Why You Keep Choosing the Wrong Men (and How to Stop)

In today's podcast, Dr. Gary and I are going to be discussing why it is that you keep choosing the wrong types of men and how to stop. And it all comes down to one term and one phrase. Let me tell you, this came about maybe a year ago when Dr. Gary looked me in the eye and said, adam, the little love steps are flawed. I said, what? These little love steps are perfect. What are you talking about, Gary? He says, yes, the process itself is great. But little love step number three, where you say, we gotta start getting out there, meet high value men, that term is flawed. 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, 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, you want to take it from here? Why is that term flawed? And by the way, I agree. I agree. Wow.

Hearing. Hearing myself back through you, boy. I telling a boy I sound annoying.

Adam, you are an idiot. You don't know what you're talking about. No, you're very kind about it. You're like, hey, man, do you think we could just maybe change this one term?

Well, and I think that in my defense, I also said it's not just you, it's the entire dating coaching field. Yeah, like, everyone's been using this term wrong, I think forever. And it's this idea of high value. It's. It's terrible. I. I consider it like this Neanderthal dating term that it's like, what do you mean by high value? Because it bothers, like, researcher sensibility is. It's imprecise. It doesn't really tell us what's going on, because what we actually really mean and what we've meant this entire time, every time we've said high value, we actually mean high character. And so that's what we're going to talk about today is, you know, this hearing constantly. I can't imagine what it's like for women dating to constantly hear things like, you need to look for high value. You need to be high value. You only need to accept high value. Make sure every time you're high value, value, value, value. It's like, wait a second, that's I don't know, it feels like somewhat demeaning. It feels objectifying in some ways. And so not only is high value annoying in those ways, but is this even a good idea? And I think you're going to see no. Is. Is this the best way to find your person by focusing on high value? Also? No. And it's not just neutral. I, I think focusing on high value is actually counterproductive. And that's one of what we're going to talk about today.

Yeah, I love this shift and I'm totally on board with it because like you just said, in my mind, I've always thought of high value as character traits. Much more, you know, is he respectful, is he caring? Does he, is he commitment focused? Rather than the inherent meaning behind the word value in my mind, if I really break it down. So what does value mean? Typically means money. Right. It sounds like people are basically a sale item at Target or like a menu item on McDonald's or something like that, or maybe at a high end restaurant. Right. So it's just the, the challenge with this word is it's not precise for someone who's just getting started. And the purpose of the little love steps is to simplify the process. So every single step is very, very clear about what it is that you need to do next. And so moving forward, we will definitely be using that lingo. And by the way, as I talk about the little love steps, if you want to brush up on the full little love steps, you can just go to lovestrategies.com we have a completely free step by step training that's going to walk you through that entire process. I might say the word value in it though, but now, you know, I mean character. Okay, just.

Well, and I will say in your defense, everything in little love step three, when we talk about value is actually all about character. We just never said character. And so, you know, high value, you know, and maybe a little bit in the defense of everybody else in the dating world, it's like, where does this value thing come from? And you can actually blame the research on evolutionary psychology, because evolutionary psychology has always talked about a person's mate value. And a mate value is an individual's overall desirability as a potential partner on the mating market. And so it was very intentionally put in these economic kinds of terms. And when evolutionary psych talks about meat value, they mean personality, they mean physical qualities, they mean the totality of the person. It just, in translation, it loses a little something. It makes it sound like, you know, we're all out there on this kind of meat market thing, and it's like, I don't know, it just has always had this level of ick to me of, you know, talking about women or men as value. It just, it commodifies people in a way that I just, I've never been comfortable with. And so, you know, you and I, like you said a year ago, had this conversation and we've been talking about high character for the last year, a ton. And it's, I think it's just like one of those things like language matters and, you know, now that we know and have identified exactly what we mean and know how to say it better, we're going to start saying it better, I think.

Yeah, I agree with everything. I love blaming the PhDs and the researchers for all this. That's always really fun to do. But in all seriousness, I think when you think about value and mate value, it's really optimizing for the wrong thing for people when they're dating a lot of people. If they're just optimizing for all those attributes you just discussed, that sets us up for chemistry, which is great. It is very important. But that's only one part of the bigger picture. And the thing that we're optimizing here at Love Strategies and every single client that walks through our virtual door, because we are a virtual company and we coach virtually, but every client that we work with is optimizing not for a relationship that lasts 10 months, but 10 years, 20 years for the rest of their life. So the way to optimize for that is based on character, not for value. I mean, value is a, is a part of the equation to a degree for sure. But that's only one. What I would consider to be relatively smaller part of the large, big picture of finding a relationship that really lasts.

Yeah, I mean, so much about value, I think just put you in a short term mindset in a way that, you know, we know our clients, they're not looking for, you know, the next month. Like you said, they're looking for years and decades into the future. And so, you know, what's enduring, what lasts. And the thing that lasts and that's enduring is character. And so that's our solution. You know, how we're gonna, we're gonna approach this differently than, I think everybody else out there in terms of really leaning into high character and avoiding this high value thing. We were joking before we hopped on today that we're gonna set up a little Love Strategies swear jar kind of thing. Where it's like every time somebody accidentally uses the term high value, you gotta put a dollar in the old love strategy swear jar. And I don't know, but see and see all that.

Fired, Fired. That's it. We're going extra swing. You said value. Excuse me, but Adam, you've been saying that for 10 years. No, you're fired.

It's like, But I think it's the old thing. It's like once you know how to do better like you have, you're obligated how to just do better. We've got a better way. And this high character approach is infinitely better. It's more clear. It's like, you know, does your old flip phone work? I mean, it worked for what it was intended for, but it's like, now there's a better way. Like let's, let's not be afraid of using the new better way of doing things.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I, that's something that we are all. You know, it's interesting when we've started doing this, especially with our, our Lux clients, which is our, our highest tier coaching program where everyone flies out to Boston or elsewhere for retreats every, you know, three times a year. Once we started using this different word. It's so interesting to see how different the focus was because previous to that, clients would say on, come on to a mastermind or a coaching session and say, you know, I've met a really high value man. And again, in my, my mind it was always thinking about the character traits we've discussed and so on and so forth, but it wasn't necessarily the case. But now that we are having our clients also do that, and we might instill that little swear jar for our clients as well. But what it has forced them to do is if they're coming on a mastermind or coaching session, they'll have to say, I met a high character man, which is a very different series of traits. And so for those of you who find yourself going in and out of relationships and they're not really lasting, or the men that you're drawn to, they very quickly turn into terrible, terrible relationships, then it's possible you need to also be a part of this swear jar. Like have that just words are very powerful. It's the way that we kind of drive our brains and drive our thinking. And if you can suddenly also start using this one little shift in language, suddenly it just changes everything you're focusing on when you're getting out there and dating. I'm looking for a high character man. I'm looking for a high character man, not just value, because when you're looking.

For a high character, you can't focus on his appearance, his height, his style of dress. It's not that you're going to completely ignore those things, because you're not, but it's making it very clear you're not prioritizing it. Because language, it's the software that runs our brain. And so how you speak about things matters. It's why we talk about our clients all the time. You know, it's like the power of yet. It's like, oh, you know, I haven't found a guy yet, right? It's just like these little tiny little language things that, like, it starts working itself into your own conversation and your own inner dialogue. It makes a huge difference. And so, you know, we are really emphasizing with our clients the importance of high character and what it means and the qualities that go into it. And so we want to share with you all today what we're calling our CARE framework, which is an acronym for the qualities that these high character guys have. And I would argue, like, I don't think I've met a client in the three and a half plus years of doing this that does not want this man that we're about to describe. Every single client in every, like, wants exactly this kind of guy. And, you know, this. This high character guy, it's. It's not this brand new creation. It's what you would always call a good guy, a solid man. Right? It's going to be familiar in a way, but it also, you know, like Adam, you say all the time is, you know, you need a clear target. If you don't have a clear target, you need that bullseye to kind of focus you in. And so, like, this CARE framework is really here to focus you all in on being able to recognize, identify, notice, and appreciate what a high character man really looks like. And so the c in our CARE framework is for composure. This is a guy who's emotionally regulated. He keeps his cool. When things get hard, he doesn't blow up. He doesn't shut down, he doesn't pout, he doesn't blame. He stays calm. He's honest, he's grounded. Even when the pressure's on. He's not volatile. He's not someone you got to walk on eggshells around. He displays emotional maturity, even emotional intelligence. And, and most importantly, when you're around a guy who has composure, a high character man with composure, you feel like he's safe to be around. So Important.

I've personally found that the only way to truly judge a person's character, to understand who they really are, is to see how they compose themselves. When shit hits the fan, when you go through a difficult time in life, when you go through a very stressful moment, when you get into a fender bender, that is the moment where your inner truth reveals itself, where someone who has composure and has high character knows how to handle themselves. And someone who does not have high character, that's where you see the nastiness. And I even see that professionally. You know, I'm so, I feel so blessed with, with the incredible team that we have here at Love Strategies. And we're reaching almost 30 team members at this point, which is just mind blowing. But what I'm so proud of is that we are a character first company, and that's something we look for. And it's where I look for that and where all the leadership looks for that is when problems occur. Because problems do occur in every company. Things happen, mistakes happen. And how someone handles themselves in that moment is what I'm really looking for. Because I've seen people come in, I've seen people work with us. And the first three months are just hunky dory. Great. And it's like, because we're doing great, we're really, we're growing organization, our clients are amazing. We're getting incredible results for our clients. But then, and you think, like, this person's amazing. But then something happens, Ooh, yikes. Didn't see that coming. And I think many of you who are listening, whether you're in the corporate world or just dating, you can probably appreciate that when you thought you really knew a person until there was a major problem, you know, so, yeah, and.

I think, you know, this character, it's omnipresent, right? It shows up in every possible way. And like you said, I think it's a lot of times in those tough times where it's really revealed. I think the other piece that you see a lot in the workplace is the next piece of character, which is accountability, right? Like someone who has high character owns their actions when they, not if they mess up, when they mess up, because everybody messes up, they own it. They admit it. They keep their word, they follow through. They don't hide behind excuses. You know, when they do something wrong, you don't have to chase down an apology. You don't have to make them apologize. They, they come to you and they say, hey, look, was my best self back there. I, I, that was not the best version of me that you could possibly see. And I need to work on that. He takes responsibility, and he takes responsibility without being defensive, without blaming you, without blaming others, without making it your fault, your responsibility, making excuses. Because high character people, they just, they. They own their stuff. And that's how you know they're going to continue to be high character, because that's the way any of us improve. If you're constantly externalizing and blaming others, you're just. You're never going to make improvements.

I totally agree. There's a show, a little known show that Jess has been making me watch a lot lately. It's called Love is Blind. I don't know if any of you have.

Yeah, Very, very, very under the radar show.

Yes. It's a very tiny little show that no one knows about that I recently discovered. And I kind of secretly hate it, but I also kind of love it. But what I've found. And we were just watching it last night, my wife is like, I come from a long day of, like, advising people on their dating, like, all day, and my wife makes me watch a dating show. But, you know, whatever. I'm into it.

That's hilarious. Because Colleen this weekend, she's like, hey, love is blind. Nine is out. Do we want to watch that? I'm like, it's not that I don't want to watch it, but it's like, this is also kind of my day job.

Yeah, I'll say long. But what. What I've thought about actually a couple nights ago, maybe it was last night. But there are four words that if you hear that on this show, then you know that they're doomed when they first get. When they get in their first fight, their first couple fights. And the four words are, I did nothing wrong. And I heard that last night bracelet was last night where they were getting in an argument and something happens. I did nothing wrong. I didn't. I didn't do anything. What? No, it's you. It's you, it's you. And then you see the whole thing just like collapse. I got the popcorn. And you're like, oh, Neither of them are taking accountability or he's not taking any accountability or she's not doing that. And that's the moment where I'm like, oh, then we'll throw a little wager on it. Like, is it going to work out or are they going to get hired? And that's when I'm like, all in. They're. They're breaking up. They're not going to make it oh.

My gosh, that is so true. I was like, you had me. You had me on, like, pins. And you're like, what are the four words you're going to say? And then the I did nothing wrong. I was like, nailed it. Absolutely 100 agree. When people start saying they did nothing wrong. Oh, gosh. It's never true.

Yeah. In every relationship. Look, I will acquiesce and say, usually someone did something more wrong than the other person. Oh, more. It's very rarely a legit 50 50, but it's never a hundred percent zero.

Right.

It's never that way. And so anytime we're in an argument or a conflict moment with our partner, it's so important to just take pause and take accountability for your role and whatever has caused this conflict. Because the easiest way to end conflict is for you to apologize or your partner to apologize. And then you respond with, and you know what? I take also full responsibility, or I also take responsibility for what happened. Here's what I learned from this situation. Therefore, one plus one equals five, and you're actually building from the relationship, rather than if you both are saying, I did nothing wrong. One plus one equals zero. Zippo. It ain't going anywhere. Good luck.

The one other piece I would add to that is don't always just wait for your partner to be the good person and say that they're taking responsibility because it may not happen. All it takes is one partner to start taking responsibility because you're modeling good behavior for the other partner. Now, if you take responsibility and they still never take responsibility, you know what that is? It's a sign of bad character.

Right?

And so, you know, it's. I. I've seen it with our clients where it's like, well, he. He never takes response. Sometimes somebody just has to go first. And men aren't getting a lot of coaching. Men aren't getting a lot of insights into how to do relationships better. So if you're the one that's a little bit more relationship savvy, maybe you just do need to go first every once in a while. And I get that it doesn't feel fair, but it's like, this is what's going to help your relationship.

Yeah, definitely. Maybe. Are you speaking to your wife right now? Maybe listening to the podcast? Is that a message to Colleen?

Just saying. Just saying. Possibly want to. Honey, I love you.

I love you this much. All right, moving on.

So the R in our care framework for the high value, the high character man. Almost. Almost didn't do it. Is the R Is for respect. And so this is the good, solid man. Like he treats everyone with respect, not just the people he likes or the people he wants something from. A respectful man listens, he keeps boundaries, speaks to others with kindness, speaks about others with kindness. Really good example of a boundary is, you know, early on, guys are going to be a little pushy, they're going to be a little more sexual perhaps than you want. And so you kind of like say, oh no, not quite yet. I'm looking forward to this. But not, I'm not quite there yet. The respectful man's like, oh, okay, I get it. And he listens, right? He listens and he values and respects your boundaries. That's a high character man. And you can also tell a high character guy in his respect by he values people for who they are and not what they can give him. Like it's not transactional. People who are not high character kind of view, every interaction is like, what can I get? How can I win this transaction? How can I get one over on them? What am I extracting from this? And if you just find that high character people don't operate that way, it's just an authentic getting to know you for you as a human being. Which is honestly really refreshing.

Definitely, I agree. And you know, it's the age old how do they treat the server? How do they treat the waiter? Type of idea that's been floating forever and that's somewhat useful, I suppose if someone is overtly rude to the server, which is pretty rare, although some people can do that. What I always advise people to do is see how he treats and talks about his friends. Because that is a very good litmus test on his how respectful he is to people, his closer allies. When you actually do meet his friends, how is he interacting with them? Is he disrespectful towards them after he leaves? Being around them, is he talking about them behind their back? You get a really good sense like, because look, every relation, romantic relationship turns into a friendship. So if you can actually get a good insight as to what it will eventually look like for you, just look at how he is with his friends. And that's something that I definitely, when I was dating, I was extremely judgmental of women who, because I happen to be a man dating in this case, just to be clear, this is not a versus women.

Say it out loud.

I was extremely judgmental of women who would be around their friends and be all nice and all this stuff, but then behind their backs just be destroying their friends. I'm like well, that's so disrespectful towards your friends. Have an open, honest conversation with them about that. Or on the flip side, in one scenario, I can think of where were incredibly disrespectful to their faces and. But they were still somehow best friends. Like, how could you say that to your friend? Like, no way. I'm not moving forward in this relationship. I do not want that in my life. No way.

Well, because I think it is. When you see how somebody treats others, sometimes we like, trick ourselves to believing, like, oh, they're going to treat me different than they treat everybody else in the world. It's like, that's actually just not true. That's how they treat people. You're just new and those other people have been around a little bit. And so that you're. What you're seeing is a look into your future. That's actually what you're seeing. And so you want to, you know, assess that accordingly and proceed with that information in mind. And so, you know, the last, the last part of our high character, the care framework here is E. The E is for effort. High character men, high character people, they make an effort. They work hard on themselves. They work hard on their goals, they work hard on their relationships. They make people in their lives a priority. They put in consistent effort. It's not just sometimes, whenever they feel like it. It's not performative. Like some guys will put in a huge effort on the first date, first date or two. That's not what I mean. It's this consistency over time. A guy who's high character has kind of this sense that he's. He's growing, he's building, he's serving. He's doing all this quietly and steadily. And I think the, the quietly part is, is a high character move. He's not talking about it. He's not flaunting. He's not looking for attention. He's not telling the world how wonderful he is. This is something I say to clients all the time, is like, true confidence is quiet. Right. It's not bragging. And I think high character is. Is quiet. The high character guy doesn't just say he cares. He proves it. He shows you talks about it. You know, you see it in his actions. Because words are cheap, as we say to our clients all the time. We talk about this all the time in the little love steps. Focus on the video, not on the audio. What is he actually doing? Not what is he saying he's going to do. Very big difference.

Yeah, I think this is Such a good corollary word for character. It is you. In order to have high character, you must have be a high effort person. Because having high character requires effort. It's hard to have high character in certain moments. It requires you to sometimes take the more difficult road, the more difficult path forward to maintain your character and your integrity. Lying is easy. Think about how many times people will lie in relationships because it's just easier. Right? It's like the lazy man or woman's way out of an argument or a difficult moment. High character requires you stepping outside of yourself, out of your comfort zone, sometimes standing for what you believe in and doing the thing that you know you have to do in order to be a good person. Yeah, that requires effort. Like you. You cannot be some schlep who sits on his couch all day playing video games. I'm not against people who play video games, but you get my point. Like, but you get my point. Like, you can't just be some, some bum who doesn't actually put in the effort to, to again, hold up to your values. And that's so important. So at the end of the day, I think this care framework hopefully gives you a different lens which you're looking when you get out there. But there's a critical, critical step that we all need to take before we start getting out there looking for a high character man, and that is looking at yourself in the mirror and really asking yourself, am I stepping forward with care myself? Because we attract what we put out there. Are you the type of person who leads with composure? Are you taking accountability for your actions? Or are you showing respect to your friends, to people around you, to the server? Are you putting in the effort yourself? We have to be the type of person we're looking for. Otherwise, if you are not leaning into the care framework, if you meet a guy who is truly high character, he will run for the hills.

Yes, yes, yes. I feel like I want to cheer because, like, everything you just said is like, yes, it's, it's what I said earlier. Every one of our clients, not one of our clients, who does not want this high character guy we just spent the last 15 minutes describing. But at the same time, some, some folks where they struggle is they're not willing to put in the effort to be high character themselves. And then they wonder why these kind of guys aren't giving them attention, aren't interested. And it's because people who are high character or truly high character are not going to spend or waste time with people who are not high character. High character attracts high character point, period.

Definitely. And so with that, personally, you know, I've had to put in a lot of effort in my life, read a lot, do a lot of thinking to continue to build my, my character. And all of us, we're all work in progress. This is not just a binary, do you have character or not, Something that you're ongoingly working on, but a little hack that I've always found to build my character and try and hold myself to the highest level of integrity. The hack that I've found is to surround myself with like minded high character people. And it's not just my wife who is incredibly high character and she certainly helped me on that journey, but it's also your circle of friends. Who do you spend the most time with? What are they like? Because like Jim Rohn says, we're the, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. And if you're spending time with all people who are low character, I assure you you will start to inherit those traits 100%. And that's a huge part of what we do here at Love Strategies. We don't just coach our clients one on one through our masterminds, teach them the little love steps. All that stuff is very important and is incredibly helpful for our clients. But I would argue the most important part of what we do is, is putting high character people together. And building a high character community is highly, highly curated. What we do with our clients, we only accept the type of clients that we know would be a great fit for this type of a community. Therefore, it's not some like weird Facebook group where you're going to see a bunch of people just complaining about weird stuff. I wouldn't even go there. This is a highly, highly curated group and so if that's something that you're interested in being a part of, I invite you to take the next step, which would be applying for what we call Love Strategy session. And you head on over to loveapply.com you can kind of skip through any of the steps you need to usually take on the website and you can just jump ahead to apply for that session since you made it this far in the podcast and you'll jump on with one of our love strategists and they'll be able to really talk to you, understand where it is that you've been struggling, where it is you want to go and see whether or not we can help you on your journey. And once you get into this community, I think you'll see it's full of literally thousands of the most high character people I have ever experienced, and I love it. That's why. That's why I feel so blessed about what we do, Gary. We get to not only choose who we work with, but people we work with are incredibly high character, just by the very nature of what we do. So, again, if that's something that you're interested in, head on over to loveapply.com and, Gary, I applaud you. You've been chipping away at me changing this one word for a long time, and I'm finally ready to do it. Let's go. Thanks, buddy.

It's a very high character of you, Adam. Thank you.

Thanks. Work in progress.