Lewis Howes, Guy Winch, and Lori Gottlieb discuss why expecting someone else to make you happy is toxic. They explore how online dating and social media have warped what people want from relationships and what they think they deserve.
How toxic is it, in your opinion, to think that the partner is supposed to make you happy?
The thing is, even if you don't call it toxic, it's just dangerous.
Okay. Why?
Because they can't. They can't make you fundamentally happy.
They can bring you joy. It's a great joy to be with someone whose company you really enjoy.
Of course. But they can't heal those wounds for you. They can't take away the hurts. They can't repair everything that happened for you in your life. They can't do it for you.
Right.
And when you depend on someone else. You were talking about expectations earlier. When you depend on someone else to do that for you, they will inevitably fail because hashtag human.
So don't have an expectation that you meet this guy or this girl or whatever, and they're gonna make me happy. They should be able to add to my joy.
They're additive. Yes. Your quality of life will be greatly enhanced if you have a good relationship. Relationship.
Right.
Okay.
But you got to focus on your own happiness.
They're going to be misattuned to you sometimes.
They're going to upset you sometimes they're going to do things that you think, how could the person I love me make that choice? Right. You know, they're not going to be some like, you know, magical fairy person.
Yes. And what about the online world? How have you seen this as a therapist? The online world supported or hurt relationships. You know, is online dating overall, have you seen it be a positive thing? And also, it's just social media hurtful or helpful when in a relationship with someone.
And I would say to both social media and online dating, both. And yes, I think that online dating.
Makes it possible for people to meet.
Who ordinarily would not meet, but that's really all it does. So it's not like, you know, it's like we used to meet people in a much more organic way, but we don't do that anymore. So now you can meet people and it makes it a lot easier.
The downside of that is that there's this illusion with online dating and apps that, you know, you go out on a date, I hear this all the time from people. They went out on a date, they had a good time. No butterflies, but it was. They had a really good time.
Like they spent three hours there.
Like they had a pretty good time. But yeah, no, you know, I don't know. I just didn't feel like the chemistry or I don't know, or whatever it was.
And so, you know, but there's this other guy, you know, whatever.
So then they, like, keep going through the apps as opposed to, why wouldn't you go on a second date with.
That person that you just had a.
Pretty good 3 hours with?
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