ramble [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to best friends back alright the show where two high school best friends try the best friend thing again i’m nakin ho mai fad and i’m stevie wyn levine and today we are talking about how to lose a guy in 10 days i lost a guy long time ago it was a great movie great yellow dress but we’re actually talking about the exact opposite it’s how to date successfully and how to fall in love so stevie and i to be to be completely transparent we are both in long term relationships with different people but that doesn’t make us experts okay so we brought in the big guns we brought in my friend logan yuri hi logan hi so exciting i’m excited to see your voice your face in the middle of the day and hear your voice it’s so fun well so logan is a behavioral scientist turned dating coach she’s the author of the best-selling book how to not die alone i’ve read it it’s amazing and i recommend it to every single person that asks me for dating advice um she’s also the director of relationship science at the dating app hinge and she conducts research to help people find love after studying psychology at harvard she runs google’s behavioral science team the array ra rational the irrational lab she lives in the bay area with her husband scott and she recently got married yes yes we got officially married two years ago but we finally had the in quotes post covid celebration in june oh amazing and the two of you know each other it’s not just we’re not just pulling in oh yeah a random expert i mean give the friends listening she’s not just like a link a linkedin linkedin request yeah not that not that random at all no logan and i logan you know you were my first friend at harvard yeah i love our how we met story and it’s interesting if you all are high school friends we would have met technically when you were in high school that’s right so maybe we’re actually high school friends too but i met logan in an airport on the way to the harvard pre-frosh weekend which was like the admitted students weekend where you go and figure out if you like the place or not i talked about it last season yeah were you how did you were you both wearing like i’m a i’m a harvard freshman potential t-shirts like it was on our foreheads yeah i actually think we were on same flight i that’s what i think too but i don’t know why but it was just like you just probably looked exactly my age you probably looked eager you looked friendly traveling alone yeah 17 year olds aren’t right weren’t at least in those days traveling alone i wonder if like i went to get my bag and one of us was like oh are you here for free frosh or something like that which like i’m happy that we were so friendly like that’s such a cute story yeah this is a meat cute it was it really was it really was and what was great was one of my dad’s uh phd students lived in boston at that time and he had been requested by my father to pick me up from the airport and take me to the school and so logan and i got to get into a car together and just like have a little uber experience on the wayne’s trains and automobiles i just felt like i felt like it was really cool that you like already knew someone and had this arranged ride i think it was also like logan’s like i had a hired car pull me into harvard that’s how it felt to my 17 year old son i love that i love that and here we are today okay well for our friends you know that our producer’s name is logan so for for this podcast we’re going to refer to our logan as producer logan who’s going to be chiming in from time to time and you know logan guest logan we like to do like a little bit of a catch-up in in the beginning of the podcast episodes talk about the past week that we’ve been apart from each other or any highlight oh i thought you meant sick in the 16 years since we originally met in boston oh oh no that’s gonna be a spin-off show yeah um but i you know there’s been something happening in i guess i could say in my life in the past week or so that i felt like had some adjacency to your ex professional expertise um that i was gonna bring and and just get your kind of objective opinion on the situation now nagin you you’ve heard producer logan and i dance around this subject because the the thing that i’m bringing to the table right now is a little bit of a celesbian relationship drama that’s been playing out on tick-tock over the past couple of weeks now before i get sounds amazing okay yes so excited that the two of you were not familiar with the celesbian drama and tick-tock world so no are you seeing so lesbian yeah what does it sound like is that it’s so lesbians like celebrity like celebrity lesbians yeah i feel like we’re on that show normal gossip do you listen to that show no i’ve heard it once this is the straight gay divide i’m defining this this is the straight gay divide but this is perfect for this particular looks really popular look it’s like normal gossip’s really gay yeah yeah that’s so quick here’s the thing i’m not gonna give you any names involved in the drama i’m about to lay out okay because i you know those who are listening who are lesbians of a certain age who are on tick tock are going to automatically know what i’m talking about also note for you that we’re recording this about a week in advance of when it’s coming out so i don’t want to get into whatever is going to happen in this next week but i’m not going to bring any of my bias into this presentation i just want your opinion so essentially there is a creator a lesbian creator who i believe is in her early 30s and a lesbian pop star in the same age range now producer logan uh informed me that she has taken notes about this situation and is ready to chime in with any factual uh corrections so uh please feel welcome i got you okay so so far i’ve established the creator lesbian and the pop star lesbian the two of these women used to be in a relationship and from what i can tell it’s a relationship that lasted like a few years or a substantial you know period four years yep four years yeah um and when did they break up they broke up in during coven okay so fairly recent but not like immediately recent breakup now they remained friendly for what we can tell for a period of time because pop star lesbian released some music and some music videos that creator lesbian directed and so that was their established relationship now recently the drama is creator lesbian is dating someone new and is in a relationship with someone new i want to establish everyone is very attractive in this situation yeah i was thinking of trolls this whole time now i’m interested everyone is exceptionally hot in the situation that i’m describing pop star lesbian has just released a song the storyline of the song is about how hot her ex’s new girlfriend is and how she wants to [ ] her yeah and it involves her name in the song is the chorus entitled the ex or the new girlfriend uh the new girlfriend the new girlfriend okay wow the exodus new girlfriend the ex’s new girlfriend wait and is the ex’s new girlfriend famous or not no not famous okay she’s a normal because i feel like that makes a difference like bringing somebody’s name into the public sphere if they’ve already are a creator that’s a great point okay so before i get into what the two sides are of the situation yeah like what is uh you know logan please from your professional perspective like what is your what is your read on this kind of triangle or this relationship and then nikki and by all means i mean i’m just happy to hear about this as a layperson i love i love hearing about gossip i like hearing about subcultures of the internet like i like i like hearing about lesbian tick tock i’m not it’s not what i what i see um yeah i don’t know i’m just interested in this it kind of reminds me do you remember the show next i know that we’re all exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so like the best episodes of next were always the queer ones because like if it’s just like a bunch of catty women on the bus and then they each have to get off to maybe see if the guy will like them or not like that’s that’s one thing but then like in the gay episodes like all the guys on the bus would hook up with each other like it was just like so much more fun and i feel like that’s what’s more fun here it’s like if you’re playing a game where all the parts can interact like that’s just like opportunity for a lot more job i don’t know if you give like body parts i don’t mean body parts i mean like game parts but like use your imagination like oh i do you want that too yeah yeah okay that’s a fun playful take negan do you have anything to yeah to offer this situation based on the information that you shared it feels my first like not to get into logan speak right now but my the red flag that comes to mind for me is revealing putting somebody a regular person’s name out into the public and having it like enter just create drama with somebody else’s name yeah makes me wonder like is this a person i can trust but we don’t know what kind of arrangements were made if this was like a pr stunt that both people are involved in but if we produce i wonder producer logan is just needs to speak right it has been connected but it is not a pr stunt because what are we creators creator lesbian went on tick tock and was like because there were so many rumors that it was a pr stunt and she confirmed that it was not she did not give permission um and she was very clearly pissed and then she unfollowed oh yeah pop star lesbian that’s all you need to say like a breach of trust i feel like you don’t i feel like it’s bad uh it’s just bad acting and i’m sure logan you’ve had to deal with just people dealing badly with exes yeah absolutely and like figuring out how do you coach people on how to on how to treat their exes yeah i have i have a little part in my book about block your ex and why and it’s like all the steps and it’s just basically like you know block your ex block your ex’s mom on facebook block your ex on venmo because you don’t want to hear about their new dates and then whatever you don’t want to [ ] them is the question here you know yeah i mean i would say best practice is to not talk to them and then you know who nick viall is he’s like a former oh yeah i never watched the bachelor but i was on his podcast he has a new book coming out about dating relationships and the title is don’t text your ex on their birthday and i was like oh i love that of all the things like that’s what he chose to title it and i i think it’s good advice so anyway it’s like we can all take the advice of like leave your ex in the past and that includes leaving their new girlfriend like out of your mouth okay we could that that’s that’s good to know we can move on i will say my piece of advice is to watch the music video yes okay yeah i’m gonna be googling this not in public so yeah yes oh really very raunchy uh yeah i mean the first 10 seconds oh i i just recall the the last um the last scene the the the you’ll know very clearly what scene what what the yeah just watch it i can’t even talk did you know who both of these people were before or is this like how you learned about them i did know who both of them were previously not personally not personally for everyone listening there’s there’s like adjacent uh touch points i’d rather not get into are you a celesbian no but i wish i was i think you’re a celesbian yeah or like at least a two lesbian a twitter do not bring twitter into this i’m getting some lesbian vibes from you oh thank you that’s a good compliment yeah you were definitely coming back on the show you i need you we’ll offline we’ll we’ll talk i’ll give you names for the scenario i presented yeah i’m sure producer logan has already sent me all the videos i can’t wait i’m so excited yeah and then pop it up here and then yeah then you come back and let me know if i could fit into that triangle because if i could we’re gonna have to do some work there we’re cooking okay sounds good that sounds like this person’s single so anyway there’s there’s an oh yeah i mean i’ve been in a 10-year relationship but you know what i forgot cassie who’s listening like we can work something out i think you know um well you know what i feel like this is a great time for us to move on back into helping the rest of our friends now that we’ve helped stevie really unpack this this and producer logan and princess producer look good well okay so our first season um the first season of the show it was a throwback to high school okay so steve and i met in high school and we’re just reconnecting after many years but when we talked about dating in high school i mean let’s just say it was pretty blate dry dry for us and also we were either like too closeted to studious to iranian we were like we were just like not dating okay but i am very curious as a dating relationship coach dating coach like how would you characterize your high school dating experience did you blossom late in life like we did okay i’m just thinking of like what i want to share from this time but the first word that comes to mind is debate team two words um oh say the first phrase let’s see i had a really nice high school boyfriend like beginning of high school just like very sweet we were both like on the debate team it was so fun because we would travel together like just like a very cute i feel like the kind of relationship like i would want my kid to have for first relationship like a safe sweet person like just super super nice and then i had one or two nice boyfriends like after that i feel like i was was blessed in my high school relationships yeah really positive and like just such sweet people where like when i think back to them like kind of like send good vibes their way like oh like thank you for being like so nice and like but you do not text them on their birthday not on their birthdays i’m not in touch with any of them but i i feel like warmth towards them yeah i feel like warmth towards their families i feel warm towards the experiences we have a lot of people that i work with like when i work with them i’m like okay like we’re gonna go through your relationship history like start from the beginning i feel like the most common thing i’ll hear is like i was a late bloomer i think a lot of people do have that narrative i would say for myself i wasn’t a late bloomer and maybe that’s just like i’ve been interested in this topic for a long time and like part of being interested in it is prioritizing it and so like it was just like really fun to be in relationships i remember yeah like i didn’t have a date to the prom yet and i mentioned it to some girl in my spanish class and then she like turned to this guy near her and she’s like blank would love you know blanks doesn’t have a date you should go with him and then like we ended up dating for a while and like i think maybe he had told her but just i feel like lucky i feel like a lot of not yet not that every experience like in college or whatever was so great but these do feel like really wholesome like sweet memories so uh anyway no complaints about high school that’s sweet okay so in preparation for having you on with us today we asked our listeners um to send in questions that we had a form some people included their age and their gender and some didn’t they let us know what was on their mind what are some of like the big blockers for them in finding love and and dating and there are so many different themes that we can cover but i think it’s helpful to establish from the start what the purpose of a date is so that we’re on the same page great all right i love that let’s start there so some people feel like the purpose of a date is to see if somebody checks off all the boxes on their list and so they walk into a date almost like they’re in a job interview and they’re like okay is this person good looking enough are they tall enough are they ambitious enough would i be proud to introduce them to my family and there’s like this whole thing and it’s really very judgmental it’s coming from this list of like are you good enough it’s really about tuning in to how you feel when you’re around the other person because maybe they do have all those resume traits maybe they would check off all the boxes but if they leave you feeling self-conscious or down on yourself or like you’re not good enough then that’s not your person and i feel like that’s happened to me with friends with people i’ve dated with networking meetings where i’m like on paper i should love this person but then i come home and i like want to crawl in bed and watch tv for five hours like that didn’t feel good like something was going on that person didn’t bring out a good side of me and i feel like just the more people can tune into that the better that’s why i have this thing called the post date eight and they’re questions that you ask yourself after the date and the whole point is to get you out of that judgmental mindset are you good enough for me and much more into the experiential mindset of did we laugh together how did my body feel around you did i like the side of me that you brought out and really it’s about having this experience and seeing like who are the two of us when we’re together do you find that because you know you you exercise your expertise in various different ways but if we’re concentrating kind of on the dating coach you know vertical you know ultimately the people that you’re coaching are looking for a a long-term partnership with someone else would you would you say that’s fair like they’re looking to find love and a a long-term relationship ultimately yeah i would say that’s totally fair and that’s why like the information that i bring and the research that i have is mostly done with people who are like i’ve been dating i’ve had trouble with dating so i want your help and my goal is to find a long-term relationship through my research at hinge i do work with people not work with but i do do research with you know gen z and people who are younger and probably aren’t there yet in terms of like yes i’m the next person i date i would ideally like to be in a long-term relationship with so i have some experience with that but yeah from the coaching angle i would say like if you’re gonna pay money to work with me it’s because you’re really ready to find your person okay cool that i think that’s important the difference between kind of casual dating and and then the i would say a little bit more pressurized situation of finding that person that you want to spend the rest of your life with which is going back to your description of how people can enter into a date um you know that idea of this this checklist for sure to fill that bucket that’s where all that that pressure is coming from which makes a lot yeah and i would use the term intentional dating which i really like i feel like intentionality is a great word it’s like very meaningful to me it’s like how can you do everything it’s like a jewish concept like how can you do everything with your life with intention like okay like i’m about to be hanging out with these two people for an hour like how do i want to show up like what’s the vibe i want and it’s just that extra mindfulness that’s like being aware of the moment and even planning for it and so i would call that intentional dating but i think that’s a great call out because it’s i’m not that casual of a person and i don’t think i’m talking about casual dating and like yeah maybe your point of a first date is to have sex at the end of the night like totally fair i am more working with the people who are like i’ve been doing many versions of this i don’t really like where it wound up like i want to move to the world where i’m like finding a relationship [Music] hello friends before we get into the rest of the episode i wanted to take a second to 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so um the first couple questions really i feel like explore this fear that i see that people have or at least i see in there in the questions that they have with dating and the first question comes from a 29 year old female and she writes i’m not sure how to meet people who could become potential romantic partners i’m afraid of online dating for safety reasons and i don’t enjoy going out to bars other nightlife specifically for romantic interests i figured i could meet friends of friends but i feel shy bringing that subject up also if it doesn’t work out what happens to our friendship i feel a lot of anxiety at the idea of meeting strangers and dating them so okay well i would call this person a hesitator that’s like one of my three types where it feels like there’s like a lot of fear around dating and it feels like they’re probably not doing that much active dating and so part of this isn’t even just meeting people i think it’s also just addressing those fears and being like what else is going on so it sounds like there’s some fears around if i ask my friends for help and then it doesn’t work out you know what are the consequences there and so it might just be useful for that person to really get clear about what they want because i think one of the best ways to overcome fears is to have like the motivation and the desire be so strong that it can overcome them and i think a lot of us like do hard things that are really scary and it doesn’t mean that we aren’t afraid we just want the thing so badly that we’re willing to overcome it so you need that motivator to overcome the fears the second thing i would say is that online dating just really is how most people are meeting i was looking at the stats yesterday so this is from 2019 but 39 of straight couples and 65 percent of queer couples meet online and that’s from 2019 i imagine that during the pandemic it just went even higher because that was probably the only place to place to meet and so i’d say of course like i acknowledge your safety concerns but i would also just think about like are there ways that you can make it feel safe are there ways that you can you know only use apps where the people are verified or only meet up in person in a certain like super safe place but it just feels like most people meet this way and so just by saying like i don’t online date you’re actually like really limiting your options it would be like oh i’m looking for a job but like oh linkedin isn’t for me it’s like look like linkedin is like how people network right now right like like love it or hate it that’s part of it yeah and then the next thing i would say is that i have this framework called the events decision matrix which is a way of finding and meeting people in person and it’s for people who are like yeah either i don’t like online dating or i want to do something else and so basically the origin of this is that i was working with this client and she was a black female in her 20s and she just wasn’t finding success with online dating she was feeling like people weren’t interested in her it’s just like a really frustrating experience for her and i was like okay let’s figure this out and so we looked at potential events that she could go to and she traveled a lot for work so we had to prioritize the good ones and so we came up with this matrix and basically for each event you say like what is the likelihood that i would like this event like if i went would i have fun and part of that is like you want to go to events that are of interest to you even if you don’t meet anyone you won’t feel like it’s a waste and it’s going to bring out that good side of you if you’re interested the second part is what’s the likelihood that i’m going to interact with someone and that one’s really important because like maybe you love horror movies but you’re not playing track with someone at a horror movie marathon so anything that falls in the upper right hand quadrant which is like high likelihood i’ll enjoy it and high likelihood of interaction those are the events you go to and so this client of mine she ended up going to a tanahasi coates book club and she went from having like no dates at all to like six people asking for her number in one night and she ended up dating one of them and it was just like such a great example i was like you’re feeling undesirable and like you’re struggling with dating but actually like when you are in the pool that’s interested in you like you are hot [ ] like people really like you and so i think for this person it’s like okay like you don’t like like bars and clubs and nightlife like that’s totally fine like what can we get you doing and so it’s like if you like you know your bike could you go to a bike workshop and even if you show up and it’s not the kind of people you want to date okay maybe one of them has a friend and so i think it’s just like how can you expose yourself to more people yeah and then the last point is like i would say many people i know met their partner through a friend it’s just worth being bold about it just say like hey can you set me up with someone and i promise if it doesn’t go well i won’t hold it against you and you have to hold true to that so i would say yeah setting your like asking your friends to be set up is a really really great solution and maybe for you if you’re not confident about online dating like the best place to start it’s so interesting this whole like i don’t like going to bars and nightclubs thing cuz like i guess i i’ve never met anyone that is in an a serious relationship that met like first of all a club i think i’ve been to one time in my entire 35 years but like a bar or something it’s like totally i guess i i so it’s it’s so interesting that kind of like the the pop culture reference our bars and clubs and that’s where people think that they meet people that they’re actually gonna have a relationship with and not some you know one night thing or or whatever it is i i i don’t know if that’s something that you encounter a lot is this like or maybe it’s not a falsehood maybe it actually maybe people are meeting at bars and nightclubs and i just don’t know any of them but i this it seems uh like an odd framing of how to meet someone i think that’s such a good call out and i i really like that because it’s like part of the question is based on fear but maybe also based on like misconceptions of how people meet and so like i gave that stat that most people meet you know online and like i think the number of people meeting in like bars and restaurants is just way down and so i feel like the idea of like oh i don’t go to bars and restaurants or sorry i don’t go to bars and clubs and therefore like i’m less eligible to meet people it’s like no that’s honestly like not where people are meeting these days anyway it’s better that you’re not spending your time there yeah to find a date yeah i’m looking at the chart right now and i think it’s like number one is online number two is through friends and acquaintances number three is through work the fourth one is bar a restaurant and so it’s like actually like you should really be playing into like online and your network that’s where most people meet and the restaurant thing is really interesting because it’s like hello i know that you’re sitting down at your table i’m sitting down that other table what appetizer did you did you purchased this evening that’s so [ ] awkward i totally agree speaking of using your network this next person is a 36 year old female she says that she lives in a small town of about 4 000 people in the midwest i’m bisexual and while the people closest to me know of my sexuality it wasn’t received well by most of my own family how do you find someone when you live in an environment that is hostile to who you are as a person wow yeah i feel like i hear about biphobia so often i think for this person maybe there’s a sense of like what do they need from other people versus what do they need from themselves and i think like in terms of themselves it’s like you know do they accept themselves like how are they putting themselves out there and maybe they can date like without the acceptance of others in terms of meeting people you know i think it can be really hard depending on where you live but i also feel like i don’t know not to be like making this like an online dating advertisement but i think that is one of the reasons why online dating is so great it’s like you don’t have to like go to like the one lesbian bar like 45 minutes outside your town you can actually like go online and see like who else is interested in you it does feel like that’s where a lot of those connections are being made yeah back to the the safety note of it all too i do feel like if you’re a person who’s at least semi-closeted in a small town at least if you have a dating app that you’re meeting people that clearly state their interests and their own acceptance it does feel like a safer environment in which to interact than going out into a place where you don’t feel that acceptance or safety so i feel like that’s a great entry point but 4 000 man that is that is very tiny that’s a very tiny place i think you i mean i don’t yeah it might be a situation where you have to look outside of your immediate community because i mean isn’t that like why people have been moving to new york for decades right it’s like sometimes sometimes you sometimes you do need to move to find your people yeah yeah so this question about you know being accepted by your own family makes me think of people who have different you know they want to date outside of their religion their ethnicity their whatever it is and how a lot of people have to deal with kind of how to date while maintaining family especially if if who you’re interested in is very different so how do you advise people to balance that right how to like follow their heart and find the right person for them while also dealing with the reality of their families oh yeah that’s interesting in the beginning i thought you were going to talk about dating against type or i’ve just heard the phrase recently like untyping which is something i’m really passionate about it’s like if you’ve always been going for one type of person and then you like for example that person would come to me and be like oh i know who i want i just have to find them i’m like is it possible that this is actually not who you should be with and the fact that you’ve been going after this type for 20 years and it hasn’t worked out like maybe you should date a different type and so anyway that’s my psa for like expanding your filters going against your type like i get so many dms that are like i am dating someone i never would have dated previously and i’m just so happy and like why didn’t i do this before and so anyway pitching against type yeah in terms of the family stuff i mean i think this is an interesting dynamic where for someone they have to decide for themselves like is shared religion a deal breaker and i think for different people it it depends on their relationship with you know their own ethnicity or religion or family like for some people they’re like oh like i date everyone it doesn’t matter for some people they’re like i’m really religious i can only imagine dating someone with a similar background so that we can raise our kids this way and so not even just about your relationship with your family but understanding like what do you want long term and are these things that you feel like are deal-breakers are they actually deal-breakers are they more nice to haves you know when you when you bring up like the kid thing or like long-term goals i mean back to the pressurized situation like i can imagine going on like one or two dates with someone and then like at what point do you advise that people start talking about these things that seem like monumental when they’ve just met people for the first time i don’t know i don’t know if i’ve ever like formally gone on dates in that particular way so i think if i’m looking back at my relationships it was like more of an organic progression of like those topics coming up but when you’re in the situation where you do want to find that person that’s why you’re going after intentional dating where do you start to introduce those kind of we need to be on the same page about religion or kids or or whatever it is for sure yeah this is definitely a big part of my work and something that i think about a lot and like you know kind of going back to the idea that most people i work with are these intentional daters that are looking for something serious they usually come to me and they’ll say like i do or don’t want kids and when should i bring that up in dating right and sometimes it’s like very strongly i don’t want kids like i have a client who i spoke to a few days ago and i i feel like i can bring her up because she’s like right about me like i want to hear like what you would say about me in public and so anyway i feel like this is what she wants but anyways she she’s in her early 40s and she doesn’t want kids and she tends to date younger guys and she just dated a guy for three months and they broke up and it wasn’t until after they broke up that they sort of had that big debrief and then she found out that he does want kids and i was like okay look like you broke up it doesn’t matter like i was like i don’t want you to regret what you had with him but i don’t want you to repeat it and i was like you’re so bold you’re such a bold person like you live this big life but why are you not being bold enough in this and so for her i think it’s like if you’re in your 40s and you’re dating younger men like statistically most people end up having kids and so i think that in the adrienne she’s dating especially like that needs to come up and so i am a big proponent of bringing it up early on and the big thing is that you don’t want to come across as needy or demanding and like there’s one answer you want to come across from a place of sharing and being curious and so it might sound something like this like hey like i’ve been dating for a while i feel like i’ve had lots of fun but i’m ready to find my person and i know like i’d want to get married and have kids like when i find that person like what about you what are you looking for and like i didn’t seem i hope when you heard that it’s like i’m not like oh my god like tell me that you’re looking for kids if not you’re wasting my time it’s like people will literally run in the other direction and i think that’s like where they feel like you’re desperate but if you’re just like this is my stuff what’s yours the other person could be like yeah like i grew up in a huge family and i actually had to raise all my siblings and i don’t want kids it’s like great i’m glad we talked about it and there was a theme in the pandemic called hardballing where people from the beginning were bringing stuff up way earlier on like on day one and it’s a feeling of like hey like i just lost a bunch of time like i want to catch up or to use stevie’s word pressure and like i actually think that’s good it’s like in a job negotiation like what if you talk to someone for months and it turns out like your salary range is totally like not on the same place it’s like i think a lot of things go better if we reveal our cards early on and so i am a huge fan of from the beginning whether that’s on your profile or date one or two or three just being like this is where i’m at and what i’m looking for i have just seen such good results with that and i think people being coy they end up making assumptions and then being disappointed that makes sense okay that makes a lot of sense but i what what can or what should you be so upfront about because there’s like i don’t want kids seems like a big one um but being like i don’t want will only date vegetarians is that might be just as big like what are the things that you it’s reasonable to have a hard line on yeah i would say it depends on you like if you are staunch vegan and somebody eating meat feels really offensive to you and you just can’t imagine not being with a vegan like that might be something to bring up like on your profile or like before you even message someone and so i would say the most common ones are basically like what are you looking for you know are you looking for something casual or something more serious um more and more like relate what we call relationship type like are you looking for something open are you looking for something monogamous i think that’s a big one luckily profiles like especially i work in hinge i can speak to hinge they have a lot of space on the profile for that like you can say what you’re looking for you can say if you have kids and whether you want them like i actually feel like the profiles are getting pretty good at having some of those things like revealed for you yeah all right so i want to get into some tactical questions you’ve already started answering in ways that i think are very tactical and and so sure but this comes from a non-binary person they say how do you open a conversation on tinder and not have it end with one of you just ghosting each other i find whenever i match with someone on dating apps i don’t know what to say ask them about their job their hobbies sounds like an interrogation and saying something funny usually doesn’t get a laugh so what do i do been there been there yeah i think we’ve all been there i mean ghosting sucks and having the same conversation over and over again sucks and so one tip that i use with my clients that tends to work really well is the more that you switch up your profile the less staining burnout that you have because like let’s say you have a photo of you doing the trapeze and then everyone talks about your trapeze picture if you actually switch it up to like one of like you on a boat now you have a different conversation and so just like actually changing your profile changes the conversations you’ve had yeah i would also just say like this is just like very common it’s hard it’s like what’d you do last weekend what are you doing this weekend where do you live oh how long have you lived there what do you do and so basically i would call that like the shallow end of the pool and small talk and how can you move it more towards like how you would text with a friend and so what would you text to a friend like oh like you know the craziest thing just happened at work like i thought i was on mute but then you know i said this really embarrassing thing and blah blah blah blah blah obviously listened to the podcast before i mean i think we’ve all had our like horrifying zoom moments and so anyway it’s just like not that you want to make it friend zone but it’s like how do you have a normal conversation like where you like say something and the person reacts like i think this ping pong back and forth of like question answer then i answered then i asked you another question it just feels like so tedious like the best conversations the ones that i look at that turn into dates are where it just has like a flow where you’re like i can’t believe that happened like has that ever happened to you like oh yeah like this one time it’s like you’re sharing stories and experiences and opinions and less biographical information and so it does take time but i would lean away from questions like you know what would be your dream vacation or if you could have dinner with three people it’s like everyone’s just gonna be like oh my god are you reading from your favorite color i mean like i’m just thinking about like the story that stevie said it’s like oh like have you heard about this and maybe the person hasn’t you’re like let me tell you about it obviously like you live in the same city you could be like i just saw like for me in san francisco i’d be like oh i love san francisco reddit like i just heard about these like parking tickets that aren’t actually real but people pay them like do you know what i mean it’s like how can you just like share these nuggets where you’re having a conversation and you’re not having this like horribly forced back and forth interview so you just need to get real real good about the pop culture and current events in your life okay logan can you tell me what is the most frequently used object in a hinge profile oh i thought that was good you talked about boats you talked about i mean i’ve seen like the hunting yeah i think the big bad guy i mean i would say like fish if this were a consulting question i would be like probably the answer is like a wine glass or a beer just because a lot of people have pictures in that but i think what i actually want to say is so many people have the fishing photo like where the guy’s holding up the dead fish and it’s become like such a gross cliche so that’s the one that people really don’t like and should go away should we say yeah stop putting is this a psa stop putting fish picks up guys i agree it doesn’t work in my mind but you have the data no dick pics no fish picks the correlation between guys with fish fish picks and dick pics and their their time on i haven’t studied it yet but it’s you know that could be my next research all right so you did touch a little bit on the the conversation kind of going dead but now we’re i want to talk about moving the conversation from the app to a date you’ve you’ve talked about this in your book i’ve i’ve seen you have a lot of great instagram content how this person 29 male am i doing something wrong on dating apps even the liveliest conversation drops out after a day or two and i need more time to feel comfortable with any actual meetup so do you say sorry dude you’re gonna have to be a little uncomfortable yeah i mean a day or two is actually pretty short in our research at hinge the average match goes from like matching to asking out on a date in two to five days like it does take some time it’s not just like that first conversation you need to be asking them out some of my key tips include asking someone for their phone number i think that’s a key step and then from there saying something like you know i’m really enjoying the conversation like i’d love to meet up in person or we have such great chemistry like let’s see if we have it in person and then also throwing out a specific day and time like if i just say to you like hey do you want to meet up it’s like when like we have infinite time if you say like yeah do you want to go out right if i say to you like oh like i really want to check out this tapas bar and on free thursday are you even if they’re not now we’re like going back and forth on which date i am free that’s better than just like right do you want to go out get specific get to schedule or perhaps i need to get somewhere that’s only accessible by boat i see that you have a boat turns out we also need dinner i see that you have a fishing pole yeah would you like to go to alcatraz on sunday at 3 p.m yeah i only eat when i’m on dates so help me out okay and then when you actually get on this date what is your what’s your recommendation on research you do on a person before you go on a date like are you googling them are you whatever i had a date one time his mom looked me up on linkedin and i saw her profile so i knew he was doing his research this dude like had his mom like yeah how did that date go did she also it actually went really well she didn’t um he was a great guy but but yeah what kind of research is i feel like there’s some research that’s too much right i i generally am a fan of no research like i feel like okay yes there’s i understand if there’s a safety component but it’s like taking that out of the conversation for a second isn’t it just so weird when you get to a date and you’re like oh i know you published a paper on the screen yeah sleep or you have to like can’t hide what yeah you want to hide you forget and then they’re like wait how do you know i went to bermuda and you’re like oh i don’t i just happen to think you’ve got a tank guess what like the best way of not doing that is by not stalking them so number one i think you have to like pretend you don’t know things which feels weird and it’s just like a [ ] on your brain yeah it’s a lie the second thing is um i think that you build up a story in your head of who they are and that’s really bad and so you’re like oh like he has this job in finance like i bet he’s a douchebag or oh like she looks so artsy in her pictures like she’s gonna be my manic pixie dream girl it’s like honestly like the more that you can walk in without expectations the more you’re actually meeting who the person is versus being like oh i have a fantasy of you in my mind and then they inevitably aren’t that person and then you’re disappointed and so i’d say besides the safety thing which like obviously you should do what’s comfortable for you i actually think that researching people in advance just complicates things and like takes out some of the fun of like just getting to know some of the discovery right right okay but is it okay to have your mom [Laughter] maybe that’s how he was getting around and he’s like only yeah only if she uses incognito yeah exactly um this is a question that is about being on different pages okay this person is asking they’re 26 female my boyfriend of three years won’t consider marriage in our case committing indefinitely to the relationship because he thinks he needs to work on himself it’s been a few weeks since we’ve had the most recent version of this conversation and this time it ended with well maybe you need to talk to a professional like a therapist he still hasn’t even looked for one how long do i let this relationship continue if he doesn’t move forward towards a long-term commitment you know this one’s always hard because i think that people do go through different stages of maturity and maturation and so it’s like this question of like wanting your partner to go to a therapist and they won’t do it that actually comes up so often i think it’s interesting it’s like i think that she should look at what are the other factors like if this person were ready to commit is this really the kind of person she wants to be with can she see herself building a life with him is he a good communicator is he honest loyal trustworthy like how are all the other aspects of the relationship besides the commitment piece if everything else is great i think that’s different from well actually like we’re not on the same page about many things in which case like maybe it is time to call it and so i think um for that situation i would specifically say have a conversation with the person where you say like hey like i know that this is what i want long term it sounds like you aren’t sure could you see yourself getting sure through talking to a professional talking to people who are married like thinking more about it or is this something that like likely you won’t know for many years and so really getting a sense from this person about like does he think he could get clarity how could he get clarity and like in what timeline and then making a decision based on that i i feel nervous as you like as you mimic yeah as you have this fantasy conversation it makes for sure and i think i probably fall into like this non-confrontational bucket where yeah it’s i mean so much of your advice it seems like it’s about being honest with yourself and being honest with the people that you’re interacting with or want to be in a relationship with which is not always easy like i’m scared to have this conv or for her to have this conversation so how do you get over that how do you just do it yeah i mean i think that was a really good summary of my of a lot of my work which is just like yeah first get clear with yourself like what do i want like what kind of relationship do i want do i want it to be open or closed am i ready for marriage do i want kids and like that’s super hard work that like i think is a lifelong project like all the time there’s things that i want to bring up with my husband that i don’t because i’m just like oh but we’re having such a nice sunday or i don’t want to rock the boat or this and that and so like it’s very easy to make excuses for not bringing this up and then the next step is that you have to actually listen to what the other person says and like decide if that’s good enough for you or not if the person is wishy-washy or non-committal you also have to be like maybe i need to call it and so this process is very hard throughout in terms of getting it over it i would say like it’s not that if you sweep it under the rug it goes away if you sweep it under the rug like it actually just like gets bigger and bigger and so for this the version would be like it’s awkward and challenging but then at least i have the information i know and so like in general more information is better especially if you’re like the reason i’m not bringing it up is that i’m afraid that the answer might be bad news it’s like well that’s even a bigger sign that you need to have the conversation right so we’ve got another question it is when is it okay or not okay to be too picky actually like the more people i talk to the more i feel like some people are too picky and some people are not picky enough and so for the people who are too picky they often times like have this image in their head of what their partner will be like so something like you know must be this tall must much must make this much money must have these hobbies in common with me this and that kind of goes back to what i was saying earlier about like knowing what your true deal breakers are and knowing which are just nice to haves for the people who are not picky enough i think that’s also an interesting group because for them it might be that actually their standards are too low and they let someone treat them poorly or they get into situationships or they let someone be an option when they are making that person a priority and so i think some of us um really actually do need to take ourselves more seriously and raise our standards i have a feeling the person who asked this question maybe is too picky just like do i get the question from and so i would just say for that person it’s like make a list of the things that you absolutely must need and then understand like what are the things that are like well it would be great if that person had that or that’s kind of a pet peeve so i hope they don’t have that but removing things from the must-have list makes it just easier to find someone and like probably that doesn’t really matter that much for long-term relationship happiness that’s kind of a perfect setup for a little game we wanted to play yeah yay so we want to get into pet peeves and the deal breakers okay perfect great yeah so producer logan has uh put together a few a few examples we don’t know stevie and i don’t know what they oh i can’t wait but producer logan is going to tell us what they are stevie and i will give each of our responses and then logan really we need you to advise us on great what what is the right way to think about this yeah because before we go into it you know we’ve uh stalked you on instagram and uh you know we we do you want to kind of give the context of sure you know pet peeve versus deal breaker how people usually confuse the two um etc the big thing is that like so many people say to me like oh i’m so open-minded i can date anyone and they have these like quirky things that they’ve decided like are absolutely deal-breakers for them and i really don’t think that’s true and so a deal breaker is like if this thing is present then there’s absolutely no way that the relationship could happen and a pet peeve is something that maybe annoys you or annoys you more than other people but if it were present you could get over it and so that’s why something like even for height it’s like oh i must date a guy who’s over six feet tall it’s like if you met a guy at a bar who was five nine and you had the most amazing conversation and then when he stood up you saw he wasn’t six feet would you run in the other direction no you would realize you had this great connection and so a lot of times it’s just understanding the difference between the pet peeve the thing that annoys you the deal breaker like the must-have or the must not have and then this other category that i call like nice to have like oh it’d be great if they had the same religion but if not that’s okay we could move on okay so so producer logan you have things to let her rip girl um let’s hear the let’s hear the first one all right first one logan touched on this a little bit but pet peeve or deal breaker they’re best friends with their ex and i will say in the lesbian community at least it’s very common for lesbians to be friends with their ex okay so it’s common in the lesbian community for you to be for women to be friends with their yes or and or i would say it’s not a stereotype necessarily but it is i would say a higher percentage of lesbians are friends with their exes than i would guess in the heterosexual community i personally am not friends with any of my exes but not because you didn’t try no very much because i did not want to be friends with any of my exes we will talk we can talk about those relationships at some point or not but i’ll say for cassie for my partner um when i first started dating her you know a decade ago one of her best friends was her ex-girlfriend and um and i hung out with her all the time i really liked her we became friends so for me i don’t even know if it is a deal breaker or a pet peeve i think the only time would be if there was some kind of like residual like sexual thing happening in which case that would be a deal breaker for me because it would say like oh you have some kind of unresolved relationship with this person that you’re holding on to and therefore i don’t want to be in a relationship with you but if it’s purely friendship that i am also involved in and therefore no is purely friendship then it’s not a pet peeve or deal breaker for me it sounds like you’re talking to cassie right now and not we’re actually also no longer friends with this person so you know okay but i would imagine that’s very different than well i don’t know you know you feel the same way okay i yeah it’s not a deal breaker for me and it could be a pet peeve if i feel that the ex not my partner but the ex has strong feelings and i guess that’s the residual they have the strong feelings for my for my partner because i’m assuming that if they’re my partner i trust them i trust them completely and i don’t think that they would cheat but if the other person does and i think it would be annoying yeah because it’s just like constantly it could see it but i don’t know i think there’s some good qualities to maintaining friendships with with your okay past partners don’t call me up like that but you know what logan you just you told us at the front of the episode you’re like you should leave your exes in the past so i feel like you’re gonna tell us all to deal break this baby yeah so i would say you know this is more about is it a deal breaker for you if this person talks to their ex not should you talk to their ex and so i would say like that’s that that’s you know the other person’s call it’s not yours i would say definitely not a deal breaker like i think it’s an opportunity to explore trust like do you trust this person do you trust that it’s platonic do you trust that neither one of them still has feelings for each other i also think that there could be a positive spin where it’s like wow this person maintains relationships like they date high quality people they’re mature enough to say we weren’t good romantic partners but i want you in my life i think it’s more of a red flag when someone’s like oh yeah like my ex sucks it was all their fault like i hate them it’s like okay you’re taking no responsibility for them like i think that’s worse and so i would say like personally for me this would be a pet peeve or like it wouldn’t be my preference but depending on how long they dated how long ago they dated things like that like i could definitely appreciate that this person dated someone they were interested in as a human but not as a partner and that like i can move on from yeah okay okay next one okay okay pet peeve or deal breaker they want to live next to their parents or in the same neighborhood again so my mother-in-law does listen to this podcast [Laughter] i would love to say that it’s like a it’s a win if they want to of course don’t you have an extra guest room that you’re looking at i remember saying that earlier i think that there’s um there’s certain details that are needed like okay where do they live you know like if you live out and bum [ ] nowhere like this is not for me personally it’s not gonna happen i’m not that type of person i don’t wanna go live next to my mother-in-law you know in in the middle of wherever um so i think that would be like the geographical nature of it would be more of a deal breaker take that yeah let’s assume it’s like where you are now in your neighborhood and in l.a well then i already live there so good yes exactly or anything i’m glad i already live in the place and if my mother-in-law is near me then well my mother-in-law does not listen to this show but she’s very very cool and so i wouldn’t mind living near her at all but like going back to the actual thing like i mean like if you’re with someone who needs to live next to their mom that’s that’s an issue a little weird like that there’s something deeper going on there so yeah all right logan what do you have to say yeah i think the key word here is boundaries like i have next door neighbors they don’t come into my house all the time but like if your mother-in-law lives next door does she think like she can pop by the morning she can pop by in a noun so you have dinner together and like you could live in the same neighborhood as someone and they could come over a lot or a little and so i think it’s first of all like talking to your partner about what are their expectations like if it means like the mom pops in all the time unannounced like you probably just don’t want that whether or not they live next door or live a little bit farther away and so i’d say like establishing boundaries from the beginning about like privacy and expectations of how much you’ll see each other but i i don’t think this is a deal breaker but i do think that knowing how somebody wants to have their family in their lives actually is a big conversation okay yeah all right next okay we’re gonna stick to the family theme here um a little reference to last week’s episode they’re a little too close with their sibling okay logan the last week episode yeah we talked about mindy kaling’s tweet saying that um she found that white families depicted on tv often had a sibling relationship that was a little too flirtatious that’s really funny is it a pet peeve that they’re close with their relationship their yeah what’s the implication are you implying that there’s something it’s a little it’s just a little weird like it’s just a little weird okay okay not a problem for me not a problem for me i can’t be everything for my husband there’s an ambiguity here that is that is weird i don’t even know i feel like it’s more fun it’s like on tv it’s like obviously no one’s actually related so maybe you have more chemistry between the brother and sister than like the two people dating but like in real life that’s obviously just this whole other like gross taboo yeah well it’s like obviously right yeah obviously i think it’s generally great for someone to have a close relationship with their family and it’s a good sign but yeah once again boundaries like is this person living with you are they borrowing money from you like just thinking about that oh that was a pg answer okay well thank you so much logan for going on that journey with us i gotta say i am so happy that you are an expert in all of this because based on stevie and i’s answers to some of these things i feel like we would have really led people astray on how to successfully date in this day and age if people want to if people want wanna learn more about what you do and and how you help people what should they do yeah people can follow me on instagram at loganuri or go to my website loganuri.com i have a weekly newsletter that comes out every thursday it’s a lot of fun thank you i’m teaching a class that starts september 8th and i’ll probably have another one at the end of this year and that’s a really fun way for people to learn in a community and to learn from me and really it’s like jump starting your dating life and getting back out there and so people can check all of that out on my website oh by the way quickly before you go zach and i met on hinge and i’m wondering like maybe you can pull some strings and and do what and find out what other [ ] he was dating oh my gosh oh my god seven years let’s just talk about that later okay wait we haven’t even talked about the fact that you went on a grouper with my husband yes i’ve been on a date with logan’s husband a grouper grouper was a was a groupon group date where three people would go with another oh i thought we were back to the fish and the profile pictures okay well you’re definitely the first podcast interview i’ve ever been on who’s been on a date with my husband i love that hey sister wife tell zach i say hi i love it okay thank you so much thank you so much for being here thanks for having me bye uh okay so we did we did make sure that uh producer logan is going to be sending the music video referenced at the top of the podcast to expert logan because i don’t want her walking away without that empty-handed not on this joe gosh what has happened i mean last week you told us about your awkward uh cop encounter and that puts it back in my plate to dive into my my awkward social interactions um yeah so this one’s like a little bit related to this particular conversation and it recently happened to me i was at a social function in which there were more straight people that i usually hang out with i mean it’s it is interesting talking broadly about dating and not getting into the specifics of the differences between like heterosexual dating and yeah you know and and to be very truthful like i don’t have well that’s not true i have friend groups that um are just you know everyone’s straight in so i wouldn’t say that but at this particular uh event i didn’t really know a lot of people and they were all straight which is it was double whammy for me okay and well actually exception they weren’t all straight i thought they were all straight and then i was in the kitchen and uh one of the women who was at the event that i didn’t know came up and started talking to me uh asking me like where to go to meet women which i was like oh okay this is taking a this is taking a turn you’re a celesbian you know i just think i just yeah i mean cassie cassie was with me i present uh i hope i present as gay and so i was like trying to think of like some of the events that are going on where i’ve been invited and haven’t gone and so we’re talking and then this straight dude walks in to the room oh i’m sure he had a lot of and he and he of course inserts himself into the conversation and his answer is well the lesbians i know i don’t know a lot of lesbians that live in cities really i don’t know a lot of city slick and lesbians sir what i was like sir you’re telling me that you’re offering into this conversation is that in your mind lesbians live outside of cities that’s what you’re bringing like please you know shut perhaps shut your mouth and turn around and walk out of the kitchen i can’t i think i was i was a little bit more frustrated than normal because usually i try and just like you know like oh it’s a small talk and like ha ha here you know we’ll just gloss this over and i’m never going to see you again but i think i said something a little bit more direct like that’s absolutely ridiculous and uh you know kind of brushed him off yeah i don’t know what would you have done in that situation well he needed to be put in his place so i do think addressing it is totally on the table and and should be done my favorite way to deal with this type of stuff like is to use humor to make fun of the person okay he just entered he he brought himself into conversation he was not invited so certainly make fun of them can i push back there this is the thing guys are and i’m sorry to be i’m sorry to generalize but that could be taken as like flirting or acceptance of the situation like listen i just said i hope i present gay i hope i present gay to everyone i hope i present gay to women but guys don’t get it a lot they don’t they don’t they don’t understand that so like that could have put me in a situation where i felt like i was like flirting with him or like okay with him existing i think it depends on what you say i think i think it depends on what you say it’s not like you’re fluttering your eyes at him and being like [ ] you kidding you know i think i would turn to him and i would laugh and be like huh are you a straight white man so funny yes i don’t remember i just don’t remember her asking you yeah okay great there’s no flirting there’s no flirting misinterpretations as soon as you say are you a straight white man that’s that’s pretty you don’t need to laugh no smiling necessary because women are asked to smile all the time but i just have more fun with it yeah i have more fun breaking someone down yeah yes when i can also get pleasure from the endorphin rush of a laugh yeah next time i i have to go to an awkward heterosexual party i’m gonna be bringing you with me and then everyone will know i’m gay i’m a lesbian all right well i think that does it thanks for listening to best friends back all right if you’re looking for something to occupy your time in between bfba episodes might i suggest a brand new party game that we just released with our friends at spin master called we’re still good we have been working on this thing for what feels like ages to get it to exactly the right playability it’s really fun to play with a group of friends with family you can play individually you can team up it’s all about finding the bright side of a bad situation in a hilarious way so it’s very timely and you get to flex your creativity and your your own little humor muscles talk about a great date uh situation why you be bold and get yourself a copy if you’re still good yeah bring that on a date you can go ahead go on amazon search we’re still good it should pop up and grab yourself a copy and you can catch brand new episodes every friday make sure to follow so you don’t miss an episode if you’re enjoying the podcast leave us a review you can follow at mythicalpods on tiktok for clips to share with family and friends you can follow me at nagin and stevie everywhere at stevie w levine and of course you can hear me every monday through friday on good mythical morning with ruttenlink youtube.com good mythical morning i’ll see you there [Music] you