Dating

S13E6: The Science of Attraction w/ Paul Eastwick

Dateable Podcast
September 21, 2021
82
 MIN
Listen this episode on your favorite platform!
Dating
September 21, 2021
82
 MIN

S13E6: The Science of Attraction w/ Paul Eastwick

What makes you attracted to one person and not another? We're talking with Dr. Paul Eastwick about his work at the UC Davis Attraction Lab about how people form and maintain relationships.

The Science of Attraction

What makes you attracted to one person and not another? We're talking with Dr. Paul Eastwick about his work at the UC Davis Attraction Lab about how people form and maintain relationships. We discuss how ideal partner preferences play into partner selection. why we often think we know what we want when we don't, and the secret of when attraction can build over time.

Check out Paul's work at http://pauleastwick.com/ or @pauleastwick on Twitter.

Thank you to our partners for this episode:

Thrive Causemetics: For 15% off your first order visit https://thrivecausemetics.com/DATEABLE

Hello Fresh: Hello Fresh: For 14 free meals from America's #1 meal kit (and free shipping) use the code DATEABLE14 at hellofresh.com/dateable14

Lugz: Get 30% Off Full-Priced footwear (Excludes Sale Section) at https://lugz.com/ with the code DATEABLE

Episode Transcript

S13E5: The Science of Attraction w/ Paul Eastwick

00:00:01 - 00:05:01

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves.  I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

Welcome to another episode of date of all. Show all about modern dating where we investigate the ins and outs of modern dating and why people do things that they do say the things that they say and now we're gonna crack the code on how to deal with highs behave to do the things all the things which is what our big announcement was last week as well. We are launching a finding your person program and we feel like we've really cracked the code on how to navigate the dating scene to make sure that you are prepped. And ready to find your person only if you want to write and we opened up We opened up a link last week for early bird. Registration will give a little bit more details about it later in this intro but we just wanna tease it out for now because big things are coming because we're about to open up the registration link. Yes oh sorry to everyone. Who's hopes got up. That and i were gauged. Fastest big announcement but this is a pretty big outside because this probably actually directly helps you a little more that even if it was true so we are super excited we keep seeing people like even just pop up in the facebook group of people that have been with the sounding board for a while that are like i'm finally putting this olive ocean in meeting my person we had One of our members that did such a great job organizing to we'll give a shoutout again She wrote about just how she had like something. She wanted. People second opinions on in being with the community in being ingrained in dateable. Help to really get that clarity and come out. So we're really hoping this program can really streamline all the stuff we've learned in the last five years and also the stuff we've learned by doing the sounding board so it can just be even more efficient for you. It took five years to get this moving. This can you guys can get through this ed six weeks kind of what the outline is for it. So it's there's i think this is our best content today. I feel super good about what we're putting out in the universe. And i think the fact that you and i love hearing these stories. We saw another post. That went up our shadow to jim. Even saying like how through dateable he's listened and religious listen to episodes over and over again and it got him from going through heavy divorced now finding person so this is why we do what we do. Essentially and this is the perfect time to launch program because for those of you who celebrate mid autumn festival or observed the holiday today. We're actually recording it on this actual holiday and to this day is very symbolic of new beginnings. It's supposed to celebrate the end of summer the beginning of fall but also new beginnings right like everything is a new. We can start over fresh and also is celebrates the moon. This is the day where the moon is brightest and and so it's very symbolic visually that way as well. I love this festival because we get to eat mooncakes. I'm gonna see my parents today. We're going to gather it's all about reunions but also giving thinks it's almost like a chinese thanksgiving is some ways but a lot of people get married on this days should stay for that because it's supposed to symbolize a day full harmony you even if you think about the moon and the circle it's it's infinite and it's a complete circle so i'm really stoked about the fact that we're launching this program right around the autumn festival you know what else. I even connect the dots until right now. It was just jewish rosh hashanah which year so i feel like for both of us. It's the start of something new. The next chapter in that is what we're putting out of the universe also in so many of you have. Dm does saying you're ready. You're star fresh ready. Certain new you're ready to have a different approach dating navigating the dating scene so we are delivering. Exactly what you've been asking for mental physical holistic reset to finding your person the adventure fire digger person. I have just this vision of like this journey bap of different stages of it like a bike ghosted. But it's okay. We're gonna rock it. Yeah it's a detour. But then it's like candy land you ever that game i. It's a ladder shoots and ladders. You like go down one bad path. Then you're back onto a good path and things can change damn fast and water data. That's what i think i've learned. That's kinda kept me hopeful.

00:05:01 - 00:10:23

Along the way is one day you can be. I mean i feel like for be even like one day. I was like single the next day. I'm like wow. I'm in a relationship like how at this outright right i. Life takes all kinds of twists and turns. And we've been learning this in the last week too. Because if you've been following us On social media and in our facebook group we received some some really bad news that one of our previous guests has passed away. Her name is kate horowitz. And she was part of our first episode about poly-amorous which opened a whole discussion of all of the non monogamous lifestyles. You could be living and and relationships you could be having. And thanks to her and her then husband ben for opening our eyes to this other community that's very strong. And she has subsequently been in three other episodes. She's when the invited us to the sex party that has been put on and a word just forever grateful to having the honor of knowing kate and having her in our lives and having her be part of the dateable community. Yeah i i was able since. You're obviously not local anymore. I went to her celebration of life party over the weekend. Which you know. I'm really glad i went It was nice to hear that were very close to her. Speak on her behalf. The themes that came up over and over again. We're things that i've definitely even witnessed that we've witnessed Is just you know this zest about her. As like burning ambition and desire to change. What people's views are. And i think to normalize saxon to normalize alternative arrangements. And there's something that's been always. So inspirational about her is that she did what she wanted to do and she. She helped people that also wanted to change the way that they approach relationships and non monogamy. And i think even for the most monogamous of us what she's taught me. Is you create the relationship. You want yes all need to do what your parents did. Your grandparents did or what society tells you to do you and your partner or partners can decide what works for you and i think that's the biggest lesson i've taken on and just like i love. Just how fiercely unapologetic she was. And i think that's something that you know. I will honor about her and take into our day to day. Interactions what i love most about. Kate is the fact that she was never judgmental of anybody. Who sort looked at her in a way that was like why do you have this kind of lifestyle. Questioned her even when we first had her on the show. I asked so many questions our first time being exposed to this sort of lifestyle and shuzo open and compassionate and welcoming and for anybody. She's not like the type of person who's like well if you don't live a a non monogamous lifestyle. You're doing it wrong. she's always been like you. Carve your own path as she completely carved her own path and live her life the way she wanted it to so. We celebrate kate and were deeply saddened by the news. And we send our condolences to ben and the family but We're just really grateful that we had a chance to meet her and have her in her life in our lives absolutely and we will continue to do our part to bring on this legacy of normalizing. Do what you want. I think that way that will say it. We're not gonna claim to be polly experts but we will continue to have polly voices to make that heard but also just like we were saying everyone can bring this into their lives no matter if they think mcvay is dead or they believe in the one. It doesn't matter. Yes yes thank you. Thank you well moving on. I know it's hard to think to pass. I think you know just recapping the amazing week. We had last week with the famine town. We'll turn it into a positive note. I think that is definitely something you know. The fam- did not disappoint irl. A- i mean everyone kind of matched what i was expecting also but if anything were better ira i think the vibrancy of people come through even more than in video and i think it's a reminder to which kinda gets into this episode of this week is attraction. I'm so excited to have polly swick odds with us. I did a podcast with him for the california ground breakers told you a immediately after we need to get him on because he he studies attraction. He hasn't attraction lab. Like how front hotel is that. Yes and i think we talk about it in the episode. Two it's like they're the way dating apps designed go against like common methodologies of being attracted to someone and judging on video and photos like it has a lot of limitations not saying that it can't work We obviously know many people that are in relationships from dating app secluded by south so it definitely can work but you need to use apps to your advantage in not get sucked into the dynamics of apps and i think even seeing our community members.

00:10:23 - 00:15:05

Irl was another data point to be that people just carry themselves so differently in real life. You know i love our meet up and yes everybody is sort of match up to what we thought they would be but also there were so many different nuances about people you don't pick up from virtual calls like i got to sit next to he saleh during dinner and i told julia right away i was like. She's one of my favorites so quirky and fun. She brought her metal straw. Okay her own utensils to dinner because she wants to be environmentally friendly and i love that about her and she is just so unapologetically herself and i just remember being like this girl she is. She is the gold standard where she is. So fun and quirky. I love it. I guess what. I took away from it. Though was the virtual means and you know the online connection. It serves a purpose right. It got all these people connections to one another darted the The it actually is quite amazing. How deep of a bond people formed for purely doing video chats grits at it was over an extended period of time on a regular basis. Which is what we always say when it comes to forebade connections with people. You don't know a lot of it is like continuously seeing the same people over and over again to build up that report. So i think it did serve that purpose but i do think that everyone was just so much more dynamic. Irl yes and you feel people's energy and their vibe. I will always remember the conversation. We all had at novella. Okay i will bring this up again. Shield you was being her. Shield yourself completely hilarious end so much fun. And she brought out this term dig down. And i think everybody knew what that term meant except for me but i pretended i knew i was just feeling the vibe of where she said that term when she was like let's get i don't remember the context but she says like dick down and you feel people's body language change and our energy just sort of like rises. That's something you don't get virtually in person. It was most hilarious moment and nobody said anything. It was just that moment of energy. I think that was one of my favorite moments because we had one community developer. I won't call about the did not know it at beds. We were all giving him so much shit and then the next day we went to dinner. You and i and louise our producer. You bet my boyfriend. For the first time. I came along and bidded that she also did it now but she was riddick gated per said she was like silently the quarter otter fode looking it up which i think is so frigging areas. I could not. I kept thinking like i've. I'm sure i've heard this before. No i have no idea what it means but now we know for anybody who doesn't know you don't have embarrass yourself by googling gathering. It just means basically getting plowed right. I feel like it's pretty self explanatory but then someone else made the point is like why wouldn't you say tau dick down. It's like hitting it down. Yeah i mean there are songs about getting kicked out. I was shocked that had never heard that term. I realized that term before but the day after. Listen to that song dick down in dallas. It's a country even know that was because if you google dick down that's the first thing that pops up as this country salt out dick down in dallas and it's wow the skies cheating girlfriend who's getting just fucked in. Every city should get like anal in boston and like gang bang dalla or some other city and then she gets dig down in dallas. I don't know that's that's the premise of the song. But listen to it. Because i am now i completely understand what dick down means. I feel like there. Needs to be burgess says dict out of dallas like great teaser. Who would wear it out. I'm not sure. But yes. Yes i say by. I meet with you by boyfriend. Ua was super sick so she can barely talk. She's still bandaged to grill by boyfriend. She pulls up at app on her phone. Asking the hard hitting questions. Like eddie true podcast. Well do listen. It's not my first rodeo. I've lost my voice before. And i had to use this app called big the i g where you type out whatever you need to do and it comes up as big font tag so i had lots of questions and i couldn't use my voice but i can certainly use text.

00:15:05 - 00:20:02

I just want to show everyone. If you're on youtube. The very last question i asked julius boyfriend was this. What do you like best about julie. Okay i found. This is the app. I use call. Big and his answer was so great. He said julie so easy to talk to. I can just talk for hours. And that's what he remembered from. Your first date was that you just kept talking and kept talking. Just never stopped. That is true. I love that. You've memorized. That answer because i just forgot it. What do you not like about julie. Bad listening skills and julie's boyfriend past he probably thought it was amusing so therefore well. I can't go to dinner and meet julie's boyfriend for the first time and not ask anything. And i couldn't say anything so you get some information so if you find yourself on a date with outta voice it doesn't mean that you should cancel. Just it won't be weird not at all that at all not at all it breaks. The ice breaks the ice. Okay shall we get into our question. That because i feel like this has been something that we keep getting asked. All the time about you know attraction. I think this is why we were so excited. Do this episode to is. It's so hard to like determine what is that. Like it factor. What green chemistry. Why you are attracted to some people but you aren't to others or why do you find someone like objectively attractive but you're not attracted there's so many nuances to it so yeah. Let's read this question that we keep getting in question simple. How do i make myself more attractive. And this is a trick question in a way because beauty's in the eye of the beholder and you will be attractive for some people and not for others and there's no way we can be attracted to everyone. That's just the reality of things but what we do know from talking to thousands of daters in the last five years is it's all about energy and a smile. Yes so you can immediately up your attraction level if you walk into a room with bright vibrant energy and a big bright smile just it's like mosquitoes to a light. They just people wanna swarm to you because they wanna be around that energy. Absolutely i think energy is so essential and yeah we can all do the things that like. Make us the most attractive version of ourselves physically. Like we're not gonna go into that because it's so nuanced for every person. But i think we all know what it takes to like. Put our best foot forward. So there's that. But i think the energy in the vibe you're giving off like i think someone that just loves their life and wants to invite you into their lives versus like i am so desperate to find someone to fulfill me and completely like those are very different. Fives and i think positively versus negative is a big one and this can show up in your language. I actually saw this video the other day of like. What is the most unattractive thing a woman can do for a man and someone responded actually. Of course my video sources tick tock. Let's be honest. i. I was trying to like pretend like scientists say take talk. Know how people like stitch in the sky stitched in he was like it's when women say they hate man and it's the fats and i think this goes the opposite way too. It's not just women to men. We hear all the time that women only want someone that makes a lot of money or women are too demanding like whatever it is that is such negative energy and he was saying how he was baffled that this girl that he knew was sitting around a table talking about how difficult dating was yet how she couldn't find anyone and then she was like but manner all trash and like no. No one's to correct you because there's so much political incorrectness there but it's going to leave a bad impression and yellen wants to be part of that so i think the easiest way to be attractive is to breathe fresh air like make it feel like you know. This is someone that you're going to have a fun time with. It's not going to be a training experience. I think that is the easiest way to be. Unattractive is to bring in that negatively. Yes yes. I love that point because you think that energy is hard to read. It's actually the easiest thing dream so whatever you are bringing from your day people can sense it. Yeah you had a bad day. We always say this if you have a bad day and date night cancel you. Don't ever want to go on a date with already bad mindset. You're just not going to have a good time. It's just the reality of things.

00:20:02 - 00:25:02

So i think it's all about resetting and no yourself very well and when you know you're in a good place we all know when we wear that outfit you just feel so good in or you just came out of a meeting you feel so good about you know exactly what you look like and the kind of energy you're radiating and that is how you become more attractive absolutely so we've heard it before too. It's like you don't have to do anything drastically different to your parents like. We had an episode of wild back. Just say gas with cheryl. She didn't do anything definitely. All the change was the mindset of the cheese going to like say yes to everything in a changed her entire energy and all of a sudden she started attractive. People like flies like a son. She was finding all these people that she never encountered. She didn't change where she lived. What she looks like anything. It was just her energy. Okay so since we went into a bit about what attractive this is like by clearly. Paul is the expert so he will. We'll let him take it away the rest for the episode so before we get into paul. Should we talk about a few quick announcements. Yes so we alluded to this at the beginning of this intro. We are opening up the registration page for our upcoming finding your person program. We will be opening that up on sunday for early bird weightless terse it will be open at ten. Am ps t. Or seven am esp and you only have access to this link if you are signed up for the early bird weightless which you can still get on right now. It's finding your person dot com. Yep don't miss your chance because seeing how many people are on the wait list there is There's a high possibility that all the spots will be taken by weightless before we open it up to the public. Yeah but of course we will let you know if it is open to the public if a couple remaining but if you're on the edge you might as well just get it on the weightless because why. Wait and be disappointed later. I think also if you haven't been tuning into the video series by joining the early bird weightless you get access to all of that for completely for free so you can better understand. The methodology could pick up a few. Hit vincent exercises so it's totally worth it for that alone. But obviously we'd love for you to join the program because we really feel like this is what's going to get you to where you want to be and put you in that mindset to radiate attractiveness and all the energy and put that into the universe at all that cheesy shape but it really does work and it's not just talk it is action there's a there's a lot of material This program so we are so excited to bring that to you okay. So let's get into a quick message from our sponsors. This episode is fueled by drizzly. How many of you have a full blown bar in your house. I mean i wish but with the drizzly app you basically have that of the palm of your hands. Drizzly is a number one app for alcohol delivery because sometimes you need it now like right now some cool features of the drizzly app include getting drinks delivered to your door in sixty minutes. I found the super helpful in this virtual world that we live in where it's harder to meet up with friends or co-workers for drink so now i just send them drinks. Their selection is also huge. I'm always happy when i can find some. Brunello wine or that. George clooney tequila. You know what. I'm talking about and finally drizzly connects you to local liquor stores where you can compare prices across all of them so go check out drizzly now by downloading the drizzly app. We're going to dot com. That's d r is e. l. y. dot com and use the promo code spice. Five for five dollars off your first order. That's drizzly dot com and use the code spice five for five dollars off. This episode is brought to you by hellofresh. Listen we're all busy and for me. grocery shopping. planning for meals is just not at the top of my list. That's why hellofresh recipes save you time you otherwise spend meal planning shopping and chopping all the things i don't want to be doing also get better value hellofresh over thirty percent cheaper than shopping at grocery stores and a love that it's all pre preportion ingredients so you don't end up wasting any food. I look forward to getting my delivery. Every week and last week was fire. It was hoisted pork tacos. It was just such a unique combination of mexican and chinese food and it felt like restaurant quality So good so. Y'all got get it on this for dateable listeners. Only go to dot com slash dateable fourteen and use the code dateable fourteen for up to fourteen free meals including free shipping again. That's hellofresh dot com slash dat ab l. e. fourteen and usa co dateable. Fourteen for fourteen. Free meals hellofresh. America's number one meal kit.

00:25:04 - 00:30:03

This episode is made possible by thrive cosmetics. You've heard us rave about them before. And we're not stopping thrive. Cosmetics is a line of high performance award winning products that are made with clean high performance. Skin loving ingredients all thrive cosmetics products are formulated without toxic. Ingredients like parabens sulfates and phthalates and their cruelty free by never testing on animals. The liquid lash extensions mascara is my number one obsession. I no longer have to get extensions because this magical mascara does the trick. It's completely fleet. Free smudge free and clump frey and stays on even on the hottest days. No raccoon is for me also as part of their bigger than beauty mission for every product. Purchase thrive cosmetics support nonprofit partners with a donation of funds or products. I am truly inspired by how this is a beauty brand that goes beyond skin deep. You're going to love them as much as we do. Visit thrive cosmetics dot com slash dateable for fifteen percent off your first order. This is an exclusive offer. You only get here. That's thrive c. a. u. s. e. medics dot com slash dat ab l. e. For fifteen percent off your first order again thrive cosmetics dot com slash dat b. l. e. Love it love it okay. So let's hear it from paul. What does attraction even mean. We're going to get into that on this episode. With our very special guest. Dr paul eastwick the professor at uc. To say he he's a professor at uc davis. He's the you say professor. He runs the attraction relationships research lab where he used the scientific approaches to understand how people form and maintain relationships. Especially when it comes to attraction. Whoa that's a law fell excited for this. Anti squirrel we found. Paul was a really great story. Paul and julie were both on the california groundbreaker podcast together. And as soon as julie finished recording podcast. She texted me and was like we. Need paul on our podcasts story. Very much for having me. Thank you for being here. So who is paul. He's forty two years old. He lives in sacramento. He's been there for five years originally from massachusetts just like juillet in a monogamous relationship before we get into everything you've learned from the attraction and relationship research lab. What exactly is an attraction. A relationship research lab will grizz and so I am a social psychologist by training. And so what that means is that i use a variety of correlation mostly data driven approaches to try to get a better handle on the way that people initiate and maintain relationships. Sometimes that means bringing people into the laboratory in having the beat a real or fictitious other person to go sense of how they might react in terms of their romantic interest levels. Sometimes we track people's romantic interest over time And sometimes we actually look at people who are currently in a relationship to try to get a sense of how those relationships are going. So that gives you a sense of the kinds of approaches. We used to try to better understand really interesting so is it mostly qualitative research or do you ever do like quantitative studies. That are more for anyone. Unfamiliar with research techniques were in depth conversations versus more survey style or mass looks at a population so usually we do quantitative research meaning that. We're we're collecting data and we're gonna analyze numbers and we're gonna use statistics in some way shape or form to make generalizations about sort of what those numbers me sometimes we use a little bit in the realm of qualitative approaches. Sometimes you'll have the videos. Were doing coding project right. Now or my grad students alexis doing coding project where she's coating couples talking about their narratives about how they got together in the first place so so that's very rich qualitative data but as a quantitative psychologist by training. My instinct is usually okay. Let's somehow find a way to put numbers on this stuff of that. People are talking about so we can analyze it that way but qualitative approaches are are are also very important in my field outset and we just go really high level right now through all of your research. First of all is attraction a thing that people can attribute to what they've experienced in the past or can people find attraction with people that they haven't exactly met yet.

00:30:03 - 00:35:05

So what i mean by. This is when we say oh. I'm attracted to this person. Is it because based on our history were actually based on. some sort of chemistry is good. Question certainly. It's very easy for people to experience. I think something they'd comfortably label attractions and as we talk about romantic interest. I mean there's sort of a variety of different. You know people might talk about infatuation. Its especially strong but these are the various labels. We've used to describe that feeling. That i am into this person and i would like to pursue this and see where this goes right that this sort of internal subjective state that you will only you know ryan. People are very comfortable with the idea that that can happen upon first meeting somebody but what do we call that thing. If you haven't actually met the person what we call that thing if you're reading an online dating profiles is that the same experience or is it like anticipated romantic interests at anticipated attraction. When i see that person. I'm sort of making a guest at how i'm gonna feel about them. I guess my answer is maybe a little bit unsatisfying. Which is that. it's probably a little bit of both. I do think people can experience genuine attraction for somebody if you've just looked at their online dating profile just correspondent by text or something like that but i do think that there is some component of that that is anticipatory and then if i told you you were never going to get to meet this person face to face that would change your pro ch substantially In terms of what you're hoping to pursue with this person so how do people even know in the first place what they're looking for like we hear people all the time be like i have a tight and is that stems from society from their background. Like where's that. come from. Yes so people often have very strong opinions and ideas about what it is. That's going to appeal to them. Yes and these opinions and ideas go by a lot of name so having a type or not is part of that. Sometimes people also talk about jargonese terms we use in the literature arm make preferences or ideal partner preferences ryan that's usually about traits right it's usually about. I really want somebody. Who's in intelligent and go scuba diving right. You can get very very specific. Very very broad okay. So people form these ideas from a number of different places he. I'll just review the possibilities. And i'll try not to let my biases come through about where i think that makes do my best okay. So somebody would say they're evolve guy so there are species typical preferences that humans have others might stress that some aren't male typical and some are female typical rights of. You're a man you're gonna should be more likely to have on average a preference for somebody who is physically attracted then woman have okay so these things could be species. Typical word. Innate is complicated unloaded but some people would use that word to describe where preferences come other people would say. It is basically a stereotype. It's basically a distillation of the average people of your preferred sex that you meet and your sort of forming this template of what people of the of the sacks of your heterosexual tend to have and so that's what's coming out another possibility is that it is something to do with your history of meeting different kinds of people distilling water the things that separate the people you like from the people you don't like and sort of properly calibrating like you know i really. It seemed to lightning talent women. I've met more than the unintelligent women. And i seem to have that tennessee. More than my other. Male friends air go. I must like intelligence more than other people. Do okay the the math. The mental calculus. There's a little complex but people might be doing that So those are at least three possibilities for where people's ideas come from right. It's innate people are just telling you what they see around them without any real personal insight or people are sort of going over their own history and trying to tell you what is especially appealing to them. As individuals and we use the word attraction attractiveness. I just want to clarify that now. Because i've said this before. And i've heard friends say this too. I find this person attractive. But i'm not attracted to them. Is that a true statement. Can you actually find someone attractive. But not be attracted to them. Yes certainly an an makes me wish we had to work. I mean honestly. It's kind of when you say attraction In our nerdy papers. We all romantic interest or romantic desire. Does the tendency to get confused. Between attraction and attractiveness is very very easy but the word attractiveness is almost always about physical attractiveness.

00:35:05 - 00:40:01

Like how hot is this person. I mean retirement facing about right. Different components of a person can be physically attractive. But that's that's usually what we're talking about when we say that. So you know the correlation between how physically attractive you think somebody is and whether or not you romantically desire that person. That correlation point six or point seven. That's that's enormous and social science terms. But it's not determinative so there are gonna be some people that you're like. Yeah that guy's hot. But i'm not i'm not into him. I do not desire him so that concerned the app. So you talked about ideal partner preferences. That's like dirty term that you use in papers. Do you see like trends of certain qualities popping up. Is it all like physical or is it across the board so people if you ask people to start listing. They can go on for hundreds and hundreds of tricks about things that that have occurred to them at some point like. Oh yeah. I really liked attribute the mo if you ask people off the top of your head. Go start nominating things. Actually the most common thing that people come up with his sense of humor. Oh you get you get you get attractive you know. Physical attractiveness comes in pretty high. All all sorts of attributes related to warmth and trustworthiness are also very popular too. And then you'll get things related to status and money and you know. Sort of other kinds of indicators of the ability to navigate social hierarchies again that's our jargon wave describing where those attributes come from but people can go on for a very very long time about the attributes that appeal to them and get in arguments about oh lane. Oh you think that attributes important. I don't think so. I think it's it's these other attributes and i guess i would say i don't know how useful those arguments are because not totally clear to me. How predictive these ideas are then we will have about. What are the import traits. Can you explain that a little bit more. Yeah so so. Here's the thing i i do. Believe about people's personal insights. They would say. I'm more likely to be attracted to somebody who is warm than somebody who is like good for you you nailed. It took office. That's but if julie you say that you really want somebody who is television and you a you say that you really want somebody who is Adventurous juilliard you likely to like the attract the intelligent people more than you a is and you air you more likely like the adventurous people. More than julius odds are no That that differentiation between people tends not to be very predictive in other words. You don't really have unique insights into the attributes that appeal to you especially own. Yes you're able to describe something sort of typical of the whole population right. Sort of like you know. Holding someone's hand is better than a kick in the head but individual differences in how these traits appeal to people is very hard for people to have good insight into so. How does that play into our dating lives because i Like everyone feels like they are so confident yes in the attributes are looking for their dealbreakers and these are must have and now. You're basically. I'm mind blown that you're telling us no. We actually do not know. These nuance attributes. That were looking for right and when what it means. Is that most of the time that people are spending on online. I'm thinking about like maybe a little bit more old timey like oh his profile. Now out means Attributes thanks you can spend a lotta time looking at that. But it's a coin flip essentially whether or not you're gonna like the person that appeals to you on paper more than some random person who didn't appeal to you on paper that you set aside or a fascinating young too. That's the challenge right. Is he spent a lot of time like fishing through the pile and trying to set up your perfect weekend of four coffey dates. But what if you took ten minutes and just picked the first four. That seem remotely reasonable. You might save yourself a lot of time in. It's not clear to me that your outcome that weekend would be so equal odds really equal odds you hear that all the time though is like people like something on paper and then it doesn't match up in real life and we've heard from experts before too and we've talked about on the show is that innately. We don't know what we really want like. We think we want something in characteristics. Like for example. Some of the best sense of humor may not actually be the partner. That's gonna be really the partner that makes you happy.

00:40:01 - 00:45:00

That's gotta be there for you through thick and thin like outta people kinda like get out of their own way with that type of stuff yeah. It's very tricky. And i do think when people get in the mindset of all right. Well i'm just gonna. I'm gonna keep meaning people until that first coffee day is just a huge mind-blowing hip you might be at it for a while and the reality is that isn't really the way that we were meant to date classically. Speaking the people that we dated were people that knew for longer periods of time right people had these social media's eating going back to ancestral context right you were part of a social media those exit pretty small and these were people that would sort of come in and out of your life but you would have a chance to get to know them in context. That wasn't so officially romantically evaluated right. It classically think back to you know being in school. You sort of get a chance to know people by chance Assigned to the same group over here in this task or maybe go to grandma's for the summer you meet whoever's down the street or whoever's next store right so there's all these sort of chance ways that we have to get to know people gradually over time that allow for a more subtle gradual filtering of potential options so the online dating is amazing in the sense that it gives you all these options and hey got four coffee dates again. But it's a. It's a very special unusual kind of filtering process. And i think. I think it's easy to forget that if you just like lose that whole social milieu mixing component or people are gradually getting to know each other. It can feel like like a like a job right. It's like this whole extra job that you have That can be pretty dispiriting times. We've talked to another expert to that mentioned Like she's a behavioral scientists at hinge. And she mentioned how dating apps folks like they force you to focus on certain attributes. Because you can't see if someone's kind or if they're funnier anything like you end up focusing on physical traits and job status and all that i guess in your opinion i'd love to hear from you. Like how do you let data gaps work for you to mimic more. What you were just saying of kind of that natural. Getting to know someone well. Yes oh here. i'm speculating. because honestly it's been a long time. Since i found myself on a dating app so i don't i can't really speak to the contemporary transplant. What is it really like to to use them. So some of this advice might sound absolutely wild to be at a so. I would imagine that if you were using online dating as a way of broadening social networks right as a way of saying not What coffee dates. Can i have this week in that can leverage in the something else but who seems like the kind of person i might wanna meet and they might nov a party or a get together among a larger group of like people right that maybe that would be something that you could connect you move from there so instead of like you know. Trying this dart throw of like. Maybe you're the one for me. Maybe you're the one for me is sort of like us online dating as a way of sort of making social networks. Move and meld together. So you're getting to meet more people again. This is all in the pre dating website age but that was really sort of where the magic happened in terms of like feeling your social universe expanding when you were like sort of connecting social group that social group like people are all trying to meeting each other in new ways. I do think that that really leaves. Open the most possibilities in. I think it's can be very frustrating in isolating for people if all they have are the online dating opportunities. Strictly speaking this coffee date is to see where this goes and nowhere else. That's a really insightful. I think piece of advice for how to filter on online dating apps. It is a way of expanding your mind to beyond romantic interest. It's more of. Who do i see myself hanging out with that. I would probably normally wouldn't get too but once you get to that i eight and we hear this quite a bit too is. I wasn't attracted to this person. Or i wasn't attracted to this person when i met them in real life and when i'm hearing from you is in some ways. Attraction builds over time so a lot of our listeners will ask well. Should i absolutely go on a second date regardless. What would you say to that. Do you think that attraction can build over time even if you just don't even have an ounce of attraction from that first date so is complicated in many ways because on the one hand if you look at relationships that became something guy.

00:45:00 - 00:50:01

So we're now we know. This relationship became long-term or short-term it was sexual in some way and you look back at the beginning. You can bank on seeing a trajectory that sort of started middling and went up okay so if everybody had a filter of used a sort of blow my mind from moment one most relationships would never have happened however if you take instead of relationships that made it you look at the full pool of people that you've met that you were like a little into and you watch what happens for moment when it goes down. So what this tells me is that yup you need to go out and meet a lotta people and most of them. Your opinion of them will not your romantic opinion of them will not say hi over time. But you're kinda waiting out for the few where your opinion willing so. It's a lot of work long that's right. Let's pause. that thought for just a minute so we can hear a quick message. This episode is made possible by lugs and miss the golden age of the nineties. Lugs found its footing as a leader within the footwear and fashion space priding itself on quality materials and supreme comfort. The brand never wavered with the passing of trends whether you remember the brand's early appeal within the hip hop culture where the countless celebrity endorsements one thing remains the same lugs distinctive style. Julian i both have a few different styles of shoes ranging from their icon Boots to their canvas sneakers even though they're so different in style one thing remains the same. They're all also comfortable and light. I love my flirt. Hides it boots that i can wear with cute summer. Dresses and my canvas sneakers go so perfectly with my jeans and t-shirts fund comfortable everyday where realistically price and affordable so go treat yourself. You can never have too many pairs of lugs exclusively for our beautiful listeners. Get thirty percent off full price items now by going to lug dot com and entering the code. Dateable again that's l. e. dot com and entering the code dat e. ap l. e. for thirty percent off full price items. Let's face it. It's a weird time to be dating or developing relationships. Have you recently decided that you want to make some changes to your love life. Maybe you've recently reentered the dating seed. Maybe you've gone on one too. Many dates that went nowhere. Or maybe you're ready to take your current relationship to the next level. That is exactly why we created the sounding board a true extension of our podcast that delivers a personalized experience which includes one coffee dates with us. A monthly dateable live after show exclusive audio content. A much more allow. Julian become your dating. Sherpa us to provide real time guidance and wisdom in a more intimate way so we can navigate dating and relationships together. Join the sound today by going to dateable. Podcast dot com slash sounding board again. That's dateable podcasts. Dot com slash sounding board. Okay let's get back into this combo. I mean i've definitely heard of people that have said like my partner initially wasn't who i thought i'd end up with or when i was on a dating app i would actually passed over my current artor. I'm with because of the way we just jived in real life. I personally think like it doesn't need to be fireworks from day. One that there needs to be like something they're like. I think if there's like zero it's hard to go from zero to like full blow right. I think that's right. And you know people have limited time right so you know certainly how into somebody you are moment one is going to be highly correlated with how you feel about the moment to and then three right so you know it's gonna track but it can still be going up or down if you give it time to do one or the other so people you know you wanna start by pursuing the relationships where you're feeling really good about the person right from the beginning but that doesn't preclude the possibility that had you given somebody chance who didn't initially really blow you away. It would have been well and this was the thing about sort of the way we used to meet people and by us to i'm in decades past but also for those of us who are sort of in professional workforce Now back when you went to school and were forced to interact with people over and over again. Elect them or not. Is that that allowed those trajectories. Just sorta happened natural right. You didn't really have a ton of choice about you got to see on a regular basis so it's a very different universe when we're given so much choice about whether to interact with somebody again after moment one but we kind of need to stay in the current universe because we're working with so from the stories we've heard of couples meeting. Ira l a lot of them. Started out with friends or they were part of the same group or club or friend circle and maybe that attraction wasn't there and eventually that attraction builds my current partner. I had known each other for five years before we started dating.

00:50:02 - 00:55:00

We played the long game. I did too but in today's environment if we're thinking about online dating and we really want to feel that attraction do you have any observations or hacks on how to speed up the attraction process. Can i make myself attracted to someone a little bit faster. You know there are here is what a sort of channel the collective wisdom of my field. I think what people would say is that there are couple tools. You have at your disposal. The first is make those initial interactions different and memorable. This is actually coming out of the season. Sorry book from a few years ago. Talks about a like a group of people a group of friends. They'd always take their first days to monster truck rallies right not exactly monster truck. Rally people neither this nor the date. But that's like pretty memorable and gives people a chance to show more aspects of themselves than the typical coffee drinks kind of date. Because you have something else to do sort of marvel at so doing things that are that are unusual or contain some sort of other activity. Now some folks would even go further and say yes and make those activities exciting and novel arousing. So you know bungee jumping i date. Just oh my gosh can get added. Get the by ten. Get one free guard and just make make that your first date goto. The you know. Maybe you know i do. Think that that that mixing it up keeping it interesting if you're gonna use this sort of like one day and let's see how well we hit it off. Kinds of strategy wish existed was online dating. But like i'm gonna meet you but actually it's because you've got three friends and Right so like. I'm somebody's done. This dat sounds the kind of thing that would be compelling now People who run these sites can now tell me. That's a terrible idea for a million reasons but from pure empirical psychologists perspective. That's what i want to see. People meet each other. But not. Because i want to date you because you got a number of single friends. They could end up stalling for that person. Sure why less pressure okay. So we're we're in the current world where david gaps are prevalent ways to meet outside. I think especially during this year and it's been even more focus. We are not in a lab. We cannot create no quote unquote perfect partner. How do people like come to terms that someone realistically meet every ideal partner preference they have like. How do they feel like they've still made a good choice. Well my guess is that what happens. Eighty to ninety percent of the time is that people say i guess. I didn't really like that in the first place. Because i'm really into this person and yet they don't match what i would have told you ahead of time. But oh well and they they move forward and i would argue that is in most cases. Probably the psychologically healthy thing to do and that when people get very strict or rigid about what it is. They're looking for so much so that they foreclosed promising real life options because that person is missing some actor butte or maybe component of their family history of something like that so they foreclosed those options from moving forward. You know that's the kind of thing that's probably worth doing. Some self exploration to try to understand exactly why that is. Are you convinced that this is a way of sort of preventing future strife in pain. And how well can you really predict the future and you know sort of maybe there'd be some Some self questioning In that respect. That would be the thing that i would worry about when people get very rigid about. Yeah i like you. Yeah this is going well but this is not what i said i wanted. That's not to say there aren't like real dealbreakers in the right. That people have right obvious ones are things like. How do we coordinate our two jobs and you know. How do we want to think about kids right. These are big deals but But i think it's also very common for people to take surmountable things and Transform them in their minds into something insurmountable and that i would argue may not always be the best idea. Like if you're like. I like blondes. In this person's approved that it might be okay by being so rigid that afraid to get something real essentially right to make it like a little more thing about like maybe educational background. Maybe the things that you're into doing right like you.

00:55:00 - 01:00:04

You might desperately love travel but this is somebody who's kind of a homebody like you never imagined being with a partner that you weren't gonna travel the world waves but this is going. Well would you do under that circumstance. I do think that it's worth doing some exploration to try to You know are there other ways you can sort of satisfy your travel bug right. are there other other futures. You could imagine that are a little less rigid than the one that you've that you've gone in your mind interesting. I wasn't even thinking of that example. I want to go into that a little more. Maybe like which traits like in this ideal partner preference in your opinion are things that people can fold on in. That may not really be a predictor of future happiness versus which ones are maybe like grey areas. Because i could see travel being your gray area potentially so so honestly i use the example sort of job coordination each child coordination family relevant stuff but but to be honest. There's no good research suggesting that anything is anything other than a great right now. I'm i'm sort of sort of imposing my own values on it. Really when i say like well. Obviously you know you don't want kids you know you do want kids like that's rigid and you should stick to that. Actually don't have any broader evidence for that and part of that is a function of the limited way that we study things we usually study. Sort of traits right so physical attractiveness intelligence sense of humor. It's almost always like european right. All of that. Stuff is negotiable. Whether they're sort of more lifestyle relevant staff politics would be another obvious one ride than like really like this stuff is is also fungible like you could change your mind about that but i have the intuition that some of these things are very important to stick to but actually have no evidence And in a similar vein in your research for the couples who've established some sort of baseline attraction towards each other. Have you discovered. at what point. Do they decide that this is it. I'm not going to look any farther. There's there's no one else better or they accept the fact that there may be other people were better. But i'm sticking with this partner. It's a really good question. And it's in some ways like that's the most interesting moment that comes two thirds of the way through the romantic comedy. Right this is this is what happens and like we are terrible at studying it or terrible studying it because most of the time when we're studying couples were bringing in people are way past that point and they sort of humidity each other right so those are the people that come to labs for studies. But you know we missed all that interesting stuff right. We missed all the interesting moments about within moments along the way where you know you almost bailed or the other person almost bailed or regard you broke up and you got back together. These things we tend to miss you. Will we have seen when you ask people to again. These are like relationships that made it to a certain point. Now you ask them to go back in time. Sort of reconstruct what happened. And there's a long period of time between when people i made on average and when they actually say like we together and we are exclusive and we are sort of moving forward. We are off the market. There is a lot of stuff that happens right. There's usually at least in the modern western context. There's a lot of sexual stuff that happens. Prior to that point part of that is people sort of figuring out in assessing like. Is this somebody that i'm into part of. It is about meeting friends. You're dipping your toe in what this other person's life is like to see how it feels and to see like can you sort of bring the two streams of your lives together in a harmonious way but we see the success stories when we study couples. In retrospect but that's very different than like as the starting to happen. Can we predict where this is going to go. And that's you know. I would argue. This is actually one of the great mysteries in science right now is like what can we predict before it actually happened sexy quite so the people that you guys study the people that are in committed relationships in. You're saying that you know some of them might have been attracted enough at the beginning but maybe they didn't think their partner was the hottest person they ever said saw or the most beautiful. Do you find that. As the relationship progresses they start to think of their harder and higher terms or are they is it that they're just looking at the overall picture or do they actually start believing that because they've bought into it I do think that the what happens on. Average is that people's opin again the couples it a made it a now. Having we get to this point they started feeling more and more positively about this person over time and whether it was.

01:00:04 - 01:05:02

I got to see what this person is really like or i got to see how well we fit together or i got to see things about this person that maybe nobody else has ever really gotten to see. Maybe use augmented context that nobody else had seen or maybe things that now. They're sharing with you that they'd never really shared with anybody. Before all of these elements start to create. We use the term We use the term unique to refer to the way that sort of two people end up fitting well together right so they build a unique relationship or sort of a unique set of expectations and a like a little micro culture that is specific to their relationship so when they grow that successfully. That's where it seems. Good relationships come from so it's not about sort of picking the right person from the very beginning but about building something over the first set of interactions that you have with this person. We think good relationships come from assassinated. It's really that's like the opposite of how online take works. That's right and it's and it's what it could mean is that you could build a successful relationship with many many people if a right to wine is right if you had three options you make it work with one of them right now. You have ten thousand so you spend a lot of time. Shopping around and with that shopping around. I think one thing that dating apps do is that it makes you feel more attractive than you really are. Because it's everybody's profile photos are looking at you like stepping into a bar and ten thousand people all eyes on you and you have the choice of saying yes and no to all these different people. Have you found that to be true in. Your studies at people may define. They may think they're more attractive than they really. And that's what's attributing to their unsuccess- with dating. That's definitely by theory of everybody. Yeah go no go ahead. Everyone thinks they're hotter than they are and then they're looking for somewhat hotter and it's a cycle of never finding someone in i think when you find someone your quote unquote level that's when things fall into place. Yeah i do think that there is a easy tendency to get overwhelmed by the wide variety of options. And think like this feels good. But i wonder if something else could feel even better where we could click. You know even more strongly. Now that's a little different from the matching idea. Right the idea that people get a lofty sense of who they are and they start pursuing people who are in fact at an even higher level than them in that causes. This mismatch that as an idea. I am a bit skeptical of ood at least once you start talking about face to face. Interactions and moving forward and the reason. Why is that. I think we think we overstate the amount of agreement. There is about things like who is desirable. And who is People do agree but it is not all agreement and in fact is very far from perfect. Agreement is a great study is like a fifteen year old studies before my time. It's it's truly fascinating kinds of staff they do. It's very creative. But essentially what have were a set of online dating profiles and a bunch of raiders looking at these photos and rating. How hot they were okay and they looked across okay hundred of these photos. For how many of these photos did somebody puts you in the top. Half in somebody else puts you in the bottom half In the answer was ninety five south damn ninety five percent of people. guess what. Somebody's gonna think you're awesome. Somebody's gonna think you're terrible. Wow it's only five percents of people who like everybody agrees like you do not have it or you definitely have so. There is a lot of disagreement out there about who is hot and who is not and even more dramatic. Is that as people get to know each other. That goes down even more and more have again. Make the same numbers but you can imagine that. Go onto ninety six ninety seven ninety eight ninety nine percent data among the people that you know well actually not great consensus about how good of a catch you are right. Some people just like hanging out with you but you know they they may not exactly be any some people are do this secretly andy right so that that agreement goes down. The agreement goes down. It means all of this like you can do better your six.

01:05:02 - 01:10:08

She's a nine just it. It all sort of becomes highschool silliness at this. How fascinating because i feel like in society there certain cultural standards and those actually are different and other in different places so i think sometimes i felt this if i'm not this that's like pinpointed. As the cultural no definition of beauty than people must not feel that way. And you're basically saying like that's just it's all bullshit away it is I would say it is a little true. Here's here's an. Here's another way that i i'm fond of putting okay so i would argue. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That out argue. It's approximately seventy percent in the thirty percent of the variance as people agree. Okay show and so if you're talking about context people looking at photos or they are meeting you for the first time they don't really get to know you. Yeah thirty percent is gonna be agreement and that can feel like a law right. I mean yeah. Leaves the lion share leftover. Like you would be able to figure out pretty quickly where you ranked in the hierarchy of things if agreement is thirty percent level but as people get to know you over course of weeks and months it goes down. Twenty percent is ten percent and among people who know each other really well. It's it's quite small. That i think is maybe the distinction. Is that an an why he will. Who might not consensually be the most desirable people on paper or when photographed. They can often feel like movie stars among their small cadre of friends and acquaintances fragile Exactly how it's designed because that was out we evolve. We evolved to get to know people in these small groups right. We didn't evolve to like oh like one person gets dominated. All the mates. 'cause they're the high like again like you hear that from evolutionary psychologist. But i don't know what species they're describing. It's not what people do right right. If you look around. People like every person is like has found someone right. It's not just like people that look like celebrities. People that i think are unattractive when i first meet them. guess what. There's a very good chance that person is going to find a very happy relationship and be great or maybe they'll have a relationship and then it'll go badly in the break up. No get another relationship like it's all. Okay here's a live for every pot that's always the case but in your studies again. Because i'm just so curious if you've seen any differences when it comes to attraction based on different genders base on different age groups based on different stages in life are people looking for different things because there are in a certain stage or they're a certain age Zoo good wesleyan's first of all talk about sex difference related stuff. And then i'll see if i have anything to add about age-specific with with respect to differences between men and women there are definitely differences. Sometimes those differences are big differences. And d- most obvious glaring. Difference that you'll find in pretty much any survey is that men are more. Do more comfortable with the idea of casual sex hooking up with somebody that don't really know doing risky things that might facilitate them hooking up with people don't really know right so these are the things that men are much more likely to do them when you know again. It's not like ninety. Nine percent of men will do that and one percent of women right. It's it's more modest than that but that's a sex difference that you can easily see with the naked eye and so that's also associated with the fact that usually when men and women are first meeting men tend to be more amorous but as people get to know each other those sex differences. Start to wane. You don't see much of a sex difference ford sample if you look at established couples and sort of who is sexually satisfied in that relationship. Right if anything what you see. Is that men. When they're meeting people for the first time tend to be overly optimistic about off. she seems super rights. Men are constantly overestimating how much to them to stay. But then they do the opposite in their ongoing relationships like they. They live over. Correct the other way. Which is this weird mystery. Understand the other girlfriends. Don't wanna sex with him and they totally do so so a lot of like what we understand about sex differences i would argue are about like men and women meeting for the first time. You do see a conflict there in again like men are like. Hey whatever like what. Do i have to lose a little bit more. Like slow down buddy but all of that relaxes with time and when we get stuck in a in a mode of were only ever meeting strangers or only ever studying strangers in my field on sex differences can look more dramatic than i think that they really are so. Is there any truth to lake that you hear all the time that women place more emphasis on status for instance a man's job or you know their wealth or whatever and then you hear that men are often graviton.

01:10:08 - 01:15:04

I'm talking about in heterosexual relationships here. That men are more like looks focused. Is there any truth to that or is that bogus Not really so. This is something that we've studied a lot in my lab the over the years in decades. So it is definitely true. The men and women tell you that right so man will consistently say like attractiveness. More women do women will say they like status and money. More men do okay but then if you look at how strongly those traits actually appeal to people. Attractiveness is very appealing again. It's not perfectly determinative. But it is positively correlated with house desirable. Somebody's going to be. But that's true for men and women right to to the same extent so the correlation between how physically attractive people consensually agree. Somebody is and how successful. They're going to be a speed dating that correlations like point three and it's the same for men orange has still it matters pretty important in the grand scheme of things but it matters the same for men and women if you look at things like money earning potential and again i to find this somewhat shocking but has like a tiny positive effect has the same effect for men and for women. Now is that because it's co- veering with different things for men and for women maybe women who are like really funny and maybe men who aren't allowed arrest really well right man to other things in there that are causing those things to be equal Suppose you could be getting things like that but The sex differences that people report when they described their ideal partner. Going back to some of those mechanisms. I mentioned earlier. My hunch is that they're mostly describing stereotypes. Stereotypes in the form of like people know that men on average earn more than women so women are describing a man. they're describing somebody who earns more than when men describe a woman right. So i think that is filtering into people's ideals and that's where some of those sex differences come from you actually make the same case about attractiveness because guess what on average women are hotter than men everybody. So there's there's some amount of that that's getting in there and that's yes men and women are different. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that you would want to max out different attributes depending on whether you were a man or a woman. If you're trying to be successful in everyone's perception of what attractiveness means at what wealth. There's all different. That's what all of this that it's like think. Ibm a really good segue to some of the takeaways spent a fascinating conversation. Thank you get poverty. I mean my biggest takeaway is one. Everything is in the eye of the beholder. There is no perfect partner. there are no perfect traits. It's what is perfect for you. In that person. This bond they youtube have together. And i think this whole notion of time. That really stood out to me with this. And i think that might be one of the faults in modern days that we don't give people enough time and i think if you're constantly looking for someone quote unquote better and i hate using that word because it goes back to like what does better even mean if it's all relative to each other you may be single for the rest of your life if your call is to be in a relationship because that person doesn't exist. I think sometimes we have to look at ourselves to are. We perfect in every way absolutely not. I know i'm certainly not. So why would i expect someone to have. Every ideal characteristic again is that ideal my ideal or is it a societal ideal. I think thinking about pat ability rather than market value and thinking about time rather than hitting it off immediately. These are two important things to keep in mind. That are under appreciated. I think asked by general public but also you know the science gets in a lot of fights about these issues because because we tend to assume market value and you should know immediately and i would argue. Both of those things are vastly overstated. I think it's undervalued because it takes brainpower to think about these things to think about compatibility what you've touched upon. Paul is that we blindly talk about the traits. Were looking for. Because that's what we've been hearing. I think a sense of humor. One is such a great case in point because everybody will say. Sense of humor is a number one quality. They're looking for and if that were the case. Every comedian out there would be like married with with five wives or five husbands right like there would be no single comedians out there. But that's not the case because we just blindly say sense of humor. of course. that's what i've been told and stability and sense of adventure. But what i'm gathering from his conversations that we have to take inventory of all the traits were looking for and kind of go through each one and question is something. I really truly value or was something that i heard is the stereotype that i just thought that i should put it onto my list and the list of tracer looking for really shouldn't be that long to begin with these should be tied to our core values and a needs a redo for a lot of us to reevaluate.

01:15:04 - 01:20:01

What it is we're really looking for. I also love this idea of dating like we're in a lab. Why can't we have our own attraction. Labs going on dates and throwing out different things that your bring onto the day just to observe what happens is such a great idea because then it becomes less about putting pressure on that person to be someone that you're impressed by or someone could be a romantic interest. You're putting the onus on yourself to say how. Can i make the state more interesting so i can get the most information from date and learn the most about myself as well so we can all day like. We're an attraction lab you know my former adviser wind speed dating. This is now almost twenty years ago and brought a set of cards of different questions to ask. These questions came from the empirical literature. Okay there were some that were supposed to build into some. That were is randomly. Draw them and start talking about them on the dates okay. Did the cards actually. Have that predicted. Experimental definitely not but they were really interesting conversation starter. So there are ways of adapting like these different ideas like you were suggesting treated like a lab like not the same exact experimental manipulation but different things to like make it interesting and to make it different because relationships are thing that you will have to create and so you can imagine the ideal dates being where you have the opportunity to try to create something together as opposed to just wondering where he from and i think we need a stop looking at it as a list of traits like i think you said something really fascinating. All of just is it. That someone's well dressed or is it like that. They have status. Like does that fall into looks it all kinda merges together and i almost feel like we needed to start. We've talked about this on the podcast. Many of times is it's the feeling that you have with. This person opposed to cherry picking if every last trade is what you're looking for and you set it here to be. That isn't really something you need in the first place or maybe you start to see it in a different light because it's now hybrid with some other ingram. Yup exactly one last question for you. What is the most surprising thing that has come out of the attraction lab for you. Okay the most surprising thing. wake me. second okay. Here's one that continues to be pretty surprising to me. We continue to wrestle with in a lot of ways an it. Is that so we talked about this idea. That initially people agree about who's haden's not okay and that that that matters a lot earlier but it starts to wane on and so then you might assume well but that's because other more intimacy producing traits will start to matter more so right initially. I'm into the hot guy but My kind trustworthy friend. His kindness and his trustworthiness will. That will start appealing to me more and more over time. So it's like a bad boys win in the beginning but the nice guys eventually. They're kind traits till Announced drew now who you are in terms of your individual differences or how people might consensually rate you basically all of that stops mattering the more you get to know some so it is not actually that nice guys win. It's that all guys and women have a chance to develop a relationship where they have an opportunity to be nice if they take that opportunity than the relationship is success. Not dante relations fails but the niceness that like you possess actually doesn't do all that much. And dan is a little again. If there's any like psychologists listening to this their this exploded because the very mad by suggesting that niceness doesn't really matter but it matters in the context of your religion thinks but like he's such a nice trustworthy guy. He's doesn't matter be a better partner. None of that really matters love et. Wow that is so fascinating. Well you know what does matter is you paul. Thank you so much for being on our show to remember and if people want to learn more about your attraction lab and your research where can they find you They can follow me on twitter. That is the that is probably my largest social media presence. It isn't a lot but it's At police wig. That's where we post our new findings and stuff like that great. We'll definitely link that. End your website in our show notes absolutely and you know what makes you listeners. More attractive to us is when you give us five stars in apple podcast reviews it is a panty dropper. Only it is. You can't argue with it. There's one hundred percent consensus your. It is the most attractive thing. Nice no to is just music hours and we truly appreciate all of your nice reviews have been coming in recently. Thank you again paul.

01:20:01 - 01:22:14

For being on this episode and for sharing all of this knowledge that we can now go home digest and really think for the rest of this was so amazing so fascinating. We're going to wrap up this episode. Now stay long and attractive and attract the dateable podcasts. As part of the frolic podcast network. Five more podcasts. You'll love at frolic dot media slash podcasts. Want to continue the conversation. I follow us on instagram. Facebook and twitter with a handle at dateable podcasts. Tag as an any post with hashtag. Stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those post then. Head over to our website dateable podcasts 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 wise series where we dissect analyze offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums for also downloadable for free on spotify apple podcast. Google play overcast. Stitcher radio and other podcasts. Platforms your feedback is valuable to us. So don't forget to leave a review and most importantly remember to stay dateable. We did it. Get verizon was just named america's most reliable network by route metrics for the sixteenth time in a row proving once again that nobody builds networks like verizon bills networks and that's why we're building five g. rush. That's why there's only what that's network verizon best and most reliable based on route metrics report in the second half twenty thirteen. I point twenty one and three operators on that were types combined not specific divide gina. Burks check out the latest footwear innovation from adidas the ati zero adios pro to which features carbon-fiber energy rods both lightweight and precisely tuned for more anatomical transition everything from the ultra late polyester upper to the re sculpted mid-sole and the reinvented out souls are designed for speed visit adidas dot com to learn more today.

Hello everyone welcome to another episode of dateable a show all about modern dating in a time of cova head. I mean no. That's not what our entire podcasts. About but we are dating in the time of coveted right now. It's about modern dating. And that's where we're at right. Bader cheating took another turn as it always gives us. Those twists insurance always keeps us on our toes does but we are stoked this week because we have some dateable listeners. Coming to san francisco. They're doing a little meet up from all over the country. Actually as far as the east coast and julie are meeting up with some of them for dinner tomorrow night. That's going to be so fun in real life. It's a visa. So it's a group from the sounding board and some of them have been talking since march in happy hours virtual happy hours in our facebook group. We started doing happy hours. It was actually swannee one of our moderators ideas to do happy hours. And i think it exceeded all expectations. We didn't really know what we were going to get into if anyone would show up and we hit people at a time where everyone really needed that connection to and we've evolved into the sounding board where now we're doing. People are bearing their souls to each other. And i feel like the people that are about to meet probably know more about each other in their love lives and personal lives than maybe some of their their closest friends even so it is amazing. Just how much you can get. No people virtually. And i had the pleasure of meeting up with one of our moderators shield. Who is that organizes. Entire trip to is her idea. Come out and she matched one hundred percent. Virtually whether you like what she was. Ira al was one hundred percent who she was virtually so it is quite amazing. How much like report you can build with people and we definitely screeched a little street street when we saw each other. A bait and switch with shield myself virtually and in person. I can't wait to meet her. I can't. I can't wait to me. Everyone just to like see them. Flesh wanted a crazy world so when shielded eyewear brunch. She said to me today. She's like did you ever expect this. That the podcast with lead to this. And i said no not at all but i'm so thankful did and i think ultimately this is a podcast about dating and relationships in the romantic census cut of how we started but a lot of this is rooted on friendship all the connections in your lives like i think for both of us having each other even helped us through our romantic journeys and i think all the folks in the sounding board that have really become friends like really close friends. It's done the same for them. And i think dating is a lot easier. Would you do have that network of people that one have your back but also that your tire identity isn't around dating like you you have a life essentially that's filled with love even if it's not in the romantic capacity while you're on your search for that you gotta fill your cup in some way and if it's not romantically you can fill it in other ways. I asked to someone this question. Who is a therapist. And i asked her. Do you ever get just drained from a day of seeing clients. And she's like first and foremost. I have to make sure myself cares. Prioriti- surrounded by good people and it goes support system and then i can take on clients if i'm not in a good head space. I actually canceled my appointments. Oh wow that's really good to hear because you know is got to help yourself for you. Help others and that's when you're in your best south anyway. So i really appreciate that sentiment and i. I think this group just show said this is such a fact in today's world where a lot of us are struggling. But if you feel like you're surrounded by people who truly support you and have your vast interests at heart then you're going to share that love with the rest of the world. I think also even when you do find that person. It's a lot to put it all on one person. Your tire happiness and interest. I think to expect someone wants to do exactly what you wanna do. At all times and can fill every void. You have a lot of pressure for someone. So i think having other outlets and people to talk to.

00:05:02 - 00:10:09

That's why never understand the people that dropped their friends a suit. Is there at a relationship. I just don't understand it. I think it's it's clearly you wanna make room for the new person in your life but it doesn't mean that people that you've built relationships with for ten plus years. Just oh it's i don't need you anymore like i don't understand why that thought process would even go through people's binds. I think is just so important to have a healthy relationship that you have all these different people that you can have relationships with and we are going through some major changes in our lives and it's so fun to be in each other's lives when we go through these changes one of them is if you are watching this on youtube you'll see that both julie and i are different places than normal. I'm at my parents house. So i've got all of the album's behind me dating all the way back to the eighties but julie is at her new apartment. Yes i know you know. I finally found a place for people that have heard. I think i brought up. How is like real estate. Awhile ago and i've been looking for a place since january and anyone in the whole market knows how insane it is. There's clearly benefits of doing it right now. For all the pandak. But everyone's kind of audit to get those benefits became a complete cluster. Fuck basically and i think what's interesting. I'll relate this back to dating. I promise is that. I went in with maybe unrealistic expectations of what i wanted for my price ranch. Ed i basically got nothing that i was essentially looking for. How i i mean okay. That's a lie. There were some things that i was willing. I was unwilling to they were dealbreakers. I was unwilling to budge on and that was location and an openness kitchen. Those were the two things. I was completely unwilling to by john and i also realized throughout the time looking that outdoor space was imported to be. That was something that wasn't necessarily on my radar. I i started looking. But i feel like i besides that got nothing else. I was looking except for a feeling. Sadly i got a feeling i think that's why i'm tying back to eating as i think it's important to have a couple things that you're unwilling to budge on. You need to have some standards. But i think sometimes people can surprise you and things can surprise you and you can show up and something that you something. I'll say the sense of a hall or someone in the sense of dating may not be what you were expecting but ends up being. What's perfect for you. In ultimately what feels like home. Yes and it's just like dating as well. I'm sure you looked at a shit ton of photos of home. Oh my god and all those websites and it's so easy to see which ones probably get a lot of swipes yes. They're presented beautifully. They're staged well and then they get overbid by like. Oh my god dollars then you like some and you're like there is potential. Yes person doesn't know how to take photos of their home. A lighting is not great. It's not staged well. But i see good bones in this home and there's no bidding war on this one yet because i see the potential in it so it's yeah there are a lot of parallels is really fun. Oh absolutely in some places you think are going to be amazing you show up and it looks like the photos are totally different for better or worse is a lot of parallels with big apps. You know the crazy thing in real estate can do virtual staging so. It's kinda like when people use filters for their photos so you see on the photos you see like beautiful staging and then you get there. There's no furniture because it's all virtually done so it's kinda like when people dockery stuff up their Their photos and you're like who you see them in person and you're like wait. You look nothing like the photo. So they're like virtual staging face well. I'm super excited. You will be the first person besides boyfriend to see the place so you may be the last to by friends california to be by her partner but you will be the first to see my mighty place. Yes so. I have to be just okay but i very excited to see you. I feel like clearly super excited to beat all of our listeners. That are traveling all over. But it's been. I mean i've been with my partner for five buds. You haven't met him. I think we started dating last time. You were out on on one one or two dates. I think so. Maybe i haven't seen you though for four or five months. It's been longer. I think it's been longer. I haven't been back in a really long time. But i'm i'm so excited to be back and i get to catch up on Julie's life so this this episode enough about us another episode. I'm sure you've heard the build up. We have shannon boo dram. Ooh or shampoo as she. Some people like call her. She is phenomenal. You might have seen her on tv. You might have seen her on youtube. My senior on instagram. She as everywhere because that girls blowing up for a really great reason she was such a wonderful interview and we were trying to schedule this interview for a long time.

00:10:09 - 00:15:04

We finally did. And she's one of those people who lived up to what you expected her to be. Maybe she surpassed my expectations. She's so sweet. So nice nice and so fucking down to earth like no ego about her. She's like girls. Let's just talk. Let's just be homeys here so i. I really enjoyed our talk with her. Absolutely she's been on our list for a long time as one of the the dream gas at the people that we really wanted to interview just because wine. She's has a lot of really interesting perspective. So i think that in alone historically what we've had with sachs's is so terrible so i love the emergence of all these sexologists and people that are really giving the twenty twenty one view on sex. And i think it's so important and we talk about sex but we also talk about just. She has a lot around flirting and desirability playing the game but not playing the game it's ultimately being authentic. But it's doing all the things you kind of need to do but in authentic way and we talk about on the episode like we both struggle with the word flirting so botch because it become it feels so fake to us. But i think we do it without realizing we're doing it. I caught myself a couple times. Big like oh. I guess i am flirting more than i thought. I think it's just how you perceive flirting. So i love how he got into all that of just how can you create that connection ultimately on dates because a lot of it is how you come off and you know the sexual vibe that you're giving even if you're not having sex. There's an indication of sex appeal. That's that is on dates like like it or not. I love her as her is that we're changing our definition. Of what an expert is you know. Years ago an expert is someone who has her phd. Who's like sixty years old telling. Yeah tells it telling you a sex. Should be like and like how to flirt. And you're like wait mike. Grandma's age how. Am i supposed to take this advice from you. She anatoly different. She's a millennial. She has her degrees but she's also living all of her theories and perspectives. So she's kind of testing it out for us in her own marriage and relaying the results with us. So you feel more like you're related. You know they're much more relatable than some of those six year old six year old absolutely. I think what i love to and we'll get into all of it in the episode. Is we touch on all the stages of a relationship from the early meeting all the way to now what. She's going through with her partner having a baby. And how do you bring that desire ability in sexuality into the picture when your life changes so watch. i think that's been a theme of the season with especially when we do the at the interview with emily nagorski to of just you know there's different seasons. There's different changes that come that relate to our romantic and sacks lives are relationships and sex lives that sometimes don't even have to do with finding a partner it's just life gets in the way here exists gets the way but evolves and i think sometimes i thought it was super interesting w like oh when you get married have children your sex life dies and she basically. She showed us that. That's not always the case. Well her sex life is better. You'll have to hear the story for yourself. But i was tried to like allude. I gave it away the cookie speaking of emily. Nagorski episode Someone wrote in a question related to that episode which is also related to this episode. This person said Cova almost killed my libido and now i'm getting back into dating how do i get my libido back basically i get my groove back you know. I think a lot of us can relate to that. I definitely felt this big time when things were approaching with my current partner. I feel like. I was super self conscious and i think part of it is you know not rushing into things and being honest with people. I think a lot of people are in this boat. And i think it's say okay to say. Hey you know. I haven't been sexually active a while because the covert. I'm a little nervous. I think that's totally fine to save that. And taking the time that you need. Maybe it's not rushing into things as fast as we did in pre cova times. That's not always a bad thing. I think sometimes we were so quick to kiss at have sachs do all the things pre-coded that we didn't let relationships builds enough in modern times. So i think having that extra time and feeling a little more comfortable with someone to that makes it easier to jump into bed with them when you feel that comfort.

00:15:04 - 00:20:17

That's been a building connection. Yeah they say that when you jump into something kind of drastic you kind of have to have a pre phase like when people do their master cleanses they have to have a pre cleanse to make your body. Ready get you know. Get it prepped. So i think for something like this. There's nothing wrong with getting yourself prepped. For this don't jump into it. I say self care is so important by something where something eat something that makes you feel sexy. Watch movies and watch shows. What's that show on netflix again. Sex life what that show. I mean it's crazy as it is again really orange shower c. n. Right just any. You just put on any episode. I'm pretty sure you'll get turned on but just feeling getting yourself in the mood so important as some of you know before my current relationship i didn't have sex for a year and i was scared that i i wouldn't know how to have sex again. I wouldn't want get horny again or know how to do it again. But i slowly started taking dance classes again heels sexy dance club. Poll clap protons classes. I started watching sexy movies that i used to love. I started watching janet jackson music videos. Because i think she's so fucking sexy and all her videos are amazing so there are things that i know that i can do to turn me on and this is the time to discover that then you just slowly ease your self back in. Don't russia absolutely. And i think also knowing it's a season and nothing is forever you know i've definitely been there before. Not even cove it. But in other times where i've been in drought and then sometimes it is realizing that it's like a bite like riding a bike that you don't forget what you're doing and being cave at that's normal people bright through this all the time. This is something that a lot of people are thinking and feeling right now. So there's nothing wrong with you if you feel self conscious right this minute. I think it's just leaning into feeling that way sharing that with your partner. Yes yes and don't put too much pressure on yourself. This is something you truly want to seek out go slow. You do a little play with yourself. Don't just go straight into penetration. You just got to build up that desireability first before you can build it up for someone else. Yeah and there's always virtual sex if you really can't virtual sex party. Go back to that epa said there you go so announcements. I think there was a big web last week. It's not that julian. I got engaged. Can we just clarify. I really wanna to like photoshop. Bach of photos so bad but yes i do. Think that right. And we had to squash those rumors. That's still coming but it is about five figure person at gas. I did find you a s. You found someone else. You've found someone else. I play that game. It's okay we're polly. it's all good. We're not really. Paulie reminds the new relationship. We're like dodd sexual polly. it's called friendship. We're in a different level. Deeper much deeper level much cheaper level like yes. We announced our finding. Your person program are are. We settled on that name. I think i still is still kind of like adventure. I think there is an adventure but it ultimately is you and i as your guides to kind of get into the right mindset. It's a combination of over the last five years. We've been really trying to pinpoint what is it. What are those common themes of people that we see find their person and evolve and we also looked at ourselves because we have clearly been on this journey ourselves. Well but i think the commonalities that we've seen from all the people we've talked to and we've also pinpointed in ourselves is this balance of positive idi reflection and action and sometimes you can swing too much on one side versus another in. It really. is that balance in the sweet spot. In that's what we've been working on is coming up with what that balance sweet spot is in putting this all into this guided program with the two of us that you have access to through audio through workbooks through chats. Even with us we're gonna be a lot included in this and we're really confident that this is our best material yet and we are so excited because we know a lot of people i would gamble to say most of the people listening to dateable but not all are trying to ultimately find their percent. And that's really what we want for all of you. We want people to be in happy healthy relationships. We don't want people to be writing on our facebook group wondering why this person hasn't called them back or you know debating all these little things that ultimately don't matter because when you find that person that stuff doesn't it doesn't even come into effect and i think that's really where we are confident that all of you are incredible.

00:20:17 - 00:25:00

People in so introspective. So genuinely we've had the pleasure of meeting so many of you virtually this year. We've seen it firsthand. We want to provide all the info we have so we can help you but there are only two of us so that is a reality and we are only able to take a limited number of folks into this program adventure guide navigator say all the actual journey. We will be doing iowa. Got together and i've just kidding not i down but i we down that is optional. If you wanna do that before you get into this you could do that on your own time. That'd be a wild time. I actually think it would be super. I do want to try it sometime time. You think it'd be fun. I think so too. Have like the revelations that you have from it i okay. I've never heard anybody describe it as fun. a lot. it's deep as iowa's -cluded dot clued to this but you track on. We are taking a handful of people into this program. And that's why we've released this early bird. Wait list so that you have first access to the registration link when we launched with we are still buttoning up what this entire offering is including the timeline including the price. Point all of that. That's all in the works but get on this early bird. Wait list right now. Because when we release the registration link you will have first access leisurely guarantees you a spot before we release it to anybody else. Yup so this will also alert you to the six part video series that we're launching so get on the wait list. It's finding your person dot com straight to the point. Five your dot com. We were debating dave's and we said what better dave that just five bigger person because ultimately that's what it is and it's bonkers that that you are l. is available. I know and we snatched it on event to be found our person in domain. And if you have any questions a lot of you have been ing us on instagram. Perfect do that. We love answering those questions. You may have and Give you a little bit of you know personal attention if you want. Yeah those questions answered and we also did a facebook live in the debatable. Love and the time of corona facebook group. That's our public group open to all and if you aren't to that yet go on over it's pinned to the top. You could watch that live. Even though it's not live you could always catch it. And plus it's a really great place to be so love in the time of kuroda by the dateable podcast we are keeping the dame until covert is over and then we'll evaluate. We thought we were going to be able to make the switch guests again. Someone blamed uh us for ed because we are name the name of the group. They're like you can't change now. that's why cova going. I'm like no. That's how it works. Also i feel like as much as i wanna take credit for that. That's a very comedy. Love their berry. That's why we have so many people joining other thinking it's ours but it's really not but yes you should join love the time of krona by dateable podcasts and also what we are looted to earlier the sounding board. We won't go into that the for this episode. But you can find out all the information on the sounding board dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Yeah there's a really good condo that's happening one of our virtual happy hour. Is that evolved into so much more about the decision to have kids this week. So there's some good stuff at their such good material cool also. let's go into a couple of our sponsors. This episode is fueled by drizzly. How many of you have a full blown bar in your house. I mean i wish but with drizzly app you basically have that of the palm of your hands. Drizzly is a number one app for alcohol delivery because sometimes you need a now like right now some cool features of the drizzly app include getting drinks delivered to your door in sixty minutes. I found this super helpful in this virtual world that we live in where it's harder to meet up with friends or co-workers for drink so now i send them drinks. Their selection is also huge. I'm always happy when i can find some. Brunello wine or that. George clooney tequila. You know what i'm talking about. And finally drizzly connects you to local liquor stores where you can compare prices across all of them so go check out drizzly now by downloading the drizzly app. We're going to drizzly dot com. That's dr is e.

00:25:00 - 00:30:03

l. y. dot com and use. The code spice. Five for five dollars off your first order. That's drizzly dot com and use the code spice five for five dollars off. This episode is sponsored by better help. It is no surprise julian. I are huge fans of therapy especially online therapy and better help can do exactly just that they match you with your own. Licensed therapist and connect you a safe and private online environment. I was able to start communicating with my therapist and less than forty eight hours. Superfast better help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches and it's more affordable than traditional offline. Counseling they're licensed professionals specialize in everything from stress management anxiety trauma dating and grief. We dateable wish for all of you to live a happier more. Wholesome life and we think therapy and prioritizing. Your mental help will accomplish that so as our listener you'll get ten percent off your first month by visiting our sponsor at better help dot com slash dateable join over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health again. That's better help. H. e. l. p. dot com slash dat ab l. e. cool. Let's hear it for shan. It is so good to have you on our podcast. Finally we've been wind. Have you on for so long. And we've been both following you for so long that i feel like it's almost surreal to be talking to you without you being a youtube video talking. You know. I love that you told me weren't gonna get four play and here. We are licking each other kissing all the right spy. Getting warmer adds to me sauteed. I'm really congratulations on your huge success. To of your podcast. Oh thank you congrats to your baby. Alot of things. We should be congratulated. Showed i say every morning. Congratulations to you baby. Got born by me. Very grateful be baby baby. Nine months yes. Perfect in nine months out. Who is shambhu dram. She's a certified intimacy educator and sexologist who teaches people to be more competent and confident. And i love that. You are a self-proclaimed. Dr ruth meets riana because that is absolutely true as i see more of the riano coming through union. Look funny is that in real life. Nobody has ever compared me to rana. So i love that. I put on the university. Yeah i can kind of. I like i did this. I did it. i did moment. She spent the last fifteen years discussing sex relationships attachment and intimacy. She's a bestselling author with her book. The game of desire and was the host and executive producer on qube number one daily show. Rip qube but you had their number one daily show. Sexology was shambhu dram. she also appeared on netflix. Too hot to handle to my ever. Guilty pleasure shows into the view. Good morning america dr oz. Just name a few. She's now serving as a sex and relationship. Expert on my crush show peacocks. New dating show called x. rated hosted by andy cohen. And that's premiering win. We've been hearing lots of different date. Oh it's been it's there right now go it's dry just came out so it's totally by he on thursday. That's what i'm doing immediately after this. A andy cohen works out works. There's even more about shannon. She's originally from toronto currently lives in la and she is married with as we mentioned a nine month old bombay. so how does one get into sex education. How did you become certified sex educator so the short answer to this is that i had a super shitty teen sex life and thought to myself either. Everybody allah the catholic school. That i went to my parents and every other elder was right that this is a terrible area of life. That only results in green penises an unwanted babies and displeasure. Or i'm interacting with this in the wrong way and i need to educate myself to try something new so i decided before i joined A non covenant. That i would try something new and so i got a library card. I read every book possible about sex education. That i could over a summer and had aha moment where it was like. Wow this great information. Bits really boring unapproachable. I wonder if i could be the person who makes education sexy and of course other people who were doing that but they were older and white in in my time years ago so obviously now.

00:30:03 - 00:35:02

The market's definitely opened up. And there's a ton of great examples of people doing this kind of work but back in the day in two thousand five. When i had this thought i didn't know anybody else. You know who. I could name or locate even. That looked like me who sounded like me. Who was doing that work. That's where my initiating thought was and then moved to california a few years later. I got an associate and sex education and then i also became certified the sexologists from that same institution and the now. I'm back in school. Now to get a bachelor of arts in psychology and human development so i can hopefully end up with a title of behavioral psychologists allows me to attack the word intimacy from all angles from hell yes psychological perspective from a biological perspective And from journalistic perspective which is like my earliest roots. Because i am curious for a living. And i wanted to push the boundaries and more than that. I'm of the people. Like i want to talk and reflect the experiences about the people. So that's much. How i became who i am. So what has been the biggest surprise that you've encountered with people's relationships especially as it pertains to sex. I think the biggest surprise is how much there's a positive correlation between awareness education and people's positive results. That some ridiculous. But in that. I mean like i've seen so much good. That has come from the kind of work that i'm doing the kind of work that's being done even just in terms of because i've been in a space for a while now. The topics that are taboo are so different in the taboo top. They work now. The questions that i'm getting are so much different than the questions that i used to get like. If you just give people a little bit of knowledge information it can truly take that and apply that to make meaningful changes in their life. So i think for a long time. The question has been is sex education necessary. Which i've definitely debated it has been do. I need to go to therapy. The question has been well. Why do i have to learn about how to date. But from my perspective. I have watched people just in little bits of information and seeing how that has completely made an impact in the quality and quantity problems that they're having so the biggest aha that i've had in my career is like wow. This shit really works. This shit really does work and julia. I'm gonna ask you. Do you remember who was in your sex education videos or who was doing your sex education. Because i remember is a woman that looked like my grandma if she were white telling me not to have sex because i would get pregnant or have. Sd at the time was called. Sad in armor just being like first of all this woman does not scream sex to me at all and not relate to her and say. I'm never gonna fuck anybody. Because i just got pregnant and have std's for the rest of my life. It's definitely was a nurse for sure. I always think of lean girls when they're like you will get an s. t. d. and die like that's like that's the message it's been implanted though for so long and i think we're really excited about just desire overall can be sexual desire but even desire in relationships. I think your book. I love the buck game desire. I think that's like the best. The best way yeah. I think it's like what is desire means hugues. I feel like there's so many definitions on them. I feel like simplified is. Just what do you want right like what. What do you want when you wake up in the morning. What is the thing that crosses your mind either. As a hope as a dream or as a goal i think. That's what our desires our. I think sometimes our desires can feel like whimsical goals. And that's okay too but when you answer think about in relation to intimacies in particular want those are your desires so as a fun game right now you know. What do you guys want ice cream. I dyer ice cream. All the fucking time i said in regards to intimacy you. Cheater dream desire ice cream on my body. You know what i desire. Words of a romantic words during sex. When you look beautiful you look ravishing. I don't know what it is. A you smell amazing. Just that extra ten percent of making me feel desirable. yeah I think the desirable pieces interesting. Because i feel the same way. It's like you just want to be wanted by your partner. It's like even verbally. I think it's action wise to you. Just want that person to come up. Lay went on you right. Would you desire shan. I think honest. i've time to reflect on that. Like what is the thing. I desire right now like i have a great. I have a a life partner that i have a great relationship with and i just like couldn't ask for anything more from that and i think we're in a really great wavelength right now. So i think currently i desire a flirt buddy. Who's outside of my relationship that when both really only thing I think i had like pseudo people right. Now it's kind of danced around. But i want somebody who just like knows what it is like really direct about it. I think that'd be fine. Who that should be a service is served.

00:35:02 - 00:40:05

I mean really technically is a service. There's a artificial intelligence bought this called slut. Basically yeah you sexed with slot bought. Oh my god so in theory. I am signed up for that so in theory i do have that but you know what i know. It's by and sometimes. When i say things now the they'll come back like not really quite what. I said responding. I'm like this news kinks to be worked out so well since we're talking about this do you. Do you think that by building desire and intimacy with someone else can actually create more intimacy in your current partnership in my current partnership. Yes being as how myself in my life partner one initiated our relationship to the conversations that we've had so i know you know how it would benefit. I also know myself. I consider myself like somewhat of colder where i feel like i'm turned on by the idea of my partner. One experiencing desire for other people but also being desired by other people so know for me it definitely would help to build desire for somebody who's extremely monogamous. It would do quite the opposite. So there's there's no. I mean i always say that. There's no one-size-fits-all because everyone's different i mean people are different within like spectrum of choices so doesn't mean that we still can't make predictions in clear cut rules but i think it is an important question to ask so. Let's talk about ability like we hear from our listeners. It's a good topic. We hear from our listeners. All the time that they go on dates. And it's kind of either man or they fall on the friend zone in. There's none of that like own that you need like how can people can i add that desireability without necessarily having sex are leading with sexual things. So in the game of desire julie which you bread. I think that there is like a couple of things that like. Stick out to me for that. One thing i talked about. Is that in many ways when you're setting up a date with somebody you're putting the ingredients together for stir fry so the ingredients for stir fry and rahman are pretty identical except the differences if you've got rahman there's a broth to it And so when you have stir fry your noodles vegetables you have eg you have like whatever meat you wanna throw in there. And that's their when you go on the date. You're basically figuring out if there is that bra that secret sauce and there's no way of knowing being there. Stir fry still delicious. So the point that. I'm making too. That is not every date has to have that like sauce and brought to it for still to be enjoyable and an experience like. I'm glad that i went. Maybe you don't even go a second date but nonetheless like if you do your due diligence you shouldn't be exhausted by the fact that you don't have that spark 'cause that's spark as just a true magic that again you can't even assume going to be there have to be helpful but if you want to increase the chances i just say you have everything there and the broth is there. You can feel it and see it. But no one's pouring it. There is a section that this stripper did that was like how to flirt like a stripper and because strippers an essence. Have this job of creating chemistry instantly. People they have to go over to somebody and create this interaction. That feels desire rich and to do that She said that she talks about the forbidden pleasures of life. So rather than topics being mundane like. What do you do for a living. How was your day. How is the weather going. Did you watch the game last night. It's talk about splurges. Talk about the beyond talk about food. The best food you've ever eaten before talk about sex. I mean that's in south topic that's obviously going to breed desire and indem sexual chemistry if you lean into but if you don't wanna be that overt still talk about the things that light people's eyes up. What's the craziest thing that you've ever done. What's the last time that you thought to yourself. I could die and i would be happy. Like where were you doing in those moments and that that elicits people's arousal arousal transfer is something that occurs. When you have a heightened sense of being or you have heightened senses or you're in fighter flight and when arousal transfer happens you can take that and apply it to other areas arousal so this can happen like during anger so if i am really angry at my partner that can be transformed to like Angry sex because i'm at a heightened state of arousal. So how can you mimic that. How can i get somebody in a heightened state which makes it naturally easy for us to transfer that over into like a romantic state so there's even studies that say that if you go on a date there was like a swinging bridge study so people went on a date one on a bridge that was not swinging and talking about like a set range of topics at the researchers said put out and then another exact same thing was replicated but on a swinging bridge and couples who were on the swinging bridge all said that they felt more attraction to each other just because there was some element of danger so arousal that brought that sauce to it so to say. Sometimes there's just no. There is no chance of sauce. You just don't have it with that person that's cool and sometimes a sausage there but nobody's pouring it so you have to create the environment with the sauce spills over.

00:40:05 - 00:45:02

Yeah just create danger just in the middle. You heard upside out. I just think it's funny like the seductiveness that doesn't have to be sexual like like food. Porn all the time even when you were asking what you desire you to ice cream like. That's such an interesting connection. That i would not have thought about to do stuff in a pg way that could get those juices flowing. Yeah love that because you are also getting away from the data view questions of like what you do. How did you get here. How did you like was your childhood like hookah. Those questions people are just in autopilot for before something like this a question that's like what's the best vacation you've taken recently. That puts me in a different mode of thinking so it. It makes me more present in the moment to and speaking of desirability. I have a friend who just like fucking oozes satin. She walks down the street. I'm just like damn girl. You are just using facts. And i feel like it's a natural appeal that she was just born with. I don't know how the before others who may not be using saka want to increase their sexual appeal. Do you have any advice or tips for people who just want to up their sex appeal. I mean they legitimately that. You described the premise of my book. Game desire which now. It seems like i'm doing the ad for that. I'm not you guys. Just keep like teeing the to set not so should i hit but one hundred percent like i recognized as a school of thought that attractive is a word that we utilized to people who are bestowed the gift of being in line with whatever the current beauty standards are. I said to say because attractive. Five years ago is different from attractive fifteen years ago but the truth matter is attractive boil down is just somebody who has the ability to draw people in and seduction which we again used describe a like your friend who uses and just like have that thing to them where that's just the ability to draw people in and had them wind to come back for more and it's an interest factor it factor about you that makes me glance a second time and not just glance when even try to revisit. You a second time. Like i wanna be in your presence like i'm drawn into you and we think about these things like either you have it or you don't and in life those things that exists like in the nba. There are people who are just tallest. Fuck and nita's fuck and it just worked for them. Yeah but there's also the people in the nba who weren't that's hall or weren't necessarily like perfectly built just worked their asses off and wanted to be exceptional and decided that this is an area. They want to devote themselves to so like my book game. A desire was written for that ladder person where it's like. Yeah maybe you weren't doubt the perfect biological cards Again as something to do with actual beauty has to do with what the beauty standards are promoting at that given time an you're giving culture and maybe you're not just who naturally uses seduction in that traditional way that we think when we think about the person who has when my friend would refer to as the club walk. That's not you but that doesn't mean that you can't one learned that if you wanted to and also like the beauty of the time that we live in now if you want to fit in which original beauty standards so many tools like it's so nuts. How literally anybody could be. We used to look at superstars as incredible because they could change their hair every day. That could change their wardrobe constantly. They could be two different people in the same week. And then now. Thanks to. I think would. Social media and amazon has done. Anybody could do that. Like i got a green wig and purple wig like ondeck when those though so skull. You wanted to do that. That's available to you on the flip side if you want to do it in your own way. There's also other ways of achieving that goal without going about it but the most common route so Have not said a damn single tip for you. Because i think the most important thing is just to acknowledge that that it is possible. Like a quick and dirty tip. Let me say for if you want to be more attractive. Ask people a follow up question. Hey how's your day going all was really good. I just came from the dmv blah blah editor or we the dmv for. You listened to what i just said. Wow and like one of my favorites seduction styles from the artists. Deduction is something called the ideal lover and the ideal lover is somebody who knows how to speak to someone's highest potential and the secret to that is remembering what's important people and bringing it up so if you work at denny's but i talked to you once while i was in line and you told me that like i'm thinking of opening up a nail shop. If the next time i see you. I'm like all like house. A nail shop going. Have you looked at places in the area. I'm speaking to your highest potential exciting. You based on the version of who you want to become swim around you. I feel like. I'm in reflection of the self that i desire to be in this. I desire to be around you like. That's the most basic way. I think to be attractive. That's so interesting because you think that people think of when you're trying to up your attraction it's all about physical traits but you clearly listed.

00:45:02 - 00:50:00

None of them. It's all about making that other person feel good. Essentially you're using that essence. I guess you mentioned a lot of the reason why you got in this field is from your own seeing saxon. Not being what you thought it would be. Did you always like uis the confidence or is this something you had to learn. I don't know about that. I think i might. I have to really confident parents. My dad's paramedic my mom's a nurse. My dad is a wild ass person. I think in life if you want to understand me more you to watch one video of my dad like all that makes perfect sense so i would be hard pressed to say me. I also am somebody who's a person of color who went to an all white school. And so i was never looked at as attractive and i definitely had to fight for recognition retention sometimes. The way that i fought wasn't wasn't always appealing. Either because i was mean to other people in order to raise myself up in the status in is like my peers so the way that i tried to get attention. I don't think is necessarily the healthiest way. So but that isn't to say that. I wasn't an un confident person. 'cause i was fought. I think that's a part of confidence to is like. Do you feel like you deserve to be shiny or looked at like a shiny object. So i i've always had that notion my brain that i deserved to be shiny but the way that i advertise myself. I don't think it was always like the bester in line. With what my highest sulfur. Potential is setting that to say. I do think that i'm always somebody who had a belief system that i mattered. I think that's a baseline people don't have that for granted like because everyone's start lines a little bit different. But i think my confidence sometimes got in the way because i would do bad things very deliberately and very aggressively so that applied to my sex life. I had a lot of sex before. I realized this something is going wrong because i was doing it. The wrong way very aggressively and similarly with me when it came to dating i wrote the game desire because a few years before i just had such trash. I one of those people who was like. Hey exit. don't wanna talk to Motherfuckers hate dating. i'm exhausted. Experiences hate dating apps. And i was like a lot of commonality in my dislike for things that are based around connecting with somebody else is the common denominator. I'm interacting with it. So i feel like i was very confident But my technique was just not financed or not aligned with again with what i ultimately desired so i ended up confidently putting myself and shitty scenarios until i was like wait a second like should i just turn this car around and start again and see where this takes me instead ryan okay. Let's hold that thought so we can get into a few quick messages. This episode is made possible by lugs. Miss the golden age of the nineties lugs found its footing as a leader within the footwear and fashion space priding itself on quality materials supreme comfort. The brand never wavered with the passing of trends whether you remember the brand's early appeal within the hip hop culture or the countless celebrity endorsements one thing remains the same lugs distinctive style. Julian i both have a few different styles of shoes ranging from their iconic boots to their canvas sneakers even though they're so different in style one thing remains the same there also comfortable and light. I love my. Flirt hides boots that i can wear with cute summer. Dresses and my canvas sneakers go so perfectly with jeans and t-shirts fun comfortable everyday where realistically price and affordable so treat yourself. You can never have too many pairs of lugs exclusively for our beautiful listeners. Get thirty percent off full price items now by going to lug dot com and entering the cote dateable again that's l g z dot com and entering the code dat ab l. e. for thirty percent off full price items. Let's face it. It's a weird time to be dating or developing relationships. Have you recently decided that you wanna make some changes to your love life. Maybe you've recently reenter the dating seed. Maybe gone on one too. Many dates that went nowhere. Or maybe you're ready to take your current relationship to the next level. That is exactly why we created the sounding board a true extension of our podcast that delivers a personalized experience which includes one coffee dates with us. A monthly dateable live after show exclusive audio content and much more allow julian. I become your dating. Sherpa us to provide real time guidance and wisdom in a more intimate way so we can navigate dating and relationships together. Join the sounding board today by going to dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board again. That's debatable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Okay let's get back into this combo. How did you meet your current partner girl to good old fashioned way went to the curb Really good on nineteen fifties way. I essentially We met through a mutual friend which statistically before beating online was most popular way that was like the most popular way of all time.

00:50:00 - 00:55:08

And there's a cool thing about that because there's a layer of accountability. That's between you and that person us and to it's like. Oh if this person that i know that i mess with messes with this person has like a higher likelihood that we probably are going to be aligned with it comes to values. 'cause i like to. We met as a result and that person actually ended up being at our wedding to like this is a now a personnel is important in both of our lives so i met at the club but we only were both at that party because of mutual friends. That's probably the easier way of saying it. And i'm only speaking from what i've seen on social media but it seems like you two are very aligned sexually energy wise so was it always like that from the gecko or did you develop this together. Now we started out as fuck buddies so that was one hundred percent. I think that was the only thing is like i don't. He's six years younger than me too. So that played a big role. And at the time that i met him i was on my process of reeducating myself. Because i just come out of relationship that was really negative. I was potentially going to be deported. From the country. 'cause manage ration- visa was running up. It was just a lot of things in my life for influx. In so the last thing i was thinking about was oh i wonder if i could meet my partner i was like i wonder if i can stay here another month so i just wanted just came out of a situation as wanted to have fun and to explore i body and to be with somebody who was interested in that agenda two and can do it in a great way so the base way that we aligned was on sexuality which is why i think in our marriage it's a thing that i've really prioritized and through pregnancy where that gave struggles and even after pregnancy and having a baby they were struggles with that but i never let that fall to the wayside. Because i'm like this is the thing that brought us together just like if we came together because you are my sugar daddy that like the finances would be important too. Because that's the reason why we got together to begin with some kind of like that with him. And i like not say that we always have a naturally great sex drive's sex but i prioritize it so i think that it's it's maintained in and been pretty spectacular throughout. I was gonna ask you how. How important is sex relationships we were. We're just i think intimacy is very important due to i think for me it's more than just like a physical act to. It's like the act of being. Close your partner. And i think if you strips away. Then they're just a friend. I'm not saying that they can't be a friend to. But i think having those together is what makes someone that's significant other. I love that. Yeah and we were just talking about the whole quality over quantity thing because i hate comparing frequency of sex with with friends. I always makes me feel like shit. You always have friends who are like fucking every minute. Yes of the day. And you're like really are you really but yes i should be doing the same thing right and then you have this notion that once. You've been in relationship with some for wallace especially after having a baby down but for me. I think the pressure gets lifted when you think about the quality of intimacy and a saxon so that part is really important that my partner and i are always doing a check in on how intimate do we feel with each other even if the physical sex is not there to we still feel closely connected. I mean you're the perfect one for us to ask this to share. And 'cause i feel like i'm in a fairly new relationship a four months in thank you. It's not like you know. We're we're the hollywood stage add. You don't trip to think about remember being in high school when we would celebrate that shit. Yes we've been together for three to that. You should celebrate that stuff. 'cause i think it's nice to celebrate but i guess my question for you is kind of what you were saying is i sometimes fear the different life stages coming down and how that impacts sex life and i think some of it's inevitable when you have a child immediately after birth you're probably not ready to go back and have sex but like how of you navigated through childbirth in a long term relationship. Yeah i think that the changes are inevitable. And if you recognize that it just becomes less daunting. I think people's fear is that it's going to change. What if our sex life changes like. I'm here to let you know does right and you can accept that. And that's okay because change doesn't mean for the worse it could mean better. There's obviously going to be a difference in how you can connect sexually once you now. Have a person in your home. Who doesn't consider you at all who cries whatever they want. Who wakes up whenever they want. Who interrupts who doesn't have any like consideration at all so of course there's going to be a difference in how you sexually active before that reality to now doesn't mean that it's worse though i can tell you from us going through the pandemic where we had all access to sex versus us now where we have limited windows of sex. I actually prefer the sex now because all. Yeah we're more intentional about in and it's not like a given so when we have those times it just takes for two pm for him to walk into my office in like look at me and drop his pants and we're like oh shit on and i know it versus ow ow now.

00:55:08 - 01:00:00

It's like we are around each other all the time and there's no barriers there's no friction really is just like constant you know. Maybe we could be doing this when you do it. You're like we can do this tomorrow. We could do the same week from now. Doesn't really matter. So i think that the sex has gotten a lot better since we've had a baby But i think because. I was open to the fact that i knew it wouldn't be the same. I invited more potential for it to be different but better. Because i leaned into the fact that things are not the same as they were before. I love that. That's so. I guess that gives a lot of hope to it. I like the thought of reimagining it too. So it's interesting at the start of a relationship when you don't know if you're going to see this person again. You're very unaware aware of where things are going. I feel like the sex is really hot. Then because it's kinda like that scarcity what you're now describing in your marriage after kids so at least interesting how you can bring it back and forth though better what life stage or at i think imagination is such a big part to do with it right like it is using your brain as the other sexual organ that also needs to be stimulated like anything else you gotta do the work yourself to get to prime yourself and put yourself in the right head space in doing that with your partner. Which means more intentional dialogue. Jared talk probably like i would say like unattractively a better sex life. I mean just the point. There's no real mystery. Left is funny because somebody asked that question about when we first got pregnant or i i got pregnant. How did that. Impact your sex life and jerry was the first time that we had sex. I couldn't get hard. Because i couldn't get the idea to my head that there was a baby that was possibly injuring and Were like well. How did you overcome that. Didn't she feel insecure. Like how did it. He's like no. We talked about immediately after. And we just do that. So as soon as i had a baby for example and i felt really good in my body for the first time because third trimester. You just do not. I can't sleep sitting. you can't move without like giving yourself a pep talk. I everything hurts. You're uncomfortable is just like your body just feels really alien to you. And so when. I had the baby and now felt like i was back to being a sole solo occupant. Nfl great. but i wasn't getting desire for my partner. I didn't let it breathe up. I was like hey. You didn't tell me i look sexy today. What the measuring going on like I really feel like you know. I need this from you. And you're not providing it. And i was like. Don't you to flare buddy like was black carr's got needs that extend beyond changing night burs and as maybe rounding my sling at all times. Like can you be my partner in that or how we meet in the middle and it took a while for us to kind of find or footing is said with pride like we're in a really great space right now and i think that's the result of having uncomfortable conversations literally the moment that either arrests has the thought are your. This come may be uncomfortable question. Are your parents sexual. Do you come from a sexual family. I would answer that. Yes and no. I would say that Now i would answer. Yes but i think my mom thought. A form of education was den- self-denial. So my mom is one of those mosques who would just never tell any personal experiences or just did not want us to view her in that light like. I didn't realize that my mom had hookups. Until i was mid twenties because she was like i had my first sexual experience with someone that i loved and then i met your father and you just feel like how am i going to tell this person that i just had sex with a carrot last night. They've had this perfect sex life. So i didn't really feel like she could go to talk about my less than storybook disney channel experiences or desires because she always positioned herself really by the book. And it wasn't until i got older are doing what i do for a living and i got past years of resistance. They had what i was doing for living that they actually started to open up and say you know. Here's how your work applies to me shit. So you've obviously talked to like chautauqua people like what would you say is kind differences in the struggles with desirability when you're dating versus you're in a long term relationship like you are. You know what's interesting i may. I think we can talk about this. Like you know anecdotally as we go around even just monk abbas like what are your snowballs into comes desireability. I don't necessarily know if they're that much different than the fact that if you're dating you're looking for it from anyone relationship you're looking forward from your person And then sort of similar. Sometimes that you're getting too much desire from someone that you don't desire and that does also happen in long term relationships where you lose that drive for your partner and they still have it for you and now you're that Uncomfortable disconnect there. Yeah so. I think because desires pretty linear like you have it or you don't or you're trying to create it or you're trying to stop yourself from experiencing it because you might desire something that's unhealthy for you You might be drawn to a person that you ultimately no outside from the sex or getting affection from them.

01:00:00 - 01:05:03

They're not a added person to your life. So i feel like the mathematical equation. Nair is produced him across the board challenged. That question back to you. Because i might have a blind spot at the office i can think of is when you're single. You're kinda trying to get desire from. Everyone like people feel like they want everyone to swipe right about a day. The app for instance. When i still want that. I want to ask stand still wanna be hot at home depot. I still want that. I'm pretty sure you're always if anyone wants to feel desire just gonna hold other okay so i proved rogge that it could not end. But you're single but baby lake when you're if you're in a monogamous setting. You're trying to like find that person more opposable. You are kinda maintain create within individual kind of what you're saying but yeah baby up privet rogge that you can still want it from everyone interesting. I think about that like a lot of people will say that you know. When they're monogamous they don't have is for anybody else we you know it was completely actual mea. It's true generally is true for some people but if we're looking at is like the kinsey scale right like the it goes from zero to six. How many people statistically are going to be zero six is like most people are gonna be somewhere in the sexual. Fluids may so for thinking about desirability. Like i don't ever desire ellen by my partner. And i desire everyone but my partner. I those two extremes probably exist very rarely and most of us are somewhere in the in the sentimental app But i wonder if on the flip side even if you only desire your partner do you only want your partner desire you or do you not secretly hope that other people also want to have sex Good question good question. I mean i will admit that turns me on when we go somewhere and people are staring at my man. It turns me on like yes. Yes that's right. I get hit that tonight. Yeah i may not. But i get to have opposite but i guess for some people that could also it could transform into jealousy i can. I can see going into a dangerous path. But i think for my partnership i think. We're the desireability. Struggle for us is when we were just dating whenever we met up it was purely for the context of dating so romantic. You go on dates and you're not thinking about your grocery shopping and laundry and the dishes that are in the in the sink. Because you haven't shared that with each other but as soon as we moved in together think the daily struggles turned into our desirability struggles. And my desire for him has shifted. It's no longer the same as before. Because now there's added domestic layer to it so i i'm still we're so navigating around that as well it's just like how do i have sex without thinking about my checklist but at least we can keep an open communication about that and i appreciate the uncomfortable conversations because that's what helps us to create more desireability for each other absolutely. Yeah and i mean even that there are some people who preferred to leave some things unsaid. And that's possible because you could just it's like someone's birthday either asked. What do you want for your birthday or you could guess. And there's something cool about guessing. What the perfect thing is. But it's also not that cool when you guess fucking wrong. So don't have the stations. You have a high chance guessing wrong but some people prefer that in the event that you do guess right then. It's like you really know me. And there's some value in that. I guess I don't prioritize that as much as i just prioritize. Getting what i want and get immersing wants so i just rather ask you like. What do you want for your birthday. Yeah i mean. You can't wrong with that. I think it's It's it's interesting though. I mean from the standpoint of getting into a relationship and being in their long term and then having to reimagined that. I always tell people to its slim. I meet people. We have to also acknowledge that we're on the roller coaster of neuro chemicals. So you don't have to work that hard to facilitate desire because biology is like this. Is someone new. We want you to bond with them and north that to happen. They have to make this person seem as exciting as thrilling and as less field as possible to you but then once that bond has been created in. Your brain is like okay. We're not going anywhere. It now shuts off those neuro chemicals. You don't need them to stick around. But you might like to have them because it makes sticking around more exciting. But now you're in charge of finding ways to create a synthetic version of that newness. And i think a lot of people mistakenly interpret the loss of those rushes of emotions as a loss for attraction to your partner is not that not that. You don't love them anymore or don't like them anymore. It said that your body now recognizes that you've moved into a new phase and you don't need that anymore to stay together but if you still want it you can be more intentional about creating it. So the term. That's coming his flirting. And i know you talk about this tar balat and i feel like i love the foundation of what flirting means.

01:05:03 - 01:10:04

But there's something about the term that makes it feel so like antiquated to be an like juvenile violate. You knew hated about that or do you like that about it. I hated about that. Like i feel like eddie time. Like i have been asked to talk about flirting. We kinda get this feeling of like. Yeah but i think the core of what it is like show that desire in like you know make that person feel special and wanted i think is very essential at all stages of a relationship like. How do you look at flirting. Mike how would you reframe that for us. I use the word flirting fifty thousand times a day. So i call people floods. I accuse people flirting with me like yesterday. Somebody was over matures flirting with my baby. Like why basal flirty which might feel weird but to me My favorite definition is arrows. Was an expert in my book. At the time. I was referred to as as ari but Arrows said that flirting is just communication plus sparks and i love that definition. Because excuse me where. Where's the woods section. And excuse me i'm looking for the section where the wood is at. Can you help me. There's the same like the context of the communication is the same but the way that i deliver it. Plus sparks Thing so when people like. I wasn't flirting. I just ask them. What's good on the menu. It's like yeah you didn't ask them was good menu. You said like you look like you actually have some really great tastes. What am this man. What would you pick on the menu. That's different you know what i mean. So it's it's the bus sparks element which makes it also choose them and you can just do all day long to various people and doesn't have necessarily be sexual in nature doesn't happen to have a goal at to it like i don't flirt because i want something from somebody. I wanted to go somewhere. I do it because communicating with little extra. Something he's just more fun giving somebody a compliment. That's a little just saucy is just more fun. It'll brighten their day. It makes my day better knowing that. I gave them a good exchange. So i think if we don't look flirting seven that's only exclusive to people that we want to romanticize it can just become like when you said it juvenile. I like it for that reason. I like it because it's like nostalgic. Is the thing that i do that. I'm like i'm just a flirty little team. You know it's something that's kind of innocent. I guess is the right word. I would use her. i think. Sometimes i think why. I don't like it is because sometimes it feels like you're dumbing yourself down or it's contrived but what you're saying doesn't feel like that's just adding like a little spice almost which i think is really a portage. And i think that's how you kind of radiation radiates that desire ability but also you know show desire for someone to like. I remember a pass partner by was like you flirting with me so much. That's when i knew like i should make a move. I was flirting with you like again. No idea so. I think sometimes it is important because it gives people sake those but i think sometimes people over think it like what tips would you have for people to cut a bake it in more a more natural way. Yeah other than asking for where the woods section is because i feel like that is just so is misleading question. Everyone is going to be going up to read to people. Just stop listed. I go to home depot right now. You know what's interesting about flirting in that people say like i didn't even know i was flirting. Or i can't tell if someone's flirting a your your biologically designed to flirt. And you're also biologically designed to pick up when someone is flirting with you which are in the pickup artistry world known as iowa indicators of interest so if you're not intentionally like excuse me where's the lumbar section your voice when you're around someone that you're attracted to goes higher year pupils. Dilate you fidget. You groom yourself so you fix your hair or your skin like you try to expose more of yourself your scan your pelvis to pelvis with that person Like your body. Language is open to them. And so you're even if you don't think to yourself like oh. I'm doing this flirting thing. Your body is like. I would like to do something with this person. Probably sexual And we want to indicate that that individual and then that person's brain is like oh. This person is indicated to me. They do something sexual with me because like again like mating is something that we have to do to survive and so your biology or history said to itself like not going to be great at this. So we'll just help him out and just have it baked in that to be said if you want to be more flirty. I think researching what those things are exaggerating them. Like mirroring is a great one so when we are checked somebody we naturally will copy whatever motions. They're doing and again. Someone's brain picks up. All this person is copying me one that can be a thing but also to people are to similar.

01:10:04 - 01:15:09

Now we say opposite attract the exact opposite the more same. Someone is to you the more that you will be attracted to them by mirroring. Their body language is a is a great easy way to do that again. I think just showing an interest. Somebody is a great flirty technique. And like we said even just steering the topics towards more arousing things in general even if there isn't necessarily a chemistry the two of you that arousal transfer can activate to open someone's branch the possibility of there being chemistry. And then that can go somewhere. I and then how do you. You touched upon The pickup community and that community kind of talks about flirting but also talk about game. Playing how do you differentiate the two so that people are flirting without kind of like the mind games. I think it's weird to have an intention for someone that you don't know right. It's weird for me to be like. I'm going to be best friends with you. And you not weird. But i'm saying as an antidote. Obviously that's very logical but the thing with pickup. It's problematic is being like. Like i want to have sex with that person and so devised a game plan. I'm gonna walk over there. And i've got five different techniques that can utilize because in the end. I want to have sex with that person. You don't know anything about that person. You don't know what their sexual preferences are. What their likes are at. The two of you will be compatible. You know if your body chemistry works. Just kiss somebody and you don't know why but like their saliva just doesn't and then they don't have bad breath but you're like something about your spit in. My speech is not working or like the. I hate the way that you smell. But it's just like something about is not good to me so there's so many factors that come into play with deciding what role somebody should or shouldn't play into your life in so i think pickup artistry could benefit from curiosity. I think curiosity plus strategy plus communication is the perfect formula Because i do like what pickup artistry does. In that it takes the guesswork out of a really big part of our life. I think with a lot of Women centric dating advice or dating blogs or books. It's all really vague advice. And it's not like scientific and step-by-step that's why in the game of desire. I wanted five-phase program. Because i don't just tell people like be more confident because it's like pitch fucking da. Like how right he was out. I mean you know be more. Just be more mysterious like for somebody. Who's not mysterious. Doesn't make any sense. So i like the fact that they say be more whatever they would use Be more flamboyant and to do that by close in this color scheme. Pick out one crazy hat. Have a canned response. You you walk over to somebody with that accentuates the fact that you are somebody who exists on the outline of society and. here's some five canned responses. You can use as an example so that now this thing that feels like tangible becomes really realistic. Few and practical to apply. So i appreciate that side of it. But just don't think that you should. You know practice. These things become an expert at them. So that you can make anyone fall in love with you or make anyone wanna have sex with you because you should value yourself a naps and know that not. Everyone should be having sex with you. Not everybody is worthy of accessing your love and loving He meant to that so if we were to just put all of this and to practice here for all of our listeners because they span the whole gamut of single and actively dating those relationships those are getting out of relationships. How can we. Let's just look at three scenarios. And how can we help. Each group of people become more desirable so the single and actively dating group become more desirable. One first foremost really watch. What your base attitudes are so if you are single and actively dating ask yourself. What do i think about dating. What do i think about first. Dates what do i think about meeting new people. What i think about the process of looking for new people i find a lot of people have a really negative attitude. Negatives got any action to those things and that shows up data lay if you hate first day date new dreaded it just going to show up in every process of the interaction so that is to say now that your experiences aren't valid like you could hate it good reason but then you should also acknowledge like okay. What is the common denominator is a leading me to this negative thing over and over again so the baseline of it all like date. A date is to people who have no real connection to each other like not that. We're neighbors or that Get me it helped me get a promotion at work or you're my butcher. Maybe you're my hot butcher. But i'm not down you because i want you know the best cut of meat. I'm dating you. Because i'm to people who don't really have any other agenda other than just to see if there's something there who were setting time aside to get to know one another as a married person is very rare that i just meet somebody who's like she wanted to go for coffee later right like if we do.

01:15:09 - 01:20:01

We have a job together coming apple like why why you know. Why am i making time for you just to see if we have something and no pressure. If we don't then we'll just unmatching go separate ways. But i'm just curious to see if we have something that just happened so if you just look at it like this is a really cool time. I met more people. I was single and dating than i do as partnered person. You just meeting more interesting people. And i say this a time when i started to date with intention more on my screen process was better. I didn't meet a lot of people that i spent my life with. Obviously i shows one person but people that i met on dates. I hired to do graphic design work for me or they did paintings for me. The night dated before i got married styled by engagement shoot I met people who helped me our reach out to distributors in china because they had a link with them so people who had interesting stories exactly. Yeah could still be a great exchange so if you take the pressure off of it to like lead to the one and just to be one bomb ass experience with a really cool undercurrent underneath it. I felt like that makes a really big impact. You know what. I figured this down like. Why am i talking. So fucking much in this podcast. You guys are asking me lifetime. Achievement questions one let us or the short answer is not know. Like what should i wear in a first date. When i'm like black next question so saying we're not basic we're going basically keep being like god damn like take a breath but then i'm like these are hard questions so just dropping all the knowledge give all the nuances who's listening. Who's like god. Damn she can talk. It's just listen. The questions aren't easy. You try it. Try this at home. Enjoy writing a book. What about those people that are in a relationship and things are going well but they wanna like op the desire. Yeah i think an easy iva quiz on my website. That's called turn on triggers and that's a great base way to start because i think a lot of people take advantage again when you first enter relationship. You have the neurochemical cocktail. That's giving you all of the setup that you need. So i'm already thinking about sex when i see you now for people who are long-term relationship. You don't look at that person thinks sacks because the us point you might look at that person in grocery list. Look at that person thing like oh did you pay the gas bill because there's just so much more complex to our relationship so in order to get the person prime where they're in a space where they see sex when they see you you have to know what turns that person on and so it turn on. Trigger is important to note. Because it's that q says here's what i'm trying to achieve with you so for my relationship. My husbands turn on trigger is environmental. So i if. I want to communicate to him that i want this to now be sexy atmosphere. I have to like clean up. Plug in a glade. Shit thing even wearing something But cleaning up is a massive. One he can't have sex mess. He's also not an exhibitionist. So if the blinds are open he's distracted full-time no way really. Yeah he is so it's crazy girl and like sometimes i'll just try it like. Let's just do it with the blinds. Open is not enjoyable. Because the whole time he's over his like fucking just ignore jared. Bits move on but he can't already sold tickets. It's not. I cannot can't get out of his head like someone could come up. Someone's looking so i on the other hand direct language. So if you want to get myspace it could be the dirtiest environment. All the blinds could be open. But if you look at me and you're like holy fuck your you look at the kind of person that would masturbate to that unexcelled. I'm like close off now. If i tried that on jerry and it hasn't worked as well so sometimes i think that we would like for ourselves and our other partner would like so. I think taking the quiz together as much. Yeah mainly be against that but that just opened up a dialogue of knowing. Okay if i do. Want if i feel horny and i want my partner to be on the same wavelength. What's the extra step. That i can do to try to get them in the same head space right right and would you have the same answer. For couples who've been in a relationship for longtime let's say big hit quite a few milestones already a couple of cancun higher. I i think if you i think remaining curious And then pivoting with the change is not always making the change. A bad thing is an important one to note. I also think that spicing it up in the bedroom does not have to be as extreme is going to cancun but you do have to spice it up right like your favorite food like a spot like my favorite spaghetti is at this spot in the street and after you have it for two years straight even though it's the same great food It might not hit the same for you. And that's just because your brain becomes accustomed to and that's kind of the downfall to us being such rapid advancers right the iphones a perfect product. They've reinvented that shit.

01:20:01 - 01:25:03

Fucking fourteen times or eleven ever iphone eleven x nine that we're on right now the crazy thing there's stupid brick that like lock it can do everything right and it's still not good enough so don't look at it like changes and looking to spice things up is a reflection of a failure. It's just the human condition that things have to evolve and be different in order for us to be continued excited about it and that's our benefit and curse and it also applies to your sex life. Love great worth. There's so many takeaways from this conversation. It's like where to even start. Traffic definitely comes kind of follows. What you were just saying of change being Inevitable but it's how you look at it and i love this like mindset shift weather that is you know how we talk about dating current day. Or how even described flirting like i. I even have been brought to the other side that i definitely like flirting and do it. It's just whatever connotation i have with it. Is you know that's a shift that needs to happen. That can be something that is super sexy and not cheesy and all the stuff that you the gift of our languages too you can also shift the word like i a reason. Just don't like masturbation. And i know it's a great thing and there's like masturbation main all these other things with the word just feels like i don't know so you pleasure instead Same shit but. I think if flirting feels like a like you roll your eyes at yourself. There's probably another word for it. Like i don't know energetically exchanging yes. Yes that one totally. But i think like my biggest takeaway for this whole conversation is especially when it comes to you know seduction fluoridated desire. Someone often were looking for those tips and like the script that we should do. And i feel like what i've gathered from. You is sometimes. We need to just not over think it. We need to just like let things radiate and push ourselves so our own personalities are showing through in. That's what's going to start to radiate that or draw to call in someone and make them feel good like there's things that we can do that our natural to ask that aren't like a quick fix in you know hack necessarily but these are the ways that like we remain desirable whether it's sort of a relationship or years and years into one here. Here's julie indeed my biggest takeaway. In addition to julie's takeaway is conscious say this is like an immediate yelp review. Atmosphere was great and services blah. Because they gave me free wine by sick away for this restaurant she oh she ambu dram is i feel like i don't know what makes me desirable and i should start asking that question and i could have a theory about what makes me desirable. But i've actually never asked my partner straight up. What do you desire about me. And that may actually just make me really horny just to hear that and a lot of this comes from so much self awareness and knowing one what is what makes some undesirable. What is what is it. That makes you desirable. And how do we constantly work this muscle. So that we keep increasing our desireability factor and it is something that we can work on. It is something that we can you constantly. Think about and be more mindful about and it's not something that just comes. Naturally they just love movies. Desirability just comes out of nowhere and psych. Well two two strangers meet on a train and then things just happen. It doesn't happen that easily or at least not to most people so it's nice to know that it is in our control that we can work on this. I'm glad you said that to you about just like asking is. That's something that shed. I heard you say over and over again. I feel like we have been taught that desireability. You're supposed to be mysterious. Said you're not supposed to like say what you really want. But just so much that you've said this is just i just put it out there. That's how someone you can't expect someone to be a mind reader. Rather get my needs met and i think that's so important that that confidence comes through and it doesn't always have to be the way we've been like told that we're supposed to do these types of behaviors a hundred percent. I think that that's just a part of it's a trade off. Though i will say that there is an exchange that happens when you have to tell somebody what you want and they do it versus someone just naturally guessing it and it depends on what you value amicus said i value my needs being met i desire. I desire for my desires to matter. Out there in the world and to come to fruition. So i want more control over them but for the person who is like the surprise. Element is what they desire. Then don't talk about it. Keep asylum and helping me to mind reader and you might good luck and just keep getting deeper on that because even your initial question what you desire right now.

01:25:03 - 01:30:01

I all i could think about was ice cream. You fucking come up the answer that you need to flirt buddy. I'm like i never thought of that as an option. So i feel like i should be asking myself out there because somebody could be listening to this podcast. Who's like on the perfect person. I mean they're not gonna know. Gotta put it out there. You get hit up just a thousand percent. Yes yes thousand percent possibility of flirt partner coming your way from home depot. Just say you. And i was kind of like what i say. It's like or the generic. Answer that your sister's say so it does show that maybe we're not thinking about it enough in if we're not thinking about enough how could you expect your partner to be. I thought you were going to say julie if we're thinking about enough you guys for damn sure aren't thinking about that too. I would love it if a listener rooted with a really detailed was that just put all of our shape. That would be thinking about this. Actually so ready for this question. Here's my listeners. Shan't tell us a little bit about your new show. We plugged your buck. You're welcome and then we also want to plug your new show x. Rated what is it about. Because the preview i saw you hook someone up to a lie detector test to help her find her vulnerability. I was like geom- all other level. What is this show about. So in essence you come to the show and say i'm single and i can't figure out why. And then there's twenty one question survey this issue out to your xs ranging from hookup buddies to ex-fiances and they rate you on a scale of one to ten on these twenty one different categories and then andy cohen. Who's a host of the show. Basically walks you through expectation versus reality. Would you think you are. What are you actually and wednesday densify. What someone's weakest area is. I come and i do an exercise with them To see if we can improve that score because not just about embarrassing you on tv and saying ha ha ha. You thought that you were great foreplay. You're actually trash. It's okay cool. Well let's figure out like how do we improve that your ability to be a better partner in this way right now and so the lie detector thing that person in particular had a really hard time with vulnerability because they were a dominatrix and so much of that is about control and restraint and not sharing. What your humanity but using the tools that you know to bring out somebody else's humanity was explained to her is that in needing to maintain that control by not showing people. Your true emotions. She was actually giving other people more control over her life because everybody else was like. I think that she left early. Because of this. And that wasn't her truth. Or i think that. She closed up or stopped calling altogether. Because i didn't do this and that wasn't her truth. So you have other people who are now in control of your narrative because you're so concerned with keeping things you know keeping your cards close to your chest so the lie detector. Was you know those. Things are not necessarily scientifically true. It was more a device to illustrate. You know what can happen when you go beyond what you think. You're supposed to say interesting. I cannot wait to watch this. So it's on peacock. Tv where else can you watch it yet. So it's on peacock which is nbc's streaming app. It was the place you could go to watch the olympics. If you watch the olympics at all this year and all eight episodes are already dropped is binge -able it is cringe ball is and so i hope people check it out. Oh yes. I know what i'm doing tonight. And she and if people wanna find out more about you. What's the best place to go to guessing what we've given them too much homework. I think we should just stop you know. We told them to read the book. We watch the x. Rated show they're busy. Never guess who is just like stopped promoting as i know the human brain can only pick up through pieces of information so we would hit our max so this is just me to double down and say get the book it's on audible if you're fascinated by this you can get audible. You get a free book when you sign up for audible. So i read that shade like my boys. Go get that or watch the peacock show. That's it you want to read read. You wanna watch some shit. You're something for everyone or have you just want to sell pleasure. You just sell pleasure you know. What exactly you depot accepts. Everybody is welcome at home depot. You feel desired. Regan merson would section. Okay well i thoroughly enjoyed this conversation shan. Thanks so much for making this happen. It's been miracle so you miracles to have it. I can't wait for all of our listeners to get their feedback. Because i'm sure soothe is going to elicit a lot of feedback from everybody who comes in contact For all of our listeners. You know what we desire is reviews in apple podcasts.

01:30:01 - 01:32:52

Five that's where the wood comes in when you give us guys like you got to the woods section. Yes advocated yourself there. So yes if you could give us five stars that is lovely and if you can give us a little like blurb a little blurb from the clerk of why you gave us five stars is even better at helps us get amazing guest like shan Who i agree to talk to us. That is the damn truth. Only you get booked on. Podcast is if they have. The is the number of reviews that the my management team base it on so it a thousand percent is true. You think it's a superfluous thing. It really makes a big difference. Thank you yes thank you. Thank you for validating us. I feel i feel heard good and now we can wrap up this episode. Oh dateable podcast is part of the frolic podcast network. Find more podcast love at frolic dot media slash. Podcast want to continue the conversation. I follow us on instagram facebook and twitter with the handle at dateable. Podcast tag. an any post with a hashtag. Stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those post then. Head over to our website. Dateable podcasts dot com. 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 we dissect analyze and offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums for also downloadable for free on spotify apple podcast. 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. Figured out with radio is sponsored by adidas. Check out the latest footwear innovation from adidas the ati zero audio's pro to which features carbon-fiber energy rods that are both lightweight and precisely tuned for more anatomical transition everything from the ultra late polyester upper to the re sculpted mid-sole and the reinvented out souls are designed for speed visit adidas dot com to learn more today. We did it again. The reisen was just named america's most reliable network by route metrics for the sixteenth time in a row proving once again that nobody builds networks like verizon bills networks that's why we're building five g. rotten. That's why there's only what best network bryson best and most reliable based on route metrics reported in second twenty thirteen to i out the wait when he won a re operators on that were types combined. Not specific defy gene bruce.

Dateable Podcast
Yue Xu & Julie Krafchick

Is monogamy dead? Are we expecting too much of Tinder? Do Millennials even want to find love? Get all the answers and more with Dateable, an insider’s look into modern dating that the HuffPost calls one of the ‘Top 10 podcasts about love and sex’. Listen in as Yue Xu and Julie Krafchick talk with real daters about everything from sex parties to sex droughts, date fails to diaper fetishes, and first moves to first loves. Whether you’re looking to DTR or DTF, you’ll have moments of “OMG-that-also-happened-to-me” to “I-never-thought-of-it-that-way-before.” Tune in every Wednesday to challenge the way you date in this crazy Dateable world.