Does He REALLY Want a Relationship or Is He Lying? 6 Ways To Decipher His True Intentions

All right, so before we get to the podcast, we do not run any ads on this podcast and never will. All we ask in return, if you enjoy the podcast, please give it a review wherever it is that you listen to it. Just tap that bar, give us whatever star you want to give us, and leave that review. We really appreciate it. It helps us out a lot and helps us spread a little love that I think the world needs. All right, let's get to the podcast. I want to make this abundantly clear to everyone listening that lying is the biggest deal breaker in any relationship. So we are not condoning any of these lies. I believe, honestly, like, the most important foundation of any healthy relationship, whether it's professional or romantic, is being radically honest. Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast, where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam lodolce, and professional dating coach and founder of love strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy. Gary, does he want a relationship or is he lying? You know the number one way to know if a guy is lying?

What?

What do you think is if he's wearing a wig, he's wearing a wig. If you find out that his hair isn't real, he's a liar.

Just straight up, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think your way. Your wig was kind of hot.

For those who are listening on the pod, I am wearing the famous Love Strategies wig to kick this thing off. But no, for real. Today, ladies, you're going to really enjoy this one because we are going to be going over the six ways to decipher his true intentions. Ooh, Gary, I know you found a little factoid to kick this one off.

Yeah, like this. This is just, you know, every once in a while research does something really cool and find something just so simple and user friendly and something you just put right into practice. And so what is a subtle signal that a guy has long term relationship intent that you can detect in his online dating profile picture? And they did a bunch of analysis. They looked at a bunch of things and really what it boiled down to is, does he post pictures of him with his dog?

Ooh, you're just saying this because you're A dog guy. What about cats? Do cats work? No, I don't know.

I am a dog guy and so I do love this. But it's basically like the whole idea was the more that guys post pictures showing them caring for something with their dependence, any of that stuff was generally pretty good, but it was mainly driven by the picture that guys are most willing to put up there is them with their dog. And so it probably works for cats too. I. All kidding about cats aside, I'm sure it works with cats. I just. There's probably fewer men that are posting cat pictures.

And word to the wise, if he has any pictures of selfies of him in the gym, I would say he does not have relationship intent. That is a non scientific piece of advice. But man, oh man, I'm now going to a regular gym, no longer doing CrossFit. People just take selfies with their shirts off. And I'm like, that is so weird. Please, God, swipe left to those guys. They do not want a relationship. So, no, we are really. This is going to be an incredibly important podcast because I know so many of you. You want a long term, fulfilling relationship. Right? You want a guy who also wants the same thing. Right. You wouldn't be here right now, you know, if you wanted just a casual fling, you wouldn't be listening to podcasts, you wouldn't be taking coaching programs, you wouldn't be leaning into this. But the challenge is people lie. And sometimes they'll lie to you, and sometimes they'll even lie to themselves about what they really want. They might think that they want a relationship, but when it push comes to shove, right, Gary? It's like, ooh, foot off the pedal. I'm not so sure. Yeah.

And some of it's lying, some of it's just plain mixed signals. But I think mixed signals are really just a sign of a guy who's unsure, perhaps lying to himself, misleading himself, just not being really clear about what he wants. And the thing is with guys, they have a sense, the good ones and the ones that are, you know, kind of after something very specific, they have a sense of what you're looking for. And so because they think they know what you're after, which is a long term, real relationship that's fulfilling, it can encourage the wrong type of guy to say things that aren't as authentic as we'd like.

Yeah. And sadly, I go back into my time machine in my brain. I think back to a number of guys that I once knew who were going out with women and they knew these Guys knew for a fact that they wanted a relationship and they, these guys were leading them on very clearly and saying things just to frankly, just get them into bed. And I knew that was the case. I always felt that that was pretty wrong. That was never my style. I always felt like it's so much better and honestly, if I'm looking for a casual situationship myself, so much better to just be honest about that and be real because it just removes all the clutter from the situation. But some guys just don't have that in them to just be straightforward. I'm not putting myself on some pedestal. Okay, I wasn't exactly the best guy in my 20s, I will say. But there are some guys who will just bend the truth, or maybe they'll even think in the back of their mind, well, maybe there's a chance. But they know. They know that push comes to shove, it's just not the right time in their life. So, Gary, why don't you walk us through kind of the male mind a little bit to understanding the male mindset and their motivations when it comes to commitment and love and relationships.

Yeah, I mean, this is some of the favorite types of material that we cover on this podcast, which is what are guys thinking? Because, you know, we're both fairly qualified as men to talk about what guys are thinking. But I think when it comes to this idea of relationship intent, does he really want a long term relationship? What is he thinking? And so I think the first thing to realize about guys is they're practical. And so if he's lying, it's really not likely that it's about you as a person. Likely it has almost nothing to do with you. You didn't make him lie, you didn't encourage him to lie. It's not your fault. He's doing it because it serves a purpose. Very utilitarian, very straightforward. It's a means to an end. And so specifically with this practicality of lying, I think there are three parts to it. First part, he lies because if he tells the truth, then you're gonna know what he really wants. And so he's lying because he doesn't want you to know what he really wants. Number two, if you know what he really wants, if you understand his true intentions, you're going to start asking questions and then you're going to come to conclusions that don't fit his interests. You might come to the conclusion, such as, after asking a few questions, maybe he doesn't want a real relationship. And then three, once you have, you know, the Truth, you start asking questions. Three is you understand what's really going on, and you make decisions that don't align with his goals. His goals, such as trying to get you into the bedroom as fast as possible. So he lies on the path to making progress towards his goals. And so that, frankly, you don't get in the way of his progress towards his goals.

Right, right. And that's where I would put the guys that I was just discussing, I would put them in that bucket, is there was just a lack of alignment. Right. They wanted to have casual relationships. They didn't want to go to the woman's. Meet the women's parents. They didn't want to be exclusive. They definitely didn't want to get married. And they got the sense that she was. She did. So there's a lack of alignment, but they didn't want to stop sleeping with her. So, you know, it's like. And it's a very selfish thing to do. And that's why I'm not friends with these guys anymore. And that's. That's the first part, the second key motivation for why guys lie, and this is probably a more. A bigger one than the first one. Just to, in my opinion, just to not make you all super afraid of meeting men and being in relationships with them, is that guys sometimes lie because they don't want to hurt you. Or at least, like, minimally, they don't want to hurt you too much or not more than necessary. And I've seen this happen time and time again where a guy will start dating a girl, they'll go on a couple dates. It kind of clicks. They hook up a couple times. But then she starts saying things that, oh, no, she's caught the bug. She's caught feelings. Oh, no. But I'm not quite there yet. And he doesn't want really things to get too close. You know, basically an accidental emotional connection. Right. So he starts to create some distance. So not too many of these feelings really get involved, right? Those icky, gross, disgusting feelings.

Ugh.

Like, no. And I know, like, I've actually experienced that myself, and I'm sure you have as well, where it's like. And it's not from a lack of intention at. From the beginning, as a guy, it's like, I was open to a relationship, but I'm seeing she's much further ahead than I am. And you're like, oh, no. She's really pushing things really hard, and I don't now want to hurt her. And this causes men to really not share kind of their personal, deep and important information and kind of like in some ways pace it, but in many ways more likely just creating a lot of distance. And so, you know, again, I would never lie in that scenario, but some guys, in order to not hurt you or quote, unquote, protect you, they might lie. And that is not a good thing. Are you getting tired of the guys who don't want to commit and are you ready to attract that long lasting relationship? Well, for podcast listeners, we have a very special training that is available at he commits.com when you go over there, you can go ahead and reserve a seat. We are going to walk you through the five secret strategies that make men commit. I want you to discover your power and make guys beg for your affection. Go to he commits.com and you can dive deep into that content. All right, back to the podcast.

This, this comes from a place of it's really misplaced kindness in a way. Like they want to do the right thing and I think they don't want to lead you on. And it's like you get to date three. And he's thinking, okay, this is, this is day three. This, this, we still have some distance to travel. And he hears from you something like, I think I might be falling in love. And he's like, ooh, whoa, whoa. So he's tapping the brakes. And so he wants to tap the brakes, but he also doesn't want to fully abort this whole thing. He still wants to stick with this. And so how do you do that? And you kind of walk that line. I think one of the things that guys do too is when they want to tap the brakes, they start saying things like, you know, I'm not just, I'm just not as great as you think I am. I have trouble in real. They start just saying things about their trouble with relationships. And I'm hard to be around. I'm not as wonderful as you think I am. If they guys start doing that, it's not, they're not lying.

That's.

This is the whole thing about lying. But when they start telling you that they're not that great, that's probably the time. They're not lying.

You're right.

Yeah.

That's the time to actually listen. That's a nice truth bomb. If he's like, hey, just so you know, I have some demons in the closet that I haven't yet told you about and you're not going to like it when you, you know about this. Run. Run for the hills, please. Or at least discover what those demons Are ASAP for sure.

All right. So the third motivation to understand what guys are thinking is guys give effort proportional to importance. And so another way to say this is behavior reveals priorities. But it's not that guys don't care. They do care. They just care about certain things. When it matters to guys, they grind, they work. So if it's fitness, their diet, their sleep routines, their career, their investments, their car, their sports team, their hobby, if he cares, he puts time and energy into it. And so you have to know that he's starting to lie about certain things. This is possibly what's going on, right?

Yeah. I mean, if, if every single weekend he's got so many things going on and he's so busy and he says, I just, I can't, I'm not sure if I can make this weekend work. You know, I have this going on with my, my family, I have this event, I have my friend's birthday party, yada yada yada. That's just basically his way. If he continues to say that back to, back to back weekends, that's his way of saying, you're not important to me. And that sounds harsh, but it's important. It's a little bit of truth in this scenario because when someone's saying, you're not important to me, I can't make time for you. That means it's time for me to stop giving them my time and my emotional energy. It kind of sets you free. And where we put our time is where we put our priorities. I mean, it's just clear as day. And so it's, and it's especially obvious when a guy is extremely busy every weekend, but then last minute he's hitting you up. If he's saying last minute, you know, oh, so many things going on, then it's a Saturday night at 7pm and he's like, hey, you want to go grab a drink? It's like, dude, where were all your so called plans? I thought you had a birthday party this weekend. He's like, oh, well, you know, the birthday party's moved to next week and it's a birthday, it's a birthday. Those don't get moved to following week. That's where the lies come in on.

A specific to a day.

Yeah, exactly. So I mean, there you go. That's, that's a key lie. And the, the final thing, the fourth one that I think is really not discussed enough is that guys don't want messy breakups. You know, I think guys want everything just as uncomplicated and untangled as possible. And to keep things really easy. I mean, he might keep you far away from his place or different part of the city, or he doesn't introduce you to his family or friends, or he doesn't, like, this is the big one. He doesn't want you leaving anything at his place. Nothing. Like, it's like when you're leaving the next morning and he's like, oh, make sure that you don't leave. You know, this hair clip, please. No, no, don't. Don't leave. And then he'll like, chase you down the street, like, here's your hair clip. It's like, nothing. Okay. Or doesn't want you borrowing things that he might want back. Right. Anything like that. This is because he's really trying to create kind of this space where it's like, when you're together, you're together. When you're not, you're not. And, you know, all of these things. I should say we're talking about guys don't want messy breakups. Women do the same thing in a lot of these scenarios. But of course, we're speaking to women. But people don't want mess, breaks, messy breakups. So they try to keep things really clean, really uncomplicated, and really unentangled so that they don't have those.

Yeah. And so, you know, those are the four reasons why guys lie. They lie because they're practical, they don't want to hurt you, they give effort to things they really care about, and they don't want a messy breakup. So now once you kind of understand what's going on in a guy's mind to make him think lying is okay or give him justification sort of for lying. What we really want to figure out with this episode is, does he have relationship intent? Because this is something that guys could lie about for all the reasons we just mentioned. And so can I.

Can I just interject for a second? I want to make this abundantly clear to everyone listening that lying is the biggest deal breaker in any relationship. So we are not condoning any of these lies. I believe, honestly, like, the most important foundation of any healthy relationship, whether it's professional or romantic, is being radically honest. And so with everything we just went over, we're saying that people tend to do these things, both men and women. We're not condoning it. And in fact, if you find people lying, even about the small things, that is something that needs to be addressed quickly, need to set very, very clear boundaries, that that is not okay. And that is not how you engage in a connection or relationship. And if. And if it's a big lie, then it's a deal breaker. It's a deal breaker. Lying is toxic to any relationship. So I just wanted to throw that in there so there's no confusion about that.

Yeah, I mean, trust is the glue, right? If you don't. If you don't have trust, your whole relationship is going to fall apart. And lying just erodes trust. So 100%. I'm glad. I'm glad you clarified. And so, you know, does he have relationship intent? You. Everybody has this question. You're dating, and it's like, what is up with this guy? What's. What's his plan for the future? So the easiest way to figure it out is what does he say? Right. What does he say about his relationship intent? But now, here's. Here's the really funny thing. If you ask that to him as a direct question, I don't care what he says. Like, it's irrelevant. Like, it doesn't tell you very. If you say, what are your intentions? Who cares what he says? Because this is the equivalent of going on a job interview and having them ask you, what are your weaknesses? And you're like, you know, if it's a relationship job interview, it's like, well, I just. I happen to love too much. I care too deeply, and I just love way too hard. Like, I just.

That's so funny. That is so good. That's hitting me in my soft spot because we've been interviewing a lot, and that question is so absolutely useless on an interview. Oh, my issue is that I'm too much of a perfectionist. Like, I do the job too well. Like, I'm so good that people don't like me. The rest of the people on the team don't like me because I'm. I'm so good. That's my weakness. I'm like, shut up. What a useless answer.

Completely useless question. Useless answer. Because any dude that's willing to lie has prepped for this question. He knows this question is coming. He sees it a mile away. He's ready for you. Right? And it's like, when I was dating, I actually had what was potentially, at the time, the most mortifying possible exchange you can have is I went to a girl's house to pick her up. I think we were going to the movies. I have honestly blocked out all the other details other than this one thing, which is I get there to pick her up. Her name was Katina, which maybe she's listening. She's getting Ready upstairs. And her dad's like, hey, you want to come out to the back patio? I just, you know, I was like, sure, no problem. I thought I was getting like a nice tea or drink. As soon as I get out there, he closes the sliding glass door and he looks me dead in the eye and he goes, what are your intentions with my daughter?

Oh, straight from a movie.

And I'm like, what are we doing here? And so not expecting this at all. I played dumb, which I'm great. I was like, I intend to take her to the movies, right? But if I was a different person and if I had bad intentions, I would have anticipated this potentiality of a question on some level and would have had a much better answer than take her to the movie. Like, who knows? But it's just to say, like, you can't just ask this kind of thing because it's, it's just, it's a weak indicator. It's like the guy who says I love you and you're like, well, he said he loved me. He clearly has long term intentions. Words are cheap. It takes almost no effort. The guys that are willing to lie are willing to say I love you at the drop of a hat. And so let me even take this.

A step further, Gary. I think it's a, you're the statistics guy, but I think it's an opposite correlative indicator because I think, and I just made up that term, so bear with me. The guys who will answer that question like, oh, I'm really ready for a long lasting relationship if they respond to it that way. On a first date, when you're like, oh, what are you looking for? And they're like, oh, I want love so badly, like I'm so ready. That actually tells me he's probably more likely playing you than a guy who is serious about finding love would probably answer that question saying like, you know, I'm at a stage where I'm looking to meet the right girl and if she's the right girl, I'd be open to something more serious, you know, But I don't know, I got to see first, right? Like that to me is a more honest answer of a guy who really is open to relationship. It's very rare that guys are just like, yes, I want love today, right? Usually the guys that are that enthusiastic about it, there's something going on there either, you know, I don't have to go any further. So Gary, what's the term? An anti correlatory response? Does it even make sense?

I would Say a contraindicator, maybe.

Contra. See, you're. You're the PhD of the two of us.

No, I do think, though, you're right. It's if you have too good of an answer or too canned of an answer, that's highly suspect. If it's more thoughtful, deliberative, he's putting some effort into kind of working it through on the spot. I think that's a much better sign of authenticity.

So let's dive into the indirect sign. So we're not looking for necessarily the direct sign. We're not going around asking you guys on a first, what are you looking for? Let's talk about relationship intent. That's what we call it here at Love Strategies. And some of the indirect signs.

Yeah, so indirect signs. One caveat before we get into this is this involves a little bit of quote unquote, reading the tea leaves and just kind of making inferences about things. No, one aspect of this is a guarantee of anything, but it's assessing risk and what. And it's gathering, for lack of a better term, gathering data, gathering information to get a better sense of what's real versus what's maybe mirage. Right. And so the first piece is I think it's a good idea to get a sense of a guy's default setting in terms of how steady and mature he is as an individual. And so what I mean by that is like, what is he doing in other areas of his life? Is he a fast food guy or is he a fine dining guy? Is he a let's microwave it or let's make it ourselves? Is he more into lottery tickets or 401ks? Right. Is he going to lease a car, own it? Is he looking for quick and easy hacks and shortcuts? Or is he all into patient, patience and, you know, compounding interest, compounding gains? Is he living in the moment or is he planning for the future? And so all of this boils down to the same concept in psychology, which is delay of gratification. Someone who's willing to delay gratification. They're going to be more steady, they're more mature. We had a previous podcast, Differentiating Men from Boys, and I think it's a lot. It's very, very similar to this concept.

Yeah. Well, if you think about it, to be successful in anything, whether it's relationships or finances. Some of your examples were financial based or microwave versus making yourself any of these things. They require intentionality and require discipline. And relationships require intentionality and require discipline. Right. And to be relationships aren't all rosy all the time. You're not madly lustful for your partner every moment of every day, right? You, there's moments where you have to be disciplined and say, I am committed to this. I'm going to make this work even through the ups, through the downs, because I am looking for the long term gains from this. I'm not just looking for that short term dopamine hit every single second of the day. Dating is short term dopamine, right? Long lasting love is much different than that. And it's the difference, we always say, between, you know, eating the cookies and the cookie jar, those chocolate chip cookies, versus having that kale, like, which is going to make you feel better. The kale, right? The cookies in the cookie jar are delicious. They give you a short term hit. Oh, my God, I love chocolate chip cookies. But if we want a long lasting, healthy life, we go for the kale. And so with all this stuff, you can get a good sense of a guy's ability to be in a relationship based on his level of discipline and his level of ability to delay gratification, because that's what is required in a healthy relationship. And just flipping the script, by the way, if you're wondering if you really have relationship intent, go through the same checklist. Same old checklist, right? If we're the type of person who just lives every single moment of our day based on short term gratification and just more of this, more attention, more validation, more of this, this, this, this Dopamine hit. Dopamine. Dopamine. I'm telling you, once you get into a relationship, it is going to feel like you're going 100 miles an hour into a brick wall and you're going to be like, this isn't right for me. This is wrong. I got to go back to dating because that's more exciting, that's more fun. So that's my rant of the day. I don't know, Gary.

What do you.

Should I put the wig back on?

That was good. I. I think, you know, the addict addiction to the dopamine hit is a really good way to think about it because like you said, you know, successful relationships take discipline and patience. And so you can't focus too much on some of that dopamine stuff because you're going to fall really hard, really fast. And like you said, we go really fast into a brick wall. I like that. I like that.

Amen. Amen. All right, so please take us.

Okay. I was going to say. So another way to look for subtle signals is with his language. So this is what he's saying, but not the direct content. It's. How does he use pronouns? Does he talk a lot about we, us, our? That suggests he's coupling and combining and is thinking of you in the future as a couple versus I, me, mine, you, your. All of those kind of pronouns basically keep you as two separate things. I really like to go blank, blank, blank. Okay, that's great. We should really go blank. It's those. And again, like, these are like subtle little things. And he won't even necessarily know that he's doing it, but these are things that you can look out for.

Yeah. And if you think about it, what is marriage ultimately? Marriage is going from the I to the we. And so along the way, you start to transition out of the I and you start to get into a we and you start to build that partnership. So you'll get a really good indicator of where he's at and how much he's able to share his life with a person just based on this one simple sign that you can look out for. I really like that one. And I could see that for sure, as you continue in a relationship, the other one is just looking at, when it comes to words, what is he comfortable talking about? Right. How does he think about the world? Like his feelings, his emotions, like the good parts of the things that he's willing to talk about. Life philosophy. He gives more of the whys about why he does certain things. On the other hand, what's less ideal is if he just keeps everything very fact based, right? He only gives you the informational details. He only gives you a lot of the who, what, when, where, why, and how. You know, the who, what, when, where of a situation, right. If you just feel like you're almost talking to a robot when you're engaging with this person and they're not getting into. Into the. Into the deeper stuff, I think that that's where you can get a really good sense of how comfortable this guy is truly opening up to you. Because again, being in a committed relationship requires that level of emotional depth.

So that's why I think the mistake that people make here is he talks a lot, right? So, you know, he. He's very open, he's very honest, he's very vulnerable. And it's like, well, how do you know he's being vulnerable and honest? Well, he just talks and, you know, we talked for hours. Okay, about what? Because he can spend a lot of time basically filibustering the conversation with basic factual, informational Details about what he does at work and, you know, how it could be his backstory, maybe that's pretty good. Like, if it's like, how did he become the man he is today? Like, that's a good how. But then there's a lot of guys that give how in terms of just procedural, factual information. Like, it, it's painful. And again, you just kind of get lulled into this sense of complacency. But it's like, oh, he, he talks a lot. He's very open and very talkative. That's such a good sign. It's like, depends on what he's saying, right? You have to pay attention to those things. The other thing you really have to pay attention to is just how consistent he's being. Right? We, I had a client recently on our mastermind say that, you know, she read about this guy in his profile, and his profile said he was looking for his long term forever relationship, but was open to short term too. And she said her question was that mean? And this is exactly how she worded it. That means he is looking for something real, right? And I was like, no.

Well, that's kind of like saying, I'm looking to get healthy, but I also like to do some bumps of cocaine on the weekends too. It's like you kind of can't have one without the other.

It's. It's wildly inconsistent because these two things, like, I'm totally into this long term thing, but I'm also into that other short term thing too. And so you just have to make sure, like, sometimes you decide people are being honest because you're just paying attention to the parts you want to hear and you're filtering out everything else. So don't be selective about the parts that you like. Drop any other piece because you want to get the full picture. Because you want to see, is he consistent across all these things? Because someone who's consistent, those are those intentional types of guys that we were talking about before. All, all the same stuff.

And this, my beautiful ladies, is why we pace in little love. Step number five. We pace before jumping into bed with a guy. We pace before a committed, exclusive relationship. We might be slowing him down at first because if on a first date he's like, oh, I just want a relationship. I just want to be just me and you, yada, yada, yada. We pace, we slow it down because we want to see his level of consistency. Why would we ever go 100% exclusive with a guy we just met just because he says he wants a relationship? We wouldn't do that. We need to see what he's like over a certain amount of period of time, at least a month together. Just go out with a guy for a month, get to know him, see what he's like on date 2. See what he's like on date 3 when the server comes over with his stake and it's medium instead of medium rare. See if he gives a little ugh. Or if he's like, oh, no, no problem whatsoever, you know, whatever. See how he reacts. See how he reacts under stress, stressful situations. See how he reacts during your first fight or all of these things. Give you an idea of his level of consistency. And once you have consistency, that's when you can start to trust a person. We always say, our algorithm for trust is consistency multiplied times time. So, yeah, if he's consistent over a short period of time, if two dates, he's really consistent. Okay, I can kind of trust him. If he's consistent over a year now you can really trust him. If he's really consistent over 25 years, you trust your life with that person. Right. So this is incredibly important. This is what we want to be looking for in another human being when we are really looking to merge our lives with that person.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the best way to assess consistency is by looking at not what he says, what does he actually do? Right. And so, you know, sometimes people talk about that as a, say, do ratio, like what is he saying versus what he's actually doing and how much do those two things match up? We talk about little love steps as paying more attention to his video than his audio. Because again, guys, can. You want to see, this whole thing's about, like, is he lying? So easy to lie with words. So, so easy. Much, much more difficult to lie with behaviors. Your behaviors really give you away. Words are cheap. And so you can fall into this cycle of what we call the pattern of perpetual dating pain. Do you want to lead us through that? You want to lead us through that, Adam?

Yeah, go for it. No, I'd love to hear it.

Okay, so first he says things that you want to hear, or you think you heard some things that you liked in there somewhere. Okay, number two, you believe them. You just take it at face value. Like, he said it, he means it. Great. Now you start to get comfortable with this idea. You believe that he wants this long term thing. You believe that he's falling in love with you. Now you're hoping it's true, and you want it to stay this way because you kind of like this feeling, you kind of like this world where what he's saying is true. And then confirmation bias runs rampant, which basically just means you look for affirmation, you look for all of the information, all the evidence that shows that what he said was right and you ignore everything else. You're basically looking to reassure yourself, definitely the last piece. Because this is going to happen. There's going to be contradictory information. You just crush it out of it. Like, you just ignore it. It's like, oh, he said he want a long term relationship, but when we were out, he was flirting with the waitress. Nah, he's just friendly. He's just a nice guy. That's a nice guy move, right? And so you just kind of get rid of anything that doesn't fit the narrative that you've created for yourself. And that will keep you in this cycle of perpetual dating pain. Because you're believing something that's not true, you're looking for evidence and if you look hard enough, you'll find it. When there's contrary evidence, you ignore it. And then this goes on and goes on for just long enough until you get blindsided with something really bad happening. And that's the pain.

Confirmation bias is so powerful. It is one of the most powerful biases that we have. I once had a client, she was early on the process and she brought this guy into the program that she was dating. Like she was dating him when she joined our coaching program. And she was telling me about how he is really serious about a relationship, he really wants a relationship. He even took her to meet his parents who are aging at this point. And it was wonderful. One hang up though she just wants to mention on the side, she did catch him texting some like really deep and meaningful texts to his ex girlfriend multiple times. And then she read them and they, he was telling her how much he misses her. But then she, she looked away and she said, it doesn't matter though, because seriously, that's. That that happens in past relationships. Sometimes you still have feelings. He even took me to meet his parents. I'm like, whoa, wow, wow. First off, you shouldn't be going through his phone. I wouldn't be going through anyone's phone. But since you did and you saw that, that is enough confirmation that this dude is not right for you. And she was just able to crush all this contradictory information. There's a number of other examples where it's like, this guy is such bad news. And this is why I believe we can have like sometimes our best friends Will tell us about someone that they're dating or seeing, and we're like, oh, my God, there's so much wrong with this situation. How are they missing this? I don't understand. It's like a hole in their brain. They just have blinders on. But it's. It's just what you. You described. It's the perpetual pain. What was it? Perpetual pain flow that you just walked us through.

Yeah. The pattern of perpetual dating pain. Because every partner, every relationship is a mix of good signs and bad signs. Always. If you're just paying attention to half of those things, though, you're. You're setting yourself up for. For misery, for sure. And so we were just talking a lot about behaviors. But before we. Before we finish up here, I just. A caution about some behaviors.

Right?

You don't want to give certain things too much credit. We already talked about this at the top. But, like, don't overdo it on subtle behavior. Right? You meet a guy for the first time, he brings you a calla lily. Oh, my God. This is not just any flower. This is a special flower. This is like, what now? A calla lily.

Okay.

It's a. It's a flower, Adam. Look it up. So you could think like, oh, my gosh. This means. Of course, an authentic, honest guy would not bring a rose. He's doing something. And so. No, no, no, no. Like, don't. Don't like armchair psychologist too much. And read too much into those subtle things. The other thing not to read too much into are the grand gestures. Life is not the bachelor. Right. And so it's. No, sorry, sorry. No calla lily or rose for you. And so you want to be careful of those grand gestures, those big moves, the love bomby types of things, the amazing dates, the bold proclamations, the over. Over the top enthusiasm. Remember, he doesn't really know you. Why is he doing all this stuff for someone he doesn't know that well? And a lot of those moves, those grand moves, are empty gestures because he's had a lot of practice with early dates. That's how he knows how to set things up and choreograph these amazing experiences. And he had all the time in the world to plan these things. And so are you getting the true, consistent view of who he really is on those early experiences? No. So make sure you're not overemphasizing them and giving them too much credit.

It's such annoying advice to give women because it's just, you know, we've been doing this for long enough. Been doing this over a decade. And I know that you finally go out with a guy who actually just plans a date. He's got teeth and he pays for the date and it's a nice place. And then he does something even more over the top, like gets the special dessert and gets them coming over and singing or whatever, some grand gesture. And you're like, finally, this is it. And our messaging to you is, that's nice. That's a nice data point. It's maybe a small, little, tiny, itsy bitsy data point. But that's not the. That's not the whole enchilada here.

Right.

It's just not. That's in fact, like Gary said, sometimes and many times, the guys who are that doing those types of grand gestures, they do it because they are trying to woo you. So what's the key to all this?

Little love?

Step number five.

Pace.

You like my little jingle? Pace, pace, pace. No. God, I'll put the wig back on for that. But we pace, we slow things down, we look for consistency, and we follow really everything that we're talking about throughout this. And this is what it means to really date with intentionality. So the big take home we want for all of this. And we try to do this in a way where we speak to you almost like if we were your brothers. Honestly, that's like kind of how we look at it with coaching our clients. In many ways, we're brothers with some expertise. And the big thing is to remember, don't fool yourself, right? Because at the end of the day, when you're in it and you're starting to date and meet these guys and you're starting to catch feelings, you're the easiest person to fool. And we all fell victim to it. Like that moment where you get really excited about someone and then you start to be like, oh my God, they're the perfect person. They definitely want a relationship because he said it. And that's now thinking about getting married and we're going to spend the rest of our life together. We are so easy to fool. I've been fooled that way. I know Gary has too. When you're in it, it's really hard. So really check in with yourself. Don't allow yourself to fall victim to that. And with all that, evaluate guys strategically, not based on hope. Like dating with a strategy of hope is going to lead us down the road of men who are taking advantage of, who don't really want anything. Right. We want to date with a strategy. And that is the key. Take home for today. Hopefully you got a lot out of this. And please, as you're getting out there, don't be afraid of men. With all that said, I feel like this was a little bit of a daunting podcast. The vast majority of the guys, statistically, we probably should have led with this, want a committed relationship, are open to a relationship when they find the right woman. And so we just need to have the right way of getting there. So hopefully this gave you some things to think about while you're dating.

Yeah, I'm so glad you finished with it. I was going to say that exact same thing is like, this doesn't mean that all guys are bad, right? I mean, we kind of focus on, like detecting lying and like detecting intent and all that stuff, but the vast majority of guys are authentic, they're sincere. And so this is just giving you that little extra layer of protection to better figure things out when guys are being a little less than honest.

Amen. So get out there, let's go make it happen, and let's find you a good guy. That's the key here. All right, thanks for being here. Thanks, Gary. That was fun.

Thanks, Adam.

All right, thank you so much for being a part of the Love Strategies community. By getting to the end of the podcast, you have proven that you are a high value woman who deserves a long lasting relationship and we would love to help you get there. So what I recommend you do is go to loveapply.com and you can claim a free love strategy session where someone on my team is going to get on a call with you on a zoom session, be able to understand your challenges and see whether or not we can help you make that a reality this year. So head on over to loveapply.com apply for that free love strategy session, and we cannot wait to help you attract that man you truly deserve. All right, thanks for being here.