Dating Do's and Don'ts in 2022 with Evan Marc Katz

Are you ready to create riches in your work and life? It's time for Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches in life you deserve. So let's welcome your ball of fire host, Bernadette Boas.

Good day, good day, good day everyone, and welcome to an exciting conversation here on Chutting the Bitch Radio and TV. Because you know what, I'm single. All you single ladies, this is for you. This conversation is going to be for you. We're going to talk about, uh, what a healthy relationship really entails and kind of get into all the mush about relationships, uh, with our guests. But before we do, I just have a couple of thank yous, and that would be, uh, to all of our new and longtime listeners and viewers, uh, all of your ratings and subscriptions and likes and follows and tweets. And, um, and, uh, I'm missing something, but that's okay. Um, they are really bringing a great deal of viewers and listeners to the show and to our entire Shedding the Bitch community, and. I couldn't be more grateful and more appreciative of that. We also need to thank our longtime sponsor, NG Tax Solutions. They are a full-service financial and tax services organization who serves small to corporate-sized clients, but also personal and business needs. So should you have any need to— for support when it comes to your financial or tax services needs, please reach out to Debbie Snelling and her team at NG taxsolutions.com. All right, let's get into this conversation, shall we? And let me introduce you to our guest. Again, we're going to be talking about just what does it take to have a relationship nowadays, because beyond the just pure chaos that's going on out there, there is love. There's an opportunity for love. And, uh, you definitely— if you are single, um, and/or maybe we talk about spicing up your relationship that you're already in. We'll, we'll just see where the conversation goes. All right, um, but with our guest, uh, Mark— I'm sorry, with, with our guest Evan Marc Katz, he's billed as a personal trainer for smart, strong, successful women, uh, successful women who are dating. He's a dating coach and he's been helping singles since 2003. He is the author of 4 books most recently Believe in Love, and has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including Today, The New York Times, and CNN. Since 2015, Evan's blog has over 30 million readers. His podcast has over 1.5 million downloads, and 12,000 women— get this— 12,000 women have graduated from Love U. His 6-month video course that helps women understand men and find love. Evan is very happily married and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their 2 children. Welcome, Evan! How are you?

Thank you very much for having me, Bernadette. I'm excited to be here and have a really fun conversation.

We are absolutely going to do that because, I mean, come on, relationships— although some of us may not find that they're fun all the time, But at the same time, they are definitely an adventure to go on. Uh, so where do we start? Uh, where— what would you say was the, the, the turning point that got you into this area of dating relationships?

Yeah, I think everybody kind of has their kind of career arc, and it's rarely linear. It's not like anybody, you know, dreamed of being a dating coach, um, when there was no such thing. Um, but I was a Hollywood screenwriter and, uh, came very close to success without actually achieving it and making any money. And when I turned 30, I said, I don't want to be the guy trying to sell a screenplay when he's 40. And so I went to film school. I was going to be a professor. I was getting my MFA at UCLA, and I got a job answering phones at an online dating company in Beverly Hills, getting yelled at by strangers. Customer service.

That's awesome.

And it was a job, paid the bills.

Yeah.

And after a year of working in an online dating company, I realized I should write a book about this because that's what writers do. And my first book, uh, called I Can't Believe I'm Buying This Book: A Common Sense Guide to Successful Internet Dating, um, did far better than my Hollywood career did. And suddenly I was in USA Today and on Time magazine, and I was the same guy I was before, but now I was like the dating guy. And I dropped out of film school and started to write people's online dating profiles, and those got attention, and that became a news story. And the next thing I knew you know, 80% of the people who were coming to me were women. I didn't solicit women. Men need help, women ask for help. And so as a result, this slowly morphed and changed, and I became a dating coach for smart, strong, successful women who have everything but the man. And I've been focused on those women for about the past 14 years.

It's really interesting what you said, and I don't even know if you caught it, and, and, or, um, I've had a number of conversations regarding this lately. When it comes to business, um, women don't ask. And yet when it comes to relationships— so it's so interesting you said that, that women ask for help and men don't necessarily, whereas in business it's like almost like polar opposite, you know, the, the men go for it and the women kind of hold back. So that's fascinating, fascinating to me.

Oh, it's like, it's, it's any business. There's like a— you recognize there's a void in the marketplace. Nobody's doing this thing. There's a billion dating coaches now, but when I started, I was like the only person who kind of found this thing. So I'm not saying I'm special. I just kind of got in at the right time and have evolved over the years to become the person that I wanted to be, right, to the point where I'm confident in my ability to help women. And I'm also walking the walk and I have a great relationship. And so, you know, it's a very lucky, organic career. And so anytime I have an opportunity to talk about helping women who are stuck and find that the dating marketplace is pretty challenging, Yeah, it's, it's an exciting conversation.

Sure, absolutely. So, um, you focus on smart, strong, successful women, and I've been that most of my, most of my career in life, and it definitely has posed its issues when it comes to dating. So what are your— what are the key observations, uh, that you're— that you find, and the challenges for those strong, successful women when it comes to dating?

I think there's, there's a number of things. It's a great question. I mean, I mean, you know, encompassing a lot of the kind of stuff we talk about in Love U. But if, if we just say somewhat crudely and empirically, my clients are in the 95th percentile of all women, right? They are— they have master's degrees, they make six figures, they own their own homes. Really, really impressive catches. And then there's the expectations about what they think they should be dating, what they deserve, what they're holding out for. If you're in the 95th percentile, how many people does that leave? Well, we're only starting from 5%.

Yeah, right.

In the best case scenario, we're starting with 5%. Yeah. All right, now within that 5%, what percentage of those men want to date A smart, strong, successful woman with a lot of opinions and a big career. Well, that might eliminate half of them right off the bat. He might be comfortable with a first grade teacher, right, who's not working 50 hours a week, who's not going to be as vocal or critical or whatever, right? It's just a little easier. And that's— and that's a— it's a choice, not a good choice, right? It's a choice. Plenty of men choose that woman. So now our 5%, by We'll just cut that in half. So now we're dealing with— and again, these are completely made-up numbers, but you get the idea.

Yep.

Now we're dealing with 2.5% of men. Okay. He is the male equivalent of you. But what happens when you date the male equivalent of you? You've seen it.

It's ugly.

Friction.

It's ugly. Ugly.

A lot of ambition, ideas, opinions, ego, the need to be right, difficulty de-escalating, prioritizing relationships. Again, that's not an attack. I'm that kind of person. I work with women, women like that. But when you marry the opposite sex version of yourself, I want a man like me, but more taller, smarter, richer, funnier. Right now we've got a lot of, forgive the terminology, masculine energy. And those relationships which seem great on paper don't always work out in practice.

Yeah.

So we need a new way to approach dating, given the percentage of men that we think are available to us and the inherent problems with trying to choose your— the male clone of you. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense. Um, one aspect that you, um, that you left out on their initial part when it comes to women with their opinions and/or with their busy jobs is the fact that there's a lot of cases where the women makes more— makes more money than men, and they're not necessarily like like, this needing to have that man to be, you know, kind of, you know, more, uh, more success, more monetarily successful than them. Um, where, where does money fit in when it comes to that? You found that when it comes to relationships—

this is the second interview I've done today, and this is exactly where the last interview went, right? Uh, really, I mean, was it a woman interviewer? Absolutely. She's a 47-year-old woman, got her own radio show, very interested in the role of money. And I have plenty, plenty to say about it. It's not the only opinion in the world. I would say in general there are two things going on when it comes with money, right? Maybe a little more than two things. So we've gotten to the other side of second wave feminism where, where women could go to college and get the same jobs as men and diminish the pay gap. My parents' generation, my mom you know, got married, went from her dad's house to her husband's house, was a stay-at-home mom. So we've got a whole generation of women post-'70s who are— who don't need men to take care of them in that same way that they did when women didn't have educations, women didn't have jobs, right? And their jobs were secretary and teachers. So we're in a much better world, but we've also decoupled what marriage was about for a long time, which was the man provided for the woman. Right? You don't need a man to provide for you anymore, but women still want it. And that's where it gets really dicey. You have a lot of women who make $200,000 and like, he has to make $201,000. And that's not true, but there's a deep-seated belief that he has to do more. And both genders buy into it a little bit, to our detriment. So what we're trying to do is decouple—

to whose detriment?

Both men and women. Okay, if a man doesn't feel like a man unless he makes more, well, that's his insecurity, right?

I was going to say that's his issue, not mine.

But simultaneously, let's be honest, Bernadette, a lot of women look down on men who make less. So it works both ways. He feels that. So we could say you should be more secure, but if she's looking down on him, how could he feel secure? So it's this, a bit of a loop here where we need to be almost gender neutral Hey, if a man made $200,000 a year and a woman's making $50,000, he picks up the check every time. No one asks any questions. It's expected. Woman makes $200,000, man makes $50,000. How does that work? Woman often expects him to pay half even though he makes one-fifth, right? Because of gender.

So meet these women.

No, my point is, this is the way These are all my clients. It becomes a really confusing conversation because there's the expectation and then there's the reality, right? And so we're trying to— I just hit my microphone. We're just trying to look for a model that works.

Yeah.

And if you're a woman makes $250,000 and a guy makes $50,000 but he treats you well and you're happy, you can have a really great life. Why need his money?

Absolutely.

It's a bonus. You just got a $50,000 raise, right? But he's not a dependent. He He pays his own bills. He's a high school English teacher. He's home at 4. It's perfectly fine. But that doesn't fit a lot of people's fantasy that he has to be more, more, more than I do. And so it's navigating this with a measure of integrity and making sure that when you enter a relationship, you could be happy with it for what it is instead of consistently lamenting what it's not.

Right, right. Yeah, I would love to meet those women because the women that I— that are in my circle that are single um, and they're all very successful and they all make great money. Um, and, you know, I, I maybe— it's— could it be an age thing, Evan? Um, you know, I just turned 60. So, and yet at the same time, you know, when I was dating, you know, at 35 or 40, and the men definitely had issues with the fact that I made significantly more money than they did, um, I still didn't have an issue with it. It was kind of like I'm okay with that.

Sure.

Um, but do you see some age factors come into play as well?

Uh, yes. I mean, things evolve, but they evolve slowly over time, right? And the people— and I'm almost 50— uh, younger generation, you know, gender is very blurry. Gender roles are very— there's a lot of stuff here. It's in a bit of a blender right now.

Yeah.

And it's not that I think that evolution is useful and important, but it's also more confusing because we don't know our roles. If my job as a man is not to protect and provide, what is my job now? Like, it's, it's a little bit more confusing. So we don't need to be stuck in our gender stereotypes, but to some degree, both men and women are, are expectations, which is why we talk about the concept of emotional labor for women, right? Men and women both have full-time jobs. He still expects her to take care of the house, right? Even though that's not really fair, right? There's that old school expectation about what women do, right? Which again might be biological, sociological. We don't even know how to untangle it.

Yeah.

Our expectations, the woman takes care of domestic stuff. The man takes care of the big man, strong stuff and the money, right? Those expectations haven't gone anywhere. So we've had a changing society wrestling with old expectations, and that's why, as I said, this is always a really interesting conversation.

Do you, do you see any signs? I remember, um, that it's actually evolving and changing because I remember my dad, who if he was still alive, uh, would be about 103 or 104. And so I would, I would ask him, because his first question to me every time I got in touch with him was, how's the love life? And, uh, he had 12 children, and there was only 2 of us that have not been married. So he'd be like, how's the love life? How's the love life? How's the love life? And, um, and I'm like, well, Dad, when will these men ever, you know, when will these guys ever get it on straight? Like, when will they ever figure this out, you know, as to how to, you know, relate to strong, successful, uh, women? And, uh, he's like, when we're all dead and gone. And I'm like, you like— and he goes, no, not— and he says, you know, learn to adapt, learn to adapt, and learn to find the medium, you know, right?

And so, so then we get into something that's also really personal. So on one hand, and we were just talking about women, let's talk about men, right? Okay, men now are more sensitive than they've ever been. They're more likely to help out with housework and childbearing than they've ever been. They're more attentive husbands and fathers than they've ever been, right? And women often complain, sometimes I just need a man, right? I need a guy who's just like a masculine guy who could take care of business, right? So there's this dilemma where we've not— again, am I passing judgment on it? But like, we've sanded off some of the rough masculine edges of men, and then women are like, Sometimes I want a man to just make dinner reservations and make a plan, right? I don't want a man to take the lead to the bedroom where I don't have to be the one who's doing all the leading here, right? So this— it gets really, really messy where we've— we tried to get men to be more sensitive, now we've blended into being almost gender neutral, and then nobody knows who takes the lead on anything anymore. Yeah, hey, you know, you could contact me if you want to hang out, a lot of guys say, and they're waiting for her to do the leading.

Yeah.

And so it's not— I'm not— again, it's not bad, it's not wrong, it's just gotten more confusing for both women and men about how to date with integrity.

Yeah.

Because expectations are all over the map now.

Right, right. But can it be, you know, uh, you know, people have, have moved from equality to equity um, in the conversations, because it wasn't feminism that like got us all, um, you know, that got women's attention. It was more so just the fact that we want equality and equity. Uh, so feminism is like a term that just, uh, also got, um, got— gave us a bad name. But anyway, that's, that's for another conversation, Evan. Um, but isn't, isn't it just a matter of having a dialogue, having conversations, and, and figuring out like, you know, kind of you know, who wants to contribute, how they want to contribute. I mean, I've had success.

If we stay specifically on the money thing, then possibly. But sometimes it's, it's you've invested way too much time only to discover this, or people are pretty deeply believe in things that aren't necessarily negotiable. So I, I know it, Mike, and I've got a story to fit every occasion.

I'm—

I have a friend who dated a woman. They were both lawyers, and he was really excited that he wouldn't have to carry the burden of paying for anything because he's got a smart, strong, successful wife who makes equal amount to what he did. And it wasn't until they got engaged that she informed him she didn't want to be a lawyer anymore. She wanted to quit her job and keep her lifestyle and have him pay for anything, right? That was her plan. It wasn't his plan. And their relationship broke up before they got married. Why? Yeah, so, and I'm not saying either of them is wrong. It's, it's— you can negotiate all you want, right? But people want what they want. Whether it's reasonable is a completely different story. Yeah, so I, I think that, well, in Love U we have a whole way of taking people through a dating process so that they don't wake up one day 2 years down the road and say, oh my God, what have I done, right? The whole point is to be able to evaluate someone quicker right, for compatibility instead of taking this huge leap of faith as a lot of people do. Second marriages fail at a two-thirds rate. So, so many people are like, I'm 60, he seems great, we love each other, we get married in less than a year, and they just become another divorce statistic because they want it so bad.

Yeah.

So my job is to really almost be a risk manager and minimize people's risks and minimize people's mistakes because these are just very human emotional things, and people tend to vacillate and overcorrect. If you're in a relationship where your husband had no money, you look for money. If you're in a relationship where you had no sex for the last 10 years, you look for chemistry, right? And so people tend to go all over the map, and we want to keep them in this real narrow middle lane where success is found.

Yeah, okay. So, well, a couple things. One, I love the fact that you say you're a risk taker, and And you're a personal trainer for these Strong 6S. I love that, love it. Um, so you obviously— and you, you love you— is that the vehicle for you figured out kind of how to get in the middle, how to find that middle?

It's, it's a, it's a really— thank you for the question. It's a really great question. And you know, we don't— right, we don't need a script right now. Like, we're flying, right? So love you is basically my life's work, where you recognize that women want to understand men. Men are terrible. They don't want to understand women. There's never been a guy who's like, can you help me understand my wife? That conversation doesn't take place. It's, how do you make her stop criticizing me? That's his version of events. Never, I want to understand her. Women, to their credit, want to understand men. And so I have a job as like a professional mansplainer. I was asked to be a mansplainer. What are guys thinking? Why do they do what they do? And now we have this, now we have this Venn diagram. There's what men want, there's what women want. Where could we find enough overlap that we could have a happy relationship?

Look how small that was, right?

But, but, but if, but if he's just getting what he wants, she feels like a doormat.

Yeah.

And if she just gets what he wants, he feels really emasculated, right? So we need to have a healthy relationship where both people, right? So my job is I'm kind of like a translator.

Yeah.

And so the course just walks women through an entire process from confidence and meeting men and dating to being in a relationship, understanding men, relationships, commitment, communication. So we just walk people through a process that answers pretty much every question that one can have because I was just, just dissecting 10 years of coaching calls and trying to put it into a sort of scalable digestible form.

Right, right. So I know you— I know, you know, we all— we, we pick a niche when we're entrepreneurs and business owners, and your niche are these smart, strong, successful women. Where, apart from maybe you going out and talking to the men and inserting what, you know, what they want, what they don't want, what they need to do, what they don't need to do, where do they come into play though to help the woman What am I trying to say? Um, there's a lot there for the woman to then do. Are they then influencing the male's response because what they're learning in Love U, and therefore because the man's not being coached, right?

But this is the very nature, and I'm, you know, I'm sure you're familiar with this, this is the very nature of self-help. When someone does any form of self-help The world doesn't change, right? So if the biggest problem in the world— and again, I understand the complaint— is men, men in Los Angeles, men on Tinder, men over 60, men with ex-wives, if we just demonize, like, here's the problem, no amount of coaching is going to change men, right? Right. So it's— I'm not gonna— I'm not tone deaf to the fact that there's a lot of guys who are the problem. Like, I'm not— right, I couldn't do this job and be insensitive to women's complaints all I do is listen to women complaints. I'm like a customer service hotline. Here's what sucks about men, right? I really get it. You can't change men. You can't change— it's like you could change how you choose men, right? And the steps that you take during this process. So we try to use what, what are best practices, and the terminology we use is effective versus ineffective. I don't say right versus wrong. You're not wrong for saying, I never want to date online, I want to meet my man organically. Okay, how many dates have you gone on in the past year? Right? I, you know, I don't want it like— so everyone has their idea about how it's supposed to go, right? And so we just try to lay out a path so you don't have to cut your way through the jungle with a machete. Yeah. So here's an easier way to think of it. It's a long-winded answer to a short question, Bernadette. If I were to coach men, and I did for the first 5 years of my career, it wouldn't be that hard. Because men are notoriously bad at understanding women, right? So if someone said to me, how can a man be a better first date, right? I could give him a laundry list of 20 things he can do better, right? I could tell him to make plans in advance instead of texting on Friday night at 11. I could tell him to choose a restaurant that's close to her home. I can tell him to ask her questions about herself and listen to her answers and maybe even have follow-up questions and not dominate the conversation. I could tell him to pick up the check, no questions asked, because you're the man and women like chivalry, right? I could tell him to drive her home and walk her to, to her house for safety and security. I can tell a guy all these tiny little things that guys may or may not do, right? And if a guy does those things, is he a different man than he was before? No. He's going to do a lot better with women though, right? So this is the exact same thing Women like, why are you always telling women what they're doing wrong? Why don't you tell men what they're doing wrong? It's like, because they're not asking me. Yeah, my job is to help you do better. And if you do these things that don't really cost you anything, you're going to do a lot better with men and see men show up differently for you. Because in any interaction, right, the beginning of our interaction today, we're all mirrors of each other, how people show up, right? So the more you could give someone a really positive experience the more they're going to respond to you positively.

Yeah.

And a lot of people aren't aware— we don't get comment cards on the date too. What did you think? So the more we actually could get present to the idea that we often treat people better in business than we do in love.

Yeah, it's true. It's right.

You don't flake out on a business call, but people are like, oh, sorry, I'm tired, I'm not going on a date tonight. Like, we're much more callous in the dating world than we are when there's money at stake. Right, so really just trying to treat people better across the board. And if a man doesn't rise to the occasion when you improve as a girlfriend, if he falls short, then you let him go.

And you let him go. All right, I have a scenario for you that I want your thoughts on. It just happened this past weekend.

All right, this is personal. Is this yours?

It— well, it's a friend's, but it was my response.

It's a friend. I'm joking.

No, no, no, it is. It's a girlfriend.

Got it.

And it's my response to her. Okay, so she raises up that, uh, she was out on a date and somehow the conversation— it was the first date— somehow the conversation went to family, and he had— and he's divorced with children. And so in the— and it's about a year, year and a half he's been divorced. So to me, that's kind of fresh and raw. So in the conversation talking about his children, he gets emotional. And her response— and it was at a, um, it was at a dinner party— and her response was, that was it. That was it. I don't need some guy sitting there across the table from me crying about his kids on a first date. So before I tell you my response What are your thoughts in regards to that, um, from a woman's dating perspective and whether or not it's successful or not?

All right, so, so let's, let's look at it from both sides because that's the very nature of— yeah, right, yeah, look at it from both sides. Yeah, I would never tell a man that crying on a first date is a great first date move, right? Like, here's the thing you gotta do, women love sensitivity, so pour on the tears. So I would never say, hey, you should do that.

Right.

At the same time, a show of vulnerability and authenticity as a crime, as a reason to run away. If you flip it around, imagine a woman told a story about how her mom was in hospice care and she started to cry. And that guy would be like, oh, this woman's crazy drama. I'm out of here. Like, it is exactly the opposite response you'd want if the situation was reversed. And I'm sure that's where you ended up going.

Yeah, well, and it also told me, Evan, how much I've changed, uh, personally in so many ways, but also toward my dating. Because I was her like 10 years ago, 15. I was like, yeah, if a guy sheds a tear ever, uh, you know, no, he's not manly enough. But now it's kind of like, I was like, are you kidding me? He showed you that he has heart and he was talking about his kids. You know, right?

And, and so, I mean, again, I don't know that much about you, but if the title says anything, Shedding the Bitch, right, is about looking inward and, right, softening up and being generous of spirit and embodying the kind of way you want to treat people. And so it, it is tricky because we could say this about any dating behavior. We could say, oh, this is a huge red flag, right? It's a huge red flag that he didn't reach for a check. It's a huge red flag that he didn't walk me to the door. It's a huge We could play that to death, right? Right. But if you find everything that every guy does, we could always find a reason to not like a guy. It's a, it's a built-in defense mechanism that ensures you'll be single forever because there's always going to be something wrong with a guy.

I used to be like that, so— oh, it was just pathetic.

But it's human, and that was probably some defense mechanism to prevent you from getting hurt.

Right, right. Oh geez. Yeah, it's— yeah, the dating, the dating pool. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm happy to hear that you're happily married with two children. You don't have to be in that dating pool, although you hear about it all the time.

Well, I, I spend more time in the, uh, the single women's dating pool than any married guy. But yeah, I'll tell you, this, this job is not— I mean, it's an accidental career, but I went on 300 dates from 25 to 35. I was prolific. At failing and trying things that didn't work and trying to iterate and figure out the same thing. I was already a coach. I was trying to help other people and I was giving good advice, but I was a hypocrite. I wasn't following the advice. So that was another really interesting thing is when you realize your own hypocrisy.

Right.

Right.

Right.

It's very easy to stand on one soapbox and tell people what to do. And privately, you know, you're not actually doing that thing. And once I got those two things aligned, A, I fell in love, got married, bought a house, everything happened rapid fire.

Yeah.

And the business came together and I got a lot more clarity, right, on how my clients and I were the same, right? And the compromises I made are the compromises you need to make.

Yep. Right.

Okay. All right.

All right. Well, you brought up something that I wanted to, um, uh, well, actually there's two things popping in my head right now. So one was, you brought up, um, that's, you know, some of the coaching would also center on, well, do you want to do online dating? Do you want to do it in person? You know, kind of what is there, especially nowadays, you know, post everything going on, and I don't use the C word, but post that, has— and everybody's pivoted online professionally and personally, um, has there been a drastic shift, um, when it comes to where people are meeting, you know, each other, where, where people are coming together, especially from a dating perspective?

So I think I said my first book was called I Can't Believe I'm Buying This Book because it was like, you know, embarrassing to do online dating 20 years ago. I was an early adopter, so it was, it was a joke about it.

Yeah.

Now it's the single most prominent way that people meet people, right? And so for any client who ever comes to me and says, I don't want to do online dating, I tried it, I hate it, that's fine. But I invite— as I already tipped my hand at this— if we're going to be in dating coaching, you need to date. And so if you can get yourself one date a week without going online, you never have to go online. I don't care. I'm not like pro online dating, I'm pro dating. No one has ever taken me up on the offer because getting a date a week in real life is next to impossible.

Next to impossi— and I'm very social and very active, right?

So, so that's what I'm saying. It's not that I'm like blindly pro-online dating. I know all the problems with it. Yeah, it's, it's like I want to lose weight without going on a diet. Can you help me do that? Maybe not. It might be really tricky. I don't know. Can you work out 14 hours a day?

Yeah.

So for online dating, what we have is a system. We put people online for a half hour a day. We give them how to write a profile, screening mechanism, going from email to the phone to the real-life date, what to look for. So we try to provide a protocol for people that they could just follow it like a recipe, like could follow it like a template and integrate it into their life. Because the 'when I meet a guy, I will make time' is the wrong model, right? If you're gonna— if you're helping someone with their career, Your career doesn't come passively. You pursue it, right?

Correct.

We need to actively integrate dating slash online dating into our life. And if you're talking to 10 guys at a time online, maybe only one of them pops, but at least you have someone to take you out on Saturday night and you got a raffle ticket, right? And if you go on one date a week for the next 6 months, you'll probably find a guy you like.

Yeah.

So that's what we try to do is it's kind of a numbers thing, not like a go out with every single guy who's got a pulse. Essentially, in business, lead generation— if we have a constant flow of opportunity, the more opportunity you have, the more selective you can be.

It's a numbers game.

The more selective you are, the more comfortable you'll be going on first dates. Doesn't mean every first date's going to be good, but you'll have better first dates if you go on one a week than if you try to go out with 4 strangers from Tinder.

Yeah.

So it's really just trying to get people into a system of cultivating opportunity and then seeing what, what pops.

Yeah, it's funny, I, um, in 2003 I did a stand-up comedy, uh, routine, and it was all about internet— well, it was about being one of 12 children, and it was about internet dating.

Sure, both very ripe for comedy.

Yeah, very ripe. Um, all right, so you often talk about, um, that there's a difference between chemistry and compatibility. Um, what did— what should I know about that?

Well, let's— I mean, since your show is so very personal, it has so much to do with you and your personality. What would you say if you were to think of the 3 men in your whole life, Bernadette, that you had the most chemistry with, right? Just flaming hot chemistry. Where are those men now? Yeah, right. Yeah, that's the problem with chemistry. It's not that chemistry isn't a wonderful feeling, it's that chemistry absolutely does not predict compatibility and your happiness in the future.

That is true. Yep.

But we think it does. Oh my God, if I have this feeling, then it must be right. No, if anything, this feeling has led you astray every time you've ever had it and ripped your heart out.

Rip your heart out.

So it's not that I'm anti-chemistry, right? Yeah, I'm just really pro-compatibility. Yeah, because you could have white-hot chemistry with someone who is verbally abusive. You could have white-hot chemistry with someone who doesn't want to be married. You could have white-hot chemistry with someone who communicates by text once a week. Chemistry, that feeling doesn't get you anywhere, right? And so what we really want to do is align— well, what's your long-term goal? If your long-term goal is to have these roller coaster relationships, high highs, low lows, you don't need a dating coach. Go ahead, you got that down. Yeah, but if you'd rather have something that's stable, that's what we offer. The idea of choosing a partner where you can still have chemistry, you could still have a great sex life, but you're not blinded Yeah, and you don't put up with too much crap because you're so blind, right?

Right. I have a, uh, it could be an interesting or weird question, I'm not sure which, but do you— are women looking, and is there an age, um, uh, age factor here? Are women really looking for that, that true, uh, if you believe in soulmates true soulmate type, compatible type of relationship, or are they— are any of the women that come into you are also just looking to fill the fact that, you know, they're single and, and everybody— the expectation is that they should be, you know, with someone, married, having kids, not alone?

This is, this is a great, a great topic, and I'm gonna— I, I may say something that's upsetting Um, but it's— understand that when people come to me, it's a self-selecting process, right? I don't pull people out of their homes and say, hey, you look like you need a dating coach. People Google stuff in the middle of the night, they listen to my podcast, they watch my YouTube videos, they— right? There's something missing. And so when in life there's not one size fits all, if someone is genuinely Right. Happy being alone. Go ahead, be alone. I don't care. No one cares. That's your business. There's a lot of people who talk themselves into being happy being alone because contrary to what you said, you were saying, oh, society puts so much pressure on women to couple up. There's a countervailing force. Society puts equal amounts of pressure on women to say, I'm complete. I don't need a man. I'm perfectly happy. I got my friends, I got my job, I got my dog, I got my travel, I got my yoga retreats, I have my hobbies.

I—

right. And what they're doing very often, my clients are on like a hamster on a wheel, keeping so busy that they don't stop to think about how very lonely they are. And this pandemic was a huge wake-up call, right? Right. Oh, you're a partner at a law firm and you're stuck in a 2-bedroom apartment in Manhattan and you can't travel. And now you're really looking at your life and saying, is this all there is?

Right.

So I'm not saying that that's the only way to be, right? Oh yeah. But if there's one force, society says women have to be in relationships. There's another force that's saying, nope, you don't. You're happy, you're complete. And when people get on the phone with me, they admit to themselves for the first time that they're not happy, that they feel incomplete, that there's a hole in their life. It's not sad, it's human. If my wife left me, I'd have a huge hole in my life. Yeah, that's not sad.

No, well, it's, it's sad that they're, that they're feeling that, but I don't mean legitimate feeling.

And we've done something to delegitimize it to the, to the point where they almost can't even admit it, right? That all they're doing is trying to keep busy to avoid feeling lonely.

Interesting, interesting. All right, I asked. I asked.

Yeah, again, it's, it's not that there's one way to be, right? I'm not trying to convince anybody to get married, but generally people are not going to hire a dating coach, right, because they're happy being single, right?

Right, right, right.

Because really, it's easy to go out meet a guy, sleep around, have a thrill, get your heart broken, recycle, wash, rinse, repeat. Anybody could do that. It's when people are tired of that that they say, hey, maybe there's a better way to go about this.

Okay, it's not so easy there, Evan. Don't make it sound so— I try to do that all the time.

No, I mean, obviously, if, if you're, if you're coaching and you're coaching others You have to believe that you have a better path than whatever they're taking on their own without arrogance. The— yeah, I— this may be really scary and confusing to you, but this is also what I do. And you might not know where this is headed, but I could hold your hand. I could be like a Sherpa taking you up Mount Everest. It may be scary for you to hike Everest on your own, but if you just follow behind me, I'll get you there.

No, no, no, no, no, definitely.

Yeah.

Dating coaches, yeah, are a huge benefit. I might have to tell my friend. I might have to share it with her.

It's certainly— it's certainly, Bernadette, it's a luxury good. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, she even is doing, uh, kind of those, um, connectors, those dating, you know, connectors where you matchmakers.

Got it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Specifically to match up, you know, so forth and so on. And what I joked with her about is it's not just the process of matching up, it's also like what you're doing is dealing with the, the, you know, what's going on between the two, you know, two ears, um, and what's impacting their heart, um, and then showing them a way to do it smartly.

It's why I don't do matchmaking, is because usually when people hire matchmakers, their, their focus is external. I'm great, right? I just haven't met the right guy. Hand me the guy, just, just give them to me. And the problem is matchmakers don't have a very big database. You're actually better off taking your chances on Bumble because it's the same people. They're not different people. You're just taking the work out of it. Here, here's 40 grand for 10 dates.

Yeah.

And they're no better than the guys you can meet online, right? So I, I try to empower women to become their own matchmaker, to be able to generate a love life and learn to trust their own judgment, right? It's the teach a woman to fish model instead of here, catch me a fish.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's— I can totally understand that. Absolutely. All right, so in our last minute or so, what—

how—

what would you say to the women out there? Especially, I have smart strong, successful powerhouse women in my network. What would you say to those single ladies— single ladies, single ladies— um, in regards to their dating?

Two main messages I would love to leave your listeners with. Number one, you don't have to change yourself to find lasting love, right? You do have to change your choice of men, right? And what's easier? Change your choice of men versus fundamentally changing your personality. So nobody has to fundamentally change who they are, but if you've always been barking up this tree, maybe you bark up another tree and you're going to have better results. So that's one thing: don't change yourself, change your choice of men. And number two, and this is also controversial, good relationships are easy. Anybody who tells you relationships take work Oh, it's constant work. Bad relationships take a shit ton of work. Good relationships are easy. Think of any person in your life who you have a good relationship with. It's not a lot of work, right? If your relationship takes a lot of work— not effort, because everything takes effort, right?

Right.

But it takes work. Find a better relationship.

I love that. He saved the best for last in the last 10 seconds. I love that because it's so true. But yes, and I've heard it before, but yes, that rings so, so, so absolutely true. Um, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much, Evan. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

You're welcome. And I want, um, is there a couple things that you can mention to the, the, the audience in regards to Even Love You? Or anything else that you might have going on in your community, including your podcast.

Yeah, no, that's very kind of you. My name's EvanMarkKatz.com, E-V-A-N-M-A-R-C-K-A-T-Z. I've got a site that has 1,000 blog posts, 250 podcasts. I'm on every social media platform, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. But the best way to really get the most out of this kind of advice is to Go to my website, give me your email address, take the quiz or watch the video right on the home page. And, uh, if you find that it resonates with you, fill out an application for Love U. And, um, if you're a good fit for coaching, then, uh, maybe my honor to hold your hand through this process and get you the love that you deserve.

You do deserve love, everybody. All those single ladies out there, you do deserve love. So check out evanmarkscatz.com and definitely reach out. Evan, thank you so much. This has been Fabulous. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. And for everyone else in our Shedding the Bitch community, thank you so much for joining this week and our discussion in regards to relationships and dating for all the single ladies out there in our Shedding the Bitch community. And I'll look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode. Thanks everybody, have a rich, prosperous week.

Thank you for taking part in Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV with Bernadette Boas. We would love to know what your biggest takeaway was. Go to Shedding the Bitch on Facebook or YouTube and leave a comment. You can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast and YouTube so you don't miss a single episode of the show. And with your input, we can help other powerhouse women just like you find the show and decide if it's right for them. Learn more about Bernadette at balloffirecoaching.com. See you next time.