[00:00:00] Welcome to the Closeness podcast. The following is based on both personal experiences and wisdom, as well as personal experiences that have been contributed to us. Generalizations are sometimes made for the sake of brevity, but are never meant to exclude or offend. Regardless of your gender identity, relationship status preferences, or sexual orientation, it's our sincere hope that you can take away something positive, constructive, and useful full from each topic explored. You can support these podcasts by donating to our
[email protected] Closeness now, are you ready to come closer? Let's get started. Today we're exploring two questions. Why is it detrimental to your dating health to tell people that you're busy all the time when they ask you out? Number two, why is it dangerous to fill your life with so many activities and things that need to be done that you literally have no time to breathe, no time to yourself, and no time for others? Does this topic even need explaining? Through many of these podcasts, I'd like to invite you to just think through some of the things that we say automatically, without giving much thought to them, not insofar as how you say it, but what someone else might feel when they hear it from you. So, in the arena of dating, what message do you think that you convey to someone, or do you think you receive if someone's response to your invitation is I'm busy and either nothing else or some marginally kinder version of this, such as, oh, I'm so busy right now. Oh, it's a crazy week, a month, year for me. Feel in your body for a moment how that sounds. Pretend that you want to spend time with me and you say, hey, I'd love to see you tomorrow night, I'm busy.
[00:01:50] Or someone texts you and you get back busy.
[00:01:56] You can see it's hard to even say it without sounding snappy. Remember two things with all of these episodes. Number one, we're not speaking about someone who actually does not want to see you. If that were the case, we've learned to say, I'm not interested, I don't want to, I don't want to get together. We're talking exclusively about people who actually want to see you, but their communication style is such that they communicate like this. And number two, in all of these examples, they aren't one off events. These aren't things that have happened one or two or ten times. We're talking about the countless times that people treat each other this way on a daily basis. So we've established that if you've been listening for any length of time. If you're not interested, you simply say, I'm not interested.
[00:02:43] But if you actually like a person and your response is I'm busy, it creates a problem. It's a communication issue at its core. When you tell someone you're busy, you are shutting down communication. You're closing the door and you're making yourself and your life more important, or more important sounding than anything else that might be going on, or shutting down the ability to connect more deeply with another person. You're making yourself sound more self important by putting an emphasis on how many important things you've got going on in your life without giving any acknowledgment to the other person. Now, the worst part of all this is just saying I'm busy is how most people conduct themselves. And most people reply to an invitation, they give you nothing to go on. I was speaking to a woman lately who informed me that she doesn't ask any questions. That is her Mo. She refuses to ask anybody anything other than how are you? And my thought was, how well can that possibly be going for you? I said, how does the conversation continue? She said, oh, I joke around, or I make observations, but I never ask anyone questions. I said, how do you get to know the person? How do you find out about who they are? She said, I see what you're saying. I won't say that you're wrong. If you look at some of your past text conversations, or you listen carefully to how some people interact with you, you might notice they do the same thing. They simply ask how you are and there's not much more after that, and they leave it to you to continue to pursue them or follow them or ask them questions, but it doesn't go anywhere. So when you ask someone something and they answer but give you nothing else, or the conversation deadens, or you invite someone out somewhere and they say, I'm busy. Where is the alternative? What does the person listening to this say? How is everyone on the planet not shocked or not upset that when you ask someone out and they respond with a statement that there's nowhere left for it to go without the person asking again or suggesting an alternative, which you find out in future episodes, makes it look like you're being needy because you have to keep asking and asking and asking because a person is simply replying with their status or statement. What does it look like to move it forward in about seven or ten words? I can't today. I'm really busy, but I'd love to see you tomorrow. I'm super busy today, but let's make a plan right now for next week. I've got my calendar out. When is a good time for us to get together? I just can't do it today. I can't right now, but why don't we get together on the weekend? I'm free at two. By simply snapping that you're busy, it creates distance, space and a shift in power. So obviously these kind of things are something you want to avoid if you want to bond or create a connection with someone.
[00:05:34] We're going to bring up another issue here. And that's when people use the fact that they're so busy as their excuse as to why they haven't gotten back with you because they've been so busy. The fact of the matter is that no one is authentically busy from the time they get up in the morning until the time they lay their head down at night. Everyone has breakfast, lunch and dinner or some variation of that. Everyone takes bathroom breaks and little pauses in their day and checks their phone and goes to and from. We all have moments of pause in our day. As I'm listening to myself recording this, it's a wonder to me that I even have to break down these sort of things. I do feel like I'm Talking about common courtesy, basic manners, consideration, respect, the very minimal you can do when you're communicating with someone. I think anyone over the age of 40 or 50 will probably think, yes, this is how I conduct my life on a normal basis. But in today's world where people have an issue, getting back with you in 8 hours, 20 hours, 50 hours, maybe a week goes by and you get this, what I refer to as a knee jerk response of oh, I've been so busy. We all know how inauthentic this is because our phones are on us all the time. We'll talk more about this later. But I even see countless cases of people who take the time to log on to their messaging app or bumble or what have you, just to tell someone how busy they've been and say nothing else.
[00:07:02] What type of behavior, what type of personality do you think you convey to someone when you do that? We are at a time in the world where no one is without their phone for any extended period of time except for extremely unusual circumstances. I shouldn't have to break down all of this, but of course, we are not talking about when you're in a work meeting, when you're at work all day, if you haven't actually been able to legitimately check it. Of course we all have understanding for this type of normalcy in our lives. No one is available 24/7 but we also know the truth of how most of us are with our devices. If it's not in our own hands, it's in our pocket, our purse, on the side table somewhere nearby. If you look around, everyone is dying to go check their phone if they are away from it for more than a few moments. Certainly there are exceptions to the rule. People who are off the grid and mountain, men and women and all sorts of other individuals and characters who love being away from technology, and that's something different. But we know that for populous America, or I might even say populous world, we are near and checking our devices all the time. And what that translates to is that, you know, people see your message, you know they got the voicemail, you know that they've received it on their phone, it's there in their hands. We also know it takes, what, 510 seconds to bat out a reply. So if we're really authentic with ourselves, we know that we are never too busy to give a genuine reply. So when would we like to stop this charade? When would we like to shine awareness on the fact that no one is authentically and genuinely busy from the minute they open their eyes in the morning until they laid their head down at night? There might be a day or two during the month where this happens to us. But without trying to cite extreme examples, when are we going to stop pretending that we were busy instead of acknowledging to ourselves that we just don't want to respond to someone or didn't feel like it? Think about how you spend your time on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, in traffic. When is it appropriate to really be busy? How about when you're with your family, or your loved one, or your partner, or a date? Or connecting by yourself in nature when you're meditating? Sure, these are great times for you to be occupied.
[00:09:32] Somehow, somewhere, we've lost our way. We've convinced ourselves that it's unattractive to have free time. Do you believe that? Do you believe that it's not sexy? Or you're less attractive because you've got an open schedule or free time? What is it inside of us that makes us feel compelled to fill every moment of our day with, what do you call it? Things? Stuff? Pointlessness? Is it okay to have room and space and time for someone new to come into your life, or for a visitor from your past to present themselves to you again? Do you have room for that in between all of your Instagram stories depicting you as having so much fun 24/7 it's also important to have time to ourselves, giving ourselves permission to be alone.
[00:10:21] What does it look like to actually interact with someone who is busy all the time? People who are busy all of the time are late. Very late all of the time. They keep people waiting for them because they can't keep their day or their schedule organized or tight enough to be on time. They fill their schedule so much that they are so overbooked and double booked that they just run themselves ragged moving from one appointment to the next. When you're late and you keep someone else waiting for you, your friend or coworker has a choice of how to respond to you. If they are angry, upset, pissed off, hurt, or frustrated for you being so late, what happens? Where does the energy shift?
[00:11:11] It's almost like it becomes the person who's getting angry's fault for being upset because you just showed up. Oh, sorry I'm late. But now your friend is pissed.
[00:11:25] It's like, hey, I left my previous meeting early. I said goodbye to my girlfriend or boyfriend early. I left the house with enough time to make sure that I got to see you on time. What do you say in such a situation? Usually something like, yeah, sorry, stuck in traffic. Can we just move forward with our day and forget about it? But you forget that someone took time out of their lives to be there for you and to meet you and enjoy your company. More often than not, if you look at it, you took more time with your hair, more time getting ready, more time on the phone or watching a YouTube video or chatting on the phone with a friend, and you just didn't give yourself enough of a buffer. So that's option one. That's actually the authentic answer and response to someone who's made you wait 20, 30, 40 minutes for them and has sat around waiting for you. It's natural for them to be angry, upset, hurt, or frustrated. The inauthentic response, which is what we wind up doing, is to pretend that it didn't happen and we're not bothered by it. And this is why these late people tend to get away with it over and over again, because no one has the authenticity or guts or gusto to say something to them about it. No one wants to rock the boat or offend anyone, feel bad or say, you know what? Forget that. I'm not even going to be here. And this is a much deeper problem than you might think when you combine this with the mentality of people today, ghosting people, feeling like they don't have to do what they don't want to do, just canceling at the last minute, changing plans. You've got on the one hand, someone who couldn't care less about your time, and on the other, someone who's looking forward to a date, a get together, an Interaction or a meeting. And when you tell someone the morning of after you've had plans for three, four, five days or worse, I can't believe some of the stories I hear from other people that they show up to a date, have the person not be there. They will text the person and their response will be, oh, sorry, I had this other thing come up. Do you all see? Let me just be abundantly clear. When you make plans with someone and you don't cancel Two days in advance, 24 hours in advance, 12 hours In advance, all of which would be the appropriate and respectful way to go about Doing this. Or even at the worst, three or 4 hours before you get together. So at the very least, a Person can do something else with their day that doesn't involve waiting for you and you don't even contact them. Or worse, they contact you to Wonder where you are and you think it's enough to say, I didn't feel like it, I did something else. I forgot. I cannot emphasize enough how rude, disrespectful, inconsiderate and downright low class this is. It's uncouth, it's distasteful, and nobody likes it. And more to the point, people lose respect, care and consideration for you when you do it. My heart goes out to all of the people who have experienced this type of horrible behavior, because it is nasty. But it gets even worse. And here's the Insidious part. If the person who's been made to wait shows any type of normal emotions, such as anger, resentment, frustration, agitation, et cetera, not only does a low class late person get agitated or frustrated themselves and not want to spend time with the person anymore anyway, but it's likely that the whole thing blows up in their face no matter what. And these Two people aren't going to see each other again, not just ruined for the afternoon, but that the entire relationship is ruined. So take one more look at this from a different perspective. Imagine you're excited to get together with a guy or a girl, and you take the time to get ready, shower, dress up, make yourself look great. Maybe you drive 10, 15, 20 minutes to meet them and you hear nothing from them the whole time. So you assume everything is fine. You're going to meet on time. But when it's time to meet 15 or 20 minutes after you get a message letting you know that they're going to keep you waiting 20 more minutes or not even be there at all, do you want to ever associate with someone like that again? How would you feel if it happened to you? Now, I personally have a favorite. If someone tells me they're going to meet me at 04:00 and 425 or 430 rolls around and I haven't got a text message or a phone call before our meeting time about how they're going to be late, I'm just out. And yes, that's rocking the boat. That creates a problem. Someone shows up and you're not there, and then they finally get the opportunity to see what it's like to wait for someone, and it really is a beautiful opportunity.
[00:16:15] Now, the truly amusing part of this is they will arrive and say, well, I'm here. Where are you? Here I am, 45 minutes late. Why? Why aren't you here? Where are you? I can't find you. I'm waiting for you. I'm looking for you. Frustration comes out that they are being made to wait for you, which is just shocking that there's no connection until you bring it to their attention about what's going on. So this really is a testament to demonstrate just how selfish we all are as people, how caught up in our own stories, our own lives and our own thoughts, that it doesn't even occur to us the damage that we inflict on others. I think most of us would love to avoid situations like this in our lives. Sometimes they're unavoidable. What are the telltale signs that you are involved with a person who's too busy for their own life? And for you, they are always lost in traffic. Traffic is always horrible for them. Now, what this really means is they waited, most likely to well beyond the last minute before leaving for you, doing all of their other stuff, thinking they could get to you in ten minutes when they knew they needed 45. When they arrive to you, they're frazzled, they're on edge, they're tense, they have a really hard time getting settled in or being present with you without checking their phone 20 times or adjusting themselves a lot. And they can't relax into the moment to actually enjoy the time that you set aside together. You're settled in, you're ready, and they need another 1520 minutes before they can think straight. Oftentimes they can't even keep track of everything they're trying to cram into their day. Because they're trying so hard to fill it with so many things. They're not present because one, they were late to get there, and two, their eye is always on their phone or watch because of the next place they have to get to. So maybe you try to sit down with this person for five minutes or 30 minutes, enjoy a quality interaction. What usually happens, it's all about them. Maybe there are a lot of Ahas, and you could tell that their eyes are not quite connected to their brain. They're looking somewhere else. They're always one step ahead of where they have to be next and are never quite with you. And just so we're clear here, every time I cite an example like this, I'm not speaking of a once scorned man or one bad experience I've had or my frustration about it happening. I'm talking about thousands upon thousands upon millions upon millions of people who are having experiences like this every single day. I know everybody can resonate with this truth because you've had it happen to you before. In fact, I'm sure people who are busy have also been treated this way by other busy people, and I wonder how that works out for them. Maybe they just never notice because both people are always showing up 30 minutes late. But the funny thing about these busy people is that they're the same ones who have time to post constantly on Facebook, always add to their story, always be in the flow or loving their life. So an example that I love to use that I often come back to is this. If you're 95 or 105 years old and you're looking back over your life and all the experiences that you had, do you want to look back and say to yourself, I am so glad that I jampacked every single one of my days so much that I never actually had time for anyone. I was just in a dizzy whirlwind of running from one place to another, frazzled, trying to get it all in, thinking I was missing out on things or having FOMO, or trying to pack as much into my day as possible, and now I can't really remember any of it. I spent so much time on social media watching what other people were doing and watching other people living out their lives and using that as my authentic excuse to be late or not have a face to face connection with someone. I'm so glad I did that. Rather than spending a few minutes a day or a few hours a week or several times a day, deeply and authentically connecting with someone who I care about by looking them in their eyes by clearing my mind and tuning in to what they had to share, or sharing my authentic truth with them, or even starting a new conversation with someone I've never met before and deeply connecting with them. Try this on for size.
[00:20:35] I love having authentic moments where I look people in the eyes, where I'm present with them, where I see them for who they are, where we're not in a frazzled state, but we're calm, connected. Almost like being on a tropical island somewhere. We're in sync, the communication is flowing, we're laughing and smiling or taking thought to where it hasn't been before. Where I feel seen, where I gave someone my time and my space. And I felt appreciated for that. Take a moment to reflect on how most of us, including yourself, communicates with everyone around you these days.
[00:21:12] Quick, snappy, knee jerk responses. Oftentimes reactionary. Explosive, defensive. Trying to prove a point. Trying to be right. Trying to show how you knew that or you know best. Demonstrating how the person you're talking to is wrong. Shutting them down. Telling them how they don't know you or they don't understand or they just don't get it. Not looking someone in the eyes, being difficult. Knowing that you're being difficult and trying to get a reaction out of your partner because they are not as worked up as you are.
[00:21:44] Behaving worse towards your partner than you ever would towards a perfect stranger.
[00:21:49] Demonstrating how you are somehow better than them in some way or some subtle cut or dig. All of these things keep us from the thing that we want most. Closeness, intimacy, connection, and someone who really sees us for who we are. See, if when you speak, you can take a look at the meaning and feeling behind the replies that you're giving. And if you care about the person, if you actually care about the person who you're speaking to, maybe you can find it within yourself to be a little more sincere, a little kinder, a little more authentic, and a little bit more about who you really are as a person. If you're taking the time to write someone a response, or to tell them how busy you are, or give them your physical location, or to actually reply, why not make it a nice one? It doesn't mean sugar coating. It just means sending a reply that you'd like to hear back yourself. It's not about writing some long, drawn out, three paragraph message about how sorry you are and how you couldn't pick up the phone and explaining your whole situation. It's just about the tone and the kindness in the message and delivery and the best way to do that is to just put yourself in their shoes and imagine that someone else wrote your reply to you. It's thinking through what you would say back to a response like I'm busy.
[00:23:08] Most people would feel rejected, or like that person doesn't want to spend time with them. And I think many of you are probably thinking if someone's talking to you that way, they don't want to spend time with you. And I can assure you, through all the coaching I've done and all the thousands of people I've spoken to, that's not the case. This is just how some people communicate. Even when they want to see you or sleep with you. It really comes down to a small shift in your communication style.
[00:23:35] There's been a ton of gold throughout this whole podcast, but the number one recommendation I can give you is that when someone asks you out and you can't make it, or you are busy but you do actually want to see them and spend time with them is to say something more than what you have going on. It's called letting someone know an alternative. Simply pick a different date. Demonstrate that you're interested. Give them alternatives when you are available, especially in the beginning. When you're dating someone, there's nothing better than feeling someone's excitement to want to see you. That lets them know they're looking forward to it, they're thinking about you, and there's a balance. You don't want too much of that. But where we are in today's world that's completely absent and void from our communication, get excited about the people who you're intimate with. Look forward to seeing them, for God's sake. These are some of the more exciting times when we meet someone for the first time, or the third or fifth or 10th, to make them feel wonderful and to make yourself feel wonderful about a new opportunity. So, to answer the question that's been on the tip of everybody's tongue, are busy people sexually unattractive?
[00:24:46] Hell yes.
[00:24:48] Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this immensely. You can learn more about the closeness, lifestyle and movement by visiting getcloseness.com. If you've been touched by what you've heard here today, or this has made a measurable difference in the quality of your life or sex life, or if you'd like to get one of your own intimate questions answered on an upcoming episode of the Closeness Podcast, please consider donating to our
[email protected] closeness. All of these links can be found in the description until next time, stay close.
