Speaker 0 00:00:00.4800000 Welcome to the closeness podcast, your new sexual education. We take complex intimate issues and break them down into something. You can actually do something with, please join us on YouTube by visiting youtube.com forward slash closeness. You can also tune in on the platform of your choice by searching for closeness. Anywhere podcasts can be found. Now, are you ready to come closer? Let's get started. Welcome to closeness. My name is Tari and you're listening to an episode on ghosting, fear of missing out and personal accountability. The concept of ghosting has come up in previous closeness episodes, such as the 40 deadly sins of online dating in any other place where there's been a concern for accountability, but for all intents and purposes, let's define what ghosting means. In the olden days, we didn't have ghosting. We had flaking flaking was a much more gentle form of ghosting whereby when two people were trying to get together, one of them wouldn't show up, but then you could usually talk about it later or figure out what happened ghosting on the other hand is when you make plans with someone, you have every intent of going to meet them.
Speaker 0 00:01:07.9500000 You believe they do as well. And then they just vanish out of your life. Completely ghosting can also happen if you've had a good date, if you've had great communication, if you've had great sex and even in some cases, the beginnings of a great relationship where the person just decides that they're done and vanishes completely out of your life. And the purpose of this episode is to talk about why that's one of the most detrimental and deleterious things you can do to someone and why it effectively warrants you the label toxic. And we're not talking about Brittany Spears. We're talking about a quality about yourself that makes you toxic to other people. If they're thinking about doing more than having just a brief chat with you, unfortunately in today's society, ghosting has become so prevalent that we have a word for it. I don't believe at least in my experience that I had a way to describe something like this in one singular word, you might've said the person just vanished or they never showed up.
Speaker 0 00:02:04.1200000 I don't know what happened to them. I don't know if they're dead or alive, but I never heard from them again. Ghosting can also contain elements of blocking, which is something else we're going to talk about today, but they do kind of go hand in hand so someone can have agreed to get together with you, and then not only vanish, but block you as well to leave you completely spiraling and wondering what on earth happened. So what's happening behind the scenes. Why are people behaving like this? Why would someone choose this over? Having simple, clean communication and being honest and direct, and why have people defaulted to treating human beings like this? In my opinion, it's for a few very simple reasons. As human beings, we do a couple of things. We move away from pain in any way possible. And that includes pain that we perceive and also pain that we imagine might come as the result of something.
Speaker 0 00:02:54.1000000 And we move towards pleasure, perceived pleasure, possible pleasure. And even what we're working for, even when we're saving for a house, or we want to have a family, we want to get married. The idea of that is that in the doing of it or having it, it will bring us more pleasure. So we try to avoid pain at all costs, whether it's our own pain or whether we're causing pain to someone else. And we also like to avoid seeing other people's pain. Some people take jointed, but most of us don't, most of us don't want to be the source of someone else's pain or the bane of someone's existence. I'm of the belief that there are two major reasons why people ghost, number one, they're not willing to have the hard conversations that are necessary that come as a prerequisite with intimately interacting with someone else.
Speaker 0 00:03:41.6500000 They're not willing to be honest, direct, empathetic, and deal with the ramifications of rejection. This makes the ghoster legitimately come across as being completely unaccountable, not having a backbone, being a coward, not caring or expressing in difference, being self centered or generally overall having a lack of empathy. And often this happens as a result of people being far too immersed in their own world, their own feelings and what they have going on. And then number two people who actually don't know how to do it. They never learned it was never modeled for them. And perhaps growing up, they never experienced good behavior firsthand. So they don't know how to have the hard conversations. It makes them feel uncomfortable and it gives them anxiety and makes them feel uneasy. They don't know what to do. Sometimes they don't have the mental capacity or bandwidth to have a conversation because they don't even know what they'd say.
Speaker 0 00:04:38.9800000 And very likely the role models they had growing up with mom or dad or sister, or brother could have been rather dismal. And they learned by what they saw. In some cases here, people might feel guilty for the reasons why they're doing it. This person's hotter. I like that person better. He's a better kisser. He buys me things. She has a larger body part. And so people resort to ghosting either because their own self-interest demands that they go have some fun or just go and get involved with something else or go smoke some weed or go to whatever it is that makes them feel better. Or, and we'll be talking about this a lot later, they just got uncomfortable. They wanted to not be uncomfortable. And so this is how they behaved. But unfortunately in my estimation, neither of these options are an acceptable reason to treat someone else this way.
Speaker 0 00:05:26.7700000 It's my strong belief that we should all seek education around this because it isn't making anyone feel better. It's hurting the most, everyone. So the purpose of this episode is to educate on the damaging effects of ghosting and blocking it's about how you might feel if it happened to you, what the other person is actually going through while you can't see it happening because you block them or you no longer talking to them, the actual psychological effect you're creating within the other person, the results of treating someone this way and how to avoid it. Rejection is never easy. We talk about this constantly in other episodes, show me the last time someone has had a favorable response to rejection when they liked the person rejecting them. When you think about breaking up with someone or telling someone no, or turning them down or setting a boundary or just telling them not to do something very rarely is someone going to say to you, Oh my God, I've been waiting for you to say this.
Speaker 0 00:06:19.4700000 I can't wait to not see you again. I can't wait to never talk to you again. Thank God it was you. I'm so glad you did it. So here's the deal. The moment you begin to speak to someone or text or call someone who you have romantic interest in, or they have romantic interest in you, a new kind of relationship begins intimately interacting with someone may start as early as dare. I say, matching with someone on an online dating site where the person who's doing the ghosting is demonstrating sensual or sexual interest. They're flirting. They're giving you signs and leaving you under the impression that they want to sleep with you or date you. It also could start when you're having a lively conversation with a stranger in person having your first sexual or intimate text interaction, having a date that went well, where both people were left under the impression that you will be seeing each other again, or you'll be talking again, having sex that ended favorably.
Speaker 0 00:07:15.8900000 In other words, both people were satisfied and you said goodbye on amiable terms. And I think a lot of people don't know this. I think a lot of people think that unless you've had some sort of strong history, the other person's feelings are irrelevant, but here's the thing. Everybody has a different definition of when you actually should start caring about another human being. Is it the first time you've had sex or if you've been in a relationship or you're living together, when do you get to decide the other person was worth it and not wasting your time to respectfully decline them or reject them? So I'm putting forth that sexual intimacy, sensual intimacy, some form of connection begins. As soon as you both are responding back and forth to one another, it doesn't matter the medium or the context. If I get you sprung and excited about dating me or sleeping with me, or even going on a first date with me.
Speaker 0 00:08:06.2000000 And the only thing we've been doing is texting back and forth. And I commit to seeing you and tell you and looking forward to it. Yes, I now have some form of obligation to you. I don't. However, think that it's the responsibility of, for example, an attractive woman to constantly have to handhold men who come up to her all the time and hit on her and she's got no interest in any of them. The only responsibility I think someone has there is to kindly and respectfully turn them down. That's it. But once two people begin sensually or intimately or sexually interacting together and you begin to make promises and commitments to the other person, such as getting together, setting up a date, or even the idea that you're looking forward to seeing them. Now you've got involvement. And it's my belief that you actually do owe the other person something I know that's not going to be easy for some of you to hear.
Speaker 0 00:09:03.9300000 So let's talk about what you owe them. You owe them respect, dignity, kindness, and a little bit of understanding why you're choosing to disappear or what went wrong. And you know, all of this can be summed up in a couple sentences. It could be done in a few messages back and forth. And my favorite way to do it or experience it is to have a small, brief conversation that can end in. Thank you for the understanding, have a great life. And thank you for letting me down softly. If you want to play the game of love, sex and romance, you've got to know that the beginning of central interactions starts way earlier than you think. But most of us are exclusively playing the game with our own self interest in mind. And we want everyone else to bend our will. We want someone to take care of us, someone to read our minds, someone to know what we want someone to be there for us to listen to us, to be excited for our projects, to fund our projects, to support our dreams, to follow our passions.
Speaker 0 00:10:00.4500000 But then the moment we decide that we're not in anymore or something else caught our attention or we've got FOMO or we want out, well, then the thought is that we should back way up and disappear out of each other's lives forever. And we're going to talk about the best way to handle all of this stuff. So let's get some of our obligatory preliminaries and disclaimers out of the way. This comes up all the time in our world today. It's extremely popular for people to say, when you've been rejected by someone, when they've ghosted, when they vanished, well, this happened to you because he or she just doesn't like you, he or she just isn't interested. It's easy. They'll say they're just not that into you. And this catch all phrase is somehow as opposed to make the bad behavior perfectly acceptable. Apparently you're supposed to have the mental process that looks something like this.
Speaker 0 00:10:51.4200000 Oh, well, this person just doesn't like me. No problem. My feelings, aren't important. What I'm feeling doesn't matter. I guess I should, which is usually the next line. Society feeds you get over it and move on. But we need to be very clear whether it's in this episode or any other episode, when we're discussing male, female dynamics like this, and we're talking about the way we interact with one another, I'm never speaking about someone who's actually not interested in you. I'm never discussing a time when someone has zero interest, someone else's pushing and trying. And in some cases pushing in an uncomfortable way. And as a result of trying too hard, they're just as everyone likes to say, not getting it and not reading the signs that there's zero interest there. We're talking about all those other moments that actually involve some form of intimate connection.
Speaker 0 00:11:43.9199999 No matter how small it is, where you've looked, someone in the eyes, you've had a conversation, you've had some back and forth. There's an unspoken sexual anticipation or excitement building. You may have even had a video chat call and that's it. But somehow you've shared some form of chemistry or communication or a desire to see one another in both parties can be pretty darn sure that something is going to unfold after this. You're likely going to see each other again or for the first time. But then as a result of having FOMO or fear of missing out or having what usually amounts to be a very selfish desire, most of which, if not, all of which are not valid excuses, meaning when you vanished or you blocked or you disappeared, there wasn't a crisis. There wasn't an emergency. There wasn't even something critically important that came up.
Speaker 0 00:12:35.2600000 You just disappeared. Suddenly the person on the other end is just supposed to miraculously and magically be okay with this and understand they're not supposed to get angry. They're not supposed to get resentful. They're not supposed to rage. They're not supposed to yell at you and call you names. They're supposed to just move on without thinking about it, regardless of what plans they may have had with you, regardless of how many times you've made out or had sex or what adjustments they've made in their life or their schedule to accommodate you and see you, maybe they've taken time off of work. Maybe they told other friends, they wouldn't spend time with them or couldn't spend time with them because they were looking forward to spending it with you. And generally speaking, from my perspective, the way plans work is when you say you're going to do something, you do it.
Speaker 0 00:13:24.1300000 What all this has caused in society is this need to make backup plans. And as far as I'm concerned, when you make plans with someone, you shouldn't have to book out two or three girlfriends in advance on the same time at the same hour, just in case one of them doesn't come through. By the way, anytime you do something like that, to overcome someone else's bad behavior like flaking or ghosting you two are then going to have to flake on one or two or three more people because you didn't feel like it. And you're going with whatever feels best to you. We live in a time in society right now where every one of us feels outrageously. Self-important where we think that whatever we want is okay and should be accepted by everyone without saying it. We have a belief that if I want it, no matter how poorly it affects you, you should get over it.
Speaker 0 00:14:20.0500000 You should let it go. And if not, I don't really care how this affects you because I'd rather be doing this. I'd rather be with this other person. Or frankly, I just didn't feel like going out tonight. Or I was feeling fat or I was feeling unattractive or I was feeling insecure or I was, or I was, or I was whatever the excuses, it never properly gets conveyed. Now, when it comes to personal communication in today's world, we all take our own insecurities. Again, whether it's something about appearance, your weight, the way you look, how you're feeling, and instead of telling your partner or your person or your date, or your friend, or even your acquaintance, I'm actually feeling insecure today. God, I can't even think the last time I heard someone articulate, something like that. I'm actually feeling insecure today. I'm not feeling so hot about myself today.
Speaker 0 00:15:13.4000000 I'm actually feeling like I don't want to be seen today. So therefore, are you ready? The most important phrase in the universe, but I'd love to reschedule our plans and get together some other time, by the way, those are the keys to the kingdom. That is the number one secret phrase that you can say to get out of anything and not have the other person hate you. Now, anyone in their right mind who has a heart or who's friendly or who heard that can, should, and could be able to say, Oh my gosh, absolutely. I'm so sorry. You're not feeling well. Anything I can do. And then you simply reschedule and go on. Now I've made a couple other episodes about how communication works and why when you use the word, but why don't we do this? Or, but let's reschedule or, but let's make some other plans that gets you out of almost anything that makes it perfectly acceptable.
Speaker 0 00:16:06.8600000 But when you vanished from someone or you try to talk someone out of your plans, like, Oh, you know, it's okay. We could just do it some other time. Or if you have something else you want to do, you can go do that. Or, Oh, it sounds like you want to go do something else. So let's go do that. And we'll just get together next time. Then you're sending a very different message. And I'm going to keep reminding you throughout the episode that we're not talking about someone who's truly not interested or who's really on the fence. Because so often the feedback I get from other clients is that this happens during any phase of the relationship, obviously prior to marriage. And I guess even some people who've gotten cold feet and had to runaway brides as well. Right? In fact, that movie with Julia Roberts runaway bride is a perfect example.
Speaker 0 00:16:49.9100000 It's been ages since I've seen it. But I remember the idea of what happens and what's bizarre is it's considered a comedy or a romantic comedy. If I'm not mistaken, it's not the first time she's done something like that. I think the movie opens with one or two or three times where she's done it in the past. You probably have really sweet memories of this movie. It leaves a good feeling in your heart when you think about it, but take a real good, hard look at what you'd like your wedding day to look like or what your wedding day did look like and everything it took for you to get there or everything it will take for you to get there. Consider the unbelievable amount of preparation, stress, emotional involvement, anxiety, nervousness, excitement, and enthusiasm that goes in to most people's weddings. You're picking things out.
Speaker 0 00:17:37.8200000 You're constantly shopping and going different places. You're inviting family. People you haven't seen in years are usually coming out for many people, whether it's true or not, it's considered one of the biggest and most important days of their lives. And so you show up ready to marry the person who you said you are in love with who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. I mean, the example is even better. If you imagine that it's a woman whose life we're watching and she spent hours preparing herself, endless hours of makeup and treatments and massages and girlfriend support. And she's so nervous and so excited. And this is that big moment that she's been dreaming about since she was a little girl and as her bow, her husband to be her man slowly walks up to the alter, looks her in the eyes.
Speaker 0 00:18:26.6400000 Maybe there's a bit of uncertainty or a strange look that she can't read into. And then in a moment, turns around, runs away without looking back and leaves her forever or said differently. He backs out only to publicly humiliate you in front of all of your family and friends. I mean that type of vanishing and ghosting just takes the cake. Is that funny? Is it okay? Oh, by the way, is it not a big deal? And the bride should just get over it and move on because come on guys, obviously he wasn't in a hurry to begin with. Shouldn't she just get over it, go to work the next day and keep going as if nothing happened because you know, he wasn't really into her to begin with. Should she stop dwelling on the past and just move on? Absolutely not. And listen, it's a great movie.
Speaker 0 00:19:17.1300000 I understand it's all fun and games when we go to the cinema, for sure. But if you really put yourself inside the shoes of someone who's going through this, you understand how horrible ghosting or vanishing or disappearing can be. Now, all you have to do is ratchet it back a little bit, to see how this level of devastation affects anybody and everybody who has even the smallest bit of emotional involvement, maybe someone who had a runaway bride might be devastated for the next three months, six months a year. Maybe they might never get over it or forever wonder what was wrong with them and what they did when their partner got cold feet. And of course, it's almost always about what's going on their partner's mind. But if we ratchet this example back a little bit, and we say, you're in a relationship with someone you're not married, you're involved, it's been awhile.
Speaker 0 00:20:07.7400000 And they suddenly vanish on you ratchet it back a little bit more. You've had a really wonderful sex with someone for a few months and they vanish. You slept with someone once, but it was really powerful for you. Maybe you cried. Maybe you came more than you ever have before. Maybe thought there was a real connection and they ghosted. You've had a few good dates. Maybe you've been talking every night on the phone for the past week. And you had a really meaningful video chats. Maybe you've been texting back and forth on a dating app and you haven't even traded numbers, but you're sharing really intimate or vulnerable information about yourself. And then the person ghosts or vanishes or blocks you any time. There's emotional involvement. There's an emotional cost to me. Anytime you reduce something down to just a date, just a girlfriend just Sachs.
Speaker 0 00:20:57.7600000 You really minimize yourself and you minimize the other person. There's nothing just about sex. I myself have had plenty of what you might call casual sex, but there's nothing casual about someone sharing their most intimate parts with you. Even if you consider to just be casual sex, it's a big exchange. Even if you were drunk when you did it, even, even, even sexual intimacy always has greater importance. People like to use a phrase it's just business where business is business, whatever that means, which is to say that you should somehow not be emotionally involved in something that you care about a lot. And if the transaction hurt you well, too bad. And if you didn't get what you wanted too bad, because you know, business is business. And even though maybe, maybe you can get away with that in business, you don't hear people say relationships are relationships.
Speaker 0 00:21:51.3700000 By the way, anytime you say a word is a word, people love to believe that they are dispensing mind, bending life advice. When in fact it has about as much cloud as it is, what it is, but business is business. It is what it is. You don't hear people saying love is love. Sex is sex. Dating is dating. And what does that mean? Anyway? That you're just destined to accept something unpleasant about it. So if ever there is a place for someone to get emotional, feel emotional, or have emotions get invested. It's in the field of romance, intimacy, dating, and every time you back out of something, every time you pull yourself out and you give no notice to the other person, you are sending an arrow right through their heart. And maybe that person has a lot of armor built up. Maybe that person has a tougher shell or a stronger shield, and they're able to let it go or have it be water off a Duck's back.
Speaker 0 00:22:49.3800000 But most people that's going to sting and sting and sting and sting. And unfortunately, this is what life teaches us to become walled up, shut down, more protective and less hopeful, less Disney, less enthusiastic. And some people might say, well, that's good. You're stronger. You have a tougher skin. You need that in life. Yes, it's true. But do you really need to be the one to put someone through emotional abuse? Do you want to be the one responsible for causing so much trauma in another human being that in their future relationships, they're scared to commit scared to open, scared to give someone their heart worried about making plans. Wondering if there's something wrong with them. Because in today's world, people have ghosted so much. It's really much more toxic and really much more narcissistic than a little word. Like ghosting sounds like it makes it sound like it's just an option for you.
Speaker 0 00:23:50.5100000 It makes it sound like it's something you can do. If you feel like it. You're not up to it. I think I'll just ghost tonight. No, any time you and your time is involved in mixed with someone else's you have a moral responsibility to make sure they are okay at the very least to check in, to let them know you're going to cancel to make sure they're okay. So the next big pillar then is to discuss what kind of person this makes you in the eyes of everyone else. When you do ghost on them, what does it say about you? It is a total lack of personal accountability responsibility to your appointments, to your commitments and to your own life. And it demonstrates that you cannot be trusted. You cannot be trusted at all. If a little bit of tension comes up, whether it's your own personal reasons of why you decided to, well, it's not even flaking or canceling. So let's say why you decided to vanish. And you don't convey that to your interested party. You are in fact providing a huge contribution to being what a terrible member of society. Yeah. I said it contributing to the pain of others causing emotional hurt and other people that can easily be avoided. Imagine them telling you a story of a girl. I really like, and I had a few nice dates with her. We had sex multiple times, and then she said something that made me feel uncomfortable. So, you know, I never talked to her again.
Speaker 0 00:25:18.4700000 What response do you have? What if there is more emotional investment? What if we've been dating for three or six months? Where's your line in your mind as you hear this, where it suddenly becomes okay. To never speak to someone again, because they made you feel uncomfortable. So the next concept I want to share is this idea of being uncomfortable and how much does it really matter if you are jeopardizing someone's emotional state in a far worst way. So to start once again in today's society, anytime someone says, he made me feel uncomfortable. It always sounds worse. If there's a heat attached to it, we immediately assume it's some dark, evil, nefarious force, a creepy man with evil intentions, that guy over there, he made me feel really uncomfortable. Feel the difference that girl over there, she made me feel really uncomfortable. Now, you know, from listening to the closest podcast, we're not talking about crisis and emergency situations always look out for yourself.
Speaker 0 00:26:16.5500000 If you're unsafe or you're with someone who's overly aggressive, of course your discomfort matters. Of course you should be able to back out of something that makes you feel petrified or terrified. But when it comes to random feelings of discomfort or lack of comfort, where do you draw the line? What do I mean then when I'm talking about saying that he or she made you feel uncomfortable, it could be that someone said something to you that you didn't like. It could be that someone shared a different opinion with you. Someone believes in different politics than you do. You want a different president to be elected. Someone makes a statement that you perceive to be racist, but no one else does. And it wasn't intended that way. Making assumptions about someone that in turn makes you feel uncomfortable. When you think about these assumptions, someone sends you a text, a voice memo, a snap, you perceive it to be sexual or inappropriately sexual or overly sexual, or just a little too much.
Speaker 0 00:27:12.5700000 And that's not what you wanted. You've been flirting with someone or you've been having sex with someone and they cross a line. Maybe it was something they said, they had no idea. You had a line, but you did. And therefore this comment made you feel uncomfortable. Someone was too tepid with you. And so it made you feel uncomfortable. Your partner initiated with you in a way that you didn't like he or she likes sports or movies or activities that make you feel uncomfortable. You thought by the way he or she looked at, they were promiscuous. And this made you feel uncomfortable. You don't like the way he dresses. You don't like the way he styles his hair. Someone makes a statement. That's true, but you don't like the way they said it. So it makes you feel uncomfortable. You got offended, something about what he said or did on a date made you feel insecure, even though he wasn't being mean, it makes you uneasy that other women are attracted to your man.
Speaker 0 00:28:00.2400000 And they're flirting with him. Something about the way he or she looks, makes you feel insecure and self conscious about your body. So any number of things, I mean, from one end of the spectrum to another, anything can constitute discomfort. And so when you say something like he made me feel very uncomfortable. It makes it sound like they did something wrong, like globally, wrong, something reprehensible, like something, someone should do something about when the fact of the matter is it could have been anything under the sun that just happened to make you feel uncomfortable, something on a whim, you didn't wake up on the right side of the bed this morning and you got offended. You have different beliefs about something, but it makes you feel uneasy. And that's why I say are your feelings of discomfort? Hear me really that important. Not only because discomfort can be such a random and obscure thing, but more importantly is your feeling of discomfort, more important than ruining someone's feelings for you or destroying a relationship or vanishing or ghosting leaving a person to feel absolutely horrific because you felt some form of discomfort.
Speaker 0 00:29:10.8600000 And didn't want to say anything about it. Didn't know how to say anything about it, or just thought the person should know better. And so most people believe that you could be having the best time in the world. You could be having the best relationship in the world. Everything could be going perfectly between you and someone else. But in a moment, if someone feels uncomfortable, especially another woman than the other person almost needs to leap back. As if there's a restraining order, you're laughing, you're having sex or kissing. You're making out things are funny. Things are fun. Oh, someone said something that made you feel uncomfortable and everything should come to a screeching halt. And even as I'm speaking this, I'm hearing people say, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, what's supposed to happen. Sure. In particular situations, in a sexual situation, if you're doing something to someone else and it really makes you feel uncomfortable, of course your discomfort matters.
Speaker 0 00:30:01.2399999 I'm not talking about that by all means. Tell the person to stop back up, let them know that's a hundred percent. Okay. But in our day to day interactions, there's so much more fluid. There's so much more going on. It's not quite okay to just say, Oh, I'm uncomfortable. So never talk to me again. I'm uncomfortable. So I'm going to vanish completely out of this person's life. Many things in life are uncomfortable. Going to work is uncomfortable. Sleeping, hobbies, accidents, carrying heavy bags. When you're shopping, carrying groceries in doing laundry, waiting in lines, being in the sun, being in the cold. Some people even think their existence is uncomfortable. But in all of these areas, when our responsibility is at stake or finances are at stake, we don't just magically vantage at the drop of a hat. We don't vanish at the first sign of discomfort.
Speaker 0 00:30:52.0600000 The next big point I want to make is any time that you have a financial responsibility to be somewhere, you have a job, a project you need to show up for someone at work. Do you ever ghost, do you ever not show up? And if you like to convince me that you have not shown up, how has that worked out for you? How long were you able to keep that job? If you demonstrated that behavior, did anyone trust you or want you to work with them again? Of course not. So most people don't flake or ghost or block or disappear when money is involved or a job is involved. Why would we treat something that we care about much less in terms of an emotional attachment, better than we would with someone who was sleeping with her, who were intimate with when you're being paid, suddenly the desire to show up and be on time becomes important.
Speaker 0 00:31:43.6600000 Even with money that you owe. What about your bills? What happens if you decide to flake on your bills? Because you're not in the mood to pay the light bill or the condo or the boat or the electricity. What happens when you ghost on your bills in about one month's time, you'll be living in the dark ages in your house, but if you're not being paid, then people place a huge level of importance on their time and how it's so valuable. In fact, it is absolutely astounding to me, how the more I see people waste their time, scrolling through social media, living on Instagram, endlessly, messing around with their hair or makeup in the bathroom. These are the people who are the most concerned with not having their time wasted. Anytime you use an expression where you talk about how valuable your time is, how important your time is, how you don't want to waste your time.
Speaker 0 00:32:35.1699999 You are in essence, devaluing the other person you're talking about. No one enjoys having their time wasted. Everyone thinks their time is precious and your time is not more valuable than anyone else's except to you. And that's okay if you're walking around in a park by yourself with nothing to do, it's okay. If you're traveling the world by yourself and no one owes you anything, and you have nowhere to go and nowhere to be a no obligation, same thing with being late. People seem to have no problem watching an extra YouTube video, scrolling through social media, spending longer on their hair, blow, drying, doing makeup, getting ready, chatting with their friends, taking their time on their own flow and showing up whenever they want and expect. And the person to deal with it by simply saying, I'm sorry, there's traffic. Oh, I'm running late or not even letting you know it all. But if you've had to be somewhere and you've ever had to catch a subway, a bus, a trolley, or a train, how long did that punctual train wait for you. It didn't wait for you a second.
Speaker 1 00:33:38.4000000 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:33:38.9300000 And all of those by the way are run by people. And so why then would someone else wait for you? Because you're worth it.
Speaker 1 00:33:45.6400000 <inaudible>,
Speaker 0 00:33:48.3500000 You know, I've spoken before, about how many times you're allowed to show up late for work before your boss or employer fires. You like twice, three, four times. The point of sharing that analogy is how many times do you suppose you'd be allowed to just not show up for work with no explanation, no call, no justification, no understanding before you were fired and a bolster onto that. If you finally did show up the next day or a week later, and you said something like, Oh, I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't know if I was really feeling sexy that day. I don't really feel like working that day. I don't know if I really felt connected to my job this day. I think most people would want to blacklist you from ever working in that industry again. So let's dive a little bit deeper into understanding the emotional effects and ramifications of ghosting on someone.
Speaker 0 00:34:41.9300000 You're going to hear me express this several different ways throughout the episode so that we really make sure everyone understands. It doesn't matter how deep your relationship was, how attached you were. How in love you were. Doesn't matter how much care adoration, understanding, emotional investment, whatever commitments you made to one another doesn't matter who loved each other more when someone else just on a whim out of the blue, and whenever they decide to speak up about it, to say that they're uncomfortable or worse decides to ghost you. The other person is magically instantaneously in a moment supposed to realize that their feelings just don't matter. There's supposed to get over it quickly. Let go, move on and forget it ever happened. This is fundamentally impossible. This is not what happens. This is not how it goes. In fact, the only place where someone can get over something effortlessly, easily, and in a moment would be where there's a fertile ground for hitting on lots of women and men, a bar, a club, a restaurant.
Speaker 0 00:35:49.7400000 This I would say, okay, if done correctly and respectfully you get rejected. You get turned down by someone move on. She's not interested. She's there to socialize. He's there to be with his friends. If it doesn't work out, it's like, ah, but you know, everyone knows, especially even if you've seen someone in a bar or a club that you really like, and you're chatting with them for a little bit, and then they either got uncomfortable or decided they got FOMO, or they wanted to go talk to other people or someone more interesting came along. There's still that sting, the pain and hurt of being turned down. And that sting, that pain of rejection, which is it's manageable in a nightclub or bar environment is otherwise amplified tenfold, a hundred fold, a thousand fold, depending on how much future investment you have and you dear ghoster.
Speaker 0 00:36:44.0700000 And those who ghost are so self absorbed. So concerned with not feeling accountable or responsible for your choices. You do not want to see what a person looks like when their feelings are hurt by you rejecting them. So in terms of your commitments, as far as I'm concerned, when you say you're going to do something, can I have your phone number? Yes, you can. That's implied that we're at some point going to have a real conversation, not a 50, 50 or 70, 30, or 80 20 chance that you might vanish completely off the face of the earth. Never call the person again or just not respond to a text. The understanding when you give someone a means to communicate with you is there's going to be some level of communication. Now it gets a little watery with social media, even though I think everybody uses, let me follow you on social media to be able to talk and connect, but because there's the excuse that you might just want to see their page.
Speaker 0 00:37:41.1000000 Let me see what photographs this person posts. Let me see what kind of breakfast they're having. Let me see what kind of stuff they're into. But in reality, everybody wants to slide into those DMS, all of this to say, when you agree to get together with someone there's emotional involvement, you might not be feeling emotionally involved, but that doesn't take you off the hook for understanding that another person is emotionally involved in you. And yes, even if that means going to get coughing. Now in today's jaded world, we've minimized get togethers and dinners and concerts and events to first dates being about coffee. I don't wanna waste my time. I don't want to invest a lot. I don't want to spend big. I don't want to give this guy my time and energy. I don't want to spend too much time getting ready. I just want to meet for coffee and talk.
Speaker 0 00:38:33.1200000 So this is an example of being where you might meet someone, even here. People want to write this off as no big deal. I still think if you agree to a coffee date, yeah. It's just like a job. You know, your word is your word. Did I just say your word is your word? Whether it's your job or sex or a date or time with your children or time with your best friends, if you commit to something, your word matters and your word is a contract, it's all you have. We don't run around signing papers and saying, okay, I'll be there at eight. Let me just sign it here. No, that would be silly. We use our word is our agreement. That's what a handshake represents and integrity, especially for men. And obviously, especially in business as well. Integrity is huge. I often say very simply in my line of work when I'm sitting down with a client for the first few times, and we're talking about trust and communication, and we're talking about how the other person shows up.
Speaker 0 00:39:30.5300000 I say to them, would you have trusted me? If I showed up 20 minutes late, would you have trusted me? If I just didn't show up at all for our closeness and intimacy session, which by the way, takes vulnerability. It takes a lot for people to be there. It takes a lot for them to show up. There's an emotional involvement and investment just like there is in dating sex and relationships, but maybe I'm less invested because I'm the coach. And you know, I've been there and done that. And I see this kind of work. What if I suddenly decided to just not show up for your intimacy session and you called and you called and you called and you got low paranoid, like, Hey, I'm really struggling here. I thought we were going to see each other. Our appointment was at two. And then you just never heard back for 30 minutes after our appointment was scheduled.
Speaker 0 00:40:15.2600000 What if it was an hour, a day? Would you question whether there was something wrong with you, whether you said something wrong or whether you were judged harshly for an issue you came to see someone about. Yeah, of course you would. And the same thing applies when you're sexually interested in someone or they're interested in you. Imagine if you finally did get ahold of me. Oh yeah. I checked. I was feeling like, just not really in the mood today, I was feeling a little on the heavy side and I didn't really want you to see me like this. I was feeling like another client sounded a little more fun and interesting to me. And this was going to be kind of like dragging me down. And I don't like the low energy. So yeah, you understand, right. It's not, you it's me. You can't trust that way.
Speaker 0 00:41:00.3500000 And that's why for me, my word is everything. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it. If I don't, I feel extremely bad. If something comes up that I've somehow missed or I didn't account for, there's a very sincere level of apology that comes from me. And even that, I feel like to the person that it happens to isn't fair, especially they have emotional involvement. So all of this to say that ghosting creates an enormous level of toxicity because we shut someone down behind a screen because you're not bearing witness to the tears, the crying, the hurt, the frown, the shift in their face and the otherwise crumbling of a fallen desire. And by the way, most people, especially women love to say, I don't want to hurt their feelings. I don't want to make them feel bad. I don't want to hurt them.
Speaker 0 00:41:58.9300000 And it's my sincere belief that you not hurting them is a minuscule part of the equation compared to you not wanting to feel bad about how uncomfortable it is for you to see that you hurt someone else that way. In other words, you don't want to trouble yourself to feel uncomfortable. You don't want to go through the trouble to deal with any kind of pain, witnessing someone else's pain. That's far worse. Your heart doesn't want to suffer. You don't want to see them go through that pain. You don't want to see them suffer as a direct result of your bidding, your ghosting, your flaking you're blocking your FOMO, that it was more important to you to just get a little rest or read a magazine or scroll through your Instagram or go to someone else's party or hookup with someone else or go visit someone else than to be honest and let the person know what was going on with you, what you were feeling or in essence to express vulnerability.
Speaker 0 00:42:58.9000000 And so we sit behind a screen, possibly devastating, and at the very least severely hurting other people and being too much of a coward to face the music ourselves. We don't want to talk to them anymore, but we're not going to tell them directly. We don't want to spend time with them anymore, but we're just going to start ignoring them, making choices and decisions that only have our own best interest in mind. What are you doing to do this well with ghosting? You don't even have to do anything, nothing at all. You're texting, you're talking, and then you just vanish out of the person's life forever.
Speaker 0 00:43:35.0800000 There is an additional layer here that goes hand in hand with ghosting. And it's a disgusting little quality known as curving to introduce you to it. I'm just going to read you a quick little article by Brittany Cox called there's a dating trend called curving. And it might be even worse than ghosting. Apparently curving is an ugly, distant cousin of ghosting. When somebody ghosts you, they just suddenly stop responding with no explanation or goodbye. When someone curves you, they keep responding, but they bat away any questions regarding commitment or any attempts to define your relationship. People primarily use curving for two reasons. They use curving so that they can keep hooking up with you without addressing the question of what the two of you are. So if you're sleeping with someone regularly and you try to ask them if you're dating, they might curve you by simply ignoring the question or instead asking you to come over.
Speaker 0 00:44:28.0800000 Oftentimes confronting someone who is curving will result them, ghosting you. For instance, when I finally didn't let my love interest to change the subject on me. When I was asked about going on a real date, he just stopped replying to my texts, but there's another insidious reason why people choose to curve. Oftentimes people who are in relationships still like to flirt, or in other words, cheat with other people. So someone might go out to the bar and be super flirty with you until maybe you pick up on a sign or ask just to be sure. And suddenly they reveal, Oh yeah, I've got a girlfriend. You were on the path to something, but suddenly got curved. This is a really dishonest way to date. To be honest, it might even be worse than ghosting. Ghosting is super rude, but at least it isn't blatantly lying about your intentions.
Speaker 0 00:45:15.0400000 Urban dictionary, always an excellent place to get information defines curving as ghosting, but more brutal. They want to seem nice, but maybe they take days or even weeks to reply to your last WhatsApp message. But instead of leaving you hanging like a ghost would a Curver would reply, but their responses will be sporadic closed off and often apologetic. I'm so sorry for not texting. I've just been really busy with insert predictable excuse here. So as simple real-world definition of a Curver is someone who continuously replies to your messages, whether they take a long time to do it or not, but it never goes anywhere. So they either don't meet you or don't get together with you or they avoid answering questions that would move the relationship further because they don't want to address them. From here. We move on to the next insidious sin of dating and that's called blocking.
Speaker 0 00:46:08.2700000 Blocking means you've given someone your number and here again, the disclaimers, I don't mean that they've threatened you. I don't mean that someone is blowing you up nonstop, texting you 30 times a day, despite you telling them not to. And they won't listen and they keep calling and calling. No, of course there are appropriate times to block someone and an appropriate time to do that is once you've established a boundary, you've given a little bit of space for understanding your boundary. In other words, you can't just be communicating with someone openly and then change your mind and expect them to get it by saying, I need you to stop calling me out of the blue and then not expect them to have any questions. What happened? What's going on? Was it something I said, was it something I did? What's creating this boundary. Most people just want understanding most women when they set a boundary, want to say whatever is on their mind and then have the entire universe acquiesced to their desires without questioning it.
Speaker 0 00:47:05.8800000 They want to come to a new decision, which by the way, people often change their mind. Very often say something like, Oh, I'm uncomfortable. I don't want to see you ever again. Oh, I'm uncomfortable. Don't call me ever again. Don't do this. Don't do that. And everybody's suddenly supposed to just understand everyone is supposed to just understand on some deep level that whatever you want is perfectly okay. And our emotions don't matter. As long as you're getting what you want, because this made you feel uneasy, friends, there is no suddenly understanding when someone cares about you and likes you. There's no one in the world who's going to be interacting with you on a friendlier, loving, or sexual way who were upon you establishing a boundary of any kind is going to think, Oh, she's just establishing a boundary. Who cares? How I feel fine with me?
Speaker 0 00:47:54.6100000 I'll never talk to her or I won't do this. I won't do that. Certainly it's appropriate to ask for exactly what you need and establishing a boundary. We talk about in the podcast all the time, extremely important. I'm the first person to say that it's massively important to respect and honor other people's boundaries. But the understanding that comes after, Oh, if there is one thing you got from understanding, setting a boundary, it would be that it's a two way street, a two part process. There's your boundary. And then if you're involved with someone, it's how they feel about it, their feelings, their understanding of what the hell is going on. It's the care understanding and looking out for someone else, which frankly, these days, no one has the capacity to do. We are fully self-entitled, self-interested, we're fully vested in our life. Our needs, our self care what's going on with us.
Speaker 0 00:48:48.3700000 And unfortunately the person who believes that they need the most attention or the most self care, who's the most vulnerable. And in many cases, the person who is the woman often is so busy trying to get so many of her needs met that there's never any acknowledgement of what the other person is doing or what they might need. It's the idea that you're not an Island. The idea that their feelings matter too. And most importantly, the concept that just because you suddenly had a change of heart does not mean the entire universe stops for you. There's someone else in front of you who you're interacting with, who deserves an explanation and deserves to understand what happened. It's called empathy. It's checking in. It's helping them understand. Here's why I had to do this. Or here's what was going on within me. Every time you say or do this, it makes me shut down.
Speaker 0 00:49:35.5000000 Every time you call me and say this, it makes me feel sad. I get hurt. When you go out and do this, here's what I was hurting about. Or here's some behavior that I felt you were doing that really bothered me or made me feel uncomfortable. Do you understand that? Do you know what I mean? To me, there's even another layer here is step before establishing such a firm, harsh boundary. And that's asking for what you need in a kinder way before shutting the whole thing down. Seeing if your partner is open to communication, seeing if your new date is willing to do something else or talk about something else or go somewhere else, instead of just vanishing completely to me, this level of communication is essential. Here's our next pillar. And even if you're unable to put yourself in someone else's shoes and understand why you might not like this to happen to you, you may still want to do it for yourself to protect yourself and stay ghosting is divisive.
Speaker 0 00:50:31.2800000 It's a behavior that causes hostility, negativity, anger, resentment, and frustration in others. There are certain behaviors that trigger people to be angry or hostile toward one another that could otherwise be completely avoided. And you might never have seen that behavior in that person had you not behave this way, driving on the freeway. No problem cut someone off. That's one of those things, shopping alongside someone else in a store, no problem. They shove their hand in front of you or cut you off or reach out in front and grab what they need without acknowledging your existence. That's a problem. Ghosting is one of those things. Ghosting makes it appropriate and acceptable for someone else to be angry. It makes them feel justified and appropriate to be rude, cruel, or mean right back to you because obviously that's how your behavior is taken. So it seems like you're not doing much of anything because you're not physically.
Speaker 0 00:51:35.7500000 In fact, you're doing nothing. You're not calling. You're not texting. You're not emailing. You're not showing up. You're doing nothing. And in the doing of nothing, it may seem like it's not such a big deal to you. And you may wonder why it's not such a big deal to someone else. It continues to astound me why this is a concept. That's so difficult for people to understand. As we said before, no one is an Island. You're not alone on this planet. We're social beings and we need to socialize. Even the world's top. Ghosters still fall in love with someone. They still like want love someone. They still want something from the people who they are interested in. And I'm curious to know how a ghost or feels when their object of attention, doesn't pick up the phone for them or the call never comes. Or the meeting never happens when the ghoster is in need, but that person isn't available for them in the first five seconds or five minutes that they called.
Speaker 0 00:52:28.6100000 How does the professional even occasional ghost or feel when something that's at stake for them is important. Do they ever have the aha moment? I don't think they do. I don't think there's a recognition in most people that goes, Oh my gosh, I've been doing this to people. My whole life. In fact friends, sadly, what's true is the opposite. The person who does the ghosting, the person who vanishes and blocks the person who lies and manipulates. When it happens to them, they suddenly throw a fit. When it happens to them, they can't bear waiting five seconds. And when it happens to them, they say, Oh my God, I wait for nobody. Why is this person making me wait longer than three minutes? I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. Why would they do this to me? How could they do this to me? And it's hard because now most people, most millennials have grown up in a culture of texting only don't call me, text me.
Speaker 0 00:53:19.0100000 Don't leave me a voicemail. I never check it. Don't email me. Just text me. Don't talk on the phone. Just text me. Don't video chat with me. Just text me. Don't meet up with the in person. Just text me. So if your entire mode of communication, your entire interaction with someone outside of the times that say you're sleeping together or doing something fun is an endless incessant text conversation. Can you see how easy it is to disregard someone's feelings? When all you're doing is staring at a screen that does 10,000 other things for you. You quite literally much like an arrogant queen flick away anything you don't like. You want to see the next story flick. You want to see the next person swipe. You don't want to see notifications, swipe. You don't want to see that person anymore off with their head. You don't want to talk to someone again, block.
Speaker 0 00:54:05.0700000 So coming back to blocking, I can't begin to tell you how many stories I've heard. I want to say just for men, but I know that some men do this to women as well, which I found shocking. Cause I've never come across a man who has blocked me. I've never come across a man who has ghosted me. And I don't mean in a dating situation. And maybe that's the difference, but I acknowledge that men do this as well. I've never come across a man who was in the middle of a conversation with someone and then just block them for no apparent reason or, you know, in the deadly sins of online dating, we talk about, they just unmatched the other person unmatching by the way, without any explanation is also the same as ghosting to be talking on an app and then vanish to have given someone your number, been texting a little bit and then just vanished completely.
Speaker 0 00:54:52.5900000 Well. How do you vanish on your phone? You block there's something about being blocked that most people find also very toxic and distasteful. When used appropriately again, appropriate use of blocking. You have a stalker, you have someone who won't leave you alone. You have a number that span that keeps calling you, but it's very narcissistic and toxic to block someone who you're in the middle of a conversation with, or having a decent time with, or even where the other person may not understand why you would do so with no explanation, people do this enough times and they begin to stop respecting, trusting, and liking the opposite sex. You do it enough times. And it's very easy for most people to come to the conclusion that men suck, that women suck because of all the crappy behavior that happens for what to avoid, what vulnerability being real, being honest, sharing your emotions, letting people know how you feel all because in many cases of your fear of missing out,
Speaker 0 00:56:02.9199999 Here's the deal with FOMO, no matter what you choose to do, no matter where you put your attention, there will always always be something else you would have rather not done. And something else that probably would have been much more appealing. Would you rather be on a boat or a yacht? Would you rather be on a plane or a jet? Would you rather be swimming in murky waters or in tropical blue waters? Would you rather spend time with this guy or that guy? The grass is always greener. There's always going to be a better choice. There's always a better fantasy. You cannot stop yourself from desiring something more from the situation you are already in. That's an impossible dream to be able to have everything that you want without ever wanting something more than that, you cannot help but want. And so in knowing that it's critical to make your choices line up with them and be with the people you chose to be with.
Speaker 0 00:56:56.5300000 Not letting them know five minutes after an event started, if you're running late and you're going to try to catch it, you're going to try to make it because your other plans fell through. Not at the very last second, because you were trying to get together with someone else. If you weren't dealing with people, and instead you were choosing to play with your colored blocks or your Crans or your Barbie dolls or your toy horses, then there's nothing at stake. If you start playing with one and you decide you don't like it, you play with the other. If you think you want to play with one, you tell your crayons, you're going to use them today. And then you decide not to who cares when you make a decision with someone else, we make a decision to spend time with them, and then you decide to cancel or change your plans or not show up last minute.
Speaker 0 00:57:39.6900000 And it's always last minute and you've completely deleted out of your awareness all the other time that the person spent getting ready for you, preparing for you, getting excited to see you. That's emotional investment. That's what emotional investment looks like. And we'll start to wrap up with this. To me. This is the number one reason why you don't want people to not be emotionally invested in you. In other words, here's why you want people to care and you want them to have a mild attachment to you. This is why you actually want someone to be bothered or upset if plans fall through and you refuse to get together. Here's why you want people to have excitement and enthusiasm. When it comes to spending time with you. When you think of spending time with someone, no matter who they are, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, a wife, a best friend to girlfriend.
Speaker 0 00:58:29.6500000 Would you like their enthusiasm level for you to be at best tepid, dismal, indifferent? Would you like them to not care one way or another? Whether they wound up getting together with you or not? Would you like them to have plans with two or three other people lined up? Because if it doesn't work out with you and it might be a little boring with you anyway, they've got something else going on. Would you like your friends, family, and lovers to think about you in a way where they really couldn't care less, whether they hung out with you or didn't whether they were excited to see you or not. Of course not. Why? Because you think you're far more important than that. Don't you, you think your time is valuable. You think you're worth hanging out with you think you're special. You think you are desirable.
Speaker 0 00:59:22.1300000 Don't you want the people in your life to be excited about seeing you. Of course you do. Who wants to spend time with someone who couldn't care less about them? Wouldn't that be a waste of your time? If you follow mower flaker ghoster blocker wanted to spend time with someone. If you had a desire to strongly be with someone, and the thought of being with you was ambivalence. Didn't really care one way or another, whether you were there or not come or not, I don't care. How would that make you feel? You want everyone to be excited. So you can't want all of your friends, family, and lovers to be excited for you. You can't want them to be enthusiastic when they hang out with you. You can't want them to share themselves with you and get that incredible juiciness that comes from one on one interactions and social interactions.
Speaker 0 01:00:13.7600000 And then also have the ability to flake, vanish, or ghost on a dime in my book. And I hope in many other people's books of love and life. This is something that need not be explained. This to me seems very obvious. I'm not a big fan of using the phrase. Common sense, because for most people it's anything but common, but one simple guiding principle stands out for me. Something that my own mother has always instilled in me from the time I was a child do unto others. As you would have them do unto, you said differently, treat others the way you'd like to be treated said differently. Still put yourself in someone else's shoes. Every time you're saying something to someone else that's less than positive and you don't understand their reaction or you can't fathom why they might be hurt or upset. Imagine it's being done to you, not by that person, but by someone else who you've got a level of commitment with that matters someone else who you really care about.
Speaker 0 01:01:14.7200000 If that person vanished blocked you disappeared, would you just get over it and let it go? Would you just move on to the next? And so as always, if you want to have more happiness in your life and that alone should be enough right there, but if you want to be appreciated more, if you want people to see you and love you for the shining star that you are, or the special person that you are eliminating and eradicating ghosting, blocking flaking, vanishing, and otherwise disappearing out of people's lives for no apparent reason will serve you immensely finally. And in conclusion for all of those times, when you do feel like you have to set a boundary, whether it's valid or not true for both of you or not, but something in you says, I got to put this boundary up. I need to either go or dismiss myself or tell the person I'm never going to see them again, rather than saying one sentence and disappearing forever, rather than ghosting, rather saying, I don't think it's going to work.
Speaker 0 01:02:20.6100000 It's you, not me or it's me not you. If the person who you're rejecting is not impossible to deal with, or they never leave you alone, or they're constantly blowing up your phone. If you're dealing with a normal, nice person, why not just talk it out? Why not give this person some understanding? And in fact, now I think is a great time for story time. You know, I actually teach people how to not be impossible, how to take rejection appropriately, how to properly reject someone and how to properly be rejected. There actually is a way I also teach people how to move on and how to respond in delicate situations. And what was really great is in sharing this particular episode as an early release with one of my special clients, we got into a really nice discussion about how to present things, how to take rejection, how to handle it, how to give it.
Speaker 0 01:03:07.0200000 She shared some of her own insights, and I'm going to be sharing some of those little later as well. Once upon a time, when I was creating the episode for online dating, I was doing a ton of research by getting on different dating apps and meeting several people. And so during that time, I would have a ton of conversations, FaceTime calls, face to face meetings and dates. And by the way, even during that time, I still would never flake or ghost on a commitment or a phone call or a meeting. Now online dating is a very interesting animal. Isn't it? Most of us have a hate, hate relationship with it. We are frustrated more than ever with the opposite sex. We feel like there's no good people out there. People aren't who they present, or someone's much older, a much younger, much fatter, much thinner, much more different looking than we ever expected.
Speaker 0 01:03:51.6700000 It's a mess in everyone sort of looks at it with a strong irreverence. It's a, it's like, here's the most important thing that you want in your world right now, most people want a relationship or to meet someone or even if it's just to have sex. And we give it a ton of time in terms of swiping, but in the actual communication with someone that's where I find it's always lacking. One thing to note about online dating is that everyone on there has a particular idea about how they should be treated and is shocked when they're not treated this way. And having that belief is about as ridiculous as expecting the entire world to have the same political beliefs you have, and the same beliefs about viruses that you have. Everyone thinks they've got the right answer. And everyone has a very strong opinion about exactly how funny you should be, how charming you should be and how you should be able to keep up with their life.
Speaker 0 01:04:41.1900000 So, anyhow, I wound up doing a three part series episode on it called the 40 deadly sins of online dating. And there are a lot, you could find the three part episode in season one and I strongly recommend listening to it. But in any case, once in a while, when I was matching with different women, I would verbally explore things a little bit further than I might normally have in my own personal life. And I would do this by asking questions some more direct than others, such as well. What does that mean exactly when you say that I hear that we're not going to move this further. I hear that you're rejecting or wanting something different or suggesting that I be a certain way. What are you really asking for? I'm hearing you say a, but it really sounds like what you really want is B. So what I tried to accomplish in those examples, and I would ask a question or two, not all of them in succession. The idea is to be curious and tactful and to seek understanding not to be annoying and pushy, but I will continue to ask a few questions. If it means we can get better understanding and also leave things in a good place. If it's going to be win, win, if anything, it helps me get a better understanding to make episodes just like this.
Speaker 0 01:05:52.0600000 You might be thinking to yourself, why would you want to get more understanding from someone who has rejected you? Because even if they don't flake ghost or block, people tend to make instant snap judgements. You do it all the time. You just assumed that that person was mean or dangerous, or it was a red flag or say for kind, or you trusted them. And further to that when you get rejected by someone online, almost inevitably, the response that someone is using is a pre-canned repetitive thing they've said over and over again. They've never thought about it in their mind. It's a knee jerk response. It's a throwaway statement or a statement. That means nothing. For instance, it's not you it's me. I just have a lot going on right now. Yeah. Let's check our calendars in a couple months from now. When I get back from Bali and see if I could squeeze you in, then I'm in a very unique space of growing right now.
Speaker 0 01:06:46.9000000 And I just don't feel ready to put my roots down. I'm trying, just trying to get to know myself and find myself, you know, I don't really know what I want right now. I'm just kind of feeling it out. I'm bored. I'm just out of a relationship. I not sure if I'm ready for anything too serious, but, but I definitely don't want to one night stand and I want to hook up. I don't know what I want and don't let me forget my personal favorites. These grand proclamations of how they're never on here. Don't have the notifications turned on, never check their messages and no they're terrible about replying. So the statements may have some general truth to them, but for the most part, people understand the purpose of a dating website. It's not a friendship website. It's not a make a new pen pal website.
Speaker 0 01:07:27.0900000 It's either a website where you can make a connection and have some form of sexual interaction or begin a relationship and have a sexual interaction. So anyway, what I teach on here on this episode and with closeness clients is that you're allowed to respectfully and tastefully follow up and be curious about why someone's turning you down. This is huge. If the person you're interested in just happens to be the one to set a boundary first or put up their wall or draw a line in the sand, then yes, the first thing you do is respect and an honor it, but if you don't understand it or you don't understand why it happened when it's not something as obvious as trying to have sex with someone and they push you away. When it's any number of a million other things that happened with intimate interactions, this curiosity is actually good thing because it helps you grow as a person.
Speaker 0 01:08:17.9000000 It helps the person rejecting you grow because it makes them think about what's really happening. And in some unusual cases, it may even work out that there was a misunderstanding and you wind up moving things along because you cleared it up in more to the point. I think it's extremely important for men to know and understand why women reject them. And it can't stop at no thanks. Not interested. Have a nice day. Mm, no. I'm so turned off by people who think that they can reject others who are being nice to them by basically telling them to buzz off or screw off. All of these things may seem like appropriate choices for a woman when she's in a bar or a nightclub or walking down the street alone. And she's just trying to shoot someone away. But if you're in a comfortable, safe place where you're having a conversation, shouldn't communication be top priority.
Speaker 0 01:09:09.1100000 Now you never know how honest someone is going to be, and you can only hope for the best, but getting clarification and being curious, goes miles towards understanding each other. Once upon a time, I matched with a beautiful young lady from South America and we both speak four languages. So we were speaking to one another in each other's native tongue. And so when things first started out, we had a great chat via text. Of course, she gave me her number easily and readily. We got to video chat a few times. We spoke on the phone a couple times and we had a couple hour plus long conversations. We shared a lot of looking into each other's eyes, intently over video chat. There was a little bit of not phone sex, but sexy talk. I'm sure you all can recognize a moment when you meet someone and you just don't have to work very hard.
Speaker 0 01:09:54.0800000 There's an energy there. You can feel an underlying attraction, but lust is not the only thing that's pushing forward. It's a, it's like a general sense of warm attraction. You know, you'd probably be intimate with them or have sex with them, but you're also able to carry a conversation. It's great. And we had that to me. I felt certain that had, we met a few times. I actually thought she would want to move this towards a committed relationship. So clearly you can see this wasn't a throwaway interaction. It felt like the beginnings of something that had potential. If all that wasn't enough. She told me on a few occasions, I think you're really handsome. You're very attractive. And I think you're a very desirable person. Wow. Then one day, almost out of nowhere, while we were talking about how long it would take to get to each other's houses and followed by statements, like I fell asleep, listening to you, the food you made looks delicious.
Speaker 0 01:10:44.3899999 You're so funny. And you're very impressive after all of that, she says, but I also need to say this. I don't feel attraction to you. You're confident. And I don't feel like you're my type, even though you're super handsome, it's too much for me. Here's a situation where the both of us appear to be moving forward. There'll be no reason for either one of us to think we weren't. And then someone almost mystically and magically changes their mind. It's the kind of curve, ball and unexpected response that really upsets most men because it comes out of left field or at least seems to. And I think this exact moment is where people get stuck in the middle of any type of sexual or intimate interaction when it comes to dating specifically because of how confusing it is. How do you give someone all of this positive feedback, all of these great signals.
Speaker 0 01:11:38.5500000 And by the way, people often are especially women, very complimentary. They don't want to give the wrong idea. So they give a compliment sandwich or they don't want to make the person feel bad. So it's compliment, compliment, compliment. You're great. You're wonderful. You're amazing by the way, I'm not interested. So if someone tells you that you're attractive and you're very interesting and very handsome and they tell you're not attracted to you, where do you go from there? And number two, how do you solicit feedback to understand what on earth is going on? How do you get understanding around being given false hope, excitement, or an expectation that things are going to move in a different direction. And I got to say right here, I need to pause. Cause we got to get your mind, right? For any of you listening right now, hearing me talk about someone who's saying no, or they're establishing a boundary or they're saying I'm not attracted to you, or they're trying to get you to move on.
Speaker 0 01:12:27.9000000 The first thing in our minds as the listener is to say back up, move away, let it go, move on all the things we've spoken about in this episode. And we don't ever give the person who's being rejected. Understanding. We're always worried about the person doing the rejecting. And if you're not backing the hell up, if you're not running away with your tail between your legs, if you're not distancing yourself and never speaking again, then you're doing it wrong and you're being toxic. So it's really important. As I always mentioned in closeness episodes to put yourself in someone else's shoes to really go there, to try to think of a moment when you really liked someone, you thought it was going well, you thought it was moving forward. You might have even been intimate before or had sex or you started dating. And then with no explanation or no understanding, they pulled the rug out from underneath you and vanished without any commentary, without any explanation, without any understanding of what actually happened.
Speaker 0 01:13:29.2500000 And it left you devastated. I know it's happened to you. If you're a single or you've dated or you've done anything like that, if not, I'm sure, you know, a friend who's had that done to them. So it's really important to have that empathy in mind. Now, ladies, I think it's very important for you to understand good God, of course, you're allowed to establish boundaries. You can back out of things. You can change your mind. We all can. But for many men, if you're attracted to someone one day and then suddenly not the next, it feels very irrational. It doesn't seem to make any sense. It almost doesn't seem possible. And it will often make the person question your intentions to begin with and their trust for you. That's right? Most importantly, changing your mind on something so serious makes you untrustworthy. So I'll give you another example of that right now.
Speaker 0 01:14:19.4500000 Let's say a couple is together. And a woman tells her man that she doesn't want children who now a lot more is at stake. It's a lot more intense than something you'd say to someone on a dating app, the desire to, or to not have children is one of those huge life choices that you really have to be on board with with your partner or else it's not going to work out. So now let's say with this couple, she expresses on multiple occasions how nice it is to not have children, how free you are together, how enjoyable it is to not have to be responsible for a third person and to be able to focus on our relationship. Well, when we are in relationship with someone who we love and respect and like we get behind them and we support what they care about. If we feel the same way we resonate with it, we support that belief.
Speaker 0 01:15:03.7200000 We start thinking that we're on the same page together. When two people line up on important subjects like that, they start thinking about how nice it can be to build a life together. And what does a woman want from a man when it comes to building a life together or supporting her dreams, does he not want for him to get behind her and root for her to be the person who is there and supports her beliefs and desires and what she wants. And so if he's going to support her in anything, whether it's her art or her singing or her dancing or her practice or what she's involved with politically, or her job or her desire to have children, do you want a man who's wishy washy? Or do you want someone who's decisive? So now imagine this couple is coasting along in a happy relationship.
Speaker 0 01:15:49.8199999 And then all of a sudden the same woman uses their agreement to not have children together as a reason to break up because she's starting to feel like maybe she wants them. And then if that's not a big enough blow, it then gets revealed that she's been thinking about adopting a small child from Africa, true Hollywood story. What do you do with something like that? Well, probably unanimously all women will understand that a woman's desire to have children is one of the greatest things that she can do with her life, for some people. And that if a woman chooses to decide that, of course, she just comes to a new decision and says, you know what? I want to pursue this. But for the partner who has invested in you and who has gotten behind you through all of this, you are turning the relationship on its head.
Speaker 0 01:16:37.7000000 This quantity of self-interest this only looking out for your own desires, only caring about what's important for you without discussing them with someone else. It could be very dangerous. And I know we're talking about a really big polarizing subject, but it's really difficult when you're both on the same page. And then magically suddenly someone isn't anyone's desire to have children. It's hugely important, but being on the same page with someone about something as major as that, and then just having a new idea, you can expect that person to just get behind you 100% or be able to let it go with ease, where then is the line with people's attitude today of I can do whatever I want and choose whatever I want and go wherever I want. And then their responsibility towards the feelings of someone else. And what's happening with their life. When you're together with someone for one year, three years, five years, you don't just get over it.
Speaker 0 01:17:27.1400000 You don't just move on. The story is also a really a good example of FOMO. You're thinking to yourself, Oh, well, I've got this great relationship. Everything's going wonderful. But what if I'm missing out on something else? Maybe the grass is greener. Maybe I want something better. So I share all this as a takeaway for women to understand that men often think, how can I create a life with someone? How can I open myself up to a woman and share all of me? How can I be honest about my feelings, desires and emotions? How can I trust her? Or know if she's even going to be here tomorrow or in the morning? When I wake up, if a woman can change her mind about how she feels about me in a moment, if you're a woman listening, ask yourself, if you told another man, Oh, I thought I was attracted to you.
Speaker 0 01:18:17.4500000 I thought I liked you, but there's something that's not working for me. Or I'm just not feeling it anymore. Do you want the man to just instantly, no matter what you guys had going on to just stop talking to you and never speak to you again, I'm sure many of you were saying, yeah. If you're a man, does a statement like that, give you enough to go on. Do you understand what's going on or why it's happening? Can you say to yourself, well, plenty of fish in the sea. Let's just move on. We can all ask ourselves when she says something like it's too much. What is she speaking about? Her attraction to me, the absence of it. Someone's confidence level. What exactly is feeling like too much if I have nothing to go by. Okay. So jumping back to the story of the Latina Mamita we were talking about earlier, who had said, she's not feeling attraction and we broke that down at length, her next response, which by the way, I would have never heard if I didn't ask some clarifying questions.
Speaker 0 01:19:15.4700000 The next thing she said was, well, actually I don't like your profile with a lot of girls doing yoga, referring to my Instagram page, which has lots of photos and videos of me doing acrobatics and hand stands and all sorts of tricks with different partners. She then goes on to say, I'm very low profile. I'm sorry. Well, wow. That's certainly a different response from, I'm not attracted to you. One sounds like physical appearance, then it sounds like a personality flaw. And now it sounds like a jealousy thing. And this is a tricky spot because I can hear her trying to express herself. She's trying to give me a couple sincere reasons, but I can't help, but wonder, are we really going to throw the whole thing away? Because you don't like my social media page, all of this talking and connecting we've done so far.
Speaker 0 01:20:03.4100000 Just never speak again because I'm doing acrobatics with girls. I checked in further. Are you saying you don't like the level of physical activity or the photos? Are you saying that seeing me interacting with other women makes you feel insecure on some level to which she then appropriately and vulnerably said, I'm just too jealous. Yes. It's not going to work for me and good for her for saying that I really applaud it because she's being honest, she was vulnerable. And that's a very exposing thing to say about yourself that you just seeing your partner talking to someone else or with someone else or training with someone else is going to make you jealous. And so you know that this is unhealthy for you to pursue. I was so thankful to be able to have this conversation because in the end we opened it up and we were able to get to what's at the bottom.
Speaker 0 01:20:49.3500000 It wasn't physical attraction. It had to do with lifestyle and because of how she judged or viewed or decided to look at my lifestyle, she saw it as a roadblock. We actually had a really revealing conversation about all this. And I'm really thankful for it, but there's a bit of a caveat here, a bit of a thorn to it. It needs to be handled in a certain way. None of us are experts at this. I'm not an expert at this. We can always learn different ways to word how we're feeling or to ask for information, to get clear. Our natural instinctive response is often the wrong one, but here is the secret to handling, not ghosting correctly. If the person who was going to ghost or who doesn't want to see you anymore, or they've come to a new decision about something decides to actually share what's going on with you.
Speaker 0 01:21:36.2000000 Then we as listeners, we, as the receivers of rejection, we, as the people who are hearing the news, we don't want to hear, we have to learn and understand how to handle rejection appropriately. And that means how do we stay respectful, peaceful, calm, friendly, and sincere. And in some ways, even thank the person for turning you down and hearing that they don't want you anymore. We have to be not cool. Not awesome, not amazing because for most people it's going to hurt. It's going to make you feel sad. We have to be understanding and we have to be kind. And I understand it's doubly hard to thank someone for turning you down. It's a practice that we all have to get into. It's not thank you for hurting my feelings. It's thank you for saving both of us a lot of time. Thank you for speaking your truth now.
Speaker 0 01:22:34.9500000 So it avoids pain for both of us later. Thank you for being honest with me. And now that everything is clear, now that you understand it's a hell of a lot, easier to move on. The funniest thing about sexual interaction is everyone is terrified to say to the other person I'm not sexually attracted to you, but who doesn't understand that when someone's not sexually attracted to you, you're not going to be having sex or be getting intimate, obviously to make that point abundantly clear, no one's going to have sex with a tree. Hopefully no one's going to have sex with animals because you don't have attraction. That's disgusting, right? Similarly in the human world, you're not going to have sex with someone who's gender. You're not attracted to. And you're not gonna have sex with people who you find physically attractive and that's okay. Can we make it okay to just tell the other person I'm not physically attracted to you?
Speaker 0 01:23:26.6200000 Thank you. Or you look great. You're a beautiful person, but I'm not physically attracted to you. It's just simple truth. And it gives you permission to just move on. And in the example of the girl who didn't like my Instagram profile, that kind of understanding is a heck of a lot better than just having someone say to you, Oh, I'm just not attracted to you. Also. I'm not attracted to, you can mean so many things. It can mean physically. It can mean your energy. It can mean the way you treat other people, what you do, the way you dress. It could be anything earlier. I was telling you, I was discussing this particular pre-release episode with one of my favorite clients. And she had some incredible feedback on how she might respond to someone who had rejected her in a particular situation where someone has turned you down.
Speaker 0 01:24:10.1500000 They're trying not to ghost, and you may want to solicit more information from them. The way she handled. This was so beautiful. I couldn't help but share it here. Now, my client is a very thorough and detail oriented person. So you might share parts of this or fragments of it or create your own version. But this one is very detailed. Here's an exceptional way to ask for more clarification and understanding. If you get rejected, hi there person. Who's rejecting me. Thank you so much for your honesty. I respect and honor your boundary. And I appreciate you fill in the blank, taking care of yourself or speaking your truth or letting me know what's going on with you. I'm wondering, do you have space to communicate with me about if something happened between us that made you feel this way? Could you say a little more, it could really help me to see how I'm coming across again, only if you have the space. Thank you. And I'm so sorry. If something I did made you feel uncomfortable, take care. <inaudible>
Speaker 0 01:25:13.5800000 when I first read this, I was so moved because the level of understanding and care is just enormous. Some of you may hear it and say to yourself, that's a lot. And certainly context is everything amount of time that you've known them, but you might be thinking yourself. That's a lot to say to someone who's just telling, you know, I think maybe I would just want to move on or I would just deal with the rejection and go my own way. Then of course, that's totally fine. But if you really want to get the understanding from someone, what an exceptional way to do it. And so she went on to say that girls are so used to guys being defensive and attacking and responding and attack mode. And everyone's seen that a guy hits on a girl, she rejects him. And then he swears at her or curses at her or calls her a bitch or is really rude or mean or said he didn't want her anyway, or either makes an offhanded remark or takes a what my client referred to as a swipe, like an animal back at you.
Speaker 0 01:26:04.6400000 And she even confided in me that the, for me, she didn't even know that men could be warm, that there was a different way that men go about doing things. So a lot of times women are afraid of men's anger. Even as men, when we say something direct or clear or simple, it may not be possible for men to modulate this consciously, but women, I find her super sensitive to tone and intensity. I'm aware of it. Even on this podcast, when I get excited or worked up, or I'm talking about something passionately, I'm never mad or angry about it, but the intensity might be a lot for someone to hear. So my client went on to share that there needs to be understanding around the fact that historically women have not been able to find their voice or speak up to men or stand their ground or express what they feel.
Speaker 0 01:26:51.5800000 Women are often socialized in some to not speak up about what they need, especially to men. So giving understanding that if a woman is speaking up to you, this may be the best way she can. Maybe she doesn't know how to do it any other way. She may in fact, just be doing her best. So men, especially with using text learning, how to make your words sound like you're not attacking someone is important. I am a huge proponent of using voice text because you hear the intent behind the words right away. Some people don't like it. Some people they get taken by surprise, but at least I'll always be clear. Understanding that setting up a boundary for anyone is a hard thing to do. It is hard for most people, with someone they love to say, you know what? I actually need to stop you right here and change something about the way we interact.
Speaker 0 01:27:39.7600000 When it comes to boundaries, I'm 100% supportive of people establishing them and holding to them. But the interesting thing that we've been exploring the second half of this episode is after someone sets their boundary and you respect it, where do you go from there? Books have been written about respecting boundaries. Plenty of talks on YouTube about it. But what about the other person who is emotionally invested in you? What happens when you're emotionally invested in someone and they just flick off like light switch instantly changed their mind, or want something completely different? What happens if you're in love with someone or you've been dating them for a while, or you've been having sex for a good amount of time and they say, Oh, Hey, it's been fun, but I'm over it. Now I'm done. I'm not into it. The question always then becomes, where do we go from here?
Speaker 0 01:28:28.9900000 Because it's just not as easy as tasting an entree, thinking you like it, deciding that you don't and sending it back to the waiter to have it taken off your check. Well, we also need to understand that the person who's doing the rejecting probably feels done. They feel complete. They've reached their new decision and they want to move on whether that's from a subject, an event, a restaurant or from you. So we know no means no. We know that they're done. We know that they want to move on. What about the feelings and emotions of the other person? Believe me, no matter where you are in life, you're going to find yourself in a position where you're that person who do you have to turn to in a tender moment like this? It's always been extremely odd to me that whoever puts up the boundary first or whoever decides they have a problem with something first that the other person's feelings and needs almost instantly become irrelevant.
Speaker 0 01:29:29.1700000 Think of any time you've said to a partner, a partner says to you, you want distance. You want a little space. You need to break up. You don't want to do this anymore. Often. You don't really care how the other person might be feeling. If you've shattered their universe, if you've devastated them completely, if they don't know what's even happening next, all that you know is you need space. And if you've ever been there, you know, nothing else matters. Just back up. I can't deal with this. I can't talk to this person. It's all about the ever elusive word space and our entire culture today is predicated on the fact that if someone says that they need space and the other person doesn't instantaneously give it no matter how they're feeling, no matter how bad that made them feel no matter what's going on in their life.
Speaker 0 01:30:13.1800000 That effectively, if you don't give a person space, you're a monster or you're evil or you're bad or toxic. It's a red flag. You need to get out of this relationship ASAP. It feels like it's become true. That if anyone questions, any boundary that you may have no matter how foolish or intelligent or necessary or impulsive or compulsive, then that person almost instantly becomes vilified. Of course, I need to remind you here. We're not talking about situations where your life is in danger or someone's pushing you, pushing you, pushing you and not respecting your boundary. I'm not talking about you saying, no, I don't want that eggplant and the other. Person's like, no, come on, take it. I think you need it. No, God, no. I'm not talking about moments where your life or your emotional health or safety is endanger. The idea I'm putting forth is that whoever sets the boundary first, almost by default suggests that the other person, even if they're in a relationship with you just disappears completely and that their feelings become irrelevant.
Speaker 0 01:31:08.6500000 In fact, if you've ever tried to have a conversation with someone who says they need space, you understand how impossible that is. You almost become more and more unattractive by the moment. The more seconds the go by that you're not giving someone space, the less desirable you become. And sometimes the only answer is to give someone that space, imagine that the person you've been together with for however long it's been or someone you've had a previous relationship with, and you're a year into your partnership. Imagine they just come home and lay this on you. I'm kind of over this. I'm done. I think I need some space or they vanish or ghost completely. Or they just said, you know, babe, I'm just not really attracted to you. I'm going to go, I'm gonna get my stuff and leave many of these sort of knee jerk responses.
Speaker 0 01:31:52.0900000 Yeah. If the person hears the request and is kind about it, can the person being rejected, request some understanding and clarity around what's going on with that person? Does the person being rejected, also have a voice? Can they inquire? Can they ask a few questions? Can they see if there's something that they missed? And I would say, if you're respectful, if you're kind, if you're genuinely just trying to understand what's going on. Absolutely. So as far as I'm concerned, whoever's on the receiving end of this is allowed to be curious and is allowed to be able to seek understanding. You can use the perfectly worded example that my client shared earlier. Do you have space to help me understand? Can you clarify this for me? This left me feeling confused or really hurt. I'd like to understand more. If we're going to live any kind of a life, we have to be able to find meaning in things.
Speaker 0 01:32:46.5300000 Very thing that helps us understand and move forward are things like story and meaning. So I'm going to propose a very strong concept. To me. It doesn't matter what your intimate level of involvement is with another person. That means I don't think it matters so much if you've just met them. If you've been sleeping together for a year, or if you're a longterm relationship, if you are engaging with another human being intimately and one-on-one, then I put forth that you have an obligation, it's a strong word. You're obligated to give your partner. Even just a little bit of understanding. I'm suggesting you become even in a small way, a custodian of their feelings. And this may come in the form of patience and understanding. It may come in the form of your presence. It may come in the form of giving them a little explanation or having a chat.
Speaker 0 01:33:41.1500000 So they get it. It might just be permission for them to ask you a few things. That's it. You got to understand, this is like oxygen for the person who you are compromising. This is life force. That's allows them to move on from you. It gives them the support that they need to understand what the heck is going on. And it also keeps resentment at Bay. What I think much of the world doesn't do anymore is simply think, why did I react this way? Why did I feel like that? What do I really want to say to this person, not to sugar coat and try to convince them how wonderful they are. They're such a great guy or girl, or, you know, they're going to make someone very happy. Don't feel someone full of hot air and then dump them. Give someone understanding. I believe we have a moral obligation to be sensitive, to be considerate, to be caring and to empathize because the opposite ghosting, it doesn't work. It never has. And it doesn't bring happiness. This doesn't bring peace. This doesn't bring great relationships or closeness ghosting doesn't have one single positive impact on either party. It simply allows one person to not deal with, see the actual pain or hurt or indifference of another for a few moments. The only benefit of ghosting is that the person doing it, doesn't have to deal with the very mess that they got themselves into the rest. Be damned.
Speaker 0 01:35:15.6500000 All right, as we start to finally wind this episode down and thanks for staying with me through all of this, I want to touch on this idea. If you are the person who's being rejected and you do get curious, and you want some understanding from your partner asking for it does come with a little bit of a risk. Not only do you risk hearing something that you really didn't want to hear, not only do you risk having your own feelings heard as you're getting understanding, but as we've been discussing, oftentimes women feel like they've barely even been able to muster one sentence. I don't want to do this anymore. Please vanish. And like a rabbit in a hat. You're as opposed to proof. If you're going to check in and see if there's a misunderstanding, see if there's something that can be done. See if she's willing to explore something.
Speaker 0 01:36:01.1500000 There's a big difference between someone deciding that they're no longer like you and are unattracted to you and them interpreting something that you said wrong or drawing a conclusion that you didn't even realize they had made, or thinking that you did something offensive or said something offensive that you weren't even aware of, or you didn't think it was that way. At all the example I shared earlier, perfectly illustrates that where initially it sounded like a girl just wasn't feeling attraction. And in our language in English, that's usually a physical thing. Then it sounded like it was more a personality thing. Then it became evident that it was about my Instagram profile. And then it became evident that it was her insecurity around me spending time platonically, even with other women, even though it was a no go for her. And all of those meant it was a no go for me.
Speaker 0 01:36:49.6000000 It was incredibly revealing and helpful to understand what was really going on by the way, things could have gone very differently if she wasn't so certain about never speaking again, or she brought my Instagram page to me as a concern for her, or she shared vulnerably that this worries her a little, but she still wants to talk to me. Maybe she would have had more space to ask a question. Like, do you spend time with all these women? Do you constantly talk to all these women? Do you have sex with all these women then perhaps that would have been something that we could have overcome together. Here we are. 90 minutes into an episode. What can you take from all of this? If you haven't received a treasure trove already one. Yes. It's to help the other person move on. Being a custodian of their feelings is incredibly important, but also too, because many people just instantly disqualify themselves.
Speaker 0 01:37:41.1699999 Everybody's trying to run away or say, Oh, no, not for me. I think I want something else. We're trying to quickly quickly, quickly not waste time and run away from the very person who might be a phenomenal match for you. Hear that again, people are constantly self disqualifying themselves and running away all the time, because one little thing comes up. You're afraid to look at it and you might be a perfect match. It's foolish to assume that, you know, the ultimate definition of what every little red flag might be. It's silly that people perceive one little flaw in themselves or someone else. So they feel inadequate or they feel the other person isn't good enough. And they think the whole thing should be thrown down the drain. There's another way. So all of this to say number one, most importantly, don't go first. Just stop it.
Speaker 0 01:38:31.7200000 There's almost no appropriate time or reason to ghost on someone who's being friendly to you or consider it. And when you're not in any danger, then for those being rejected, if someone actually does break the mold and shares with you that they want to leave, or why they're not attracted to you or what's wrong, be patient with the person rejecting you as well. It was probably very difficult for them to say this. It's also very likely that the person rejecting you is going to have a very short fuse. They're going to get agitated, annoyed, or put off easily. And if you don't want it to escalate, you've got to be particularly patient. And you've got to ask them for patients being rejected and doing the rejecting. It's a two way street. Everyone needs to learn how to be more considerate, more caring, more understanding with how we reject others, who we're not interested in or who we don't wish to spend time with anymore.
Speaker 0 01:39:23.2600000 And we, the same people also need to understand how to take rejection, how to internalize it, how to ask for more understanding yourself. And of course, this goes without saying, you're not going to disrespect. The other person, you not going to be rude. You're not going to insult them. You're listening to where they're coming from. So friends stories like the ones I shared with you today happen millions of times a day around the planet. Someone's getting rejected. Someone feels misunderstood, something goes wrong. Two people get excited for one another. They begin to emotionally invest. One person seems to get more excited or the other person seems to lose interest. That's usually what's at play. I like to recommend to everyone that you leave people you interact with in a better place than when you first met them. It's not always possible. It's not always easy, but you certainly can do a better job of it by lovingly communicating with them. It's okay to be rejected and it's okay to be okay with it. It's also possible to be in person face to face with someone and reject them without ghosting. And without the whole thing, blowing up, no need to ghost block, be angry or without being cold mean or frustrated. And then it becomes so much easier to do the very thing that the person who's ghosting wants to begin with. When you don't go first and you communicate how you feel, it becomes 100 times easier for the person you're rejecting to let and move on.
Speaker 0 01:40:57.6100000 Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this podcast immensely. If what you've heard here today has made a measurable difference in your life. Please consider donating our
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