5 Reasons You’re Still Single

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Welcome, everybody, to the love life podcast with Audrey, Steven, Jay. They're gonna find you love fast. What if that was our theme song?

Everybody knows that everyone can choose their show.

So listen to the love life podcast before you go. Welcome, everybody, to the Love Life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, Jameson Jordan, Audrey Lestrade, and Steven Hussey, my brother.

Hello, friends.

And I'm, I'm a, I'm a friend and director that works, that's worked with Matt for a long time. And Audrey is Matt's fiance.

Yeah.

Again, that's just for my parents who want me to set the context every time. Well, let's do it properly then. You know, like when you're watching a movie and everyone's just asking the question.

Like, well, why did they do that? And it's just like, well, watch the movie.

You wanna do it as if someone.

Just started listening to the podcast today? Yeah, but they want it like every episode. Steven co-wrote the Get the Guy book with me and is a New York Times bestseller. He's also written an article for the blog on the howtogettheguy.com website for years. Jameson has been my creative partner in crime for nearly 10 years now, since I got to LA, has directed essentially any video you see of me online has been shot and directed by none other than Jameson Jordan, who runs the film department in our company. And Audrey Lestrat is not only my fiance, but also heads up the content division of our entire company. So, and also graces us with her presence on the podcast and has become a creative force along with the rest of us. When we write videos and create content together and think about what we want to make, the four of us, including Billy and sometimes Celia who aren't here, we all put our pens to paper on how to create the best stuff for you.

And also, if we ever want to talk about Matt behind his back or how he works too hard and stuff, Audrey's just really good at those conversations too. She's multifaceted.

Judas. Well, here we are. We thought we would do an episode today that talks about the things that keep us single. that have nothing to do with love. Stephen, a long time ago, you turned me on to a book called obliquity by John Kay, who I believe was an Oxford professor of economics.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I.

That was a long time ago. We first read that book.

A long time ago. But the. The book was based on a. An idea that always stuck with me, which was that Success comes from indirect factors, indirect variables, meaning if you want to get rich, focusing on getting rich is not necessarily the key variable that's going to get you there. It's the indirect variables. So creating a product that meets a need would be one thing. Having great time management skills might be another. Having an incredible ability to build a team and to influence that team to your vision, these are indirect factors. In our love life, there are indirect factors that play a key role. in either keeping us single or making it much, much easier and quicker for us to find love. And so I thought it would be fun today to talk about five different things that off the top of my head, I can think of that have a big influence on why we stay single. And even if you're in a relationship listening to this, I think you're going to find these interesting and in some cases even relevant. And they may even be relevant some of them to why your relationship might struggle. And then let's invite you out there to email us podcast@matthewhussie.com and let us know if you think we've missed any key ones. Because I think it would be great to hear from you Because this is not designed to be comprehensive, but doing this a long time, these are five things that right off the top of my head came out, and we're going to discuss them.

And these are five things, but I'm glad you said that, Matt, because it does kind of open up your brain into thinking in this way. The list can probably go, you can get super creative with this and start thinking really differently about your love life.

100%. [Speaking of] before we go any further, I want to make sure if you have not already, you have checked out the program we have called the Momentum Texts. This is, I would argue, the most easy to grab and practical program we have ever created. When I started this program, I did it over COVID. because what I realized is a lot of people were having these kind of long distance exchanges that weren't going anywhere. And I thought to myself, if you were texting someone who wasn't in the same room as you, who wasn't maybe even in the same neighborhood or town as you, and you wanted to actually make sure that it moved forward in a very intentional way that led to a relationship. What would you send them? And how would it differ from the kinds of messages people send and the kind of conversations they have that lead them constantly into casual relationships that never go anywhere? Ones where people are just using each other for attention. Ones where they're just using each other for validation and some kind of short-term intimacy, but never turn into anything. And so I created this program which had over, I think it's over 60.

67.

67 different messages that can either be texts or conversations that lead you down the path of a real relationship. And they really do make a difference. And after COVID finished, this still became, this still remained one of our most popular programs because what people realized is, hey, there's like a real epidemic right now of people just constantly getting into these relationships that don't go anywhere, that end up hurting your feelings anyway. You still get your heart broken, you still end up feeling like you've been put through the ringer, but you don't actually even get a relationship out of it. Nothing ever happened. It was like it never got off the ground in the first place. And so this is designed for anybody who's like, from the moment I start talking to someone, I want them to be aware that I am someone to be taken seriously. I want there to be momentum. We're still going to flirt, we're still going to create attraction, we're still going to create tension. And these show you how to do that, too. But it's going to make sure that things actually go somewhere. And the great news about this program, unlike some of our more expensive programs, this is seven dollars. So this is super easy for people to get their hands on. If you don't have it already, go to momentum. momentumtexts.com. Like I said, it's ridiculously practical. It's really easy to use, and you can be reading it right now. So go over to momentumtexts.com before you do anything else, before you listen to this episode, and then come back here and let's get started.

Now you're back with your copy of Momentum Texts.

Well put.

Tell us about the subject map.

So, let's talk about those five things as a starting point that have nothing to do with our love lives but keep us single. The first one I put is, and I feel like this is very relevant to the last couple of years for obvious reasons, you work from home. Now, As someone who's always worked from home, I've worked from home since the age of 21 when I left university. I mean, I have a very brief spell of working in an office, but it certainly wasn't the kind of office. It was a two-person office that I worked in with me and sometimes Stephen and one other person. It was not the kind of bustling office where you were ever going to meet anyone. and over the course of my life, I've known how insular it can make you to always be working from home and to not have those daily interactions that either can put you in a place where you meet someone through your work, which firstly is not always advisable, obviously, but there are people who tend to work in buildings where they might connect with people, or even just the act of going to work puts you on sometimes public transport, or it puts you in a lunch area in a certain part of town that means you're around people and you're around that buzz of people in their working day. It makes it more likely that After work, you might end up at a happy hour with people. And at that happy hour, you might meet people. You end up with a social circle that comes from work sometimes. That means that you get invited to things. And I'm someone who has, and all of us here, maybe less so you, Audrey, because you have had a lot of experiences of working in productions and on sets, Jameson too. But, you know, I know that we've had a lot of experience of working from home, and I'm wondering what your experiences are of doing that. But I know my experience was that I, it took special effort for me to actually do things, for me to actually meet people. It had to be a very conscious decision because my life wasn't naturally gonna put me in a place where I was meeting people. Stephen, is that your experience of it? Yeah.

And I think more and more people go through this now. Like the culture shifted, right? Post pandemic, more and more people are remote workers, even if they don't work from home, they don't work in an office. And it's, you're just not bumping into anyone. You're not, you're not meeting friends of friends. You're not going for after-work drinks. You're not going for lunch hours. It all makes a difference to just how much your, someone is like, come with us to this at the weekend. If you don't bump into someone, It's unlikely you're going to get that. And it's a real, I saw a chart that showed recently how much time people spend alone at different periods of their lives. And like after a certain age of late 20s or after college, like the alone time shoots up massively. And we hear that less people have sex than ever who are young. Like there's less young people having sex. I'm sure there's correlations between these things.

And it's so seductive, the idea of like, oh, working from home. It's just like, it's so easy, you know? I remember when COVID was going down and a lot of parents were just deciding like, oh, I'm just gonna homeschool.

My kids this year.

And the kids were like, oh, that's so great. Like, I don't have to get up so early for school. And I was just like, Ooh, like school sucked. I hate getting up early. Didn't like having to have homework and like those tests that had a lot of pressure. But it's like you kind of need to be there. Like you have to like, you want to just be tossed into this environment where it's just like, where suddenly the interactions don't need a lot of activation energy. That's one of your terms, Matt. But, and that I think ties back to the obliquity point, right? Where it's just suddenly you're, you have these excuses to be around these other environments and these other Little mini incentives, these little mini interactions where it's like, oh, yeah, did you hear about Holly's birthday party? Oh, yeah, she sent an invite to everyone in the class, you know? Or it's just like, those, and it's not like you're gonna have a work romance. It's that you meet that person at work who's inviting you to that party, and at that party, you meet someone else from a different office, and it's those little rabbit holes of interactions.

That's exactly right. I want to also mention the activation energy actually came from the book, the How happiness Advantage by Sean Aker, just so I'm not, not taking credit for that term. But I love that term because it's the, the, the idea of activation energy, which is, as Sean Aker describes it, the, the energy that it, the example he uses in the happiness Advantage is if you want to play the guitar more and you want to practice it and you can't seem to get yourself to practice it, keeping it tucked away in the closet is a bad idea because there's a high activation energy for you to practice. You have to go to the closet, get it out, bring it back down. So keeping it by the sofa where you know you're gonna sit and watch TV anyway, where you can just reach out and grab it, lowers the activation energy and therefore makes it more likely that that will be something you actually do.

I can categorically say that that's not true because during the pandemic, I was trying to learn the guitar and I did real good for like two weeks and then I had it next to the sofa and it stayed there afterwards for a year.

Yeah, it's funny because I used to, Stephen will perhaps remember this, during at school, like I'm talking age 13-14 and just so that you know, Audrey, that I've always been the insane person I am today. For exams, I would I would have, like, a hundred cue cards, and I would stick them all over the mirrors in my room at home and everywhere that I saw all the time. Because in my head, if every day I woke up and the first sight I got was of these cue cards, it would. It would, like, make its way into my brain. Didn't work.

No, because you then look through them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They became wallpaper.

Your mind just doesn't actually want. to learn.

No, no, no. I did, literally.

I vividly remember Matt would do this and he'd try all kinds of techniques, like listening to stuff when he went asleep to see if it stuck in when he fell asleep to it.

Like in Friends when Chandler tries to quit smoking.

The walls of my bedroom looked like-.

And walls always cue cards everywhere.

It was like a beautiful mind. It looked like a detective trying to crack a case.

And-- I'm glad you've outgrown this particular habit.

Yeah, but not really. I mean, only in that sense. I still am a compulsive note taker who's always scribbling things down and trying to put them in places where I'll remember them.

But think about how little you would have studied if the cue cards were still inside of that binder, which was inside of your backpack, which was inside of your locker at the school.

Well, but you know what's interesting? I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on this, but what I would say has changed in me is not that same feeling of I really want to do well and I really want to remember all these important details and so on. But what has changed in me is I've recognized that there has to be a division where I go, okay, what I need is a reminder in the right place at the right time to go and open up that important binder, whatever it is. So if I say, okay, I'm gonna write today, I need a reminder in the right place that reminds me to write, and then I need a place I can go to be intentional about writing. If the pages of what I'm writing are sprawled out everywhere all the time, rather than lower the activation energy, all it does is mean I can't ever switch off from it. And that's bad for me. And I actually think there's a parallel there between that and what we're talking about, because working from home isn't a death sentence to our love life or our social life. What it does mean, though, is that you have to be very intentional about creating opportunities. and socializing and being in community with other people in the same way, by the way, as you could say going to work every day in a busy building, in a part of town where there's lots of people, where you have lunch around people and so on. That can become its own version of the notes on the wall, if you're not careful, where it just becomes all these people around you all of these opportunities around you just become wallpaper. You're no longer tuned into them because there's no intentionality. And I do think that there are tons of people who are in situations where they're around a lot of people, and there's undoubtedly, undoubtedly, there is a benefit to that. There is just, you're more likely to stumble into a relationship. you're more likely to just end up meeting someone and kind of, you can just, you can hit into another person and just end up. Something happens as a result of that. That's the part that, that you have on your side. But if you're not intentional, you can still end up phase, you can live in a big city and be incredibly lonely and not. talk to people and, and find that you're still complaining about how hard it is to meet people and how you never meet anybody even with that.

Yeah, very good. I like that. It's also connection, isn't it? It's, it's like you say, intention and connection.

Yeah.

Feeling connected to what you do and doing it like. Yeah, I'm basically repeating your point, so.

Well, no, it, but that connection, I think one, one of the ways that I think is most important to get it is through making yourself part of communities. And this is the thing that, you know, work is not a guarantee of that, especially if you don't have a great Community in your workplace. But the more ways you can tap, you know, happy hours after work are a sense of community, and that can really help you. making a friend at work who, as a result of that friendship, invites you to something. And then when you go there, you get to know their three best friends quite well, and you do that multiple times. That creates a community that you start to actually become a part of. You and I have, you know, been hanging out with a couple of people in LA that we haven't spent a lot of time with before. And as a result, I think we've been invited to, like, three different events, all with that same Community showing up every time. And we've sort of ended up becoming a little bit part of that.

Yeah.

Community. And as a result, you, you inherit a whole new group of people. And I, when it comes to our love life, I think of those communities as It's like you just got dropped in another pond with all these new fish, and one of them might actually be a great person for you. And by being in that pond, you now have access to that fish. And it's not as easy to do that as, you know, being on a train and meeting someone on a train is hard, or it's at least challenging to overcome the kind of social barriers to that. the difficult kind of awkwardness and people worrying you have some weird agenda and everyone listening. Everyone listening. But being part of a community is really important. And I would put this to anyone out there who currently does work from home and anyone who works somewhere. Are you creating that? And it's going to lead us onto our second point, which I want to bring up, which is the second big reason you're single that has nothing to do with love is that you have friends, not communities.

What do you mean by that?

Friends are, you know, you could have a best friend who's in a relationship and you get on well with your best friend and their partner and you hang out with them and you love them and they're great. and it gives you a sense of connection. But it doesn't really necessarily create, it's not a community. And especially if people who are in relationships long term often they end up becoming part of less, sometimes they become part of more communities, especially, you know, having kids is kind of another opportunity to have new community, right? You go to a school, you meet other parents, and it kind of, for some people, it ends up being a new community. But a lot of people who get into relationships start losing communities because they create their nest and they spend a lot of time there. And naturally, it becomes, you know, in a little bit inward focused. And so being with, being friends with that person, It gives you connection, which is important. It may give you support, which is important, but it doesn't necessarily give you community. And a lot of people who are single will say, I have friends, but if you ask them, Do you have communities? They'll struggle to say yes. And I see this as a problem when someone keeps, when they, all their friends they have, they have three or four friends, But they're in long-term relationships and they're always doing relationship things. That, especially if those relationship things are kind of more just going to dinner with each other, that you may sound like someone, you know, Matt, you always say, Make friends. I have friends. Yeah, but it's not community.

There's a, there's a famous TED Talk by a woman called, I think it's Meg Jay. She wrote a book about why your 20s are really important. and you shouldn't just waste them. And she's trying to tell young people, like, don't, don't just blow off your 20s as nothing. Like, they're important years to, to build. And one of the things to build is your communities. And she, she talks about the importance of weak ties, weak ties being the people who are, like, on the edges of your Social Circle, who might have access to all kinds of other Social Circles and people, you know, and the importance of nurturing weak ties. So it's not always just the two friends you go to dinner with. It's like who's on the periphery who might be that person who is fun and single to go out with when you're single. It's like they're going to be a better person to call and go, Do you want to go out for a drink tonight? And, you know, whatever. Or they're going to introduce you to ten of their friends.

I love that concept. I'm so happy you brought that up, Steve. Because those, you know, you those weak ties probably have a community of their own, too. Right. And it's like every one of them is a possible access point to a whole new world, a whole new group of people. And it's, you know, we tend to entrench ourselves more and more and more in our community, and then we claim we never meet anybody. Well, we don't claim it. We do never meet anybody new. And we go, but they are so hard to meet people. Yeah, because you You keep going to the same, you keep fishing in the exact same pond all the time. And, you know, the hard part about building new communities is that it often involves saying yes to invitations you don't want to say yes to. Yes. Like, I know that when Stephen Fry said, There's nothing I hate more than a party, I relate to that.

We were talking about this yesterday, weren't we?

Yeah, I truly relate to that. And I know that what I mean when I say there's nothing I hate more than a party is not that I hate parties. What I hate or what the child in me hates is going to a place where I don't know anybody or I only know one or two people. And there's many more people than that there. And I am going to have to be a grown up and suck it up and shed my shyness for a night and talk and deal with the awkwardness of small talk and the awkwardness of beginning conversations with people that you don't know have any interest in speaking to you. and fumbling your way through a night of new people. But that's where all the treasure is in terms of new opportunities. So the price of admission for all those new opportunities is often saying yes to things that are uncomfortable to say yes to. I know I don't have a problem with the party that like recently, and when we were in London, we went out the, the night we got back, Steve, you'll remember, we went to a comedy night and we went out to a bar afterwards. There was no hint of me going, oh, I hate having to do this because we had about 15 of us, and all of them were either blood relatives that we love or they were closest friends. And so that wasn't, that was just like taking home with us. That was just like being a traveling circus. We were just all All together, there was no effort. I don't have to entertain anyone. I don't have to take any risks. I'm just surrounded by love, walled in in a fortress of love, albeit in venues I might not have been to before. So that's a different thing.

But we didn't meet anyone new that night.

Correct, because we didn't need to.

Exactly.

We were having so much fun together, we didn't need to. And it's all very well saying, I don't, you know, that's all I want to do because that's all I need is I just want to go out with the people I love and spend time with people. that's fine. But you can't simultaneously complain you never meet anybody. You can do that, but you can't complain you never meet anybody. And. And I'm in a relationship now, but still, when we have to go to events and we say yes to events that. That we don't know anyone at, it. It's still like, I. I still can't say no all the time, because the truth is, there's always. People at those places that are interesting, that I learn something from.

You might meet someone better than me.

Never. Impossible. Impossible.

James is nodding.

Just keep this kind of...

It was just very like, Yes, your tone was so yes-and, and I thought Matt might fall for it.

Jameson saw the trap a mile off. and he wanted to see if I handled it the way he hoped I would. But that, you know, that community element is not, that's not free. That's not free. This is a big thing. I think it's important for us to all realize, like it's free when you go to university to an extent, right? That's the one time where you leave school, 'cause school is, School is a community, but it's rough because A, you're like finding your feet and it feels like the stakes of getting it wrong are social suicide and those people you're gonna be stuck with for years if you get it wrong. And so it feels like, oh my God, I'm just, you know, my mistakes here are gonna follow me and this same community grows with me year after year. and, and so it's hard at school. What people like about college is that they get to leave and then go and create a whole new community with a, and, and there tends to be a lot of people at a college, so, and you tend to go mix with different people. And, and even at college, though, I would argue it's not free because you on Freshers week, I don't know what you call it. What do you call it? The first week of University in, in America, just orientation. Orientation.

Pretty boring.

You have to you still and the thing I regret most about university is not going to sign up for more like clubs. I that was a mistake I made because my kind of insular nature meant that I went and I made friends with people on my course because it was easy. But all those like different clubs that assembled on Freshers Week, on Orientation Week to say, Hey, do you want to be part of this thing? I wish I had said yes. to more of those things because I would have had much more community in college. But it's where at least kind of community is crowbarred into our life at that point. It never gets, I don't think, unless you start a job that introduces you to a ton of people, it never gets that on a plate for us again. And we then, as adults, either have to build community by saying yes to people we wouldn't normally say yes to when they invite us to places, especially the times when what they're inviting us to involves other people, which will make us more inclined to say no, by the way, but that's exactly the time we need to say yes. Or by actually joining a club or a society that does something we want to do. but by Nature, we're doing it in a kind of scarier way than just doing it ourselves. It's the difference between running because you want to get fit and. And saying, you know what? Screw it. I want to run. And there are running clubs, and a running club is going to introduce me to a whole new circle of people. I'm gonna go and join a running club, even though I'm gonna be the new one, even though no one's gonna know me, even though I'm gonna have to make conversation, you know, it's all of that is what comes, especially for those who are introverted or shy or anxious. socially. Those are all the things that bring dread to people. But that's where all the treasure is. Yeah.

Very good. I like that. I agree.

The next reason that we might be single that has nothing to do with love is that we live in the middle of nowhere.

This is interesting because I used to always hear this excuse. Well, you. When we go on tour, we'd hear an excuse in every city. about what was wrong with that city. And most of the time, we just kind of... You just kind of dismissed it on stage, like, every city has their excuse, you know? There's loads of opportunities everywhere. But now I feel like you've come around and just been like, There is such thing as just living in the wrong place.

Well, there's an excuse that holds more water, in a way, because when you make an excuse about New York, or London or LA, you're making a kind of commentary on the kinds of people that you meet there and the dating culture there. So someone may complain about LA and say, you know, it's sort of superficial and transactional, and it's hard to make a plan with anyone in LA. It's not as easy as New York, where you can just kind meet someone down the street, down the block, you have to get in your car and go somewhere and people are flaky in LA and everyone's kind of driven by their desire to get ahead and be in the industry or whatever and they're looking, you know, there's all these excuses for LA. Not that some of them, they have some validity, but it's a commentary on the culture and people have slightly different excuses about New York. and they have slightly different excuses about London or about any other city in the world. Every city has its kind of excuse. But when it comes to living in the middle of nowhere, it's not a commentary necessarily on the culture, although you may have a commentary on the culture that it's small town mindset and everyone, you know, people get married younger or people like there's certain tropes. about small towns, but it's more likely that someone is making a kind of commentary on the fact that there's just such a limited number of options. And that holds more water because there is something of a numbers game about dating. And at least whatever you say about New York, at least you can say there are a huge number of people cycling through that city every year. And it kind of, there's new ones coming through all the time. There's people landing and starting a life in New York and leaving, and they're being recycled. There are a lot of people there. When you live truly in the middle of nowhere or in a very, very small town, your options go way down.

Now, there's some people who romanticize. I've seen some people online Sometimes of a certain political persuasion but call themselves trads and they romanticize the idea of living in a small town or country area because like you're gonna get more like real traditional people there with traditional values who aren't just like playing the game, swiping on apps stuck in I'm an urban zombie mode in my pod. Again, this is their characterization. I'm an urban guy. I like living in the city. That's my preference. But their view is that there's something better about meeting someone outside of that.

Well, I think that may, there may in some ways be truth to that. Although there's, there's, there's going to, I don't know, the American equivalent, I suppose, would be like moving to Like, I feel like there's a difference between moving to the Midwest and where there's still a lot of people in the city you're in, but a sort of different pace of life or a different, you know, a different rhythm and a different blueprint that people have there. And moving to the middle of Idaho, where... Montana. Yeah, Montana.

I mean, Whitefish, Montana. That's a one score for Audrey.

Well, Chet, who I assume is how you know Montana.

Hey, I was really proud of the fact that I had some good American knowledge to bring to the table.

Did you get it from Chet?

Yes, but that's not the point.

Chet is a guy on our team who's a one of our key people who grew up in Montana. And what did he say?

There were You couldn't let me have it, could you?

I still think it's great knowledge where you got it from is fine. But he literally grew up in an area where there was no one around. I mean, he had to drive miles, I think, to life anywhere.

Wasn't there one high school and something.

Like- It had like 20 kids or something.

Yeah, something. And he met the love of his life there and they're still together.

Did they meet in Montana?

Yeah, they met in high school.

Oh, they did. That's right. That's right.

They went to the same high school.

Yeah. Well, that's, he met in the one community that existed when he was young.

Debunking your theory about love. Sorry, continue.

Well, not really, because had he not met her at his, had she not been in his high school, like he was out of options at that point. You know, he, one would argue, Chet got insanely, ridiculously, It's a lottery win. Disgustingly lucky. And they're happily married, as we know, and, you know, an amazing couple. But, you know, it makes me sick how easy it was for Chet. It's a disgrace.

But no, I- It's the exception, not the rule.

But that is a very, very difficult situation to be in. You have a friend. that just moved to the countryside in England, even though she really wants to meet someone. And I remember you showing me this gorgeous, beautiful house that she's moving into, and my first thought was, oh, no. Like, she's not gonna last out there in the country. Like, this house is gorgeous, and she's not gonna last out there.

Maybe there should be, like, a class-action lawsuit against Hallmark for making all these movies every Christmas season. It's always the big city girl moves to some small town, and she meets someone who's some... He's probably a prince, but happens to be in the rural area. And that's the message we're told, to Steven's point.

Or like, she meets the one guy who looks like a Hollywood actor who lives in that small English country town.

But by the way, that guy apparently was single for like 18 years before she moved there.

It's like, how convenient that Jude Law was there.

Yeah, in the local pub. And by the way, like go to the average countryside pub in England.

You ain't going to find Jude Law.

You're not going to find Jude Law. And one would argue that, you know, you may not be looking for the person who's downing pints at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Steve, do you remember when, you know, we had a brief spell living in that house that was in the countryside?

Yes.

And just how disproportionately difficult it made life.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

To even go out, to even go to the movies with someone, it was a real pre-planned event.

I remember that it was a special treat to, like, drive to KFC. You remember, like, it was like a big deal that we were like, Go get KFC. And it was it felt like and I know by some people's standards of living in the middle of nowhere, it wasn't that far, but for us, having lived kind of close to people a lot of our lives and close to the nearest town. For us, it was like, whoa. The activation energy for being able to just get like a restaurant or fast food or whatever was really high. Yeah. Let alone, you know, the idea of going on a date or meeting somebody. We wouldn't even want to go somewhere to meet some, like, you wouldn't want to go out Like, it's one thing, this is what I think is really interesting. It's one thing to be in the middle of nowhere and say, I'm going to drive half an hour or 45 minutes to a date because I have found a date that seems interesting. But it's another thing to leave the house to go somewhere for the evening just on the hopes that you might meet someone. and to do a 45-minute drive somewhere, that's likelihood is it's not gonna be fruitful anyway. And now you're driving back and that was your evening.

Yeah, I agree.

I think something that's worth mentioning, I think at this point, is obviously it's all well and good to say that, but it is not always an option for people to move from where they live. So you said something really interesting, Matt, when we were talking about it. in it initially, where you said something like, you know, if you're currently, say one of the reasons that you're tied to your hometown or wherever you're living, and there's not a lot of people there, it's because you are taking care of your mother. You know, you said maybe instead of living an hour away from the next big town and two minutes from your mother, you can move 20 minutes from your mother and half an hour away from the next big town or whatever it was.

And that extra, that 30 minutes makes a big difference.

Correct. And I think that's a really, really good point. It's that, you know, even if there is something keeping you where you are, is there a compromise that you can make in your life that still means that you might have more access to more communities and life, I guess.

I also think that there's a, it's all about what what's most important to you right now? Not using this in the sense of a sick mother here, but, for example, there are some people who live further out from. For financial reasons, but if they took a smaller place, they could live closer to. To where it's going on or to where there's a lot of people. And you might decide, like, okay, I can't. I, I'm gonna take a smaller place because what's more important to me right now than having that extra bedroom is having the ease of meeting people. And that's more important. And I think sometimes we get ourselves into these situations in life that are not productive for what we really want to happen because we're holding on to some idea of the way life should be right now. I want the extra space. Well, then you have to say, I want the extra space more than I want to find a relationship. Because sometimes it's just about making those kinds of sacrifices and saying it's not as important. What are the... It's like saying, what are three things that you'd like to have? Now pick two of them. You know, what's one you can sacrifice in order to make the other two more likely?

What I like about that, Matt, and the way you're describing it, because look, a lot of people aren't gonna, they're not gonna listen to what you just said, they're not gonna listen to a podcast and decide to move, right? But I do think even just going down this line of thought is helping people be realistic about the way that their lives are being incentivized by these obstacles. And once you realize, like, oh, that really is stopping me from doing X, Y, and Z every single weekend, then at least you can be realistic about like, wow, I'm gonna have to really double down on my effort. If I'm not gonna actually move, because it costs a lot of money to move, even if you get a smaller place, just the act of moving is talk about activation energy. But it's time to be like, maybe be realistic about just how many things in your life are pulling you away from this goal and how hard you'll have to work to compensate for that.

I love that. Always a voice of reason, Jameson.

Finally.

People say that in the emails they send in. They're like, you know, I love Jameson's sort of his rational and reasonable way of coming in and making sense of.

I'd love to see that.

That's bold statements. The fourth reason we're single that has nothing to do with love is, We don't train. We don't take care of ourselves.

Are you saying people need to spend more time in the gym? Is that your solution?

I sort of think of this one slightly, both literally but metaphorically too. Meaning, if we are excited about taking ourselves out, because we like ourselves, we have an outfit that we enjoy wearing, we like the way it fits us, and we feel sexy, we feel good. You know, when our hair is done, we've been taking care of ourselves, then we actually get excited about taking ourselves out. We don't hide under our clothes and sort of disengage because when we don't like taking ourselves out, when we don't feel good about ourselves, we kind of disengage. We may go for coffee, but we're certainly not making eye contact with anybody. We're not head up, we're head down. We're scurrying away to a corner of the room because we just don't, We don't want to be seen. Whereas when you feel good about yourself, you might be more likely to want to be seen. You might be more likely to make eye contact with that person. You might be more likely to smile at someone. I've had that feeling of going into a coffee. I've had both feelings many times in my life. I've had the feeling of going into a coffee shop and being like, I just don't, I don't even want to talk to the person behind the counter because I just feel rough, and I think I look rough, and I don't, you know, just, this is not a me that I want to be seen. Unfortunately, I really need coffee, and so I have to be in this place right now, but I don't want to be seen, and I don't want to be engaged with. And there are other times where I, I, like, put on a fresh pair of, of sneakers, and I'm, like, liking the way my clothes fit, and I feel good about myself. I feel like my Skin's good today, and I like when I go out, I'm like, my head is up and I'm looking at the, you know, I'm like engaging with life and my head is in the room. That energy is much more likely to create interactions. It's much more likely that someone will see that glint in your eye and feel like it's warm or welcoming or sexy or charismatic. It's much more likely that you're going to do the little things like give someone a nod or say hi or be a little louder with your voice. that create spontaneous interactions with people. And we all know it. We all know it. When someone walks into a room and there's a kind of energy about them that there's like a, there's a feel, they exude energy and as a result they lure you in. They have their own gravitational pull. We can have that if we are someone we want to take out.

And fun fact. you're also way less likely to bump into an unwanted ex if you look good than if you look bad, because that's just the way that it works in life. If you look like shit, you're way more likely to bump into your ex. You don't want to see that.

Interesting.

And if that's not an incentive, I don't know what is.

And that scientific fact is something you can carry with you in your life.

Yeah, that's science.

It's true. It's actually true.

It is somehow true that in the worst possible moment, that's when that I. I'll always. It's always the moments where I feel like a piece of that someone will come up to me and say, I love your work.

Makes you think we're in a simulation.

But it's true. And actually, a very recent example of this was Halloween, where we had really cool outfits.

I thought you were gonna say where I ran into an ex. I was like, they stretch as far as LA.

No, we had really good outfits, and I was really, really excited to go to the party in a way that I don't normally get that excited. And I was like, I can't wait, because I just thought, I can't wait for everyone to see how fantastic our outfits are.

You really were like that. It really put, like, a energy in your step.

Yeah, I loved it. I was so excited.

So I don't want anyone to hear this and go, oh, this is Matt's kind of Matt's body shaming people and saying everyone needs to train. Although I do believe everyone should train. It's our way of saying, doing things that make you feel sexy, that make you feel good in your body, that make you feel like, Ooh, I like my new kicks today. Oh, I like my new outfit today. Oh, I like the way my hair looks today. Doing those things makes you more likely to enjoy taking yourself out and keep your head up in the room. And that makes it more likely that you will actually have interactions with people that are spontaneous and unexpected.

Rocket ship underpants. Live your life like you're just wearing your favorite rocket ship underpants.

What, rocket ship underpants?

Just your favorite set of underpants.

This is classic Jameson wisdom. Just cap off the point.

The great thing about training every day is you kind of just like, you put a natural pep in your step and you kind of naturally have that swagger. If you miss a day at the gym, that's fine. Just put on your rocket ship underpants. Your favorite pair of underpants makes you.

Feel like, all right, I'm good to go today. Well, I feel like that needs to be merch that we sell. Can we get some sort of design rocket ship, like a rocket ship on some underpants?

I'd appreciate that, at least if we.

Were not on my to-do list.

Steve, do you like this point?

Yeah, I think how you feel determines whether you are bothered. And if you are not ready, you don't even take opportunities when they're there. If I felt like crap and then me and a friend went for coffee and there was a chance, oh, should we go and get a drink after? I'll be like, I look like crap, like I'm not gonna want to go and talk to a woman if I look like this. You know what I mean? You kind of just threw your sweatpants on or whatever, and you just feel not like this. You're unshaven, you feel, and then just like, well, I'm not gonna want to go and be sociable or go to a bar after or hang out or party. So, yeah, just feeling like you're ready. It's really important.

Let me go home and put on my rocket ship underpants. and then we can go out.

My tip for this, for anyone who works from home, is I shower and get ready in the morning. Like, the temptation sometimes is to be like, oh, I'm at home. I'll just shower later today. And it's being that idea that if you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. You know, if you get ready first thing in the morning and make yourself look your best, the rest of the day, you're in a place where you're primed for any opportunity that could come your way. You could be in the grocery store later that day and you'll be happy to bump into someone attractive because you already look your best. If you've saved your shower and your routine for five o'clock in the afternoon, then it means that you don't want to bump into anybody attractive. that whole day. So just stay in a state of readiness by getting ready first thing in the morning.

I love that. What's number five?

The fifth reason that you're single, that has nothing to do with love, is that you're too tired.

Hmm. Go on.

Well, we all have a lot going on in our lives. And one of the worst things about being out of balance is that it puts us in a kind of continual burnout state. That means firstly, our energy is off. So if we meet people, our energy is just off. We're not, when you're tired and in burnout mode, you're not playful. You're easy to anger, quick to anger. There's an irritability about us. We get frustrated, we often get pessimistic, we feel resentful. And these are energies that we wear wherever we go. And it puts us in a rush. When you're in a rush, you don't engage with people. I, you know, that constant state of, I've got to get to the next thing, I've got to get to the next thing, and being tired as you do it.

You don't know that state, do you?

How dare you with your sarcasm.

You don't do that.

It's not sarcasm, it's empathy, Matthew. We care about you.

No.

Stand corrected.

Never thought about it. I'm now being flanked by it on both sides. You sarcastic cretins.

And this is what happens when you're tired.

Well, that, and being too tired means you don't wanna say yes to invitations. It means you don't feel inclined to date. And it means if you do happen to run into somebody, you're less likely to have the time or the energy to do anything about it.

I always think about, I think you said it was Dr. Ruth. I heard the story from you, but you were on some talk show.

It was on Rachel Ray. Rachel Ray.

And, wait, tell the story about what Dr. Ruth said.

I think Rachel oh, she was on, that's right. So she was on Rachel Ray the same day I was. Have you ever seen Dr. Ruth, Audrey? Mm-mm. We have to do something with Dr. Ruth. We maybe we'll get her as an interview on the Love Life Club. We have to do this.

I'm gonna make a note right now, 'cause... Imagine Matthew was a woman born in the 1930s.

I think you've seen a video. I think you've seen me on stage. She is this just the sex therapist. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

The people in America will know her because she just is a kind of legend who's been around for such a long time. And I don't know how old Dr. Ruth is now. She must be, like, mid 90s, right?

Yeah, it must be.

But she's tiny. Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. And... That's so cool. So great.

Yeah.

Is she still broadcasting?

Um, she's... I think she is. I need to get in touch with her.

She's still active on Twitter. She's just active.

I need to get in touch with her. She wasn't she in the Holocaust?

Yeah, she survived all kinds of Holocausts.

She survived all kinds of Holocausts. I think she was a very young child. in the concentration camps. Amazing, amazing woman and pioneered because she was talking about sex in America on TV in scandalous ways for her time. And she was so sex positive and so like, there's a documentary I want you to watch on her because it really will touch you. It's just amazing, amazing woman. And, we were on Dr. Ruth and.

She... You were on Rachel Ray.

Sorry, I was on Rachel Ray and Dr. Ruth was on Before Me. And she was sat with Rachel Ray on this big talk show. And Rachel Ray said to her, I think she was talking, she was either talking about sex or bringing life to your, bringing good energy to your partner or something. And Rachel Ray went, oh, but you know, get so tired, you know? And Dr. Ruth, in her accent, she was like, tired. I have no time for tired people. If you need, if you're tired, sleep.

Yeah, I love that. I always think of that because whenever I feel, it's just so common now. It's like we're always just trying to plan our next coffee or trying to get the right amount of energy and then I just think about, like, what would Dr. Ruth do right now? She'd just be killing it. She'd just have so much energy, so much enthusiasm. And it's also something that I think Emily Morse said, too, when we spoke to her, you spoke to her on the Love Life membership, which is that one of the sexiest things in the bedroom is just enthusiasm. And what I liked about the Dr. Ruth story is, like, I think it adds the appropriate amount of shame when you're feeling that tiredness.

Sheamason strikes again.

Yeah, I do.

Sheamason. Sheamason. strikes, where it's just like, all right, wake up a little bit. You're alive, you know? It's just like, in this moment, like, do you have to just, it's one thing to be tired, but do you have to, like, be tired? You know what I mean?

Right.

Does that have to be your story for the next hour?

But that's a good way of putting it because that's, we have to decide, do we want that to be our story? We go through life and we add so much to our plate and we say yes to so many things and we try and please so many people. and at the end of it all, we love myself included. We love to talk about how tired we are. And we wear it as a badge of honor. And it's certainly not sexy. It's not helping our love lives. It's not making us inclined to go out there and meet new people. And, and it, and it might be a real thing. I'm not saying it's an act. We, we might really be tired, but if we keep, if we're tired all the time, and if every evening you get to the end of the evening and you're like, I can't go on a date. I cannot be bothered to go and do this, to add energy to my love life. I'm exhausted. If you keep getting to that place, then you have to ask yourself, is this a story you want to keep telling? And I have full empathy. I'm not trying to say that I know there are people in positions where they are trying to look after a sick relative, they are trying to hold down a job or two. They are trying to raise children as a single mother in some cases. In many cases, they are trying to deal with all of the admin they have to do around the house. They're trying to where possible fit in time for a best friend if they're lucky on the weekend and occasionally see other family members. And by the time they've done all these things, they are dead. There is no energy left. And when that's the case, like that is going to have a very real impact on our love life. A, because it requires a little time. And B, and some would argue, and I would argue more importantly, it requires a little energy.

It also requires us to bring our best self.

Exactly.

Because you're never gonna attract the kind of person you want if you bring in the worst version of yourself every time.

And that's the thing. You can. Most people, even if they say they don't, most people have a little time or they don't have as energy because somehow even the busiest Among Us find time for the latest big show on Netflix somehow, but it requires nothing of them. And now love life requires a little energy. And it's an energy we don't have. And energy is, when you really think about it, time is energy. If you don't have energy, it doesn't matter how much time you have, you won't be able to use it.

You can tell on a date or on someone's Tinder profile when they find dating a chore, and even though they're there, they're not really having fun with it. They're not coming on the date like this is gonna be a joy. They're coming on the date going, I hope this isn't disappointing. And that that energy feeds into everything. Like you meet someone who's who just thinks, oh, God, I just, oh, dating is hard, isn't it? Like my job's so hard dating. I barely have time for this. And you're thinking, like, you need lift. At the beginning of a relationship, you need lift. It needs two people to be like, yeah, like, yeah, this is great. I want to do that this weekend. I want to take you to this restaurant. I want to go to that gallery. You both at different times need to be that person giving it lift. But if you're kind of like tired, bored, lacking in energy is very, very hard.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So the answer to this is not an easy one. It's a it's a structural issue in our lives. but we have to start asking ourselves, what would I need to do to free up some energy? What would I need to start saying no to? How would I need to reorganize my life or my time? What do I need to stop doing? And where do I need to have boundaries? Because if I don't, I'm not just not gonna have time. I'm not going to have energy. And if I don't have energy, it doesn't matter how much time I have. If I'm burned out, I will not be able to use it. and our love life requires us to be the kind of optimistic and positive person with a little life in them who can go on a date and be the kind of energy that somebody else wants to be around. And it have, by the way, have enough energy in our exchanges with people that we even get that date in the first place. So we have You work from home. You have friends, not communities. You live in the middle of nowhere. You don't train, which remember is a bigger metaphor. It's not just about training. And you're too tired. Email us podcast@matthewhussie.com We would love to know either something you feel we've left out, that is indirectly having a big effect on your love life, even though it has nothing to do with love. Or if one of these in particular has really resonated with you, if you have a comment you want to make on, whoa, when you were saying one of those five things gave me an epiphany about my life right now and something that needs to shift, email us. We want to read your story. on an upcoming episode of the podcast. I also want to encourage everyone to go on Instagram and tag the show. Put a story up on your Instagram, tag the show, maybe tag an episode you like and link to it for the people that follow you and tag us. My account is the Matthew Hussey tag the Matthew Hussey account, and we're gonna pick not only will we repost some of those stories, but we're gonna pick one of those stories and that listener to answer a question for on the podcast. And we can do it anonymously. But if you are a listener and you want your question answered, we will pick one of those people who post a story about the podcast and tag me on Instagram. If you then DM me with your question, we'll pick one of those questions to answer on the podcast.

That's fun. He just threw that out there and didn't tell us about it. Yeah, a little better competition.

I thought it would be fun.

Yeah, it sounds so fun.

If you haven't already downloaded the free guide, the nine texts, I want to encourage everyone to go and do that. That's something super practical you can get right now for free.

You know, you know the best free guide that people should go and download. I was looking at the guys recently. Get the free training. Oh, you like that one?

I love that one.

Okay.

All right. Don't go and download nine texts. No, don't go down the nine texts. @ninetexts.com.

Don'T go and download. Sounds like you're telling them to do it.

No, no, I'm not. I just don't even. I don't think I even got to.

The end of my sentence.

So people will be like, where do I get those nine? They don't want the 90. They They wouldn't have even known where to go to ninetext.com to get it.

Exactly. That's what I'm saying. They literally, it's like no one would have arrived at ninetext.com.

They couldn't get those things. They wouldn't have known how to get there.

Don't listen to them.

Go to get the free training. No. What is get the free training? It's a video training on commitment. Well, it's not on commitment, but it's on the subject of commitment and what to do when you're stuck in the phase of the limbo stage, I suppose, you know, when you're in a kind of situationship, don't know where you stand, don't know how to ask for commitment, and you're being messed around by some guy.

Where is that?

Getthefreetraining.com, is it?

No one's gonna go there.

I think they probably should, though, because it's actually, it's a free full module from the Attraction to Commitment program, and it's a fantastic module.

Yeah, it is. It's amazing. I just I was reviewing them the other day and I just I love it.

Well, I want to just finish by reading an email here. This one is from Linda, one of our dear listeners who emailed into podcast@matthewhussy.com Linda said, you said to email about any epiphany anyone had. I don't know if I've had one or not. However, I have been in a relationship for almost seven years and a good portion of that time have been unhappy. I have told my boyfriend several times, at least three, about how I feel, why, and what needs to happen to change that. The last time I told him, it's been six years and I won't be living like this for another year. It's been seven months and all I'm getting are promises and excuses. My birthday is coming up and he told me he was going to come visit me. We're long distance and his family loves me. I doubted it, but I said, Great. Yesterday he told me he won't be able to make it, but maybe I could visit him. I don't know if it was an epiphany or the straw that broke the camel's back, but that's going to be a no. I've spent the entire day trying to think of the words to end it. You should know he has a history of drug use and a few years ago relapsed, one of the reasons I didn't end it sooner. I was terrified he'd harm himself. and yes, I know I'm not responsible for any of that. I just decided I'm done. I'm not getting any younger, and I would rather be single and alone than in a relationship and alone. Wish me luck. Thanks for allowing me to rant and for the podcast. It really helped. Well, thank you so much, Linda. That.

That's amazing.

How strong. That's.

That's actually. That is amazing. I mean.

Yeah, some real six years. People are going through real all the time.

Well, thank you for taking the time to email us, Linda. We love hearing your stories on the love life podcast. Send them into podcast@matthewhussy.com, and we'll read more of them in upcoming episodes. And thank you to all of you who listen, because it is wild how much this podcast is growing every month. We had a hundred a thousand more downloads last month than the month before. It is really crazy. So thank you. It's so validating. It gives us so much energy in going into each new episode. Tell your friends, tell your family, send it around. I cannot tell you how much it means to us. And we'll see you next time.