Is Modern Dating Destroying Commitment? | Rewind
24 Dec 2022 · 7 min
Matthew Hussey argues that shorter attention spans, entitlement, and endless dating options are killing commitment. He says to find someone in the right life stage, let trust build through their actions, and ask early if they actually want a relationship.
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The easiest thing you can do for yourself is to look for guys in the right stage of their lives instead of trying to convert guys in the wrong stage of their lives. Welcome everybody to the Love Life Podcast.
I am Matthew Hussey and I believe today's episode is really gonna help you accelerate your love life today. Check it out and I'll speak to you at the end of the episode.
So I am really puzzled by modern day commitment. It seems that people have a really hard time committing these days. There's always something better out there. I'm sure social media has a lot to do with it. people comparing their lives to others. I know in LA where I live, a lot of men have Peter Pan syndrome and they don't want to grow up. But it makes me wary to get into a relationship because I feel like people are always kind of worried about maybe there's something better out there. And commitment just doesn't seem to be as honored as it used to be. And it's causing me some fear into getting into relationships. And I think I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. How I can maybe work through some of that and be more trusting?
Yeah, that's a great two part question. I mean, firstly, I think in general, people are worse at committing to anything these days. I think people are worse at committing to careers. I think they're worse at committing to a life path. I think they're worse at committing to marriage. I think we have shorter attention spans and also we have, I think, a certain level of entitlement these days that makes us feel like we're entitled to a job that is amazing and exciting the whole time. And as soon as it's not, we feel like we need to quit and move move on to something else. I think we feel like we're entitled to a relationship that isn't any work that's supposed to be easy. And then as soon as it's not, we start looking for the next thing. And not to mention, if you live in a place like La and people in London or New York or many major cities will all relate to this, you do face a lot of people with a lot of different options. And everything is. It's ev.
In.
In a city like this, it's everything all the time. It's everything always. You can have whatever you want any time of day. You can go out every night of the week. There are always new people. There's an endless stream of them. There's always something else going on. And that makes it somewhat difficult. Now, what we have to understand is that there are different experiences of life. There's the experience, for example, of going out and sleeping with multiple people and having a kind of roster of people on the go that you enjoy and you're just seeing where that takes you and you have all the variety that comes with that. Then you have the experience, which is being with one person and sharing your day with them and figuring out how they are when they get home and telling them how you are when you get home. And, you know, you go and you go and do something with that person and you can really relate to them because you know them, you share your news with them and you wanna share your news because they know how hard you worked for that promotion that you're now excited about, unlike the person you met last week who doesn't care. It's a different experience. People grow and as they mature or hopefully mature, not every guy does, But as they mature, they start to have, they value experiences differently. Some people go through their lives and they begin to truly value that sense of real meaning and connection that comes with being with one person. Other people, by the way, never get to that stage. I actually, I truly believe that that's the minority. I think that most people actually get to a point where they want more meaning in their lives.
That's very good to hear because that's kind of what I was wondering is, you know, how things have changed, you know, and I think of my parents in the sixties, whatever, it was such a natural thing. to commit to somebody and that's what you did. And now it seems more unnatural to do that because, you know, divorce is prevalent and things. But I think like you're saying inherently maybe in humans, like people ultimately do want a quality experience. And so it just does, it's like a maturity thing then.
It is. And here's where the results get skewed because I think that most guys will get to a point where they want more meaning with the minority never wanting more meaning or having some sort of problem internally that stops them from accessing that part of themselves. Here's where the results get skewed. Many guys, because of this sense of entitlement where we think, God, before I get to a certain age, I have to have played around enough. I have to have traveled enough. I've had to have had a ton of adventure. I need to have made a certain amount of money. I need to be in a certain place in my status, in my career. They have all of these things that they feel like they need to check off before they meet the woman that they're going to spend their life with and settle down. Here's the problem. Despite this sense of entitlement, many of them never achieve all of those things by the time they meet that woman.
Right.
So all of a sudden, they're meeting this amazing woman and they think, God, I could marry this woman. I could spend my life with this woman. If only I'd been to all those countries I already wanted to go to. If only I feel like I played around enough, had enough adventure. If only I'd already made that money that I said I'd make, you know, I said I'd be a millionaire by 30. I'm not. I need to keep going with that. They have all of these things that they feel like they haven't done yet when they meet that person. And all of a sudden, they find themselves sabotaging a relationship, not because the relationship's wrong. but because they feel like they haven't arrived at that place in their life just yet.
That is so profound and is, I think, so true.
Yeah, it's tough. It's very, very tough. So, yeah, it's tough. Here's the key. The key isn't about trusting more. I think the idea of trust is actually misguided in many cases. The onus isn't on you to just trust people blindly. What you do is you allow people to earn your trust and you give them the chance in the first place. That's all it is. I'm gonna allow you to put in that five percent of amount of effort that allows you to get five percent of my trust, then 10% and 15% and so on. That's how any relationship is built. You don't start with the trust, you build the trust. So any guide that's gonna be worthy of you has to show that he's worthy of you by the investment that he puts in and by showing you that he's actually interested in the same things that you're interested in in terms of a relationship. that's going to be built over time. The easiest thing you can do for yourself is to look for guys in the right stage of their lives instead of trying to convert guys in the wrong stage of their lives.
So, so true. If you want to find a guy.
In the right stage of his life or you want to find out if a guy is in the right stage of his life, simply ask him the right questions. When you're early on, ask him, you know, what's, are you interested in a relationship at this stage in your life? Or do you feel like you still have more that you want to get out of your system? If you talk about his past relationship, why did you break up with that person? That'll tell you a lot. by the way, does he talk about it being, you know, he's the reason that they broke up because he wasn't ready for a relationship, or is it because of something that she was doing and therefore he just hadn't found the right person? You're gonna be fine because you're clearly an intelligent person. You clearly want the result and you're clearly measured. You're not biased. You just want to find someone great. So keep going out there, keep your chin up, and when you talk to guys, measure them based on their investment, not based on what you want them. to be.
Just a reminder to go over to YourDatingSolution.com if there is a particular love life challenge you're having right now and you want to know which one of my solutions is best to solve it. There's a tool on the website that will recommend you one of my solutions based on your specific problem. Go check it out at YourDatingSolution.com. www.solution.com, and I will speak to you in the next episode of Love Life.

