When Is It Too Soon to Spend the Night? (Matthew Hussey & Stephen Hussey)
In this April 2021 episode, Matthew Hussey reads a listener’s email asking when it’s appropriate to have an in‑home date early in a new romance. Matthew, Stephen, and a conversational AI explore the nuances of early physical intimacy versus building emotional connection. They distinguish two risks: moving too quickly into a “couple‑stage” that can scare a partner away, and slipping into a purely sexual, friends‑with‑benefits dynamic that lacks deeper bonding. Throughout the dialogue they stress that genuine conversation, shared activities outside the home, and clear intent are essential for healthy progression. They coin the phrase “Amazon Prime and Recline” as a fresh alternative to “Netflix and chill,” and discuss how the pandemic forced many to redefine what an in‑home date means. Practical advice is offered for people who feel vulnerable to being used: assess a partner’s willingness to engage in non‑sexual outings, ask real questions, and watch for consistent effort beyond bedroom encounters. The episode concludes with a plug for Matthew’s virtual retreat and a reminder to balance prudence with openness when navigating early dating stages.
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Got an email in that simply reads, Too early to go to his place. So they said, when it comes to the early stages of dating, i.e. first month or two, what would you say is the right balance between having exterior dates versus dates where you go to one another's place? Part of me wonders whether getting to the in-home dates too quickly or doing those too frequently in the beginning gets you to the coupley stage prematurely, which may scare the guy off. Hope to hear your thoughts on this. Sincerely, one of your original followers. I don't know how OG that means, but you could be back. Back to 2009, in which case, big respect.
I mean, Steve, I could have been 17. Right. When she joined, you'd never even seen.
A woman's home at that age.
Not much. Well.
Maybe, maybe he had, but not, not a lot.
I.
Think there's not just a danger of you getting to the couple stage too quickly and scaring him off. There's obviously the danger of getting to the casual categorization where it's just kind of all very easy.
And it's yeah, well, those are two different things, right? Those are two different kinds of risk.
Right, yeah, coupley is like scaring him off by getting to the coupley stage too quickly might be inviting him to dinner with your parents. But inviting him over or going over to his house doesn't necessarily get you to the coupley stage that's going to scare him off. It just might get you to the friends with benefits stage or just hanging out at each other's homes and it all being very Very easy and frictionless or friction full.
Amazon Prime and Recline, as I'm calling it now, just to not be basic and say Netflix and chill. Let's go Amazon Prime and Recline.
That's not catching on and how much is Bezos paying you? You are.
I'm not, no comment.
There is some under the table money coming from Bezos there.
Oh yeah, Jeff's got a lot of skin in this podcast.
This podcast is brought to you by Amazon.
It's not, it's not.
Buy shit you don't need.
It's not brought to you by Amazon.
Can you imagine that as Amazon's slogan? What's up guys, quick aside, if you want to go somewhere that has something we all actually need, go to mHVirtuAlRetreat.com because for the next couple of days only, the early bird tickets are available to my live virtual retreat. this September from the 24th to the 26th. And with the early bird ticket, you get a bunch of bonuses, not just 25% off the ticket price, but you also get a live Q&A with me, you get a session on how to find great mentors this year, and you get a signed copy of my book. That's all with the early bird ticket, but they're only available for the next couple of days. So if you are going to come to the live virtual retreat, do it now. Go to mHVirtuAlretreat.com and now back to the video. There's what you want to do and there's what's prudent to do. You might want to jump someone that you just met five minutes ago. It doesn't mean it's prudent to do that. It might not even mean that safe to do that.
Right?
So I'm just going to extremes here to illustrate this point. I would say this to people. People make this gendered in a way that I think is is unhelpful and actually a distraction because I would say this to both men and women that I would say to a guy, if you really like someone, you maybe don't want to have, don't want to be in a rush with, you know, the things that you might normally do if you were being more casual, because allowing things to grow more organically in some ways allows allow things to unfold in a bit more of a meaningful way. And it allows you to kind of attach a little more meaning to each stage of it. That's not to say that you can't sleep with someone quickly and then sort of retro actively and, you know, from that point on, start to create meaning around those events. And there are plenty of people that end up together that moved incredibly fast in the beginning. So I'm not saying that can't happen, but. It sometimes can be a bit of a distraction from the getting to know each other part when a lot of heavy intimacy and fast forwarding stages becomes a kind of surrogate for real connection and actually getting to know each other. And the time that you spend you know, and that's not to say you could do that going to each other's houses, right? It's not. You don't have to have some. I'm not about rules. You don't have to have some rule that says, I can't go to someone's house or they can't come to mine. It's just that sometimes it's misleading when you get into a relation or into a dynamic with someone in the first month or two where you're just always like, what it becomes is just a very sexual relationship with nothing else. going on at the same time. You know, you, you know each other's bodies a lot better at the end of a month, but you don't know each other's minds a lot better. You don't.
And it's an illusion of progress.
Yes, exactly. There's an, there's an intimacy that's happened that can certainly make you invested, and it can absolutely mean there are now feelings involved and, and you can get hurt, but that doesn't. You know, you could still ask yourself, how well do we know each other? How much time have we taken to actually have conversation? You know, relationships, good relationships, relationships with solid foundations arise out of an abundance of conversation. You know, you're in conversation with another person in a way that helps you extract their values, demonstrate yours, gauge your compatibility, to what extent you really do think the same way, to what extent you have a similar outlook on life, to what extent your goals, your futures are aligned in what you want, at least where you are now. Those things arise out of conversation and intimacy can blind you to the fact that you haven't actually been having any conversation.
Right.
You mean physical Physical sex or intimacy?
Physical intimacy, yes. Sexual intimacy, yes. They can blind you to the fact that you haven't had any real intellectual or emotional intimacy that arises out of conversation as opposed to emotional intimacy that arises out of a physical connection.
Yeah.
And then of course there is the argument of, how, you know, is when you go and start spending time at each other's houses, are you giving it to someone to, there's that whole argument, right? The whole, is it too easy for someone? Am I not in a relationship with someone, but I'm giving them everything as if I'm in a relationship with them? And is that gonna make them not wanna progress to the next level with me? That I'm going to their house, sleeping with them, they're coming to mine and so on. I don't, we all know that life is a bit more nuanced than that. You know, it's not, it's not about making, for me at least, everyone has to make their own mind up. But for me, it's not about making some rule, like, I'm not going to go to your house until blah, blah, blah. It's more, I think, it's more looking at the situation with an honest eye and saying, has this become about one dynamic that is continuing whilst no other part of the dynamic is actually progressing.
Yeah.
Like, am I just getting the phone call at the end of the night or the text that, you know, to come over on a Saturday night? But we're actually never doing anything else. Like, we're not going to the movies. Not that that's been a grand old activity we've been able to do in the last year, but, you know, we're not. going out for a walk, you know, doing something that is like going for coffee, sitting outside and having a chat at a restaurant or whatever. If we're never doing any of those things, why is that? Is it because they don't feel, you know, maybe we've both gotten into this kind of dynamic where it feels sort of unnatural to do those things. And I need to take responsibility for changing up that dynamic. Instead of just being like, I'm not coming to your house anymore, suggesting, Hey, do you want to go for breakfast tomorrow? I know this great place. Or, Do you want to go for a walk in... Do you want to go on a hike together? Or, Do you want to go for a walk in the park tomorrow? You know, and if you consistently find that they're not interested in any other activity than hooking up at the end of the night, then you start to get your answer about the lack of progression. And ideally, we don't get ourselves into that situation in the first place. And by that, I don't mean that you never, you know, you always hold off on any physical intimacy until you see everything else, because that's up to everyone's personal rules and standards. But what I mean is, ideally you wouldn't get into a situation where you realize that after four weeks, you've only been going to each other's houses to sleep together and nothing else has happened because you wanna, like, you wanna be moving both in tandem if you're gonna do it that way.
And you don't, if you only from the beginning just someone comes over at 10 p.m. and you sleep together, it's not that, I've definitely heard of couples who slept together really early and stayed together and they said, oh, we slept together in the first few nights. So it's not, like you say, it's not about hard and fast rules, but it's just that if that's the only thing that happens at the beginning, then you kind of have no gauge on their intentions, as if they have any interest in moving things in another direction. If you suddenly, after four weeks, suggested, Hey, why don't we go do this with my friends on this weekend? And they're like, I don't want to do that. Then you realize, oh, It was just about coming over and sleeping together and they actually don't want a part of my life at all.
It shouldn't come as a shock that they don't want to do any of those things with you after you've already gotten really physically and emotionally close to them. That means you've skipped a whole portion of organic relationship building.
Yeah.
And by the way, if you are someone, this is super important, if you are someone who feels easily used or if you feel like it would make you feel resentful or it would make you feel hurt to go down a physical road with someone and then none of that is forthcoming, none of the, you know, spending time together, getting to know each other, having real conversation, progressing the relationship is forthcoming, then don't do that. at that stage. See if you have the other things first. See if they are even interested in spending any time with you on that level. See if they are interested in asking you real questions and spending time getting to know you. Because those tend to be signs that someone is open to an actual relationship. You know, one of the surest signs that someone is looking for something meaningful is when they're actually trying to have conversation with you and get to know you. Because they're not in the stage of trying to mindlessly hook up. They're actually in the stage of not wanting to waste their time with the wrong person. So they will try to get to know you more and they will be open to spending some time together because sleeping with you, although important to them, right? How many men is it not important to want that sexual connection and women, too. But we know men can rush. You want to have a tendency to want to rush into that. That that may still be high on his list, but so will the other stuff. Or it may even be that the other stuff is higher on his list, that no longer is it like, I just want to jump into bed with you. But it's like, well, I actually am looking for someone serious, so my primary motive is actually trying to get to know you to see if we're compatible.
Do you think then you need to think about your balance of, hey, we're doing the in-home dates too much? I guess the answer is you need to look at A, what someone's intent is, and one of the ways you can look at that is when you actually suggest doing things other than that, and taking some time to actually do some wholesome things where you have quality time, different experiences, times outside of just sex, physical.
And look, let's make something clear. This last year has, in a sense, people who don't want a date to equate to sex will have had to redefine, redefine what the in-home date actually means. Because if you take London in the height of winter, when everything was on lockdown and about the only activity you could actually do outside of your home was take a walk in a park on a freezing cold day. Wasn't the sexiest date in the world.
Right. Right.
So it's natural to be like, well, the date is gonna be in home because that's all we have. But I think that we have to say an in-home date doesn't have to equate to physical intimacy, but. you know, sometimes that needs to be made clear to someone.
Well, thank you so much and I hope that helps and stay safe out there if you're dating during these fraught times of pandemic and whatnot. And yeah, we'll see you on the next episode. If you haven't already and you really want to come join our virtual retreat, we are doing an early bird special. We currently have 25% off and we only have that till 30th of April. so this is the time to grab your ticket if you know you want to make a big change this year, not just in your relationships but your confidence, your goals, where you're going, everything in your life. This is the event to come on. Go to MH Virtual Retreat.
