BONUS: The Roundup Episode that'll change your perspective on dating

00:00:01 - 00:05:00

The dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that The Huffington Post calls one of the top ten podcasts about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about everything from sex parties to sex droughts, date fails to diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves. I'm your host UA Shu, former dating coach turned dating sociologist. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Kraft chick as we explore this crazy dateable world. Hello hello. Welcome to another episode of the dateable podcast. We are at the end of our bonus time period of our episodes, which just means season 15 is right around the corner that is so nuts and I see Julie thinking is a season 15 or 16 she's like, I can see her eyes just going, um, which season is it? Oh my God, I have lost track. I feel I was gonna say I'm gonna blame it on COVID brain, but that was, I don't know. I feel like you can only believe so much on COVID brain. That was an April. So maybe that's excuse doesn't work anymore. I always say this. I'm constantly amazed. This is by far the longest project and I don't even want to call it a project. I feel like it's our passion. It's our love. It's our baby. This is the longest I've ever done something, and UA and I got to meet up yesterday because you as an SF right now. And it was just so nice to be in person and brainstorm and think about like, what do we want the next iteration of data to be? And 7 years, we've been going strong, but I feel like we got another 7 to go into more, a lot more. What she didn't mention is we had some CBD drinks and we're getting a little bit giddy. And that was very helpful in our brainstorm. CBD always saved the day. I do think we definitely have some more years left in us by then I'll be close to 50. So it's going to be another phase of my life that's for sure. But I think what is really cool about this project is I did this exercise the other day of looking at what you spend your time on and what you choose to spend your time on. And I choose to spend most of my time on dateable because this is what's on my mind, all the fucking time, and whenever we go out and we meet new people, that's all people ever want to talk about. They don't care about what you do for work or where you're from, they're like, you do a dating podcast. Let's dish. I need to tell you about this. This and that. So it's something that people never get sick of, and we never get sick of, but we are definitely changing our content as we change, which is kind of like the fun part of watching all of this evolve. Yeah, I mean, I think dating clearly has changed a lot, which is why it's interesting. And then also, I feel like back in the day, once you hit 30, you were out of the day to today pool. And now you're popping in and out at all stages of life. So it just never ends, but what I think keeps me going is that the core of this, it's human connection. It goes beyond just dating. And you know, I think we've had a lot of topics in the last season. Clearly more to come in season 15. We've been recording a lot and we have a real banger opener. I'm not going to give too much away, but it is a past guest that we had. And he was a crowd favorite. So we're really excited to have him back and I think this topic goes beyond to self love to connection to love with others. And I think at the end of the day, that's what really keeps us going is its core to who we are and court of humanity. It's beyond just dating. We just love that every episode we do, we get to think about human connection a little differently. It seems to be this mystery that we're slowly on cracking. And cracking, we only have to unpack it. Let's crack on crack it. So what we're doing for this episode is something that we've been meaning to do for a while and we were finally getting around to it is that we wanted to offer up some of the previous episodes we've done that have completely changed the way we think about dating and the way we date. And we've also heard that feedback from some of you listeners too. It's kind of like an episode roundup, but it's also a good way to resurface some of the earlier seasons, especially for all you new listeners coming in. We were way different back then. And it's good to hear what we were talking about, let's say, ten up ten seasons ago, even. We are bringing it back to as early as season four. Yes. We've had some people ask us about our own personal journeys and I feel like if you want to learn, you could just listen because you can see how different we thought and how we've evolved over the years and as we were looking at what episodes should we feature.

00:05:00 - 00:10:04

We had a distiller to justify we intentionally didn't take from the last couple seasons, so we wanted to go a little further back. As we were doing this exercise, both UA and I were like, we forgot about this one. Oh my God, what about this one? There's just so many. I mean, we've done over 300 episodes. That's nuts. What do you think about it? We've had so many people that, you know, in general, too, we had to talk to all these people to get to where this podcast is going and where it's been going the last couple seasons because quite frankly, what we started this, we were just as confused as all of you were. Completely confused by modern dating and by talking and reflecting is how we started to unravel and figure out what it really means to date in today's world. And maybe you're still confused, maybe some of us, like myself, I'm still confused, but it's nice to know that one you're not alone in your confusion and two you have all the resources in the world to help you work through whatever you're going through. And I think three, it's okay to be confused. I think that's what I'm learning from all of this that we're all in this time of turmoil where we're not really sure what's going on. We're not really sure what the direction is, but it's okay to be confused and we have all the control to get our love lives to a place where we want it to be. So before we go into the roundup, there is something that has been top of mind that I want to talk to you about UA. Oh, have you been watching fuckboy eyelid? I have not, but I know you love it. You know, I was super not for the show for a long, long time. I watched season one over COVID and I remember thinking I'm losing brain cells as I'm watching this. But season two has officially sucked to be in my partner and I have been out of binge. We went all the way back to season one as we were waiting for episodes of season two. We caught the finale last week and why I wanted to bring it up is it's so interesting to watch just the psychology of how people say one thing but do the complete opposite and what we say we want versus what we actually want and I think in theory everyone knows they should be with a nice guy and not a fuck boy. But so many of the women on that show are like, he's just missing that edge. That fuckboy energy, you know? So I think, you know, I'm not here to judge a lot of the people are younger too. I think we've all went through a stage where we or maybe attracted to things that weren't the best for us, but it's very interesting to watch people real time. I know it's reality TV. So there is some scripting and whatnot. But it's interesting to watch them kind of be confused in real time. Can I just point out that at the beginning of our show, I guess maybe even the middle of it, Julie proclaimed that she does not watch reality TV and that she doesn't like reality TV and that only me only UA watches reality TV and have the table is turned. Can you tell by partner that? Well, I guess he'll listen to this because he does not believe me that I never watched this stuff before him. But I think there is something really fun about watching reality TV with a partner or even with a group of girlfriends or guy Friends because other TV shows you need to actually watch and pay attention. But this is so ripe for discussion and commentary. So it just makes it a different TV watching experience. What I like about reality TV is that they're basically human experiments that you don't need to be part of, but you get to observe what's going on. And there's some data that you can collect from what 20 years of reality TV that we've been watching or the shows that have been on air. You can see their patterns with the bachelor and the bachelorette. For example, one pattern I think is so interesting is that the bachelorette couples have a smaller success rate than the bachelor couples. So the women who've done the choosing have a higher chance of breaking up with their fiances and they chosen than the male bachelors who've chosen their fiances and their partners. And we can dive so much into that, but there are pattern surfacing that really show you what modern dating is and it's like a reflection of what we're going through, but it's good because we don't have to be part of the experiment to see the results of it. Obviously there's a different lens, but I think at the end of the day, there are a lot of people that, whether they admit it or not, like fuck boys or fuck girls, there was definitely a preview to come that future season might be around the F girl and try to make that a thing. Equal opportunity, right? No discrimination. Girls can be F girls also. Cool opportunity fucking. Yeah, exactly. Why should one person be the fuckery? Both parties should have an equal opportunity.

00:10:05 - 00:15:01

I like to see a fuck boy date a fuck girl and see what happens there. They would just be playing games endeavor, we actually see each other. It would just be like a constant roundabout. It's true. It's true. If I screwed them over, they screwed me over. I'm fucking other people. Are they also? Yeah, it would be a terrible train wreck. Okay. Well, that was my one branch of today. I definitely got sucked into that for all the other listeners out there that also have got sucked in, let us know. Do you think there should be a F girl island, I feel like that should be the next one. I feel like we've dissected fuckboy island. Should we get into the episodes that have changed our perspective of love and we feel like our, you know, those hidden gems in the vault that we want to showcase. So excited. Get into this. Before that, you know, where to find us, you can always find us on social media, the handle is at dateable podcast. You can DM us on Instagram. We're very active there. You can also find us on YouTube, data will podcast, just search for us. And if you want to really connect with us, you can email us hello, add data will podcast dot com. We do check those emails as well. And for anybody new to our show or have been thinking or heard about sounding board, that is our premium community where we get to connect more intimately with weekly events and you get access to us as well. So you can find out more about that at table podcast dot com slash sounding board. Yeah, and before we get into it, let's take a minute for our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by attitude, want deep, restful sleep without taking melatonin, trying to stop your night sweats or looking to get a little more eco friendly. You won't get these with any old cotton sheets, but you will with bamboo. Upgrade your stuffy cotton bedding in attitudes naturally breathable bedding made from their innovative clean bamboo fabric. It feels unlike anything else you've slept on, and no, they won't cost you or the earth, because right now you can get 20% off your first order by visiting attitude dot com slash dateable. These unbelievably soft clean bamboo sheets have over 15,005 star reviews, and they've been performance tested to be 51% more durable than standard sheets, 17% better at regulating temperature and 24% more moisture wicking. I have been sleeping on my attitude sheets and in addition to them feeling super soft and comfy. I'm really into the temperature regulating function. Now I no longer wake up in the middle of the night with night sweats. They're so sure you'll love sleeping with them that you can try any attitude betting, risk free for 30 nights. If you're not completely satisfied, you can return it for a full refund. Don't forget, you can get 20% off your order plus free shipping for a limited time when you visit attitude dot com slash dateable that's ITU DE dot com slash DAT ABL E this is attitudes best offer right now so don't wait. Order today for free shipping and 20% off your order at attitude dot com slash data. This episode is brought to you by drizzly. If you look for it every day has cause for celebration, celebrate a friend for their promotion, baby, wedding life thing, celebrate yourself for keeping the couch warm. It's no easy feat, especially if it's a big couch. Or maybe you just want to celebrate living in 2022, where you can get beer, wine, and spirits deliver from drizzly in under 60 minutes without leaving, said couch. No wonder drizzly is the number one app for alcohol delivery. And remember to share the love, you can get alcohol delivered to your friends and your coworkers and a nice surprise. Right now, drizzly is giving all new customers $5 off their first order with the code fast 5. So download the drizzly app or go to drizzly dot com that spelled DRI Z, LY dot com and use the promo code fast 5 that spelled FAST number 5 for $5 off your first order. You're welcome. Okay, let's get on with that roundup. So our very first episode that we wanted to highlight. We want to go back to season four episode 16. We did an episode with Heidi eastern, either I feel like UA, you should tell this story because there was this quote that UA was obsessed with that started circulating the Internet. And we were able to track down the writer and she ended up being like a friend of a friend and we decided to have her on to talk about the topic that I feel like is still incredibly relevant today why you can't find the one. It's bringing me back to a time. Now I'm remembering how I found out about this article. It's because the guy I was seeing at the time sent it to me on his way back from Tahoe when he flaked on our date so yes. It's coming back to me.

00:15:02 - 00:20:04

I don't think I ever realized that's where you got it from the guy directly. I remember the guy that flaked on you. I remember you sending the article posting the quote, really feeling for this. But I did not realize he was the source of it. Yeah, foreshadow. Was this like his subtle way to say that he wasn't the one? Why was he saying to this person? I feel like that's exactly what he was doing. Listen, girl, I won't be seeing you. We won't be dating, but here's an article as a consolation prize. Here is to help you out on your future. Hey, we've had people ask like, how do you end it with someone? Just send them an article. Let them go on their merry way. Give them all. Just on them a few dateable podcast episodes. There you go. Happy to provide that service. Very easy to do. But what does this episode about? I think to sum it up from what I gather from the episode because it was so long ago, was basically you can't expect your person to be everything to you. And I think in the article she gives a few examples. You can't expect her to be like the ballerina and the artist and the this is woman. And the good girlfriend and the all the different roles that we expect someone to be, we can't expect that in one person. And what oftentimes makes us disappointed in dating is that we meet someone online and we put all these rules on them before we even meet them. So you're basically setting them up for failure because when you meet them, you're going to realize that they do not fulfill all of these roles. Yeah, and I feel like it's something we talk about a lot is that this notion of the one, first of all, does not exist. There's not one person out there. There's many people that could be a good fit for you. And also the one isn't found. It's created. And what she talks about, a lot of it is these checklists, these things that we feel like we deserve, because maybe we've achieved certain milestones in our life and also how is just near impossible to figure this out on the first date. You get an hour over cocktails with someone, how are you ever going to realize that this person is going to be your life partners? It takes time and in modern dating we just don't give a time. So even though this episode was from quite a while ago, we're talking arrow 2017 ish. It's a while back, but I feel like a lot of it hasn't changed unfortunately since that. So let's get into this episode and share a clip and you can always go back to the archives and listen to the full episode. There's all these people out there and there's an illusion of choice from just the urban social bar scene and all the parties and then the proliferation of dating app. Right? So you always think there's all these things out there and you're always seeking for more. It's like you're trading up everything in your life. Your job, your apartment, your significant other. You can always looking for the next bigger, better deal. But I act my impetus for writing it was actually I had come back into the country. I've been traveling. And I went to some San Francisco, socialite a singles mixer. And I wasn't really looking, but I thought, well, you know, since my relationship isn't defined, you know, we'll see what else is out there, very classic San Francisco. And I just watched people. And I watched all these people chucking each other out. And then I watched this woman that I wrote about, and how she interacted and what she said to me and she's like, you know, what are you looking for? And I'm like, I have no idea. Like, cheese and wine, and she just listed off this litany of everything that she wanted. Like every single thing. And I was like, good luck because I don't think anyone here in this room meets anything. I don't think anyone in San Francisco means everything that you have on your list. And that is not the right way to go to a singles mixer, is with a list in your mind and then trying to do this matching game of, oh, does he have this? And I do think there's a lot of entitlement of, well, I am this. So if I in this, this is the bar, someone else must be this much better, or be able to provide me all of these things because I'm worthy. And I don't think people just relax and just spend time just getting to know someone and enjoying their company, right? It's more about, are they going to make a higher salary than me, especially women? Are they taller than me? Are they cuter than me? All these different things that they're looking in comparison to who they are, as opposed to just didn't make me laugh. Right. Do we have fun together? They good adventure buddy. While something comes down to need, like what do you really need if you are a financially secure and you have a great life and you have all these friends, then someone else should just be the cherry on top of your life, right? You shouldn't be needing them to fulfill some big gap. So I think you can look at it. What else would make my life just a little bit better and maybe it is having someone to talk to every night.

00:20:04 - 00:25:03

You know, if you start thinking about it that way, it probably changes what people go out there looking for. Now, here's the big question for you. Is that settling? What is settling? Oh, if I'm just looking for someone to talk to every night, am I settling? Settling. So there was a book written a few years ago. I think it was Lori gottlieb who talked about Mary him now, right? And how you should settle and she made a huge case for subtly like, if he has halitosis look past it and look past it. Because you're going to end up like me and you're going to be having a baby on your own when you're 42. And it was kind of like everything's so, so dire. I don't know. I was just like, how do you need someone else to complete you? Are you complete yourself? And if you're a complete yourself, nothing else is settling. It's just making your life better. Always fun revisiting that episode. It's a good reminder of what we should be looking for or should not be looking for in a partner. Our next episode we want to highlight is from season 5 episode 16 just say yes with Cheryl, who is a friend of ours. And this is such a fun fun discussion and also kind of a surprise because I didn't realize how positive this episode would be, but Cheryl went through a period in her life where she was just saying yes to everything. And this eventually led her to meeting her now husband and father of two. Yeah, what I love about this episode is she thought she had a move far away. I think she got it like a job offer in Belarus and she's like maybe that will help shake things up because she was a teacher. She didn't really encounter many men that she was meeting. I believe her when she actually met her husband was before apps really were as big as they are today. So she just didn't have many outlets to meet people. And she felt like that was the root of her issue. And what I loved about this is one day something snapped inside of her and said, okay, before I make this major change, I'm going to change my mentality in my current city. And that's when she shifted to this just say yes, mentality. And being open, it radiated this energy for her that then we're coming out of the woodwork that she didn't change anything about her physical appearance. She didn't change anything about where she went on a day to day, but all of a sudden people were giving her attention. So what I love about this is so often we think there's this list of superficial traits we need a change, lose the 5 pounds, dress differently, whatever it may be, but a lot of it is just the energy that we're giving out. And it's like this intangible that you just don't get from dating apps. You don't get from so much until you see how this person vibes in the real world. With this episode taught me was you have to be intentional about how you show up in this world. And you also have to be very intentional about how you show up on dates. Sometimes we run to dates from work after having a stressful day where we squeeze them in between meetings or we're doing something very stressful ahead of time or something negative. And then we bring that energy onto our dates without any intentionality. But if we can set that intention of I'm bringing my full positive self into this world, then that attracts the same energy back. And we can't expect other people to give us that positive energy if we're not giving it to them. Oh my God, how many times and I've been guilty of this too, saying there's no one out there. No one ever wants to make the move, but then your face planted into your phone with your headphones on. Yep. How will anyone ever approach you in that world? So I agree, full heartedly, what we put out and so often we think that it's reserved for these special occasions. I know I was guilty of this. I would be completely disheveled, not looking around my surroundings on a day to day, but then when the weekend came, I would get all buttoned up and look nice and try, but why can't the everyday, that's just a good place, if not better, to meet people. Like why does it need to be reserved for going out or going to bars where let's be honest, how often were you actually meeting people in that surrounding? So anyways, I love this episode. It was definitely a no brainer when we pulled it up. So without further ado, we'll give you a clip. Okay, so I felt like I was kind of in this point in my life where I really wanted to meet somebody and I was living in Washington D.C. and I just felt like things weren't going well. So I get this job offer in Bahrain of all places and I thought, I don't know if this is the right fit for me.

00:25:03 - 00:30:10

I don't know if I should take it. But I knew what I really wanted was to be in a really great relationship. And the job offer was just kind of like, should I just go out and do this? Because nothing else, my life here is not working out. I also didn't really like my job very much. But I felt like I really wanted to meet somebody. And so the job offer was on my mind. And I felt like give me a sign I need to stay here. Give me a sign that that's not right for me. So the next thing I'm at school, I'm walking the same way. I usually walk just down one of the halls and this guy passes me and asks me where something is and we start chatting and he'd come to school that day to do some kind of insurance thing with some of the teachers. So yeah, never seen him before. I'd never seen him before. So we start talking a little while. And he tells me that that weekend, him and some his church group, they're going to see a baseball game and do I want to go. I don't care about baseball. I don't go to church. But I said, yes? Yes. Yes, okay. I'll go. And I started to think, you just never know. You never know who could be the right fit for you. You never know what you'll learn. You'll never know what you'll experience. So why not just go out and give it a try? And so that kind of started the ball rolling and suddenly I felt like I was wearing a sign. Everywhere I went, I was getting asked out on dates and I'd never had that happen before. In the most unlikely places, by people I would absolutely say no to. So in this span of it turned out to be a month, I went out with a guy who smoked. I don't like smoke. I don't smoke. I went out with the military guy. I wasn't really into that. I went out with a guy who had a son, that wasn't something I thought I'd want to do. I went out with someone who was way too short. Someone was way too tall. People with different religions, just that normally in my head, I would say that's not my type. That's not what I want. That's not my husband. But I did it. And I did it for the entire month, and it was amazing, because the more I said yes, the more opportunities I got. And they just kept happening. You've heard us talk about this episode, probably quite a bit. It left such an impression on both Julie and I. It is marriage one O one with doctor Alexandra Solomon. This is season 7 episode 22. And why this left such an impression on both of us, I'll speak for myself, I guess, is how we found out about her is because she offers the most popular class and northwestern. Not a class that is part of your core curriculum, but elective class. And people who are freshmen and sophomores in college are drawn to this class so much that there is a wait list that people can't even get in. So to me, just that alone shows you how we don't talk about marriage and what marriage means people want to get married. They don't know how to stay married. Her class really just teaches these fundamental communication skills and relational skills that span outside of marriage that all of us should have been learning this whole time, even before college. I love she said it herself in the episode. This her course could have been called dating one O one. It could have been called relationships one O one. It's all about relational skills. And we've had Alexandra doctor Alexandra Sullivan back on the podcast a second time. We probably need to hear a third time. She's just so phenomenal. We love talking to her. We always get so much insight. We've read both of her books. I feel like we're just big fans of her all in all. What I love about her though is that she talks about relational skills that seem so obvious yet so many of us don't hold. And one of the things that has stuck with me, I remember when we did this episode, I was in a relationship with the British guy that I was seeing. And I remember it was either the start of us doing long distance or when he was abroad for the holidays. I can't remember what area it was, but basically we were not in the same place. And there was some conflict arising of communication styles, patterns, how often we talked when we talked all that. And I remember her saying something that is stuck with me for all these years that conflict is inevitable in a relationship because you're bringing two different people that have two different thought processes and so often we just assume our way is the right way because that's what we know and especially we haven't been in a ton of relationships. It's easy to just assume well, I'm doing it right and they're doing it wrong so they should adapt to what I'm doing. You know, I'm not going to say if you haven't been a lot of relationships, even people that have been a lot of relationships. It's easy to go down that trap. But what we learned from her was this is common and in fact, if you don't have conflict in a relationship, maybe there's something wrong because people are just bottling up their feelings.

00:30:10 - 00:35:13

In today's world, people think, especially with apps where there's this illusion of abundance of options. Oh, if there's conflict, I'm just going to go back and find someone different and I've been so guilty of this. And every time I hear that voice in my head, I think of doctor Alexandra Sullivan, even in my current day relationship. She said, you need to decide who are you going to do conflict with and how are you going to resolve it? There's no avoiding conflict. It's just going to show up in a different way. Inevitably, if you go back into the dating scene, it's just going to show up in a month in two months. So the more we can learn the skills to work through conflict, opposed to think there's someone better because there's no conflict. I mean, I think that hits hard. Yeah, and this is why this is just a clip of it, but you really should listen to the whole episode because it will be eye opening for you on how you think about relationships and dating. So here is a self proclaimed love nerd herself, doctor Alexandra Solomon. The big concept that drives the class and drives I wrote a book, a year and a half ago that kind of addresses this. It's this idea called relational self awareness, which is a more important framework than ever. What happens when we swipe is we think I just have to find the right person. And then that mentality can come into a first date where we think I'm going to sit down and I'm going to I can decide really quickly whether they're for me or not for me. And the thing that gets lost is looking at how we are showing up, like what's the energy that we are bringing into that date? How are we being experienced by the other person? So we get into this sort of consumer mentality, you know? Yes. And so I think for sure, attraction and chemistry, they take time to unfold. Like you can't see my best self, my deepest self, my most quirky, fun, funky self right away. That stuff takes a while for me to be able to kind of reveal an unfold. And so I think that's a bit of a dangerous mindset. And I do see that, yes, very commonly. But it's also just about it's that exercising empathy and knowing that you're meeting a new human being who's going through their own journey. And sometimes we forget that. You're so right about this consumer culture that we're in. It's kind of like shopping on Amazon shopping for people. If this is not the product I want, I'm going to look for something better with better reviews when we all deserve time to uncover who are many layers of art. So we actually had another guest a while back that asked the question like do millennials actually even want to find love. Like are they willing to put in the work of a relationship that holds or generations have done? What are your thoughts from talking to students? Oh, I don't have a doubt in the world that plenty of millennials want to find love. Okay. I think there's a fear that they can't, and there's a cynicism that sucks in, and there's a really deep, I think, oftentimes like lack of trust in their own resilience, and there's a massive skill deficit. But I don't have a doubt in the world that what people really do long for just the sort of companionship intimacy, like journeying through life together. I see that very commonly. I think there's a lot of longing and desire for that. It's just feels fraught, complicated and hard, which it started. So you think people, there's more fear than undesired. Yes. So what are the skills that millennials are lacking? I am always also super careful to not I'm not trying to come down at all on millennials because I don't know that my generation or the generation above me figured it out any better. That's true. Because there's different challenges. Yeah. Different challenges and this whole this whole element of choice. There's such an opportunity now to really kind of buffet style pick and choose what you want and what you don't want so the degrees of freedom about what it is to construct a relationship. There are more of those. It's not just sort of like a plug and chug put a person in there. And of course, you know, partner a does this and partner B does this. There's a sort of like crafting from the ground up of. Do we want this? Do we want this? Do we want monogamy, not monogamy? Do we want? Are we living the same place or separate places? Like all these different variables that are so cool because when you do create something that feels super authentic and super aligned, it's something that's strong and hearty and exciting. But it just means that you have to have the skill of relational self awareness, which is like being able to basically look at what the relationship is stirring up in you right now. I'm feeling whatever. I'm feeling trapped. I'm feeling afraid of losing myself. I'm feeling afraid of in a lot of times, very often what stirs in us in a romantic relationship is stuff from our past, stuff from our childhood, stuff from the love we saw growing up, problems that our parents had that were terrified to repeat.

00:35:14 - 00:40:01

All that stuff comes up. And so we've got to be able to know how to work with it when it's not a problem if that stuff comes up because it's going to come up. It's just like, can you work with it within yourself and with that person that you're dating? So our next one up, we have season 8 episode 19 quest for love with Ryan van duzer, who is UA's friend. And I remember you saying we need to get Ryan on the podcast. He is a self proclaimed romantic. He really just, you know, despite hardships. He just wants to find that love. And you had been through some bad breakups with him. You had seen it firsthand and you admired him that he just kept going, despite, you know, difficult situations, he just kept the eye on the prize to pursue his quest for love. And why I think this episode is, I mean, first of all, he is a great storyteller. Definitely listen to the whole episode, just to hear his ups and downs. And I think a lot of people can relate to them. But what I love about it is we talk about this so often, like just the power of perseverance of just continuing going. It's so easy to just be like, I'm going to uninstall the apps or I'm going to give up because there's one person that kind of was a bad egg or maybe didn't like you the way you like them. But that doesn't mean that the right person isn't right around the corner. So I always feel like do we give power to these people that are just setting us off course opposed to realize, hey, this person just is making way for the right person for me. Something that really drew me to Ryan van duser when we first met was the fact that he is someone who is just so resilient and resilient in a way that it's not like I'm going to bounce back. It's fine. I'm going to bounce back. That's part of the resiliency that he has. But he's also the type of person where he gets out of a bad relationship where he gets out of a bad breakup, I should say. They're not bad relationships. And then when he does meet someone really special, he is so open to telling the whole wide world about this person. I think a lot of us, when we go through a bad breakup, the next person we meet, we're like, I don't want to jinx it. I'm not going to tell anybody. I'm just going to hold it close to my heart and keep it a secret for a little bit. And that's I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think something that Ryan does is he's like, when I'm in love, I will let the whole wide world know, even though this could end in something, maybe we break up, we separate. But I want the whole world to know that I'm in love right now. And I want the whole world to know how amazing this person is. So I admire his resiliency. He's also an adventure host. So he does these travel shows where he goes on these crazy adventures. He's been in the middle of nowhere with no food, no shelter, and he had to survive on this, I don't even know it was an island. I don't even remember. He's also done cross country bike rides, and he's also ridden his bike from Mexico back to the U.S., maybe even farther, I think there was another trip that he did. But I think what this shows he is full of passion and that passion really transcends into his love life. And even though love hasn't worked out in the way of, let's say, marriage per se, but I think love has really worked out for him in the way that it feeds his passion and it just makes him want to love more and more. Yeah, this episode as a whole was definitely uplifting to still believe in love even when things seem dismal, right? When they seem down when it seems difficult at the end of the day, there's a reason why we're enduring this dating journey. We want to find love, love is the most important thing. That's what makes us ultimately happy in life is to have love in whatever form. It doesn't have to be romantic, but of course romantic is a major form of love. So I definitely felt inspired after listening to this episode with Brian. So hopefully you all can, too. So here is a clip from Ryan. I really thought when I met her that she was the one, I thought. For sure, there is nobody else on this planet that is as good as her. And I thought she was the one. So yeah, I was all in. My mom was all in. Everybody was all in. They were like, Ryan has found the one, the stars have aligned. And he had announced it to the world. I remember just from a friend's perspective, I was like, he's borderline obsessed with this woman. So you felt you felt like you met the one from day one, basically. Yeah. Pretty much. And she would probably say the same thing.

00:40:01 - 00:45:04

Wow. You know, if you called her right now, she would tell you the same thing. So the summer goes by, I'm guessing the summer went very well. Yeah. And then what? The summer went by, and then she got hired to go on tour with her band and she was going to be gone for three months. And this is where things kind of got sticky, and I will blame a lot of this on me. I got really, I don't know, funky, I don't know what the word is, but this TV show that I had gotten wasn't turning out to be what it was supposed to be and work was really tough and I was just frustrated and I wasn't the best boyfriend at this time. I kind of pulled away mentally, physically, I was not nearly as affectionate. I would blame a lot of the downfall of our relationship on my behavior toward the end of that summer into the fall. How long have you been dating at this point? Not that long, so some April to about September. But she did live with me for a couple of those three of those months. So it was pretty intense. And it's like 6 months. Yeah, about 6 months, then she went on tour and I felt like I lost her. I thought I made the biggest mistake of my life. I went into the biggest depression I've ever gone to. Never gone to therapy or anything like that. I went to a therapist. I mean, I really it hit me hard. So you guys broke up when she laughed. Yeah, we broke up. And I was destroyed. And then I dedicated the next three, four months to trying to get her back. Last but definitely not least, we want to bring you the 5th episode that has changed the way we think about dating and the way we do dating. And this is season 9 episode of 1919. Okay, so I couldn't read my handwriting, but well, the next chapter of dating with our friend, our friend, our friend, with our friend, Andy. And we did this episode right before he moved to Europe for a job, but also for life reasons. And he has such a great way of opening up this next chapter in his life where he was just so open for what's to come. He had no expectations. He's ready to just start this brand new, unchartered territory kind of life. And he's now what years in Europe now and enjoying his time, but it's so fun to revisit this conversation because he was just about to leave. But I love about Andy too. He was an OG datable fan. We did not know Andy before date of all. He was like a friend of a friend, but we actually met him through dateable. And I remember I was I looking for a job. I think I was looking for a job in our mutual friend connected me to Andy because he was a recruiter. And he responded back like, oh, I'd love to help you out. And then at the end, he responds, he's signed off the email. This is a professional recruiting email. Stay dateable, hashtag sober first kiss. Yes. Die. Whoever we went to his company for lunch that time, and he was just like, we had this whole crew of, oh, God. I hate to stereotype because my boyfriend is an engineer. But we have this whole table of nerdy engineers sitting at us with us. Asking about all these dating questions and it was just it was so epic. But Andy has been with us since 2016. We've kind of seen Andy grow and we have developed a friendship with him over this time. And when we did this episode, what was so fun about it was that we went like year by year essentially of how he's changed his own outlook of dating relationships, personal development, his own growth, essentially, and what I love about this is it frames dating as personal growth. And so often we think, oh, this was a waste of time. Things didn't work out the way it was meant to be. But he was someone that showed that every experience built on one another. Sometimes some experiences happen because of where he was in life. It had nothing to do with other people and dating and all this. So it was a really good way to reflect back. It reminds me of this exercise I did in therapy once, thinking I'm not a relationship person. And my therapist had me write down what was going on in my life over many years. And I realized there were some years that I was not remotely focused on relationships. I was just building my own life, and that's proof that that doesn't mean that you're not a relationship person. It just means that that wasn't an area of focus for you at that time. So this is really a great episode to just hear someone share their own life journey and how it all plays together and how it sets you up ultimately for where you want to go.

00:45:04 - 00:50:02

And looking at the next chapter, not looking at it as closing the book, but when something ends, something new begins. And I think that's so powerful. I find Andy is a nice combination of Cheryl, the one who said yes to all the things. And then Ryan van duzer, who is a romantic and who's very resilient in his love for people. It's so fun because he is, he's the combination of those two, but then this added youthfulness because Andy is young, so he's able to kind of learn from the date of a podcast and then use it in his real life experiences and keep us updated because he still messages us on a regular basis. He's like, I really like that episode. This is what I liked about it. This is what I learned from it. So it's really fun to have that conversation with him still. And I think it's a good episode for personally, for me, what I took away from it was taking inventory of all the people you've met and all the relationships, even if they're one hour relationships, what those relationships meant, what did you learn from all the people who've been in your life and then how can you take these learnings into that next stage in your life? Sometimes we don't we just we're so passive in what we do or we're so reactive. We're not proactive. If we're more proactive in looking at our dating history, we can really sit down and synthesize. He came with a notebook, remember, came with a notebook of all the dates and everything he's been through. He took note of what he's learned throughout the years and so he can actually take some takeaways for when he starts this new adventure. I totally forgot he had a notebook, but that is the epitome of the next chapter of dating right there. So we'll get right into it and hear from Andy. Okay, after you're now not new anymore, kind of like, let's say like the year end. You had a phase where you wanted to be in a relationship. How did you get to that point? I think I got to that point through regret. There was this girl probably somewhere in that phase one that I liked hanging out with and we for all intents and purposes were like dating each other like spending the night at each other's place and doing a lot of stuff together and even got her a bunch of gifts and one of them was like, she worked at emeryville and I was like, this cute little car that said across the bridge for you, which as we know, it's like a big deal. It's a big deal. They're like, oh, cross a body of water. That's the longest. Do you really like someone? LDR for sure. But yeah, it was one of those things where it was like, everything was good. I just hadn't made up my mind about what I wanted and she was not super decisive about. One in a relationship, probably more so, like, hey, what are we kind of thing? And so we kind of just fizzled out and she ended up moving to LA and I hate to be the guy that's like see social media. She started dating a new guy. And then instantly I was like, man, I kind of screwed that up. I think she would have been actually a good partner in a relationship. All the signs were there. Maybe if she was going to end up moving to LA either way, but I think we probably could have made it work if it was something that we were a little bit more invested in. So well, that's the downside of that phase where you're just like, I'll do whatever. Not intentional, 'cause when you do have a situation that you're like, oh, shoot, this could be something, you're not necessarily grasping that either. Yeah. So then that kind of push you over the edge to be ready for a relationship? Yeah, that kind of was when I was like, you know, I'm not getting any younger. I think this also happened when it's 26. Well, unfortunately, I think my sports career and athletic career peaked a little bit early. So I think around the same time, I was also going through a few injuries. And I kind of was like, okay, I'm not going to be young forever. And as fun as this can be, maybe I should be a little bit more intentional about what I'm looking for. And set that up front, basically not waste my time if it's clear the other person is looking for that as well. So yeah, so I was definitely happy to take that step. I would say this may be middle phase, definitely closed out at the beginning of this year, which I guess I'll get to, but that there are a few things that I thought were really going to be off the ground and take off. For some reason, I'm really good at finding a dating people that are just out of really long relationships and attracting those girls for some reason. And you don't always know that factor right away. So it's one of those things where to put it in layman's terms. I've ended up being a long-term rebound for, I think, a few different girls, which is hard because I think not a gender at all. I think both goes both ways. It's like, if you're in a great long relationship, and you're going through a breakup, and I've been there before as well. You kind of want the best parts of a relationship again without the tough parts. You're like, oh yeah, I would love to just have someone to hang out with and watch movies with and go. It's like companionship. The companionship without the actual tough parts of relationship. And I think some people unintentionally maybe just seek that as they're trying to cope through a previous breakup.

00:50:05 - 00:55:05

Okay, well that was super fun to do this wrap up. I love that. I enjoy going down memory lane. I feel like now I want to go back and listen to all these again. So yeah, that was super fun. I'll glad we were able to do that. A lot of you have been asking for something like this already. So we're so glad we're able to bring this to you because 300 episodes in it's hard to know where to start, especially if you're new to data. So just so we're going to try to keep doing more of these roundup episodes just to resurface some of the older episodes that have really made an impact on our lives. But we also love to hear from you the episodes that have resonated with you may be different than how it resonated with us. So please comment right to us. Leave us a message of which episodes have made an impact on your life, so then when we do this roundup episode again, we can bring those episodes in and really highlight how they've changed your lives. Yep, and we've linked all these episodes in the show notes, and you can also go to dateable podcast dot com, all the episodes are on the site and we actually do have a way to filter by dating, relationship, sex and sexuality, behavior. So there's a way to navigate through and find some of these episodes. We are continuing to work on better ways to even filter more, but for now, there's still ways that you can look at what's out there and maybe find things that are good fit for you. Another way to do it too is I find it's pretty easy to search if you do dateable podcast and then whatever topic that could be interesting to you in a Spotify or in Apple podcasts and most likely we have some episode that is related because we've been doing this now for 7 years and we have over 300 episodes. There's probably something out there, but you could also ask in our Facebook group. We love when people put up posts saying, hey, I would love this episode on this. You probably have done it. You kind of refresh my memory. We are always happy to reply to those and send links directly. So feel free to do that too, but they're here for you. We got a whole back catalog. 300 plus episodes. So if you are anxiously waiting for the next episode to drop, do what I did with fuckboy island, go back to the archives while you're waiting for the next week to come out. Was that the takeaway here is just go to the archives? Yep. Exactly. Okay, so what we're taking away today is Julie's obsessed with fuck boy island. That's what we're taking away. And dateable podcast. Wonderful, we're going to wrap up this episode. Thank you all for listening and thank you all for staying with us through season 14. We are about to launch season 15. It's going to be insane and epic and life-changing all of it. The things that we love to do, the content just gets more and more meaty as we go and season 15 is just the start of this meatiness that we're just going to bring all of you hope you are not vegan as we talk about this. And we're going to wrap up this episode again. You can always reach out to us hello a dateable podcast dot com or reach out to us at dateable podcast on Instagram. We're TikTok. You can DM us there and then we really appreciate ratings and reviews and Apple podcasts. It helps us bring you meteor content, better content, better guests. So 5 stars and a little something nice would be really wonderful and with that, we're gonna wrap up officially wrap up season 14 and bring you season 15 next week. Stay tuned. The dateable podcast is part of the frolic podcast network find more podcasts you'll love at frolic media slash podcasts. Want to continue the conversation? First, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with the handle at dateable podcast. Tag us in any post with a hashtag stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those pose. Then head over to our website dateable podcast dot com. There you'll find all the episodes as well as articles, videos, and our coaching service with vetted industry experts. You can also find our premium Y series where we dissect, analyze, and offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums. We're also downloadable for free on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Play, overcast, stitcher radio, and other podcast platforms. Your feedback is valuable to us, so don't forget to leave us a review. And most importantly, remember to stay dateable. The roar of our engines, the pump of our heartbeats, the pedal to our metal. The sparks that ignite us, the pistons that push us, the passions that drive us. From the feelings that move us to the places that pull us on the roads that unite us. With nearly 6000 stores in over 17,000 auto care centers, Napa has America's largest network of parts and care.

00:55:06 - 00:55:28

Here to keep you fired on all cylinders. Hi, I've got a prescription for diabetes test strips. How much is the copay? That can take me a while to calculate. In the meantime, you should think about over the counter contour next test strips. You get 35 for 1999, and they're highly accurate. For full details, visit contour next dot com slash radio.