7 Signs You Have an Avoidant Attachment Style

Hey there, everyone. Before we start the podcast, as you all know, there's a lot of bad dating and love advice out there, and we want to put a stop to that. So if you're enjoying this podcast, you enjoy the content that we're putting out, please can you leave a review wherever it is that you're listening to this podcast, it spreads a lot of love, and it really helps get this message out there so we can help more women, just like you, attract the love that they truly deserve. Go ahead and leave that review, and let's jump into the podcast. Every relationship is going to have some degree of risk of getting involved with a person. Now, if you get involved in a relationship with a guy who's married and still living with his wife, high risk, Right. Versus a guy who maybe he shows up on a date and it's just a little bit shy, and, you know, he.

He didn't.

He split the bill with you. Okay. That's lower on the risk. Right? All right, Gary, today we're going to be talking about an avoidant attachment style. And I'm pretty sure that throughout my entire 20s, I was 1000% an avoidant. What do you think? I. I just enjoyed being single. I don't know. It was fun. It was fun. I didn't want a relationship. What? You know.

Yeah, well, I think that's one way to. To feel. I. I, for sure. Right. It's basically like. It's like a fierce independence in some ways. Right. And so just as a reminder to everybody, attachment is our general patterns of relating towards others. And it has a lot to do with how comfortable you are, getting close to somebody else, sharing, becoming emotionally vulnerable, and then combined with your anxiety or worry about being hurt or left right. We talk about that as anxiety over abandonment. And so avoidance. Tend to be worried about being left right or fish or fiercely independent. Yet they're also not very comfortable being close. Right. Because they're worried about being left. They don't want to get hurt. And so being fierce.

I was fierce. I wasn't fiercely independent. I love that idea. I was fierce in my 20s, that's all.

And so, you know, one way is, like, that. That independence of wanting to be single. I'll say, like, I'm generally pretty secure, but there was a time after a breakup that I definitely got much more avoidant. It was like, yeah, that. It was one that, like, hurt that, like, snuck up on me a little bit. And then it was like. And then you get this, like, well, that's not going to happen to Me again. I'm never going to let that happen. And then that's, that's. That's avoidance, right? I mean, you're worried about.

Women are the worst. They're the problem. Never ever dating another woman again if she gets too close. Goodbye. How many women do you think listening to this have said that about men?

Just 99%.

99.999999%. So, yeah, today we're just going to be getting into some of the signs that you might have an avoidant attachment style. Because I think a lot of the content, a lot of the ideas out there for women and relationships is focused on anxious attachment. And we already talked about that in a previous episode. But my experience has shown over the past decade of being a love coach and, and with love accelerator and everything we do, we have a lot of clients that are actually avoidance. And they may not know it and they may not see it.

That's the thing. I, I think that what happens with attachment style is anxious. People who are anxious tend to know it and they tend to see it and, and they tend to just accept it as like a quirk. And it's like, that's just kind of how they are. Avoidance is, is like a little. It's got like a little bit more of a dark side to it in the sense that people don't know they have it, but it's like they'll have. They'll have these stories about, like, a bunch of relationships that are close to what they want, but they're not quite perfect. They usually have stories of being hurt. They. They say that people have a hard time getting close to them. Like, there's a lot of like, like subtle things that you're like, huh? When you've done this at long enough time, you start hearing it as, like, these are codes for avoidant. And so like we did with anxious attachment. We're going to talk.

Go ahead. I have a quick thought on that. Like, and it just. I just popped in my head. I didn't want to lose this thought. Is like, if we think of anxious attachment, we what. What are the words that we think of for that type of person? We think of needy, right? Someone who is, you know, very insecure. But if we think of avoidant, actually, the ideas that come to mind is independent, almost like empower, like empowered. Like, oh, I don't need men. Like, I don't need a man in my life. I don't need a relationship. I'm great by myself. And I could see why that this is so sneaky. Because those are actually what we might consider to be positive attributes. If they're showing these character traits, society actually looks at that as quite empowering. Oh, the woman who's in her 30s who doesn't need a man to be happy. Wow, that is.

You're congratulated.

Congratulations.

It's like a fantastic thing to aspire to. And so, you know, we're going to talk about some of the obvious signs of avoidance and then we're going to talk about some of those more subtle things. And I think it's important to say these are signs of avoidance, not that you are avoidant. And so like, be very careful about like, oh, this means I'm an avoidant attachment. Like, no, no, you have avoidant tendencies.

Right.

And we all do to some degree. It's like I said earlier, I'm very secure. But after a breakup, you can feel more avoidant than you did before or you might feel more anxious. And just. So this isn't to say like, oh, if one of these things we talk about today you have or have exhibited signs of, it's like, oh my gosh, I'm avoidant now. It's like, that's not what we're saying.

Right. So should we jump into some of the signs? Yeah.

Do you want to do the first most obvious thing?

Oh, God, I love this one. Which is being too picky now. I kind of rued the day when I started saying this magical four letter word, which is next. And I tell our clients to move on to the next. But every once in a while I will have a client come on and she'd be like, I just nexted four guys. I've just keep nexting guys. Next. Next. They're like, well, why, why did you next them? And they're just like, well, I don't know. I mean, this one guy, on one hand, he came on too strong. This other guy, he was pulling away. This other guy was a little bit, you know, shorter than I was looking for. And before you know it, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're taking this nexting empower, this empowering idea of nexting too far and you're just like being way too picky and you're not allowing yourself to actually broaden your horizons and see if a guy's a good fit for you.

Well, we've seen this with clients. It's. There's always a reason if you want to find one to next somebody. Right. Like we've had clients in, in Colorado who refuse to date any guys who like outdoor activities. And it's like, wait, you're in Colorado, right? Or like there was another woman who lived in Silicon Valley and didn't want to date anybody in the tech industry. And it's like, yeah, that's tough. You're making it really, really hard and you're being picky. And I think it's important to kind of dig down into, like, why you're being picky. And I think what a lot of times this is, is it allows you to make the reason why you don't have a relationship somebody else's fault. Like, if the guy's always the person with the problem, if there's always a reason why he's not quite enough, then it's not threatening to who you are as a person. You get to still be the same person. And it's. It's nothing you can do. You're kind of helpless in a way, but you're still. Because avoidance, like to stay protected and put up walls. This is still a wall. Like, you're still protecting yourself. You're just kind of offloading the responsibility towards. Towards the guys.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes the strategy with our clients, like, we want our clients to be picky, but be picky about the right things, the things that actually will harm you in the long term. And there's a big, Like, I think that that's the big shift that we make with our clients. If there's one thing that. And I always say there's one thing in every podcast, but there's one thing in this podcast today that I want to say we help our clients with. It's that going from short term thinking in their love life to long term thinking. And if we can start being really, really picky about the things that really matter for a long lasting, lifelong relationship, then, oh, my God, that is. That is the perfect shift away from caring so much about the things that literally don't matter. Three months into a relationship. Like, you won't care how tall he is. Three months into the. Really, it will not affect you. It won't even affect you. Like, like, if he's got a weird habit that, you know, I don't know, help me, Gary. But, like, even if he might be balding a little bit, like, I'm focusing on physical attributes, but there, There are many others. Maybe he's got like a weird way he laughs or like a weird joke he makes every once in a while.

Maybe he claps when the plane lands at the airport. Oh, can't be a. He can't Be a landing clapper. That's, that's a, that's a deal breaker.

Perfect example. Oh, those people are the worst. But I admit I've done it once. Maybe it was a really turbulent flight.

I think the important thing though, with all this, with being too picky, like, and some people are going to be listening to me, like, oh man, maybe I am being a little too picky. First, you got to recognize the pattern. The pattern is, this is self handicapping, this is self sabotage. You're purposely making it harder. Although you don't think you're purposely making it harder so you recognize that pattern first. And the other side is like, it's easy to say, stop being picky. So the other way to deal with this is just like, take more chances. Like, give things a try. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Like, you think that, you know, you can't date an outdoorsy guy. Date an outdoorsy guy, go for a hike, go, go whitewater rafting. Like, just give it a try. The worst thing that happens is you're like, yep, I hate it. And then you move on. But it's like, just be a little bit more open minded, test things out and just see if you're right.

Yeah, I love it. Let's move on to the next. It's great.

Yeah. So I think, you know, related to this, that being picky is a general thing. So these next ones are a couple ways that people are like more specifically picky. And I think the second one is something we hear a lot from clients is they're just easily offended. Like, he says the wrong thing, does the wrong thing at the wrong time, or says something the wrong person. And it's like people are gonna say the wrong thing. Right. But I think a really, really important life rule when it comes to this type of thing about being offended or somebody doing something wrong is like, just because someone or something is annoying, it doesn't mean you have to be annoyed. Like, you could just easily let it go. Right?

He.

He chews a little loudly at dinner, right? Annoying. Just choose not to be annoyed. Right. And it's like there's a judginess too that goes along with being easily offended. It's like, you know, and we've had all versions of these with people saying things like, I don't like how he organizes his closets. Right. I don't like what he puts in his refrigerator. I don't like how he parents his child. We have one client who is, everything was great with this guy, but like, they would go to the gun range together, and she didn't like how he spoke to her at the gun range. And that became, be safe.

Don't point the gun at me.

I was like, this is a bad time to get in an argument. But it's like.

That'S funny. I mean, Gary, I once had a client. I mean, I cut off your point, but I once had a client who she was dating this guy this many, many years ago. This might be before you. She loved how funny he was. She's like, he's the funniest guy. He makes me laugh and so on and so forth. And then she came on. She's like, I hate him. I can't be with him. Like, why? She's like, he made a joke about yoga and it really offended me. And she's like, crying because I love yoga. I'm like, right, you wanted to be with a guy who's funny. It's yoga. Suck it up. You're going to be okay, I promise. This is coming from a guy who practices yoga. Like, I did yoga last night. You're going to be okay. Are you tired of committing your heart to a man who only just pulls away? Well, if so, we have a very special presentation that's available to our podcast listeners. It's at a special link. It's called he commits dot com. And it's going to walk you through the five secret strategies that make men commit. Head on over to he commits.com. it's only available for shop short period of time. I think you're going to like it a lot. All right, back to the podcast.

Well, and this. The thing is like, I. I'm a sarcastic person. I use humor a lot. And it's like, for every nine out of ten jokes that land, there's one that's just, like, dead, right? And you just, like, you said something dumb and it just doesn't. And it's like, here's the thing, here's the strategy to deal with this. Like, instead of being offended, ask yourself, do you know why they said it? What was their intent? Did they intend to offend you? Probably not. The answer to that one is almost never that's the case. But it's like, so, like, focus on a tent. Realize too, that people say dumb things when they're nervous. Guys say more dumb things than the average person. But it's like, you say more dumb things when you're nervous because with guys, you're used to being around other guys. Like, guys say dumb things to each other. Like, that's part of just guy banter, I think. And so there was actually one recent example. A client was saying how her guy. They were going out on a date, and the guy, like, greeted her and said, hey there, hot stuff. In. In that kind of way. And she was like, oh, no, we are not going to do that. That's not going to be how you talk to me. That's going to be not how you treat me. And, like, got really offended. Okay, we weren't there. We have no idea. But I came across this concept that I think is probably my favorite concept in this entire podcast, which it's called Hanlon's Razor. Hanlon's Razor is you should never attribute to malice or ill intent what could be more easily attributed to ignorance, stupidity, just not knowing any better. And it's like, oh, my gosh, what a life principle. Like, instead of saying, like, they did it on purpose, they offended me. They're being mean. Like, there, there's negative, negative, negative. It's like, no, no, just dumb. Just didn't realize. Just was trying to be funny and wasn't like, I love it.

I love that concept. I've. I've heard of that. I've looked into it. I think I read a book years ago about it. Because it's. Especially with people that we, we want to reject from our lives, we try to interpret their behaviors with the least positive, like, outlook on it. Because, like, if you're an avoidant, if he says one thing like, hey, they're hot stuff, you're like, oh, he is just a misogynistic, disgusting human being. I don't want anything to do with him. How dare he say something like that? It's like, yeah, in certain, like, certain situations that, that is inappropriate for a guy to say. Maybe, maybe not. That's up for debate. But if you like. But let's say you didn't have an avoidant and you liked the guy, you'd probably be pretty excited, like, hey there, hot stuff. Yeah, like, I like. Yeah, thanks. You know, it's like, it's, it's silly. And obviously body language matters a lot with all that. We don't know all of that. So let's take her interpretation. You know, let's use our tool as best as possible. Maybe he was really, you know, inappropriate, but generally speaking, just, I, I think that that's a, A good mental model to use while you're dating.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And, you know, I, I think it very much goes into the next one, which is about having too many rules.

Yeah. This is like, that's one rule that I had when I started Love Strategies is to not have rules. We have principles that we stand by. And like, a lot of clients will say, well, I'm trying to follow the rule of like, for example, don't sleep with him until five dates. I'm like, that's not a rule, that's a principle. Like, rules are meant to be broken. And there are many, many rules that we create for ourselves that I think, especially in dating that restrict us and hold us back. Because once it's a rule means it can't be broken. The moment it's broken, you're like pushing that person away. And life is just too complicated to live by those types of rules. Yeah.

And I think one of the biggest rules that I hear people talk about is like something along the lines of like, this isn't happening fast enough. This is going too slowly. And it's like, wait a second, like, by whose metric? Like, that's a weird rule. And it's like, it's completely self imposed and arbitrary in many ways. It's like, just let things happen.

Well, it feels slow. It feels slow. It's like when I'm trying to lose weight. Yeah, it feels slow because I've been eating kale for three weeks and my, my weight hasn't gone down right. But it'll come, it'll come in, in time.

And these rules are just another way of keeping people at arm's length. It keeps people far away from you. And it's, you know, you hear people say, well, you know, such and such isn't an option. And it's usually something along. It's like, I refuse the online date. I refuse to flirt with guys at the grocery store. And it's like, it's, it's not that you can't do it really. You're just saying, like, that's code for this is going to be hard. It's code for saying, I'd rather not. It's code for saying this makes me uncomfortable. It's code for saying this is outside of my comfort zone. None of which are actually disqualifications. It just means that it's going to take a little bit more effort. And so that's the strategy is leaning into it and just knowing like, things worthwhile are going to be a little difficult. And so, you know, don't put so many rules in place to free yourself up and actually let, that's going to let people in.

And some people create so many rules in their love lives that if they were to actually rationally follow those rules. There's only one man out of 20 million that would fit within the definition of those rules. And by the way, I guarantee if they met that man who actually meets all those rules, they would find another reason to be avoidant. Right. Like, you'd still find something, you'd create a new rule. So we have to get back to why do we have all of these rules in our life and all these. It's good to have principles. Principles, I think are things are mental models that we can lean on that help us, guide us in certain situations. It's ways to think about the world. And there are ways that kind of like guide us through our life. And I think principles are really helpful. And anytime I'm struggling in any area of my life, I go back to key principles. But rules are not how I dictate my life. Because I know that rules are just too stringent for the everyday way that the world works. It just doesn't really. It doesn't work that way.

And that's, and that's the problem with avoidance is that, you know, you create too many rules. The fourth one that we're gonna talk about, and it's probably the most obvious one of them all, and you've seen people who are like this. It's like they basically have a one strike policy.

Yeah, it's like they're out. Yeah.

It's like relationships. It's like this false perfection about relationships combined with this overly stringent rule. And it's like everything's amazing and then as soon as there's a crack, right. It's like, nope, I was wrong. This person's disqualified. This can't be right. And it's like there's lots of different rule things that people create as one strikes. The one that I, I think is the most entertaining to me in a way, because as a, as a professor who works on helping people write better, one of the things that client drives clients nuts about guys is bad grammar.

Yeah.

Like someone was dating somebody and like things were going great and then they were out to dinner and the guy said, I gotta ask you a question about something. And she was like, wait, what?

What?

This was the strike that was like, it just undermined everything that was going on with the relation. Like this is. This just revealed a character flaw so deep and embedded, like, you could not undo this at all. And it's like, that's obviously a problem because everyone's gonna, I don't know, like, no one's that perfect to warrant a one strike Policy, necessarily. But I think the key strategy here is, like, you really have to have a good handle on what really matters and what doesn't. And so one of the things I talk about in the Relationship Synergy program is the difference between deal breakers preferences and permissible pet peeves. It's like, those are different things. Some things really do matter. Some things really are deal breakers. And if it's a real true deal breaker, one strike on that, fine. But then preferences, you got to be able to let some of that stuff go. And then the permissible pet peeves, those are the things that your partner does that are annoying but you find kind of adorable because they're your partner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's definitely some things that are. One strike man ever lays his hands on you. Yep, one strike. If he, you know, it depends on your definition of emotionally abusive. But if he's truly belittling you in a like, very aggressive way, calling you stupid, idiotic, he's trying to clearly hurt you on a deep emotional level consistently or even really one time. Depends on the, the degree to what he's doing. I'd say that's a general one strike. But beyond some of those most like, egregious strikes, every relationship, anywhere from three weeks to three months is going to have a strike. Like, there's going to be something that you're like, ooh, I do not not like this about this human being. I just don't. So what do avoidance do? Anywhere from three weeks to three months. Once all the love chemicals kind of wear off of the initial honeymoon period. They see one strike and they're like, that's it, I'm out. I'm going back to being single. Go back to Comfort Place. Ah, this is so comfortable. Ah, yes. I have my warm cloak of being away from a relationship. That's great. And I think that that is a huge part of what we do with. I love strategies with all of our clients. And the community is like, sometimes our advice is to actually stick with it, right? Like, there's so much dating advice out there. There's so many, like, single girlfriends who like, oh, he did that. Oh, no, no, girl, that is. He is not right for you. Right? Girlfriends will always, they will always side on the. On your side. They'll always be on your side. And that is so much. What do we do on our masterminds, right? Gary's like, be like, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Yeah, it's. It's getting an objective third party perspective, right? It's like let's. Okay. Like, all that's true and like, there are all these pro. But it's like, is it really that big of a problem? Like, did you think this was a problem five months ago before you met this person? Like, Right. Would you suggest to somebody else in this situation to just stop dating a person altogether because they had to ask you a question? Like, is that a. Is that a fireable offense?

Right.

Probably not. Probably. Probably not. Right. And so I think, you know, this one strike policy thing is one of those ones about avoidance that's a little bit more obvious. But we also have a couple that are more subtle, sneaky signs. Do you want to, want to get us into those?

Sure. The next one is just being overly cautious. Like, it feels really smart to be, like, cautious and careful when you're dating. Like. And Gary, help me with this because I know that there's like a lot of scammers out there and things like that, right? Yeah.

And it's like we congratulate ourselves for being careful. And you should be careful because there are scammers. There are people out there who have ill intent and all that stuff. But it's like they are still a small percentage of the guys that are out there. Not all guys out in the world are bad guys. Most of them. The overwhelming majority of the guys that are out there are good guys with good intentions. And so when you are too cautious, you congratulate yourself because it does feel smart. But you're missing out on a lot of things because it's. You're implementing an imprecise filter. And what keeps the bad out also keeps out all of the good. And so in preparing for this, I came across this quote, which I think is just fantastic. It's from Bertrand Russell, and he says, of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. And it's like if you're overly cautious, you're basically guaranteeing that you're never going to get close to somebody. You're never going to have the kind of relationship that you actually really want.

Right.

You have to be vulnerable.

I think this is why, like, in Little Love, step four, with everything that we do with, like, Love accelerator and helping clients, like, one thing that we talk a lot about is this idea of relationship risk, because a lot of people will say, oh, I met this guy, he's got red flags. I don't really believe in the idea of red flags because red flags will always exist. So it's not like, oh, that's a red flag. Well, what does that really mean? So I've kind of changed that mental model to more of like a risk. Risk and rewards. Because every relationship is going to have some degree of risk of getting involved with a person. Now if you get involved in a relationship with a guy who's married and still living with his wife, who. High risk, right. Versus a guy who maybe he shows up on a date and is just a little bit shy and you know, he, he didn't. He split the bill with you. Okay. That's lower on the risk. Right. And he didn't pay for the bill. So it's like always assessing it on that level. But realize that like there's always going to be a risk involved and get, when you're getting involved with a new person and if you don't know what those risks are, you just haven't seen them yet and that's okay. The love requires a risk and I kind of equate it to like investing money in the stock market. Like there are some stocks that are riskier than others, but you're always going to have to take a risk when you put your chips out there, when you put your money out there. And, and that's what love is all about. I think it's a beautiful thing.

And I think that's part of the strategy here is like you just have to realize like there's no such thing as perfectly problem free relationships. There's no zero risk relationship. And so, you know, one of the things you talk a lot about in the little love steps is this idea of outcome independence, which I think is really important. It's like basically you can only control yourself. You kind of do what you should do, follow the right process and most of the time it's going to work out, that's going to set you up for success. But you cannot guarantee success. You can do all the right things and things at the end just may not work out. And it's like control what you can control and just be happy you're doing your part and then just let that outcome be. It is what it is. And if it doesn't work out, okay, you'll just try again with somebody else. And that's ultimately the wisest thing you can do when approaching relationships because you have to open yourself up, you have to be emotionally vulnerable and that's, that's how you let the good stuff in.

Well, and I think if you go into every relationship knowing that they all have risks, that means that the, there's always the idea of a potential failure and that's okay. Once you accept that every relationship, I don't care how perfect he is, there's some degree of risk of failure, some are higher than others. Then suddenly, if it does fail, it's okay. Like, you give yourself a lot more grace. And there's some people who go into a relationship or new relationships, they're like, oh, this guy's perfect this time. This one can't fail. This one is going to be the one when I spend the rest of my life with. And then they're destroyed when it ends. It's just not a healthy way of looking at relationships because it's just not how, like, the world works. And it's not how love works.

It's not how anything works. Right. It's just in. In most things, we just ignore all the downside risk. And what's happening with avoidance is they. They're just more finely attuned to the downside risk than other people are.

Right.

Every. The chair you're sitting in right now has a risk of just collapsing. You just never thought about it until now. Now you're worried, right? And it's like you, if you focus on the bad, that's all you're going to see. And that, that becomes a real problem. And so, you know, this, this idea of being cautious is a subtle way of being avoidant. Another one that's similar to caution, but it's slightly different is this idea of, like, waiting to be ready.

Right.

Waiting to be ready is also sounds very responsible. Like, I'm not ready to date. I'm not ready to take that next step. And it sounds like a solid plan. The issue with this, though, is, like, what do you mean by ready?

Yeah. What does that mean?

It's. It's so ambiguous. It's so hard to pin down what it actually means to be ready that you can actually never, ever be ready. And I would actually argue no one's ever 100 ready to do anything in life, ever. It.

I agree with that. And I'll take a step further. There's this idea of ready, and there's this idea of to date. What does dating even mean? Does it mean you're not going to meet new guys, you're not going to meet guys? Because what, what that is usually cloaked with is this idea of, well, what I hear that translated to is, Adam, I'm not going to follow the little love steps. I'm not going to be intentional, and I'm going to just see what comes my way. And then I'm probably going to meet A guy. And I'm going to repeat the same old patterns that I've always repeated, because men will come into your life. Like, you will. You have sexual desires. Like, you are going to be out there, you're going to meet someone you're attracted to. It's gonna happen. So, like, this idea of, like, well, I don't know, I'm. I'm not really ready, that just tells me, like, I don't want to change. That's it, you know, and it doesn't mean we have to be going on, like, the apps. Okay, that's fine if you're not ready yet for the apps because you're going through a breakup and you're, like, really struggling right now, and it just happened a week ago.

Great.

That's fine. Give it a couple weeks. Understandable. But, like, to just be, like, talking to this cosmic, Waiting for this cosmic sign that you're finally ready from, like, oh, it's happening. That just doesn't happen.

Yeah. I mean, you really have to translate that into. Instead of being ready, you have to be mostly ready or even just kind of ready so that you can start taking action. Right. It's like one of my favorite books ever is Life's Little Instruction Book. And he's got, like, hundreds and hundreds of things in there. And one of the ones in there is something along the lines of, like, don't be the person that says, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. Shoot. That's genius. Because it's something people do in relationships without realizing it. It's like, I'm going to make sure I do X and Y. Then, like, I got to do abcdefg. I gotta do all these things before I'm ready. And it's like all you're doing is, is avoiding, like, getting started. It's like, you have to get started. You have to get out there and it's like, I can learn about this and this and this. And it's like, no, no, just. You have to just start implementing, start doing things. It's like Silicon Valley. They have a whole other approach to releasing products, which is this idea of, like, move fast and break stuff. Like, get something done, get it out there, see what happens.

Yeah.

It's the idea of an mvp, right? It's a minimally viable product, and you almost want to think about yourself that way. It's like, as long as you're mostly, or like I said, kind of ready, like you say all the time, get your beautiful butt off the couch and get out there.

Go meet some people. Yeah, I mean, there's one thing that has always turned me off, but I love the analogy with the Silicon Valley because I think that that's so true. Like, it's just. What is it? Shoot. Oh, it's fire. Ready, aim. Or something like that. Or fire. I'm butchering this completely. But one thing that really bothers me about the self help world is there's a lot of people in that world who are just information junkies. They love to listen to information. They love to hear it. They love to listen. All the self help in the world, Tony Robbins, all this stuff. Oh my God, this is so empowering. But they don't want to actually do anything with it. And so I'm such a firm believer in the 9010 rule. 10% information, 90% action. That is so much of what we do. I believe with our clients is like, enough. You don't need any more information. You gotta just go out there. What's your social score been? How many guys have you actually talked to? Well, you know, it's been really busy. You're on a mastermind right now, so you're clearly not that busy. Go get your beautiful behind off of the couch, go talk to a couple guys, and then let's, let's address it because we need to actually take some real action in our love life in order to get like, sorry, you can't find love by sitting at home watching Netflix, eating Ben and Jerry's. That would be fantastic. I love Ben and Jerry's. I love Netflix. But you can't meet people that way. And so I think that this is just such an important part of all this, which is just there is no perfect time in life to be ready for love necessarily. There's, you know, so go make it happen. Which I think leads us to the, the final point. Pretty well. Gary, unless I'm skipping over anything that you want to talk about in this one.

No, that's good. I. And I think that last one is, is a lot of this.

It.

It's kind of like letting your world intrude on your priorities. And so this is the overachiever love life being too busy, too work centric to make time and space in your life for love.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's no easier excuse in the world to not do something that you want to do than blame work. It's like, ah, yeah, like I'm not eating really well because I'm just like traveling so much for work or, or I'm not going to the gym because, oh my God, I'm in the middle of this project at work. It's been so crazy. And everyone's like, oh, yeah, I totally understand. It must be so hard to go to the gym or, you know, of course, in our love life, like, oh, I don't have time to date because, you know, I just got promoted and it's amazing. I now have a team of 50 people and people are like, oh, my God, you go, you're amazing. I totally understand. And what's our perspective on this, Gary?

Go out there and do it.

Yeah. You can only prioritize on one thing in life at a time. Like, that's why they call it a priority. Like, there's, there are priorities in life, but there are top priorities and there's lower level priorities. And it's really difficult to prioritize multiple big things in your life. Like, it's really, really hard if, like, and this is why I think most, like, this podcast probably be released around January, so it's probably timely. This is why, like, a lot of New Year's resolutions fails because people have, like six different resolutions. They're like, oh, I want to get promoted at work. I want to lose £20. I want to go find love. I also want to write my new novel. I also want to start this new hobby. It's like, good luck. You got to. What is the most important thing? And what you always say, Gary, that I love, is that, like, there's nothing more foundational to everything else in our life, to improving everything else in our life than our relationships. So start there. That's the place to start. Yes. You might have to pause things in your, in your professional life. You might have to not, you know, focus on, you know, everything else that's going on and just focus on this. And that's, that's great. You know, that's the way to make it happen.

Yeah. You got to keep the most important thing. The most important thing. And it's. You're right. It's like relationships are the one thing that influences everything else in your life positively. It helps everything. And so. Right. Like, it's gotta be. It's. It's the one thing that makes everything better. Right. And so I think this last one is kind of like the sunny side of avoidance. It's the one that people will congratulate themselves for. And it feels like a good excuse that you're, you know, you're not doing relationship things because you're busy at work or you're, you're doing something more important and it's like, it feels like a good excuse, but it's still an excuse. Right. And it comes down to it. It's like nobody ever wishes on their deathbed that they worked more. What do they wish? They wish that they spent more time with the people that they loved. Right. And so it's like, don't let the most important thing, the most important thing in your relationships become anything other than the most important thing. Like, don't lose sight now on a day in a certain week. Sure. Like. Like at different times and on. On small scales, like, things are gonna have to move up and down. But in the biggest big picture, getting your relationships right is really, really important.

Yeah. And don't kid yourself. Don't kid yourself about, like, don't allow that. That excuse to pop in and kid yourself and be like, no, actually, I really want to just focus on work right now. When you're actually just hiding the thing that is harder to do. You're. You're running away from the thing that's harder to do. But, you know, we'll have a bigger impact in your life. I just. For some reason, I was just thinking about this last night. I was. I was trying to write. I'm trying to get back into writing again. And I got in, like, 10 minutes into writing, and like, within 10 minutes, I go out and I. Jess is doing the dishes. So I start helping her do the dishes, and she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I just. I just want to help you do the dishes.

I don't know.

She's like, no, you're not. You're just trying to avoid what it is that you really need to be doing, aren't you? I'm like, damn.

It's like a procrastination. Yeah.

Like, how many times do we end up going. Doing the dishes figuratively in our life? When it's like, yeah, that might seem like the right thing to do at the time, but it's really not. The thing to do is like, get my ass onto the chair and go write some. And in your life, get your butt off of the chair and go meet some guys.

Right. Well, you gotta keep the most important thing, the most important thing.

Right.

And that's. It's the easiest thing to say, and sometimes it's the hardest thing to implement. But it's like, that's got to be the overriding principle. I mean, and to me, like, all of this attachment stuff comes down. I don't know if you've ever seen this. This meme that's out There. But it's either like an elephant or a horse tied to like a lawn chair, like a plastic lawn chair. And the horse or the elephant's just kind of standing there like, oh yeah, like I have this leash that's tied to this chair. And the caption says something along the lines of like, sometimes that thing holding you back in life is all in your mind because it's like an elephant or a horse or some big animal can just like walk away. And like that chair is just going to go with them. Like they're not actually stuck. And it's like that thing that's holding you back is all in your mind. And I think sometimes attachment and some of the things like attachment motivations, they're self protective. But there are some maladaptive defense mechanisms that come into play. Play. Making yourself too busy, having too high of expectations, having these one strike things, being overly cautious. It sounds responsible and it is self protective. But it all goes just a little bit too far. And it's holding you back from the thing that you really want, which is that loving, fulfilling relationship.

Yeah. And, and just a note on avoidance because I've just worked with a lot of them. Sometimes when you're getting into a new relationship, not sometimes, if you were truly an avoidant, when you're getting into a new relationship, it's not going to feel right. Like it's just, you're going to have a part of you that's like, ah, this isn't right, I need to get away from this. And it's at this moment where you want to lean in further. Like actually lean into the relationship rather than leaning back because everyone is going to tell you lean back. Like don't get involved. If it doesn't feel perfectly right, don't get involved. That's common advice. But it's the wrong advice for you. It really is. It's the wrong advice for you. And you're probably running away from things for BS reasons that you're telling yourself a story that doesn't really exist. So lean in, push through it. If you find yourself in a new relationship with a guy and you're not sure yet, that's okay. You're not married, you don't have a tattoo on your arm with his name on it. You're gonna be okay. You're just in a relationship. See how it goes, give it a little bit of time, see if you grow to like him, see if you can get more comfortable when you get that feeling that you want to just, I don't know, drop Everything and move to Australia and start a new life. Don't do that. Stick with a little bit. See if things happen. See if things. And then before you know it, you can actually overcome this feeling and start to get really comfortable and realize that, wow, this is making my life much better. That's how you overcome this issue of avoidance that I found. Yeah.

And I. I think the other key question to ask yourself is, what would a secure person do? How would a secure person feel about this? And remember, a secure person is somebody who's comfortable being close. They're comfortable being emotionally vulnerable. And a secure person isn't worried about getting hurt. They're not worried about the other person wronging them, hurting them, leaving them any of that kind of sick. So if you just imagine yourself, like, if you were that person or felt more that way, how would you then interpret this situation? And a lot of times you start saying, like, oh, well, they wouldn't worry. They wouldn't worry that he didn't text for 23 hours. And like. And, like, start flying off the handle and thinking, like, everything's wrong and he's leaving me, the secure person. Be like, they're busy. That's it. Right. And so that's a good way to kind of, like, help filter some of this stuff out.

I think that's a perfect way to end. Gary, thanks so much, man. That was fantastic. Enjoyed that. All right, so now we're at the end of the podcast, and hopefully you got a lot of really great information from this podcast. But as we know, information can only take you so far. It's time to take some actions. So what I recommend you do now is head on over to loveapply.com it's going to walk you through a series of questions, and then you'll be able to book what we call a complimentary love strategy session. Yes, you've heard it. Someone on my team is going to get on a phone call with you, be able to understand your situation, what it is that you're struggling with in your love life, and create that strategy to help you attract that man, that relationship you truly deserve. So take that action. Go make it happen. We cannot wait to speak with you, loveapply.com and yeah, let's help you create that love life you truly deserve. All right, speak soon. Bye.