Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Happy 2019 and welcome to a very special edition of Closeness. Today we're talking about the what started as ten, then 20, now 30 deadly sins of online dating. We're going to cover about 15 of them here. It's a necessary episode. It's something that's very near and dear to my heart about how we treat others, especially how we treat strangers and how we treat potential lovers. And the interesting thing is there's no framework or rules for how to do it, so we tend to just treat people as poorly as possible. These are the people who we are evaluating as life partners, lovers, people who we're going to share ourselves with, people who, if the date goes well, it's going to spill over into something delicious and juicy and magnetic and incredible. And if it doesn't, there's this feeling of, oh, well, we should probably never talk to each other again. A lot of this comes down to manners, courtesy, respect, and treating someone the way you would want to be treated. Now, a few things to note. These aren't one off times where I heard of this happening to one guy one time. These are things that are happening over and over and over to people ad nauseam. And yes, I am a heterosexual male speaking about this subject. So a lot of them are going to sound a little slanted towards things that we've noticed as men, that women do in response to online dating. However, a lot of these go both ways. They are not exclusive to men and women. And as always, I'm happy to sit down with someone who feels very articulate about some of the very serious and obvious deadly sins that males do as well. So know that it's not meant to be exclusively slanted in one side. And also, to be fair, in response to a lot of these, I know women, sometimes you're doing the best you can. I know that men often are only after one thing, and it's very hard to know what's real, what they're being honest about, and if you can trust them, and they'll say and do almost anything to get that one thing. I know men can be vicious. I know men can be brutal. I know women can be vicious and women can be brutal. There's some really dark sides to how people treat each other for these deadly sins. However, we're holding a context or a container of two decent people who are interested in each other, two people who want to see each other, and yet these strange forms of behavior come up and affect the date. And so my hope with all of this is that we can eradicate some of that behavior so that you can actually experience, as usual, more pleasure, more closeness with one another. So some you may find to be a little obscure. Some are super intelligent, and some will seem obvious once you hear them. You'll think to yourself, of course, why would anybody do that? But everybody is doing that right now. Why is meeting someone online scary, uneasy? Something to be concerned about, something you have to be careful about any more so than anything else in life. Online is how we do everything. We talk to our friends and family online. We text, we video chat. We've sent emails for 20 years. Every form of our communication today is done online, unless you're meeting someone in person, which, by the way, is my preferred way to meet someone as well. As you listen to these, consider being willing to hold people accountable for bad behavior. We're in a time now where we feel so nervous to point out things to people or to call people out on what they're doing. But hear this, delivery is everything. There's a huge difference between being blunt, rude, inconsiderate. I just say things how they are. I just blurt it out. I have no control. And then way on the other end of, oh, I just don't want to offend or be mean or. I just thought that I want to hurt someone's feelings. Where's my swing lane Stapler? There's something so clean in between all that. Such as? Look, I've been sitting here for 30 minutes waiting for you because you had something come up. You knew an hour ago and you knew a half hour ago that you weren't going to be here on time. But I never heard from you. I value my time. I'm sure you value yours. Please don't let that happen again. Boom. And by the way, friends, it's okay to be upset when someone treats you poorly. What happens so frequently on online dating is someone does something that is rude or inconsiderate, and then the other person has an appropriate response about being treated rudely or inconsiderately. And then the person who treated that person rude is like, oh, my God, I can't deal with this. I have to go and never talk to you again. Apparently, this is a big rule for people in online dating. We must never speak again if we don't like something someone says. If anything ever goes wrong, we have to run and block and unmatch and get all bent out of shape because someone phrased something in a way you didn't like or responded in a way that you perceive must be a red flag. Now, as with all podcast episodes, there's a disclaimer. No one should tolerate horrible behavior. And I certainly wouldn't be telling you to be wonderful and sweet and nice and loving to someone who's being completely obnoxious, rude, or inconsiderate. But the lesson here is knowing that it's okay to stand your ground, stand up for what you believe in, no matter who you are, and not accepting bad behavior from people. And if a person can't handle hearing that, if a person has to run away or freak out or never talk to you again because you called them out on being late or some other form of bad behavior in a respectful way, then you're doing yourself a favor by no longer interacting with them. So without any further ado, I thought to myself, what would be a better way to jump into a podcast like this than by giving our listeners an incredible poetry reading from some of the different online profiles that I've come across as I was doing research for this episode. These are unaltered real profiles being read by yours truly, not selected for drama, but just in the order that I came across them. From around five different online dating apps. This poetry reading will last approximately ten minutes from this point. So about 15 minutes into the episode, should you wish to skip the poetry and get right into the meat of everything, let's begin with Sophia. Her heart and true nature wish to express the following it may make me sound like a whore, but as long as you open and hold my door, I will straight up fuck you then and there on the floor. Follow my Instagram account. Let's see if we can arrange something to happen. Our next author is a 25 year old whose breasts are dangling out from the bottom of a bandaid top in her profile picture. Dads love me. Bella's occupation is a boss. She's adventurous, travels. She's a chill person, and is down for someone. Chill, but also spontaneous. Also, she's constantly deleting this app, so if you want her number, text her on the number that you don't have. Another includes her Instagram as the first thing you see so that every known person in the universe can have it and writes big booty. Judy, if I ignore you on here, please DM me multiple times on Instagram so I could ignore you there too. Oh, that's why she shares her Instagram. Erica writes, tall Asian Girl, aspiring Disney pass holder, crying my eyes out emoji. Of all the things in the world that Mariel might share about herself, she wants you to know I'm never on here, so you're probably better off hitting me through Instagram tbh, to be honest, Kayla says. Round of applause. Here we go again. This beautiful girl is showing us her blonde hair with just a kissy mouth and her nipples poking out of a braless top. I am new to the area and would love to meet awesome people who like doing cool stuff. Addie's profile picture is of her in a bikini and her hand sliding up her thigh. Her profile says, Just talk to me and find out I'm too pretty to need a bio. Just kidding, but only a little black heart. Dead rose black heart. The most important thing for you to know about Nina, whose breasts occupy over 80% of the image because they're so large. Mexican and white. Vegan, 53 Snapchat and Instagram handle Elizabeth shares I came here for the dick pics and disappointing sex. So far, everyone's been able to deliver music, politics, and Instagram handle. Let's grab a drink. That one actually cracked me up. Good job, Elizabeth. This girl has a profile picture of herself squeezing her breasts together and showing off her midsection. Open relationship, Smiley face. I check this app occasionally when my boyfriend, not really on top of his game, laughing my ass off, message me with a cool date idea. And here's my Instagram of all the personality traits that this woman could have shared who's a partner business manager at Hewlett Packard. She writes five nine and I rock them red heels Roxanna brings to the table, just looking for someone to fuck with my vibe. Smiley face with eyes closed, Athena is showing off a photograph of her iPad and nipples poking out and writes, add my snap. I'm never on here. Probably won't message you first. Polyamorous open relationship. Don't be a fuck boy woman crossing her hands. And then we come across Tiffany. I love, love, heart, authenticity. Try it. Be direct. I'm rather untraditional kisses. I pride myself on how I follow my heart often. I'm highly intuitive. It's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. Think about it, be honest, and tell me the real reason. You swiped right. Do you want to get to know me? Do you just want to sex me? Do you just want to be cool? Wow. Now that's someone I'd love to meet. Our next masterpiece comes from Hillary, a derivative, perhaps, of Hillary. I'm not sure. I'm a Sagittarius retired tattoo collector. I'm hella regular. I'm not on here for followers. I'm not a cam girl. I don't have hella followers on social media. All that does sound great, but I'm just a badass, low key chick. All my photos are my most recent. All of my super likes are accidental. Oh, yeah, I'm also what people call high maintenance, but you knew that already. Here's my Snapchat. Here's my Instagram. Anna is sitting with her elbows on the table, gazing sultruly into the camera. She speaks directly from her heart when she says, I love spaghetti and swimming. Another girl shares, roast me. And yet another says, new number and new profile. Good vibes, good music. Not into big girls. Swipe left. Another writes, here, for a good time, your life is either defined by the system or by the way you defy the system. I don't see nothing wrong with a little bump and grind, winky face. Okay, R. Kelly. Here is a photograph of a girl wearing a T shirt, which is tied highly above the waist, and a thong that sits high on top of her waist, showing off her thighs and belly button. Her profile reads, Dads love me. By the way, what the hell is hashtag Daddy gang that every girl is using in these profiles and on Instagram? Aurora would like you to know that she loves dogs, wine, pizza, and swings and hates everything Ollie shares with us. This comes in handy when I'm bored. If I send a message, I'm even bored.
[00:10:36] We're not. We are more likely to match if you super like face with no mouth. I'm not down for hookups, so don't waste your time. Woman crossing her arms. I'm super goofy and just want someone I can hang and go out with. Praise the Lord. Oh, I'm tall. Five four. And since you're shorter, you can be my fun size friend. Amberly shares. Looking for that special someone to take me to Fogo de Chow and let me call him Daddy in public. Another writes, blink twice if you think I'm cute. Yes, I will go to your family work events and pretend to be your girlfriend of two years. Let's get food. Can you tell I love Snapchat if I swipe right, I definitely want to eat cake with you. Another girl shares her Snapchat and writes, I make my own money, but I love being spoiled. Princess Emoji. I like girls who like girls.
[00:11:21] This one was pretty funny. Jaina writes, occupation? Bounty hunter. Because I'm coming for you, Bo om bum. Ty says, I'm a unicorn. Catch me if you can. No, Ty isn't short for something ghetto. Hashtag go gamecocks. Hang loose. Emoji if you're not talking about traveling and doing showing me things I've never seen or done, then swipe left. Obviously, I can go do these places things alone, but who wants to do that? One degree down. Masters in progress. Hashtag Bay Black and educated for the uncultured. Hashtag Southern raised, Hashtag Callie living, Hashtag Sugar Daddy's welcomed laughing my ass off an Instagram handle, Jenny says, I want to feel like I'm being taken care of and occasionally be surprised with gifts. What woman doesn't like that? I may seem quiet at first, but I'm not. I just say what needs to be said. Clear communication is very important to me, although I am more of a listener and an observer. Another girl writes, I'm 29 years old, very much so, single and finally ready to change. For that right man? Don't be shy. Shoot your shot. You never know, Ash says, so I've been told that for me to find anything, I have to stop pretending to be someone I'm not. So first off, if you message me, you agree to set a meeting after three days of talking because that makes me feel better. If you don't like 80s music, that sucks. And you should. The only thing Amanda wants you to know is, let's get weird. Another girl writes, add me on snap and don't waste my time. Message me if you're trying to spend money on me. Cash app me a surprise. Here's where you can send me money. This girl says, I'm funny, smart, sarcastic, 36 years old and looking to have fun. Jenny sends us her Venmo address. Yvonne tells us she's a virgo. She loves tattoos and she likes girls and says, play with my tits, not my feelings. Tell me your best pickup line, and if we match, at least have the courtesy to reply. Another girl says, what is this word? Spa? I feel like you're starting to say a word and you're not finishing it. Are you trying to say spaghetti? Are you trying to take me out for Spaghetti Day? Madden starts out by teaching us about biology. She says the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell egg emoji, rainbow flag emoji, dancer and graphic designer. Just a girl with an appreciation for cartoons, art, and the unexpected. The best compliments come in the form of Venmo notifications. The most important thing you should know about Naomi is that she hates beer and loves pineapple on pizza. She's just looking for new, interesting people to have fun with, not looking for anything serious. As long as you're putting pineapple on her pizza. Bella says, Spanish devil emoji. Looking for fun? Eggplant emoji. Julie has provided us with a kissy mouth, face, a filter, and breasts so large that they occupy, once again, 80% of the screen and a wedding ring. Another writes, I'm five nine chicky with a dicky chick emoji plus hot dog emoji. I'm not too active on here, so I'm sorry in advance for lagging. Also, I'll probably never notice you unless you super like me. Unicorn emoji. Cece says, just a washed up college athlete. I don't know emoji. A regular schmegular girl. I may not be the right one for you, but I'm the right one for food. Let's go get something to eat. Amy's a vegan, funny five eight must be a gentleman. Nice, funny, chivalrous, love animals, strictly monogamous, must be financially stable and know who you are. No hunters, fishers, smokers, emotionally unstable and hypersensitive people. Reply with six six six. If you've read this, follow my Instagram and only if you support what I'm interested in and what I do.
[00:14:35] That was a completely random sample of profiles that wasn't hand picked or hand selected. I didn't look for the worst or the weirdest or the funniest. That was what came up person after person after person. This is dating in 2019. Your profile. Even though you might think no one reads it, even though you might think people are only interested in one thing, it also says a lot about you and what you want or what you don't want. So I want to conclude this section with something I find to be very attractive. It's closeness approved, and it's from a girl named Chris who writes, I just moved to the LA area. I have a great life. I'm happy and fulfilled. I'm attracted to people who are confident, down to earth, funny, chivalrous, and have depth. I have it together and I'm looking for someone who is connected with themselves and knows how to communicate. I'm a very positive, smart, optimistic person. The last book I read was a Celestine vision. Please only message me if you would like to meet me in person and are the type of guy that likes to open doors and pull out chairs. Wow. Even if you don't like opening doors and pulling out chairs, how could you not love a profile like that? So what I found is after years and years of doing social experiments and tests and seeing what's out there and what people say, this is the unicorn. This is the rare find when you're on these dating apps, is someone who knows themselves, likes themselves, is confident, has standards for herself, and is very clear on what she wants. And that is an excellent jumping off place to begin the deadly sins of online dating. Number one, disappearing from a conversation before it has a natural chance to finish. This means you've engaged in some sort of text conversation. You've matched, you're talking, it's going well, purportedly, and then you vanish. This means you either open a conversation and someone replies back to you, and you never talk to them again, or you're in the middle of a conversation, and then you just vanish from it without any indicator of what happened. Maybe you'll pick it up later, maybe you won't. What are some solutions to this problem? It comes down to sending a simple message, I'll message you back in 20 minutes, or hopping in the shower, let me talk to you in an hour, or what's your number? I'll give you a call as soon as I finish up this one thing that I'm doing. Whatever message you might like to concoct, you can literally program your phone with two keystrokes to type two letters like ZZ and have the entire sentence appear before you so you don't even have to use any more of your time. Text interaction is still a human interaction. We tend to think that because we're texting someone, we can be shorter, colder, but this is just not the case. When someone introduces you to someone else for the very first time, which is exactly what bumble hinge and all these other apps are doing. Would you ever just turn around and walk away and completely ignore the person standing in front of you that you're being introduced to? It doesn't exist publicly. So much of this can be alleviated by asking yourself, what would you do if someone did this to you? How would you feel if someone did this to you? And would you like it? The answer is very clearly, of course not. So why would you vanish from the middle of a conversation, 4 hours on end and possibly days with someone you just met, when this is your first impression and it takes less than 5 seconds to let someone know you have to go or you'll talk to them a little later? I can't begin to tell you how many pleasant conversations I've had with women that go extremely well, of course, via text, because for some reason, people are scared to talk on the phone, or scared to use their voice and send a voice message, or scared to video chat. So incredible text conversations that wind up going absolutely nowhere. Some have been sensual, some have been sexual. Some have just been casual and sweet and friendly, just getting to know each other back and forth. And then at a certain point, she's just gone in the ethers to, I guess, the sea of 6000 other men, only to resurface countless hours or days later, leaving dead air in her path and leaving the man on the other end, such as myself or anybody else to wonder what the heck happened. You might say to yourself, well, women have so much abundance, so much choice. You have to keep her attention. Yeah, I agree. That's probably what it is. But the conclusion that is not acceptable to come to is that she's just not that into you and that if she was into you, she would be making different choices. That is not the end all, be all answer to someone not spending time with you these days. Especially these days. I actually believe that, yes, when someone wants to see you, they make time to see you. But I also believe that we are in a new era where she could want to, she could like you, she could be attracted to you, she could be burning up to be intimate with you. And still there's going to be endless fuss and reasonings about how life is hard. Mom called, dad called, sister called. A thing came up. A meeting I had to magically go into even though I'm not in corporate America. Another meeting I had to get into. Maybe Tuesday is better. No. Maybe Thursday. No. Maybe Wednesday. No. I really, really want to. I don't want you to think I don't want to on and on and on. But this deadly sin is about letting someone know that you're either going to get back to them in 17 weeks or 17 hours or never again. And not just dropping off the face of the earth, it's a little different than ghosting. Ghosting is never speaking again. This is sort of just like vanishing for a day or two or three at a time and then coming back as if nothing had happened and wanting to pick up right where you were when you know, you know what you've done those past few days. What's behind all of this is you're treating the other person as if they are irrelevant, as if they are a no one to you, and as if they are easily replaceable before you get a chance to get to know them, when you are evaluating them as a potential lover or partner. So the takeaway here is if you don't have time to send more than a sentence, if all you're physically or emotionally capable of doing at the moment is writing the word hi or hey? And if someone replies immediately back to you, don't send your initial response yet. Certainly don't send a response that says, hey, I'm busy. Hey, I'm working. Hey, I can't talk right now. Hey, I have no time to talk. I have no time to write anything other than one sentence about how busy I am. So I have the time to write this, but no time to write anything else. Good communication should never have a wall. What is a wall? It's something you can't pass by. It's a stopping place that deadens the communication, where you can't move it forward no matter what you do. So it's like saying, I'm at work, full stop, I can't talk right now, full stop. Hey, you're super hot and sexy and I think you're really attractive, but I just wanted to let you know I never log on this thing, full stop. You're unlikely to respond again. You're unlikely to call back later or text later and say, hey, sorry about that. I got so busy. You just put up the wall. This leaves the other person wondering, okay, where the heck do we go from here? As we talk about in so many other episodes, if you're not interested, say you're not interested, full stop, and guess what? It's so simple, it's so easy. Then it's done, and then there's no wondering what's going on. It is unfathomable to me that when people are presented with two choices, I like this person, so I'm going to move forward or I don't like them. So I'm not that. As people, we continually mismatch the two and maybe show signs for one when it should be the other. It really is as simple as saying, I'm not interested. You never have to speak to the person again. And experience has shown that if you are patient with someone's excuses and always coming up with a reason why you can't get together and you sort of endure through it, which is really not fun for either person. There can be gold at the end of the tunnel, but I'm suggesting there's just a better way.
[00:22:18] If you're not interested, don't begin a conversation and give compliments and be really sweet and be flirtatious, which is exactly how you show interest and then vanish. I'm not sure how we got to a place where people who are actually interested think that sending a partial response or an incomplete sentence or something that just says they're unavailable is somehow going to move you towards a date. Can you imagine? Even if couples were willing to volley possibilities of getting together back and forth with each other, and they only behaved like this. Hey, how's next Tuesday? I can't. Hey, how's next Wednesday? I can't. Hey, how's next Thursday? I can't. Hey, how's next Friday? Oh, I got a mEeting. Why does it stop after the can't when you want to do it? So the takeaway here, stay in a conversation until it has a natural close or endpoint. If it's not going anywhere or neither person is waiting for a response. Sure, then it's okay to stop talking. We've gotten used to people just ignoring us or not hearing back, and we don't think anything of it. Some of us get hurt, some of us get offended, some of us get angry, and most of us don't care. Respect is simply about following through. Now, it's not about pussyfooting around the conversation either. You don't have to say, okay, I'll be right back. I'll talk to you later. In ten minutes, I'm going to text you. But whether you're actually interested in spending any amount of time with someone, whether it's romantically for dating or purely sexual, especially if it's purely sexual, you know, it's so bizarre. I think people treat others worse when they know it's going to be something just sexual. Right. We minimize it. It's just sex. It's just fucking. You're about to put yourself inside of someone else or take someone else inside of you. And here is where the communication gets the worst. Shorthand and minimal words and not talking and not following through and ignoring and not responding. It's like, sup? Chilling. Busy? No. Come over. Yeah. Now, K. See ya. Cool. You're about to do the most intimate thing on the planet. You don't think you can manage to have some communication. So it's maintaining this idea of if you want to spend time with someone, if you want to get to know them, if you like them, if you're curious about them, talk, exchange some real words that can be found in the dictionary, ask some questions, show up for the other person, show them that they can trust you and establish trust from the get go. All right, that was quite a tangent, but as you can see, there's just so much on this subject that's important to understand. And the next few sins also are a little bit lengthy. And then you'll see later on in the episodes and future parts to Come that they'll go a lot quicker as well. Deadly sin number two, piggybacks on our first sin. Don't start swiping and matching with People if you don't have time, plans, or desire or aren't in the mood to message them when they message you after you literally just swiped to match with them. When most of us see a match, there's no point in delaying messaging someone, so we'll send out a message. And we know that your phone is in your hot little hand in this moment. So we know that you're in the mood for some form of dating, intimacy, communication, sex or something because you're on the app and swiping. So what better time to communicate with you and then to have someone message you and you not message them back? When we know that you just chose us, you just selected us and you're in the mood for something like this. It's very bizarre to do this and then not reply for hours, days, weeks. It again comes down to this separation that people online are somehow not real or don't deserve as much Respect or caring or concern that you would give any perfect stranger who you were speaking to in a store. If someone gets asked out in public, no one is going to stand there with a blank face for 4 hours straight looking at them or just turn the other way and go do something. And then maybe four days later come back to the same place and say, oh, I'm ready now on my time and my terms, please stop whatever you're doing now, I'm ready to talk to you. Right? You would communicate. You'd say something. So the takeaway here is if you're going to get on a dating app, invest time to date, invest time to talk and communicate and flirt and be playful, but don't swipe for attention. Think about what that really is. What does it do for you if you get 20, 30, 40 matches? What does it say? Every guy is swiping right? Every person is trying to meet you, date you, sleep with you, what have you. So it's not really validating for you exclusively. What's more interesting is having a great Connection. Look, especially for girls, we're trying to show each other that we are a real person, that we exist, that we are a good person, and that we're someone that you can trust. How can we establish all that if you're terrified to have a phone call, terrified to have a conversation, and terrified to move anything forward? Doesn't everyone want a baseline of trust? Don't you want to know you can trust the person you're about to sleep with, date, or experience some one on one time with. Don't you want to know that they're clean or don't have a disease or details about them that don't make them shady, et cetera, et cetera? Of course the answer is yes. All right. Deadly sin number three is not taking advantage of video chatting and FaceTime and treating the invitation to FaceTime, video chat on Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp or Skype, for instance. Generally before you meet on the first date as if it were the most offensive thing that anyone has ever asked you to do, and then getting upset about it. Being offended, sometimes unmatching, sometimes freaking out or sometimes getting very uncomfortable over the opportunity for both of you to see each other's faces and get to know each other before actually having to meet. If you're a woman going on a date, what's the most important thing to you? I'll tell you because I've heard it a million times. Number one, you don't want to be hurt. You don't want to be killed. You don't want to be in a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe. You want to know that you feel trust with someone. Now, I can't stand these sentences, so hopefully I'll never have to repeat them again. What do most women say before they meet someone on a first date? I don't know. You. You could be an axe murderer. You can be a killer. You could take advantage of me, you could hurt me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's this unspoken fear about your own personal safety and not knowing what someone might do to you if you meet them in person, it's a valid fear. And what usually remedies this? If you meet in person, naturally, if you met at a bar, at a restaurant, at a shopping center, then there doesn't seem to be this concern. If you've had a little bit of time to spend with the person that they're going to harm you in some way. When you meet someone online, you don't have the luxury of seeing them in person first. But what gives you that opportunity? What would go Miles to help both people feel safe before actually meeting in person if they haven't met yet in person? The incredible ability for us to talk online and video chat first. What else don't you like? You don't like coming to a guy's house right away or inviting him over to yours or giving him your address because that might also make you feel unsafe. Sometimes you don't have time to go out and even meet for coffee. Maybe you have a really busy schedule that week. You're a very. What? What's your favorite sentence and status update? Busy girl with so much going on. So you want to feel safe, you want to feel comfortable with the person. You want to be able to focus on things like feeling relaxed and feeling calm and being really able to take the person in. For a lot of people, first dates make you really nervous when you meet someone. Especially if you're in a loud public place and you're asking the usual 2030 questions back and forth. What do you do? Where are you from? Do you like your family? Then your super secret testing, like red flag questions where, depending on how he answers, lets you know if he's a match or not? How do you get along with your mother? And do you get angry easily? And how do you treat the wait staff? Do you still talk to your ex girlfriends?
[00:30:29] What is the answer to all of that video chatting? I can just hear countless women across the world cringing at the idea of their face on camera or having to show themselves to someone else who they potentially want to see as a date, who they potentially want to sleep with, and who they potentially want to have a relationship with. It's kind of funny. So why is the idea of facetiming or video chatting an incredibly exceptional option? A phenomenal choice before meeting someone on a first date. And in all sincerity, for all the other times that you want to talk to someone when you don't want your point to be lost or you want to have a meaningful connection? Well, number one, being in the comfort of your own space, your own room, your own living room, a restaurant, a friend's house, anywhere that you might want to be. We all love convenience. We all love not having to be bothered or having to get out of the house or having to leave. How perfect is it that you can meet someone without even leaving where you are and being able to look into the eyes of the person who you're going to go out on a date with and talk to them sincerely, authentically, with emotion and smiles and all of the things that make up who you are. You get to see how he breathes and how he moves, what his gestures are like. You get to see all of it. And I cannot begin to tell you how important that is. Naturally, my own personal experiences with FaceTime have gone one of two ways. Either the person freaks out, hates it, gets offended. As I mentioned earlier, unmatches has all like a conniption fit about the invitation to do so. It's really astounding at how offended people will get when you offer them the opportunity to connect. And then the other half have always been more than accommodating, more than happy to do so and pick up the phone right away with a smile on their face. Hey. Well, hello. Nice to see you in the real world. And now the conversation can ensue. The depth of conversation that I've had with women that I've spoken to on FaceTime first has always, always been better. I mean, just to state the obvious, you see the person with your own eyes, so you're taking in so much more about them. You see their mannerisms, how they move, how they breathe, how they talk. And you might say, I don't want someone to know that much about me right away. Well, if you don't want someone to know that much about you right away, then you certainly shouldn't meet them on a first date where they're going to be able to take in even more information on you. And you certainly shouldn't be on a dating website where the entire purpose is to take in information about someone and evaluate them as a romantic or sexual partner. So I'm a big proponent of FaceTime. Not just because it's my preference, but also because I feel like it keeps you safe. It gives you a sense of the person before you meet them. It lets you know what they're getting into. And my very favorite reason, because almost every dating profile that I've ever come across where I've met the person in public tends to look in person 40% worse than their worst profile picture, which we'll get into later. But I will quickly say saying something like that is not a judgment or telling someone that they're ugly or less appealing. It's just a fact that when people try to enhance themselves with blurry images, filters, angles, and so forth, they're trying to make themselves look better than they actually do. So it goes without saying that if their photo looks better than they actually do, and you see them in person, they're going to look worse than their photo. So the magic of FaceTime, the beauty of being able to see someone on camera for the first time, it goes both ways for men and women. It lets you know exactly what the person looks like without their filters, without their angles, without their lighting, without all of the manipulative Ways to enhance your appearance that aren't really naturally you. And for me especially, I want to know who I'm waking up next to in the morning. I don't want to know what someone looks like after 3 hours of work with perfect lighting. I want to know what you're going to look like when I say hello to you in public. And I want to be attracted to that Person. Which, if you're hearing this and you're having any kind of a bad reaction, this is the real you that I'm interested in. Not the fake you or the put on you, or the occasional you or the Sunday you. The actual you is who I want to feel a connection and attraction with. So if you have the opportunity before a first date, push your boundaries a little bit. See if you can find comfort or a good angle while you're video chatting with the sun streaming down in your hair, whatever you'd like, and you'll see a big difference in how your interaction goes.
[00:35:04] All right, number four. And this is less of a deadly sin and more of a public service announcement. It's more something that needs to be said and comes up in more ways than one and very frequently. So gender and how we handle it is a huge topic these days. And I'm not going to unpack all of it. I'm just going to narrow it down to two simple deadly sins in one. One for men who have become women, and one for women who are naturally and biologically women. Now, it seems to me that most people in the world, if they are heterosexual and pursuing someone of the opposite sex, would 100% without fail, like to know if who they are about to date, go on a date with, or even possibly be intimate with, is biologically a man or a woman, or if they have undergone some sort of surgery to become a man or a woman, because they've always felt that way on the inside, this seems like a pretty important thing to know, right? I would say, personally, I can't think of something more important to know than a detail like that. And after agonizing and agonizing on how to present this and doing countless takes, and narrowing this deadly sin down from like a 30 minutes discussion down to hopefully less than a couple of minutes, it just comes down to disclosing, letting people know what's going on with you. And so many people don't say a peep on their dating profile. I would say maybe half. Half actually say trans girl here, trans chick here. One of the best ways I think you heard me say earlier was when someone said chicky with a dickie and making it into something fun or playful, but then the other half just look as beautiful as they possibly can look, and that's it. There's no disclosure, no advisory, no statement, no simple word. Even TS, I think is commonly used now. But I really want to invite people to disclose what they have going on for obvious reasons. But even if it's not so obvious, I feel like masculine energy can get very threatened or hostile or angry or upset, and it's like, why mess with fire? To me, it just seems safe and smart to disclose. And also, if you don't, there's a bit of a feeling, like feeling tricked into not knowing something and for your own peace of mind of not wasting your time and anyone else's letting them know in your profile or in some chat or text messaging immediately. Like ideally in the first conversation you have that that's what you have going on. So no one gets emotionally hurt, no one gets their hopes up, and everybody is on the same playing field, so to speak, with what we're getting into. Also, if you are trans, it's going to save you a ton of time because most likely when men are matching with you, they aren't expecting it. So it's probably going to take them by surprise and then you have to weed through conversation after conversation. Whereas if it's in your profile, which I feel like is a very common and normal thing to do, and of course, if the man actually reads the profile, which we all should, then it's just right there and there's no harm, no foul. Even if you do match, you can read and decide if you want to go forward with that or not. Easy. I feel like there's a million things I can say about that, but I'm just going to leave it with that simple recommendation because doesn't that sound better than getting all the way to the point where you're going to be intimate or going to have sex or going to engage in some form of sexuality, and then have someone either freak out or be upset or not handle it in the most tactful way possible if it's not their thing. Of course, part two of this is for natural and biological women, and that is not freaking out or unmatching or getting angry or upset. If someone asks you if you are trans, it's not that someone's asking you if you are a man or suggesting that you look manly. It's just that the way the men, well, they are so good at looking like women now that it's actually very hard to tell the difference. I actually keep a photograph on my phone which I show friends once in a while, where I am just astounded. It's a stunning woman and she's sitting next to a very attractive guy as well. So you've got a great looking guy and a great looking woman side by side. And originally, they were both men. So it's not that someone's attacking you and suggesting that you look like a man. If they ask you if you are trans, I feel like it's a valid question. I myself, growing up, for a number of reasons, people used to ask me all the time if I was gay. I didn't unmatch them, yell at them, freak out, or throw a fit, but I did ask, what makes you think that? And I was very curious about what process they went through to arrive at the erroneous belief that they thought that I slept with men. Side note. It also used to frustrate me that someone would use perceived homosexuality as a reason for why I was good at something. Oh, you're good at dance. That's probably because he's gay. Oh, he can do a handstand. That's probably because he's gay. But the reasons that I heard for why people thought that I was. Are you ready? Well, you tuck your shirt in or you wear tank tops. You're clean cut, you're muscular, you have a six pack. You're comfortable in your skin. You're so comfortable around women. Women seem comfortable around you. You dance, you do gymnastics, you do burlesque. The way you walk, the way you talk, the way this or that. All these reasons, and so many people had so many different reasons for why they thought that I might be gay. It was incredible. And I realized that these are all people's perceptions, of course, and their own judgments and their own ideas based on how they grew up. So it doesn't mean anything. And my suggestion is, in this world that we live in, where we all are a little hypersensitive, and we are really stepping into a new era, is to be empathetic, sympathetic, and understanding that if someone asks you if you're trans or if you originally were a man, that they're not questioning your femininity or your beauty or who you are as a person or suggesting you have an Adam's apple or have large hands or anything like that. It's just about getting clear. So, in sum, number four is all about disclosing when appropriate and when necessary and when possible, and then if you are biologically a woman, not being offended or upset or hurt, but maybe just curious or even playful if someone strikes up a conversation about. Well, about whether you are a woman originally or not. Strange to say, I know, but we live in a brave new world.
[00:41:32] All right, let's gently leave that subject alone and move into deadly sin number five. Tacky and distasteful, unmatching, being rude, aggressive, mean, cruel and unfriendly and unkind when you're not interested.
[00:41:47] And also unmatching a match for no apparent reason mid conversation. So we'll call all of this tacky, unmatching, which has the same stench of permanently ghosting. Let's start with if you happen to match with someone by accident who you didn't mean to match with. Of course, it's easy to simply unmatch if you haven't received a message from them yet. No harm, no foul. Mistakes happen. I am a bit biased as to how women handle this versus men because of the incontrovertible evidence that women match about 900 times more than men do. In fact, I just did an experiment with a girlfriend last night. I said, pull out your bumble and match everyone. Just swipe right on everyone. I don't use numbers when describing a woman's attractiveness, but I said, how attractive do you feel and where do you feel like you fit in? And she said, I'm a seven out of ten. So she's a seven out of ten. And she begins swiping, right. One, two, three. No, no. Four, five, six. No, no. Seven, eight. No. 910, 1112. 50 matches in, like, two minutes. Let that sink in for a moment about the incredible, vast amount of choice from one person with one app, with a thumb swiping to the right in only a few moments, and the kind of access that that gives you to intimacy, dating, sex, whatever you like, the type of belief systems you might think about yourself based on how many men appear to want you and desire you. So in the real world, yes, women get hit on all the time. Yes, everywhere you go, you get attention, but not to the degree that it happens on apps. It's like fiftyfold. Now, if you're a man and you do this, you know what the results are. It doesn't matter if you are completely unattracted or turned off or disgusted by the person. If you swipe right, you're still unlikely going to match with a fraction or a miniscule percentage of the people that you swipe on. Now, sure, I match up from time to time, of course, but the disparity there is incredible. So, point being, I don't think men have to worry so much about if they're polite, if they give some qualifying disclaimer as to why they unmatched the girl when she has 6000 matches. If you're a woman, on the other hand, you've really got to be tactful. You have so much choice, so many options, so much in front of you that it's overwhelming and you can't control it. Something you can do, rather than just disappearing completely, is send one sweet message. Something authentic and considerate. Something that says, sorry, I think this wasn't the right move for me or I wish you the best of luck. Why should you be polite? Why should you be awesome? One, for all of humanity, you're making men love and appreciate women more who are polite and respectful and friendly. And that's going to make their experience better with each woman that they deal with in the future. Number two, because you are, by unmatching, dwindling down his matches by anywhere between 75% or 25% or what have you, even if it's 10%, it's a lot less matches. Whereas for you it's just a drop in the bucket. If you unmatched 50 people, it wouldn't even be relevant for you because you have so many matches in your inbox. Now for the meat of this. If you've matched with someone that you've been talking to for a little while, even 1015 texts back and forth, and you realize that you're no longer interested, obviously it's within everyone's best interest to eject before you meet and convey that you're no longer interested. But what you shouldn't do, what's insane to do, is to flat out unmatch someone in the middle of a conversation when everything appears to be going so well. This is for men and women. Can you imagine having dinner with someone and it appears to be going well? You're laughing, you're smiling, you're talking. Maybe you're touching each other a little bit. And then your date just gets up, turns around and leaves, blocks your number and you never hear from them again. Really think for a moment if that happened to you, how you would feel about yourself and about them and how you might think about members of that sex. That would be insane. Why then do we think that we can treat people the same way online? And online simply means you're not in the same physical location as the person. That's literally the only difference. And you're writing to them. Watch. You know, it's been a pleasure talking to you, but I'm really getting the feeling that this isn't for me or I don't think I'm interested anymore. And I'm sorry for taking up your time. But thanks for chatting with me. And then stick around for a moment. Give the person a chance to understand what happened. Is there something you want him or her to know? Did they do or say something so horrible? Is it you? Did you just suddenly realize that you are a cheater and you don't want to cheat anymore? Did you suddenly realize that you had a boyfriend or girlfriend and forgot and now you need to go back to them? Did you have some epiphany or crisis come up in your life that magically made it so you couldn't date? What's going on? Anything other than ghosting, vanishing, disappearing and being a selfish little brat. If you're mid conversation with someone and it didn't go extremely sexual, it wasn't particularly boring, everything seems fine, and then you hit the eject button. The other person is almost always left reeling, wondering what they did, what they said, and then of course, can get frustrated or angry and resentful toward you because they just don't understand what happened, which is a valid response. Friends, the worst part about all this, why it actually is a deadly sin, is because it changes how we act and respond to the rest of the world. It puts up one more barrier, one more wall, one more way that we don't trust the opposite sex and think all men are like this or all women are like that. It's because these little things add up and then it makes us not be able to stand or tolerate the opposite sex. It's like when you decide to block someone that you've been speaking to for a while, on the phone and on text, and then one day you just press the block button so that they can never reach you again or have any understanding about what might have happened, or learned more about you, or learned what upsets you or bothered you, if anything at all, and make it right for you, it gets the job done. But whether you just block someone or you write something nasty and then block them, nothing's been solved, nothing's been understood, nothing's been settled. And I know there are some crazy people out there. There are people who don't leave you alone, people who do a lot of stalking and this and that. These are all appropriate reasons to get someone out of your reality as quickly as possible. But I'm talking about these very bizarre times that number many. They happen over and over and over again where people just vanish. Blocking, to me, seems appropriate. If you feel like you're in danger for your life, or you feel like someone has harmed you beyond repair, or there's just been an argument that can't be resolved. But taking something the wrong way or hearing a few words that you dislike, or just being in disagreement with someone or realizing that you're not a good match with someone certainly is not a reason to block them forever. So the takeaway. Work on your communication skills. Aren't you someone who tells people it's all about communication? Haven't you heard that a billion times? People keep using that word like it's the magic pill. It's all about communication. You just got to talk about it, express what's going on, give people a chance, and if you do it in a non accusatory, non attacking way, I think you'll have great results.
[00:49:24] Our next deadly sin is particularly relevant for apps like Bumble and Hinge, where a woman has the opportunity to open a conversation and begin to guide it in the direction that she wants to go. Why is this so critical? When you start a conversation and you move it in the direction you want things to go, instead of sitting from a place of judgment like, let's see what this one has to say. Let's see if he'll prove himself. Let's see if he only wants to have sex or he's serious and all of these tests and games and fluff. Why not just start things off the way you want? But more often than not, this is not what girls do. They pass it on. They'll say hi, hey, or even worse, invite you to start the conversation. It really, really reeks of, yeah, let's just see what's going to happen here, what he's going to say, and then I'll quickly unmatch or block or run away if I don't like what I see. Here's the golden nugget here. It's such a good opportunity to give a response back, share a detail of your personality. Ask the man something that you're curious about. Demonstrate how you're different from all those other girls. You know, how you hate being one of those other girls and how you're not like all those other girls. Why not demonstrate what you are like and what makes you stand out? How you have something interesting to say other than hi, hey, smiley face, or some silly meme. That's why the times that I've done experiments on here, I always say, say more than just hello. And what's interesting is, even in saying that, sometimes women still do. That's all they can muster up to say hi. Can you imagine if a man approached you and just said, hi?
[00:51:07] We have to keep the ball rolling. It always seems to fall on us to keep being funny and playful and intelligent and charming. That's all fine and good, and I agree there's a time and place for that. But why not have an interaction, be mutually delicious? Bumble was designed for women to initiate. It's not initiating if all you do is say hello. Why? If you say hi and then a guy says, hi, where are we? We're right back at square one. Then you have to say something else. If you say hi and then a guy takes the lead by saying hi, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah. Now he's leading and initiating. Hi does not open anything or create room for anything other than the ability to text. So too for words like, hey, how's your week? What's up? What's going on? How are you? Happy Friday and so forth. What do you think about someone who only says hi to you and nothing else? Do you think they're interesting? Fascinating? When you have 65 men in your inbox saying hi to you, do any of those guys capture your attention? Of course not. The juicier kind of relationships, the most fascinating, the most interesting interactions is when a woman is really giving of herself, opening, showing, demonstrating her personality and so forth. So be creative. You've heard that before. Share something unique about yourself and see where it goes. And just because it doesn't work with one or two or three does not mean it's not going to work with the next guy. If you ever match with me, I'll certainly engage you in a great conversation. Now, I've done a lot of testing and experimenting with this. For those who insist on only saying hi despite me having it in my profile, sometimes I'll test intelligence quotient by simply saying the word. And when they say hi or hello, sometimes I'll ask if there was more to that statement or if they weren't finished typing yet, if that was a sentence fragment, perhaps an incomplete sentence or something didn't make it through, or any combination that suggests, like, look, did you have Anything else you wanted to say? Or is the only thing that you are capable of mustering of all the things that you can say to a person for the first time?
[00:53:10] Hi, is there anything you wanted to ask about me? To me, that's such a great opportunity to be playful, start a conversation, make a joke about it, dive into something interesting. And yet all of these questions also have a poor, poor response rate. Oh, did you just hear my phone go off? That was actually a message from someone on Bumble and I've got to share Tina's opener. The first thing she wants me to know about her you about your money, homeboy.
[00:53:40] When we examine Tina's profile pictures, she looks bored on a couch. She's making a face in the car with her mouth wide open and she has her tongue sticking out and a peace sign. And her profile description reads Venmo and her Venmo address, would you all like it? Help a bitch out. Two hearts. And apparently she's 7ft tall and two inches and likes cats. Anyhow, I was telling you that even when you query women and you say, tell me more, was that a sentence fragment and you had some more that you wanted to ask me? You girls don't seem to get it. You get scared or run away or freak out or yell and say all number of things other than having like a nice conversation. When online dating first came out years and years ago, I remember that the first thing any woman would say in her profile was, make me laugh. Be my dancing monkey, do something for me. And so it's always interesting to me that when the tables are turned, there's nothing of interest done in return or even something remotely funny to start off a good conversation. To me, it starts out with a belief or an expectation that a good portion of our population believes, which is that women are somehow a prize or somehow someone who needs to be won over, pursued, chased. And then especially this phrase proved to there's a lot of people running around believing that men are supposed to prove something to women to demonstrate their worthiness. But who are you? Who are you really, Brandt? Why are you so special? Why are you more special than your man? And what makes you the prize? And why do you think that you have more value than someone who would be your partner? To me, what gives a woman value is her absence of focus and awareness about how much of the prize she is in her grace, intelligence, caring for others, friendliness, being loving, being sweet, being thoughtful, the way she loves, that makes a woman a good prize.
[00:55:43] I just had a person message me who wanted to let me know that she was getting into a relationship and therefore was letting all of her matches know that she's no longer available, which is great. Maybe she didn't mean it like this, but I have to read you what it says verbatim. I'm down to be friends, especially because you can provide me with these insights. On the one hand, it's very flattering, right? It's saying, okay, I appreciate your intelligence or what you can provide, but there very much is often a one sided what can a man do for me mentality these days that I think needs to shift. We should both be doing things for each other, whether we are friends, lovers, husband and wife, in a romantic relationship, in an open relationship, whatever it is, it's give and take that is the flow of life.
[00:56:31] As opposed to where are you taking me? What are you doing for me? Are you buying me dinners? Are you paying to get my nails done? I need a spa day, I want a house, a car, a provider. This is your job. I'm just here to take and take and take. And what exactly is the reciprocation? Being cute, being you. I think that if anyone heard men saying, well, I'm so intelligent, I make so much money, I'm so smart, I cook, I dance, I sing, I earn, I'm a provider, I'm great in the community. So you should just be lucky to have me and do whatever I want while I just don't, because I'm the prize and I deserve it. And you have to earn your trust with me. And I should be given stuff because I was born a man.
[00:57:19] Even with all those qualities, who's going to say yes to that? Well, clearly a lot of people do, but I think you take my point. That's where the shift has to happen in terms of not setting the stage from the very beginning as trying to be more powerful or more important than someone else. Because even if everyone agrees with you that you are, even if there is a total power imbalance, it's still not healthy to come into a relationship feeling like you're so much better than someone else. So that was deadly sin number six, and it strongly ties in, and we've talked about it a little bit with number seven, which is not asking anything about your partner that you might find interesting.
[00:57:58] This is such a big one. I've heard this one so much and seen it so much that I've done experiments where I've just tested to see how long I could keep a conversation going without a woman asking anything about me. And the results, a long, long time. In fact, I'm conducting one of these experiments right now, and I'm on week three of regular communication as she goes through her process, shares the ups and downs of her emotions, her world, her life, her story, her environment. Talks about her day, tells me everything going on, expresses why today is or is not a good day to meet. And then I'll take it a step further. When pressed with, hey, don't you want to know anything about me? Her response, yes. Tell me. Everything. So this deadly sin involves either asking nothing about your potential mate, lover, partner, friend, or even sex buddy. Asking the bare minimal, most basic, ultra basic questions. Don't you want to know anything about the person that you're considering as a life partner other than where they went to school, how they are, how their day was, what's up and how are you? Here's the point. Here's the number one takeaway with this deadly sin. When you purposely don't make it easy for us. When you don't answer questions directly, when you don't say yes to invitations or you don't suggest alternatives, or you don't let us know your schedule, or you don't make it easy to spend time with you. We have to keep asking and asking and asking and asking you questions. And it gets old and boring and stale to either unmatch you or to spend so much time to write you something special, say something unique, only for you to give us brief one to four word answers. Or maybe even less than that, like an emoji. Lol. I don't know. Yes, totally. I'm a this, I'm a that. When you don't share anything about yourself, it pretty much just looks like you're only concerned with the physical or looks or sex. It also just leaves the partner guessing. So I can't tell you how many times I've done the social experiments where I say, okay, I'm going to ask ten girls the same question each time, no matter what, and then switch up the questions every ten girls to see what type of response I get over time. And all ten of these girls, would you like to meet here? And all ten of these girls would you like me to come pick you up at your place? And another ten still, would you like to go for a drive up the coast? Would you like to go for a walk on the beach, whatever it is, and almost every single one negates, pushes away insults, puts down and says, oh no, even though you've given me so many options, I would never do any of those. I would never video chat so that we could get to know each other better. I would never talk on the phone so that we can get to know each other better. I would never get into a car in case I offered to pick you up because you don't drive. I would never let you pick me up. I would never meet you in a place that's close to yours or my home.
[01:01:13] But no one wants to know all the things that you won't do and what a naysayer you are and how this doesn't work and that doesn't work, what will you do? What are you open to? How would you like to share time together? How would you like to connect? These are responses for people who like if someone hits you up in a bar and you just want to be left alone, sure, brush them off. Say no, thank you. No.
[01:01:35] But when you match with someone that you actually like and you're communicating with all the obstinate no's, in addition to having the deleterious effect of forcing the person who you're telling no to, to have to keep asking and asking and asking, it also doesn't move you anywhere because instantly it creates all this tension of what you won't do. Try to imagine if you were asking a man out and you said, hey, do you want to come to game night with me tomorrow night? And he just retorted, oh, I would never, ever go to game night with you. I'm not that kind of guy. Instantly it creates all this tension about what he won't do. And now you're the bad girl for having even suggested something so terrible. How foolish for you to have not known that you would never do anything like that. You should have been able to read my mind and know exactly what I want with all of these things. Any option that a man might present for a woman, every woman is different. Of course. Many women will do things that other women would never do and vice versa. You each think that the person who would do things that you wouldn't do is crazy and there's something wrong with them. But all that's really true here is that each woman wants and expects something different. Each of you wants to be picked up or taken out or paid for, or you want to split the bill, or you want something to drink, or you would never have something to drink, or you love chivalry, or you hate it, or you think you're partially old fashioned or very old fashioned or not old fashioned at all, or you're going to come over or you're going to go for a drive, but simply because a man didn't guess the exact thing that you want, or the exact way that you go about doing things, you're offended and upset and it turns the energy sour and again, takes you right back to that place of judgment. It's exhausting and it takes all of the fun right out of the possibility of dating. So naturally this has evolved to what I find to be a highly intelligent question, which goes something like this. Online dating is tough. It's hard to know what someone likes or who they are or what they want before seeing them in person. Tell me what you like. How do you like to meet someone for the first time on here? Is it important to only text meet in person? Video chat? What works? That is a clear, direct, thoughtful, open question. What works for you? And amazingly, with all of that choice and option and all of that respect and saying, look, I want you to feel safe. I want you to feel comfortable and excited. What's your way? What works best for you? How do you want to do it? And so, in asking that, we're trying to mitigate this can't. No way. I would never. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do this. I'm not that kind of girl. So by asking someone what they would prefer, you would think a direct answer would come, oh, well, I love to meet in a public place, at a coffee shop and see how it goes. I love to do something fun, or I want to go out to eat, or I prefer to be picked up, or I want to come to your house and see what your interior design is like. So let me be abundantly clear with what's going on here. Over the years, I've done many, many social experiments asking women specifically, lovingly, sweetly, kindly, politely, playfully, flirtatiously, what they do like, what does work for them, how they want to be picked up or greeted, or where they want to meet, or what their idea for a good first date is, whatever it is. What percentage of women would you estimate respond to a direct question asking what they prefer?
[01:04:55] Close to zero.
[01:04:57] Magically, they seem to prefer to divert the subject, not answer, change the approach, feedback the question a different way, smack it up, flip it, turn it down. There's never just, oh, I really like to be approached this way. Or here's what I like, or here's how I like to meet in public. What does this suggest? It suggests to me two things. One, that women don't actually know, or that they have some sort of fairytale belief that suggests a man should be reading her mind. It's really worth pausing here. If you are a woman and asking yourself, do you expect a man to know? Do you know what's in his head at any given moment, not including sex?
[01:05:38] Do you think that he should just know what's in your head?
[01:05:43] And can you think for a moment how irrational and illogical that is? And this is coming from a man. Now, to be fair, this is coming from someone who loves reading women's minds, who enjoys being intuitive, who adores being able to decipher and read and play and sense. And I'm still saying it should not be expected. And there's nothing wrong with sharing how you feel. Can you imagine if you worked as a customer service representative for some company and someone called in and you said, hi, thanks for calling. How can I help? How can I make your day better? What's broken? And the man said, you don't know what it is. What kind of woman are you? I don't know. I just need you to fix it. I shouldn't have to tell you. And then you said, as any good customer service agent would, sir, I'm trying to help you. And he said, are you, though? If I have to tell you, I can't even do business with your company, don't you know how to fix my problem?
[01:06:42] You take my point. The paradox with people, with men and women, whoever we are, is that we have so many similarities where we all are the same in the sense that we all want the same things at the core of it all, love. Many of us want a family. Most of us want to feel happy or feel freedom. Freedom is the core of most of what we want, especially for men. And love tends to be at the core of what most women want. And that's why it's a misnomer to say we're all different. We are and we aren't. But we are different enough that we can only make certain types of associations and judgments. And we cannot expect someone of the opposite sex to know exactly what feels good to us, exactly what's on our mind and what we need. And it's worth taking that extra time to figure it out ourselves. Look, when I'm in bed with a woman and she asks me what I like, I don't shrug my shoulders or look coily downward and bat my eyes. I don't say, you should know thaT. I don't say, why don't you figure it out? I say, look, I like being licked here, touched here, kissed here. I like this pressure, this kind of viscosity, this level of wetness, this type. No, I'm just kidding. I could be very, very specific.
[01:07:52] Wow. So we end this deadly sin by asking, is the only thing you're looking for. Sex is the only thing that you're bringing to the table, your physical attractiveness? If not. And you want to be appreciated for more than what you look like. You want someone to know you and you want to be appreciated for who you are. Welcome to Deadly sin number eight.
[01:08:15] Oh, boy. Deadly sin number eight. No profile description of any kind in your profile, where the description goes, no words, no phrases, no quotes, no sentences, no sentence structure, absolutely nothing in your profile. It probably follows that if you want to be appreciated for more than what you look like, you might want to write something about yourself, even if you're on there just for sex. How about a conversation about cleanliness? If you're going to confess that you're on there just for fun, why not share some things that you find exciting? But if you're trying to meet someone and you want something real, something that lasts a long term relationship or something committed, and you don't want to be superficially objectified, and you don't want a man to only be thinking about sex with you or what you look like, do you think there might be some benefit in writing something about yourself so that he has something to go on other than your face and your body? If I erected a profile that revealed nothing other than my abs, my thighs, my back and its musculature, would it come as any surprise to you if all I got was offers for sex? If all I posted was selfies in the mirror, flexing my muscles, or highly provocative sexual photos, such as whatever the male equivalent is of pouting lips, pushing my chest forward, arching the back, or thrusting the back forward, as it were, what would you think I was looking for?
[01:09:41] All right, now, Deadly sin number nine is equally as bad. It's a one sentence atrocity, a statement that makes no sense, something rude, a command or an expectation. You better not do this or you better do that or you better be this tall. Feed me. I'm never on here. Hey, Daddy. Let's meet for a bite to eat. Clinically depressed, sober. I know your mothers will love all that. I don't like Mama's boys anyway. Make me laugh and talk shit to me. I eat chocolate and I work out. It's called balance. Honestly have no clue what I'm looking for here. I constantly forget about this app, and I'm not good at responding. I'm not with the BS. If you are, swipe left. Sassy Latina Ex prostitute sinking single geriatric male with piles of money and terminal illness. Bingo. And then, of course, one of the most ubiquitous and worst profile descriptions of all time is when the only interesting thing you have to share about yourself is where you lived before. Here, Boston, LA, Vermont to Virginia, France to Wyoming to San Francisco. It's like, okay, physical location, but let's keep the vibration high and let's wrap this one up with a positive profile. She writes here for friends with benefits. Stop cluttering up my sex app with your looking for long term relationships. And where's my partner in crimes, please? My response rate to high and hi, how are you doing? Hovers right around 0%. Be a little creative. I'm an ethical slut. If you're here because you don't have the balls to leave, be honest with your wife. I'm not just going to left swipe. I'm a report your ass. Poly friends, welcome and God bless your honest asses. Now, this may not be for you, and you may not want anything to do with this woman, but isn't that phenomenally written? Honest, candid, real, authentic, and humorous. It's got a story in it. It lets you know exactly where she stands. You know what you're getting into when you start talking to this woman. Let's contrast that with some of our other one line wonders. I'm going through my second divorce. Do I sound like a winner yet? I love pizza. I like tacos.
[01:11:40] I'm always hungry. What is it with these women online who are always hungry and want us to feed them? What do we look like to you? Dollar signs. A drive through. This pretty much makes an easy segue into our next deadly sin. Asking for money on dating websites and making your entire profile description your Venmo address. For those of you who don't know what Venmo is, it's an online banking service that makes it easy to send money between your friends without having to have a bank account number. You just have to know their. Hmm. I wonder if it would be prudent for me, as a man, to simply include my Venmo address as my only profile description. No, no. I should put a little more. I should also mention that I love to be spoiled. It really helps if you call me prince or my favorite, my liege. That's better. Ooh, no.
[01:12:26] While we're on the subject of goddesses, why not call me God? I did, however, do a social experiment and deposit some form of monetary value into their Venmo accounts. I sent them each one cent. The responses were less than stellar. So give all these things some thought. When you're writing a profile description, it's only a paragraph, if that. I mean, bumble barely lets you get out one or two sentences before you're done and then put yourself in the other person's shoes. Ladies, how likely would you be to date a man whose profile said, I like pizza, feed me tacos? Where would you put his intelligence level? And would you consider him for a date number eleven. This one is a stretch. I know. It's playing the helpless victim in the online dating world, just casually observing what happens and then having a really bad reaction instead of proactively letting people know how you feel. We talked about this a little earlier, waiting for the guy to make the first move, or the first several sentences or first paragraphs, just to see what he's going to do so that you can judge him harshly. But what you're not doing is letting him know how you feel, or how you are, or preemptively telling him. That means before all this happens, how you work, not saying anything about how you like to be asked out or what feels safe for you in your profile or opening comments. It's sitting in judgment while you watch the man flounder or try to figure you out or ask you some intelligent questions and then smacking him down and rejecting him with a simple I would never do this. I don't do that with strangers. But never suggesting are you ready? Because this might be the most important thing you've ever heard when it comes to communication. I'm the kind of girl who likes to be picked up from my house. I'm the kind of girl who expects to meet you in public the way I prefer to go about doing it. And the other interesting thing about this is, it's never up for discussion, is you seem to only think that what makes you feel comfortable, or what you want or what your way is, is the only thing that matters.
[01:14:32] If every woman dug her heels in and said, I don't go out with men unless they come to pick me up. And men said, I don't go out with women unless they come to pick me up, or they meet me somewhere publicly, or they come to my house. Whatever it is, no one would meet each other. When anyone forces their way onto someone else, this is how I do it. That's not happening. We're not going to do that. I'm not going to meet you here. You already shift the power balance and you inadvertently try to put the person beneath you, and you try to have the upper hand with power, which is never, ever the way to address dating number two, in terms of sheer manners. You're not even considering another person's opinion. So to be very specific, this deadly sin is sitting there listening, judging, not doing anything, observing how the other person is going to ask you out or suggest to do something or behave, and then slamming them with how you wouldn't do it. You'll never do it. That's not who you are. You're not that kind of girl. You're not going to go there.
[01:15:36] It's so exhausting. Details like this that are that much of a deal breaker should be written in your profile or should be the first thing you share with them before they start asking and fishing and trying to get to know you. How hard would it be to simply write these sentences in your profile or to let someone know before they start talking? I only meet publicly, or I only meet for coffee. I always flake and I'm probably not going to show up. I'm probably going to bring some friends with me to make the situation really awkward when you're just expecting me to come or spending time with me costs money. So if you want me to meet you for a date, you have to take care of everything or I'm down to come to your house, but I'd like to meet you in person first. Or I'll never come to your house as long as I live because I'm scared to come over to people's houses. Or you have to pick me up if you want to come on a date with me because I don't like an even balance of power. And I think that you should drive out of your way to come get me because it's really important to me that I put absolutely no effort into meeting you and you put maximum effort into meeting me and that's how I know you're going to be worth it. Or a walk in the park or a walk on the beach sounds really nice. But I really prefer to be somewhere where you can spend money on me and demonstrate your worthiness through your bank account. Or I'm from the Midwest and I really love nature, so going out into nature is my cup of tea. I'd love to go hiking. I'd love to be under the sun. I'd love to have my feet in the grass. Anything outdoors is wonderful by me. Or I'm an extremely sexual person. But I also don't want to be judged for being easy. So please treat me with respect if we are going to have sex. Or I'm extremely traditional and extremely old fashioned, but only in a selective way. That means I don't want to wash the dishes, I don't want to raise the children, I don't want to do laundry, and I don't want to cook you dinner. I still want to vote and I still want women's rights. And I still am a bit of a feminist, but I do want you to do all of the things that I associate with chivalry, like opening doors and taking care of things and fixing things and buying things with minimal obligation from me and maximum output from you. Or I'm going to constantly use very vague, degrading and belittling sentences like, be a man, and other men want to buy me islands and a real man would do this for me so that I can make you feel less than me in hopes that I inspire you to become a better man to do more things for me. Or I am fully independent and I find it offensive. If you try to open doors for me or stand when I come into the room or help me with something that I can fix myself, I'll probably pay for the date myself. And if not, we can split it. And that's the way it goes. See? So simple. And then the person knows what they're getting into.
[01:18:22] Deadly sin number twelve. Today is the day that you get to stop talking about how bored you are, how bored you are with these apps, how boring everything is in your life, and how bored you are on dates, how you're never on here because you're so bored. And frankly, how boring you are. Imagine telling your friends the story of how you met your partner.
[01:18:43] I was bored out of my mind and I had nothing really going on anyway because life is so boring. So I just went out with this guy and now we're together. Listen, the more people who upload fake profiles, or who get on apps because they're bored, or who never use them, or especially people who get in a relationship and then don't bother to delete their account, the more hopes you're getting up and the harder it is to actually find someone that you want to meet because you're just swiping through tens of thousands of unused profiles. Everybody loves to save time. No one likes to. What's the catchphrase? Waste time. So doesn't it make sense to use your time most effectively? Already we are thumbing through people at lightning fast speeds. Yes, no. Yes. No. Yes. How nice would it be if the ones we were actually looking at were available? So that takes us right into deadly sin number 13, which is something that we all forget to do once we meet someone that we like. And that's not deleting your app from the internet. So not just deleting it from your phone, which simply means you won't see it, but deactivating it and deleting it so the rest of the world doesn't see it, which is something that you want to do anyway, because the next time one of his friends or her friends sees you online because they're single, they're going to think you have some shady stuff going on.
[01:19:59] Number 14 is of paramount importance. You'll probably recognize this deadly sin immediately if you've ever received one of the following responses in response to you asking someone who you know likes you, who you know is interested in you. Out on a date. I can't. I'm busy. I'm working. I'm at the gym. I'm at a party. I'm out of town. I've got friends in from out of town. I'm going to the store. I'm going to sleep. I want to take a nap. I'm tired. I want to eat. I'm hungry. I'm not having a good day. Today's a bad morning. I'm not feeling emotionally well. My mind isn't in it today. Any one sentence, blanket statement about how important they are, how irrelevant the other person is and not even acknowledging the question that they asked you, which is, would you like to get together on this day and do this or that thing. Did you hear that? It's when someone asks you out on a date who you like and they like you and you don't even acknowledge their question. You just tell them what you're doing. The most important deadly sin that you will ever hear is when someone wants to spend time with you or hang out with you. You're so wrapped up in yourself that you don't ever suggest alternatives.
[01:21:18] Never suggesting alternatives. A different place for you to meet. A different time for you to get together. Something else for you to do if you can't do the thing that you are being invited to do. This deadly sin is about never adding anything to your sentences that would make them complete sentences such as the word, but I can't. But I Can tomorrow. I can't. But I Will next week. I can't because I'm here. So let's get together there. This quality rears its ugly head everywhere. I don't even want to say Craigslist because I know we all have an association about that. Let's say you're on offer up. You're in a conversation with someone and you suggest a place to meet to buy something that they want to sell you, that they want to get rid of, that they don't want anymore and they're going to get money for it. You suggest a place to meet. I should probably be using the word I for all of these. And they simply say, I can't.
[01:22:17] No thanKs.
[01:22:19] THat's too fAr.
[01:22:21] Notice that I'm only leaving one or 2 seconds of dead air and already your brain is like, what's going on? Is he going to keep talking? Is he going to say something? Imagine people who just leave it like that, indefinitely. How is it that when people want something, a partner, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a date, money, they want to sell something that they can't do better than a two word reply? Is it laziness? What is SO complicated about saying tHat's too far? But I can't today, but tomorrow I won't be able to tonight. But I've got some time on Saturday. If I ask someone out who I matched with, who I'm talking to, who likes me, who has flirted with me sexually, who has demonstrated interest, and for whatever reason, she can't on this or that day, the only thing I want to hear is Ah, I can't on that day because da da da. But I totally can on da da da da da da da da da da dam. Nothing could make a person happier than knowing when you can get together. So YOu'rE NOt left. What About TuesdaY? Can't. What About ThursdaY? Oh, I'm working. What about Friday? Like, think about what you're doing. Why would you want someone to constantly ask or beg like that? And also, this has nothing to do with people who don't like you or aren't interested. This is when you actually want to see someone and you're still giving those answers. If the person is genuine and they're not turning you off and you want to be with them. Oh, for God's sake, give an alternative. Want to avoid a lifetime of pain and misery? Just simply suggest an alternative.
[01:23:53] In a sense that has a lot to do with our next deadly sin, which is dealing with your emotions properly. Number 15. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this story from men. Men who are under the impression that the girl they're talking to is someone who's really interested in them. Maybe they've even met them before. Maybe it's a first date that's about to happen. But they've been talking and talking, and the chemistry is there. But way later in the day or the afternoon, it turns out that the girl was having a hard morning.
[01:24:22] The hard morning excuse, or the rough morning excuse apparently allows people to vanish, flake out, not answer, not respond, not say a word about your plans, everything that you put together the night before or the week before. Not answer your phone, not reply to text, not pick up the phone, not give a courtesy call. Not let the person know you're canceling because you're having a rough morning.
[01:24:45] Almost inevitably, this is accompanied by a man having to call and text multiple times to figure out what's going on because she hasn't met at the designated place, or she's not answering her phone or the date seems to have been canceled but no one let him know. On the surface, it may sound understandable. Oh, leave this poor person alone. They had a rough morning. Whatever that means. You should let them flake on you. Let them ignore you, let them never call you, let you have to pick up the pieces. This is how life should be. If someone's having a rough morning is you should also suffer. No friends, ladies. If you took the time to come home from work or the gym or whatever, shower, pick out an outfit, get ready, put on some makeup, agonize over what you should wear, drive to a place, maybe it's cold out, maybe it's hot out, maybe there is some stress in getting there, wait for someone and then 2 hours later have him tell you, oh babe, I had a rough morning. I'm not going to make it. Does it all just not matter because someone else had a rough morning and couldn't find a moment to send you a message? Is it totally cool to be stood up because someone had a bad day? Is someone's rough morning enough to not hear from them again? You're never going to have closeness if you're always running away and you never communicate what's going on to people. It might be none of their business. And yes, saying I'm having a bad morning is valid, but it's really not valid if you've made plans to meet with someone and you don't know that they've had a bad morning until 2 hours or more after the time that you were supposed to get together. The funny, or better said tragic part about all this is during your rough morning or your hard day, or your bad day, your cell phone is not only close to you, not only right in your bag, it's probably been in your hand most of the time, and you've probably been using it to text or make other phone calls. And all you have to do is say hours before you're supposed to be there. If possible, 30 minutes before you're supposed to be there, 15 minutes before you're supposed to be there. Hey, I'm sorry. As usual in my life I've had 25,000 things come up that always force me to flake, be late, or put someone else's time on hold while you wait for me. I'm not going to be showing up today, and I know you've already been there waiting for me and we're looking forward to it, but I have to let you know at the last second that I'm not going to be there. How can you be so savage, Tari? You might be thinking to yourself, I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you why. In all of my years of dating, I cannot recall one time, not once, where I've had to tell someone after I was supposed to be there that I'm not going to make it. Or at the time that I was supposed to be there that something came up. Or before the time I was supposed to be there, that something came up. So, ladies, men, you know, something doesn't always come up. Something most likely changes in your feeling like it, or your desire to do so, or your curiosity about doing something else, or your FOMO on missing out on something else. And that is an unhealthy way to date.
[01:28:03] And now, finally, if you haven't got the point already, here's what drives this home. Hook, line and sinker. How many times can you show up to your job late or just not show up at all? Or call in 3 hours after you're supposed to be there and say, you know, boss, it's been a rough morning. I didn't think I had to call because I wasn't feeling good. Didn't you read my mind and know that I wasn't feeling good by the fact that I didn't show up? Clearly that wouldn't go over well. So you know way before, if you're supposed to meet at ten in the morning and your bad morning starts at 07:00 a.m. And 09:00 rolls around, you know that you're not going to be able to be there on time or to meet your date. All of this can be summed up in two easy steps. Give someone notice when you know you're not going to be able to make it, like as much as you can, if possible, hours before. And if something comes up days before, let them know days before. It's the most polite thing to do and you'd want someone to do that for you. Number two, if someone asks you out and you want to go out with them, but for whatever reason, you're in the middle of something, as you likely are, finish your sentence. Don't simply let someone know where you are and expect them to do what exactly? We don't know. Follow it up with a but or and I am available on this or that day. Or better yet, ask the person if there are some other times that they are available so that you can check your calendar and see if you can make it work. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is called Communication 101. Okay, let's wrap it up there. We're almost at about 90 minutes of deadly sins and not even halfway done. We got plenty more. In the following episode, it may be broken up into three parts. If you're finding this stuff useful and you're thinking to yourself, finally someone is speaking about this. Finally someone is shedding light on it. Finally, there's an understanding to why people behave the way they do or some alternatives for how they behave the way they do. I would like to wholeheartedly ask you to send us some love and send us some support on our Patreon page. If you don't know what that is, it's a great place where you can receive special offerings from me in exchange for donations, or you can flat out make a contribution or donation in any number you desire. We have a subscription plan for coaching. You can get one of your questions answered on the closest podcast. There's a lot of exciting things. So it's patreon.com closeness. That's Patreon.com closeness. Easy as pie. So thank you for joining us. And I'm excited to talk to you again on part two of the 30 or 50 or 100 deadly sins of online dating.
