548: How To Have The Relationship You Desire with Matthew Hussey

I'm curious. Like, people say opposites attract, but then I wonder if you're dating someone that you would have zero friends, Kind of like very few interests in common, different backgrounds. Can the love be enough for the relationship to work? Or does one person kind of have to adapt the other person's lifestyle?

On the values level, I don't know that anyone would say opposites attract. You know, your values have to sync up. The. The way that you think about life on some level has to sync up. There has to be common ground. You know, there's a. Christopher Hitchens used to say, it's less important what you think than how you think. And there's something. There's a parallel there with relationships that what you both do on the surface and what you think is in some cases less important than how you think. You know, you. You may love golf and I love, you know, painting. Why we love those things is actually a lot more illuminating than that. We love those things because we might actually love those things for the same reason. There might be an awful lot in common about you and me. We've just exercise that need in different ways. Maybe both allow for our creativity, or both make us feel in touch with nature, or both make us feel like we're on a path to mastery, but we've just exercised that in different ways. So the what is less important than. Than the why?

I'm the one I've been waiting for. Welcome back to the High Self podcast. My name is Sahara Rose, and on this podcast, I love to take spirituality and matters of the heart and make it really fun, modern, and relatable. And I personally like to talk about all of the obstacles that I'm going through, especially. A year and a half ago after my divorce, I was thrown into the abyss of what it's like to be single in 2024. So if you're single, I see you. It's hard out here on these streets, and I've learned so much. Like, when I first became single, I was like, I guess I just have to go, like, find another husband. Like, shouldn't take too long, right? Like a month tops. And now I'm like, oh, wow, there is so much I didn't know. And thank God for that because I would have, like, jumped into probably a toxic relationship. And I've learned so much about myself through really being present with my heartbreak and the grief and sitting with my aloneness, because there is that huge temptation to just, like, go find someone else pretty instantly. And after, you know, six months of really sitting in that starting to, like, open myself up to, like, what is dating even like? And it was, you know, the last time I was single, I was 24 years old. I'm 33 now, so it was like a whole other world out there. I was navigating how dating apps work and what a situationship is. I had heard the word, but I didn't really know what that was. And, you know, just all of the. It was so different than. I feel like back in the day, people would date because they wanted to, like, get married. Oh, no. And now they're, like, dating, and it's like, why? They're like, I don't know. It's like. And it was so interesting for me to navigate because then I started to ask myself, like, why am I even dating? You know, and what are my intentions? And I feel like it's so important in this process to really sit with ourselves of what do we really desire relationship for? And getting really clear around that first. And that way, when we are in, you know, different dating situations, we're not just going from, oh, I really like this guy, instead being clear on our own intentions, which, especially for us women, can be really difficult. And what I love about Matthew Hussey, in his new book, he talks about how a lot of us women are quite passive in our dating. And I'll be the first to admit it. You know, we hear things like, oh, like, it'll just happen when you least expect it. Like, just don't think about it. Like, the less you think about it, the better your relationship will be. And it's like, think about anything in life. If I'm just like, yeah, I'm gonna start a business. So I'm just, like, not gonna think about it. I'm just, like, gonna just, like, let God handle the millions of dollars, and I'm just gonna wait right here. It's like, that wouldn't work. So why do we feel like in relationships we should put no emphasis or focus on learning about it when it's something that, for most of us, like, I believe the purpose of life is love, so it's important for us to start learning about these things. And I feel like a lot of us put emphasis in learning about relationships, but dating, I had never even focused on that before. So I came across Matthew Hussey on YouTube, and I was like, oh, my God. He's like Harry Potter in real life. This is so cool. And he was full of so much information. I was so excited that his new book was coming out so I could have him here on the podcast and ask all of the questions that I have. I know you have, and just get really deep into what it's like to date, especially as a spiritual person. And before we drop into this episode, be sure to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast. That is the best way to stay up to date on the latest episodes. We've got this in video format, so if you're just hearing my voice, be sure to also watch our fabulous outfits on video as well on Spotify, YouTube, or the Apple Store. This is the best way to stay in the flow with future conversations and also allows the podcast to reach more people. So hit subscribe so I can keep vibing with you on all future episodes. Now let's get into this one. So without further ado, let's welcome Matthew Hussey on the Highest Health Podcast. I hope you're not offended that I called you Harry Potter. Yeah, it's like, the highest compliment here.

I'll take it. I'll take it. There's worse things to be called for us.

It's like, that's like. I think every. I'm sure you see this, but, like, every American is like, I want to go to London and find a boyfriend.

Have you seen this?

Oh, my gosh. Majorly. It's like. I think it's the accents we've, like, romanticized in our culture, but I feel like a lot of us, we, like. Okay, here's where I'll start. I feel like a lot of us, when we become single, we create this, like, romanticized version in our heads of, like, who we're meant to be with and become obsessed with this idea. And then we're, like, putting people in this, like, oh, could it be you? Could it be you? Rather than, like, actually, like, asking ourselves, we want a relationship for, et cetera. So let's start with, like, this concept of, like, even. They call it, like, limerence or having these projections or fantasies around people. How can we start to get more real about what we really desire in relationship?

Well, I. I think we have to. It's always useful to start with what hasn't worked in the past, because most people who are listening to this, I assume, are an age where they've already had a couple of misfires in love and they've already had. Perhaps they've had their heart broken. Perhaps they've been in a relationship that was really difficult while they were in it, where they felt incredibly anxious. Like, you know, I. I can remember being in a relationship where I was really very Unhappy while I was in it. And a huge part of why I was unhappy and why I didn't feel good and why I felt anxious is because I didn't feel safe and my needs weren't being met. And anyone can relate to that from some relationship that they really thought they wanted. They told themselves that this was. This person fit the bill in some way. And then they found that because there was some fundamental thing that was missing that they at the time may not have admitted to themselves was missing, they were incapable of being happy or ever finding peace in that relationship. So starting from a place of what has not worked in the past. Did it really work when I just went for this person who fit this type that I thought was for me and then found that there were fundamental things missing? Almost certainly not. So that's a very useful thing. To go into our next stage of our love life, we can at least ask ourselves what, when it was missing, caused me tremendous pain, despite how much I thought I wanted someone, despite how important I made them, what made me miserable when it was missing? And people might come up with answers like, well, I never had that person's consistency. That person was very hot and cold. They never showed they really wanted me. You know, I really wanted a relationship with them. And they kept telling me that they weren't ready or they wanted different things than me in life, or I never really felt seen by this person, or I felt like I had to be a different version of myself to make them happy or to, you know, to impress them. I could never truly be vulnerable or I felt I'd be judged or I'd be shamed. When you realize those things, those things already are a very important barometer. And then we have to start looking for those things in the next relationship. You know, what you said about having this, you know, the British man in London that gonna fall for, and it's all going to be great. In a sense, these. These predictions we make for our love life are a way of not being present in our real life. There's a British poet called David White, who. He wrote a book called Consolations, which was all about taking words that he felt had lost their meaning through overuse. And he was re imbuing them with meaning. And one of the chapters he wrote was on the word ambition. And he said he doesn't speak very favorably about ambition, but he said ambition is frozen desire. It's a very beautiful and damning phrase when it comes to ambition, Frozen desire. In other words, ambition is our attempt to have decided what's going to be best for us ahead of time. We have an ambition to make this thing, to create this company. And we think that if we create this company, that's going to be the thing that makes us happy. Or if we have an ambition to find this type of human being who's going to make us finally feel like we found the love that we're looking for. And there's a kind of arrogance we all have when we're forming our ambitions that we this is the thing that's going to make us happy. This is the thing we need. And it can actually make us miss our life. Because what brings our life meaning and what makes us feel joy and feel like we've lived a great life tend to be things that we didn't predict and couldn't have predicted. Some of the best things in life, including some of the most incredible relationships, are things we never could have predicted in the form that they came in or in the shape or in the type of person who didn't fit that idea of what we thought we'd end up with or who we thought we'd end up with. So that idea of ambition as frozen desire is something you can apply when people are searching for a very specific type of person. There's a frozen desire element to that assumes we know what's the best thing that could come for us instead of. And by the way, when we do concretize our vision around that kind of a person, what happens is we. We find someone who looks like that and speaks like that and acts like that and has that kind of a life and that kind of a charisma and that accent and that. And we think we start to try and make them fit because it fits with this idea of what we've told ourselves we want or need. Meanwhile, we miss the fact that this person makes us incredibly unhappy or that we feel really anxious with this person, or this person disrespects us, or this person is making no compromises and sacrifices while we're making a huge amount of compromise and sacrifice to make this person happy. We miss all of that. So much of what I teach and what I talk about in this book is coming back to not how you feel about someone because that can't always be trusted, but how does someone make you feel? It's a big difference between those two things. We may feel about someone that they are incredibly impressive and shiny and attractive and sexy and all of these things. And those things might make us chase very hard, but none of those things describe how someone makes us feel. And how someone makes us feel is much more important when it comes to choosing this roommate that we're going to be spending our lives with potentially.

Have you recently gone through a heartbreak that rocked your world? And honestly, you're still maybe picking up the pieces. You've learned so much from this experience, but you also know there's so much more awaiting you and probably you have an intuitive sense that this was meant to happen for you to become your highest self. Well, I've been there. At the end of 2022, I found out that my then husband had been cheating on me and it was the most horrible news I've ever gotten. But now looking back on it, I can say it was my life's greatest blessing because without that I would have never left the marriage where honestly, we were quite incompatible in many different ways. But it took me getting to that level for me to actually see what was not working in the relationship and for me to set off and create this new life where I traveled the world for a year, started producing music, singing, rapping, dropped an album called My Body is an Altar that has hundreds of thousands of streams around Spotify, creating music videos, moving to la, dressing in these really cute outfits, becoming my fullest expression, and most importantly, not having anything in my consciousness that I'm afraid of anymore. I have become truly liberated. And that is the gift of a heartbreak. So all my friends would come to me when they would go through their heartbreaks. I know a lot of people are in it right now and this is why I've decided to create my ultimate heartbreak healing course. So it guides you step by step with the exact tools and realizations that I used on myself during my heartbreak that have allowed me to not just heal from it, but but become this version of me that I am frankly obsessed with. So for 33 days, every single day, I will be guiding you through a practice journal prompt will be writing poetry, healing and transmuting so much. But most importantly, taking this as the opportunity for you to become the version of you that you've always felt it was too soon to be. So I'm so excited for you to get started. As soon as you join the course, you can get started. On day one. I have seen insane transformations and I can't wait to see what awaits you on the other side. So head over to iam saharrose.com heartbreak and use coupon code podcast for $50 off again that's I am Sahara S A H A R A rose.com heartbreak and use coupon Code podcast for $50 off. You can find that link in the show notes and I'm super excited for for you to meet the version of you that's on the other side. So I'm a super busy person. I don't have time for long morning and nighttime routines, but if there's one non negotiable I have, it's breath work. I feel so different from doing this practice and my favorite time to do it is right before I go to sleep. And this is why I love the Open app, specifically their active breathing before bed breath work journey with George. It is amazing. I do it like every night. It really gets me out of my head and back into my body and I can feel the difference in my nervous system just by doing it. So I'm obsessed with this app. They have incredible meditations, breath work journeys ranging anywhere from three minutes to 30 minutes. And best of all, it's all set to really vibey music because let's be real, sometimes you do a meditation and the music is really whack and it gets you out of it. So if you want in, you can actually get 30 days of open for free by visiting withopen.com Sahara again, that's 30 days free by visiting with open.com Sahara and you can find that link in the show notes. I am obsessed and I know you will be too. It's so true. And I feel like we try to control or have a perceived sense of control of, okay, I'm going to write down everything about this person and like, put in my order with God and they're going to show up and we're not looking at about the people all around us, friends that we've had, people that have shown up for us that could even become future relationships. I feel like you mentioned what's the thing that's often missing in your relationship and putting that at the pinnacle for myself and for a lot of women, the thing that has often been missing is someone who can meet you on a deeper emotional or soul level. And it's a conversation I have with a lot of my girlfriends of are we expecting from men what we expect from girlfriends? Are we putting them to the standard where, like, you know, he. He doesn't listen to me talk, he doesn't ask me questions, and like, how much of that should we be okay with because they're men versus, like, no, hold that standard higher because there are emotionally available men who want to listen and ask questions.

That's a. I mean, it's a great question. Yeah, it's a great question.

Just asking for personal knowledge.

You know, you're highlighting a very comm. Challenge for people and does bring up certain stereotypes about genders and to what extent are those true or an excuse that allows people not to be curious or show an interest? You know, I think finding someone who can speak our language is important and we have to decide what that language is for ourselves. I mean, I know for myself it always would have been very difficult for me to be with a person who I felt, I want to say intellectually, but I don't mean that in terms of what books we'd read. I don't need anyone to have read the same books as me, but just to be able to communicate on a similar level about things is that feeling of coming out of a movie and you're able to talk about what you loved about that movie and why in some detail or you're able to use your language to be able to really connect with what you loved about that movie and then that person's able to do the same as opposed to saying, I don't know, I just thought it was good, you know, that's. That would. For me, that would be someone who didn't necessarily speak the same language as me. But that doesn't mean that me thinking that's important should make it important to anyone else. We have to know what's important to us. That was something that was important to me, but that didn't have to extend to someone having done the same learning in life as me. I didn't need them to know about the same subjects or need me to know about the subjects they'd learned about. I think it was just a. A way of communicating.

Yeah. Someone you would be friends with. Have in your world.

Yeah, exactly. Someone I would enjoy talking about life with. You know, there's a David Brooks line that, you know, Marriage is a 50 year conversation and who can you have a 50 year conversation with? Is a good question. Now I can tell you openly, me and my wife absolutely like to talk different amounts. So she is a frustration of hers that I don't talk as much as she would like me to. That at the end of a day. For me, relaxing is turning my brain off and not talking. And for her relaxing is talking. And we're just different in that way. And you know, it does. There's not zero friction over that. There are times where she might wish I would talk a little more, I might wish she would expect me to talk a little less and. And that's okay. But when we do talk, which has to be often enough that her needs are met and that my knee. And not so often that my needs aren't met? But when we do talk, are we able to speak the same language? And again, it is an important question. Is it enough for me, I do think we have to ask ourselves, no one's perfect. And where, you know, we're going to find we're going to inevitably be met with a human being who is not the same as us. We may have an enormous amount in common, but in certain ways they will not be the same as us. Is their way of not being the same something that we have the space and the patience to navigate, or is it so far different in such fundamental ways that it is going to be a constant and chronic source of our unhappiness? How much can we meet the need that, you know, how much can they be responsible for part of that need that we have while the rest of our life is responsible for picking up the slack in some way? Yeah, you know, I, if I was demanding 100% of my wife's time, that would be a problem because then however much I talk is something that she's essentially a prisoner to. But if she is spending two nights a week with friends and that's something that is encouraged and there's a she, therefore she's going and she's having those conversations and she's having a whole different level of fulfillment there. And then it, you know, you, you do kind of get those needs met by a tribe in some way. But I think it's important to be honest about, let's be real. The person that you are in a long term relationship with is almost certainly going to be the person you spend the most time with. They are for most people, going to be the person you get in bed with every night and wake up with every morning. You're going to spend most of your evenings with them, you're going to spend most of your weekends with them, unless you have a more unorthodox relationship or it's long distance or whatever. But this is going to be the person that you demand the most from? And it's important to be real about that because you do have to ask yourself, is what I'm getting from this person and with this person enough for me? Can this sustain me? And by the way, vice versa, is what I am capable of giving to this person something that will sustain them? When the answer is no in fundamental areas, then it's worth asking the question of whether it makes sense to stay yeah.

And when you pose it like that, it makes you really think about who you date in such a different lens, you know, because I feel like a lot of times we date of like, oh, that could be interesting. Like, oh, I don't know anything about this person's world. Let me try it. But then if you've never, like, I'm curious. Like, people say opposites attract, but then I wonder if you're dating someone that you would have zero friends, kind of like very few interests in common, different backgrounds. Can the love be enough for the relationship to work? Or does one person kind of have to, like, adapt the other person's lifestyle?

Yeah, well, I think opposites can attract in certain ways. You know, you can have differences in the energy that you bring, and that can be a source of attraction. You can have opposites. You can have sort of almost superficial opposites where you like these activities. And I like very different. I like Brazilian jiu jitsu. My wife couldn't care less about, you know, martial arts. It's not an interest of hers. And is that a source of attraction? I'm not sure it's a source of attraction, but it's certainly a. It's an opposite that just adds a bit of flavor to the relationship, that we're different in certain ways. But on the values level, I don't know that anyone would say opposites attract. You know, your values have to sync up. The way that you think about life on some level has to sync up. There has to be common ground. You know, there's a. Christopher Hitchens used to say, it's less important what you think than how you think. And there's something. There's a parallel there with relationships that what you both do on the surface and what you think is in some cases less important than how you think. You know, you. You may love golf and I love. You know, painting. Why we love those things is actually a lot more illuminating than that. We love those things because we might actually love those things for the same reason. There might be an awful lot in common about you and me. We've just exercised that need in different ways. Maybe both allow for our creativity, or both make us feel in touch with nature, or both make us feel like we're on a path to mastery, but we've just exercised that in different ways. So the what is less important than. Than the why or, you know, what's really going on beneath the surface in the values that instruct our behavior. But when. When we have different values, then saying opposites attract can be very Dangerous because you, you know, if one person, their highest value is ambition and another person's highest value is presence or, you know, peace, you know, joy or play, then you might have two people who are constantly at odds because one of them sees nothing more important than continuing to grow and grow and grow and grow at the expense of their family's quality time with them, at the expense of their peace, at the expense of ever having any fun or play. And the other person might say, my idea of an ideal life is just having enough, as long as we make enough. And then we get time together as a family or we get time together as two people who love each other and we can, you know, just find ways to play in life. That's my idea of a great life. So there's a scenario where opposites attracting is. It can get people into a lot of trouble, right.

And sometimes where that peaceful person may be attracted to their ambition because they, they desire more of that. But then the lifestyle doesn't align of like maybe that person expects we're both put our laptops down at 5pm and spend time with each other. So that very thing that was attractive about the ambitious person is no longer attractive when they're working until 11pm every night.

Yeah, that's a, that's a common thing, isn't it? That idea that what attracted me in the beginning becomes the thing that I despise.

Right.

The longer time goes on and, and we sort of have to be, we have to be wary of that because we're, we disproportionately favor the things that make us immensely attracted in the beginning. The things that attract us in the beginning are responsible for our decisions about how much to invest in a person. And there are often, when we look at our friendships long term, the, the friendships we have are not necessarily based on hopefully who among our. Who, who's been the most shiny in life, you know, who was the most glamorous and exciting. And when we first met them, our friendships are usually the ones that last are based on something a lot deeper. In fact, a lot of the friends we make because of how deep shiny they are and how, you know, exuberant their personalities are. And those actually end up being a lot of the people that fall off. They're the people that either dispense with us or we get to a point where we go, God, this isn't, this isn't a true friend, or this isn't giving me. This isn't. Doesn't feel mutual. And the, the friends that I don't know about you, but the friends I've kept for a very long time, they're. They tend to be the people whose character I really admire.

Yeah.

And who. There's a real sense of mutual loyalty and reliability and showing up for each other. It's not. They're not relationships built or based on impressing each other. They're relationships built on being there for each other and admiring each other's deeper nature and our deeper character. I don't care what they do. I don't care what they're achieving. I don't care how much money they made last month. I don't care what great opportunity is happening in their life other than if it's making them happy, then great. But it's. I don't. It really. It's not interesting to me on the level of the friendship. What's interesting to me is when I speak to them, do I enjoy the time we spend together? Do I feel understood and seen? Do they feel understood and seen by me? Do they feel accepted and. Or judged? You know, if they feel judged and shamed and whatever, then, then, then that's not going to be my friend or they're not going to be my friend for very long. They're not going to want to be. So when we look at who we decide to invest in, in our love lives, why would we apply a different set of rules? We often do. Right. Based on a great first date. We. We think, oh, my God, they're amazing. I mean, I have. I had someone ask me in my. I have a coaching group called the Love Life Club, which is designed to, you know, that's the practical application of everything that I teach in this book. There was a woman who said, we had the most epic date. Well, no, I had a date with the most epic connection, but he disappeared afterwards. What should I do? And the what should I do? Is the problem in that question. Because it's someone who has taken this feeling of an epic connection on a first date and decided that that is an indicator of this person's value in her life. When that's not the case at all. It's a complete non sequitur. Just because you had an amazing date with someone, it doesn't mean that. It doesn't. It doesn't follow that therefore we should be together. A lot of the time. What you're feeling on a date is not someone's character. You're feeling their impact. And people, some of the worst people, some of the people that will hurt you the most are the people that have the highest impact when you meet them, they sort of specialize in it.

And they know how to create chemistry with you. Love it, like you've talked about.

Yeah, they're very, very good at it. And by the way, let's not forget that one of the things that can give someone impact is this kind of carefree confidence, this feeling of like, not caring, being able to just, you know, almost like just this complete not giving a fuck attitude. And the people that tend to excel at that are the people who don't give a fuck. They're the people who have no skin in the game because they're not looking for anything. They're not trying to. They're not looking at you thinking, could this be the person? They're looking at you as a vehicle for pleasure, as a vehicle for an experience of. As someone that can make them feel something temporarily until they've extracted all of the juice out of that and then they go and meet someone else to get the same thing. People who are not intentional in their love lives because they have no skin in the game, there's no stakes. And when there's no stakes, it's very easy to be carefree and confident. But for the rest of the world that actually cares, it can be a little harder to put your best foot forward on a date. You could be a little more nervous, you could be a little more in your head. And that's not a sign of what a terrible partner you would be. But someone might unfortunately be looking at us going, I just don't feel as much chemistry with this person because we're not comfortable yet. God forbid we're sitting in front of a stranger that we're kind of hoping will on some level be impressed with us. And at the same time we're looking at them going, could you be the person? I don't know. It's an awkward, fumbling process. And sometimes I think we ourselves would benefit from extending other people a little more benefit of the doubt in those early stages instead of defaulting to God. That person from last week who showed up late but was immensely charismatic and had all of this about them and didn't seem to care. God, they were exciting. I hope they text me back. That's the. These are some of the issues we just keep running into and why I think we keep finding ourselves getting hurt by these people that we say never again to.

So do you feel that we should be really clear with our intention? Like, I'm looking for marriage or a long term relationship, or I'm open to short term relationships, but want a long term relationship. Should we know that within ourselves first or should we kind of be open to getting to know someone and then sort of seeing where the relationship goes and then also when should we communicate with that, with that person?

I think we should go in with an openness of seeing where it goes. But I do think we have to decide ahead of time what's worth our time. Because if we don't, then we're just, you know, it's like, it's, I don't know, it's like walking through a market, like a bazaar, and everyone shouting at you, saying, come in, buy this, buy that. And you, you'll be dragged into every shop along the bazaar. You, you know, regardless of whether you need that thing or whether that thing's good for you or whether it's, you have to have a sense of if you're being intentional, if you're not being. If you're 25 years old and you're like, honestly, I don't care. I'm just having fun, Fair enough. There's no, you don't have to go in knowing what you want from your love life right now. And, or at least if you do, what you're being honest about is, you know what, honestly, I'm just in a learning phase. I'm dating around, I'm meeting different people. I'm not trying to have anything too serious right now, then that's okay. But if you're at a stage of your life where, you know, deep down, I want to find love, I want to find a committed relationship, I want to, you know, build a family, you have to be honest with yourself about those things. And in a way, a lot of the issues start there because a lot of people are almost afraid or even frankly, ashamed to admit that to themselves. For a lot of people, there is an extra hurdle of firstly, we get shamed by other people and by society for admitting that we want to find love, you know, instead of just going with the flow our entire lives. And when it happens to us, it really does just happen to us. And we go, oh, well, I didn't really much care if this happened at all. But now that it has, great, you know, we all want to, like, play. It's like we want to play the indifference card all the way to the altar. But life isn't really like that. You know, we, we, we want this. It's a human thing to want this. And there's nothing desperate about it, and there's nothing needy or shameful about wanting to find Love. It is an intensely human thing that I would argue pretty much all of us want for ourselves, but we have to pretend that we don't want it that much and that we're fine. And I don't want to. When it'll happen. When it happens, we have to sort of. And then displace the love that we seek onto dogs and cats and other cute things because we go, I. I'm.

You know, we have so much love inside of us.

Yeah. I just need. I need to give it somewhere. But God forbid I admit that I really want a person.

Right.

You know, that. That feels. That feels somehow shameful. So. And I speak to a lot of people who haven't admitted to themselves that, yes, this is. This is something I want. A lot of those people will inadvertently shame their friends for the ways their friends are trying. Oh, you're on three different apps. Oh, for God's sakes. You know, like, do you have to. You don't have to keep going out to try and meet someone, but deep down, we're going to bed at night going, I really wish I'd meet someone. We just don't want to be in the game with everyone else because it feels like if we're in the game, we can get hurt, we can get rejected.

Right.

If we admit we want it and then someone doesn't want us back, we feel like a fool. So a huge part of this is just admitting, yes, I. I do want to find love. Now, one of the things I talk about in the book is that you can learn to be happy enough without it. Which isn't to say that we're blissfully happy all the time. It's just happy enough is a much. I prefer happy enough as a phrase because I think it's attainable.

Right. And I like how you wrote that being single is hard. And I think a lot of times we just glamorize, like, oh, being single is, like, always so amazing. And while there are some amaz aspects of it, I do feel it's unnatural for most people to, like, live alone in an apartment with, like, no human contact. You know, it's like, not how we were designed to live.

It's like saying, it's like, glamorizing not having friends.

Right. And then be like, why do you want friends? That's so desperate. Be your own best friend.

Yeah, be your friend.

You just don't love yourself enough, and that's why you have no friends.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is sad that you want company.

Yeah, it's true. Get a Dog.

Yeah, it's true. It's the same thing. There's a yearning for friendship. There's a yearning for connection. There's a yearning for love. And part of that yearning is for the kind of love that we can't get from our friends. And that's natural, so we can be happy enough without it. I really believe that. And happy enough is you. When you are happy enough, you can still admit that if I found someone who was the right person for me, I might be even happier. You know, that might take my happiness to another level. But happy enough is like a superpower, because if you're happy enough, you can say no to the wrong thing. Yes, you can say yes to being single for another day. And that's a really, really important ability to have, because otherwise, you really will get sidetracked into these lanes that you don't want to be in that don't have happy endings. So admitting to ourselves, yes, I do want to find love. What kind of love do I want to find? What's. What's important to me. Because that will also allow you to say, what's a waste of your time when you find it.

One day, I was hanging out, and I was just thinking, you know what? Like, I love my highest. Like, she gives me the best advice ever. Like, it would be just so cool. Just be, like, hanging out in the clouds with my highest self. So I wrote this line, I'm getting high with my highest self. I ride with my highest self. I vibe with my highest self. I fly with my highest self. And I. My first language was actually Spanish. A lot of people don't know this. When I was a baby, my first word was hola. So I started rapping in Spanish, and I was just recording myself, just having fun. I'm like, pamirenas mistiosas. And then I ended up making this, like 2000s throwback reggaeton beat to it, which you are hearing right now in the background. This song is called Highest Self, and it's one of the many songs that infuses reggaeton, afrobeats, Brazilian funk with Persian music and high vibe lyrics that you feel good about getting stuck in your head. So if you head over to Spotify, Apple Music, itunes, wherever you get your music or just the show notes, you can listen to this song and all of the others on my new album, My Body is an altar. I am so curious what your favorite song on the album is. Make a reel to this song. I want to see you vibing out with your highest self. Maybe you're meditating you're with your crystals, you're doing breath work, you're in nature. Tag me at I am Sahara Rose and I'm super excited to see it and share it. So a question I have, Like, a lot of people listening to this have gotten out of long term relationships and marriages and. And they may feel more like. For me, I just feel more comfortable in long term relationships, but I've had to push myself and stretch myself around, like, try to get to know different people, try to date, even though it doesn't come naturally to me. And I'm like one of those people, I get on the apps for like a day and I'm like, I can't do this. So do you feel that we should give ourselves, like, okay, for the next six months, I'm just gonna try dating different people and getting to know myself. Or if what you want is relationship, just come back into it from that lens.

I think we have to figure out what, you know, in a sense, what challenge we're trying to solve. For example, you can admit that you want to find love and also notice that there is a inability that you have right now to be on your own that is actually hurting your chances of finding love because it makes it that much more likely that you get into something with the wrong person just because they're there right now. So you might say, oh, strangely, one of the most important things for me in finding the kind of love I want long term is to spend the next three months not looking for it and truly getting comfortable getting through a weekend on my own. You know, that time on a Saturday evening where the pain of being on my own is excruciating and I'm like a junkie looking for my phone going, who can I text? Because this can't be it. It can't be me sitting with my feelings at 7pm on a Saturday. That might be the most important thing for you to do right now. Not for the next five years, but perhaps for the next three months, perhaps for the next six. But there's a. That might actually be a very important thing on your road to finding love. You might also say, well, I. I do have a tendency to get caught up very quickly. And this is where self awareness comes in. Like, what is my pattern? Oh, my pattern is that I meet people and then I very quickly get caught up with them. And in hindsight, now that I look back, doesn't have an awful lot to do with how great they are. It has a lot to do with how quickly I decide someone's Great.

Yeah.

And that leads me to overvalue things that maybe are not that important or even qualities that can be quite destructive. And it leads me to undervalue or never even discover the right qualities in a person. So you might say, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to start dating around a little more. But maybe most importantly, maybe even more importantly than the idea of me dating around is me slowing down, maybe there is a speed that is not productive for me. And instead of making my mind up about someone and how great it could be and what the potential is, maybe I need to take more of a will see approach. You know, I had a great. Yeah, it was a great date. Like, I think it's okay to admit you had a great date with someone and you can go to your friends and they say, how was it? And you go, honestly, amazing date. So good.

Planning the wedding.

Yeah. But then when they, if they start getting over excited and they're like, oh my God, you can go, relax, friend. Like, we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. I don't know. All I know is I had a great date. It doesn't mean anything. It really doesn't. Because a relationship is not a date.

So true.

It's what is. You know, in order to see how great someone would be for your life, you need who are they in month three? Who are they in month six? Who are they at year two? Those things are much more important than how great was it on date one? And we do the opposite, by the way. It never even gets to month six. And we think of the date as the barometer of like, we started off so great.

What happened? Yeah, that was the bar.

What happened is that it stopped being great. What happened is that person had one great date in them. That's what happened. Why are we making that so important? They had one great date in them. Isn't what we're looking for someone who has 50 great years in them? Why are we so caught up in the story of the date? And there's a chapter in the book called how to Tell Love Stories which talks about this phenomenon of us overvaluing connection. And it gives people a model for getting out of that trap if they want to slow down, if they want to start to value more appropriate things. So in this model, I give four stages of importance in any situation or relationship. The first level of importance is admiration. Admiration is just, do you think someone is hot? Do you think they're attractive? Do you think there's something impressive about them? It doesn't they may not even know you exist. It's just a kind of, in a sense is a little bit of like an objectification from afar. So on the scale of importance, not very. Level two is mutual attraction. That's where you're attracted to them, but they're also attracted to you. And you know that because they're reciprocating your attention. They've expressed a genuine interest, you're getting some of their energy. And that can feel like the most important level in the world. Even though it's level two and there's four levels, level two feels like the most important one in the world because A, we often find that we don't get attracted to people that often. And when we get attracted to someone and they're attracted, oh, it's like a miracle. Oh my God. That feels like the holy grail. That's lightning in a bottle.

I can't let go of that at the same time. What?

100%. And it's understandable, it's very human to look at that and go, I can't let this go. This is so important. But it's not nearly as important as our brains tell ourselves. Because for something to be a true long term relationship, there's two more levels. One is commitment. Level three is, okay, great, you have an amazing connection. You have amazing chemistry.

This is where you lose most of them.

Most of them, are they saying yes? It's a kind of important part.

Yeah.

You know, if they're saying, I don't really know if I want a relationship right now or I'm not sure I'm ready, then that person's not saying yes. I don't care how many, how late you can stay up at night talking to them or how great the sex is or how you know much you enjoy this person's company. If they're not saying yes, what do you have? What do you have? It's like it's, it's kind of nothing. It's not entirely nothing because you have a connection. But connections aren't that rare. What's rare is someone actually saying, you know what, on top of this fun feeling I'm actually going to build with you. That's more rare and that's the real stuff. Now there's a level on top of that, which is level four compatibility. That's really important because unfortunately, and there are many people out there, I know there are people out there watching right now who will have experienced this, where love wasn't enough, commitment wasn't enough, someone saying yes wasn't enough because once someone has said yes, you're into life with them. And what is life with them like? Do you have a similar opinion of how you want to spend your time, or is it completely different all of the time? Do you agree or respect the way they choose to live their life and vice versa? Are you supporting each other's dreams or goals or the things you want to achieve in your life? Do you have a shared vision for the future? Are you at the same place in your life in terms of what you want?

Does this ever happen? No.

But you know what? Look, on one hand, you're. I think what you just said is important because there will be people hearing this going, oh, my God, I can barely get to level two with anybody, let alone, you know, commitment and compatibility.

In all of these areas.

Yeah, yeah. And look, there's always areas of incompatibility. But the question is, are the incompatibilities a source of grace and, you know, even laughter? Can you laugh at the ways your partner is different from you? Can you have fun with it? Can you tolerate it? Can you be patient with it? We all have those things. But whether there are fundamental or fatal incompatibilities is a different story.

So what if someone's like, my dream is to retire in Bali one day, and the other person's like, oh, I want to live on a farm in Virginia. Should you just end the relationship there?

Well, I think if you can't. If. If you can't find a compatibility within that, then you're not compatible. You may start with very different visions, but you may find that when you sit down and talk about it and one of you talks about why you want to retire in Bali, and another person talks about why you want to live on a farm, maybe there's more commonality there than you've realized. Maybe there is a negotiation that happens there, a way to make it work. Maybe there's a way to experience some of both. You know, your part of compatibility is also your. Do you share an ability to negotiate differences together? Do you. Are you both good problem solvers? Because if you're both good problem solvers, that can overcome. If you're good problem solvers and you're a good team and you have genuinely a desire for the other one to be happy, then you can overcome a lot of differences. If you don't have those things, then differences can be fatal very easily. But I do think those things are important. If someone says, I want kids in the next two years, and someone says, maybe in 10, and by the way.

When should we bring that up? The kids conversation.

Oh, I think that if kids is something that's important to you, then exploring that person's views around having children is something that's important to do early. You know. And by early, does that mean date one? Probably not. But does it mean, you know, by date three or four, you're expressing the things that are exciting to you in life because that's where. That's where a nice place to start. Rather than saying, do you want kids? You can talk about your own life and how, you know, kids is something I find myself excited about at this point in my life. You know, I've worked really hard. I spent the last 10 years building my career. And, you know, I'm in a point where the idea of, for me, like, being a mother is really exciting. You're not expressing it as pressure towards someone else. You're expressing it as excitement for your path. And you can say, is that something you see for yourself? You know, it's not anyone who goes, oh, my God, this is too much pressure. Well, that you kind of have your answer as well.

Yeah.

If someone is at a place in their life where they're experiencing that as like, oh, my God, I can't handle this, and all you're doing is expressing excitement about your path and asking a valid question about theirs, well, then you. That's the stage of their development that they're at. And anyone who doesn't understand that someone who wants children is being intentional about who he or she spends their time with is not at the stage of evolution that you need. Right. We have to. And by the way, we have to stop caring as much about what runs the risk of scaring someone away because it's. We're being intentional about who we give our time to. It's. The lesson isn't, I'm going to ask you for kids three months from now. It's. I wouldn't be investing time in someone who never wants that. If, if you. If that's not even on the cards for you, then why would I go on the journey of us getting to know each other and spending time together and spending the next two years getting to a point where we could even conceive of being parents together? Like, why. Why would I invest that amount of time?

Yeah.

So that goes back to intentionality on our part, that we have to be intentional. But like I said, I mean, it's. There's an example in the book of a friend of mine, Tanya, who. She would. She would bring it up like really early in the dating process, she would just talk about it as something that she was excited about. You know, she'd say, I'm really. You know, marriage is something that I. I'm excited about. You know, I see that. I see that for myself. But she wouldn't make it an agenda towards him. It would just be very clear what she wanted. And over time, of course, if you bring those things up and someone doesn't participate in that conversation, then you'll get a clearer idea of where they stand on those things. But a key thing I want to say about this is know a lack of commitment from someone, if you're being intentional, should never come as some giant surprise. In other words, there's no perfect time to have the conversations. But the wrong time to have them is when you've delayed them to the point where you've invested so much time and energy that you would now be resentful and bitter and unhappy if you learned that you had been doing all of that under a misapprehension. That's the wrong time to have those conversations. So what we have to start doing is looking at whether the relationship we're in is showing progress. And a lot of us, we're so attached to the idea of being with someone and where it could go that we're not. We're never actually looking at the fact that there's no progress in the relationship, that we're no further along after six months than we were in the beginning, that we're seeing each other with the same cadence, the same kind of messages, the same kinds of words, that nothing has really evolved. And probably what's happened is we've bought into some logic that someone has sold us about why they can't move things forward or why they can't give more. And, you know, it could be anything. It could be someone's come out of a divorce and they're taking their time and they're just not sure what's right for them right now. It could be someone who says they're not ready to settle down just yet, or it could be anything. Could be someone who says that work is really busy right now. Now it's not. You're not crazy for going. Well, I still want to give this a little bit of a chance anyway, because it feels like there's something here. But it does start to. We do start to run the risk of abandoning ourselves if three months later, nothing has really progressed from the moment someone said that. And we're ignoring the fact that it hasn't. Progressed. If someone tells you that they came out of a divorce and they're just having to go slow right now, fine. What we have to do in our heads is gonna. How long am I willing to commit to this without any progress before I decide that this is a bad bet? And maybe you're not the ruthless person that says, on day one, then I'm out. If you're taking it slow, that's not where I'm at. I'm out. Maybe you are that person and that's okay too. But if you're going to give it a chance, then it has. The way you measure it has to be real. You have to look month on month and say, is anything evolving?

So give it a timeline. Like if by month six he's saying he still doesn't want to put a label on things, then I'm out.

Yeah. Or if you know and you can look at it in even more granular ways, like, has the communication between us changed from month one to month three? Are we closer? Is there. Are we making more time and space for each other in our lives? Do, do I feel that this person is starting to let themselves, let their guard down more? And yeah, when I asked them in month three, has your. Have your feelings shifted in terms of being open to something more? What do they say? Are you brave enough to ask that question? Because so many people are not. They're so afraid of losing someone and losing this thing that they've come to have hopes for that they're afraid to ask a question that they scare them away that will scare them away or produce an answer that they're not ready for. There are elegant ways. You know, I write extensively in this book about the whole chapter on hard have called have Hard Conversations. But it's about how to. In an elegant way. But we have to be brave enough to do it and then we have to communicate our standards elegantly. When you say to someone, hey, have your feelings shifted? I know three months ago when we started out, you said you were needing to take things slow. And while I'm conscious of that and I want to be empathetic to your situation and the fact that you've, you know, recently come out of a marriage or a long term relationship. I also, it's important to me that there's a openness that's arising out of the time that we're spending together. Do you feel more open now to something more? Has anything shifted? And if they say, well, I'm just not sure because if they, if the answer to that is not, you know, what I am. I do feel like, you know, it's still. I have a lot of this, I have a lot of that. I'm still concerned because I have kids and I'm, you know, worried about involving someone new in their lives. But, okay, fine. But all of that is a conversation. And, you know, I want to make you comfortable, but I also want to make sure that I'm not investing my time and energy in someone who is not progressing from where they started. So I want to be really conscious about. I understand. I want to be empathetic to where you are right now, but I also, I need to be loving towards myself because I know my energy is really precious. I know what I have to give is really amazing. And I want to make sure that I'm giving it in the, in a direction where someone is respecting that with how much they're willing to put in in return. So while I don't need, you know, in month three, while I don't need to know exactly where this goes long term, I am going forward with this, with the idea that we're actually giving it a chance to see what it could be. And if for you, you can't do that, then there's. That's important for me to know. These are, these are conversations most people don't have. And we, people who would string us along are often expert avoiders. I don't think there are liars in this world. And we have to be very careful with liars, especially when we start to see that they're lying to us. We have to take that very seriously. But I believe that a far greater number of people are avoiders than they are liars. Avoiders won't necessarily lie to your face. What they will do is do their best to avoid ever having to have the conversation. Because what they know is if they have the conversation, they're going to give you unwelcome answers that could push you away, so they'll try and avoid having the conversation altogether. The problem is that we often become complicit in the avoiding because while they're avoiding having the conversation because they know it will disappoint you, we're avoiding the having the conversation because we're worried that it's going to spell the end of the relationship and that we're not going to get what we want, which is more progress, more commitment. So we end up becoming complicit. We become a co conspirator in the theft of our own time and energy and future in many cases. So we have to start saying, losing a person and getting my time back so that I and my energy back so that I can apply it in the right direction is more important to me than coasting in this situation where I could find out a year from now or two years from now that this entire time me and this person have been on a completely different page. And I just never knew it because I was never prepared to ask that question. Have the conversations, have them much more regularly and measure the progress. There should never come a time where something's just a massive shock. Two years in, I had no idea you didn't feel the same way when we'd never had the conversation.

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. That even we are avoiding the rejection by not having that conversation. I think a lot of people think, well, if they just spend more time with me, they'll fall more in love with me. They'll. Their lives will be more entitled, entwined with me. And so it's more likely that we will stay together. And while that could happen, it's like, do you really want someone with you just out of comfort?

Well, and by the way, that works under the false logic that the more we give, the more someone will value us. And that that is not true. Often it's the more we give, the more we'll be taken for granted. The more we give, the more it will just become an expectation and an entitlement. It doesn't follow that because you give more, someone's going to suddenly see all of your value. If I could just keep giving and giving and make your life so much better, you'll finally understand how wonderful I am in your life. That logic doesn't work if you demand nothing in return for your giving. You know, I remember growing up with Christmas in my household and being so excited around Christmas time. But of course there was an age where I didn't, I didn't connect with the fact that the reason Christmas was so awesome is because my mum was so awesome. Because I was in bed and she had spent four hours wrapping presents while I was asleep that ended up under the tree. That this amazing house that was decorated and this amazing tree and this feeling, this atmosphere in the house was my mum's doing. It was all the little ways that she created magic around that time of year. There's an age where you just love the feeling of Christmas. You don't register that there's someone who painstakingly created that feeling for you so that you could experience it. You don't recognize that until you Find yourself in your own apartment and apparently Christmas doesn't show up. You have to go out and get a tree and do that and do. I'm. Oh my God, mom did this every year. Like and this and this and this and the, and the Christmas dinner that arrives on the table. Oh my God. Someone spent 12 hours doing this. Like giving in a relationship without asking, without having a price for that. Giving it, it's expecting is giving something for free and expecting someone to value it. And it just doesn't work like that. You know, a relationship doesn't work on like this unchecked altruism that then one day you expect is all going to come back to you. When, when we do that, it's, it can be a horrific realization to realize that the day we stop giving or the day we make an ask is the day it all falls down. And it can be genuinely shocking and mind bending for people to realize that the extent to which this person has no interest in reciprocating whatsoever, you could have been giving to that person for five years and now you need to go to the hospital for a treatment and that person doesn't want to drive you. That's the kind of sickening realization that a lot of people have that when they have it, it is earth shattering because you can't fath. It's like at that point it's actually hard to wrap your head. Like it's, you have this whole history that's based on this idea, this idea that this person is there for you or this person is on the same level as you in terms of their feelings or what they're willing to do for you or their teammanship. And then you realize that this history is one that you have constructed in your mind. And of course they've been party to as well because no doubt they've, they've misled us in many ways over time. But because we've never truly set a standard and expected someone to live by that again, we've been avoiding something the whole time. And it was this moment, it was this realization, it was this tragedy of our time. And that's that so much of what I do is, you know, people, people mistakenly think that my. Everything I do is centered around helping people find love. But it's, that's a part, it's a huge part of what I do. And I wrote this book as a. To be a co pilot for anyone who's looking for love. But so much of what I do is also about saving people from lives spent with people who will Only cause them tremendous pain. And the kinds of deep patterns in us that continue to lead us down those paths. Because I've watched people spend not months, but decades of their life in situations that there's an awful lot of healing and repair work to do at the end of decades spent with someone who never had our best interests at heart.

Yeah. And I think that sometimes when you're seeking love, you become shortsighted of, I just want to find a relationship. And you think that just being in a relationship, like, your problems will be solved. And even sometimes I'll catch myself going into that. I'm like, wait, remember when you were, like, married and you still had problems, you know, but you can be, when you're single, so focused on just finding the relationship that we forget. Well, now it's the quality of relationship that you're in. And you know how when you're on reels, like, it will, like, show you a reel and then show you more on that, like, that, like, theme. So, like, last night, I ended up on, like, men's reels. I don't know how. And it was like, these women being like, yeah, I always, like, rub my guy's head and massage his feet. And, like, ladies, when he's mad, just, you know, just massage his feet. And it was like the most, like, chauvinistic thing. And the guys are, like, nodding, like, yeah, listen to her. And then the woman in the real, she was saying, so I know he's never gonna leave me. Cause he'll never find someone else who basically puts up with him the way that I do. And it's like that exact thing that she thinks I'll have no voice deal with his moods and continuing pouring into him. Pouring into him. Because he'll never find someone else who disrespects himself. To my level, the thing is, it's like, now he's disrespecting you. And I think the other interesting thing, and I'm curious your thoughts on this is what I've learned is that men often fall in love with, like, Vasa through vasopress, which is that stress hormone, and also through the act of solving problems and providing and doing things. So a lot of women, we love men in the way that we want to be loved, you know, and sometimes what that man actually needs is, like, you know, maybe it's not actually a huge problem, like, help me put together this water thing. Or, like, bring him something. Whereas I think a lot of us women are afraid of stressing him out in any way. But then we're actually taking away opportunities for him to further fall into love.

Firstly, we're all looking for a teammate, right? So we have to ask ourselves, what does a teammate look like to me? And that's a personal question, right? There's a tendency for people who are very capable to take care of everything. But you can be so good at taking care of everything that you give your partner the impression they don't need to take care of anything. And then we end up resenting that person because we want them to be decisive and we want them to take initiative and we want them to fix the thing or pay the bill or whatever it may be. And they've gotten used to essentially living with a parent who does it all. So we have to be wary of our own patterns that perpetuate that cycle in our lives. No one ever does anything for me. Well, why is it that this isn't just people, Things people experience in relationships, they experience it with their families. Why does my family never show up for me? Well, usually it's because we don't have a standard for how we expect people to show up for us. We just keep giving and giving and giving because that's how we get love, is to give or to do things, fix things. And it makes us burnt out and it makes us resentful. But what makes us, what we're scared of more than we're scared of burnout or being resentful is asking for things or giving up that power. So I think there's a question a lot of people need to ask going into a relationship, which is if I keep ending up in relationships where someone's not doing enough for me or I'm resentful, what's going on that I keep perpetuating these patterns? Where am I not giving someone space to show up for me, encouraging someone to show up for me, or frankly, at a certain point, demanding that someone show up for me if I'm going to stay here. So I think that's really important in terms of male, female dynamics. You know, I think it's. There's a self awareness again that's required that we have to go, what is it I need and what's important to me? Like there's a. I did a very famous video a few years back. This is going back like seven or eight, nine years now. But it was a clip of me on stage asking where someone basically stood up and said, the guy stopped paying for me. And that bothers me because he was paying for things and now he wants me to contribute and Led to this video that I titled, who should pay on a Date? Or maybe it was titled who should Pay. But anyway, it got tens of millions of views, this one video, and it sparked this intense debate between men and women. Men feeling resentful that they're expected to just pay. Women feeling like if a guy's going to ask me to do so, if I'm old fashioned, I like a guy paying. If he's going to ask me on a date, he should pay. I'm not interested in a guy who doesn't pay. And then there were of course, people on both sides that didn't agree. There were men who said, I always pay because that's the kind of guy I am. And there were women who said, I think it's disgusting to expect a man to pay all the time. You had every kind of opinion. If nothing else. What it highlighted is that A, there's a lot of differences between people, but B, there's a lot of things that get us in trouble in attraction and relationships that I think becomes unfortunate stumbling blocks. Because I was always brought up to be the one who, if I took someone out to dinner, my mum brought me up to be like, you pay. You don't. You do not let her pay. If you're ta. If you are going out with a woman, you pay. That was what my mum taught me. But I also realized in the course of my life that it bothered me when people didn't offer. So you had this sort of strange, paradoxical duality between. It's kind of conditioned in me to want to pay and it would never have occurred to me to go halves on a date. But at the same time, if someone didn't offer, that would, I would immediately. And again, this is a me thing. It doesn't have to be anyone else's thing. But for me, if someone didn't offer, that would make me feel funny and it would make me feel a little bit taken advantage of because I'd be like, at least offer. I feel like we're coming to this date as equals, not with me in some strange position of. And certainly. And on a first date, maybe it wouldn't have been the end of the world. But if on date two or three, someone didn't reach for their purse, I would be like, God, this. It would start to become a red flag for me because I'd be like, this isn't going to be a teammate. And you know, my wife, now my wife Audrey, from her perspective, she's like, I couldn't imagine going on a date and just expecting that someone else was going to pay for me. Like, it. It just doesn't compute for her.

Now.

Again, this isn't to say what anyone else should be thinking, but I think what it does do is in my own personal example, it highlights these nuances about what we need, what we want to give, what we, you know, I. And this is where it gets really kind of interesting. Audrey enjoys being feminine and she enjoys me being masculine. We barely ever talk about that. It's not like we. There's a kind of obsession these days, I feel like, with masculine and feminine. Me and Audrey literally never talk about it. It never comes up. But she's fairly feminine and I'm fairly masculine. Masculine. But we both play. I feel like we both play different roles on different hours of the day, depending on just where, what energy we're in. But she, from her side, wouldn't expect me to be the one paying all the time. I, from my side, actually enjoy paying. But the further into our relationship, the more I needed to feel like we were a team together. So there's a lot going on there. It's not one thing. It's not, oh, we don't. I need her to reach. Because I'm not a masculine guy and I'm a, you know. No, it's that for me, it signals teamwork and it signals that we're in it together. And for her, it's a respect thing towards me. Not to expect me to, but it's also something I enjoy doing to be able to do it. So there's just a lot happening. And I think in any relationship, rather than almost decide ahead of time, what's their energy or what do they need, it's just being curious going in with the values that we want to show. Like, if I want to show the value of, I'm a generous person, I'm a good. I'm a team player, I'm this, I'm that. Then go in showing those things. But if someone expresses to you along the way that it means a lot to me when you. Someone might say to you, it means a lot to me when you don't fight me on the bill. I love that you offer, but I really enjoy paying. So you don't need to fight me on it because I really like doing these things for you, then it's worth hearing that. Because what they're really saying is there's something about that moment that means a lot to me. And I think we have to pay attention to those things in all aspects of our relationship. I don't always think we pay enough attention to your point that we give what's easy for us to give or what's comfortable for us to give. I think that's because we're not really listening to them. I know for me, at the end of a Friday working day, I quite easily get into a state where I'm like, so tired from the working week that I'm like, what should we do? I'm like, I haven't even thought about it. I'm just like, it's the weekend and I'm now like, what do we do now? When I listen to Audrey, what's clear to me is she'll say, people drop hints. They may not mean to, but they drop hints. And at some point recently, she said to me, like, I just, I, you know, it was. She was talking about something else, but she said, you know, it's like, I really love, you know, when you plan a date, she said, and you just have a plan for it and you just tell me, hey, we're going here. I really love that. Now I can either skim over that or I can hear that and go, when was the last time I, at the end of a day, said, here's what we're doing tonight. All I need you to do is put on a nice outfit because this is where we're going and this is how people are going to dress where we're going. But other than that, you don't need to know anything. When was the last time I did that? Because she really enjoys that. And so it's paying attention. Whether you're a man or a woman in a relationship, it's just paying attention. What do you notice? What are the things that seem to turn them on? What sparks joy for them, what makes them feel heard, what makes them feel needed? It's really important, and it's a generous act to focus on, to think, to pay attention to those things. What makes that person feel feel needed, what makes that person feel special? And I. And I think as long as we're getting our needs met in the ways that we want to feel special or needed, we shouldn't bemoan the ways that they need to feel that. Instead we should just go, if I'm getting what I need, why am I going to tell you? You shouldn't need, you know, like, oh, it's pathetic that you need to feel like that or you need to. If you go through life like that, you're. You're going to end up a lonely person, because people are human beings. And they're trying to figure out. They're trying to feel special, and they're trying to feel like they're trying to feel significant. And we. I think sometimes we. We have a tendency to complain about human nature instead of making human nature work for us and just figure out, oh, people like, you know, it's like when people say, oh, I always intimidate people on dates. Well, look, firstly, if you're an impressive woman, especially, you're going to intimidate a few people. That's just a given. But if you're intimidating everyone, then probably no one feels significant around you. And then you have to ask yourself, I can either complain that no one, like, everyone's insecure, or I can say how I make other people feel more significant. Because maybe I'm. Maybe I keep going on dates and I keep talking about how impressive I am without even realizing it, but I'm not actually getting into what's impressive about them. Whether it's because of pride or it's a defense mechanism, or it's just. I'm worried if I build them up too much, they're going to get to. They're going to think they're too great or whatever. But there's something I'm doing that's not making other people feel special around me and keeps. Resulting in the comment that I'm intimidating. That's an important insight to have. So there's some of the ways I think about that.

I love it. Well, I love how Audrey, she made this post that she, like, asked you, like, I want to get dressed up in this kind of dress so you let me know where we're gonna go. And I just love that.

Yeah, that was true. I forgot about that. She actually instigated me having to be decisive. She was just like, I remember because I came off a date. We were in New York and we were doing. We were actually doing a bunch of interviews for the new book. And it was one of those days where I was shot. I was exhausted, and she just put on this, like, gorgeous dress. And I was like, well, I have to take you somewhere. She was like, you know, you decide where we're going. Yeah.

She was like, find somewhere that this isn't too dressy for. And I was like, I love that.

I started. No joke. I just started making calls. I was like, I had friends in New York, and I'm like, I'm a bit out of. I used to live in New York for a brief spell a few years ago, but these days I'm out of touch. With what restaurants in New York are great. And I just take. I sent out like four texts to people going, like, hey, what's like the restaurant right now? Or what's a special place? And I found one and called around and we went there and ended up having the best night. Like, the best night, right. Went to this classic old institution of a restaurant in New York. And it was. Felt like we went back to the 1920s, but it was like, it was all. Because she just had that moment. She. She was like, I need a night. I need us to have a date. I'm going to get dressed up and you tell me where we're going. So it's again, it's also her signaling what she needs in that case in a very proactive but playful way. There's a kind of interesting way to say, hey, I need you to take me out.

Or why don't you ever take me out? You're too busy for me. And that could just turn into a fight.

Exactly. And by the way, there's a time to have that conversation. If she's tried, if she's gone this direction, in this direction, and it's like, wow, he's really not getting it, then okay, it's time to say to someone, hey, look, I want to talk to you about something. I am feeling like we haven't had much quality time. It so turns me on when you take me out and you have a plan and we go and do something. You're so good at it. Some of my best memories in our relationship are the times where you've done that. And I feel a little sad because I feel like that hasn't happened in a while. Can we fix that? You know, like, that's a. That's a more serious version of that conversation, albeit still. There's a. There's. Obviously that's an elegant way of doing it, but it doesn't have to be the first kind of line of attack when you want to go and have a nice night with your partner.

Yeah, I love that so much. And you have so many amazing scripts in your new book, Love Life, that make it really easy to kind of just like, go through these different situations. And I feel like some. Sometimes it's hard. Like, I know I'll, like, text my friends of, like, what do I say? And, you know, a lot of my friends have, again, not been single in a very long time. So it's actually really helpful to have these, like, exact scripts in different situations. You talk about what real red flags are versus, like, what society says. Maybe red flags and just so many other. It's like really, like I told, it's like a bible of dating. So I really recommend it for everyone. So it's out today. And where can listeners get this new book?

Yeah, so I'm sorry. So excited about this. I can't wait for people to read it. It's called Love life, How to raise your standards, find your person and live happily no matter what. Which was a really important part for me because I wanted this book to be a co pilot for anybody who is serious about finding their person. But I also know that life is too short to defer our happiness to the point where we do. So this book is designed to have that dual effect of helping you find love faster, but also helping you find a lot more joy and peace and confidence and happiness along the way. So there's a website that everyone can go to called lovelifebook.com when you get there, you'll be able to order the book through any retailer you want. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, it doesn't matter. But what's really cool is when you buy the book. Right now we have event that we're doing on May 4, which is a virtual event called find your person. And every single person who buys a copy of the book is going to get a ticket to that event. So you'll see all the details on lovelifebook.com you can use your receipt to get your ticket and it's going to be very, very special. So I encourage everyone to go and do that. The event is going to take all of the ideas from the book and apply them practically to you finding love this year, if that's what you're looking for. But it's also, the book's going to help so many people who are trying to get over love. They're trying to heal from lost love. They're trying to explore the deeper patterns within them that might be causing them to keep going for the wrong people or making it hard for them to find the right person. So it's a. This really is designed to hit people wherever they are, at whatever stage they are, and, and to help them do love better. So it's a lovelifebook.com for everyone out there. I really hope you get a copy. I'm been working on this for four years of my life, so I'm very, very proud of it and I know it's going to help a lot of people. And the last thing I'll say is just for anyone struggling with self worth, there's an entire chapter in this book, even if you're in a relationship, this book is worth getting just for that chapter on self worth, because it will change the way you see yourself. It will change the relationship you have with yourself in ways that you've probably never come across before. And I've been running a retreat, a live retreat, for 16 years of my life for people every year where I teach people these things. And this is actually the first time anyone has been able to get them in the form of a book. So.

Wow.

Yeah. Let me know what you think when you get it.

It's so good. I think the self worth piece is so important, especially with online dating and the amount of ghosting that happens, that you can really, like, make it personal and be like, oh, I wasn't interesting.

Enough when I lost them.

And it really can mess with your. Your self worth. So I love that you've included that and just so many incredible topics. So thank you for writing it. Thank you for creating this guide. I know it's going to help so many people. I can't wait to do the live workshop that you have going on as well. And we'll have that link and everything he mentioned in the show notes. So I hope this brought you closer to really discovering what love is for you. This is a really podcast to share on your stories and spark a conversation with friends. Send it to a friend and be like, hey, let's both listen to this episode or maybe someone that you're dating or married to and be like, let's dive deeper. Because the truth is, I feel like a lot of us want to have these conversations, but we don't know where to start. So this podcast, there's so many things there of like, hey, like, at 22 minutes, let's talk about what he mentioned over here. Let's have a conversation around ways that we can have more date nights in our lives and making it more playful. And, you know, there's just, just so many different ways that we can improve our relationship just in this, like, masterclass of a podcast. So share it with your friends. This is also a way of, like, kind of telling the world, like, this is the level of relationship I want. I feel like so many of us, like he said, have that shame around wanting love and we feel like it makes us desperate or, you know, weird and instead being like, yeah, I love who I am. I love being single, and I know I'm meant to be in partnership, but I'm not going to settle for any partnership, but really do the inner work to find a partnership that's in resonance with me, not just to find it, but to keep it and to continue to maintain. And I feel like this episode in this book will really help you with that. So you can find all the links mentioned in the show notes below and I'll see you in the next one. Trust your intuition trust your inner wisdom Trust you in the guidance close your eyes and listen so trust your intuition Trust your inner wisdom Wisdom trust you and the guidance close.