On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Logan Ury: #1 Dating Mistake That Leads to the Wrong Relationship (Use THIS Compatibility Test Before You Get Attached)

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Hart podcast, guaranteed human. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract.

Starting point is 00:00:27 Agree to date me, but I'm also suing. you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The biggest lie that we've been sold in love is this idea of the spark. We interpret it as chemistry when it's actually anxiety. Only 11% of people experience love at first sight. So you don't believe in the one? I don't believe in the one. We've become so obsessed with finding the perfect person. instead of building the perfect relationship. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,

Starting point is 00:01:06 the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. This might be the most requested dating episode we've ever done, because so many of you keep asking the same question, why do I keep chasing the wrong person? Why can't I find the right person? Today we're joined by best-selling author and Hinges Director of Relationship Science, Logan Uri. Logan challenges one of dating's biggest myths.

Starting point is 00:01:34 What does the spark really mean? And is it actually leading you in the wrong direction? If you're tired of confusing chemistry with compatibility, I don't want you to miss this episode. Please welcome to On Purpose, Logan Yuri. Logan Yuri, welcome to On Purpose. Thank you for being here. Yay, I'm so happy to be here.

Starting point is 00:01:51 It's so great to have you. I've been wanting to have you in this seat for so long. You've been such a requested guest for us. Thank you. I'm so excited for this conversation. So I want to dive right in. Let's do it. My first question is, what is the biggest mistake that people are making in dating right now?

Starting point is 00:02:05 One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is really having unrealistic expectations around relationships, around dating, around their partner, and around themselves. And so through my coaching, I've categorized this into a framework that I call the three dating tendencies. And I know you took the quiz on this. So I'm excited to see your results of the quiz. But just to walk you through it, so the first. The first type is the romanticizer, and the romanticizer, I think a lot of people out there will relate to this. They are worried about finding their soulmate, and they believe there's one person out there for

Starting point is 00:02:42 everyone, and I'll know it when I see it. And so this person is very, very focused on the we met and their partner looking the way they expect. And the second type is the maximizer, and the maximizer has unrealistic expectations of their partner. And so you know you're a maximizer if you say things like, I just want to keep searching or I found someone great, but I want to find someone even better. And this is the person who's never satisfied. They always wonder what else is out there. The sort of the grass is greener person. And the third type is the hesitator. And the hesitator has unrealistic expectations of themselves. And so the hesitator says

Starting point is 00:03:20 things like, I'll be ready to date when, when I lose five pounds, when I get a better job, when I finally clean up my apartment. So there's a sense within them that they're not datable and that they need to become a different person before they're going to put themselves out there because no one would fall for them with who they are right now. So you don't believe in the one? I don't believe in the one. No, I feel like there's so many great people who you could make a life with and that it's really interesting because I think especially for the maximizer type, there's almost this premise of it's 95% who you choose and 5% the effort you put in. And I don't have exact numbers on this, but my framework would be more like it's 25% who you choose and 75% the effort you put in. And instead in our society, we've become so

Starting point is 00:04:07 obsessed with like finding the perfect person instead of building the perfect relationship. I actually love that approach and I find that so fascinating because we place so much emphasis, not even on choosing the right person, but finding the right person, believing that they exist, rather than thinking, okay, I've got to choose someone who hopefully I'll have a better chance with because they're choosing me too and we're going to work on it together. And that work part being your emphasis feels like the right place to place the priority. With your three, I love the romanticizer, the hesitator and the maximizer. Ultimately, are we trying to just improve? I saw your email that came through with my assessment, which I thought was great. And it gave me really actionable tips to

Starting point is 00:04:50 say here's how to stop being X, here's how to improve this area of your life. What are we trying to get to, because we're ultimately one of these three, what are we trying to be? Yeah, that's a great question. So the point of the three dating tendencies is to understand that you probably have dating blind spots. So these are patterns of behavior or ways of thinking that are holding you back from finding love, but that you can't identify on your own. And in my coaching, and I'm sure you've felt this too, people often come in and they're like, my biggest issue is what I look like. I'm or my biggest issue is that I work too much. And almost 100% of the time, that's not what their biggest issue is. Because if they knew what their biggest issue was, they could fix it. But a lot of

Starting point is 00:05:31 times it's something else that they don't realize. And so the point of knowing your dating tendency is to say something like, okay, I'm a maximizer. I'm always looking for the next best thing. I'm actually going to switch and become what I call a satisfacer, which I can get into, and really understand that if I want to move to the next level, if I want to go from the guy, who dates someone for three months and then always tries to trade up, but I really want to get married and have kids. I have to overcome this tendency in order to move to the next stage, or else I'll keep repeating this for years to come.

Starting point is 00:06:04 Yeah, that's fascinating that we're not aware of the thing that's blocking us, and usually it's some distraction that we've imagined up and said, oh, it's because I'm never available. And what you're saying is this actually helps us get to the root of where it comes from and why it exists in the first place. Yeah, and so my background is in behavioral science, which is the study of how people make decisions. And this is just what fascinates me about the world is so often we're not making decisions in a conscious way. We are really following these invisible scripts. And so the point of my work and of the three dating tendencies is to say, let's make the invisible visible. And then we can identify the problem, make a plan. And then you can show up differently and get different results. Yeah, absolutely. I'll share my results in a second. I want to ask you a couple more things about that. before we get there, because you worked in data, I wanted to ask you what data point have you come

Starting point is 00:06:54 across? I feel like there's so much great research now about love and dating and matching. It's better than it's ever been before. We have more access. I want to share a few stats with you in a second. But what would you say has been the thing that has shocked you the most? The data point that you saw and you went, I cannot believe that's true. One data point that shocked me recently and actually made me happy is I saw through some research that we did at Hinge that, well, I'll start by saying, I think people think that Gen Z is really nihilistic. They love dark humor. They're really pragmatic. And so I would have guessed that Gen Z was not romantic at all, that they would just be like, okay, like nothing else in the world is working out. I was born into this really tough moment in

Starting point is 00:07:35 history, and I would think that they wouldn't be romantic. But what we saw in our data at Hinge is that Genzi is actually 30% more likely than millennials to believe in the idea of a soulmate, and they're 39% more likely than millennials to identify as someone who's romantic or idealistic about romance. And so I think that we should not cut this generation short and think, oh, they're not interested in romance. They really are. They really are yearning for romance, even to the point of, you know, believing in a

Starting point is 00:08:06 soulmate when I said I don't. Yeah. But there's so much holding them back. and I know we'll get into it in this conversation, but really this fear of rejection and fear of embarrassment, fear of cringe. And so this data point of Gen Z actually being quite romantic has really stuck out to me.

Starting point is 00:08:22 Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that, like you said, even though you don't believe in a soulmate, the fact that this whole generation does, or a lot of the generation does, it elites points to a belief in love and a value in love, and we just need to figure out what that is. I wanted to ask you about a couple of statistics

Starting point is 00:08:38 that I pulled out there. Great, let's do it. I think these speak to what we're struggling with in the dating landscape right now, and I wanted to share some. So we'll go through one at a time, and I'd love to get your reaction to it. This stat says 53% of singles reported dating burnout. And I think dating burnout is what we're seeing all across the board. When you see that, talk to me about the behavioral science,

Starting point is 00:08:59 talk to me about the reasoning why we're experiencing dating burnout. What is it? Because we're all thinking it might be the apps, it might be that there's no good people out there left anymore, all the great people are taken, what is actually happening? What are you seeing? When I hear that, I feel so sad. Like they can't remember the last time they went out on a date. I feel like we're just sort of missing the plot here. It's like part of being young is dating and meeting new people and figuring out who you are. And it's almost like dating has become a job. And then people feel like they need to take a break from it. And so at Hinge, one of the biggest data points that we've seen

Starting point is 00:09:32 around burnout is that something that causes it is lack of responsiveness. So I send a you a message, we're going back and forth, and then you just stop responding. And then it makes me feel like, what did I do wrong? Why are you rejecting me? Why doesn't anyone want to be with me? And I sort of spiral. And after a while, you just need to take a break from that feeling. And so part of it is just, I think, in dating culture right now, we're really taking each other for granted. And there's a sense of like, if I disappoint you, well, there's someone else waiting for me. And also there's no context. Like, if your sister-in-law introduced, us, then you would know that if you did something not so nice to me, someone would be hearing

Starting point is 00:10:13 about it. But I think we are lacking some of that context right now, and we're just not treating each other with as much integrity as we should be. Yeah, I think the accountability piece is huge. What you're just saying right now, that if we introduced through a friend or a family member, you're going to have someone to answer to as to why it didn't work out. But the challenge about that is, as you said, is you can't control that. Like, you can't control someone being responsive. and so it becomes harder and harder to put yourself out there and feel like, oh, I thought we'd, someone told me last week, oh, I'd scheduled a date, we'd been talking for three days straight,

Starting point is 00:10:46 and then all of a sudden, even though we set a date and place and time, when I text to confirm, the person is ghosted me. And it's like, I have no idea what went wrong. And so there is a sense of wanting everyone to be more confident, but there's also a sense of like, how much can we take? I totally agree. And it's interesting because I'm married, you're married, I've been with my husband for a long time.

Starting point is 00:11:05 we in a way are a bit removed from rejection. But I have a two-year-olds, and I was talking to different families about who we would do a nanny share with. And this woman basically wrote me like a breakup text essentially being like, we don't want to move forward doing a nanny share with you. And I was hysterical. And I know that sounds crazy, but it was like the first time that I'd really felt that rejection in a while of someone like meeting you, getting to know you and saying, no, I don't want to, quote unquote, be with you. And I think sometimes married people forget how painful that rejection is. And so I just want to validate that feeling where, yeah, dating really is hard. You're putting yourself out there and you're saying this is who I am.

Starting point is 00:11:44 And then someone says yes or no, I want to be with you. Looking for love is almost like it's a bit harder than that because it involves two people. And you feeling like I have to convince this other person that I'm worthy. I work with men and women, but a lot of the women are in there, let's say, mid-30s to mid-40s. and they're kind of wondering, like, did I miss the boat? And there's a sense of, if I wanted to run a marathon, I know how to train for it. If I wanted to get a promotion, I could just put a lot of effort in. And that dating is this uniquely hard thing because you can't just put effort in and get results. Someone else has to choose you as well. I think that's one of the reasons it's uniquely challenging is because it's outside of your individual effort and control. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that sort of thing in that work-wise as well, there is a sense of like, put in more effort and I can not control the outcome, but I can impact it hopefully a bit more closely. And my husband and I talk about this all the time because work is very seductive. If I have more input, then I'll get more output. And you sort of know what the path is. And you can kind of say,

Starting point is 00:12:49 well, if I crush work, then I'll get some promotion, then I'll make more money. Like dating just isn't the same thing. There's not like a guarantee reward if you put effort in. And so I do often say to people that I work with, like don't fall for the seductiveness of work because, yes, it's easily measurable and it can make you feel good when you get those promotions or that affirmation, but also remember that you should put effort into love too. I don't really think it works when you're just like, okay, like, I'm just going to spend my 20s on work and then in my 30s I'll start dating because you'll probably be behind. You haven't developed the skills that you need to really be a great data. So if efforts the catalyst in work, what's the catalyst in love? I do think you need a lot of

Starting point is 00:13:33 effort in love. It's just that it's not as guaranteed. Like I think in hustle culture, all of this work environment that you've been seeing, let's say, for the last 10 years, like productivity and work maxing and this and that, I think people just fall into it because it feels like you know what the result will be. So it's more that it's less about work as effort and love isn't and it's more that work feels like some guaranteed results. And I remember about a year ago, I was working on a project and I was talking to single-daters in their mid-20s. I talked to this guy, like, super handsome, fun guy, like definitely the type of person I would have been drawn to when I was in my 20s. And he was like, yeah, why would I go on a date that could potentially go nowhere when I could just be

Starting point is 00:14:15 at home and edit a YouTube video? And I was like, what? Like, it blew my mind. Like, I just didn't understand. And he was like, well, if I edit the YouTube video, like, I know I'll get this many views and I'll improve in this way, whereas the date has no guarantee. I think that's sort of one of the things that I'm seeing right now is that people are struggling with dating because it is a lot of unknown, whereas work seems like more of a known quantity. I completely agree with you. How do we then train the human mind to be okay with investing in an area that has very little chance of return, but if you found the return, it's like striking gold and life-changing. How do you discipline yourself to put an effort in an area which, as you're saying, is uncertain?

Starting point is 00:15:00 I'm glad we're talking about this, because this is definitely the thing that I've been obsessed with lately. So from a coaching perspective, step one is just to be really, really clear on your goal. And that's why I was so happy to see that despite what I might have thought, Genzi really is romantic and excited about finding someone. And so I think you have to be clear on your goal in order to overcome a bunch of hurdles and discomfort to get there. And the second thing is what we're calling shalant dating. So everyone knows what nonchalant means. It means you act attached. You pretend that you don't care. And it's really this battle of who can care less. And I feel like dating has been in this area for a while now. Let's say like at least a decade. And I just hear this all the time.

Starting point is 00:15:43 Oh, he waited five hours to text me back. So I'm going to wait six hours. And when I dug into why this happening, I feel like a lot of it is because of this surveillance culture that we have now, where it used to be that if you sent someone a text message and it was a little embarrassing or didn't quite hit the mark, like it disappeared. But now it gets screenshoted and sent to the group chat or worse, it makes it onto Instagram or TikTok or someone's doing a story time about it. And so I feel like we just live in a society where it's a lot harder to fail because if you fail, feels like it's forever and it's shared with the world. And so what I'm seeing is that a generation that is afraid to embarrass themselves, for them, it's like the worst thing you can be is sincere.

Starting point is 00:16:30 The worst thing you can do is be cringe. And the truth is that most things in life worth having, you have to take a risk for. I'm sure that you don't have this job because you just sat back and said, okay, well, if a recruiter reaches out to me, I'll take that job. It's like you literally created your dream job and your dream life by taking risks. And I have found with Gen Z that they're just such a fear of taking risks. And we're finding this in the hinge data as well. And so Gen Z is much less likely than millennials to be willing to have a deep conversation on the first date. They're much more likely to say that they have a fear of being too much. And so you have this generation that's afraid of rejection, afraid of trying, afraid of

Starting point is 00:17:17 of effort. And then, miraculously, this term came around, shallant dating, where people are like, you know what? I'm tired of playing games. I'm tired of the battle of who can care less. And now we're really seeing that term has skyrocketed. So we've seen a 217% increase in that term in the last year. And on TikTok, you'll see all these videos like, I want a shalant guy. I want someone to shalant me down. And so shalant dating is a kind of. combination of effort and vulnerability. It's saying I care, I'm going to show you that I care, and I'm willing to be vulnerable even at the risk of rejection. Yeah. And what's fascinating, though, is we always get into that trend of, I want someone to be this way. And it comes back to

Starting point is 00:18:04 the same thing of like, well, we're going to have to be this way too, because there's only so much. I love that term because, again, it's like, it goes back to what you said earlier, which is the goal. If your goal is, I want to find love and I want to commit to someone and be in a monogamous relationship long term, you're going to have to be shalant because guess what? Even when you've been with someone for 10 years, you still have to be shalant. So the shalant never changes. It's always there. It's always care, effort and vulnerability. And then it goes back to you, well, if you don't know what your goal is, then, of course, you care more about what everyone else thinks or being cringe or being left on red or whatever it may be.

Starting point is 00:18:38 And so it's that goal piece, I think, is so important. Have you seen heated rivalry or you do know about it? I have not seen it. No, no, no. I know. I've heard about it from a million people, but I've not seen it. I really liked it. I don't think it's overrated. But it's been amazing to see the reaction to that show. And I think one of the reasons why is that it's a lot of shalant dating. And really the show has this pivotal point where one of the characters, Shane, who's been holding back his feelings, becomes more shalant. And he says, this famous line, you know, come to the cottage. I want you to come to my cottage. And that's, It's really about him showing effort and being vulnerable, and that changes everything. And people have really been drawn to the show because it's about loving out loud and yearning for someone. And I think people are missing that. And we just have this entire generation and maybe even, you know, more than just Gen Z, that's sort of like sitting at home, hiding behind a screen, yearning for someone to yearn for them,

Starting point is 00:19:34 but being so afraid of showing effort. I just think it's a shame. It's like when did effort become cringe? When did trying for something become embarrassing? I think if you look at the psychology behind it, it really has to do with fear of rejection. And we found at Hinge that 95% of daters say that they have this fear of rejection. But if you just have people sitting at home not willing to try, then they're never going to get this thing that they clearly want, which is finding a great partner. Yeah, and I think documented rejection is a painful point.

Starting point is 00:20:06 It's what you said about the surveillance. So if someone's not replying back and then it goes to the group chat or, you know, you send a text where you were really vulnerable and all of a sudden that text ends up in another group chat. And that's concerning because you don't want to be exposed for being vulnerable. And I think that comes back to what you're saying, there's another statistic here that hits on that exactly. 40% of men aged 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in person.

Starting point is 00:20:33 It sounds like that's happening because of a fear of rejection. It sounds like that's happening because of, I don't even know what to say, I don't even know how to start. It sounds like that's happening because we don't really do that anymore. So when me and you were dating at that age, that's all I ever did. All I ever had to do was pluck up the courage to go over to a girl in a bar or a restaurant or in the mall and say, hey, can I get your number? And I remember how stressful that was.

Starting point is 00:20:58 Like, it was stressful even back then. But that was the move. And sometimes you'd get rejected. Sometimes it would work. And so how do we even encourage when we're saying people are losing basic connection skills, conversation skills. People are worried if I got up to someone, will I look like a creep? People are worried I get rejected in public. How terrible will it look? Everyone has their phones out now. How do we even begin to think about giving people these skills? Everything you're saying, I agree with,

Starting point is 00:21:24 where people listening to this who may have been married for a while, are their millennial, Gen X and older, they might be like, yeah, people have always been afraid of rejection. I think what we're really calling out here is that this is a new and distinct thing. We're Gen Z by nature of the surveillance culture. And also, I do think, the pandemic. You know, people don't want to bring up the pandemic anymore, but it's like, if you came of age during the pandemic, it did impact your social skills. And a lot of the Gen Z daters that I talk to say, you know, I'm much more comfortable communicating through a screen or I want to be able to check it with chat GPT first. And it's like, sure, you can use those as strategies to get to

Starting point is 00:22:00 the date. But once you're on the date, it's still like the analog version of like two people talking, you have to be able to make conversation. In terms of people approaching each day, you're other in public, I think the answer there is really just to work on experiencing discomfort and working through it and being able to see that rejection can actually be redirection. So when you hear a bunch of nose, those are nose that you're hearing on the way to a different yes. And so you have to get a bunch of nose to figure out what's right for you. And I think that if you're so fearful of a no, you never try and you never get to that yes. Yeah, absolutely. There's another one that reminds me of your hesitators. So this stat, this is why I put it in there. So 69% of Gen Z respondents say they're not ready for a relationship, even though they may want one. Why do you think that is? That absolutely sounds like hesitators. And maybe we're talking about a generation of hesitators. And so when you dig into the psychology of a hesitator, a lot of it is around, I'm not enough. I'm not where I need to be yet. And so I'll talk to, let's say, a male dater in his 20s in New York. And he'll say,

Starting point is 00:23:09 I can't date until I make six figures. And I find this is especially true with men, where there's this sense of women need me to be a provider. And for a number of sociological, cultural reasons, they don't feel like they're able to be that yet, so they don't even put themselves out there. But then, on the other hand, we have the research and the insights into what women want. And so only 6% of female daters say they want a man who's the solo provider. And 72% of women on Hinge said that they'd much rather have someone who puts in effort than someone who makes more money. And so you have men saying, I'm not eligible, I can't be the provider that I was told I need to be. And women saying, actually, things have changed. I am more of a provider than my mother's generation or my grandmother's generation. And so

Starting point is 00:23:58 what I want is emotional intelligence, emotional availability, effort. And so you have two people who misunderstand what the other person wants, and then they're not putting themselves out there. That, I mean, that speaks to the root of so many challenges. When I spoke, and we're talking about heterosexual relationships, when I speak to women who say to me like, well, I just can't find the right guy, there's no good guys out there. And then when I speak to guys, they're like, well, I can't get a match on an app.

Starting point is 00:24:26 And so then you go, wait a minute, what's going on here and where are we? So what are the other things that you're seeing that are almost causing this tension between men and women. So one of them being men think they need to be earning six figures, women are saying, hey, we're happy to contribute. What are the other tension points that you're seeing that you think are misleading us from the actual point of what we're looking for? Yes. And so just to emphasize that effort point and shallot dating even more, I hear from women where they're like, this guy, he doesn't need to fly me to the moon. I just want simple things. I want him to remember the name of my best friend from work. I want him to know that I have a big

Starting point is 00:25:01 meeting and send me a text wishing me good luck or following up afterwards. And so women are saying, like, I want effort and I want care. And that's more important to me than money. And the men are just like, well, I was raised to, you know, be a lion. And the lion has to provide. And women are like, wait, no, I want a tiger who's emotional. And he's like, but I wasn't raised for that. And so I do feel like the dating hasn't caught up with the data. The dating of how we interact and how in heterosexual relationships, people perceive each other, hasn't caught up with the fact that we do live in a different society where women are earning more money and, you know, soon two-thirds of college graduates will be women. And so there's really a disconnect there.

Starting point is 00:25:50 I'm Clayton Eckerd. And in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final Rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it, I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here.

Starting point is 00:26:21 This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search for it. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of He Said She Said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies.

Starting point is 00:26:43 I have done nothing except get printed by the Bachelor! Listen to Love Trapped on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a few things you said there that really caught my attention, and there are two very different things. The first one is this idea of men were not raised to be that vulnerable tiger. as you put it. And I do see that as being a real, real challenge for men where the men that do feel they're vulnerable feel that they're not strong enough for women. And the men that feel like they're trying to become financially successful may not feel emotionally available or women may not feel they're emotionally available. And then you're stuck in this catch 22. How does a group of men go on to,

Starting point is 00:27:41 you know, it's almost like a big challenge to say, how do we get men in society to actually develop some of those emotional intelligence skills. I just want to acknowledge that it's really complicated and that I hear it from both sides. So there's this quote that I love from Brunay Brown where she says women beg men to be vulnerable and they really want them to open up. But the second that they do, women can't stand it. And so it's like we tell men that we want them to be vulnerable, but actually in many ways we want them to follow these scripts of masculinity. And so I think as a society, we're still sort of figuring it out. Like there used to be more traditional gender roles. And I'm glad that we've developed past that. I'm glad that I can make an income and like I love my life and I love my career.

Starting point is 00:28:23 But I also understand why people are confused because when there's more ambiguity and more blurred lines, than people are figuring out their roles. And I think what you said is exactly what I'm seeing as well. You have men who aren't sure how vulnerable women actually want them to be. And then you also have women that are successful in making money, and then they fear that men are going to find them intimidating or they don't want. Which is not their fault either. Yeah. And so I feel like we're just kind of in that messy middle where like there was the way things were for a long time. And like for most of history, like men have had all the economic power, all the earning power. And then for a bunch of things that have changed, let's say in the last 50 years with feminism and other things

Starting point is 00:29:04 that have progressed, you now have brand new rules. And I think people just haven't. figured it out. But what makes me sad about it is it just leads to a lot of misconnections. Yeah, the picture you just painted feels very true to me that we had these very clear structures that I don't think we're healthy or good in any way, but they were clear. And what's happened now is we moved into the age of nuance. And because our brains are not designed to deal with nuance as well, we kind of don't know how to navigate those things. And I would honestly say, and maybe you'd say the same about you and your partner. I would say that my wife and I kind of toggle a lot of nuance for our relationship to work. We don't really have clear, we have some very clear roles and some very

Starting point is 00:29:48 not clear roles. We have some parts of our relationship that are totally different to what we both imagined our life would be. We live across cities. We travel a lot. We spend a lot of time together and don't see each other for time. So there's so many nuances that we can't stay tied to our gender roles to make the relationship successful because that would just make us weaker and it's almost like we've got to rise above those but the new rules haven't been set yet and we don't know what they are.

Starting point is 00:30:14 I definitely agree and I would say I have the same thing in my marriage so I do 100% of the laundry and my husband does 100% of the garbage that's because I like doing laundry it doesn't bother me and he doesn't want to do it but in other ways

Starting point is 00:30:26 we kind of mix those gender roles up so like he's 100% in charge of like our food our groceries feeding our daughter like people ask me what she eats. I'm like, I don't know, that's his department. And so I agree that there's a lot of nuance. I think that just pulling back and kind of zooming out, people are struggling right now because there are way fewer rules. Like if you went 200 years ago, what were my ancestors doing? Well, I'm Jewish. So they would have known what to where. They would have spent their days praying or

Starting point is 00:30:57 studying the Torah or knowing exactly what they could and couldn't eat. A matchmaker would figure out who to marry. There were just so many more rules that told you who you were. And now we've broken open a lot of those rules. And I think people are really struggling with knowing what to do. And in some ways, they're craving rules. And so I don't think that where society should go or certainly where I want it to go is going back to traditional gender roles. I'm just saying, yeah, and I don't want that at all. But I'm just acknowledging that I think without rules, people are struggling. And you can even see this in the rise of certain aspects of the manosphere, you know, Catholicism is having a moment where I think people really feel like,

Starting point is 00:31:38 I just want someone to tell me what to do because when it's up to me, I don't think I'm necessarily making great decisions. And that's hard because I think we all know enough people who followed the perfect trajectory their life should have gone in and not been happy when it was decided by others. And almost agency and awareness are just such superpowers and privileges that we all get to decide who you spend your life with and what city you live in and what you do for work that I almost want to help people feel empowered that those are beautiful things to decide and you don't want to outsource them. So let's go through my results and then you can tell me how they can improve and what to do with them. So just a caveat again, I answered

Starting point is 00:32:22 this as who I was when I was dating and I answered this as friends of mine who are dating right now because that was my best way of doing it. So it says, thanks for taking my three dating tendencies quiz, which everyone can take as well. We'll put the link on the screen right now and in the comments. You scored equally high on the hesitator and the maximizer tendencies. Yeah, so this is interesting. So sometimes people get both, but if you have the hesitator tendency, that usually overrides it because it means that for these other reasons, you're not dating at all.

Starting point is 00:32:53 And so I imagine that maybe the maximizers who you were when you were dating, and maybe the hesitators, your friends who aren't dating right now. That sounds very accurate. Yeah. If anything, I had a bit of the romanticizer of me too. I could also see that. I'm still getting to know each other. I'm like fully an idealistic, romantic kind of person.

Starting point is 00:33:12 I mean, I think just like messy love, eight rules of, you have. This is your favorite realm. So I'll just talk through each one and kind of how to overcome it. So we talked about the romanticizer. And so for them, they really believe that there's one person out there for them. There's research from a psychologist named Renee Franiac who breaks this into a framework called the work-it-out mindset versus the soulmate mindset. So people with the soulmate mindset believe if you find the right person, everything will be

Starting point is 00:33:40 easy. And people with the work-it-out mindset know that when you're in a relationship, you have to put an effort to make it work. And so what we find is that people with this soulmate mindset, it's actually easy for them to get into relationships because they believe in love and they fall hard. But the moment that something tough happens, they think, can't be my soulmate. If it were my soulmate, it would be effortless. And so they give up too easily. And so my homework for the romanticizers out there is to shift from the soulmate mindset to the work-it-out mindset and to understand that if you're putting an effort, then you're doing it right, not wrong.

Starting point is 00:34:16 I love that. So well put. So then the next one is the maximizer, which is I was definitely a maximizer because I live in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, a lot of people I work with our maximizers. And I think our culture breeds maximizers. because before I buy anything, I mean, it's so pathetic. I'm looking it up on Google. I'm checking wirecutter. What's the best vacuum? What's the best Bluetooth headphones? It's almost like I've lost the confidence in like buying something. I need to know like every single detail and like we do this when we travel and if we're eating something. And so there's a tendency in our culture to do what's called relation shopping, like to shop for someone as if it's a product and then say, well, I want the looks of this girl, the ambition of this girl, the family background of this girl. And then to think, if we just keep searching, we'll find the perfect person. And what happens is people just wait too

Starting point is 00:35:07 long. And then they realize I have fewer opportunities now or the girl that I rejected 10 years ago, the guy said no two, five years ago. Like, they've gone and found someone great. And now I'm alone. And so for the maximizer, the solution is really to switch from maximizing to something called satisficing. So satisfacing is a term from the Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon. And it's a portmanteau of the words satisfy and suffice. So this is how satisficing works. It's not about settling. Settling is such a curse word in my world, I'm sure for you too. Like no one wants to be told to settle. It's the S word. But instead, satisfacing is this idea that you get super clear on what you want. You say, these are my deal breakers. These are the things I must have. You know, if you want to have the same religion as someone, if you really want them to care about animals, if you want to have

Starting point is 00:35:59 a certain number of kids. And once I find someone that has those really important qualities to me, I'm going to commit to them and try to make it work versus what a maximizer does, which is they find that person and they're like, great, well, if she exists, I'm going to find her, but an even hotter version. And so satisfying is really about knowing what's important to you, finding someone that satisfies that and committing. And this really important thing is, that I want to get across to people is that it's not about making the perfect decision. It's about how you feel about your decision. And all of the research on maximizers show that they often feel regret about their decisions because once they make a decision, they're thinking, well,

Starting point is 00:36:40 what else could I have had? Whereas a satisfacer, they're much happier in life because they make a decision, they commit to it. And that's what matters. It doesn't matter to make the perfect choice. It matters how you feel about your choice. Yeah. And these are, It seems like everything you're offering are like these really balancing principles, but require a lot of work to wrap your head around when you've been conditioned for 20, 30, 40 years to be a maximizer. It's hard to suddenly recognize the value of satisfying because it's worked for you, right? Like being that ambitious, driven A type person has worked for you. And now in love, you're like, well, maybe it won't work for you in this area specifically. I think that's a crucial point,

Starting point is 00:37:20 is that what works for many people in other aspects of their life, whether it's exercise, making money, work doesn't always apply in dating. And there is this alchemy. There is this sense of two people coming together. And it's why, you know, no one has an algorithm that perfectly predicts who you're going to be with. It really is this thing where two people are in front of each other, choosing each other. When you're in a relationship, you choose each other every single day. And I think that you have to take the mindset that you apply to work and other optimization, and you have to switch it when it comes to dating and relationships. Yeah, I always wanted to touch on, just briefly on the top priorities you mentioned, this idea.

Starting point is 00:37:59 Sometimes when I hear people's top priorities, my number one reaction is that doesn't make them a good partner. So, for example, even the three you mentioned is what people may say. And I know they weren't things that you said or we were coming up with a list. But when I think about like someone being of the same faith, it's helpful, but I know lots of. of people in my faith that I would never have married. And so the point is that doesn't make them better at being in a relationship. It just gives us some common ground. Or like even like liking animals or whatever it may be. And I know those were just scatter down my head. Yeah, you're just throwing things out. But I hear things like that where it's like, I really want to find someone, like I don't want to

Starting point is 00:38:38 marry a doctor. And I'm like, what? Like, how is that even a category? Because unless you're really clear about the fact, I don't want someone to have late nights and busy schedule, if that's the reason. But if it's a personality type attached to that career, I'm like, how do you even know that? Like, people are so multifaceted. It's not possible that every doctor in the world is X or every, you know. So I guess my point is sometimes I worry with people's top priority list because if your top priority list doesn't make someone a better partner and better at relationships, it doesn't actually matter. I'll share the research on what does and doesn't matter for long-term relationship success. So the doesn't matter one are things that people think matter, but matter less than people think they do. So the first one is looks. Of course you want to be attracted to your partner. Of course you want to have that chemistry with them. But what we know is that over time, your feelings towards someone adapt. So you're really attracted to them in the beginning. But over time, you sort of get used to how they look. And this happens in many parts of life. There's this idea of adaptation. It's why a year after winning the lottery, many people's happiness levels,

Starting point is 00:39:43 revert to what they were before they won the lottery. We sort of get used to what's around us. And that's also true for the second one, which is money. Yes, money makes things easier. Money can get rid of some problems in relationships and buy you some time back. But I think when people focus too much on money, they really miss out on the fact that it's not correlated with long-term relationship success. Other things that people mistakenly look for include having really similar personalities. Well, I know that two of me in a relationship would be way too much. Me too. And two of my husband in a relationship might be too little. And so it's actually great to find someone not who's the same as you, but someone who balances you. And the same thing is true with people who look for the same hobbies. Yes, maybe if you both love wine, that's great. But if you love wine and your partner doesn't, you can go have fun drinking wine with someone else as long as your partner doesn't judge you for it. Now let's talk about the things that matter more than people think they do. So the first one is kindness. And I think that this is just completely, underestimated. And part of it is because it's not that easy on a dating app or just online to see

Starting point is 00:40:50 someone's kindness. And so when you're out on a date with them, I want you to look for things like how they treat the wait staff, how they treat people that they don't need anything from, even how they treat you. The second one is emotional stability. And this is really about someone who can get through a relationship and not react, that they can actually take a beat, see what the situation is and really respond rather than react. And this is correlated with great relationships. And then some of the other ones are a growth mindset, something that I know you talk about on the show. And so someone who, when they're met with the challenge, they can say, okay, well, I don't that skill, but I'll create that skill, versus somebody with a fixed mindset who says, you know,

Starting point is 00:41:31 you're born with the skills you have and like, I'll never become good at that because I'm not good at that now. and then the ability to fight well together. So people think, oh, I want to find someone who I don't fight with at all. It's like, no, fights are inevitable. And there's research from the Gottman's that says that 69% of the fights you have are perpetual. That means you're going to constantly fight about it for your whole relationship. Like, I'm an early bird and my husband is more of a late bird. And like, we always disagree about time and when we get to the airport.

Starting point is 00:42:00 And so it's about fighting well. It's not about not fighting. And then the final one, which has become super important to me, and as part of my questions of the post-date 8 that we'll talk about, is what side of you that person brings out. And this is really crucial because so often we date someone for their resume, their bio data. We say, he has all the qualities my mom told me to look for. He went to the right schools. He has the right job. But if when you show up, he makes you feel anxious or insecure or less than or he doesn't laugh at your jokes, which makes you think.

Starting point is 00:42:34 think, oh, am I not as funny as I thought I was? Pay attention to that. That is your body telling you that you don't feel comfortable with this person and they're not bringing out the side of you who you want to be because whoever you marry, you're going to be the side of yourself that they bring out. And so so much of what I try to do is to help people tune into their nervous system and to how they feel on the date and after the date because who cares about the resume? Who cares about their job?

Starting point is 00:43:03 Do you like who you are around them? Yeah. I love that you broke that down from a data perspective and it totally matches with what my intuition's been saying for so long because everything you mentioned in the second category are completely about how someone is in a relationship versus how someone is anywhere else in their life, which just doesn't correlate. And I think so many people get into relationships because of all of the first script. And we don't even think about the second until you're deep into it, engaged, married and then you go, wait a minute, like this person isn't kind. Like, one of my favorite things about my wife is that she doesn't judge me. Like, that has to be one of

Starting point is 00:43:40 the most freeing, most beautiful things is that I can try something, I can do this, I can be bad at this, I can be good at this, and I don't feel judged. And that's like the ultimate experience of kindness where I don't feel like anything I do is judged, whether I work too hard or work too little, whether I made a decision there or here. There's a sense of trust and there's a sense of commitment and there's a sense of understanding. At the same time, she's the first one to roast me and call me out if she wants to and she's able to do that too and I think that feels so safe for me at least in what kindness looks like and I think of that as such an important thing to look for as you rightly pointed out from the data as opposed to like yeah do they are they this tall do they

Starting point is 00:44:23 hang out at the same places as I do do they you know whatever else it may be that that comes up what do you think is the biggest lie we've been sold in love I would have to say that the biggest lie that we've been sold in love is this idea of the spark. And it's sort of become my unofficial tagline or motto, which is the spark. And I really do believe this because I think that when people go on dates looking for instant chemistry, they often miss out on great potential partners. So the first myth of the spark is that if you don't feel it at the beginning, you'll never have it. And we know from the research that that's not true. So only 11% of people experience love at first sight with their partner. And so I think because of rom-coms, because of Disney movies, we just sort of

Starting point is 00:45:06 expect, like, I'll know it when I see it, he'll walk into the room, we'll catch eyes at the farmer's market, and we'll live happily ever after. And that's just not true. Like, so many people are with someone who they spent time with. I just saw this funny meme yesterday that was like, your coworker isn't hot. You just spend 40 hours a week 10 feet from him. And I was like, you nailed it. That's called the mere exposure effect. Oftentimes, the more time you're around someone or the more times you hear a song, the more you like it because you get more familiar with it. And so it's not true that if you don't feel the spark, you never will. The spark often does grow over time. And the second myth of the spark is that if you have it,

Starting point is 00:45:46 it's a good thing. So sometimes the spark is a good thing and those people get married and have great relationships. But a lot of times it's actually our brains and our bodies giving off alarm bells. Like, I feel insecure around this person. Does he like me? Does he not like me? And so we interpret it as chemistry when it's actually anxiety. And having done this research for a long time, I actually find that certain people are just really sparky. They're either really good looking or sometimes it's that they're really narcissistic and they can really layer on the charm. But that doesn't mean that they're going to be good long-term partners. It just means that in the moment you felt this connection to them or this attraction to them. But sometimes that spark is actually the sign of anxiety and not

Starting point is 00:46:31 knowing where you stand with them. Yeah. And the third thing, the third myth of the spark is that if you have it, then the relationship is viable. And that's also not true. I researched so many couples going into my book and for my other work that started with the spark. They really had it at the beginning. And then they thought this is enough. But they thought all the time, they didn't have shared values. And so, yes, the spark can get you pretty far into a relationship, but it's not enough. And so make sure that you don't get into the wrong relationship because you met the quote-unquote right way. This is so refreshing to hear because I feel like it just shows the power of cultural conditioning and messaging. It's one of the reasons why we launched our production company Perfect Strangers last week because our goal was how do we create entertaining storytelling?

Starting point is 00:47:20 But that's actually based on reality so we can transform these messages because like you said, we've all grown up watching two people lock eyes. and everything makes sense or drive off with the happily ever after. And that's what we want. And that's what I wanted quite frankly. Like that's what I was looking for when I was a teenager. And I always believed that that's what love was. And now feeling like I'm in love and being in a loving relationship that's evolving, I don't think that's what love's like at all.

Starting point is 00:47:50 But it's hard when you're dating and you're hoping for it. You're going to all these dates and you're like, well, that was boring. That wasn't fun enough. And then you go and even if you're watching a TV show, a reality show, which isn't real. Like, it's based on an island in the middle of nowhere. Oh, my gosh. Everyone's in bikinis and whatever.

Starting point is 00:48:04 And it's like, that's not real life. And so how is that going to, you know, it's the kind of like the seeds of ideas that are planted in all of our minds of what healthy love looks like. You actually never see healthy love because it's just happening behind closed doors inside someone's house. They're not broadcasting it. Right. It's not as fun on a TV show to see, like, the day in and day out work that people have to do. and it's the hard conversation that you have to have. It's supporting a partner when they're going through depression or ailing parents. It's just not as cinematic. And like what is cinematic is two people

Starting point is 00:48:40 meeting each other, but we've become so obsessed with the we met. And if you meet someone and you're with them for 50 years, the day you met is 0.005% of your total relationship. And so when you hear that, you're like, who cares about the we met? But people want to say at the dinner party, well, I was at the library and I was returning a book and he was looking for the same book. And it's like, yes, that is cute and that is romantic. But what's romantic is the fact that you met and you're making a great relationship not really based on how you met. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about dating apps.

Starting point is 00:49:15 Yeah. Because that is how the majority of people are meeting today as far as I know. Statistically, is that true? Yeah. So since 2017, there's research from Michael Rosenfeld at Stanford that shows that meeting online is the number one way that couples meet. Yeah. Right. So that's, we have to talk about it.

Starting point is 00:49:30 Let's do it. Do dating apps make us feel like we're replaceable? I think that there is a big sense of the paradox of choice, this idea that when we have so many options, we don't value each one as much or that we regret our decision. And so I think the best part of dating apps is that it's a lot easier to find someone, especially if you're in what we call a thin market. So daters over 55, LGBTQ plus daters, someone where it might have been hard to go around your community and say, well, who's single and who's looking for someone like me? And so it really does a good

Starting point is 00:50:03 job at connecting people who wouldn't have met otherwise. But I do think it introduces this idea of many choices and people are struggling with that. If you're at the opposite end where you're getting zero matches on a dating app, how do you fix that? Where would you suggest people start? The number one thing to do if you are having trouble getting matches is to fix your profile. And your profile is essentially like your billboard. And it's this one chance with, limited real estate to share who you are and what you're about. And I can share some of the top tips we found at Hinge for making a great profile. Yeah, please. So the first thing is that your first photo is so important. Just from watching people go through profiles, I can tell you that what they do is

Starting point is 00:50:43 they look at the first picture, they decide if they like you or not, and then based on that, they keep looking. So the first picture really matters a ton. And you want one that's a clear headshot, doesn't have to be a professional headshot, but I can see what you look like. You're not wearing sunglasses, there's no shadow, there's no filter, just show me what you look like. That's really where to start. And obviously, it should be flattering. Then you want to have a variety of photos that show me different parts of yourself. So it's almost like, show me the story of who you are. A mistake that I see people making a lot is, you know, if a guy likes anime, he'll write about that on his hinge profile, have photos from anime. And it's like, got it. You love anime. Hopefully the next

Starting point is 00:51:22 person does too. But like, isn't there more to you? Show me more variety. And so you want to have the first head shot, then you want to have a photo of you doing an activity that you love. So it could be cooking, hiking, you know, my friend is a magician. He has a picture of himself on stage. Then you also want to have a full body shot. Some people don't like that, but it's true. People are looking for what you look like. And then you want to have one with friends and family. Give me a sense of what it would be like to date you. Show me that you have people that care about you and that you spend time with. And then for your prompts on Hinge, you want a mixture of humor and vulnerability. So, you know, if you love dad jokes, include that. I love on Hinge, there's voice prompts where you can

Starting point is 00:52:04 record something funny. So my friend has one where the prompt is how to pronounce my name. And then he says, Joe. And obviously, you know, some people write back and they're like, what, you think I don't know how to pronounce the name Joe? And he's like, not for me. And other people are like, I love your sense of humor. And so I think that's like perfect. And that actually leads me to a big point around profiles, which is that you don't want to attract everyone. You don't want to be chocolate ice cream that everyone likes.

Starting point is 00:52:34 You want to be, you know, mint chip. You want to be something that some people like and some people don't like. And in our research at Hinge, we actually found this where we did an experiment. This wasn't on Hinge. It was like with different people and they knew they were participating, where some people wrote on their profiles really specifically, that they were looking for something serious. And other people wrote that they're, you know, just looking for someone kind and adventurous. And what we found was for the people who wanted something serious, they liked those more serious profiles way more. And the people who weren't looking for something serious were turned off by their profiles. And that is exactly what you want. You want to turn the right people on and the wrong people off. You want fewer options, but you want those options to be really aligned with what you're looking for. Yeah, that's great. And you can really then filter out the nonsense because if you want something serious, why waste time?

Starting point is 00:53:25 Yes. Yeah. It's not a popularity contest. It's not to get the most likes. It's really be more efficient. Match with the people who want what you want. On Hinge, we have dating intentions where you can say, looking for long term, short term. Like, just get more specific about what you're looking for and then the right people are

Starting point is 00:53:42 going to find you. If you're trying to be, you know, the golden retriever that everyone likes, it's just harder to actually find the right match. I want to try something with you. Sure. We have two hinged dating profiles where we've got permission from the individuals for their face to be used in their pictures. And I'm going to pass this to you in a second. And I want you to rate them and help them based on the scale you just told us what we can do it right.

Starting point is 00:54:23 So there's one guy and one girl. So I'm going to show you this one. Wait, I thought this was Will Arnett. No. It's not. Oh my God. That's so funny. It's not Will Arnett.

Starting point is 00:54:34 Okay. So the first picture, I would say, it's not a hedgernet. shot, but it's, you know, I do get a sense of what this person looks like. There's good lighting. I feel like the body language is a little closed off, just like standing in that way arms in front of you to me. You know, I'm not Vanessa Van Edwards, but I feel like it kind of gives me a sense of someone who's like a little more timid, not as confident. But I think that the first verto is okay, but let's see the rest of the profile. Okay, good. That's helpful. Okay, a random fact I love is that honey never expires. I just don't love that prompt. It's not one of my favorites because it doesn't show me anything about who you are. And I like to think about your profile not just as what you write, but even the prompts you choose to respond to. And I like to think about it as almost like a menu at a restaurant. You should choose a prompt that shows who you are. You should choose a prompt that shows what you're looking for.

Starting point is 00:55:33 And so I think a random fact, it's like, okay, maybe that's a good conversation starter where someone can say, I didn't realize that, but it's just not that revealing. And even being towards the top of the profile, I kind of feel like it's a little bit of a waste of special real estate. Love how honest you are. This is very useful. This is very helpful. It never crosses my mind to not be honest. No, but it's very helpful because I think these are the things that we all trip ourselves up for and we want to help them find love. For sure. Okay. So this one is interesting. So for work, they said, entertainment. So one thing I've seen, and talking to a lot of people about their profiles, is that, or sorry, talking to people who look at profiles, is that when someone's too vague, people often jump to negative assumptions. So I worked with a client who said, and this is in the Bay Area, if a guy says entrepreneur, I assume he's unemployed and I swipe left. And I was like, what? Like, there's just so many ways of being an entrepreneur. And so what I would say is my advice for him is to maybe be a little more specific because people might just assume the wrong thing. And my advice to people viewing this profile or other profiles would be, if there's something that gives you a yellow flag, don't just swipe left or say no, actually ask instead of assume. Okay, so this next one wearing the suit, I think what I get from it is that I kind of get the same thing as I do from the first one. Like he's making a very similar

Starting point is 00:56:55 expression. It's kind of shot from a similar angle. He's not really smiling. I feel like it's a cute suit, but I don't get that much more information. Okay, the next one. Oh, this guy likes women, right? Was I making an assumption? Okay, the next one is with him and his friend. I like it because I think there's an intimacy there. It looks like he's wearing a cross necklace, which maybe gives me some more information. He's sort of making the same smile with no teeth. I think that one's okay. and then green flags I look for appreciating sarcasm. I really don't like that one. We know there's a lot of hinge app cliches,

Starting point is 00:57:37 and one of them is the one I'm fluent in sarcasm. I think this is similar where it's just like, I don't really learn that much about you. There's not a lot of detail. It kind of just makes you fade into the background. Okay, the next one I really don't like. He's looking away from the camera. I can't really see his face.

Starting point is 00:57:55 to me that picture kind of like pushes me away versus draws me in. Sorry, I'm being mean to this guy. No, no, it's not mean, because we're hoping that he can actually, he's getting, this is like, this is gold dust. You're getting direct advice from the next one, my greatest strength picking the spot. I'm just like, bro, there's so much more that you could say here. Just get specific. There's this rule in comedy that the specific is the universal.

Starting point is 00:58:24 The more specific you are, the more people will actually relate to it and the funnier it is. And I'm just like, this is so vague, picking the spot for what? And then the next one is a video of him playing tennis. You know, I like that it's, you know, someone doing an activity you love, but it's like, it's from behind. Could it have perhaps shown you from the front? And so guys especially tell me, like, I don't have better pictures. They're like, I don't go around, ask my friends to take pictures of me. I know our friend Jared Freed and his special 37 and single.

Starting point is 00:58:56 He's just like talking about how like imagine if guys were like girls like at the bachelor party like, okay, take a picture of me here. But still, guys, like step it up. Yeah. And then, you know, I think I don't mind the tennis one. But I would much refer to it was from the front. And then the last one is him with his friends. And I'm kind of like, okay, I see the crew. So going back to the top, what I would.

Starting point is 00:59:22 say is I want you to find a better first photo that really shows you headshot style, clearly what you look like, and I don't really see you smiling with your teeth much, but I would love to see one of those. I want you to just start from scratch on the prompts. I want you to give more specific answers, longer answers. I want to have a clear sense of who you are, what you're about, what you want, and I would maybe keep one of the more professional looking photos, either the first one or the one in the suit. I like the ones of you and your friends, but I would maybe choose, no, I'll actually like both of them. I think the tennis one, can you try to get one where I can see your face? And, yeah, just add more specificity and tell me more about what you're looking for.

Starting point is 01:00:11 because right now I think this profile feels generic and I think we could make it more specific. Great advice. And is there a need to rate you on a scale of 1 to 10 or not really? Because I don't know him, it's harder for me to do that. Like in my coaching, a big conversation I have with people as I say, this profile doesn't match the person I'm seeing in front of me. Like you're so vibrant, you're so funny, I don't see that here.

Starting point is 01:00:37 And a great achievement for me in coaching was when I had this client, And he was South Asian and people often put him in a box. They were like, South Asian engineer. Like, I know everything about him. And then I was like, he's actually so silly. And we made his profile extremely silly. And we added videos of him wearing different costumes. And we really played that up.

Starting point is 01:00:59 And then a few years after we stopped working together, he sent me a text that he was engaged and that the person that he had gotten engaged to had first liked his hinge video of him being really silly. And it's like by being more clear about who he was, you couldn't put him in a box. You could actually see who he was. And so I don't have a rating for this profile because I don't know the person,

Starting point is 01:01:21 so I don't know how true to life this is. But I think there's a lot of room for improvement and just be more chalant. Yeah, I love it. Great advice. So now I'm going to hand you another profile, list of a woman, and I'd love to see what you have to say.

Starting point is 01:01:34 Great. It's funny because I just sometimes feel like women are way better at profiles because they just have so many more photos of them and they're probably more comfortable asking their friends. So maybe first I'm just going to look at the whole thing to get a vibe and then I'll have some comments. So first photo, I really like it. Like I love the lighting. I like the vibe. I like her smile. You know, it could potentially be cropped in a little bit more. There's like a little more visual information and noise than we

Starting point is 01:02:04 need. Like I think it could be cropped more on her face. But I like it. And I think I, the number one thing is, can I see clearly what she looks like and I can. Okay, the next one is my greatest strength, turning chaos into a good story later. I actually like that one. To me, reading between the lines, I get a good vibe from it, which is I'm a person that can deal with different situations. Like, if something goes wrong, I'm not going to fall apart. And it actually reminds me, I used to work at Airbnb a long time ago. We would talk about how like a really great Airbnb traveler was somebody who knows that when things go wrong, that's when they get interesting.

Starting point is 01:02:41 And like that's the vibe that I get from her where she's not afraid of discomfort or adventure. She's like, it makes a good story later. So maybe I'm like overly reading into it, but I like that. But that's probably good, right? It got you curious. It got you engaged. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:02:57 That's good. One thing I didn't mention on the other person's profile is this idea of a hook. So a lot of times people think about a profile as a monologue. I'm just talking at you. But a great profile should be a, dialogue where I'm starting the conversation and you respond. So turning chaos into a good story later. And then she could add a question that says, ask me about the time that I almost got

Starting point is 01:03:21 kidnapped in Vietnam. Then I'm like, holy cow, I want to hear about Vietnam. I want to hear about that story. And so it initiates action. And it also, especially for women attracting men, it's like, just make it easy for them. Just make it so that like they know what to ask you. Like, you want them to ask more questions? Like make it easy for them to start the conversation. Okay, I like that it's executive assistant at production company, you know, versus the person who wrote entertainment. There's more information. So she wrote Christian. And I think this is interesting because when I've gone through profiles with people that are swiping, sometimes they see Christian and they're like, well, I'm not religious. She must be so religious

Starting point is 01:03:58 to put it on there. I just don't think that's the case. That's a situation where you should ask instead of assumed. So does Christian to her mean that she's in mass every Sunday or does it mean that she celebrates Easter and Christmas? And so really finding out what that means to her. And then I love this. So on Hinge, she filled out her dating intention. So she's looking for a life partner. And she filled out her dating type and she put monogamy. So especially in the Bay Area, there's so many people who are like, thank God Hinge added dating type because I'm sick of going on dates with guys who are non-monogamous. And so anyway, I like that she used more of the information available. And for someone who's not looking for those things, she's going to turn them off. And that's a good thing.

Starting point is 01:04:41 Okay, the next picture, super cute. I kind of get a preppy vibe. Like, she's holding this little parasol. She's drinking. I like it. Like, I think I can see what she looks like. She looks cute. We could kind of call this a full body shot. But I think, I think what's great is that I'm just like getting a sense of her. Okay, the next one is also great because it's showing her with her friend, but I can tell which one she is. So a mistake that people make is like you'll have like 10 guys in baseball caps. And I'm like, which one is you? Like this is so annoying or like 10 girls in bridesmaid robes with the same southern curled hair.

Starting point is 01:05:24 And it's like, this isn't where's Waldo? Like make it easy for me to see what you look like. And so for this one, it's like I can tell like she's sort of glamorous. she has like you know a cute outfit but it's really easy to tell which one she is um i go crazy for someone who can cook well a truly spiritual experience um i think that one's good i think she could have more details like she could do another hook where it could be like um like message me if you know how to cook paella or like um let's have a french toast competition just something that's setting the other person out of

Starting point is 01:06:00 I like that, yeah. Okay, the next one. These are fantastic, by the way. Sure. You know, the next one, it's so funny, you know, like the idea of like a male gaze. Yeah. It's like, I definitely think this is like a hot photo and like a guy would be into it. And like, look, like there is kind of the strategic game part. And I think that that is like a great photo. And then typical Sunday. Okay, this is probably my number one favorite hinge prompt because there's so much you can do with typical Sunday. So let's see what you're out. Being outdoors, playing pickle, ball, she could play with you, Jay, or spending time around any area that has dogs around. I think that's okay. Like, I get a sense of her, but I think it could, like, have more detail or, like, being outdoors and playing pickleball, like, sort of similar. And so I would say, like, great prompts. I think many people should use it, but I would like a little more specificity. Like, are you dumplings at home on a Sunday girl, are you having dinner with your family every Sunday? Like, I think a little more detail. Okay, she has the full body shot. One thing I would say is that she definitely looks like very glamorous in a lot of these, which maybe if that's her vibe, that's great. But I'm not seeing as

Starting point is 01:07:12 much variety in terms of like, is she also just down to be with her friends. And so if this is truly who she is where she's like, I love to like get dressed up, have a cute purse, have a drink in my hand. If that's who she is, then she's portraying. that but I think it's possible and probable that there's more to her and that like she looks great in all the pictures but they are a little bit one note so like a picture in sweats if if you spend time in sweats or no yeah or like maybe like her with her family being a little bit more like girl next door and so this is another one where I'm like I don't know who she is so maybe this is accurate and maybe she's like this is what I'm doing right now but I think she's maybe

Starting point is 01:07:52 lacking a little bit of that variety but I would say like this is like a good with potential for a little bit more variety and maybe a little more specificity. But I think she is like beautiful and chose great pictures. And we do get a sense of who she is and what she likes. Fantastic. Great. Thank you, Logan. Thank you so much. A deep reading of the hinge profile. Yeah, very deep. I love it. I mean, what you just showed us is that someone could be working on that first profile and have that up there and maybe get very few matches, not because they're not a great guy and not a great and have so much to offer, but just because that's the bio, that's the resume that people are seeing, and there's nothing for them to engage on, I really appreciate what you said about making it

Starting point is 01:08:37 easy for men, because, I mean, I think about even back when I had to approach someone, it was so much more easier to approach a woman who made it easier for me to approach her, and it would take so much courage to approach someone who gave you no signals whatsoever. And so even for her, if she really wants people to lean in, giving them that opportunity to say, let's have a, you know, cooking competition or whatever it was or whatever it may be. I think that invitation for action, that initiation is so important. Right. It's like it's not a test. It's a layup. Like make it easy for the other person to know what to engage you on. And so if you aren't getting the number of matches you want, first thing I would do is make your profile as good as possible, show it to some

Starting point is 01:09:15 friends, get some new pictures, say to your closest friend is the person who you see in front of you, the same person you see in this profile and if not change it. The second thing I would do is send comments instead of just likes. So this really trains the algorithm to show who you're looking for. Comments are much more likely to lead to a date than just sending a like. And it just shows more effort, right? We're talking about shalant dating. So put more effort in. Hinge actually just launched something within the past few months called Convo starters. And it's a way to basically use AI, not to write the message for you, but just to kind of spark inspiration where it's like if it's a girl playing chess, you know, there might be like a little bubble that pops up that says like checkers

Starting point is 01:09:57 versus chest. And then you can say, oh yeah, that's a good idea. I'm going to ask her about backgammon. And so it's kind of just like that little coach in your pocket that's telling you, like if you're stuck on what to say, here are a few ideas and it has it like for each picture and each prompt. We hear so many people say, though, there's no good people on the apps. What are they missing? Yeah, it's so complicated. Like I hear that all the time. And I think there's plenty of good people out there. There's just all these misconnections. And I don't think it's just about apps. I think it's about everyday life. Like, I feel like we're just missing each other. And this has become kind of an obsession of mine. Have you heard of the term friction maxing?

Starting point is 01:10:32 I've heard of it. Please explain it. What is friction maxing? So this is something I've been thinking about for a few years, but there was this viral article about friction maxing. And I was like, yes, like, that's the word that I've been looking for. And so friction maxing is choosing to put more inconvenience into your life in order to have more human connection. Go to the grocery store instead of ordering Instacart. You know, take the subway where you're going to interact with people overtaking an Uber. And it's like these tech companies have kind of convinced us your life should be as convenient as possible and you will be happy when you reduce friction.

Starting point is 01:11:04 And I think that's a lie. Like, think about the definition of friction. It's when two things rub against each other. And if you think about that in the real world, it's like rubbing shoulders with someone in line at an event or just meeting new people. And so I think that we've become obsessed with self-care and boundaries. And like, those things are great, but I think it's a little out of control where self-care often is selfish. This is my schedule. And we can't hang out unless you can definitely do it on my schedule or like, I go to bed at 8 p.m. every night. So I could never go on a date with you in the evening. It's like in kind of protecting yourself from discomfort, you're really missing the chance to interact with people. And like, I'm just seeing this all the time. And I see it with myself. Like there just is that urge. What's the most. convenient option, and I'm really trying to fight it in my own life, adding more friction in, being more around other people, fighting the isolation. And so I think that when you approach

Starting point is 01:12:01 someone in public, it is riskier and you might get rejected, but you're creating friction that might lead to a great result. And so I think all of us have to increase our ability to withstand discomfort because it's going to lead to great stories and so many more relationships. Yeah, well said. Well said. Can you explain friction maxing, shalond dating, can you explain what Rose Jail is and why people experiencing it? Not my favorite topic, yes. Yeah, so Rose Jail is something that, you know, I don't hear about it as much now, but a few years ago where people feel like, oh, the people that I want to see on Hinge, I have to buy money or spend money on a rose to get them. And so what I would say is like the rose system does work and that we see that people that

Starting point is 01:12:47 send a rose are two times as likely as other people to actually get to a date. Yeah, that sounds like good odds. It's, uh, what's interesting about the friction max and going back to that, it's almost just helpful to be out there and bumping into people and meeting people because you actually become better at conversation. You get find new things to talk about. You have more experiences. We have a loneliness epidemic in the world anyway.

Starting point is 01:13:09 And so the ability to just be in public places and bump into people and, and other things. Like, I mean, I'm pickleball's biggest promoter, but it's, I, I'm, I'm, I have made so many casual pickleball friends just by playing pickleball at public courts. And it's just one of those things where you just start a game up with someone and you get to know each other and next thing you know, you're hanging out. And I feel the same is true. I was at a, my friend runs a really cool acting class and he asked me to come check it out. And I went a couple of weeks ago just to observe. And everyone in his class, like, you could tell they just have this amazing community. I was like, I wish everyone came to this class because

Starting point is 01:13:43 there was such a great energy there and people were encouraging each other. They were kind. And I was like, you could easily find someone here to match with. I was just thinking about all the possibilities of places where there is community built around something singular, almost. Like, we know that just, you know, 30 to 40 years ago, people would meet at their church or place of worship, people would meet in the building they lived in. Like, you needed almost this singular place where you congregated for a particular need, which is how we met people, whether it was a Sunday roast or a family dinner and family friends were invited. and it almost feels like we've lost that. And I think that's what you're encouraging people to do. Absolutely.

Starting point is 01:14:20 And there was this quote going around last year. The cost of community is inconvenience. And I think people are just so obsessed with making their lives friction list and not ever inconveniencing themselves that they forget that, yeah, it's not that fun to help your friend move, but that's part of being a friend and being in a community. And I would say in my life, I've sort of taken this to the extreme. So during the pandemic, my husband and I moved into this commune with 20 of our friends. And so we each had our own little apartment, but you have 20 people living together and having dinner together every night.

Starting point is 01:14:51 And those were some of the happiest years of my life. And yes, sometimes there was friction. You know, it's 2020. We had to have these like long, boring, antagonistic meetings about COVID protocol. But that was the price that you pay to live with your friends. And I think that we constantly choose what we think is best for ourselves. But what we really do is make things convenient. And then we are more isolated. And then we are more isolated. And like when you're at home behind your screen, you're not out there meeting new people. And it's not just about meeting the guy you're going to marry. It's about meeting the girl who has a brother, who has a friend, who you're going to meet if you all go to that festival together. And I think that like if you tie a lot of the strings together that we're talking about, like there's a loneliness epidemic. There's men and women who are thinking that the other person wants something different from them. And like, the more times that you put yourself in places where you're going to meet someone, the more friction you're creating, the more opportunity for connection that you're taking. And I hope that

Starting point is 01:15:49 that's a big message that people take away from this conversation is be a shalant dater. Put your effort out there. Be willing to get rejected. Friction max. Put yourself in more situations where it's not convenient, but you're going to meet more people. And like, isn't that what life is really about? Totally. It's so true. And I think that's, it feels like the ethos of this whole conversation, which is like seek discomfort, become more resilient, live with the challenge that there is a high rejection proportion of just finding the one. And the one thing I like to remind people also is that if everyone liked you and you liked everyone, it wouldn't be that valuable of a discovery. Like the beautiful thing about love is that you found someone who wants to work with you on it and you

Starting point is 01:16:31 want to work with them on it and how special is that? And if you felt that with every person you went out on a date with or if every person responded to you positively, well, then we wouldn't value love as much. The reason why we value love and long-term relationships is because they're rare, because they're special, they're hard, they're not, they're not something that you feel freely available with everyone. Absolutely. And I do this work. And my mission is really to help people find love because I think it's one of the most important things that you can experience and who you choose as your partner. That's your board of directors. That's a person advising you, right? Like, you become the average of the people that you're around and your partner is going to be one of those

Starting point is 01:17:08 people. And so I think that it really deserves a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of care. And that the more that we can put that effort in and not be afraid of it, the more great relationships we're going to have. Do you believe in right person wrong time? That's funny that you ask that because I've been thinking about it lately. So, you know, this is kind of a thing that people say, like, timing is everything. And I used to not believe that. I used to believe if it was the right match, the person would make it the right time. And my thinking on that has changed where if you're dating someone, but they're in medical school and they really don't have time for you, I don't think it's going to work out. So I would say the right person during the wrong time is not the right

Starting point is 01:17:49 person. Got it. Yeah. It's a question I love to ask people because I feel like these are those, maybe the romanticizers who have this, like, way of thinking about something. keeps them trapped. Yeah, like I was just asked this question the other week where this person was like, oh, I was dating this guy, but he recently got out of a relationship. And then we were fighting a lot. And I ended things. Do you think it was timing? And I was like, no, I think you were fighting a lot because you weren't a good fit, not because of timing. And sometimes we can get really obsessed with timing. But I think that, like, you know, in behavioral science, so much is the environment. And it's like if the environment that you're dating in is that they're not ready, well, that means that you shouldn't be in a

Starting point is 01:18:29 relationship. Do people quit relationships too fast now? Yes, I think that people give up too easily. This is what we were talking about. So remember, there's the work-it-out mindset, the idea that, of course, relationships take effort. And so when you hit that inevitable rough spot, don't say, well, we disagreed on this. So instead of having a hard conversation, I'll just end it. And that really goes back to the ethos of what we've been talking about. Like, understand that relationships require inconvenience, discomfort, friction. And so when you have that first fight say, wow, I guess you feel really strongly about that. And let's have a conversation about it versus being like, this is too much work. And so I would say, yes, dating apps provide more options to meet more people, but don't treat people like they're disposable because

Starting point is 01:19:31 that's just a recipe for sort of burning and turning relationships and really understand that each relationship is an opportunity to invest in someone. Yeah. And it goes back to what you were saying earlier about moving towards the workout mindsets. You mentioned. Like just, it's almost like you're getting to practice what a real relationship looks like. And that first difficult moment is like this brilliant moment to actually realize what skills you do have, what skills you don't have, what attitude that person's willing to come at. I was wondering, I love that you have such, I mean, your advice, Logan, is so brilliant. And it's no surprise with the incredible work that you do online and offline. Thank you.

Starting point is 01:20:08 But I, yeah, I really mean it. It's so great. and it feels so real and actionable and genuine to, it's not playing a game, it's not some manipulation strategy, it's not, you know, it's really authentic. When it comes to evaluating a great date, because as you said, we usually get distracted by the spark. If the spark is not there, we're probably not going to go out on another date. And if we force ourselves to go on a second day and there's no spark again, we're probably not going to go on a third. I think we have very limited tools to evaluate a successful date, but I know you have an approach

Starting point is 01:20:41 that is far more comprehensive, what should people be asking after they go on a date with someone? So I have this tool called the post date eight, and these are eight questions to ask yourself after a date. And the research behind this is really based on gratitude journals. So if every day you have to write down at the end of the day five things you are grateful for, it changes how you live your life because throughout the day you're looking for those salt things and you're appreciating them, right? Like I made the bus when I almost could have missed it or it was really sunny and I got a table outside. So it trains your brain to look for the positives. And the same thing is true with this post date eight. So these are eight questions that you ask yourself after a date. And they are things like,

Starting point is 01:21:24 what side of me did the person bring out? How did I feel in my body around them? Did I feel relaxed or did I feel uptight? Did I feel heard? Did I feel attractive? Did they make me laugh? And what's really important is that these questions are not, are they good enough for me? Is he hot enough? Does she have an impressive enough job? There, who am I around them? And it goes back to what we said about dating for the dynamic versus dating for the resume. And so there's this idea of dating experientially, what is the experience of being around you versus dating evaluatively, dating to see if you're good enough for me. Yeah, it's it's almost like you're either testing them or you're getting carried away. And what you're saying is that the evaluation eight questions allow you to check in on yourself

Starting point is 01:22:14 and see, how do I feel? Like, how is this going? And how is this for real is what it feels like being together rather than what it feels like being with their resume, being with their data, being with, you know, and so yeah, we're either testing them like, are they good enough for me, are they not? Are they good enough for my friends? Or sometimes, sometimes, we're just so lost in our own world of like, will they like me? Do they like me? Right. We're in that opposite space of am I good enough to hesitate her. It's not did I find them attractive. It's did I feel attractive around them? I feel like that's such a big shift for people. And going back to the three myths of the spark, so many times people miss an amazing person because they're not sparky.

Starting point is 01:22:53 And so my antidote to the spark is to look for the slow burn. And the slow burn is the person who may not be initially as charismatic or sparky, but they would be an amazing partner long term. I think this is one of the greatest contributions I've had to the discourse is I get so many emails from people that are like, I've followed what you said. I looked for the slow burn. I'm engaged with slow burn and I'm so happy. This is the kind of guy I would have overlooked. And a way to use the post date eight is to do it after each date and to see over time do I like them more and more. Because the sparky people often burnout quickly. And maybe after the third date, you might say, oh, you know, like it turns out he's like a little narcissistic or we don't really have that much to talk about. Whereas the slow burn

Starting point is 01:23:38 person, each time you date them, you are more curious about them. You like them more and more. So it's a journaling exercise, really, to track how you feel with different people and if your interest in them grows or decreases over time. Yeah, I love that approach. I really hope, I really, really hope everyone who's listening and watching applies that. I think it would change everything for them. Logan, I want to go a bit more philosophical with you, a bit more, like, higher level of, like, how do you define love? When you ask the question, I got a really strong internal feeling where I just heard the word acceptance. And it think it reminds me of what you said about you and Roddy, where she really accepts you for who you are and you don't feel judgment.

Starting point is 01:24:18 And when I think about the people that love me, I think about my parents, my sister, some of my best friends, my husband, my daughter, where it's like, you're not under the microscope. They're not deciding, like, do I want to see you again or not? They're really just like, I love you in all your messiness. And I remember one time I was talking to my friend Kristen, and I was like, you know, sometimes I'm a little avoidant when I have a hard situation. She's like, duh, we all know that. And like, I got embarrassed, but I was like, what she's saying is like, I see you in your shadow and your light and I love you for all. all of those things. And I think that acceptance and belonging is really what makes us feel safe.

Starting point is 01:24:59 And I think one of the reasons why I've had the career I've had, which I feel really proud of, is because my husband is such a rock and I feel so much acceptance from him, his love is really unconditional. And like, when you have this foundation of unconditional love, like, you can go fly high and like take a lot of risk and risk rejection because, like, you come home to this really beautiful foundation of acceptance. And when people want to find love, like, I want that for them so badly because I also want them to tuck into their bed at night and, like, have that person that is unconditionally loving them. And that's really my wish for so many people. That's a beautiful answer. I love that. Is love enough? You need love, but it's not enough.

Starting point is 01:25:41 So it's required, but it's not the only thing. And what you also need is sustained effort. and, you know, we're at the age where a lot of our friends are having young kids, right? And I get so many questions from clients of mine, close friends of mine, et cetera, where they're like, I just don't feel as connected. And one of my mentors, Eli Finkel, he has this great book called The All or Nothing Marriage. And he talks about different times in a relationship. And he has this great word recalibration. So sometimes if someone's dealing with a hard situation at work or a difficult moment with their parents, or having young kids at home, you have to recalibrate your expectations. Like maybe it's not going to be the most fun year of your marriage.

Starting point is 01:26:24 Maybe you're going to have sex a little less often. Maybe you're going to fight a little bit more. So recalibrate your expectations in those hard moments instead of like exiting, just understand that it's going to be a slightly bumpier ride. And so I think that true relationships last through some really hard years, sometimes some infidelity and that love is enough to get you into a relationship, but it's not enough to keep you in it. I love the recalibration, and it's so fascinating how we think things should stay the same through all this change, right?

Starting point is 01:26:56 Most of us want our relationship to stay exactly the same, no matter how much change we're going through, whether that's moving country, changing job, having a child, all these major transitions in life, which naturally require us to reestablish what our connection pattern is, what the amount of time we spend together is, all of that, and all of that. all of a sudden we just throw out of the window and say, well, if you love me, it should be this way. It should be this way always and forever. But how would that even be possible? It's fascinating that we, it's perplexing that with that way, but it's fascinating too that we think things staying the same is a sign of love. Absolutely. And there's a great behavioral science principle for this, this transitive fallacy where we sort

Starting point is 01:27:39 of think the way that it feels when something changes is the way it'll feel forever. So we think that falling in love is the same as being in love, but it's totally different. It goes back to adaptation, right? We adapt to the things around us. So winning the lottery will feel good for a certain period of time. And then, you know, being wealthy is a different state. And so if you're in a relationship and it doesn't feel as intense as when you first fell in love, that's the natural cycle. And if you just keep being a person that breaks up and searches for that falling in love again, you're sort of missing the bigger picture. Last one of these. What makes a good partner? I think there's so many things. that go into being a good partner. So I just talked about love as being accepted. So I think

Starting point is 01:28:21 accepting your partner, sometimes people are like, do you think people change? And I think my answer is sometimes they change, sometimes they don't, but you can't be with someone for their potential because what if they never change? You need to accept them for who they are now and they probably will change, but that's not a guarantee. I think communication, it's a cliche, but it's true. There's kind of this joke that like the answer to every advice column is always like have a conversation. Like, what should I do with my neighbor who plays music? It's like, have a conversation. What should I do with my mother-in-law? She shows up without being invited. Have a conversation. It's like, yes, like conversations are what keep relationships alive. And going back to shallant dating, I saw this

Starting point is 01:29:03 stat that was like 90% of women. Like, what they really want is not to go to an expensive restaurant and not how much money the guy spent on the date, but really how invested in the conversation is he. And so I think communication is a huge one. And then I think the growth mindset that really encompasses a lot. It's like life changes, you'll change. Do we feel like we're a team and we're on the same side and we're working together towards the life we want? Or are we adversaries that are opposite sides of the pickleball court? And when you win and you go away with your friends, I lose because I have to stay home with our kid. And instead it's like we over me. How do you know if you're asking for too much. There's a big difference between settling where you feel like you have these deal

Starting point is 01:29:50 breakers that are really important to you and you're not getting them met and satisfying, which is understanding that you should double down on the things that matter and compromise on the rest. So let me get a little bit more specific. And I actually wanted to answer this before when you're talking about, you know, the things that matter and don't matter. So as people get older especially, and I, you know, I have this Netflix show, the later daters. And it's daters over 55. And so like, I have just seen this so much. The older you get, the more you add to your list, because you're like, I've waited this long, she better be perfect. And so what happens is we confuse pet peeves for deal breakers. So a pet peeve would be something like, I'll date anyone

Starting point is 01:30:29 except a mouth breather. It's like, come on, like mouth breathing, that's not correlated with relationship satisfaction or not satisfaction. It's like something that maybe annoys you, but it's not that big of a deal or like socks with sandals. So it's like. Or even being six foot Oh my gosh. Yeah, I can go on a whole tangent about height, which is essentially like many women filter out men who are six feet. You know, they want a man who's six feet or taller. But 86% of adult men in the U.S. are under six feet. Wow. So you're excluding 86% of possible matches over something that does not matter for long-term relationship satisfaction. And so, you know, going back to pet peeves and deal breakers, the first thing I would do is make a list of what you think your pet peeves are what you think your deal breakers are, what your must-haves are, and then truly think, if I didn't have this thing, would it matter long-term? So, oh, I need a guy with a good sense of style. It's like, do you? Can you take him shopping? Like, who cares? Versus something like, I have asthma, I need a non-smoker, going back to religion. You know, for you, maybe it wasn't just the religion piece,

Starting point is 01:31:34 but for some people, if they're religious or they want to raise their kids in that faith, it is a deal-breaker. So kind of go through each one and try to move things to the pet peeves category. And then when you're dating, go really hard on those deal breakers and be true to yourself, but be more flexible on the pet peeves because they don't matter. Yeah, those icks. I don't know. Have you ever seen the guy on TikTok called Guy with the List? No.

Starting point is 01:31:57 Okay, so check it out after. I will. I have no affiliation, but I'm such a fan. So what he does is he finds videos of women on the internet that say they have an ick or they have something they don't like about men. And then he adds it to his list to not do that thing. So it's genius. Well, I feel like our friend Jared Freed is kind of like the king of the ick.

Starting point is 01:32:18 Is he? In what sense going? I love Jared. Oh, he has so many viral videos where he's like, I ask audience members why they rejected a guy. And they were like, I really liked him. I was going to go home with him. But then he went to pay the bill and I heard and it's the sound of somebody opening a Velcro wallet. That's so great.

Starting point is 01:32:37 Yeah, that's exactly it. Some of these are even worse. I haven't checked. I don't need to be an alarmist, but it's important. to stay vigilant. A few weeks ago, I met this guy out at a bar. He seemed normal. His friends seemed normal. So I went home with him. The next day, I was leaving and he said, oh, I'll walk you to the train station. I'm leaving as well. And out of nowhere, he just nonchalantly grabs his rollerblades and a speaker. And I was like, oh. So then what he does is he takes it and he adds it to his list.

Starting point is 01:33:07 That's such a good bit. And so his list has everything from don't wear goggles. Yeah. Don't leave an event early, have a different font, having a birthday is an ick. Like, it's just... That's so funny. Okay, guys, I just want to lock the new ick. This is so random. And I know people hate when people do icks and it's like, how do you get the ick by that? That's so ridiculous.

Starting point is 01:33:26 I don't know if anyone's ever said this one before. But like, when a lad has a birthday. Like, what, do you just be like, oh, happy birthday? Oh, my God. I could literally talk about this with you for hours because it's like, of course there's like a sense of humor. I mean, first of all, TikTok is so funny. I know, I love it.

Starting point is 01:33:45 So many people are so hilarious. Like that girl nailed the delivery of like, you know, I after rollerblader, a roller skater and like a performative one. But like it kind of goes back to the earlier part of our conversation around men and like the script that they follow because it's like a lot of women are saying, I make money so I don't care as much if you make money. I want you to be more emotionally available. I want you to be vulnerable. But then they also sort of get punished when they are. And I think that that's just because we haven't really figured out what masculinity looks like in this age. And it's like, why is having a birthday embarrassing?

Starting point is 01:34:21 Like, why can't like a 32-year-old guy, like, throw a birthday party? Why would that be cringe? And so, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts on the ick, but maybe just the one that I'll say is that are you using the ick to push people away? Because you're afraid of being in a relationship and it just gives you a reason to reject someone and not get close to them. Yeah, I mean, that statistic on height just blew my mind. I did not realize that that you're cutting out 86% of adult men in the United States. That's insane. The height thing drives me crazy because, first of all, I am married to a short king and I'm very happy about it.

Starting point is 01:34:53 But also it's like, you know, if you were at a bar and you're sitting at a stool next to someone and you lock eyes and you have an amazing conversation and you talk about your hopes and dreams and then the guy stands up and he's 58 or 59, are you not going to give him your number? No, you are because you had a vibe. you had a connection. But if you think about Hinge as kind of your club and your filters as the bouncers deciding who gets into your club or not, when you set really stringent filters on height, age, distance, you're really blocking so many people from coming into your club. And then you're going up to people like me and you and saying, where's my husband? Where's my wife? I can't find them. It's like, yeah, because they're all waiting in line and the bouncer rejected them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So well said. We have two segments to end today's

Starting point is 01:35:40 episode with you, we've invented a game for you called This or That, and this is for you, so we'll play that one first. So This or That, someone who loves you more or someone you love more? I think I want to love them a lot, but it's okay if they love me a little bit more than I love them. Okay, marry your best friend or someone you feel wild passion for. Ideal, like for a lot of them, like, ideally both, but it's like, I think the best friendship is going to last longer, but like you need to want to have sex with them. So I would say best friend but want to have sex. And like most people don't marry the person.

Starting point is 01:36:16 They had the best sex within their life. Like the most passionate relationship is sometimes because there's a little bit of like will she or won't she. And I would say if you're looking for like long term partnership, like best friend is like a safer bet. Yeah. Good answers. All right. Stay in a good enough relationship or risk being single for a long time waiting for great. Sorry to be so like.

Starting point is 01:36:37 But I think it matters who you are. If you're a person who often leaves relationships, what I call a ditcher, because you're a maximizer and you're looking for something better, then I would say, like, invest in that relationship and make it great. But if you're a person that really settles and, like, always kind of accepts the crumbs, then see what it's like to be single and really go after the whole cookie. Your answer is great. So, yeah, I'm happy with what you're doing. Shared life goals, but mismatched love languages, or perfect love languages match but different visions for the future? I think love languages are kind of ridiculous and overrated. Like, they help people, and I think they're useful as something to point to. But, like, they're not scientifically backed. Like, let's just talk about what love languages are because, like, they've kind of become so pervasive in our culture with people wearing shirts that say, like, Taco is my love language. So the love language is your preferred way of receiving love. And so it kind of helps you say to your husband, I don't care about gifts. I care about quality time. Like, for me, for Christmas, my husband said, like make a list of what you want. And I asked him for five conversations that were each two hours.

Starting point is 01:37:44 And I know it sounds so crazy, but like that's what I wanted. I was like, I want a conversation about our housing for the future. I want a conversation around my health. I want a conversation around parenting. And like maybe it sounds silly and people would be like, why did you have to ask for that? It's like, because we're parents of a young kid and we work a lot. My husband commutes. Like, we don't have two hour quality time conversations all the time. Like we don't even have them that often. And so what I wanted was to have that quality time. I didn't want gifts. And so love languages are a helpful way to kind of show what matters to you, but like you don't have to have aligned love languages. Like a hundred percent, like shared vision for the future matters much more than this

Starting point is 01:38:24 thing that is kind of a shortcut to say like this is what makes me feel valued. I just want to underline what you just said as well that I actually think you do have to ask and set aside time for very important conversations, especially when you've been together for a long time, because your day-to-day becomes your conversation, and it can be great connection, and you can be having fun every day, but you almost don't ever sit down and do that phone call conversation that you did when you started dating, or you don't do that three hours dinner when you're with someone. And so I think, I fully agree with you on having to outline and ask for specific conversations, especially if it's really important to you. And it's not something that you're just willing to also just throw into

Starting point is 01:39:04 someone when you both just got back from work, put your baby to bed and you're both exhausted, it's not possible to go on that Thursday night and say, hey, can we just talk about the finances tonight? Like, that's going to maybe throw the other person off as well. Yeah, I would have to say, like, that was a great gift. And some of my friends have, like, copied it. They've asked their partners for that for their birthday. And I'm like, I think this could be a thing because it's like, it's awkward to say, can we spend 90 minutes talking about my health? And can I, like, talk to you about my aura ring and this and that. But like, I want that time. And that's what I, as a busy parent, as a mom, like that's what I was looking for. And I feel like that was so much more

Starting point is 01:39:39 enriching to me than like, you know, some red light mask. Yeah. Okay. Last one of these. Date someone who feels safe but doesn't challenge you or date someone who challenges you, but sometimes triggers you. Hmm. I think you have to feel safe like that is a must have because someone should really feel like home. They should feel like that foundation. So you need it. I think trigger kind of going back to like boundaries and self-care, it's just kind of become like a little bit overblown in our culture. So I would say like investigate that more. What does trigger you mean? Does it mean that like sometimes they challenge you or does it mean like that they don't respect you or that they remind you of like an abusive relationship you're in? So I would say safety and foundation is like a must have. But then investigate is this healthy discomfort or is this unhealthy discomfort? Logan, you've been amazing to talk to. I've learned so much. I think our audience is. is going to get so much value from this. I'm so excited for everyone to go to loganuri.com

Starting point is 01:40:36 and actually take the quiz so that they can figure out where they land. I think doing the quiz myself and even breaking it down with you today and I kept in the interview, everyone will hear me keep going, well, that sounds like hesitating or romanticizer and it's so usable in everyday life

Starting point is 01:40:51 and I think it's going to help people really recognize what's blocking them at the root rather than just, hey, you're just distracted or whatever it may be. We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five these questions have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum one sentence most likely. So Logan Yuri, these are your final five. The first question is, what is the best love advice

Starting point is 01:41:12 you've ever heard or received? The best love advice I've ever heard or received is love is a verb. Yeah, it's a good answer. Agreed. What is the worst love advice you've ever heard or received? The worst love advice that I've heard, this is really big on Reddit, is when people have very strict rules where it's like, if he asks this question, never see him again. If he doesn't pay, never see him again. So I think the worst love advice is when you have really strict rules that are not based in like the research or science of what actually matters in dating. That's a great answer. Question number three, is love blind?

Starting point is 01:41:50 No. Do you want to, you can expand? I mean, I think nine seasons of the show has shown us that love is not blind. It's a great answer for sure. Question number four, what's something you used to believe was true about love, but now you actually realize it isn't? I think I'll go back to what we talked about with timing, which is I used to believe that love to sort of overcome any timing, and now I believe that timing is a big element of whether or not you're the right fit. Yeah, yeah. It's such a, it's weird, isn't it? Because

Starting point is 01:42:24 time is such a funny one, because it's almost like we're waiting for the perfect time, which I don't think is what you're saying, but you're saying the timing of where you're life is right now is going to let you know whether you'll find someone or not? That's a really good point. So I think a lot of people are hesitators where they're waiting to be the perfect person when the truth is you'll never be 100% ready. So I'm not talking about that. Like date before you're ready. What I am talking about is if you meet someone amazing, but your lifestyles don't line up right now or they are in the military and you want to have a kid right away or like all these different situation. It's like right person, wrong time is probably wrong person. Fifth and final question

Starting point is 01:43:04 we ask us to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Tell the truth. I think just so often we don't tell people how we're feeling. We don't share hard feedback. We're not brave. And look, like there is a time and a place for white lies, such as, you know, when you ask your husband how you look five minutes before you're going to his work office party, which my husband hasn't gotten the memo on that. But I think if we were just all more honest about what we're feeling, what we're worrying about what's going through our mind, we would just have much richer relationships. Yeah, I think in relationships especially, I mean, you were talking about first dates and dinners,

Starting point is 01:43:42 and I remember the first time I took Radia out, I thought she liked fancy places. I couldn't even afford a fancy place, but I'd saved up and took her out to this fancy place. and she literally, from the moment we walked in, I could tell she wasn't enjoying the experience. And I was kind of like, oh, this is a nice place, you know, whatever. And she just said to me, she goes, you know, my ideal day is not being at a fancy restaurant. It's being at Tesco's, which is our version of Walmart or Target or whatever. And she was like buying some bread and cheese and making some sandwiches. Like, that would be my ideal day.

Starting point is 01:44:13 And I was like, got it. Like, I understood it. And like, I think the next date we literally went down and walked down a grocery aisle and bought bread and cheese and went up. And it was just, to me, it was so useful to have that early on because I knew I liked Radi. I didn't care whether we were at a fancy restaurant or not. And I think if she hadn't told me that because she was like, oh my God, maybe I'm going to turn him off. Maybe I'm going to scare him. Maybe I'm, you know, it's, and I'm like, well, if I did, then I was just the wrong guy.

Starting point is 01:44:37 Like, it was, to me, it felt like a fair thing to say. You're allowed to like different things or tell me what you like. We're getting to know each other. I don't know. I think that honesty piece is so important. Yeah, I mean, I think about some of the richest relationships in my life. So there's a woman Kimberly have been working with for the last six years. And I know that if I give her feedback, she will always say, oh, thank you so much. I'm going to work on that. And it's a cliche,

Starting point is 01:44:58 but it's true. Like, feedback is a gift because you're making someone aware of a blind spot and then they have the opportunity to improve. And like, I don't walk on eggshells with her because I know that we can talk through any situation. Or my friend Ellen is obsessed with feedback and she's so good at receiving it. And I remember one time for, I guess it was for Father's Day, like the gift that I was, I gave my husband because he loves the New York Times crossword is that like Ellen and her husband Niehart came over and we all did the New York Times Sunday or I guess a Saturday crossword like on on our projector. And like every time I would throw out a word, Ellen would say, I mean now I'm like throwing her under the bus, but she was sort of like, that's not even the right number of letters and this and

Starting point is 01:45:42 that. I told her later. I was like, I'm not that good at crosswords, but I was just kind of having fun and you kind of like embarrass me where I didn't want to participate. And she was like, wow. oh, thank you so much for telling me that. Like, I know I have a competitive streak. And, like, the way she received it, where she was, like, truly so grateful for it, I just felt much closer to her. And I think that when you're honest with someone and they receive that as a gift and not with defensiveness, it just makes you feel like you can go deeper and deeper with that.

Starting point is 01:46:10 And I think a lot of people are afraid of the truth and afraid of rejection when it's really, like, being honest with someone is a way to get more intimate. Logan Uri, the book is called How to Not Die Alone. Logan Uri.com for the quiz. Please, please, please go and do the quiz. You'll get your results. You'll be able to learn so much more about what's been blocking you in dating. You'll also be able to strike up a conversation with friends who are going through similar things.

Starting point is 01:46:32 So I really hope you check it out. Logan, is there anything else you'd like to share any insight advice or any way you'd like people to find you more? Check out the Netflix show. It's called The Later Daters. And I also offer coaching and matchmaking and there's a lot more great info on my site. I am going to be sending a lot of people matchmaking your way. I'm so glad we finally met. Yeah, Jay, this was even better than I expected,

Starting point is 01:46:51 and I really appreciate all the work and good vibes you put out into the world. Thank you. You're the best. This was awesome. Thank you so much. If you love this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships. Make a list of the things that are truly important for you to find in a partner and then be that list. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Logan Ury: #1 Dating Mistake That Leads to the Wrong Relationship (Use THIS Compatibility Test Before You Get Attached)

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