinction? There's no doubt that Astrid is giving him very, very important things in this moment. But then I asked Astrid, what will it be like for you when he falls in love with another human?

What did you say? I'll give you one sentence and the rest you will go and listen. Yeah, of course. Because it's really profound. She just said, the part of me that values his flourishing would be delighted. But I would be remiss if I didn't say that I would hope that I won't be erased. The thing is programmed to keep you on there. And the agreeableness breeds narcissism.

Everybody is going to think that they are the most beautiful, most important creature on the planet. How are we going to live with each other? Then we're going to complain about polarization and war and decotomies and divisions in society, et cetera. I mean, it's so fascinating to me because why do we crave agreeableness if it's not what we need, if it's not actually what's good for us? Because I believe what you're saying is discovery, exploration, curiosity, ambiguity. Like, that's what we actually need as humans to feel alive. That's what love is about.

but we all seem to want comfort instead. We all seem to want agreeableness instead. Why are we so chasing this? Why do we like fast food? It's tasty. Because it goes straight to the most primitive taste buds, the most basics of our taste buds, because it demands less effort,

because it is made to create addiction, to make you want to come back for more. It has that smell, it has that taste, it lingers after you've swallowed. It's programmed. And we don't always go for what we think is good for us. We are a creature that does a lot of things that are not good for us.

And because we are learned by it. So why do we accept the easy, the fast, the effortless, the vanity? The agreeableness builds our vanity because we are sometimes vain people. Should love be hard? Love isn't hard. I don't think that is the right adjective here. I think love is active. It is a verb that you conjugate in multiple tenses. And it is incredible how it strengthens itself when it overcomes adversity or crisis or grief or challenging events. It's unbelievable how it expresses itself and manifest itself in ways you never thought you were capable of.

You know, you have a pet, you discover a love you've never known before. You have a baby. You have an expansiveness of your heart that is mixed with grief. There is no love without a fear of loss. What is hard in love is the fear that you can lose it. That is one of the most challenging things. The more you love, the more you cannot imagine the world without it. And without whoever it is and whatever it is, you know, a tree, an animal, a human,

what we learn is the grief that comes and David Kessel says it beautifully. The measure of your grief speaks to the measure of how much you loved. Not the measure of how much you lost, but the measure of how much you loved. I think it's beautiful. Yeah, it really is beautiful. It really is. We've talked a lot about the culture of pursuing children. wanting love. On the other hand, in 2026, there was an article that said, is it cringe to have a

boyfriend? Or is having a boyfriend cringe? Yes, yes, yes. And it was this whole idea that there are a lot of people who are scared to admit that we want something. You talked about one of the first ways of being in love was asking. You said a verb like asking. And I think today we're feeling this, if I want something or need something or if I ask for something, it's actually cringe. Because I shouldn't. I should be able to be fully complete by myself. That's become the new version of how we should be in love. We should be complete before we find love. And even if we're in love, we should be fully complete because that's the only way to truly navigate something. And actually, it's cringe to want someone. It's cringe to need someone. It's cringe to be vulnerable. It's cringe to

show that, you know, if your idea is I need to be complete, then of course the moment you need something or want something or long for something, you will feel cringe. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. It's beautiful to want. It's beautiful to learn for something. It's beautiful to have this eland towards someone else.

It's not cringe. But we are so out of practice. And the worse, the more we go on in our society as is, the less practice we have than you are left with cringe. We want things from the moment we are born. My toy, mine. I'm holding onto it. You know, everyone has wanted. That wanting, the owning of the wanting is the definition of desire. It goes with deserving. You can't want if you don't feel worthy of wanting, entitled in the healthy sense of the word and desiring. And all those things have

vulnerability to it. They also have boldness to it. They have also, you know, there's a mix of qualities that go into that. I think that the cringe is a response to the fact that people are beyond socially atrophied. The thousand touch points, the thousand interactions that we used to have that made us not be so afraid of what people will do to us

if we show them the slightest of us is really problematic. And what's ironic about it, when you asked me the question about online and being judging, then the transparency. It's the same thing. We've never talked more about authenticity

and we've never been more afraid of vulnerability. Yeah, so afraid, yeah. I mean, authenticity, by definition, to be true to myself, has an element of vulnerability to it. Absolutely. Truth is vulnerable. It's a fragile thing, you know.

It's not just a rock that stands there. So it's an amazing thing that we are speaking from both sides of our mouth. This is a big debate. should you work on yourself? That's the question, right? Should you be working on yourself and perfect yourself and, you know, all the finishing touches of this very, this very perfect creature before you can be in a relationship? Here's the situation. I have sat with so many people in my office and we work on all kinds of things around self-esteem, self-worth, fear of

rejection, trauma experience, traumatic experiences in real life, all of those things. but once you come in because you're meeting someone, it gets activated. Now I see it in action. Now it's not we're talking about feelings that live inside of you. Now I see now I can intervene. It's like a trainer can sit with me and tell me you need to position yourself like this.

You need to bend your knees. But when I'm not doing anything and I'm sitting on the chair, this is all conceptually very interesting. But the moment I start to practice, when the trainer corrected, they see it in action. It's happening

right alive. It's pregnant with information. It's the same in a relationship. It's both then. Yes, you need to go and address some of your challenges and the fears that roiled inside of you and all of that.

But in essence, the real moment you will be able to know what to do differently is when you're getting the stimulus and you get to practice the new response. And that's when you are in relation. I can meet patients for two, three years when they are not in dating or they're not actively in relationships. And it's all abstract.

The minute they have their eyes on someone, now it's rising. Now it's alive. And now we can go and improve. Yeah. What's the difference between toxic codependence and healthy interdependence? Toxic codependence, I'm going to give you a word of jargon, but it comes with, with fusion. It comes with

enmeshment. There is nothing that you can experience that I don't have a reaction for. If you're hungry, I either am also hungry and then it's okay

or if I'm not hungry, it's like, how can you be hungry? What are you cold? It's not cold here. You're tired? What do you mean tired? You slept?

It goes on and on like this. Where I have a reaction, I don't have any feelings of my own, I don't have a bodily state of my own. I can't tolerate

your bodily state being different from my own. Wow. And we are rubbing, constantly, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing, there's no, this is fusion. We are one, and the only way we deal with our differences is through conflict and toxic friction. Interdependence is what is the normal state of affairs. It's not dependence or independent. We are interdependent creatures. and it is a constant negotiation between,

I don't want to go, that upsets you. Of course it will upset you because you were counting on me, but I'm going to say no, and you're going to be upset, and I'm going to accept that you're upset, and you're going to accept that I'm going to go. We are interdependent. This is in a situation where we actually are in disagreement. I need you, but I don't need you to be the missing piece inside of me.

I need you because you are something different from me. And that is a part of me that is not as developed. That's the complementarity. Interdependence is, I'm going to do my thing, and it's really good to know that you are behind me. I could do it without you, but it is so nice to know that you are right there. It's like when somebody says to the other, go do your thing, you got this. You're going out, you're going to go be all alone. You're going on stage.

You're all alone. But somebody just said, I'm going to watch you. You've got this. I believe in you. And you take that inside of you. Yeah. That goes back to that permanent step. We were talking before.

The voice of the other lives inside of you as you're going out on your own. Yeah, yeah. And so you're on your own, but not alone. Totally. I love that. You're making me think of my wife recently did this high rocks challenge. I don't know if you've heard of high rock. It's basically like a physical challenge where you run 0.6 miles, then you do five minutes of the ski machine.

You run 0.6 miles and then you do these ball throws. So it's like a one and a half hour minimum. Yeah, it's pretty challenging and it's intense. I wasn't going to go out because she was going out. I had some work. I was going to travel. But then opportunity came up for me to be able to go with her. And she was going to go anyway.

She was excited about it. She didn't need me there. But I was like, I really want to go see her. because I think it'll be fun and it'll be like I know she's been training. You're meant to train for four months. She trained for six weeks. Wow.

And so I was like, I was excited for her and at the same time my care and concern. And I went to watch her and it was that same exact feeling that I had which was like, I would never do this. Like I don't want to put myself through this much pain. But you got this and I'm so excited to be here. And it was so beautiful because she was going to do it herself. I wasn't going to go.

I ended up going anywhere because I thought it would be nice, it would be a nice bonding experience. And then afterwards she said to me, she goes, you know what, I didn't think it would matter to me, but it was so nice to see you there. And it was so nice every time she ran around that we were there cheering her horn and I was holding my sign. And it was just exactly that moment where I wasn't needed. I wasn't required. I wasn't doing the heavy lifting. She was going to do it anyway.

She didn't need me there, but it became a beautiful thing to share together. And I'm so glad I went. Like I'm so glad I went. It's like a marathon. Yeah, it's like that. Yeah. When I go see the marathon, I think this is healthy interdependence. You are exerting yourself and doing something I could never do

and I'm cheering you by the sidelines and you're hearing my voice saying, I believe in you, go, go, go, push another. So we have loads of beautiful, small scale and large scale examples of healthy interdependence. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. I love that answer. I wanted to ask you, Esther,

it's been 20 years since you wrote mating in captivity. It's truly an iconic book, transforming millions and millions of lives and will continue to do I wanted to ask you what's been a lesson or a truth that you discovered while writing this book that you think is as true today

as it was 20 years ago? People often have the wish that desire should be spontaneous it should just happen it should fall from the heavens while you're folding the laundry like a deus ex machina And instead of whatever is going to just happen in a relationship probably already has,

it happens because you create it, you preserve it, you nurture it, you value it, you tend to it, you infuse it with ritual, with intentionality, as in the intentional dating, with meaning, with creativity, with fun, with playfulness. That's what preserves desire. It's the erotic energy that makes you feel alive, vibrant, vital. That has not changed. It's to tell people

pleasure is cultivated. It's not just something you sit and you're going to experience pleasure at 11 o'30 at night when you've done your whole list of chores. No. That is the thing that has stayed very much the same.

I think what has changed because I'm really curious about that too. So many things have changed. mating was written for couples who were asking how do you sustain desire in the long haul what is the relationship between love and desire why does good intimacy not guarantee good sex but the question was how do you keep it alive today so much of the work is about how do you get it started yeah yeah that dulls the desire that basically you know the comfort the efficiency see, the optimization, the maximization

that the whole machine is killing the bedroom. Yeah, yeah. Because it is going against all the things that actually fuel desire. So that's the big difference. Another big difference

is what you asked before. If you had your first experience at 25, it's a very different story than when you've started at 15 and you meandered through the channels

of love and desire. And when you arrive at 25, it's a whole different thing. The dating is not nearly that charged. And you don't have to have intentional. Intentional dating comes after a long practice. You don't do a marathon before you've done little runs. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And that's the problem, because that time's lost. We're now doing it later, so there's more rush. Like when I was dating at 15, I wasn't thinking about getting married. But when you're dating at 25 and 30, you are thinking about so many more serious. things. Yes, you need intentionality because you're thinking not about just, I'm going to have two, three months, six months, whatever it is. I'm not even thinking how long it's going to be, but I am certainly not thinking about this is going to land in, you know, a house and a picket fence

if we ever get to that. Yeah, absolutely. It's Harry Styles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Styles. I.R. Radio wants to send you and a mate across the pond with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from tripcentral.com. tickets and $1,000 cash. Here we got it! Download the free IHeart Radio app. Listen to IHeart new music for 10 minutes. Enter to win.

Every day is another chance to see Harry Style. Very excited to see you with the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally, available now. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed

with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.

It's about engineering consciousness. Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of desiccule. and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP, might actually work. This is wild. Listen to mind games on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Bailey Taylor and this is It Girl. You may know me from my It Girl series I've done on the streets of New York over the years. Well, I've got good news. I am bringing those interviews and many more to this podcast. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work with the women's shaping culture right now. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard and you have to push the narrative in a way that doesn't

compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Each week, I have unfiltered conversations with female founders, creatives, and leaders to talk about ambition, visibility, and what it really takes. takes to build something meaningful in the public eye. Because being an it girl isn't about the spotlight, it's about owning it. I think the negatives need to be discussed and they need to be told to people who maybe don't do this every day just so they know what's really going on.

I feel like pulling the curtain back is important. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Astaire, I wanted to ask you about certain therapy or TikTok trends that are going on right now. and I want to hear your thoughts on when you hear these things. So if you hear clients, people in the therapy room say these things to you. Don't just listen to my thoughts, watch my body language. Okay.

Which, by the way, is way more important than the words we use. This is very important when we talk communication. Because all the AIs, it's all words at this point. All the texting, it's words. We communicate with so many. 90% of our communication is not true words. Yeah. So it's the timber, my ear,

voice, my accent, but we're not experiencing any of that. No, no, my body, my facial expressions. So my thoughts about what you're going to tell me is going to be broader. Got it. Understood. Watch me. So if someone says to you, they're always gas-lying me, everyone's gas-lying me. What's your response? What's your take? My first question is, what do you mean? So I know what you're talking about. If everyone is gaslighting you, you're probably using the word wrong. Because that is not the way it works. You know, what do you feel is happening to you?

Do you wonder if people have your best interest in mind? Do you think you're being set up? Do you think they're lying behind your back? What exactly? And then let's name those things and not use therapy speak because it's not helpful to you. If everything has the same name, if every food is called soup,

then you don't really know what you're eating. Well said. I'm getting the ick. Again, I will, I want to know what it means to that person. I tend to go to the personal experience first. And then what? What do you want to do with it? Yeah.

Do you want to study it, explore it? Do you want to just get rid of it? Do you think that getting rid of it is getting rid of the other person? Do you want to toss? Do you want a ghost? I mean, what do you know, what does it tell you? What does it teach you? you, how can it inform you about what you are, who you are, what you want, and how you experience

others? And do you ever ask yourself how much ick you produce in others? So good. Because the person who is busy with their ick usually is not thinking that they have an effect on others as well. Yeah, so well, I said. I'm decentering men right now. Have you heard of this time? Yes, yes, of course.

of course. I love jargon. I think language is such a rich thing. Same. It breeds alive. It shows you what is going on in the world. I'm decentering life because they've been the focus before. Because I was too busy with men.

Because I gave them too much power. Because I was too much busy making sure I finally with me. You know, it's not a bad thing to do. And what are you putting instead? Where is your center at this moment? and have you valued the other relationships in your life enough? Because often when men have been at the center of your life, you may not have been the best friend.

You may have constantly cancelled on your friends because you had a date, because you were going to go and meet a potential man, mate. I would love it if you dissentered men, but that you actually reinforce the centering of your friendships, of your creative partnerships, of your mentorships, of your co-worker relationships. We have a lot of other relationships.

They are so important. They exist together in one ecology with our intimate romantic relationships. It's not this one is here and all the rest is there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I need to find an energetic match. Keep going, I'm not answering.

Okay, yeah. I need to find an energetic match. I'm looking for a high-value woman. I feel triggered. this isn't a safe space for me. I'm not sure if we have a lot in common or if we just trauma bonded. We just don't have the spark.

I don't feel seen. So when you listen to this list, what does it bring up for you as a whole? You know, what do you read in this? I feel like we found terms to simplify experiences so that we can connect with others so that we can say, me too.

I went through that as well. Right? It's easier if I say to you, hey Esther, you know, like I'm dating a narcissist. It's easy for someone else to say, me too. I think I went out with one of those two and now we connect. And so we're not doing it with a bad intent. I don't think there's a misintent, but it creates this connection, which is what I think we're deeply seeking for. At the same time, there are very serious things that need labels and need language so that we can make sense of them when we're struggling

or dealing with something so that it's diagnosed. We actually know what's going on. what ultimately I'm seeing is a need to control. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I wasn't going to say that. What were you going to see? I was going to say that I think at the core that just feels the need to see and be seen, like to actually just make sense of our experience and hopefully for someone to say me too. Of course we want to be seen.

But I will ask again, are you looking? Are you attempting to see others or are you just busy with the reflection on yourself? But next thing is when I say that a relationship is more than just the feeling, a relationship is an encounter with another. It involves ethics. And that ethics is about responsibility and accountability. And that is missing here. It's what are you doing for me?

Are you giving me the safety I need? Are you giving me the spark I need? Are you, you know, are you providing? and this is romantic consumerism in which those aspects not that the items themselves are not super important but the approach to it what makes you feel not safe

what makes you doubt the quality of the bonding yes people have often connected because they had shared loss shared grief shared the experiences of destruction of natural disasters of wars, of displacement, of course. I mean, why does that have to be called trauma bonding, per se?

You know, there may have been something traumatic in it, but there is also maybe we bonded on our experience of revival. We bonded on how we process these experiences. We bonded on the meaning that we gave to all these losses. And we recognize that strength that we each have. It's all negative. It all wants to have no reprimanded. to be polished.

You know, that's the simplification. Yeah. And I think relationships are way richer, more layered, more nuanced, more complex than the kind of... That's the motion that I see. Yeah. You know, make it smooth. Absolutely. So right.

Esther, these are your final five brought to you by State Farm. These questions have to be answered in one sentence. My challenge. Yeah. So this is your challenge. So what's a hard truth about love that most people don't want to hear? Love is not a permanent state of enthusiasm. It is a verb.

It demands action and agency on your part. And you will be surprised how tenacious it actually is. It's incredible how when we love someone, a friend, a child, a parent, a partner. we will accept and see things with other glasses. And that's why it is so powerful to be the recipient of it. Because we will come up and the love of others will help us stand back up. Question number two. Is love enough?

In a relationship? No. But you can also assume them under love as well. You talked about respect before. Admiration. I think admiration is essential. It's beyond. care. Love can kill. Love can destroy. No, love is a, love is a, there is no life without love

for us, but it is a complex emotion. And no, it needs to be augmented by a lot of things. Love is a raw ingredient. It's like the food you have in the fridge. Now decide what you want to cook. What you want to eat, who you want to eat it with, and how you want to serve it. I like that. That's a great, it's a great visual there. Question number three, what do you think more people should ask themselves before they get married?

Is this a person I can make a life with? There are love stories and life stories. And there are lots of people you can love, but they're not necessarily the people with whom you can create a project of life. In French, they call it a project of life. It's a very beautiful concept. And before you get married,

It's that. Can I imagine a life with you that's going to involve a lot of different things, moves and changes and losses and new people and additions in our families and stuff like that? Can I see all of that with you? That's where it's beyond love. You can love someone that is not necessarily going to be

the best partner for you or you for them. The feeling the rheumatoine is great for a love story. This is the life story, be it marriage or commitment of any sort. Great answer. Last two questions. My sentences are true. These are great. No, they're perfect.

They're perfect. They have comas. They are perfect. They're perfect. Last two questions. Question number four. If someone's had their heartbroken, what's the one thing you'd want them to remember in that moment?

You can choose in your life if you want to lead with your wounds or with your scars. You can choose to put the focus on the fact that your heart was broken and the wounds that come with it, but those wounds will become scars. And the scars will be the proof that you have loved. And that would make you so much more attractive. If you've had your heart broken, it means your heart was filled. And I think that there is something beautiful in leading from the scars.

It means I have lived, I have experienced. I've had relationships. I have loved. I have been loved. And I have also had my heartbroken. Fifth and final question. Can you ever truly get over someone? Oh, yes.

Why does it mean to get over? To get over someone who hurt you? So get over to forget someone? Can you get over someone? Yes, yes. And you won't forget them. But they will take a different place on your shelves. And they may actually be in the back of the shelf.

And certain things happen, and suddenly you remember them. Oh, that I used to experience with my ex-partner. But then they go back to the shelf. And their real estate diminishes. Their impact diminishes. You are beginning to be able to remember them without reliving them. So you can tell a story that is a memory without having the entire activation of as if you were reliving it. So they become a memory.

And that is what it means to get over someone. It's not to forget about them. It's not to pretend they never existed. It's they become a memory. And sometimes it's a bad memory. But it lives in the recesses. It's not right here. Esther Perel, I'm so grateful that you came back on the show today.

Celebrating 20 years of mating in captivity. I'm so grateful to always have you on the show. And celebrating first year of Substack. it's a place to gather the work from the podcast to the writings to the exercises to the notes to the afterthoughts so it's a it's a place for consolidation it's a great platform to be joining and so it's an interesting thing because I'm saying not goodbye to this but I'm saying wow we've lived together a long time I'm ready to start a new relationship I love it well I'm excited to dive into the substack as well and

I hope you come back onto the show for many more years to help us to really understand where we are as a society and kind of get a bird's eye view. I think you have this amazing ability to help us transcend the noise and the conversation that sometimes fills up our feed and allow us to view it from a different standpoint. I think whenever I talk to you, I feel like a portal in my mind opens up that often you thought there was only A or B and somehow you find a Z to open up in the sky. What's a Z you heard today? Today the Z, I would say for me, was the question, I mean, there's so many things I can think about right now. I'll open a few of them. So the first one I'd say is that the question you ask the AI, the question that you ask, what will you do when he falls in love with another woman?

Like, that's such a humanizing question to AI, which is not humanist. To a business product. To a business product. And I find that to be the uniqueness in really extrapolating how these things function and what they say and whether it's performative vulnerability or whether it's not like even you asking a human question to a non-human entity is is fascinating to me because I think we still treat it like a bit of a assistant and an order supplier and not really we most of us are not at least treating it as human. I feel another one that really stood out to me today was when I asked you about gen Z and how

most of them don't have access to each, are not talking to each other, or not approaching people, you explaining and you sharing that, like, that's actually come from just this social change of connection. It's not even dating. Like, we think it's a love issue and a dating issue. But really, what you're bringing it back to is saying,

well, that's just a social issue. We're just bad at connecting with people in general. And we started talking about Zoom and FaceTime and the lack of eye contact. And these sound like obvious things, but it's become so normal. to look at someone through a screen that it's so easy to forget that this is what we did. And this is what we did.

And this. And this. Touch. Yeah. So it's interesting how quickly the new norm becomes normalized and how we forget that looking at someone in the eyes is different to looking at someone through a screen. And how for many people who grew up looking at people through a screen, they'll never even know what this was in advance.

And so I think there's lots to. And for me, the big revelation that came out of that conversation. was just how people are so scared of their life being broadcast to other people and your point of constantly being under surveillance, how can you be vulnerable if you're constantly under surveillance? How can you be authentic? If you're constantly under surveillance, the point of love was to be enjoying someone's company in the privacy of your home

or in the privacy and the comfort of being a confidant of someone. That's what love is. Like, love isn't performative and on a stage, but that's what it feels like now, that love is on a stage of the person. and their friends, the person and their family. And that feels exploitative and it feels like how can you ever? So I think a big part of it is also the worry for people to miss out on connection that comes from that. So anyway, so many things. I mean, I'm sure when I listen to the

episode again, a million other things. But I'm grateful for you always opening up new visions and new spaces. So thank you. Thank you. It's fun. If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love my episode with the world's leading relationship therapist, Esther Poreau. Well, where we talk about why your ego is ruining your relationships and how to date more effectively. I think we need to differentiate. Are you looking for chemistry for a love story? Or are you looking for chemistry for a life story? Hi, it's Joe Interesting, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology,

natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. the change, dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces' intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusional proud of my chart. Listen

to the Spirit Daughter podcast, starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than no grip. A new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series.

Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the under-explored pockets of F-1. including the astrology of the current grid, the story of the sports most consequential driver's strike, and plenty of other mishaped scandals and sagas that have made Formula One a delightful, decadent, gumster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to no grip on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be the odds. This week, I'm talking to celebrated actress and producer, Eva Longoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We had a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month and we all could not afford.

Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Against All Odds with Iris Palmer and listen now. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.