The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett: The Love Expert: Why Women Are Addicted To F**k Boys & Why You Should "Have A 'Boring' Relationship Instead!" Logan Ury

Most people want to find love, but the truth is you think you know what you want, but you're wrong.

But there's a lot of great relationship science out there, and this might be the number one thing that I want people to take away.

So if you're Logan Jordan.

Pinge is dating scientist from Harvard.

She's renowned for her data-driven approach to help millions of people find love.

Big things in my work are the spark, the post-8-8, and the three dating tendencies.

So let's go through that. The spark is this idea that we go after the initial chemistry, the fireworks,

but the spark often leads to relationships that burn out.

The spark, the post-8-8.

There are eight questions to ask yourself after a date, training your brain to a new way of dating.

And finally, most people suffer from one of these three dating tendencies, and that's what's holding them back from finding love.

And can you change it?

Yeah, so the first type is people in great relationships have made a bunch of good choices,

and the truth is the person that ends up making them happy in the long term is very rarely who they thought they should be with.

If you are single and you don't want to be, at some point you have to realize you are choosing a set of problems.

Why do I keep falling for boys?

Or people often confuse pet peeves.

The ick for deal breakers.

Like, he has a velcro wallet.

I can buy you a new wallet.

And they say to me, like, I don't want to meet on an app.

It's not romantic, but the number one way that couples are meeting is online.

And so, because I want to help so many people find love, these are the top tricks for a great hinge profile.

First of all, you're...

I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels,

the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button wherever you're listening to this.

I would like to make a deal with you.

If you could do me a huge favor and hit that subscribe button,

I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better.

I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button.

The show gets bigger, which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see,

and continue to do in this thing we love.

If you could do me that small favor and hit the follow button wherever you're listening to this, that would mean the world to me.

That is the only favor I will ever ask you.

Thank you so much for your time.

Back to this episode.

Logan, why does your work matter?

My work matters because most people, almost everyone wants to find love and it's really hard.

And I meet people and I see how badly they want it.

I see how long they've been trying to get it and they're getting in their own way.

And so I do the work that I do because I want to help people understand the blind spots that are holding them back from finding love.

And I want to help them get out of their own way, develop new patterns, new habits and find love.

Where are we in terms of love as a society?

Love, dating, sex, all these kinds of things.

Where are we?

What's our direction of travel?

Are we getting better, worse?

People are really struggling.

If you think about the history of dating, it's actually pretty new, right?

So for most of human history, you were, had an arranged marriage from, let's say, your piece of land was next to somebody else's piece of land.

So your dad's wanted to combine the land so you were married to the person next door.

Or there was a matchmaker who made the arrangement.

So modern dating, as we know it, only started around 1890.

This is very new in the span of human history.

And then you have dating apps, which only started in earnest around 10 years ago.

And so the way that we're dating now is actually really new.

And so when people are struggling with it, I understand we were not designed to date this way or we don't have tons of experience.

And so we were born knowing how to love, but we're not born knowing how to date.

And so I'm out there trying to teach people how to date.

And who are you?

So I am a behavioral scientist turned dating coach.

I work with people one-on-one to help them find love.

I also work as Hinge's director of relationship science.

So I conduct research and really try to understand what's happening with dating, people who are finding success on Hinge.

What are they doing differently?

I also teach dating classes.

And I wrote this book, How to Not Die Alone.

So for anybody that doesn't know what Hinge is, because I'm sure there'll be some people listening that don't know what Hinge is.

What is Hinge?

Hinge is a dating app.

And I think it's the best one.

What Hinge does differently is it truly is about getting you off the app and onto great relationships.

And so before I started at Hinge, I actually interviewed the CEO, Justin McLeod, for my book.

And I was kind of the skeptical person and I was like, all right, let's be real.

Of course, you don't want your users to actually find love because then they would churn and then you'd have to find new users and that'd be really expensive.

So get real with me.

Of course, you want to keep people on the app.

And I was like, no, the best referral system that we have is word of mouth from people finding somebody on the app and telling other people.

If you go to a wedding where the people found love on Hinge, that's going to get you to use it.

And since I've been there for almost four years, not to sound like a sponsored ad, but I've never been in a conversation that was about how do we keep people on the app.

We're really, it's almost a religion.

How do we get people off the app and onto these dates?

And you hired a dating coach for yourself, right?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Yeah.

So I have compassion for my younger self, but at the time it was just so hard.

It was like the classic story of you fall for someone.

We were having this amazing time and emotions are running so high and you fall for someone and you think, oh, well, if my feelings about them are so strong, their feelings about me must be so strong.

And we had this amazing week at Burning Man.

And then when we came back, I was like, oh, well, of course we'll date now.

And this person was just not interested in dating.

And when I look back at my younger self, I can see that we were in this anxious avoidant loop.

Are you familiar with that?

No, I'm not.

Okay.

So you know about attachment theory?

Mostly.

Okay.

So I'll give you the scoop because I feel like it's really interesting.

So attachment theory is a really great part of relationship research because it's something that has a deep background in research.

So John Bowlby was a psychologist and he did the most interesting research on this and this was in the 60s.

So he basically would have moms bring their babies into a laboratory and the moms would place the baby down and leave the room and see how the baby reacted.

And so some babies would start crying.

The mom would come back in the room and pick it up and the baby would keep crying.

So the mom was there again, but the baby still felt upset and that baby is anxiously attached.

There was another type of baby where the mom would leave, the baby would come back and as soon as the mom picked up the baby, the baby was soothed.

So the baby was saying, I want to be with you, but when you're here, I know you're here for good.

The third kind, the mom would leave the room, the baby wouldn't cry, but they knew from other signals that the baby was upset.

And when the mom came back in the room, the baby would ignore it and that baby is called avoid and attached.

And so basically the point is that what we have in childhood often shows up in adult romantic relationships and this is attachment theory.

And so anxiously attached people, they feel like they're always going to lose you.

You're going to abandon them. You're going to leave them.

And so they always try to regain closeness.

And so that's why when the mom came back, they're still like, are you going to leave me again? I'm so nervous.

The avoid and attached babies, they feel like, well, you'll probably abandon me anyway, so I'm not going to get too close.

And those are the people who are always pushing somebody away.

Here's the reason why we shouldn't be together.

They're always creating reasons to delay intimacy and they're afraid of being smothered.

And then the securely attached babies who become securely attached adults, they say, I want some intimacy, but I also want independence.

And we sort of think about them as the heroes of the relationship world because they can manage both of those feelings of closeness and independence.

And so what happens is 50% of the population is securely attached, which would be great because many of us could date them,

but they actually get into relationships and they stay there.

So the pool is a lot of anxious attached people and avoid and attached people dating each other.

And they do this thing called the anxious avoidant loop.

And what that means is my version of love is that you're going to leave me.

You're going to abandon me and that I have to chase you.

Your version of love is you're going to smother me.

So I go after you, you pull back and we both think, oh, this is what love is.

We're just doing love.

And it's not until one of us becomes more secure or that we date a secure partner that we actually realize that there's another way.

So so much of the work I do with people is actually busting the anxious avoidant loop and helping them understand, hey, you are anxiously attached.

When you keep dating these guys who are running away and you have to chase them, it's hurting you and you're not in a great relationship.

Look for someone secure.

And so that was a very long-winded way of what happened to me with this Burning Man guy.

I was definitely an anxious attached eater.

He was avoidant.

And instead of us just saying, we're not a match, we were in this loop.

And it was so painful.

I remember crying on my friend's couch and not understanding why doesn't this person want to be with me.

And I tried my hardest.

I put that Harvard degree to work, right?

You try to convince somebody to be with you, but they're not interested.

And so somebody recommended the dating coach and I went to meet with her.

And it was so helpful because first of all, I acknowledged how painful it was.

And then we did an exercise where she says, how do you want somebody to make you feel?

And I wrote down all these characteristics, desired, respected, admired.

I want to feel like they think I'm really funny.

And when I looked at that list, I was like, this guy doesn't make me feel like any of those things.

He makes me feel like shit.

But there's this other guy at work who actually does make me feel those things.

And so there was this guy at work who I had met originally in college.

And then I met him again at work, like in a casual lunch.

And I had told him, I'm trying to learn this statistics language called R.

And he said, oh, I just dropped out of a PhD program where I write R every day.

And he was like, I'll tutor you.

So for a few months, he was tutoring me, but I didn't think that we were a good match.

He said a couple of things like, oh, I don't like travel.

I don't like people that go to Burning Man.

He seemed close-minded.

But then when I worked with this dating coach and I thought about how I wanted someone to make me feel,

I was like, that guy makes me feel that way.

So I put more effort into seeing him and we went from having lunch maybe once a month to once a week.

So we suddenly were having lunch every day.

And I didn't explicitly ask him out, but I certainly said, oh, I don't have plans on Friday.

What are you doing?

Kind of inviting him to ask me out.

And yeah, we've now been together for almost nine years and we're married.

I've got so much to dig into that.

Okay, great.

I was smirking at you because I just, so much of what you were saying rang true with me.

You were perfectly describing me when you started describing the avoidant attached.

Can you just characterize that again?

Because I want to zoom in on that.

Right.

Yeah.

Let me go more into avoidant attachment.

And I would say for anyone listening who's feeling really stuck,

going deep on attachment theory is one of the number one things that you can do to really understand yourself,

understand your past patterns, understand who you've been attracted to and why it isn't working.

And so there's a lot of great relationship science out there,

but this might be the number one thing that I want people to take away.

Let me describe what happens when you're avoidant attached.

So first there's a trigger.

So the trigger might be that you go out with somebody on Saturday night,

you have a great night, they sleep over and Sunday morning,

you wake up and you're just ready to do your thing, but they're still there.

So you feel triggered by the fact that they're still at your house.

Then you do something called deactivating strategies.

So these are thoughts or feelings that push them away.

So it might be like, Oh my God, it's 10 o'clock and she hasn't brushed her teeth yet.

When is she going to leave?

Oh, you know, is she going to be here forever?

And then you start thinking about flaws in that person.

Well, this is wrong with her or that is wrong with her.

And there's all these things that are subtly pushing her away from you.

And then you do a protest behavior, which is sort of snapping or just saying something like,

Okay, I called your Uber.

And I feel like many of us have had that situation where you think you're going,

you think things are going well with somebody.

And then all of a sudden they're like the Uber's here and you're like,

Oh, so you're kicking me out.

And it's so interesting because it's like the other person has no idea what's going on for you.

They feel like you just had a great date and they're like,

great, let's go out to the diner for breakfast.

And instead that person is like, I will never have my life back.

You are taking over my world.

You're really blushing.

So what an avoidant attached person can do, let me give a few tips for them.

So one of them is being really clear about what you want.

And so it's absolutely fine if you want the person to leave,

but saying something like, Hey, I had such a great date with you.

I have a big week of work ahead of me.

And so I want to get started, but I will call you again soon.

And so just asking for what you need.

Another thing is overriding the flaws that are become so obvious to you.

So there's a really interesting thing called the negativity bias.

And even though we're living in this age of chat GPT and all of modern technology,

our brains are running on ancient software.

And so our brains have the negativity bias,

which is that we're much more likely to ruminate on what's wrong with someone.

The reason for this is that if you had five ex-girlfriends and one of them wanted to kill you,

it was really important to know which one that was.

And so your brain would remember that.

And so to overcome the negativity bias,

to overcome this feeling where avoidant attached people focus on flaws,

you actually can work on focusing on the positives.

So even just saying to yourself five things that you like about somebody.

So you could think in your head last night was so fun.

She looks so cute wearing my t-shirt.

I'm really excited to hear her talk more about her work, whatever that is.

And so actively overriding this feeling of pushing people away.

Because that's one of the really hard parts about being avoidant,

is that you feel like those criticisms that you have in your head are so valid.

Well, I need to pay attention to this.

But what you don't understand is that that's actually a subconscious way

for you to not get close to someone.

And so I'm coaching someone right now where she told me,

oh, I went on a date with a guy, everything was great,

but he wore a white t-shirt under his shirt, which reminded me of my uncle,

so I can't be with him.

And I was like, do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?

Obviously, that's not a reason to not be with someone.

That's an excuse for you to not get close to someone.

And as we talked about it more, it became obvious that she's really afraid of being hurt.

She's been abandoned by many people.

She was in a bad marriage.

And for her, if I don't get close to you, then you can't hurt me.

And that's part of the avoidant attachment.

If I never rely on you, then you can never let me down.

And so part of it is actually getting more comfortable relying on somebody else.

And you kind of alluded to it there, but the obvious question here is, where does it come from?

You know, I think from your answer with your client with the white t-shirt, I think it's quite clear.

But in my case, I think I know where it comes from, but generally, where does this avoidant attachment style come from?

Yeah, so if you think about the history of attachment theory and the fact that it started doing research with children

and their primary caregiver, there is this idea that it goes back to your childhood.

But I feel like it's unfair to really say all of us have these attachment styles because of our parents

or specifically because of our mothers and, hey, mom, if I'm single, it's your fault.

That's actually not true.

I think that's part of it.

But there's other societal things that can lead to it.

And there's some evidence of different biological reasons why each of us would do this.

So the main message that I want to give away is do not blame everything on your mother.

I think attachment styles is a really good framework, but it's not just an excuse to say, oh, well, my parents are the reason why I can't find love.

And can you change it?

The research shows that when people work on it, about 25% of people are able to change their attachment style.

And so what that might look like is somebody understanding this is my trigger.

And when a trigger happens, I'm going to do something else.

And so we talked about for the avoidant person asking for what you need, being really clear,

and not assuming that somebody is going to read your mind and looking for the positives.

And you can work on self-regulation.

So for example, when an avoidant or anxious person is triggered, they go into this thing called the danger zone,

which is basically like, I need to get away from you as soon as possible, or I need to reconnect with you as soon as possible.

And if you don't want to get into the danger zone and you want to stay in the comfort zone, then you can learn how to self-regulate.

So that's one thing.

The other thing, which I personally feel like is easier and was my strategy, is finding a secure partner.

And so that's a great way to get out of the anxious avoidant loop.

So with me, right, I was this anxiously attached data chasing after this Burning Man guy, had all these bad habits.

And then when I started dating my husband, I distinctly remember this moment where I was walking down the street of San Francisco and I was flooded.

I was so angry.

I would just get so upset and I was typing away at my phone.

I couldn't see anything else.

I truly was in this flooded cortisol rush moment.

And I was telling him all the things he had done wrong.

And I knew the pattern, which was then he would fight with me.

We'd get into this fight.

It would blow up and then eventually we'd make up.

But he didn't do that pattern.

He wrote back and said, it sounds like you're upset.

We should talk about this in person.

And it was this crazy moment where I was like, wait, we're not going to do the thing that I always do with everyone.

We're going to do this different thing.

And it just dissipated all of the anger because he was acknowledging that I was upset, but he was suggesting a healthier plan.

And I don't think that it's unrelated to the fact that his mom is a therapist.

So dating this secure person made me so much more secure where I broke out of the anxious avoidant loop.

I got over the silly Burning Man guy and I understood what a secure relationship was like.

And I feel so lucky to be in this secure marriage.

And sometimes when I think about my career success, I'm like, I couldn't have done it without my husband,

not because he's involved with my career, but I really feel like 25 to 50% of my brain was in these spirals,

worrying about people being anxiously attached, ruminating on them and just being in a secure relationship

actually gives you a lot of peace and you can use that brain power for something else.

But only 50% of people you said are the secure ones that everybody wants.

Yeah. So I think it's a combination of you can become more secure yourself or you can find a secure partner.

What's hard is that we often confuse secure people for boring.

That's what I was going to say. I wasn't sure whether to say it, but secure sounds a bit wallpaper.

Yes. And that's what people don't understand.

So people think, oh, like I had a client who said to me, I went on a date with this guy.

We went out a few times. I told him I was going to Seattle and then he sent me all these recommendations for Seattle.

So I'm never going to see him again.

I was like, what are you talking about? She's like, that's so desperate.

I was like, this is just a nice guy who's trying to tell you about a cool bookstore in Seattle.

Like, why can't you see that as somebody that's interested in you and putting an effort?

But to her in the anxious avoidant loop, what she wanted was someone who was unavailable.

And that's what's so hard.

I feel like there's all these lovely securely attached people out there that are probably like, oh, I'm a dud.

Nobody wants me. It's like, baby, somebody wants you.

They just haven't figured it out yet.

And so some of the work that I do is train people to look for secure partners.

And so things like, are they consistent? Do they not play games?

Are they clear about their interest in you?

And so we actually have to understand that securely attached partners are the heroes of the relationship world.

And they're great to be in relationships with.

They have healthier relationships.

And you have to train yourself to go for that and to break out of this anxious avoidant loop.

I could probably hazard a guess as to which attachment style ends up in marriage the most and stays in marriage.

But I'm also quite curious about which attachment style is most likely to get the most attention.

Because from what we've just talked about there, there is a hint of vanilla to the person that there is a hint of vanilla to the secure attachment style.

And there's a hint of excitement associated with the avoidant attached style.

Because one of the principles I learned about attraction is this idea of social proofing.

And one element of social proofing is not appearing to be so interesting because that raises the perception of your value.

So if we're having a conversation, if I'm kind of blasé about you and a little bit uninterested, it raises my social value.

Therefore you'll think I may be more valuable.

So I was thinking maybe these avoidant attached people are getting the most sort of short term interest.

I don't know, is that?

I think that's exactly right.

And even when you said that, it reminded me of how I felt with the Burning Man guy where the story in my head was,

if you don't want me, you must be better than me.

I think so many of us feel that way.

It's like, well, as soon as you reject me, you have more power than me.

And for me to regain power, I want to get you interested in me.

Instead of a much healthier mindset, which is, I want the person I choose to choose me back.

That's how I'm low that we're a match.

So I want to tell you about this interesting application of research.

So the term fuckboy has been around for a little while.

People kept asking me, what's going on with fuckboys?

Why do I keep falling for fuckboys?

There's fuckboy island.

There's all this stuff.

And I was like, why are people so addicted to fuckboys?

And so there's this really interesting research from the psychologist B.F. Skinner.

And it's a study with pigeons.

So for the first pigeon, the pigeon is in a little cage with a lever.

Every time that the pigeon presses the lever, food comes out.

And so that's pigeon number one.

Then there's pigeon number two.

They're also in a cage with a lever.

In the beginning, every time that they press the lever, food comes out.

Okay.

So now they're the same.

But then the first pigeon, it stays the same.

They press the lever, food comes out.

And this is called the continuous reward schedule.

The second pigeon over time, the schedule changes.

Sometimes when they press the lever, food comes out.

Sometimes when they press it, it doesn't come out.

Maybe it might take them five or 20 times of pressing it for the food to come out.

And that's called the partial reward schedule.

So with the first pigeon, once they turn off the food,

the pigeon will press it a few more times.

See, there's no more food and stop pressing it.

The second pigeon, once they turn off the food,

it will literally keep pressing the lever until it collapses from fatigue.

And that's because the partial reward schedule is so addictive.

That's also how slot machines work.

That's how gambling works.

Sometimes I get what I want and sometimes I don't.

So I want to keep trying and I want to keep trying.

And that's what's happening with fuck boys.

So fuck boys give you attention in the beginning, right?

You get what you want.

They seem interested in you.

You go out.

Then they start pulling back.

They're hot and cold.

Sometimes they're interested.

Sometimes they're not.

And you become addicted to that partial reward schedule.

Well, this time when I press the lever,

will you text me back or not?

And it feels really exciting.

And so securely attached partners are the levers in the first one

where their interest in you and their love in you is continuous.

And that's what we should go after because that's what a healthy relationship is.

But people get so addicted to the fuck boys and to the partial reward schedule

that they're trapped in this cycle.

And so our brains are really, they really develop in this way

where when we don't know if we'll get what we want or not, it's really exciting.

But that's not what's aligned with long-term relationship success.

Oh, that makes perfect sense.

Tell me about you.

I feel like from listening to your episodes, I was like,

this is an avoidant attached maximizer.

None of your business.

This is a reformed fuck boy.

But what was the dynamic like with you and your girlfriend?

So for the first 25 years of my life, I was the avoidant.

Again, I've said this a million times, but grew up in a household

where I think I thought relationships were present.

I ran from everybody that was interested in me.

And then I met a person who was, hmm,

I would say she sits somewhere between being secure

but also anxiously attached.

She has hints of both.

I get that.

Where she's a really calm communicator

and she can just like your husband.

There's a problem like we should talk about it.

We should sit down and have a conversation about it,

not scream at each other, not get agitated.

And being with her slowly eased me out of my cycle.

It's still there and it still can be triggered.

And when it gets triggered, this is how it looks.

And this is how I know she's a bit of an anxious attached.

She'll, we'll be on a date on Saturday.

I will stop paying attention to her in some way.

She will then increase the amount of need she has of my attention.

She'll start kind of like pecking

because she's seen that she's no longer getting my attention.

Then she goes really, really quiet

because she's now really annoyed

because she lost my attention.

I then see she's annoyed.

I don't want to argue,

but I want to know why she's annoyed.

I ask her why she's annoyed.

She basically explains that I did something seven minutes ago

that made her feel whatever.

I then, we kind of get into it a little bit and I want to leave.

I want to like get my stuff and go to a hotel.

And I have to say in my head,

don't leave the house, don't leave the house, don't leave the house.

And at that point, what she wants to do is she wants to chase.

And this is kind of like a toxic combination

because I'm trying to get out the front door

and she wants to solve it and wants me to be even closer.

So it's almost like when we, when we both get triggered together,

she gets increasingly needy and I want to run.

Yeah, you really just described the anxious avoidant loop.

And it's exactly that.

It's like, I feel she feels disconnected from you.

So she wants to reattach and you feel smothered or trapped.

And so you need space.

Exactly.

And then it's not that your relationship is doomed in any way.

It's that you just have to learn how to both regulate your emotions.

And so for you, it might be saying, I see that you're really upset.

Obviously something happened that went wrong.

I need a few minutes to regulate.

And so in that moment, you're experiencing flooding

where your cortisol is rising and you actually are in fight or flight mode.

And this is a really common thing in fights is that people don't take enough breaks.

So if you at all feel like you're flooding, you can ask for a break,

but it's not saying this isn't important to me.

It's not saying we're never going to talk about this.

It's just saying, I actually can't have this conversation in this moment with where my head is at.

And for her, it's also understanding what did you do that triggered her

and what could she do in that moment differently.

And so we talked about the strategies for avoidant attached,

but I can also talk about the strategies for anxious attached.

So for example, distracting yourself, going for a walk, going to the movies,

doing something else, texting a friend and saying,

I really want to text the guy I'm interested in, but he hasn't texted me back.

So I'm texting you instead or something called disconfirming evidence,

which is a fancy way of saying basically what's the alternative here.

So the story in your head is I texted him a meme this morning.

He hasn't texted me back.

He usually texts me back right away.

Clearly he's not interested and he's met someone else.

Disconfirming evidence would be maybe he has a really busy week at work.

He mentioned that he has a big project or perhaps he's not feeling well.

What are the other reasons that he could not be getting in touch with you?

And it's about not creating a problem before you know there's a real problem.

And so both of you could work on those different strategies so that you can have this healthy relationship

and that you're not constantly in what you call that toxic cycle of she's chasing and you're running.

And I agree.

She's by far, I'm not just saying this because she's probably going to listen.

I'll probably send her the episode because I always do.

By far the best relationship I've ever had in my entire life and I will 100% marry her as soon as she says yes.

But we do have that loop.

But one thing that's interesting, so I know about this from reading about it online.

It sounds like you were dating and then you broke up and then you went to Bali to chase her.

Yes, this is true.

And so when I hear that, I'm like, oh, there's something in the dynamic

where you as an avoid and attach person, you doing the chasing, that was breaking a pattern for you.

And so what was going on with that?

Interesting, yeah.

So we were together for about two years.

It wasn't a great relationship in hindsight at that point because we were clearly quite immature.

And then we're lying in bed in Paris and she turns to me and says, I no longer,

she says something along the lines of I don't like having sex with you.

And I didn't really know what that meant.

Like I'm a young guy.

I'm like 25, 26 years old.

No one's ever said that to me before.

I think I'm, you know,

You're like, I'm a stud.

I'm like, yeah, what do you mean?

I was like, I've always got compliments.

Does that mean that I'm bad in bed?

What does that mean?

Really emasculating thing to hear.

And so very quickly after that, we broke up and then we were separated in that time.

COVID rolls around.

She's not feeling great and locked down.

She knows that because of that incident, but also just how she's feeling in her life anyway,

the depression, all those kinds of things.

Something's not right.

She needs to go.

She spends the next two years living in Bali.

But so a year after the date when we broke up, I had, you know, looked at what else was out there.

And I think part of me had realized that that's probably that is the best person I'm ever going to meet.

I said to my friends all the time, I say, I will, I cannot find a better person.

And I think I'd had that realization that this was maybe the best person I'll ever meet.

And so I made a plan.

I got on a plane.

I flew to Bali and went there really with the aim of apologizing, but low key the aim was to get her back in some way.

Went and apologized.

She just wasn't interested in me.

She wasn't rude.

She was really sweet and nice.

There was no romantic interest in me whatsoever.

And then I'm like, I'm there for four weeks in total staying at the other side of the island with a friend of mine.

And then in the last week of my trip to Bali, my sort of apology tour, things slowly start to change.

And it actually happened when I said to her, I'm going to go going back to the UK.

And it's been lovely being here with you.

I sent her a nice text message and said, you're doing really well.

I'm so proud of like the progress you're making on yourself and stuff.

And then the next day she texts me saying, can I see you before I go?

Part of me is thinking I've been here for three and a half weeks.

You've showed no interest in me whatsoever.

Maybe this is my last chance at victory.

I'll just tell her to f off.

And again, my mature brain for whatever reason showed up instead of course you can see me before you go.

And it was in those last 48 hours that everything changed.

That's when it was like we fell back in love with each other.

And those last 48 hours before I flew and we've been together ever since.

Wow.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that with me.

I think there's so many good moments in there.

I got the chills when you were talking about how you could have chosen one path, which was to say fuck off.

But you chose to say, of course you can see me because that's the moment of growth.

That's why I do the work that I do.

That's why I coach because we can just keep repeating the same patterns over and over again.

I work with seven year olds who have been doing the same thing over and over again.

And it's not until we understand this is a choice and I can make a different one that we get different results.

And so for you, let's just break down that story and think about all the different moments.

So when she left and she was doing her own thing, she probably became more attractive to you

because she wasn't chasing you anymore and she was independent.

And then when you showed up, you were doing what she probably wanted for a lot of the time,

which is getting attention from you.

But still, she wasn't needy in that moment.

As soon as you got there, she wasn't like, finally we can be together.

You had to choose each other.

So both of you overrode your natural tendencies to really be in that moment and be your highest selves.

And there's just so many universes in which that didn't happen.

But because you flew there, you overrode this avoidant attachment and you made mature choices.

You get this incredible prize of being with your girlfriend.

It's so crazy when you say there's so many universes where that wouldn't have happened.

Yeah, so the way that I see it is a great relationship is the culmination of a series of decisions.

Am I ready to date? Who should I date? Who should I keep dating?

Who should I get serious with? Who should I marry? Who should I have kids with?

And at each moment, you get to choose.

And so the people in great relationships have made a bunch of good choices.

And so if you are single and you don't want to be, you need to take a step back.

And so in my coaching, a lot of the work I do with people is looking at what's your relationship history?

We start with middle school. People tell me, you know, I was the only South Asian kid in a class full of white people.

And I never felt attractive until I went to Stanford and was around other South Asian people.

Or people tell me I got a lot of attention and so I got a big head and I didn't develop a personality.

And people have all these stories about who they are.

And then they tell me about the relationships they've been in.

And sometimes they've been in abusive relationships.

Sometimes they've been in just one long relationship.

And so they have these patterns.

And so we say, what are those patterns resulting in?

And how can you make different choices to get different results?

And so really where the behavioral science part of my work comes in is understanding that we have these default behaviors.

We have these patterns and it's not until we illuminate those blind spots and then actively make different choices that we'll get the different results.

And for you that worked. But there's definitely a world in which you and I are meeting here and you're still single.

You're a void and attached. And I'm trying to give you this advice.

But nothing really changes until you make the different choice.

There was a couple other things I wanted to follow up from the story.

So have you heard of the secretary problem?

Only in your book.

Okay. So let me tell you about it.

And I should give credit to where I heard about it.

So there's a great book called Algorithms to Live By.

And that's how I came across this.

So this is the mathematically correct way to know when to stop looking and when to choose someone.

So the idea is imagine that you're hiring a secretary and you have 100 people to choose from.

And you have to go through each one one at a time and say yes or no.

So after the first person, yes or no.

After the second person, yes or no.

And if you say no, you can't go back.

So the question, which is part of this way of mathematical thinking called optimal stop theory,

is how many people should you go through?

Because if you choose too early, you don't know what's out there.

But if you choose too late, maybe all the good people have passed you by.

And so the mathematically correct answer is that you go through the first 37 people, 37%.

And you say, who is the single best person of that 37%?

That's now your benchmark person.

The next time that you find someone who's better than that benchmark person, you hire them.

Okay, so I'm interviewing someone to be my assistant, let's say.

I go through 37 people, and this can be used in the context of dating as well.

And I find someone called Jenny, who was the best of the 37.

But I've said no to her, so I can't go back and get Jenny.

So I've been on a date with Jenny or whatever.

I've interviewed Jenny.

So I'm now at interview number 38.

What do I do?

You keep going until you find someone who you like more than Jenny.

And then you say, I found her and you stop.

And the reason why this is so important is because if you're a maximizer

and we should get into what that means, you want to keep looking.

And there are so many people who just have found someone who's better than their benchmark person,

but they keep looking and they keep looking and then they keep looking

and the pool is getting smaller and smaller and they don't realize it.

And so here's how that applies to dating.

We don't know how many people you'll date, but one way we can think about it is,

let's just approximate how long somebody might date.

So let's say somebody dates from ages 18 to 40.

What is 37% of the way through?

So it's when you're 26.1 years old.

So at that point, you should look back and say, who is my Jenny?

Who is my benchmark person?

The next time you find someone who you like more than that benchmark person,

choose them and try to build a relationship with them.

What this is so important is so many people keep looking, so many people keep searching.

They're waiting for the perfect person and they don't understand that relationships are about finding somebody great

and building a great relationship, not the continuous search to find the perfect person who doesn't exist.

And that's a statistical mathematical equation that says,

on average, if we do date from 18 to 40, then by 26...

You've already met someone who could be your benchmark person

and that you should keep that as the framework.

The reason it's relevant to your story is you had a feeling that your girlfriend was your benchmark person

or was your person.

And so you guys broke up for a year, you looked around and you were like, there's nobody better.

And so obviously things are not exactly the same as the secretary problem and you could go back

and you were lucky enough to be able to go back and find her.

But it was that feeling of, I've seen what's out there.

She's the best.

That's who I want.

I feel like so often people don't recognize how good the person they're with is

or they get way past 37% and they're still looking.

And so a lot of the work I try to do with people is to help them understand,

I know you're a maximizer, I know you're trying to find the perfect person,

but instead I want you to find somebody amazing and build a relationship with them

and not be in this perpetual cycle of trying to trade up.

So interesting.

You talked about this concept called maximizer, which I want to double down on,

I feel like there will be a bunch of people out there who class themselves

as the first attachment style, anxiously attached that needs some help and advice.

So my girlfriend, I think she's a little bit anxious attached.

What do anxious attached people need to know to increase their probability of finding love?

So you illustrated this really well in your story.

So you talked about how your girlfriend will want attention from you.

You don't give it to her.

She tries and then she shuts down.

So that's exactly what we see with anxious attached people.

So let me give you the equivalent of what I gave you for the avoidant attached.

So an anxious attached person will have a trigger.

So for example, the trigger would be I ask somebody if we're hanging out tomorrow

and they didn't get back to me.

So after the trigger happens, they go into activating strategy.

So those are thoughts or feelings where you start spiraling and you're thinking,

they're not interested in me.

They met somebody else.

There's something else going on.

They don't like me anymore.

And you really are getting into that danger zone of coming up with all these reasons

why that person is going to abandon you, which is your biggest fear.

So then you do protest behavior.

So the protest behavior and trust me, I've been there is sending 10 texts in a row.

Maybe it's sending 20 texts in a row, leaving an angry voicemail.

So really acting out.

And then afterwards you decide to punish the person and you shut down.

So you send all those texts, you send threats, and then you turn off your phone.

And so you're really in this tough place where you've tried to reconnect with somebody

and then you've gotten so upset that they're abandoning you that you actually pulled back.

And so that sort of describes what might be happening with your girlfriend sometimes

where she doesn't get what she wants.

It's very frustrating for her.

And then she shuts down.

So the strategies for the anxious attached.

I talked about them before, but I'll say them again.

So some of the strategies for anxious attached are distracting yourself.

So going for a walk, doing something else where you're not on your phone,

where you're basically not in a mode where you're waiting for somebody to text back.

I feel like those are the longest minutes of my life are waiting for that text back from that person.

The second thing is to text somebody else.

You know, I wish I could say this to him.

And the third thing is this disconfirming evidence.

It's almost like inside your head is a judge and a jury and you're presenting to the judge.

Here's all the reasons why it could not be true.

So then you're presenting to the judge and the jury.

Here's all the reasons why that person might not be texting me back.

And so you're really doing everything that you can to not get into that protest behavior moment.

Because once you're flooded, once you're in that protest behavior moment, it's really hard to recover.

And so it's both people are working on having different reactions to triggers.

And honestly, if you look at all of the mindfulness stuff, if you look at the work of Victor Frankel

and Mansearch for Meaning, so much of it is this idea of creating more space between an action and a reaction.

And if you can extend that space and choose a different reaction, that's where the growth comes from.

And that's how we can overcome these negative behavioral trends.

Something you said that made me think about advice I once gave to a friend that I'm not sure is good or bad advice.

She was being ghosted.

And she came to me telling me she'd been ghosted.

And she showed me her phone and was like, look, and I looked at her phone conversation with this person.

And she was basically peppering him.

She was dragging the conversation.

You know what I mean? Where she's like asking the questions and he's giving closed responses.

Then she's asking another question, then he's giving a close response.

It was that cycle over and over again.

Then the next day she texted him and he didn't reply.

And I said to her, she's a good friend of mine.

She works in one of my companies.

I said, I think it's important to realize that people do what they want to do.

And the reason I said that to her is because she had started justifying, I think in her own mind,

what I saw as a clear rejection as something else.

I said, I think it's important to let you know that just remember people do what they want to do.

He would have woke up this morning.

I'm sure he brushed his teeth because he wanted to do that.

He then would have eaten breakfast because I'm sure he wanted to do that.

So if he's not texting you back over and over again,

and you feel like you're constantly dragging the conversation,

I think it's important to know that he's doing what he wants to do.

And it's maybe a bit of harsh advice, but I don't know.

I think that's great advice and I'm smiling and I have sympathy for your friend

because I feel like I've really been there.

Obviously, I don't know anything about her, but let's say she's wired like me.

It's like, well, when I want something, I go after it and it works in every other area of my life.

I set goals.

I go after them.

I achieve them and people respect the hustle.

It doesn't work in dating.

You can't hustle your way into a relationship.

And I think that's why so many of the women I work with are really smart and ambitious

and they're like, I've run a marathon.

I have amazing personal finances.

I've achieved all these goals.

Why isn't dating working out for me?

And it does feel like this one aspect of your life where you can't muscle your way through it.

You actually have to learn this pretty nuanced stance.

And so for her, she wasn't getting the cues and she wasn't getting the clues.

And so I just finished a bunch of research at Hange on this idea that we're calling DBL, digital body language.

And so we talk about body language in normal conversation, which is what are the nonverbal things that you're communicating?

Are you crossing your arms?

You're not interested in me.

Are you opening up?

Are you interested in having this conversation, even the way we stand?

Well, most of early dating is now happening over text.

What is your digital body language saying?

And so through this research, I have this whole list of good DBL and bad DBL or signs that somebody's interested in you and signs that they're not.

And this guy is doing all of the signs that you're not.

He's answering the questions with one word answers.

He's not asking a follow up question.

He's not matching her style.

And so for her, I think it should be a sign that he's not interested, but she wants him to be interested.

So she's going to keep trying in her in her head, which I have been there.

It's like, oh, I just haven't found the perfect question yet for him to open up to.

It's like, no, he's not interested in you.

And I can hear my college roommate saying to me, Logan, don't make somebody a priority when they're making you an option.

And that's what's happening with her.

She's prioritizing him, but he's not prioritizing her.

I think your advice is exactly right.

People do what they want to do and he's choosing not to invest in that relationship.

But at the end of the day, that was not your guy.

He had already indicated in multiple ways that he wasn't interested.

You were still grasping on to the crumbs, but you don't want the crumbs.

You deserve the whole cookie.

It's not like you ruin things with your person.

He wasn't your person.

And she always dates people that are either in marriages already or unavailable.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, going back to our theme of the anxious avoidant loop and she's drawn to this avoidant person.

And when they're unavailable, she loves the chase and how can I convince them?

I don't know if she's found love since, but I feel like growth for her will look like choosing somebody who's available

and retraining her brain to see their availability as sexy and interesting and correlated with relationship success,

which is going to feel different than how dating has been, which is she's been going after people who are not available.

Something she said to me kind of correlates to this because she was on a dating app.

But she was on a dating app.

Bear in mind, she's a mid 30s woman.

And there was this wonderful, like this really like wonderful guy.

He's a nicely mannered guy.

And she said, I'm not interested in him.

I said, why?

She goes, look at the background of his hinge or whatever it was photo.

There's boxes on top of his cupboard.

And that was her reason for this.

Like, I thought, I was like, that's a really good guy's got a great job.

Seems really nice.

He's been really polite to her.

And the reason why she didn't want to be with him was because there was a box on the wardrobe behind him in the Tinder picture.

This is what frustrates me about modern dating.

And you use the word IK before, as I know you're familiar with it, but the IK has just come this trend.

Only because of her.

Oh, you know about it from her.

She says IK to me.

So for people listening who haven't heard of it, the IK is this new trendy word that basically means the reason why all of a sudden you're not interested in someone.

And so my friend is the comedian, Jared Freed, and he does hilarious bits about this.

And so he travels around the country asking women for their IKs.

And one of them is you're having an amazing date.

You want to go home with the guy.

It's time to pay the bill.

You open, you pull out your wallet and your hair.

He has a Velcro wallet.

The IK you're not sleeping with him.

And he has these hilarious bits.

One woman told him my IK was that I was on a date with the guy and I imagined him being late for his bus and running for the bus.

And I could never be with him.

And Jared's like, to be clear, there was no bus and there was no running.

And she's like, I just imagined it.

And that's what's, you know, the IK is hilarious when Jared does it.

It's hilarious.

You're laughing at it.

But I'm also like, you know what?

I think we should get over the IK because the IK is just an excuse to not get close to someone.

And I found in my work that people often confuse pet peeves for deal breakers.

So a pet peeve is something that annoys you.

Maybe it's the Velcro wallet, but you could get over it.

A deal breaker is a fundamental incompatibility, right?

I have asthma and you're a smoker.

This isn't going to work.

And so when all these people are confusing, the pet peeve is for deal breakers.

Sorry, it's the Velcro wallet.

It's so funny because you feel it.

You're like, yes, that's not sexy.

Get a new wallet, but it doesn't mean you couldn't be with that person.

Now you've said it though.

There's going to be a lot of people that God dates and that is going to be the deal breaker.

Yes.

Or maybe we're saving relationships.

Maybe people are going to get rid of those Velcro wallets and actually get laid more.

What is it about a Velcro wallet though?

I think it feels very high school.

What do you think?

That's exactly.

I had one when I was 12.

Right.

Like when you think of the CEOs that you admire, you're not like Jeff Bezos is pulling out

his Velcro wallet.

Like this guy, maybe he doesn't even have a wallet, but you know what I mean?

And it's just this thing where it's like, because you have this one thing wrong with you, I

can't be with you.

Instead of being reasonable, which is I can buy you a new fucking wallet.

If we date, this is a fixable problem.

But because people get this, people get positive feedback for these stories.

Right.

Like you have the date with Velcro wallet guy.

You don't sleep with him Sunday morning.

You go to brunch with your friends.

You get all the social capital for telling the story.

And now we're having that on a massive scale with TikTok.

How many people are getting a lot of positive feedback and shares for these horror story,

these dating horror stories.

And so what ends up happening is it's date or tame it.

You're dating for entertainment, which I love dating.

I love dating stories.

This is probably one of the reasons I do the work I do is because I love Sunday brunches

about dating.

That's the sex in the city empire.

But if you're dating for the funny story and you're not dating for connection, you're

not going to hit your goals.

And so yes, the Velcro wallet isn't sexy.

I'm not saying it is, but get over it.

X.

Do you think that X are, as you said, kind of more of an excuse?

It's funny because I know, I know someone who runs a dating podcast and she goes on,

honestly, three or four dates a week.

She is a little bit of a hopeless romantic.

Yeah.

And I want it to myself.

I said, she goes, she must have been on like a hundred dates a year.

And yet she still can't find someone like statistically.

I'm like, it can't be a supply problem.

That's exactly how I feel.

I meet with people and they say, Logan, I've been on a hundred dates in the last two years

and I haven't met someone.

Should I move?

What's wrong with the people out there?

It's always about how their city is wrong for dating.

It's what's wrong with everybody else.

And what I say in my head and what I say out loud to them is there was very likely somebody

within that hundred person dating pool who you could have made it work with.

And we need to figure out why it didn't click because you will now go on a hundred more

dates and the same thing will happen unless you make a different choice.

And so this is how I developed this framework that I want to tell you about called the three

dating tendencies.

And so really this is the culmination of a lot of my research.

The idea that I've worked with hundreds of people, now thousands of people in my classes

and most people suffer from one of these dating tendencies or most people can be categorized

into one of these three dating tendencies.

What they each have in common is unrealistic expectations.

So the first type is the romanticizer and they have unrealistic expectations of relationships.

So they are the person who really wants that meet cute.

Their cousin met their boyfriend in high school and now they're married and they want to have

a romantic we met story.

They don't want to meet on an app.

They believe that there's a soulmate, one person for life.

You'll know it when you see it.

As soon as a relationship hits a rough spot, they think must not be my soulmate because

if it was my soulmate, it would be easy and effortless.

The second type is the maximizer.

The maximizer has unrealistic expectations of their partner.

So this is the person and I bet a lot of your listeners are maximizers where they feel like

the perfect person is only one search away.

I need to keep searching for that person.

I want the ambition of my ex-girlfriend plus the hotness of this other ex-girlfriend plus

the really great family of this other person and I can just wait until I find this Frankenstein

version of the perfect person and so they're always waiting and they have unrealistic expectations

and they're waiting for the perfect person.

The third type is the hesitator and they have unrealistic expectations of themselves.

So they're not dating at all.

So in their head, they fill in the blank.

I'll be ready to date when, when I lose 10 pounds, when I get a more impressive job,

when I clean up my apartment, when I go to therapy.

I need to do these things to be lovable and then I can date.

I can't date now because nobody would be interested in me.

And so they sit at home maybe trying to get better, maybe just thinking about trying to

get better, but they're not actually dating and they don't understand that the only way

to get better at dating is by dating and the only way to figure out who you want to be with

is by actually going on dates with people.

And if I'm, if I'm a romanticizer, so in the example I gave there with my friends going on 100 dates

and she's finding no apparent suitable match, it could be any of the first two, I guess,

she could be a bit too romantic about how love should look or she could be a little bit too romantic

about how a perfect partner should look.

Exactly. And I would want to understand more about her.

But yes, definitely one of the first two, if she's going 100 dates, she's not a hesitator.

So I'd want to understand why aren't things working out?

So it could be that she's finding that they don't match her image of the soulmate.

They don't come in the package that she's expecting.

My guest is the kind of person that goes on that many dates for that long is a maximizer.

That's just to me more associated with it because to go on that many dates, you probably are meeting on the apps.

And so she's not obsessed with the we met story.

And so I think she keeps going on these dates, waiting for something different to happen

instead of understanding what's in her control.

And so if I was working with her, what I would say is, first of all, tell me about these dates.

And she'd probably say, I go on so many dates, I mostly go on coffee and walking dates.

And then I would say, well, do you feel sexy on these dates?

Or does it feel like a job interview?

Are you saying the same things over and over again?

Are you pressing play in your mind?

How long have you lived in London?

How long have you done your job?

How long have you had a dating podcast?

You're not even in the moment.

You've said these things to so many people.

You're not present.

You're not connecting.

You're not flirting.

You're just having a transaction.

And you expect that all of a sudden you're going to feel the spark.

But of course you're not.

Your environment isn't creating a spark.

And so I often tell people the dating environment is so important.

I had this one client and he kept going on dates with men at 7 a.m.

He would say, well, I'm really busy and I need to meet with them in the morning.

And so I meet them at the Starbucks below my office.

I was like, who feels sexy or flirty at 7 a.m.

before they've had caffeine?

This is a terrible way to date.

But in his head, it was like, I'll know it when I see it.

When I meet the right person, I'll have that experience.

That's absolutely wrong.

The environment plays a huge role in how we feel connected to people.

It's why sometimes somebody might meet somebody in one setting

and not be interested and meet them years later and be interested.

I met my husband many years before we started dating.

I met him in college.

It wasn't the right time for us.

And then when we met again, it still took a year.

The environment matters so much.

And so really, can you create a flirtatious romantic environment for a date?

And can you really think about what does that look like?

And so if you're going on daytime walking dates to save money and that's not working out for you,

try a wine bar, try going out and sitting side by side.

There's really interesting research that shows when we make eye contact with somebody,

it can actually be harder to listen to them and to speak because we're so focused on the eye contact.

When we sit side by side, actually takes the pressure off us

and can make it easier to communicate and connect.

That's why people open up to each other on long car rides where you're both looking forward.

That's why I recommend that people sit side by side in a bar instead of across from each other.

And so for her, she's going on one type of date and getting the same result.

And she's thinking, it's the guy.

It's not the guy.

It's also you and it's also the environment.

So what is then the perfect environment?

And I want you to give me as much detail as possible, including use the word bar there,

which is associated with alcohol.

I want to know if alcohol is a good or bad idea for a date.

So I don't drink and I'm a fan of sober dating and in my work with Gen Z, that has come up a lot.

So sober dating has become a much bigger thing with Gen Z leading the charge.

And there's a few reasons why.

So one is they feel like I want to meet you, not you, under the influence of two cocktails.

Another thing is we know that they struggle with mental health.

They feel this anxiety and they don't want to have that the next day.

And so way more people are going on sober dates.

And even especially in New York, I've seen bars that have zero proof menus.

And so this is definitely getting normalized.

And so anyone who's interested in sober dating or just taking a month of drinking should try.

So absolutely don't feel like you need the liquid courage.

What makes a great date?

So I want people to think about what is the part of you that often doesn't come out on dates?

So let's say somebody is really serious, but they have a funny side.

Think about the last few dates you've gone on.

What side of you is coming out?

Maybe you're going in these interview style dates where you sit across from each other and you have a latte and you talk about your work.

The silly side of you isn't coming out and you're just being very serious.

Can you design a date that emphasizes the part of you that you want to come out?

So can you go and play ping pong, which you're really bad at?

Can you go ice skating and make a fool of yourself?

Can you be in an environment where you're less in control and you can show the silly side of yourself?

Or even for me, I love stand up comedy.

Could you go see stand up with someone and then afterwards debrief all the jokes and express your love of humor?

How can you have your dates show these different sides of yourself?

Another thing is understanding that at the end of the day, people really want somebody to play with.

In so much of my coaching, I talk to people after the date and we debrief.

The thing that makes me understand when they like someone is when they say, it was so fun.

We just kept laughing. Everybody wants to laugh.

People want to align themselves with and have a long term relationship with somebody who's fun.

But it's really hard because if you're in your mid 30s and you've been dating for a while

and you have this feeling of I'm running out of time.

Everyone else is married. Am I going to have kids?

It's really fucking hard to relax and be fun.

You have a goal and trust me, I'm the most goal oriented person. I get it.

But you have to do this dance of flirtation, seduction, playfulness.

Because people don't want to be with someone who says, I have the role of husband open.

Will you please fill the role of husband?

I'm searching to fill the spouse position on my team.

No, nobody wants that. They want a partner. They want a person to play with.

They want to have that fun, romantic, playful energy.

And so you have to figure out, are you able to show up that way?

And if not, you need to take a break from dating or you need to date differently.

So that might look like instead of going from work to a date where you're in this boss mode,

maybe you take a break in between.

Maybe you listen to a podcast. Maybe you take a bath.

Maybe you...

What kind of podcast?

Diary of a CEO.

Pump yourself up with Steven Bartlett.

Basically, you're shifting your mindset because if you...

You know this old expression that's like, whether you think things will go poorly

or you think things will go well, you're right.

The same thing is true with dating.

Your mindset has a huge impact.

So if you've gone on 100 dates and it hasn't worked out,

you're going to say 101 is going to go the same way.

It will then go the same way.

So what are all the different things that you can change?

You can change what you wear. You can change what you do.

You can change what you do prior.

You can change how long the date is.

One of my biggest things is date like a scientist.

What does a scientist do?

They have a hypothesis. They test it and they're open to being proven wrong.

And so maybe your hypothesis is that the coffee dates aren't working for you.

Great. Try some dinner dates. Try some morning dates.

Try different things and see if something opens something new for you.

Maybe it wasn't the coffee dates, but at least you tested it.

So one thing that frustrates me so much about modern dating

is when women set their height filters for six feet or higher.

I know in the U.S. 86% of men are under six foot.

So when you set your height filter at six feet or taller,

you are excluding 86% of men.

You are only now seeing 14% of men.

And then among that group, the pool is much smaller.

Maybe you've dated many of them in your city

and now you don't have anyone else to date.

Well, you should expand your filters because the height of the guy

isn't going to predict your relationship success,

but you've just decided that you want someone six feet or taller

and so you've set your preferences that way.

So dating like a scientist, you might say,

I'm going to expand my filters.

I'm going to date men of any height or set whatever minimum height you want

and then see, can I be attracted to someone shorter?

I do this with my clients all the time

and they find that it is actually much more about the person's personality

or face, but your dating up filters are like a bouncer in your club.

They're deciding who gets in and who doesn't.

And when you set your filter as something really restrictive,

like under the age of 30, over six feet tall,

your bouncer is preventing all these people from getting in

and you're not even getting the chance to connect with people

who could be a great partner.

There's also like dating hygiene that goes into that, I guess.

Me and my girlfriend, when we go to restaurants and stuff,

when we're waiting for the food or I don't know,

we sometimes look over at different people and we're like,

who do you think they are?

What do you think their story is?

We try and guess their story.

They're married, they've been married for 20 years, they're whatever.

And then you get the odd couple who they're super young

and they're both glued to their phone

and it looks like it's either a really, really bad day

or they just generally have not such a great relationship.

What is the kind of good relationship hygiene

or good dating hygiene that you think is conducive

with finding somebody?

I'm so glad you asked me this

because we actually just produced this thing at Hinge

called the distraction-free dating guide

and it's basically based on this.

It's like, what are all the things that are getting in people's way

and one of them is technology.

So I've absolutely seen those dates

and it's really people of any age.

I don't think it's just Gen Z.

I feel like that's unfair when people are like,

Gen Z is so addicted to technology.

It's like, who's all over Facebook?

It's boomers.

Who's the couple with their phones at?

It's often older people.

And so the distraction-free dating guide

is about understanding the research behind this.

So there's research from MIT professor Sherry Turkle

that talks about the influence of a phone

on the depth of the conversation.

So if a phone is on the table,

even if it's face down, even if it's off,

you're much less likely to have a deep conversation

because the reason is right now you and I are going deep.

Your phone is not out.

I don't feel like at any moment you're about to be interrupted.

But if I felt like at any moment

I could share something really deep

and then your phone could go off and you could grab it,

that makes me not feel safe sharing.

So the conversation is more shallow

because at any moment you could be pulled away.

So the first big tip is to put your phone away out of sight.

The second tip is to know that there's other screens involved.

Your watch is a screen.

You could also be pulled away by that.

I also recommend that people finish up

any big work conversations or even life conversations

before they go in so they're not feeling like,

oh, I have to get back to that person.

Sometimes people pull out their phones

to show somebody a meme during the date.

Do that later.

Let that be your callback where you can get in touch with somebody.

And finally, if you have plans for after the date,

make sure that they're really solid

so that you're not during the date checking,

hey, let me just see when my friends want to meet up.

And so all of these things seem fairly obvious, right?

Good phone hygiene.

But people don't understand how much their phones

are getting in the way of connection

that if you actually just commit to having a phone free date,

hey, let's both just put our phones away,

first person to check their phone buys drinks.

It's actually a much better way to create deeper connection.

So on that point of shallow conversation,

a lot of dates and a lot of sort of serial datas

will engage in a lot of small talk.

What's your view on small talk?

Skip the small talk.

So much of the research that we've done at Hinge

talks about how people are drawn to emotional vulnerability.

Interesting.

They really want you to go deep

and they want to know what you're about.

And through my coaching,

I've been surprised at how hard this is for people.

So I have one client where I said,

you're going on all these dates.

They're not clicking.

I wonder what's going on.

What do you talk about on these dates?

And when she told me the topics,

I was getting bored just listening to them.

And I said, you're sharing facts, not stories.

We need you to share stories.

And she said, what do you mean?

What's a story?

How would I tell that?

So I said, okay, off the top of my head,

here are some conversations you could talk about.

I said, you know, tell me about your family.

Do you have any siblings?

And she said, yes, I have a brother

and he lives across the country from me.

So I said, okay, the fact is that you have a brother

who lives far away.

What is the feeling behind it?

And she said, well, he actually just had a kid

and I haven't even met the kid yet

and I feel disconnected from him.

And I'm like, great, that's the story.

That's the vulnerability.

The fact sets us up, but then go deeper.

And then we talked about all these deeper things,

how she feels when her friends have kids

and she doesn't and it's harder to have a relationship,

how she feels about her aging parents,

how she feels about her industry.

And it was so interesting to me

because I love conversation.

This is my art form.

This is what I love doing,

but just breaking it down into pieces for her

was something that she needed.

And so I want people to take away this idea

of share stories, not facts.

And that means going deeper.

And so you don't want to be TMI

and tell everybody about the crazy trauma in your family,

but you might let somebody in and say,

oh, I'm struggling with this thing at work.

I have a new manager and I feel like we haven't clicked yet

and there's been laughs at my company.

So it's kind of been a stressful time.

Or saying, hey, I'm about to take this pill

because I actually was in an accident a few years ago

and now I need to take this pill to regulate my system.

Something like that where it's just saying like,

I'm a person with baggage.

I bet you're a person with baggage too.

Our baggage can match.

And instead we're so focused on these dates

on coming across as perfect.

But the truth is when you have a shiny, perfect exterior,

there's no cracks for me to grab onto.

You actually need to show me the cracks

so that there's something to grip

and I can actually feel connected to you.

And I feel like a lot of my work with people,

especially older people,

is telling them that it's safe to let someone in

and they've worked their whole life,

50 or 60 years to say,

look at me, look what I've accomplished.

I'm puffing up my chest.

Look at how perfect I am.

But people aren't drawn to perfection

because then they feel

afraid of their own imperfections.

People are drawn to somebody who's real

because then that creates a safe space

for them to be real too.

Vulnerability is the bridge.

I guess you could say vulnerability creates a bridge to connection.

With that in mind,

is it conceivable then that people

who have low self-esteem

feel the need

to create the

perception of perfection the most

and therefore struggle because

thinking about one of my friends that has low self-esteem,

ahead of a date,

this person has like a three-day routine

where they go and get the hair,

then everything done, fake tan,

let me probably get their toenails done,

wax this, wax my butt, whatever.

And it's this huge thing,

they have a really low self-esteem,

as you were speaking, that they go on the date

and try and like hit this person with perfection.

Like everything about me is perfect.

I know underneath that

they're struggling with their self-esteem and their self-image.

But it made me think

that there might be correlation between

low self-esteem

and our willingness to be vulnerable,

which will also mean our ability

to form connection.

I think it's an interesting theory. I haven't studied it.

I bet it happens both ways.

So I think somebody with low self-esteem

is going to be rejected anyway, so I'm not even going to date.

So those might be the hesitators that I talked about.

They also might be the people

that you talked about where they're like,

I have so many flaws, I can't let you in

because if you know the real me, you'll reject me.

So I have to keep you at arm's length.

However, I also think there's this other person

who actually has pretty high self-confidence,

but they go through the world

bragging, or they say,

the way that I got investors in my company

is by showing what a big man on campus I am

and how I'm going to scale my company

and that what society has

prized in them is how

together they are. So they've never been

in a situation before where their vulnerability

has been appreciated.

So it's actually pretty hard for that person

and I think that just to generalize

that this happens with a lot of men

where society wants people to be strong

and wants people to feel like they have all their

shit together. And so then to suddenly say,

hey, be vulnerable on the date,

that doesn't feel safe to them. They don't have that.

And so I don't think it's necessarily just

low self-esteem. I also think it's

they feel like it's really risky

to show that they're not perfect.

That's the journey I've been on is

when I was younger and most insecure,

I was never vulnerable.

That felt like a huge risk that I was not willing

to take. And as I got more

secure with myself, I've been able to be much

more vulnerable. And that means

like having conversations where I admit

my bullshit. And that's also why I think this podcast

has worked for me because I say on stage a lot,

I ran the experiment of being

honest. I've been being vulnerable

about my shit, about my imperfection,

about my doubt, about my mental health,

all of these things. And that experiment

resulted in connection that I

was not expecting. I thought vulnerability

was a repellent. Turns out it's

a magnet. And that was like a revelation

in my life. So I've doubled down on that

concept of just like share it

and instead of repelling people,

it actually ends up drawing them closer, which I

think is great. I absolutely love what you said

and I hope people rewind and listen

to that part again because that's honestly a lot

of what I'm trying to get across. So

a few months ago, I sent out this email to my

newsletter and I said, do you worry you're undatable?

Is there something about you

where you feel like people will reject you

because of that? What is that? And

hundreds of people wrote in and they said

I'm undatable because I have a chronic illness

that makes me have chronic fatigue.

I'm undatable because I don't have a close

relationship with my parents. I'm

undatable because I've slept with too many people.

I'm undatable because I haven't slept with enough

people. Every side of every coin

people felt like they were undatable. And then

I turned that around and the next email I sent

out, I shared all these things and I said, this is

what you're all feeling. You all feel

like you're undatable because of these things.

None of these things make you undatable.

They actually are

your vulnerability that if you share, somebody

will feel connected to you, but you're not

putting it out there and you're not sharing and

you're not connecting. And I think people

who have been on the journey you're on have

proven that when you are vulnerable,

people feel connected to you because

they say, Steven's

struggling with something that I'm struggling with.

I want to be a part of what he's doing because

I can learn from him. When you come

across as perfect, people don't

feel connected to you because they can't relate.

My friends that don't share their

vulnerabilities, I feel less close to them

because I'm like, well, you must have it all figured

out and you must think I'm a mess. But

when they text me what they're struggling with and

I text them with what I'm struggling with,

that's the depth of our friendship and I

can judge my friendships based on

how real we are with each other.

And so I think that younger people,

but really a lot of people have this

idea that if you really knew me,

you would reject me. And the truth

is if you really knew me,

you would feel closer to me and we would have

a deeper connection.

So true. Even, you know, I talk

about this experiment. It's an ongoing experiment.

I'm getting better at being more and more

vulnerable. I think it's only in the last, like

even I'd say six months that I've

opened up to my girlfriend about things

I would normally just keep from her as well,

like how I'm really feeling when I have my

really bad days. Share it,

I call it an experiment because it feels like one.

It is. It is. That's your life experiment.

Yeah. Yeah. Like letting her know

in those really tough moments how I'm feeling.

And because I'm a

man, I sometimes feel like I'm supposed

to be strong and perfect

all the time. But

there's this part of my brain that thinks,

okay, if I share this with her, maybe she's gonna

feel like

not think I'm a man anymore

because I'm experiencing

an emotion that society

might associate with weakness.

But it's always been the opposite.

And it's such a

an illusion, that feeling, that

opening up about my emotions to her,

even when they're emotions of

I don't know, it could be self-doubt

or it could be

struggles with mental health

that she might run off and be like

yuck. But it's always the opposite.

Right. Your relationship's getting deeper and deeper

and it's probably completely different than the first

era of your relationship those first two years.

You weren't sharing those things. You were actually having

You were perfect. Perfect, yeah.

Perfectly shallow, perfectly

inauthentic.

And now that you're in this inauthentic relationship

that's why she feels like

the love of your life. That's one of the reasons is because

she's the person who has made you feel safe

and then you can be your real self. And I feel like that's so much of the

work that we're all doing is

you see me

in my darkest moments

in my hardest times. Do you

run towards me or do you run away?

And so many of us don't even get to that point of revealing ourselves

because we think the other person will run away.

But you have revealed yourself

and she's gotten closer to you

and that's allowed you to feel safe doing that

even more. And so it's this perpetuating

cycle of I share

we connect and then

I can do it again.

But if you don't share it all, then you never get to have

that positive reinforcement

that comes from the connection.

But also in there is I share

we connect.

She feels more safe to share. Yes.

That's a huge part of it.

When people say to me, Logan

I know that I'm looking for a long-term

relationship. When should I bring that up?

We do this modeling exercise where you say

to somebody, hey, I've been dating

for a while.

I have had some fun, but I know that I'm

looking for a long-term relationship and I'm ready

to build a family. What about you?

I didn't come at you saying

Steven, what are you looking for?

Because then you feel like there's a right and wrong answer.

I better tell her that I want a long-term

relationship. No, you're just going to say what you think

I want to hear by sharing the background

and letting you know what I'm looking for.

I'm giving you space to be able to do that.

And so a lot of it is

I share first and then you share. I create

the space to share. And so

this is going to sound not humble,

but my friend said to me, she's like, Logan, you're a great

conversationalist. I've been trying to analyze

why. What do you think it is?

And I was like, I don't

censor myself. I really say what's going on.

So if you ask me how I'm feeling,

I might say, I feel like shit.

I'm so stressed out. I'm experiencing

burnout. I'm

forsaking my relationship with my husband. Here's

all the things that are wrong. And it's like, I don't

even know how to just say I'm fine.

But I think that when I do that

people are like, I

can take a breath. I can sigh.

I can feel relieved because I can

tell you all the things that are wrong in my life.

And not that every conversation should be a

venting session, but I think

that people want to feel like they're getting

to know the real you.

And if they're only getting the perfect you,

then they don't feel like they know you at all.

And there's something in that

that the 99% of our

lives is imperfect. It is messy.

It is like eating the pot noodle on my

stomach at 2am watching

junk television. That is

the 99% of my lives.

And when we look out onto the world on social

media, we obviously see this

highlight reel, which represents maybe the 1% of our

lives. Someone's in the Maldives. We maybe go there

once in a while. The thing that we can connect

with and relate to the most is

the mess of life.

So that's maybe another reason why we find

people sharing their mess so resonant

because it's the thing we can relate to the most.

It's the thing we experience the most.

I agree. And I would mostly say social media

is bad for that because you get

more likes for the shiny

picture on your scuba vacation

versus this is me with

my mascara running because I had a bad day.

But I do think Gen Z is

doing a good job at being more real.

I think their interest in TikTok over

Instagram, sort of their unfiltered

view is kind of like, let's let it all

hang out. And I think that people are actually

responding to authenticity. Even in my own

social media, I'm trying to make that

switch from like the millennial

have my shit together to being more real.

And so I would say overall,

I think social media is bad because it

perpetuates the idea that you're the only one

with the mess. But I do think things are

potentially trending in the right direction

with Gen Z and TikTok embracing

some of the more real

unfiltered authenticity.

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Some of the things that I used

to go for when I was younger, when I was looking

for a perfect partner, I would

be able to reel off things like I want this color

hair and I want them to look like this and I want

this, this, this, this. It was like a shopping list

like apples, plums, it was like everything

was on there.

As I got a little bit older and I did

a little bit of hindsight research

on what I was actually looking for

the list reduced and it became

more about fundamental things and I got down

to these three things I thought

you need in a partner to be happy.

I'm going to run these things past you and get your thoughts.

I believe you need

a sexual connection.

So I'll say sexual attraction. I believe

you need an intellectual

connection and the last one is

I felt that you need to mutually

make, you need to mutually make each other

better at what you do and

for me that's like my mission doing this or running

businesses and for her it could be

she's a breath work practitioner and

whatever else. We make

each other better, we're sexually attracted

and we're intellectually

stimulating of each other.

I think those things are great. I don't think

everyone should write them down as their three

things but I think it works for you and I can tell

you why. They are more

about who the two of you are together

than her qualities.

So maybe your early list had

this body type,

this hair color, this eye color,

this ethnicity, whatever it was. It was about

the superficial qualities and so there's

actually a term for this in relationship science

and we call it

relation shopping. Shopping for a partner

like you'd shop for a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

You log on to Amazon and you say

okay I want ones that are this color,

this weight, this battery life

and then you start to think oh I can shop

for a partner the same way and it

just doesn't work. What works is

relation shipping

which is looking for a long-term partner

and putting in the work to make that happen. So you

want to move from relation shopping to

relation shipping but this is very

common. People come to me often

these maximizers and they say

I know exactly what I want. Logan I just need

your help finding that person.

So rarely does that ever work out.

The person that ends up making them happy

in the long term is very

rarely who they thought they should be with

and so the truth is you think you know

what you want but you're wrong

and the older you get and the more

you think you've figured it out the more

you're actually excluding really great partners

because you think oh I want to find

someone like myself or you think

well if her parents are divorced

and she probably doesn't know how to be in a great relationship

so I only will date people whose parents

are together. You're making all of these assumptions

that are wrong. The better attitude

is to date like a scientist.

I think I need to be with somebody

who's this tall. I think I need to be with

somebody whose parents are together. Well date

someone who's different from that and see

if you could fall for them and so when I'm

working with someone in a coaching capacity

and they say to me Logan I met this guy

but he's not my type

in my head I hear ding ding ding

because that's often them making a different choice

that's going to lead to a different result

and those are way more often the relationships

that work out and so when people come

to me with that checklist I'm not

saying great let's run

a LinkedIn search to find that person

I'm like let's do the work to help you actually

figure out who will bring out

the best side of you and I can tell you

all the research about what's correlated

with long-term relationship success

and what's not but

my favorite way of viewing it is

who are you around that person

what side of you do they bring out and so

I have this list of questions called the post

date eight and there are eight questions

to ask yourself after a date

the point of the post date eight

is that

when you go on a date with a checklist

in your head you're evaluating the

person as if you're on a job interview

are they good looking enough for me are they

ambitious enough for me are they funny enough

for me you're evaluating

instead with the post date eight it's

actually training you to tune into your

experience the experiential mindset

are we laughing together do I feel desired

in their presence do they make me feel more

energized or less energized and finally

what side of me do they bring

out because whoever that

person brings out in you is who you will

be for the rest of your life in that relationship

and don't you want to be the happy

secure desired

hilarious version of yourself where do I

find this post

date eight picture in your book

from my book that

I liked it but it's really blown up

because I feel like people really use

it they take a picture of it on their phone

they take a screenshot from my Instagram and they ask

themselves after the date and it really

changes the way they show up on the date

and it's also a great way to say

should I date this person again because

my slogan my motto has become fuck

the spark and the spark is this idea

that we go after the

all-encompassing initial chemistry the

fireworks but the spark often leads to

relationships that burn out

and instead you should go after the slow burn

the person who's not initially as exciting

the secure person who would make a great

long-term partner but to train yourself

from looking for the spark to looking for

the slow burn how do you do that

you need a new barometer so with the post

date eight you ask yourself these questions after

a date and then you see

am I interested in them

is my interest trending upwards after each date

and it's a way of training your brain away

from the initial chemistry

maybe the anxious avoidant loop to a new way

of dating so

the post date eight questions are all kind

of

they're all kind of sensible

yeah I'm pretty sensible

and I guess this is

ranking them more on whether they are a

secure person then whether they are

that kind of

super spicy cayenne pepper

maybe a little bit

abandoning anxious

type yeah I think it's

I think it's doing a few things so one is

do you know the research on gratitude journals

and why they work no so

if you throughout the day have to look

for three things to write in your journal

that you're grateful for at the end of the day you're training

your brain to look for those things like

I almost missed my flight but I made it

maybe normally you wouldn't even think about that

but because you have to look for things

to be grateful for you make a little mental note

and then you feel more gratitude the same

thing works with the post date eight because I

have to answer at the end of the date what

side of me did they bring out how did I feel in my body

I'm paying attention to that after

during the date so it's overriding the checklist

mindset it's overriding the evaluative

mindset I'm not thinking are you good enough

for me I'm thinking what are we creating

together so it's really training me

to be more mindful and really

tuning in tune into what it feels like to be

around you because so often what happens

with daters is they think he's from

a good family he has a great resume

he makes a bunch of money we should work out

this should be a great relationship he's good

on paper well when you're in person he

makes you feel like shit he's rude to you

and he's inconsiderate but

you're so focused on his resume

qualities that you don't think about it with

the post date eight you'll be like I felt very

bad on that date I shouldn't see him again

so it's taking what people are doing wrong

and it's training them to focus on what

really matters what are some of the things

that people think matter less

than they actually do as it relates to

finding someone falling in love and having a great

relationship so some things that people you know

they think are really important but are actually

not important in reality

yeah so let's go through that so here are

some things that matter less than people think

they do for long-term relationship success

so the first one is looks

of course you should be attracted

to the person but the truth is

that we have

adaptation we adapt to whatever

is around us so I like to joke that

even the hottest person you know there's somebody

who's sick of sleeping with them that's just

the truth of the human brain is that

we adapt to what's around us and so

obviously you should be attracted to the person

but I wouldn't optimize for the hottest

person the next one is similar

which is money obviously money makes things

easier there's tons of research that when couples

have enough money to outsource things like

cooking and cleaning and childcare they have

more time to connect but the same thing

is true with money and there's this

idea called the transition rule

so when you think

about winning the lottery what you imagine

is going from your current salary

to what you would have with the lottery

and what that change would feel like but

over time we know this from the research

about a year after you win the lottery

you are about as happy as you were before

because you've adapted to your new circumstances

and the same thing is true with people who

become quadriplegics if I say to you

how bad would it feel to become a quadriplegic

you think about the change and you think

it would be extremely terrible

but what actually we find is that about

a year after becoming a quadriplegic

somebody is the same

happiness as they were before

and so the same thing is true with looks

and money is that we adapt to our circumstances

and we don't over optimize for it

the next thing is having a similar personality

or similar hobbies

it's fine if we have different hobbies

as long as you make me feel like I can explore

mine without judging me for it

so interesting because me and my girlfriend

are completely different

she is super spiritual

she believes things that are metaphysical

and can't be proven and I'm like

science science science evidence

right and maybe at some point in your life

you thought oh we have to have the same interest

so you probably both want to be curious

and be respectful and you want to understand

her breath work stuff it doesn't mean you need to share it

and with similar personalities

it's the same idea I remember I was coaching this guy

who had a huge larger than life personality

crazy nicknames

life of the party and he wanted to find someone

like that because he's like well she needs to party

with me I was like dude you are so much

two of you in a relationship

would be exhausting two of you

at the same dinner party would be exhausting

I want you to find somebody who compliments you

and so the woman he ended up with is very

different from him she's not at the party

she's at home but she's the home base

for him and he is the

energizing

wild part of their relationship

and so it's not that people have to find their opposites

it's that you shouldn't focus on just finding

your identical twin

your personality twin

what are the things on the flip side of it then that we

should be looking for

that people don't typically think are that important

right so relationship science

research shows that some of these things are really

important and that people underestimate their

important for relationship success

so kindness and loyalty

they sound really simple but you want

to align yourself with somebody who

will treat you with kindness

whose compassion has shown kindness to other people

in their lives loyalty if you're in this

for the long term don't you want a teammate

who will be there through thick and thin

another one is emotional stability that's what

the relationship research finds somebody

who's emotionally stable is just

great to be in a long-term relationship

with some of the ones that all add to it

are the ability to make hard decisions

together so life is hard

what happens when there's

an issue with your child or when you have

an aging parent you have to decide where

to live don't you want this to be a teammate

who you respect and admire and you can make

hard decisions together

another one is the ability to fight well

and so feeling

like when we fight we can fight in a

respectful way we can take a time out when we're flooded

and we can say

hey what you just said really hurt me I need

to take a break or can we fight

in a way where we're teammates

and it's us against the world

versus we're in battle and it's you versus

me and finally the one

that has become the most important to me is this

idea of what side of me you bring out

because you could be perfect on paper

but something about you reminds me of my dad

something about you reminds me of my middle

school Billy and I don't feel good around

you and so that's honestly why finding

love is so hard because it's not

an algorithm it's really complicated

in some universe we make

perfect sense but in this universe

you annoy the shit out of me

and so we're not supposed to be together

and so there's a sense of find the person

who feels like home find the

person that brings out your favorite side

of yourself because that's who you'll be in the

relationship long term one of the most interesting

ones for me is having the skill to fight

well you didn't say having the skill

not to fight at all but it's really about

your conflict resolution

strategy together you mentioned earlier

was it Julian John Gottman

yeah they've done some work on this

yeah that's really where I learned about all this

so basically doctors Julian and John Gottman

talk about how most

fights are perpetual 69%

of fights are perpetual what that means

is we will never come to a conclusion so

let's say I like to get to the airport early

you like to get to the airport late the

conclusion isn't you start to get to the airport

early it might be we accept the

other person's view and we go to the

airport separately so

you're not looking for a person with whom you

don't fight you're looking for

a person with whom you fight well and

who set of problems you can deal with

and this is part of maturing is

there's stories about people who say

you know I dated this person but I broke up

with them for this problem then I dated the next

person who had the opposite situation

and they were fine in that area but then

they had this problem it's like at some point

you have to realize you are choosing a set

of problems there's no one with whom

you don't have problems and so

my mother-in-law who's a therapist she

says to me when couples tell me they don't

fight I say do you also not have sex

because it means you're not being real and

you're not getting to the edges you're not

getting to the conflict you're not getting to

the root of a relationship so interesting

that idea that it's just

about the problems you're accepting

and that because there is

people watch Disney right so Disney tells

us that this is going to be this perfect

she comes down wearing a wonderful dress

perfect we get happening happily

ever after we don't think is of

relationships as you choosing

the problems you want to accept and then

working on those going forward

absolutely yeah I call this the happily ever

after fallacy you think there's this idea

of the hard work of dating is finding somebody

and then everything will be easy honestly

finding somebody is hard but the rest

of it is really hard too so for

those romanticizers that are obsessed with the

we met and they're like I don't want to

date on an app it's not romantic I say to them

if you're going to be in a 50 year

long relationship the day

you meet is point

zero zero five five percent of the

total relationship who cares how

you meet the romantic part is that you met

and you built a life together it doesn't

matter that you didn't have a rom-com

moment where you were at the farmers market

reaching for the same tomato at the same time

so get over the we met

story and start meeting people

and what about when we should get married

because I'm in the point now I've been in a relationship

for what four years so

is that a good time to

pop the question should I wait

longer there's got to be some data and

research on people that end up having

successful marriages versus unsuccessful

ones I've also got a friend actually that

he's getting to like 37 years old

now and he's always telling me about this

like rush he's going like Steve you don't understand

I'm 37 so he's trying to rush people

down the aisle and it's resulting

in continual breakdown

in relationships he's now been in

I'm going to say four relationships

in the last four years in one of them

he moved the girl in in 20 days

after knowing her that didn't go

well in the second one he flew

her from another country on the second date

to move in with him

and that also didn't end well and before

he flew her from

far away land to Europe

to that hotel room on the second

day I said to him I was like bro listen

take it slow because in dating

and in relationships and in life the slow way

is the only way

and he that's when we're sat on

my couch at home and he told me listen Steve

I'm 37 you don't understand I haven't got

that much time and I think by rushing it

he's actually ruining the chances of

even if that person was right

they're going to skip past a bunch of

necessary work. I agree with you I think

he's focusing on the clock

and not focusing enough on the connection

and so there's no perfect time to get married

there is some research that suggests that

if you've been dating for more than two years

before you get engaged that the relationship

has a greater chance at success

or if you're older than a certain age

you have a greater chance at success

all of those things are true but

what I would really focus on is this idea

of decide don't slide.

So there's research that shows that there's two ways

to move through relationship milestones

deciding is having an intentional conversation

so you might say to your girlfriend

I assume you live together but you might have said to her in the past

let's move in together

what does moving in together mean to you

and this happened with a couple that I know

where one person said moving in means

we're testing the relationship and the other person said

moving in means we're engaged to be engaged

well they weren't on the same page so they didn't

move in together and they waited until

they were on the same page that's deciding

sliding is just

slipping through the next stage of the relationship

well my lease is up so let's move in together

and couples that slide

their way through the next stage of the

relationship end up being in relationships

that are less intentional

less happy and even have

less sex and so I really

would encourage people to decide their way

through these relationships and

through these milestones and so for you

it's about having a conversation with

your girlfriend which I'm sure you have all the time

what do you want out of life

where do you see us living

how do you want to spend your time together

do you want to build a family

what would that look like and having

these relationship conversations that people often

don't have because there's this thing

that happens where when you're in love with someone

you assume that you're the same and so you think

oh well I've never talked to her about whether we're going to live

in London long term but we love

each other so much I bet she feels the same way I do

it's like no you have to make the

unconscious conscious

and you have to actually see if you're on the same page

so my advice is less focus on how

long you should

date before you get engaged or how long you should

be engaged before you get married and more like

are you having the explicit conversations

about what you want because that's the most

important part of moving to the next stage

and do you think

I know you have a role at a dating app but do you

think dating apps have been a net

positive to society

I do because it's helped so many people

find love there's this idea of a thin

dating market so if you're over

50 if you're in the LGBTQ plus

community it was really hard to find

love how did you know who in your neighborhood

was around

who was single who was interested in you and so it's

just making all these matches that wouldn't happen

otherwise and we know from the research

from Michael Rosenfeld of Stanford that

since 2017 the number

one way that couples are meeting is

online

I say this in part because I had

Whitney Wolfe heard on the podcast who's the

founder of Bumble and I

was really surprised actually that when I looked

at some of the feedback on the episode

specifically from men

there was

it opened my eyes to the way that

certain men feel about dating apps

they feel and then I spoke

to Scott Galloway who told me that it's really

difficult if you're in like the bottom percentage of

men because the top like 10%

of men are having all the sex and all the dates

and there's this kind of lost 50% of men at

the bottom that like aren't getting swiped on

they don't have all the money they're kind of

you know I totally hear

that and I absolutely work with clients who have the same thing

but when I meet with them

I feel like there's so many other things going on

that's holding them back from finding love

and it's not just the technology so

first of all somebody can be on a dating app

but also meeting people in real life there's

nothing holding you back from hitting on

somebody in person joining a pickleball

league and talking to someone and so I feel

like we make a mistake when we think

everything related to love happens on my

phone the phone is just the modern day

matchmaker but there's so many other parts to it

there's other ways to meet and there's other ways

to mess it up and so a lot of the work

that I do with people you know I know

all the tips and tricks for the best hinge profile

I know what a good opening line is

I am familiar with all of the

stuff that makes people successful but that only

gets you to the first date the rest is on

you I'm curious you're curious about

what the tips and tricks for a great

hinge profile oh sure yeah I'll go through all

of them I mean we have done

tons of research on this at hinge and

are basically our philosophy is the people

who are finding success what are they doing

differently and how can we teach other people

to do that so these are the top

tricks for a great hinge profile

so first of all your profile is telling a

story who are you show us

different sides of yourself and you want to

start with a clear headshot this is what

you look like no filters no sunglasses I

should be able to see from that first photo

what you look like you also want to have

the following photos a photo of you doing

an activity that you love a photo

with you and with friends and family show us

you have a social life and a full body

picture then

for the prompts you want to

have a mixture of humor and vulnerability

let's just pause on this because I want to double down on some of these

so the first photo should be a headshot

and this is what I don't mean literally a

professional headshot I mean just

your face clearly

not far away no filters

no sunglasses just this is what I look

like and not like a jail headshot or anything

like that not a mugshot not a mugshot headshot

and the data suggests

that those people who have a

clear headshot no filters no glasses no

nothing have the most

success yes all of this is based on the

hinge research or what we find

what we have found makes a successful profile

and what people are looking for

on your profile and then you want to show

that you have a diverse sort of social life

including family

and friends so at least one picture with family

and friends that shows us that you have a

social life it shows us that there's people who you

love who love you it also kind of gives you this

image of this is what dating me would be

like if you date me like here's the

kind of people that we're going to hang out with

there's a couple ways this can go wrong and the

first one is what we call the wears

Waldo photo which is the photo where I

can't tell which one you are so it's

you know 10 white women in bridesmaids dress

which one of these white women are you

don't make me do work to zoom in

and see who you are just don't include that

photo so it should be very clear in the photo

who you are you also shouldn't

have any photos where it's ambiguous

is this the person that you are dating

is this the person that you wish you were dating

so make sure it's clear that

there's no romantic interest in the photo

and I can tell at a glance which one is

you on that point I've got a friend

I always say I've got a friend on this fucking podcast

people think I'm just making these friends up I actually

am just talking about guys Stephen has no friends

he's never he's trying to do this podcast to make

friends nobody is friends with him

you know what's funny is when I say I've got a friend

I'm literally talking about five people

and I've probably said I've got a friend like

200 times wait I kind of was thinking about this

because you spoke on a podcast about you were

like I have six friends that I text with

three of them are in sexless relationships

I was like anyone in your extended network

they all know is going to know you're basically

talking about your friends sexless relationships

they know when they're cool with it

and also when I think it's a bit too

revealing in terms of identity I send them

the episode ahead of time and say hey I told

a story about from us beforehand

is it okay for me to run it and every time

I talk about my girlfriend I send her the

episode and go baby hey this is what I said

about our situation is it okay and even

like the thing I said it actually makes me feel better

as a listener because I'm like he's blowing up all these

people's friends. It's funny because I was

about to say to you I've got a friend and I

was and I've actually spoken about them a second

ago but one thing that I

noticed on their profile

was every single picture that they had

on their profile had

them holding a glass of alcohol

and I remember thinking it was because

I was so bad on dating apps

for the I don't know the one month that I

tried but when I

looked at this person's dating profile

when they showed me I remember they were telling

about the guy that had the box on top of his wardrobe

I was like oh this is the same friend

this is the same person I was like every

single picture on your

dating profile you're holding alcohol

and you're in a party is that

are those subtle do those subtle cues matter

yes so if I looked at her profile

I would say hey do you notice anything

in comment about these and she would

say oh I guess I'm holding alcohol in all

of them and I'd say exactly so it's not

that I think people are going to think you're a lush

it's that you're only showing me one side of you

and so I see this all the time

where I was evaluating a woman's profile

in my course and we do

live profile feedback

and she had four pictures from a photo shoot

she had done with her dog I was like look

your dog is plenty cute but all I know about

you is that on one day you wore this dress

and this is what your dog looks like I was

like you're telling me a story but you're only

telling me one chapter and so you really

want to have variety and so your friend

can have one photo with alcohol

it's not about the alcohol it's about show me

different sides of yourself I imagine most

those photos were taken at night or most

those photos were taken inside at a restaurant

or brunch or a club

show me different sides of yourself and really

it's a storytelling exercise

and so going back to prompts so hinge

has these prompts which are icebreakers

that you respond to like

my love language is or

my therapist would tell you or

my typical Sunday and that's

a chance to tell me about who you are

and so the biggest mistakes that people make

in their hinge prompts are one word

answers which show no effort

if you're not willing to put effort into your profile

why would I think you'll put effort into the relationship

they also

if there's grammatical errors or typos

unfortunately people are looking for reasons

to say no so they won't be into that

or being all one flavor so all dad

jokes are all super earnest you want

to have a mixture of all of that

and so it's like your dating

app is your billboard you have limited

room what is the story that you're trying

to tell I recommend that people be

really specific this is a rule in humor

and it's also a rule in dating apps

so this girl that I worked

with she had on her profile

I don't know how to

ride a bike and she said that that was

one of the things that she got the most comments on

because it was just super specific or

I want to debate with you how bad it is to

parallel park in Boston there's a

ruling comedy that the specific is universal

the more specific you go the more people relate

to it and the same thing is true and so

the things that I look at on people's profiles are

do you have any cliches get rid of those

make it specific do I feel

like you've mentioned anime and two of your answers

I already get that you like anime try

something else and so

really understand it you have this limited space

to tell your story and the best way

to do that is to have different pictures

and different prompts show different sides

of who you are

what about a smile does that

make a difference smiles are good yeah I

so basically in my book

I have some research on things like looking away

from the camera looking towards the camera

and that was before I worked at hinge

and that was based on some research that I had found

that was publicly available now that I work at hinge

that's not something that's come up in the research

I think those things differ

but people don't like selfies

they don't like gym selfies they don't like

smoking selfies so those are all

photos that you should avoid interesting

Logan we have a closing tradition

on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question

for the next guest in the diary of the CEO

and the question that has been left for you

is kind of fitting because it somewhat links to the work

that you do

the question is

what is great sex

oh my gosh I always feel like I'm not

the sex bird let me think about my real

answer

I think great sex is

losing yourself in the moment

and being transported to a different

place

we play so many different

roles in our lives we're pretending to be

this person or that person but I feel like

when you feel safe enough

when you feel turned on enough

when you have the right erotic connection

with somebody you can actually just lose

all the artifice and be fully

present and fully express yourself

and connect in this deep way and I think many

people have never had great sex

but once you've had it you want to keep having

it and so great sex

is the

deep connection that comes

from being fully present

taking risks

attuning yourself to the other person

and really

allowing yourself to experience pleasure

Logan thank you thank you because

this is the best

book ever written on this subject

it quite clearly is

and I say that because a lot of these books

in this category that talk about relationships

and love and dating

they are built on vibes

it's like gossip, vibes

and like you know

kind of like I don't know how to explain it

there's just no sort of basis underneath

the advice that they give

your book is based on science

and it even says that on the front the surprising science

that will help you find love because you think

through psychology and the lens of science

and that is why this book is so important

and if I read this book

and I was an author

thinking about writing a book about dating

I would not write a book about dating

because I think that within it you encapsulate

so many of the fundamental

nuggets of wisdom that anybody

struggling in dating or relationships

or is looking for dates or looking for a great relationship

or love needs to find

so I highly recommend that everybody goes

and gets this book how to not die alone

what an amazing title

and thank you so much for your generosity today

you've helped me answer

so many of my questions

that I've had and I feel like I'm going to be quoting you forever

after reading this book so thank you

thank you for all the compliments

it means so much to me

I'm honored that I get to do the work that I do

and thank you for letting me share it with more people

as you'll know this podcast is sponsored by Huell

and one of my favourite products that they've ever created

is their Huell Daily Greens

it actually performed so well

when we released it

that it sold out completely

what I wanted to say to you guys is that it's now back in stock

it tastes amazing

and it's actually got 91

vitamins and minerals

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it's nice not to have to think about taking lots

of different pills and vitamins in the morning

I can just take this

and I know that I'm giving my body a good dose

of all the vitamins and minerals that it needs every morning

it's a lot better tasting than having to

force down some of the other green powders

I've tried and it's really reassuring

to know that I'm looking after my body properly

unfortunately and currently

this product is only available

in the US

so anyone in the USA head to Huell.com to get it before it runs out again

but anyone that's not in the US

and wants it to come to their country

please send me a DM, a direct message

and I'll speak to the team at Huell in our board meetings

and I'll let them know that you want it in your country

Thanks for watching!

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.