Speaker 1: So how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm great, This twenty twenty five has been an amazing
Speaker 2: You're so.
Speaker 1: Far Really that's awesome. Okay, So I have a couple.
Speaker 1: I have a dating story, but I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that if I tell my dating story, there's take
Speaker 1: away from it. So I have a great dating story also,
Speaker 1: I think that. So I've been on the attachment style
Speaker 1: side of TikTok, which is amazing because I think someone
Speaker 1: came up with that. I don't know who it was,
Speaker 1: and I want to give them credit. I actually want
Speaker 1: to have them on here. Whoever came up with the
Speaker 1: anxious attachment dismissive avoidant? Is that something that is now
Speaker 1: commonly known or that's still very niche because I don't
Speaker 1: think my friends know. My friends don't know about it.
Speaker 1: But my friends also don't wear foundation.
Speaker 2: So the books called the Attached I'm nearly and Rachel
Speaker 2: Hiller might be around twenty fourteen, and they given permission
Speaker 2: to teach their stuff in My course Love you.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, it's sort of funny that I brought it up.
Speaker 2: Then, Yeah, it's become sort of ubiquitous, but you know
Speaker 2: how everything goes on the internet, it kind of gets
Speaker 2: watered down and passed around, and it's a photocopy of
Speaker 2: a photocopy of the real thing. If you want to
Speaker 2: understand attachment styles, it's a really easy reader. You can
Speaker 2: go to their website and they have a quiz and
Speaker 2: you can find out what attachment style you are and
Speaker 2: what attachment style your boyfriend is. And I think it's.
Speaker 1: It's the book called I'm going to have them on
Speaker 1: It's called Attached h Okay, Well are they normal people?
Speaker 1: Are they doctors? I don't care. I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: Top of my head. I think one of them is
Speaker 2: a doctor. Not positive, but it's basically childhood attachments theory
Speaker 2: overlaid onto adult relationships.
Speaker 1: The first person who ever told me about that was Sia,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even know what she was talking about,
Speaker 1: but it made sense, okay. And so people assigned so
Speaker 1: many different things. What's your love language? Or there's another
Speaker 1: thing like I forgot what it was, what's your there's
Speaker 1: another thing that like people define is it it's like
Speaker 1: either a number or call I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, people or something like that.
Speaker 1: I forgot. There's a who can you know people do?
Speaker 1: People talk about astrology, People talk about a bunch of
Speaker 1: different things, but I do want to talk for a
Speaker 1: minute about these attachment styles because it's something that my
Speaker 1: audience doesn't think of when dating or choosing a partner,
Speaker 1: or even evaluating their own spouse that they've been with
Speaker 1: for years. And I was talking to my girlfriend the
Speaker 1: other day, and the people who are dismissive avoidant are
Speaker 1: textbook like textbook, and it's so crazy because the way
Speaker 1: that they are would be so inexplicable. Besides this theory,
Speaker 1: like literally people that will just shut down. They can't
Speaker 1: deal with any version of commitment or really deep communication
Speaker 1: or conveying emotions, and they don't like conflict. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be that someone was from an outlandishly
Speaker 1: abusive child, So it could be that just nobody expressed
Speaker 1: emotion in their household at all, and so their parents
Speaker 1: seemingly had a good marriage, but no one expressed your
Speaker 1: supposed to keep things inside and this person as they
Speaker 1: And it's for us to think about our kids too,
Speaker 1: and how we deal with our kids. If you're a
Speaker 1: person who's come from that, you know to intervene in
Speaker 1: that with your kids, because they're gonna then be those
Speaker 1: people that won't express emotion and run from it. And
Speaker 1: it's serious, like it's a serious thing that that and
Speaker 1: it's the way that it presents itself is that somebody
Speaker 1: is sort of a dick that will blow you off,
Speaker 1: will not respond properly to communication and text. But it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be based in deep insecurity.
Speaker 2: So that's a great leaping off point, Bethany, And just
Speaker 2: true your listeners do a real easy working definition of
Speaker 2: it because we're again, we're it's easy to talk different languages.
Speaker 2: What you're referring to is avoiding attachment style, and avoiding
Speaker 2: attachment style can best be defined as someone who claims
Speaker 2: to want intimacy but unintentionally undermines the intimacy all the time.
Speaker 2: So it's the guy who runs hot and cold. He
Speaker 2: says he loves you, but his actions are inconsistent. It's
Speaker 2: the guy who says he wants to spend the rest
Speaker 2: of his life with you, but when you talk about marriage,
Speaker 2: he shuts down the conversation. So those people can drive
Speaker 2: you crazy because they everything they say is the right thing,
Speaker 2: but their actions are always undermining their claims.
Speaker 1: They literally are asking babies to run a marathon like
Speaker 1: they can't even walk and I would I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: would just say, based on everything I've heard and read,
Speaker 1: peace out, Like that's a fucking project. Like it's like
Speaker 1: not even to like try to figure this thing out,
Speaker 1: like life's too short, because then you are the giving tree, Bethanie.
Speaker 2: You know that you've earned your love for me in
Speaker 2: a very short period of time. But this is why
Speaker 2: I love you. You are a natural at this kind
Speaker 2: of thing. It's exactly what I'd say when people say,
Speaker 2: so what do I do with my avoidant? Don't date
Speaker 2: an avoidant because you shouldn't have to drag a guy
Speaker 2: into a relationship with you or convince him that you
Speaker 2: are worthy of his long term attention. You don't need
Speaker 2: a project. So here's the good news, A couple pieces
Speaker 2: of good news for everybody who gets freaked out about
Speaker 2: attachment styles. Twenty They say in the book about twenty
Speaker 2: five percent of people are avoidant, a right, So that
Speaker 2: means twenty five percent are anxious, about fifty percent are secure,
Speaker 2: which means able to form intimate attachments. And your attachment
Speaker 2: style is malleable. Just because you are one thing doesn't
Speaker 2: mean you have to be that way for life. It's
Speaker 2: not a disease. It's a thing that with therapy making
Speaker 2: better choices in love. If you're an anxious woman who
Speaker 2: always feels very needy around men, choose a secure guy
Speaker 2: who treats you well, a lot of your anxiety goes away,
Speaker 2: so you could become a more secure person by making
Speaker 2: better choices.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was going to say, it seems like a
Speaker 1: square is a rhomis romis, isn't it always is in
Speaker 1: a square? Like an anxious person could like like cut
Speaker 1: the sauce a little, like take some of the salt
Speaker 1: out of the sauce that they can change a little bit.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like an avoidant ken. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's deep, deeply ingrained. Of course there are exceptions, but
Speaker 1: it's a fucking project. Anxious could be I guess a
Speaker 1: project too, But like you said, if you're meeting them
Speaker 1: even halfway, they could calm down a little.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're both people have to be intentional about changing
Speaker 2: both themselves and their choice and heartners. So I've got
Speaker 2: a couple good friends who are avoidant, and they're good,
Speaker 2: they're good guys, they're working on it. I still think
Speaker 2: they'd be really high risk bet, and that's why they're
Speaker 2: multi divorced or single in their fifties. It's it's not
Speaker 2: a complete accident. Even if I could say they're really
Speaker 2: good guys, they might not be good guys to date.
Speaker 1: Right, So and the people, you know, I said the
Speaker 1: other day, inconsistent means inconsiderate period. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: the intention is, what they did as a baby, I
Speaker 1: had a fucked up childhood to like, we don't I'm
Speaker 1: not really interested in what happened to you as a baby,
Speaker 1: and that's why you're inconsistent, and now you're inconsiderate. I
Speaker 1: don't really give a fuck because I have to operate
Speaker 1: it now in twenty twenty five, not on what abusive
Speaker 1: childhood I endure. So it's kind of like a touching story.
Speaker 1: But we don't what women women date down so badly
Speaker 1: that it's it's just one of the things I really
Speaker 1: want to convey. And and we give cookies for such
Speaker 1: minimal effort, Like it turns out that the right person
Speaker 1: could probably do the right person's minimum is the wrong
Speaker 1: person's maximum. Like it feels like we just, oh, he's
Speaker 1: gave me a flower, Like everyone's so excited, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: he texted about like it feels like it's just set
Speaker 1: up for women to be jacked up about men doing
Speaker 1: the bare minimum, Like it's just across the board. You
Speaker 1: see all over the place women like jumping up and
Speaker 1: down and being so excited for like the bare minimum,
Speaker 1: and we have to switch that.
Speaker 2: I agree, you know, you know my central metaphor. I
Speaker 2: saw your new website. It's gorgeous. I mean, you're you're
Speaker 2: running with it, and I think it's great that you're
Speaker 2: popularizing the idea. And basically because of how people were raised.
Speaker 2: And again I'm not a psychologist, don't pretend to be
Speaker 2: a psychologist. If you have a controlling mother or who's
Speaker 2: highly critical, and you have a father who doesn't show
Speaker 2: you love or maybe they got divorced when you were
Speaker 2: really young, you spend your life in need of love, attention, affection,
Speaker 2: You crave it, you can't get it from your childhood,
Speaker 2: and then you play that out in every relationship where
Speaker 2: you default, make yourself the intern, and if someone throws
Speaker 2: you a buck for working for them, you're like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, this is the best dollar I've ever had.
Speaker 2: And that's what it's like to be an anxious attachment
Speaker 2: style woman. That's why they called bread crumbing. A guy
Speaker 2: could text once a week, Oh my god, he was
Speaker 2: thinking of me. He hasn't seen me in three weeks,
Speaker 2: but he was thinking of me today. So any little
Speaker 2: thing could be enough to keep her going when she
Speaker 2: has accepted. Well, that's what love is. They're crumbs. It's
Speaker 2: not the consistent love that, for example, you show your child.
Speaker 2: So I always encourage women who are of a certain
Speaker 2: age who have children. Think of how you love your child.
Speaker 2: You deserve to be loved that way by a man.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I'm a combination because if someone doesn't
Speaker 1: treat me properly, I won't stand for it, and I'll
Speaker 1: ignore and I'll avoid while feeling anxiously attached. But it's
Speaker 1: almost like a gamification of it. It's like, not what's
Speaker 1: coming naturally inside my body is anxious attachment, what the
Speaker 1: actions are is avoidant attachment. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2: Makes perfect sense? And it makes sense. And in our
Speaker 2: limited offscreen interaction, it seems to me that you are
Speaker 2: an expert in the gamification of dating and understanding the
Speaker 2: power struggles and the leap is letting go of the power.
Speaker 1: Well, the leap is not playing a game, because if
Speaker 1: you play a game, you get a game player, correct,
Speaker 1: and it's not based in reality, and so that that's
Speaker 1: been something to do. Also, I do think there is
Speaker 1: a level of game. You can't be too desperate. I
Speaker 1: do think in the world there is a level of game.
Speaker 1: There's a tight, slight hint of the rules or whatever
Speaker 1: that book was about. But I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: main thing that can be, you know, the shiny exterior
Speaker 1: to get somebody in the restaurant, but once they're in,
Speaker 1: that has to go away.
Speaker 2: Can I share an idea that's relevant to this? So
Speaker 2: it's a termin that I used, maybe someone else made
Speaker 2: it up too years ago. I call it mirroring, and
Speaker 2: mirroring is basically responding instead of initiating. So you can
Speaker 2: be in your ceo feminine power and you're still waiting
Speaker 2: for the guy to take the lead. He texts you,
Speaker 2: You text them back warmly, enthusiastically, quickly, no game playing.
Speaker 2: He calls you. You called him back, Hey, I want
Speaker 2: to see you this weekend if you're free. You say
Speaker 2: I want to see you too. You're not saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm busy. It's not any power struggle. It is just warm, receptive, enthusiastic,
Speaker 2: and he is until it it's not yeah, till it's
Speaker 2: not what I'm saying. You're never initiating and chasing, You're
Speaker 2: just responding quickly, warmly and fansastic. And so that works really,
Speaker 2: really well almost across the board with any guy with
Speaker 2: any balls who shows any interest.
Speaker 1: Until a point you have to sometimes initiate and do
Speaker 1: that you have just sometimes initiated.
Speaker 2: Yes and no. My wife never initiated. I mean again,
Speaker 2: it's not like I'm super alpha male. But if I
Speaker 2: wanted to see her, I would see her. If I
Speaker 2: wanted to call her, I would call her. She didn't
Speaker 2: have to coerce me to. The only thing she ever
Speaker 2: did was when we were about one month into dating
Speaker 2: and I was an entrepreneur and she had a conventional job.
Speaker 2: She would call me at five o'clock and be like,
Speaker 2: want to talk And I would still be working because
Speaker 2: it's only five o'clock. And she's like, I get the
Speaker 2: sense that you don't want to be bothered at work
Speaker 2: at five o'clock. I said, yeah, I work later hours
Speaker 2: than you do. She goes, here's all I need from you.
Speaker 2: I'm your girlfriend. I want to feel connected to you
Speaker 2: every day, every night before you go to sleep, just
Speaker 2: give me a call a sakeod night. I don't care
Speaker 2: if it's eleven thirty pm. I just want to hear
Speaker 2: your voice. And I pulled that stupid guy stuff like
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't always have something to say
Speaker 2: every day. She was, this is what I need from you.
Speaker 2: Can you do that? Yeah? It was pretty reasonable. And
Speaker 2: then for the rest of the time we were dating,
Speaker 2: she never had to call me. It's not that she couldn't.
Speaker 2: It's not like I'd run away if she did. By
Speaker 2: my point is she didn't have to because why I
Speaker 2: was the guy who really wanted a job with her.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about I've talked about breakups a little
Speaker 1: a lot of girls when I do my dating university
Speaker 1: on social media really respond with I really needed to
Speaker 1: hear this today when you're discussing with them not reaching out,
Speaker 1: staying strong, almost like they're on a juice cleanse and
Speaker 1: you got a or a like not drinking alcohol or
Speaker 1: quitting smoking, and you're really trying to help someone with
Speaker 1: that addiction because it actually can be and like an addiction,
Speaker 1: it might not be based in actual reality. You could
Speaker 1: be chasing the dragon. It could always make you feel bad.
Speaker 1: You go back to do the drug and it makes
Speaker 1: you feel worse than the first time you ever did it,
Speaker 1: and you can't get there, but there's something in it happening.
Speaker 1: And so there's a discussion about muting and blocking. So
Speaker 1: one thing is for someone to say to someone else,
Speaker 1: please don't contact me. I think that's easier said than done.
Speaker 1: That's something that people say in courses, but when someone's
Speaker 1: going to really do it, it's going to be harder
Speaker 1: because saying that means you'll never know if the person
Speaker 1: really is not gonning. You'll never know if the person
Speaker 1: really wanted to reach out. So on social media, if
Speaker 1: someone says something nasty to me or anything I just
Speaker 1: don't like, I'll just block them. I don't mute them,
Speaker 1: I'll block them. I don't care. You need to know
Speaker 1: that I blocked you, And maybe it seems hostile. I
Speaker 1: don't care. It's not for them, it's for me, like
Speaker 1: it's for me. And so if there was a situation
Speaker 1: where I was breaking up with someone and it didn't
Speaker 1: make me feel good, it felt like either an addiction
Speaker 1: or or just something that was like a gnat that
Speaker 1: you just can't you know what I mean. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe you're bored. Maybe you're bored, you have nothing else going.
Speaker 1: I am a firm believer of block And it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what the other person thinks, because you're not you're
Speaker 1: feeling that the person doesn't make you feel good or
Speaker 1: feel happy, so you don't give a shit about the
Speaker 1: other person. In my opinion, like you're doing your self preserving.
Speaker 1: So if it means because I always say, get off
Speaker 1: my timeline, like if someone makes you feel bad in
Speaker 1: any way or you know it's not right, get the
Speaker 1: fuck off my timeline. If you don't have the courage
Speaker 1: to say that to someone for whatever reason, you just
Speaker 1: block them everywhere. Is that? What do you think about that?
Speaker 1: Is that like immature or wrong? Because I'm a big fan.
Speaker 2: No, it's not immature, wrong and use the right words.
Speaker 2: It is about self preservation. So it doesn't mean after
Speaker 2: breakup you can still like someone, you can still love someone,
Speaker 2: you could recognize that their presence in your life is
Speaker 2: not allowing you to heal properly. It's like picking out
Speaker 2: a scab and wondering why it's not healing. Whether if
Speaker 2: you're texting and he says baby, I miss you, and
Speaker 2: you say, hey, baby, I miss you and maybe we
Speaker 2: should get together one last time. All that stuff doesn't
Speaker 2: allow you to heal The best breakup story I ever had,
Speaker 2: and this is again it's gonna be an ironic story.
Speaker 2: I broke up with a lovely person after eight months.
Speaker 2: I didn't think I was going to marry her. But
Speaker 2: she's a great person and I cared about her, like
Speaker 2: I really. I have nothing bad to say about her
Speaker 2: to this day. She blocked me on text, blocked me.
Speaker 1: On social rude, ended it, and then she blocked you.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is this is this is textbook. This is
Speaker 2: what I would tell women to do. But it's what
Speaker 2: happened to me.
Speaker 1: You with her.
Speaker 2: I ended it with her.
Speaker 1: We're still talking a lot.
Speaker 2: I tried to let her down gently and say, hey,
Speaker 2: we could stay friends. I really want to know that
Speaker 2: you're doing well. Yeah, cuts me off. The next time
Speaker 2: I see her, no, no shit is on Facebook. It's
Speaker 2: a picture of her and her husband.
Speaker 1: But you know that she cut you off because you
Speaker 1: tried to reach out to be like, hey, what's up
Speaker 1: or hi? Checking in?
Speaker 2: This is very much you use the word addiction. But
Speaker 2: it's not it's not the it's not the wrong one.
Speaker 2: It's actually the right word. Love lights up the same
Speaker 2: pleasure centers of in your brain is meth and coke.
Speaker 2: That's why it feels like a roller coaster. That's why
Speaker 2: every song is about love being a drug. It absolutely
Speaker 2: does give you dopamine, serotonin, nouropinephrin, pseudophedrin. These are the
Speaker 2: things that make you high highs, low lows. And you
Speaker 2: got to balance out, especially after that breakup, because there's
Speaker 2: no putting Humpty dumpty back together again. So the self,
Speaker 2: the best thing for self preservation is to do all
Speaker 2: the things you said. If you're an alcoholic, don't keep
Speaker 2: on buying alcohol and try to resist it in your house.
Speaker 1: Wow Okay, so yeah we agree. Like it's cutthroat, it's
Speaker 1: tough shit program.
Speaker 2: If you could do it from compassion, like it could
Speaker 2: be like, you know, Brad, I love you, I miss you,
Speaker 2: I think about you all the time. That is exactly
Speaker 2: why I can't talk to you.
Speaker 1: I don't even think that's necessary, but I'm sure.
Speaker 2: But Bethany, we're talking about taking the high road. Maybe
Speaker 2: he was a dick, but I'm saying you can cut
Speaker 2: someone off with compassion.
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's the high. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't agree. I don't think you need to. You can
Speaker 1: say that at some point, but it's still giving away
Speaker 1: some of your power. And I feel like, as a woman,
Speaker 1: you want to feel good at the end and not
Speaker 1: I love you, but so that's why I can't speak
Speaker 1: to you. I think that's sappy, and I don't disagree,
Speaker 1: I really do. I think you can piece out if
Speaker 1: if someone was amazing to you and you broke up
Speaker 1: with them, which has like if you broke up with them,
Speaker 1: you hurt them, and you.
Speaker 2: Need to there's less of it needs to block them
Speaker 2: if you broke up with them. It's when you can't
Speaker 2: deal with the breakup.
Speaker 1: You could have broken up with them, but you still
Speaker 1: want the hit of the drug. You could know that
Speaker 1: the drug isn't good for you. It's not something that
Speaker 1: you can sustain on. But you But you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I'm saying, whatever it is, if the person
Speaker 1: isn't making you feel good, I don't think you need
Speaker 1: to explain that. They already know that. That's obvious. The
Speaker 1: reasons why it's not a mystery. This whole thing why
Speaker 1: you broke up is why you broke up.
Speaker 2: I get that. At the same time, if we're the seat,
Speaker 2: I think it's better to bring someone into the office
Speaker 2: and let them go and give them severance.
Speaker 1: And you know, it depends on the situation. Then yes,
Speaker 1: sometimes the building no, if the person, yeah, sometimes the
Speaker 1: person needs to be escorted out of.
Speaker 2: The building, right, And so these are different use cases. I'm, i'm.
Speaker 2: Most of my breakups were not throwing plates. They were
Speaker 2: two people who realized they couldn't.
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't have to be throwing plates, though, But
Speaker 1: like I could think of two breakups that were significant,
Speaker 1: and one was super classy and while you're still angry
Speaker 1: and you still want to look good and make it
Speaker 1: feel bad, it does not require any version of blocking.
Speaker 1: And one was just toxic, even though it wasn't intentional,
Speaker 1: but it was one of those like, inconsistent means inconsiderate,
Speaker 1: and to me, that means peace the fuck out, and
Speaker 1: I don't have to explain anything.
Speaker 2: Listen, you end up in the exact same place where
Speaker 2: we can agree. Holding on to X's as friends when
Speaker 2: you don't really just feel like just friends with them
Speaker 2: is kind of a lie to yourself and illusion like
Speaker 2: somehow we're gonna we're gonna make this work somehow. Again,
Speaker 2: we were texting privately, and sometimes it's just hard. It's
Speaker 2: hard to let go of something that was good but
Speaker 2: can't be great.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna land on that. We're gonna land on.
Speaker 1: All roads lead to Rome, and you have to decide
Speaker 1: what works for you, what recipe works for you. You
Speaker 1: have to be really honest with yourself, but you're gonna
Speaker 1: get to the same place, which is no contact because
Speaker 1: it's it's it's toxic. Okay, I like that, all right,
Speaker 1: so we can we can agree on that.