WEBVTT - Getting Married Again After 50 First Dates 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.920 Hello, four or five six listeners. My name is Naima Brown, 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.160 and I'm the executive producer of Mid with Holly Wainwright, 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.479 Mamma MIA's flagship podcast for our gen X listeners, and 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.000 we are bringing you a special episode today, four or 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.439 five six ers, because it's about finding love in your 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.599 mid years. This is a conversation with doctor Amantha Imber. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.640 She's an organizational psychologist who got divorced a few years ago. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.680 When she knew she was ready to repartner, she went 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.479 about it with a typical approach to efficiency, which meant 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.280 that she went on more than fifty first dates in 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.560 her first stint of online dating. How did this work 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.720 out for her? Is it a happily ever after? You'll 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.159 have to listen. I hope you enjoy. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:44.839 I'm writing a brief. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.519 It's for my perfect second husband, actually my first husband, 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.440 because my current one, Brent, is not really my husband, 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.280 but my boyfriend. He's been my boyfriend for twenty years 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.640 this year. And my boyfriend and I have. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.800 Two children, a more brggage, a dog. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.440 Two decades of shared history and stories and travels and 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:08.240 shared friendships and families and illnesses and deaths and miscarriages 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.160 and weddings and funerals and money worries and work stress 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.560 and fights and diagnoses and at least five different homes 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.600 and wordle and sundowners and a great. 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:19.319 Deal of laughter. 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.800 For now, at least, we are stuck too, and with 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.959 each other. But if I, like my guest today, found 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.800 myself suddenly single again, would I, like my guest today, 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.119 get busy with a blank page, fill in and Excel spreadsheet, 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:39.080 devoid of history and the messiness of familiarity, and ask 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:40.360 myself what. 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.040 Do I want next? 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.319 And if I did, would the universe laugh at me 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:47.920 the way it did twenty years ago, when I was 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.320 convinced what I wanted was not what was right in 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.360 front of me, but a whole list. 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:53.480 Of unchecked boxes. 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.520 I'd dated musicians and artists and cliff scaling, risk takers, 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.680 addicts and travel as an earnest world changes. I had 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.760 the words life less ordinary taped on a corkboard somewhere, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.840 and I took those words to mean chaos and drama 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.120 and constant movement manifestos. 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:14.440 That's not what I got. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.840 If the universe knew anything, it was that I'd had 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.680 my fill of all that. But back to the blank 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.959 sheet of my imagination. If I was single, with all 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.120 my mid wisdom under my arm, like my guest today, 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.560 would I devise a strategy, write up some rules, enforce 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.560 the guardrails, start a stop watch and email chain, a 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.760 crowdsourcing plan. I doubt it. I'm not a strategist. I'm 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.640 a panser, not a plotter. But if we are here 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.200 and the lines must be filled in, I would learn 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.919 to click on my Excel cells and I would drag 0:02:48.000 --> 0:03:06.760 and drop and I would write kind, funny, kind, tall, kind, smart, kind, warm, kind, optimistic, kind, creative, kind, calm, kind, hot, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.080 and probably because this was my brief and only my brief, 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.360 I would feed it into a hungry AI assistant and 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.360 it would split out a photo of print, and that 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.520 would be really, really annoying and also perfect. 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:26.000 Hello. 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:30.279 Hello, My name is Holly Wainwright, and I am mid midlife, 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:38.680 mid family, mid long relationship. Today's episode is all about love. Specifically, 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.400 it's about finding it in your mid years, maybe for 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.720 the second time, maybe for the fourth, maybe for the first. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:47.320 We've touched on this. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.120 Before here and mid Our second ever episode was called 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:51.520 the midlife Dating Pool? 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:52.320 Has we in It? 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.080 And it was about Katherine Mahoney's chaotic app dating world, 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.840 and it was very, very funny, and you all told 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.680 me that you wanted more of those stories. And so 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:06.000 today something very different about dating after a divorce, A 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.280 story about a woman who did it in the most 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.160 methodical way. I can imagine a woman who knew exactly 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.200 what she wanted, and her particular list of needs and 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.520 wants weren't necessarily the same as her friends, and the 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.320 way she was going to find the partner that she 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.000 knew she wanted was probably not going to be the 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:28.520 same either. Doctor Amantha Imber is one of the most efficient, productive, 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.800 and interesting people I know. She is an organizational psychologist, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.960 and organizational psychologists are amazing, and she is the creator 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.560 of the innovation business Inventium, and she hosts the podcast 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.520 How I Work. And she is the author of a 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.240 few books and the mother to one child. And she 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:50.679 also got divorced a few years ago. Organizational psychologists don't 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.520 necessarily date the same way chaotic writers do. It seems 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.520 Amantha took an efficient approach when she decided she wanted 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.560 a new She decided to balance quantity and quality on 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.520 the dating apps, and she went on fifty one first 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.320 dates in her first stint of online dating. Those dates 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.400 had strict rules and boundaries, time limits and schedules, and 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.360 they didn't work. So then Amantha drew up a brief 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:19.760 and cold called a whole lot of people in her 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.560 circle who might know the person she was looking for. 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:27.640 But well, that didn't work either, So what did I'm 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.839 going to let her tell you that, Amantha, You're getting married. 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.120 Massive congratulations, Thanks Holly, thank you. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:36.320 I need to. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.440 Let the mids in on the fact that I have 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:40.680 interviewed you before a couple of times. Actually, but the 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.200 last time we had a proper chat I looked today, 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:44.920 it was actually eight years ago. 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.480 Oh my gosh. And that was in Melbourne, yep, it was. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.760 And it was in Melbourne, and we were talking about 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.280 because you owned your own company, and you were talking 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:59.240 about this wild way of working where people could work 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.960 remotely from wherever they wanted to, and all these things 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.839 that at the time was so mind boggling that I 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.080 came back to work and said to everybody, you won't 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:13.400 believe it. Fast forward eight years and a lot has changed, 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.240 but also a lot has changed in your life since then. 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.440 Catch me up quickly, on what's been going on with 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:21.480 you in the last eight years. 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.760 Oh well, look, lots changed at work, and you know, 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:27.800 we've now been doing the four day week for the 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.760 last four years, and that's you know, that's a whole 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.080 other topic of conversation. But in my personal life, the 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.599 most significant thing that has happened is that I got 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:43.159 divorced in twenty nineteen and I am getting married in 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:45.960 March twenty twenty five, which is. 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.240 Very exciting and I need. That's what we're here to 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:54.320 talk about, because a lot of midlife women are divorced, 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.480 dating not dating, deciding if they want any part of 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.560 it ever again. And I would love to hear from you, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.839 who's one of the smartest women I know for sure. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:05.640 Was it soon after your divorce that you were like, 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:07.919 I know, I want to repartner, or did you go 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.280 through that period of time where you were like, never again. 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:11.800 I think I want to be single forever. 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.480 I think before the separation and then the divorce happened, 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.680 I'd probably been grieving that relationship for a while, and 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:25.520 so I think, you know, in any relationship breakdown, I 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.760 think there's always one person that probably knows first. Sometimes 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.240 it is mutual but I think oftentimes, and stories I've 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.960 heard from my friends that have been separated is that 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.640 they will have grieved if they were the one making 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.680 the decision before the actual relationship ended. And so I 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.800 can't remember when exactly I knew that I definitely wanted 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.520 to repartner, but it would have only been a few 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:56.040 months after the breakdown of the relationship. So I definitely 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.120 knew that one of my values is that life is 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.920 best shared with someone and that's just me, and I 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:07.200 knew that I felt that way, and so I knew 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.520 that I wanted to take finding a new partner really seriously. 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:12.000 And you did. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.360 I want to know, first of all, because I imagine, 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.280 correct me if I'm wrong that you went to the 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.680 apps first, and the apps didn't really exist probably the 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.600 last time you were single. Certainly the last time I 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.400 was single, there was like RSVP online, and I did 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.560 play with that a bit, but the whole dating app 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:30.800 revolution hadn't started. 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:32.280 How did you find the apps first? 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.920 Up? Oh wow, Yeah, it's totally different world because I 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.520 was with my ex husband for thirteen years, so there 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.760 was definitely no apps, but RSVP was definitely a thing. 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:45.199 Oh my goodness. 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.400 So when I decided I was ready to date again, 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.520 which was a few months after the separation. I think 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:58.280 I tried bumble first and it was Man, it's like it's. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.559 A whole other world. It is so strange. 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.640 And I was very reliant on the apps because the 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.240 two main years where I was dating before I met 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.720 Neo my soon to be husband, was twenty twenty and 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.640 twenty twenty one, and I live in Melbourne and I 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.959 was locked down for a good part of those two years, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.440 so APPS was really the main way to meet people. 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.559 I can imagine that that was also made it particularly difficult, 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.840 because I mean, apart from the fact that you're all 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.000 locked in your houses, but it was also the extra 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.920 level of how careful is everybody? Do we meet up 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.440 under what circumstances? It's not like you're going to bars 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.240 and things like that. It was very, very different. 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.880 It certainly was, and I think they needed to be 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.520 quite a high level of trust to meet up with 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.199 someone face to face, which you know, oftentimes might have 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.559 been for like a walk around the park wearing a mask, 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.319 which I mean, what strange way to get to know 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.080 someone when you can't even read their facial expressions. But 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.960 I think what was good about online dating is that 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:12.600 for me, given like you know, part of my work 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.240 is around productivity and using time more wisely, is that 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.520 it's also quite efficient in that you can screen a 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.040 lot of people a lot more quickly than you can 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.760 if you're just reliant on meeting people in real life 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.040 or through connections in the workplace, or you know other 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:29.560 ways that people meet their partners. 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.679 So yeah, so the listeners understand you are a psychologist, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.480 you are a productivity expert, you're an academic, You're big 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.360 on research, you're big on efficiency. So did you devise 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.680 a kind of system for how to weed out the 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:45.760 wheat from the chaff in the dating world? 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:47.840 I did. 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.400 What I realized pretty early on is that there is 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:52.040 a huge amount of quantity. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:53.959 Time is finite. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.679 I run a business, and so therefore I work something 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.560 that resembles full time hours. I've got a daughter that 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.040 is with me fifty percent of the time. I've got friends, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.760 I've got family, and so there's a part of time 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.040 that I carved out for dating, and I wanted to 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.840 use that time really well as opposed to almost have 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.760 the dating apps become like social media is for a 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.280 lot of people where you're just kind of mindlessly on 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.520 it without too much of an end goal. So I 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.440 tried to be very conscientious almost in how I use the. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.400 Apps and siphon off time that you're like, I'm going 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.640 to look at it between this time and this time. 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:31.400 I absolutely did. 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.679 Yeah, yeah, Like I didn't stick to that one hundred 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:35.880 percent of the time, but most of the time I 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.800 was quite conscious. It's like, okay, if I'm opening up 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.040 Bumble or Hinge, and they were my main go tos. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.120 I tried Tinder, which just don't even get me started 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.520 on how that's the Yeah, there's no way. 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.280 So they're all quite different. 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:53.720 They're very different. They're very different. 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.000 I would have a bit of a process where you 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.560 connect with someone if you've both I guess liked each other. 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.320 And granted things might have changed in terms of the 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.920 features of these apps given where now you know, I 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.720 think three years that's all that. But then what was 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.319 really important for me is rather than just exchanging words, 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.200 and I mean, words are important, and we're both writers, 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.000 so I think you and I can appreciate the importance 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.480 of how someone uses words. But beyond that, I mean, 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.319 so like good grammar matters to me. Which might sound superficial, 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:28.600 but I think it's important. 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:30.480 I know it does to me too, and I worry 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.720 that it makes me a snob, but it's very much. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.480 I think it's just if that's part of your value, like, 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:37.720 if that's part of what you do in your value system. 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:41.520 It's very hard if somebody just it doesn't use grammar 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:43.840 and doesn't and spells everything wrong and. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:46.240 Yeah, yes, yes. 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.920 And then I had to try to develop other heuristics, 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.040 like things that would just help me shortcut decision making, 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.040 because if you agonize over every single person that you're 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.160 looking at on an app, I mean it's a never 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.040 ending task. And so just for the sake of using 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.720 my time, well, I thought, I just need some quick 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.040 decision making rules that will help me decide yes I 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.520 want to know more or no swipe left, which I 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:13.480 think is the direction that you say no in man, 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:13.920 I think. 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:15.400 I've just repressed all this stuff, Holly. 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.520 So I had a thing where I would move to 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.040 voice memo quite quickly, because I think you can tell 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.280 a lot about someone by their voice and how they 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.559 speak and just what energy they bring to a conversation. 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.560 And so I would move from text to voice fairly quickly, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.640 and because I think that feature was just being introduced 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:39.480 at the time, it was a little bit unusual, and 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.320 so people would often reply by, oh, I didn't even 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.480 know that there was a voice recording feature in the app, 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:47.880 and we would exchange a few messages and I would 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:49.400 just get a bit of a feel for them. So 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.280 again I could go, Hm, does this feel like someone 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.920 that has the kind of energy that I want to 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.240 be with? And again, I mean, I'm sure that there 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.079 are lots of people in the world that are fantastic 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.600 that probably wouldn't say great in a voice memo, And yes, 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:02.600 I ruled them all. 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.400 Out because of this little heuristic that I developed. 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.439 But time is finite, and so I had to keep 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:10.520 coming back to that and going, look, I just I 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.000 need decision making criteriously and I'm not agonizing some things. 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.160 And then so you went on some dates from the 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.400 dating apps, but then you decided to come off the 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:23.480 apps for a while and try a different kind of 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.200 dating experiment. Did you not meet anybody good on the 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:27.720 dating apps that first time around? 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:29.840 Look? 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.120 I reckon all up, I calculate it. I probably went 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.920 on about fifty first dates. Wow, yeah, answer, that's loads 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.160 it's so many over two years, and some of those. 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.960 Did you have like rules about the dates too, like 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.040 how long they could be, what they were and that 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:47.600 kind of thing. 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:50.040 Of course I didn't tell me. 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.080 I feel like, when you go on a date, a 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.440 lot of people feel an obligation just to stay for 0:14:58.040 --> 0:14:59.720 a decent amount of time. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.520 But for me, I just thought, if we're both. 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:06.560 Sitting there and there's clearly no connection, just call it early. 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:11.160 And so I would typically I think my shortest dates 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.160 for about forty five minutes, because I felt like that 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:14.880 was long enough. I mean, often you can tell in 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.080 the first five minutes, but I tried not to hang 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:19.160 on to those first impressions as well. It's really easy 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.560 to form like very quick impressions when you start a date. 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.000 But I would try to just you know, force particularly 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:27.360 any judgmental parts. 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.040 Of my brain to just go no, no, remain open. 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.120 But I sort of thought, look, after forty five minutes, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.600 I'm just going to call it. And sometimes I was 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:36.400 honest and I just said I just don't feel like 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.920 there's a connection here. Other times I just made up 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.560 a lie, yeah, and said that I had to go 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:45.120 to you know, in my mind, protect the other person's feelings. 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:47.000 So I did a lot of that. 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.120 Some of those first dates turned into second dates and more, 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.240 but most did not, And that was fine, because you know, 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.760 it takes meeting a lot of people to find the 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.160 person that you feel the disconnection. 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.720 Were you ever like, oh, you know, this is exhausting. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:04.080 What's that movie? 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:06.040 Where is he? I? 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.360 As Charlotte m Sacks in the city? 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:09.160 Where is he? 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:09.720 Did you? 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:12.640 Did you feel like that? 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:13.600 Oh? 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:14.680 My gosh, Holly. 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:19.000 After so many dates, I would be driving home and 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.880 I would call my best friend and I would say, 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.280 I've just been on another date and it didn't work, 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.320 And like, am my standards too high? Am I expecting 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:34.640 too much? Like what am I doing wrong? And just oh, man? 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.760 Like there were so many low points in that two years, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.360 But I think somewhere inside of me I felt I 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.520 did feel truly optimistic, even though there were lots of 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.920 low points and lots of nights just feeling really lonely 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.200 and discouraged on that drive home from the date. But 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:53.720 I think, you know, I was definitely holding onto some 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.000 optimism and hope, which I think you have to if 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.320 you're going to deal with the apps, because the apps 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.200 can be credibly depressing. 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:05.560 And you're a pragmatic, practical person, right, And I imagine 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.720 that that helps in this situation because if you're meeting 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.760 somebody and it's obvious there's no chemistry, hopefully you're not 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:15.919 walking away from it going there's something wrong with me, 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.000 because that's not what it's about, right, That's not what 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.520 it's about at all. But that can be tough on 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.199 the ego after a while if you do internalize it. 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.520 So having that pragmatic approach is probably really helpful. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.800 Yeah, I think it is helpful. I think also I 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.960 ended up like just I did so much research into 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.760 almost like how to be at and how to make 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:36.720 a good decision. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:38.680 Yeah. I read a lot of books. 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.040 And one of the lessons that stuck with me that 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.240 I tried to implement but I found it really hard 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.240 is to always default to a second date. Whereas for me, 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.800 I've gone into dating, going one date and if I'm 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.040 not enamored, then I'm calling it. So I changed my 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.359 approach part of the way through to go I'm defaulting 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.719 to a second date unless there's a massive problem or 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:02.600 red flag on the first date, which I felt just 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.000 having that rule helped me keep an open mind. But 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.840 it did get to a point where about two years 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:09.520 of doing this. 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.719 I just thought, I'm so over this. Surely there's got 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:14.960 to be a better way of finding people. 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.639 And so I my resid an email out to a 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.720 few close friends and I said, Okay, I want your ideas. 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.359 I'm still dating, I'm still single, but I'm taking it 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.600 really seriously finding a new partner. Give me some ideas 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:30.080 of like what would you do if you or me 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.520 and you could, you know, avoid the apps but still 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:34.040 find dates. 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.560 And I remember someone someone emailed me back and. 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.160 They said, well, you know, you know lots of people 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.800 like you, you know, host a podcast that's very popular. 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.760 You've got like, you know, large networks through work. Surely 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.800 with all those kind of assets in inverted commas, you 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:53.880 could utilize those to find a date. 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.399 And I thought, oh, that's interesting. And so I then. 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:02.280 Decided that I would try to crowdsaw dates. So what 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.320 the approach was, it was quite specific. So I put 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.399 together a list of people who I would call a 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.720 little bit more than acquaintances, so they weren't my inner 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:13.960 circle of friends. Because my inner circle of friends they 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.120 knew I was looking for someone. They know me if 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.440 they knew someone, they would have introduced me. So yeah, 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:21.600 so I went sort of down the friendship tears, if 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.439 you like, to people that knew me and knew my 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.440 values and kind of who I am as a person, 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.199 but is not someone that would necessarily, you know, if 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.320 they knew a person that they thought, oh they could 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.520 be great for Amantha, it just wouldn't be top of mind. 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.560 So I literally I opened up Excel and I created 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.800 a spreadsheet and I wrote down all these people's names. 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.359 And the other thing is I was specifically thinking about 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.720 who were the most well networked people of. 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:47.880 That most people, yeah, who. 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.920 Knew the most And then I put together a one 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.680 page brief of what I was looking for. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.600 Okay, I need to know what was on the brief, Amantha. 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.359 Well, it had a few second so it had just 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:07.199 basic demographics because for age demographics brought age and location 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.520 demographics because that was important. I didn't want a long 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:11.800 distance thing, and I didn't want to be dating someone 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.760 you know it was like twenty years younger or you know, 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:15.840 thirty years older. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.439 Yeah, and I decided that that wasn't for me. 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.360 I had thought about what are the most important values 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.000 and what are the most important qualities. 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:27.520 And I think that's. 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.359 Something I really discounted when I was dating in my twenties, 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.560 where I think I sort of focused on, you. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.359