Speaker 1: Hell, I Suck at Dating with Dengler Jared Haven and
Speaker 1: I heard radio podcast What is up, Sucky Daters. It's
Speaker 1: so good to have you back. It's a new week,
Speaker 1: it's a new love story. We've got a great episode
Speaker 1: before everyone. Today. We have Dr Helen calling in and
Speaker 1: let me tell you right now, she might be the
Speaker 1: smartest person we ever have had on this podcast. Jared
Speaker 1: acide obviously because we all know that big brain he's
Speaker 1: got in his head. But it's also a very very
Speaker 1: very special week in the help. I suck at Dating
Speaker 1: world and what a glorious world it is. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say we've talked about it before on this podcast,
Speaker 1: but I know no one cares about it. No one
Speaker 1: else besides the person that's involved cares about it. But
Speaker 1: fantasy football. Let's talk about fantasy football for a second. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this whole podcast football. Actually, So if
Speaker 1: you guys were listening to Dating, No, Jared, we don't
Speaker 1: want to. We don't want them to close out of
Speaker 1: the podcaster. For the first time in my life, I
Speaker 1: am in Jared's fantasy football How this is my fantasy
Speaker 1: football league. All of a sudden, Tanner is the one
Speaker 1: that put this thing together. Yeah, he's your best friend.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, I I am playing Jared
Speaker 1: this weekend fantasy football and we don't know who's gonna win.
Speaker 1: Jared's projected to beat my butt by at least like
Speaker 1: thirty points, and I don't think projections were well, projections
Speaker 1: are worth. I know that we we we briefly text
Speaker 1: messaged about this, but we do need to have some
Speaker 1: sort of some sort of penalty for the loser. Let's
Speaker 1: let's say you lose by ten points. I need you
Speaker 1: to do something for our audience. Well, I say both humility,
Speaker 1: humiliating and hilarious. This is what I think I think
Speaker 1: everybody should either. I think people should d m us
Speaker 1: on help I suck at dating and tell us what
Speaker 1: the punishment should be. So Dean and I will have
Speaker 1: a side bet right now we're playing each other in
Speaker 1: fantasy football. The loser will be punished, and the punishment
Speaker 1: will be dictated by the suck army themselves. So d
Speaker 1: m us on help I suck a dating instagram. I
Speaker 1: will screenshot it so it's all valid and post on there,
Speaker 1: and whichever punishment has the most votes. Uh like I'll
Speaker 1: figure out a way. If there's like, if there's no
Speaker 1: more than one punishment that's you know, somebody listed, then
Speaker 1: I'll post on on social media, and whichever punishment gets
Speaker 1: most votes Dean and I will have to do. Also,
Speaker 1: Dean and I just executed a trade in phantasy football,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of important stuff happened. Of course
Speaker 1: I accepted it. Yeah, it was the Patriots defense. Yeah, congratulations.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're happy. I feel like I got the
Speaker 1: better end of the trade. Anyway, moving on, so, yes,
Speaker 1: d m us help I suck at dating. Tell us
Speaker 1: what the punishment should be. Dean and I are playing
Speaker 1: each other in fantasy football, and of course we will
Speaker 1: announce which what punishment we're doing on next week's episode,
Speaker 1: and then we'll figure out how best to broadcast that
Speaker 1: to You are wonderful listeners that we love so much.
Speaker 1: But back to the dating world, because that's what we're
Speaker 1: all about. Dean, you were in the mall Deves right
Speaker 1: now with your girlfriend slash wife Kaylin. Tell us how
Speaker 1: that's going. Because if you guys followed Dean on on
Speaker 1: social media, you have seen literally the most beautiful place
Speaker 1: on earth, the Maldives. How's the vacation going. Well, Maldives
Speaker 1: is definitely the most beautiful place on Earth. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was definitely a spur of the moment situation that arose
Speaker 1: for us. It's funny because in both of our heads
Speaker 1: we were like, we shouldn't been traveling right now. Obviously
Speaker 1: we're in the midst of COVID and everything that's going on. Um.
Speaker 1: But despite all that, we are and we feel safer
Speaker 1: than we have at any moment that we have in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I obviously I've been driving around through Colorado,
Speaker 1: up in Montana and over to Washington and all these
Speaker 1: other people places. But it's funny because there is such
Speaker 1: a stigma against travel internationally and and obviously there's only
Speaker 1: so many borders that are open to American citizens at
Speaker 1: the moment. But even posting like our initial posted like
Speaker 1: hey we're going to the mall on Instagram, but was
Speaker 1: met with a lot of backlash, and like, I fully
Speaker 1: understand it. Like people obviously they are are are scared,
Speaker 1: they're concerned, they want everyone to stay healthy and and
Speaker 1: and they want everyone to be safe. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: so interesting because while we see that and we understand
Speaker 1: that uh. We and and myself specifically feel safer more
Speaker 1: in Maldives than I have ever in Los Angeles. Like
Speaker 1: I've got tested just even board the plane got tested
Speaker 1: once I arrived. Again, everyone else here has been tested.
Speaker 1: It's like you could go to a store, a grocery
Speaker 1: store in Los Angeles and be surrounded by a hunter.
Speaker 1: People that I've never even been testament Alives. You have
Speaker 1: an idea where they've been. Everyone here has gone through
Speaker 1: the whole procedure to to be deemed as safe. Um,
Speaker 1: it was a difficult choice, but Caitlin and I have
Speaker 1: always dream about coming to Mall Deaves and it is
Speaker 1: there of us have ever been. We're loving every second
Speaker 1: and we kind of understood that it's gonna go with
Speaker 1: some turmoil, but yeah, it's been. It's been pretty great.
Speaker 1: I mean, it looks like you're that villa that you
Speaker 1: guys are staying on that's literally in the water and
Speaker 1: you have a water slide there. Holy Like, I've been
Speaker 1: lucky enough, you know to go to Italy and Greece
Speaker 1: and Ireland and travel around and man, those videos you're
Speaker 1: posting on like, Holy Christ, this is the greatest place
Speaker 1: on earth. We're getting some figures of like every time
Speaker 1: we like check in a new place and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: like how much how much money does this cost? If
Speaker 1: it was to be like in the middle of the
Speaker 1: high season, I think the bill that we stayed in
Speaker 1: and again I I don't know if this is true.
Speaker 1: This is just what we were told, but it was
Speaker 1: like thirty thousand dollars per night. Oh my. And it's
Speaker 1: like when other what other opportunity were going to get
Speaker 1: to stay in? No other opportunities. As long as you
Speaker 1: guys are being safe, you're fine. Just keep wearing your mask,
Speaker 1: keep social distancing, keep washing your hands, keep getting tested.
Speaker 1: You guys are doing the right thing. Yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was definitely a difficult decision to make, but we
Speaker 1: guys are fine. We we wanted to make it and
Speaker 1: we decided life happens fast. If you have this opportunity,
Speaker 1: you can do it safely. Right now. Take the opportunities
Speaker 1: because you just don't know how many more opportunities you'll
Speaker 1: have in life. And the thing is, there's no convincing
Speaker 1: someone that thinks it's unsafe that it is safe. Like
Speaker 1: everyone's every you know, if you think that I have
Speaker 1: nothing that I'm gonna say, is going to convince you otherwise. So, um,
Speaker 1: it is what it is, and we are definitely doing
Speaker 1: a percent everything that we possibly can do to keep
Speaker 1: ourselves safe and keep the people around us safe, and
Speaker 1: we will continue to want to get back to the
Speaker 1: United States next week. But yeah, anyways, what's up with you, Jared?
Speaker 1: Give me an update on your life. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: I just want to uh go on to like a
Speaker 1: Halloween movie, horror night Hell yeah, we did free Forms
Speaker 1: Halloween Road. It was fantastic because usually they have a
Speaker 1: set up where it's a Halloween house and you get
Speaker 1: to experience like the hocus Pocus House and Nightmare before
Speaker 1: Christmas and Beetlejuice and Ghostbusters and it's all cool. Obviously
Speaker 1: you can't do that COVID. So they made a Halloween
Speaker 1: road and it was fantastic. It was great. I loved
Speaker 1: every second of it. Big festive guy over here love Halloween,
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and Christmas. So it's a good time of the year.
Speaker 1: Right now, my wife is walking into her glam room.
Speaker 1: Not sure why you're disrupting my podcast. Anyway, before we
Speaker 1: get unbelievable, at least once a week, I mean granted,
Speaker 1: I am in her glamor room recording, so I guess
Speaker 1: it's only fair. But before we get to Dr Helen,
Speaker 1: we do have. We didn't get too dating terms last week,
Speaker 1: and I felt so bad because every week we're supposed
Speaker 1: to give out new dating terms to the suck army audience,
Speaker 1: and we didn't do it last week. So I am
Speaker 1: here today. Eastern down the line as well. So Eastern,
Speaker 1: if you want to chime in and give us what
Speaker 1: you think some of these dating terms means, that would
Speaker 1: be great. You appreciated there he is East, and say
Speaker 1: hello to the people. Hi, people, great job. So the
Speaker 1: first one I have, I figured, you know, Halloween October,
Speaker 1: why not go to a little spooky term. So the
Speaker 1: first dating term, tell me what you think it is?
Speaker 1: Jekyl ing, jekyl spooky. That was spooky, Oh, Jacky, great guesses, guys.
Speaker 1: I was trying to give Dean the the courtesy of
Speaker 1: going first. It's his podcast. But okay, jack Ling, this
Speaker 1: is um when you spend all of your time trying
Speaker 1: to develop a chemical that will make you a different person.
Speaker 1: Eastern came prepared for the phrases today. He had a
Speaker 1: little bit in his back pocket, and I appreciate where
Speaker 1: you're coming from. Are we talking? Are we talking like costumes?
Speaker 1: Like you're gonna put on a new costume costumes entirely? Well,
Speaker 1: think about Jekyl. That's that's the keyword right there. Jackal.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna think Jackal is a combination between uh jackal
Speaker 1: and heckel. We all know. Heckling is like when you're
Speaker 1: screaming at players on the fields, obsd, absurd terms, all
Speaker 1: those types of things. Jackal is like a cap from
Speaker 1: Egyptian time or something like that. I don't know jack
Speaker 1: what a jack is. To combine the two, and you
Speaker 1: get someone pretending to be a jerk and and you know,
Speaker 1: essentially yellow the players in the field, but in reality
Speaker 1: you are like a pretty good guy. So that's actually
Speaker 1: pretty close. Now. The reason I said Jekyl because come on, guys,
Speaker 1: Jekyll and hide the qualities of appearing to be one
Speaker 1: person but actually being someone else. So have you ever
Speaker 1: been approached by a man or woman online or in
Speaker 1: real life and thought that they're initially keen to shower
Speaker 1: you with compliments and flattery and the quest to get
Speaker 1: your attention, but as soon as you reject their advances.
Speaker 1: He turns nasty, very nasty. Usually this is more guys
Speaker 1: and girls. Obviously, that's jackling right now, than where you
Speaker 1: meet someone who's overly showering you with compliments and kind
Speaker 1: to you and sweet and caring, and then as soon
Speaker 1: as you reject any advancements by them, flips the script
Speaker 1: turns nasty. That's jack ling right there. I want to say,
Speaker 1: jack ling is like the quintessential boy move. And I
Speaker 1: want to say I almost know the right on the head.
Speaker 1: I kind of have actually like the inverse of jack ling.
Speaker 1: I thought it was mean and then nice, but really
Speaker 1: what this is nice and than mean. But I do
Speaker 1: want to say that I have friends I have. I
Speaker 1: have friends on both sides, friends that have both jackled
Speaker 1: and received the jackling. And it is very very frustrating,
Speaker 1: very frustrating. So last one before we get to uh
Speaker 1: the doctor. Uh, this one's funny. Uh term deja you,
Speaker 1: deja deja o. I'm gonna go before Eastern because it's
Speaker 1: so hard to follow perfection. Sometimes dejat is when you
Speaker 1: meet someone that reminds you so much of an ex
Speaker 1: that you've had that you absolutely despised, and yet there's
Speaker 1: something about and that you just can't keep yourself away from.
Speaker 1: M H, I mean, I guess I was thinking something similar,
Speaker 1: like when you're dating someone you're like, hm, I feel
Speaker 1: like I've been disgusted by this before. This is something
Speaker 1: that I've seen before and hated. Very good guesses. Both
Speaker 1: are pretty close, so uh, they want you to picture
Speaker 1: this scene. So both close your eyes and picture this
Speaker 1: scene at Ladies and Gentlemen, You're you're flicking through your
Speaker 1: chosen dating app and you come across the profile of
Speaker 1: someone you've already spoken to or have even been on
Speaker 1: a date with. It did not go well. That feeling,
Speaker 1: friends is called dejah you know, a bit of deja vaux,
Speaker 1: but worse, that's deja ill right there. When you're on
Speaker 1: a dating app and you see somebody that you've already
Speaker 1: talked to or matched with, or even have gone on
Speaker 1: a date with, and it did not go well. It's
Speaker 1: like when you're on Tinder for a while, you go
Speaker 1: on a tender date, you delete Tender, get on Bumble.
Speaker 1: You're on Bumble and then you see that same guy
Speaker 1: on Bumble. It's honestly like dating in Rhode Island. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows each other and you've probably already been on a
Speaker 1: date with everybody. Uh. So that will do it for
Speaker 1: dating terms. This week on the podcast, like we said,
Speaker 1: we have Dr Helen Fisher coming up. Very exciting, super knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: She takes an analytical approach to dating uh and give
Speaker 1: some intelligent advice, something Dean and I try to do
Speaker 1: mostly fail. So make sure you stick around. But before
Speaker 1: we talk to her, let's take a quick break. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: To help I suck at dating, we have a very
Speaker 1: special guest who is on the line right now. She
Speaker 1: is a biological anthropologist also a senior Research Fellow at
Speaker 1: the Kinsey Institute of Indiana University. Dr Helen Fisher, Doctor,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: be with you. Um so, uh, we obviously looked you
Speaker 1: up a little bit research you. Now. I have a
Speaker 1: paragraph here from my producer that I actually would love
Speaker 1: to read to you, uh and our our listeners if
Speaker 1: you don't mind. It's just a little bit of a
Speaker 1: background on you, and it might be the most impressive
Speaker 1: paragraph I've ever read, which is why I'd like to
Speaker 1: read it out loud. Um. Oh, it's great. So it says,
Speaker 1: of course, Dr Helen Fisher are our guest biological anthropologist
Speaker 1: and senior research fellow. UH. You have written six books
Speaker 1: on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy,
Speaker 1: adultery and divorce, gender differences in the brain, the neural
Speaker 1: chemistry of romantic love and attachment, human biological based personality styles,
Speaker 1: why we fall in love with one person rather than another,
Speaker 1: hooking up friends with benefits, living together, and other current
Speaker 1: trends in the future of relationships what she calls slow love.
Speaker 1: I would like to list off my and deemed credentials.
Speaker 1: We were on Bachelor and Paradise a couple of times,
Speaker 1: so that's apparently why we host this podcast. A little
Speaker 1: bit of a stark difference there. So doctor Um, I
Speaker 1: really just kind of want to ask you a couple
Speaker 1: of questions. I was listening to your talk at Google,
Speaker 1: which is very impressive, UM, and you brought up a
Speaker 1: couple of questions in that talk that I find very
Speaker 1: interesting because you obviously have done this this this research before,
Speaker 1: and you talk about is monogamy natural? Why we fall
Speaker 1: in love, like I said before, one person rather than
Speaker 1: the other. So I'd really like you to talk about
Speaker 1: this this the seventy people that you put into this
Speaker 1: brain scanner to study the brains uh circuitry of romantic love.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could kind of touch on
Speaker 1: that a little bit, give a little background for our listeners,
Speaker 1: h and why you did the study absolutely well, First
Speaker 1: of all, um, we've not put over a hundred people
Speaker 1: into the scan are using functional magnetic resonance imaging, and
Speaker 1: we're I was really studying romantic love. I just think
Speaker 1: that we've evolved three distinctly different brain systems from mating
Speaker 1: and reproducing sex drive being one, second being feelings of
Speaker 1: intense romantic love, and third being feelings of deep attachment.
Speaker 1: So what I was looking for is what happens in
Speaker 1: the brain when you fall madly in love. And Um,
Speaker 1: we've put a lot of people in the machine, and
Speaker 1: we actually know the brain circuitry of it. You know,
Speaker 1: I've always wondered, I mean, people painful love, they live
Speaker 1: for love, they kill full love, they die for love.
Speaker 1: It's a very powerful human experience. Instant when you look
Speaker 1: around the world, were saturated in all kinds of these
Speaker 1: artifacts of this. I mean not only myths and legends
Speaker 1: and and stories and plays and sitcoms and therapy books,
Speaker 1: but also operas and symphonies and and plays and holidays
Speaker 1: and holiday cards and you name it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we're saturated. And of course the Bachelor and and all
Speaker 1: the rest of them. I mean, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're all looking for life's greatest prize, which is a
Speaker 1: mating partner. And this brain system evolved millions of years
Speaker 1: ago to enable you to focus your mating energy on
Speaker 1: just a single person and start that dating process. Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course you know, if you find the right
Speaker 1: person and you you form a real partnership, you're going
Speaker 1: to send your DNA into tomorrow. So it's basically a
Speaker 1: survival mechanism. And so I thought to myself, well, if
Speaker 1: this is such an important thing, you see it everywhere.
Speaker 1: Everybody is craving to have it, and if one fails,
Speaker 1: they go and do it again all throughout their lives.
Speaker 1: So why use it? So anyway, we began. I began
Speaker 1: to put people into the scanner with my colleagues, and
Speaker 1: I had them bring in two photographs, one of the
Speaker 1: person that they were madly in love with and one
Speaker 1: of a person who when you look at that picture,
Speaker 1: it calls off for no positive or negative feelings at all.
Speaker 1: It's just absolutely neutral. People would bring in, oh, a
Speaker 1: roommate from long ago, somebody that they know from the street, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And what we had them doing, the machine has had
Speaker 1: them look at the photograph of their sweetheart and look
Speaker 1: at the photograph of the neutral individual, and then see
Speaker 1: what happens contrast what happens in the brain with the
Speaker 1: two of them. The problem with that is when you're
Speaker 1: madly in love with somebody, you can't stop thinking about them.
Speaker 1: So I had to do something to get the brain
Speaker 1: back into sort of a resting state before I showed
Speaker 1: them the neutral photographs. So the way it ended up
Speaker 1: being is you look at the photograph of your sweetheart
Speaker 1: for thirty seconds. Then you we cast a large number
Speaker 1: on the screen, like eight thousand, four hundred and twenty one,
Speaker 1: and for so and so many seconds, you've got to
Speaker 1: look at that none birth and count backwards in increments
Speaker 1: of seven. Guess the whole brain uh into a different
Speaker 1: kind of state, and then we look at the neutral.
Speaker 1: So it's positive count BacT neutral count BacT positive Dada's
Speaker 1: six rotations twelve times, And that way we were able
Speaker 1: to compare what goes on in your brain when you're
Speaker 1: madly love and what you're what the same brain under
Speaker 1: neutral state, and I my hypothesis was wrong. I had
Speaker 1: really thought that romantic love was an emotion or a
Speaker 1: whole series of emotions from high to love, and of
Speaker 1: course it is that. But it's basically a drive. It
Speaker 1: comes from the most primitive parts of the brain way
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the brain. UM. In fact, it
Speaker 1: lies right next to a factory that orchestrates thirst and hunger.
Speaker 1: Thirst and hunger keep you alive today. Romantic love UH
Speaker 1: enables you too, drives you really to to find the
Speaker 1: right person and send your DNA into tomorrow. So it's
Speaker 1: a very powerful brain system and we've been able to
Speaker 1: to locate it. D Helen, I got a question for
Speaker 1: you here. So you talked about over saturation, which I
Speaker 1: I totally agree with. It's everywhere, there's no hiding from it.
Speaker 1: No matter what you're doing, you're gonna absorb it in
Speaker 1: somewhere or another. You also said that you test for
Speaker 1: three credentials for the hundred plus candidates that you tested. UM,
Speaker 1: do you screen for any like pre existing type of
Speaker 1: ideas for these candidates, because when you were naming off
Speaker 1: the three credentials that you test for, I was thinking
Speaker 1: in my head how I would fit into those categories,
Speaker 1: and I would almost say that I don't fit into
Speaker 1: a single one of those categories. So now I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of what are you testing? What? What's what's sex? Driver,
Speaker 1: romance and attachment? Or what are the three categories you're
Speaker 1: talking about? Those are the three categories I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Named of those categories, I thought that none of those
Speaker 1: were really driving factors for me in my everyday life.
Speaker 1: And again maybe it's just my own oblivious nous, oblivion
Speaker 1: to my own self. But when you were naming them off,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, well, am I an outlier in
Speaker 1: the sense? Or are does does everyone distinctly following fall
Speaker 1: into at least one of those categories? Or I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of curious, like what, let's let's say like someone
Speaker 1: as at least as self described as me were to
Speaker 1: be tested, what do you think that there was still
Speaker 1: be a reaction to be taken from it? I guess
Speaker 1: is my question? Like if there was, if you're not
Speaker 1: following one of those Okay, so they're not categories their
Speaker 1: brain systems, their pathways in the brain. And when when
Speaker 1: when you're feeling the sex drive, you're feeling the sex drive.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine you're a young, handsome man, you
Speaker 1: gotta felt a sex drive at some point in your life.
Speaker 1: So when you're feeling the sex drive, it's that those
Speaker 1: brain pathways that are active when you're feeling intense feelings
Speaker 1: of romantic love, which probably have because almost everybody has.
Speaker 1: You're feeling, uh, the elation, the giddiness, the euphoria, the
Speaker 1: sleeplessness to focus, the motivation, the obsessive thinking of romantic love,
Speaker 1: and when you're feeling a deep sense of attachment to somebody, uh,
Speaker 1: You're you're feeling sort of a cosmic connection. So they're
Speaker 1: they're basic brain systems like the anger system or the
Speaker 1: fierce system or and and I'm positive you've got all
Speaker 1: three of them. I mean, old man wals do. But
Speaker 1: about the bottom line is they come and go. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I you know, with my men, I mean
Speaker 1: there's times I look at him and I say, oh, man,
Speaker 1: is he ever is sexy right this minute? Oh? Is he?
Speaker 1: You know? Wow, let's let's go kiss and hug and
Speaker 1: then there's other times he'll say something hilariously funny and
Speaker 1: I think he's so charming, so so over the top
Speaker 1: the cool, and I feel that race of romantic love
Speaker 1: for him. And then there's other times that we're cuddling
Speaker 1: and he says something really sweet and I feel that
Speaker 1: sense of deep attachment. But there's other times when I'm
Speaker 1: not thinking about them at all. I mean, I'm a writer,
Speaker 1: I'm a public speaker, and and none of those three
Speaker 1: brain systems are active at the time. So these are
Speaker 1: basic brain systems. We all have them to different degrees. Now,
Speaker 1: some people really feel his sex drive more than others.
Speaker 1: Some people fall a lot more often than others. Some
Speaker 1: people feel deep attachment more often and for longer times
Speaker 1: than others. But the basic brain system, kid, and you've
Speaker 1: got them. That is a lot of information to take in.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to condense my next question because you talked
Speaker 1: about the feeling of love in the brain is right
Speaker 1: back there near thirst and hunger, pretty much necessities of life.
Speaker 1: So my my question is, I guess that feeling of
Speaker 1: love would that be designated as a necessity of life? No,
Speaker 1: I mean, well, let's let's talk about which brain system.
Speaker 1: I mean the brain system for romantic love. Um, it's
Speaker 1: not a necessity. None of them are. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I have run into people who said they've never felt
Speaker 1: a sex drive. I mean not many, I'll tell you that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I've found young people, um, who have never experienced
Speaker 1: of romantic love, and they will. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I have two friends who actually never They both married happily,
Speaker 1: they were deeply attached to their uh spouse, that both
Speaker 1: had children, and not until their fifties did either of
Speaker 1: them actually fall in love. And strange not with their
Speaker 1: partner with somebody else. In both cases, they never left
Speaker 1: their partner. They went on this ride really for a
Speaker 1: couple of years, and then they got rid of that
Speaker 1: relationship and went back to their deep attachment. But they
Speaker 1: booth said the same thing to me, which was very interesting.
Speaker 1: They both said, you know, Helen, I read Romeo and Juliet,
Speaker 1: but I never got it. Now I get it. So
Speaker 1: these are basic brain systems. Everybody, almost everybody feels them.
Speaker 1: Now there's some people with oh, problems in the brain really,
Speaker 1: or they're too scared. They've had a problem in you know,
Speaker 1: in teenage or something. And they said I'm never doing
Speaker 1: this again. But the vast majority everywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: you where, you know, as I said, we are deluged
Speaker 1: with the the artifacts of this incredible brains. It's like
Speaker 1: the fair system. I mean, everybody gets scared. You know.
Speaker 1: The youngest person I ever met, too was madly in
Speaker 1: love with two and a half, not talking about next drive.
Speaker 1: Every time a particular little girl would come over to
Speaker 1: his house, he just sitting here and just stroke her hair,
Speaker 1: and then when she left, he'd be depressed for about
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. And I know a man
Speaker 1: right now, it was eighty seven. Who's nuts about it? Woman?
Speaker 1: I mean, he can't eat, he can't sleep, he cries
Speaker 1: when she doesn't call him. So it's a basic brain system.
Speaker 1: We all have it, and it evolved millions of years.
Speaker 1: Other animals have it too. By the way, um you know,
Speaker 1: in one of my books was why him? Why her? No,
Speaker 1: it was I guess why why we? Anyway, the bottom
Speaker 1: line is as a chapter about animal romance, and it's
Speaker 1: a basic brain system. That is, it's the dopamine system,
Speaker 1: and they can be triggered in an instant. It's very
Speaker 1: easy to explain love at first sight but I remember
Speaker 1: this one story that I read in the New York Times.
Speaker 1: It was about a moose who fell in love with
Speaker 1: a cow, and from about sixty eight seventy six days,
Speaker 1: it just followed this cow, and the cow didn't pay
Speaker 1: any attention to the moose at all. And after about uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes the moon gave up. Well, we all
Speaker 1: make mistakes, and this most did too. So bottom line
Speaker 1: is it's a brain system that we inherited. Now, for example,
Speaker 1: a rat apparently only feels that attraction, that deep attraction
Speaker 1: that we've come to call romantic love, that deep attraction
Speaker 1: for about thirty seconds. An elephant you can see it
Speaker 1: for about five days during the person, the females period
Speaker 1: of vestres, etcetera. So it's gonna vary. It's not always
Speaker 1: linked with attachment. What's amazing about people is that we
Speaker 1: not only fall in love with them, but then we
Speaker 1: sign up for a long term thing with them. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: we form pair bonds. Were an animal that forms partnerships
Speaker 1: to we are young, very unusual of mammals do not
Speaker 1: pair up to the really young people do. And in fact,
Speaker 1: in our brain scanning, we not only looked at well,
Speaker 1: we ended up stumbling on the brain region linked with
Speaker 1: feelings a deep attachment as well as romantic love. Ok. There,
Speaker 1: I got a question for you. So, so, gathering the
Speaker 1: information has to only behalf the battle, right, What do
Speaker 1: we do with that information once we have it? Oh? Brother, Well,
Speaker 1: you know I spent my life on this. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm chief science advisor to match dot com and I've
Speaker 1: been it for fifteen years. And um so I not
Speaker 1: only study love of of what's in the brain, but
Speaker 1: I want to know what you're looking for. Um uh,
Speaker 1: you know what kind of person, what kind of way
Speaker 1: you're going to express your love, etcetera, etcetera. Well, I
Speaker 1: think there's a great deal that you can learn from it.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something that's very important to me.
Speaker 1: We put people, and people say, well, what makes that
Speaker 1: happy partnership? I mean, uh, psychologists will say all kinds
Speaker 1: of things, which is very good. I mean, don't express criticism,
Speaker 1: don't show contempt, don't be defensive, don't stone wall, don't
Speaker 1: don't don't shot down. All good, All good, But this
Speaker 1: is what the brain says when you are happily in love,
Speaker 1: not just loving, but in love in a long term partnership.
Speaker 1: These are three brain regions that become active in a
Speaker 1: long term, happy in love partnership. A brain region link
Speaker 1: with empathy, a brain region link with controlling your own
Speaker 1: stress and your own emotions. And a brain regionalate with
Speaker 1: what I call positive illusions, the ability to overlook what
Speaker 1: you don't like about somebody and focus on what you do.
Speaker 1: So that's where this brain scanning come in and can
Speaker 1: really add what the brain is doing when you're madly
Speaker 1: in love. Um, and so I mean there's I mean,
Speaker 1: I can go on forever, but I'll just say one
Speaker 1: thing about the Internet. I mean, um, knowing what I
Speaker 1: know about the brain, we're misusing these dating sites. Nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with these dating sites. In fact, they're not even
Speaker 1: dating sites. All they are is introducing. So all they
Speaker 1: do is introduce you. Everybody's up in the air that
Speaker 1: they're going to change humanity. Probably do is introduce you
Speaker 1: to somebody. You meet them, you smile the way you
Speaker 1: always did, your laugh, the way you always did your parade,
Speaker 1: the way you always did you you assess them the
Speaker 1: way you always did. So that's all they are is
Speaker 1: introducing sites. But we don't really know how to use them.
Speaker 1: And that's where knowing about the brain, and I'll be
Speaker 1: happy to go through it, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: go rambling on here. Uh. There's ways to use the
Speaker 1: Internet that I have been able to learn from, uh
Speaker 1: from internet dating, uh, from knowing what I know about
Speaker 1: the brain. So it's very useful understanding the brain, understanding um,
Speaker 1: the psychology, what people are looking for, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: No more you can know about love, the better you
Speaker 1: can handle it when the time comes. Um. So dr
Speaker 1: you also did a study with match match dot com
Speaker 1: talking about how has transformed dating and there's some interesting
Speaker 1: facts uh that are in here. Um of the people
Speaker 1: that you serve a s singles said they spent quarantine
Speaker 1: without sex, um and of the other who had sex,
Speaker 1: one in four so about of them had sex with
Speaker 1: their non romantic roommates. So how is and how has
Speaker 1: quarantine changed the world of dating? Well, um, weirdly enough
Speaker 1: in in a in actually a very positive way. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a horrible disease, no question about that.
Speaker 1: It's get given this almost perversely strange, oddly good gift
Speaker 1: to two singles. But first of all, back to the
Speaker 1: uh person who who had sex with a non romantic partner.
Speaker 1: I'm not at all surprised at that. Academics call it
Speaker 1: situation a situational sex. I mean, it's very clear that
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in stuck in jail or some
Speaker 1: other sort of institution, or if you're traveling in places
Speaker 1: where you don't know anybody and you're lonely, you're gonna
Speaker 1: end up having sex with people who you might not
Speaker 1: have chosen back at home. So that's what's going on.
Speaker 1: And uh, I'm not at all surprised. You're stuck in
Speaker 1: a place for months with somebody, You're gonna get to
Speaker 1: know them, You're gonna have a lot of meals with them,
Speaker 1: You're gonna watch a lot of TV with them, You're gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, share a lot of your your hopes and
Speaker 1: disappointments with them. And all of this self disclosure does
Speaker 1: um amp up intimacy. So I'm not surprised that people
Speaker 1: are having sex with somebody who they are they didn't
Speaker 1: were in love with. What interests me about that is,
Speaker 1: I wonder how many will remain whether they actually do
Speaker 1: fall in love, and we don't have the data on
Speaker 1: that yet. But anyway, back to your other question of
Speaker 1: why this horrible disease, how it's changed dating? Is it
Speaker 1: changed it in a very interesting and significant way. As
Speaker 1: you mentioned in your introduction, I talked about slow love.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been studying with match for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: We do not pull the Match members. This is a
Speaker 1: national representative sample of singles based on the US Census,
Speaker 1: so it's real science. We got dat on fifty people.
Speaker 1: And what I've found, uh, is that I call it
Speaker 1: slow sex. I mean sorry and slow low. You know,
Speaker 1: we used to uh, you know, meet somebody in our
Speaker 1: early twenties and marrying our early twenties. Now we're marrying
Speaker 1: in our late twenties. Uh, and we're seeing this long
Speaker 1: period of getting to know people before you tie the knot.
Speaker 1: It's called slow low. I've really impressed with the younger day.
Speaker 1: They want to get this right. They they want to
Speaker 1: They want um, you know, transparency, they want honesty, they
Speaker 1: want meaningful conversations. UM. They want somebody with a with
Speaker 1: a with a good education and a and and a
Speaker 1: job and financial stability. They are serious about it, and
Speaker 1: they they're gonna stick it out until they find the
Speaker 1: right person. So that's a trend that I have been
Speaker 1: seeing for several years that I call slow love, And
Speaker 1: what the pandemic has done is slow it down even more.
Speaker 1: You know, prior to the pandemic, um, people really met
Speaker 1: on the internet and then they went out on the
Speaker 1: first date. Now they meet on the internet and then
Speaker 1: this whole period of video chatting before they go out
Speaker 1: in person. And I think that's very adaptive. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know on that first date, it's the first dates
Speaker 1: are very awkward. I mean, first of all, you know,
Speaker 1: do you spend a lot of money going to a
Speaker 1: fancy bar or do you just buy a cup of
Speaker 1: coffee together? Uh? Money is off the table when you
Speaker 1: do video chatting. Sex is off the table. You don't
Speaker 1: have to decide whether they're gonna kiss and hug or
Speaker 1: hold her hand or anything. Sex is off the table.
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing during this pandemic is, um, people
Speaker 1: are spending a lot longer on the internet, UM, having
Speaker 1: these video chats, getting to know somebody before they uh
Speaker 1: have to kiss any frogs. Um. Uh. They are having
Speaker 1: more meaningful conversations. We've got good data on that. It
Speaker 1: came out this week. Um. They are having They're more honest,
Speaker 1: they're more transparent. Uh. They're less interested in the in
Speaker 1: in in good looks, not only in themselves, but in uh,
Speaker 1: potential partners. They're even more interested in somebody who's got
Speaker 1: a good job and it's financially stable. They're doing more
Speaker 1: of what I call intentional dating uh and uh, and
Speaker 1: they're slowing down the process us. And from an anthropological
Speaker 1: or Darwinian perspective, I've got data on a d cultures
Speaker 1: through the demographic yearbooks of the United Nations. My data
Speaker 1: goes back to and as it turns out, the longer
Speaker 1: you court and the later you marry, the more likely
Speaker 1: you are to stay together. And that's what we're seeing
Speaker 1: with this pandemic, the slowing down of courtship. And we
Speaker 1: may well and we're gonna get out of this pandemic
Speaker 1: at some point and people will get back to meeting
Speaker 1: in person. But what's interesting is fifty eight percent of
Speaker 1: these people, when I asked, uh, you know, will you
Speaker 1: do you think that you would continue doing this video
Speaker 1: chatting before the first date? Percent said yes. And I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised because it's easy. It's a vetting process. For
Speaker 1: God's sakes. You know, you can get rid of the
Speaker 1: ones you don't want before you go out and spend
Speaker 1: money and time and get all dressed up and have
Speaker 1: the awkwardness with sex. So it seems to be a
Speaker 1: new stage in the dating process. It's slowing it down
Speaker 1: even more. And slow love is I think going to
Speaker 1: lead to relative family stability, And you think that the
Speaker 1: eight percent is gonna hold because when I think about it,
Speaker 1: I think people are just kind of stuck in this
Speaker 1: idea and so they're just saying, yeah, I can see
Speaker 1: this happening post pandemic, but it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: imagine that happening after the fact. And then I also
Speaker 1: follow up question, do you think that I know, we
Speaker 1: touched a lot of the positives for this, uh slow
Speaker 1: love as we talked about, but what kind of negatives
Speaker 1: do you think we can possibly draw from it too? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a very good question. Um, it's funny Nobodyson asked
Speaker 1: me that question. I got to think coming in fire
Speaker 1: and hot, t me out, man, do you have any
Speaker 1: ideas of what would be bad about getting into somebody slowly?
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I've got I think we all kind
Speaker 1: of have bad ideas, not bad ideas, but ideas of
Speaker 1: how it could be bad. It's but the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is we're kind of confronted with those ideas
Speaker 1: as it is anyways, the single people as it is.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like your worst ideas are already kind
Speaker 1: of happening in front of you, so it's easy to
Speaker 1: kind of pick and choose the positives that are coming
Speaker 1: from it. Um. I'm just trying to think that maybe
Speaker 1: some long term side effects that maybe wouldn't be so positive,
Speaker 1: And You're right, it's hard to it's hard to pick
Speaker 1: and choose and find those things that maybe are are
Speaker 1: going to be long lasting that aren't. I'd say one
Speaker 1: thing that I and I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: a true negative or not, or if it's just my
Speaker 1: own mind, but I do feel that sometimes people give
Speaker 1: up on love too easily, or give up on people
Speaker 1: too easily, and I'm curious that with slow love, if
Speaker 1: they're they're more willing to give up even easier. Um,
Speaker 1: that would be one side effect I'd be interested to see,
Speaker 1: because you know, with when within relationship, we all know
Speaker 1: that there are going to be certain times when the
Speaker 1: relationship isn't going well and you kind of have to
Speaker 1: overcome some obstacles together and and figure things out. No
Speaker 1: relationship is ever perfect, and I'm curious if slow love
Speaker 1: is going to lead people to even thinking that they
Speaker 1: need more of a perfect relationship something that just doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: you know, for some reason. I think see that as
Speaker 1: Apple's and oranges. I mean, slow love is is just
Speaker 1: talking about the courtship process, the slowing down of getting
Speaker 1: to know somebody. That's all it is. And I think
Speaker 1: that what you're talking about is in a relationship, and
Speaker 1: certainly in a relationship there's escalation points and there's breaking points,
Speaker 1: and all the way along, uh, you know, you can
Speaker 1: they can say something hilariously funny and oh man, this
Speaker 1: is this is you know, gosh, I'm really with the
Speaker 1: right person, and then all of a sudden they're going
Speaker 1: to vote for somebody you think is insane, and uh,
Speaker 1: you think, oh my god, where am I coming from here?
Speaker 1: You know. So, I mean, you know, it's a rocking
Speaker 1: road for contexts. Beautiful not romantic love is that we're
Speaker 1: able to overlook what we don't like about somebody. I mean,
Speaker 1: as Chaser said, love is blind. And what we found
Speaker 1: in the brain scanner was that people who were madly
Speaker 1: in love showed less and less activity in brain regions
Speaker 1: linked with with decision making and uh uh you know
Speaker 1: objective thinking. So um, the brain is built to fall
Speaker 1: in love. And I think the flow of is just
Speaker 1: a just the slowing down of the courtship process. That's
Speaker 1: all it is, is the slowing down of the courtship process.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's gonna make people give up.
Speaker 1: I think the people are going to give up are
Speaker 1: going to give up a different kind of reasons. I agree.
Speaker 1: I think what I was referring to is whenever I
Speaker 1: hear friends go on dates with people, and they always
Speaker 1: kind of point out the negatives rather than the positives.
Speaker 1: For example, they always I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: my friends are they're almost making excuses as to why
Speaker 1: they shouldn't see someone or why they don't think that
Speaker 1: this relationship would pan out because you know, oh well
Speaker 1: he uh you know war blue shirt and I hate
Speaker 1: blue so I'm not sure if it's gonna work out.
Speaker 1: I'm obviously being dramatic when I say things like that,
Speaker 1: but I have seen examples within my own friend group
Speaker 1: where even before the relationship begins, they're unwilling to give
Speaker 1: it a shot because not because it it doesn't feel right,
Speaker 1: but because there there seems to be some sort of
Speaker 1: obstacle in the way, which I find more as an excuse,
Speaker 1: maybe because they're nervous of jumping into a relationship. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious if that has been bred from quote unquote
Speaker 1: slow love, because you know, forty years ago it was
Speaker 1: you know, you you you got married for different reasons.
Speaker 1: People will get married because they they lived close together,
Speaker 1: or because you know, it's what society kind of deemed
Speaker 1: upon them, or um, you know, for financial reason, stability, kids,
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. And obviously people are getting
Speaker 1: married now later in life for a multitude of different reasons,
Speaker 1: most most of all being that they are in love
Speaker 1: with the person. And I'd argue that, of course, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that's the right course of action.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious, you know, if we're just talking about
Speaker 1: any type of negativity or or side effects from quote
Speaker 1: unquote slow love. I'm just kind of throwing stuff against
Speaker 1: the wall, and I guess I could see that maybe
Speaker 1: being a minor, minor side effect, even though I'm only
Speaker 1: just playing Devil's advocate really, and I'm all for slow love.
Speaker 1: First of all, Jared, I love that you said that, because, um,
Speaker 1: we don't know how to use the internet. And the
Speaker 1: biggest problem is exactly what you said. I don't think
Speaker 1: it has to do with slow love, so love is
Speaker 1: just the courtship process. But I do think that it
Speaker 1: has a basic problem. You just hit something really important.
Speaker 1: There's a huge brain region called the ventral medial preferntal cortex.
Speaker 1: It's a giant area in the brain that is linked
Speaker 1: with what is called negativity bias. From millions of years,
Speaker 1: we have evolved a mechanism to remember the bad negativity bias.
Speaker 1: For millions of years, it was adaptive to remember the bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, let's say you're walking along in
Speaker 1: a little hunting to gathering group a million years ago,
Speaker 1: and you know who All your male friends are very cool,
Speaker 1: but if you forget who doesn't like you, you could die.
Speaker 1: So the bottom line is the brain is built to
Speaker 1: remember the negative. And when you go out with somebody
Speaker 1: for the first time or whatever, the brain is going
Speaker 1: to remember that he wore a blue shirt and I
Speaker 1: don't like the color blue. He likes cats and I
Speaker 1: like dogs, she likes uh, you know, wind sailing, and
Speaker 1: and I like concert pianists, you know. I mean. The
Speaker 1: bottom line is we're built to remember the negative. So
Speaker 1: there's two things that I say about using the internet.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with the Internet, it's just an introducing site,
Speaker 1: uh mechanism. But when you go out with somebody, you
Speaker 1: know so little about them that you that we tend
Speaker 1: to put too much weight on those few things. So
Speaker 1: the first thing I think of is to your friends
Speaker 1: who said this to you, think of reasons to say yes.
Speaker 1: Overlook the negative. Now, I mean, if the person is
Speaker 1: two ft tall and ten feet wide, and and it
Speaker 1: doesn't speak your language and is missing most of their teeth,
Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious. But the bottom line is the more
Speaker 1: you get to know somebody, the more you like them,
Speaker 1: and the more that you think that they are like you.
Speaker 1: So what your friends are suffering from is not slow love.
Speaker 1: That's just a courtship process. But it is a primitive
Speaker 1: and ancient bias of remembering the negative about somebody. And
Speaker 1: so the bottom line is get tell your friends who
Speaker 1: are a doing this, overlook the negative unlessen so obviously,
Speaker 1: over accentuate the positive. Think about what you like about
Speaker 1: the person, and and try to get rid of what
Speaker 1: you don't. So I've got a question for you, and
Speaker 1: it's it's burning inside of me. Uh so for someone
Speaker 1: as intelligent and especially in a little quays you you
Speaker 1: mentioned this at the top of the conversation, that you
Speaker 1: are with someone. How I want to hear about the
Speaker 1: genesis of your relationship, right, because we all overthink things,
Speaker 1: we all go into, like you said, negative byas all
Speaker 1: these things, I want, I want to know more about
Speaker 1: how you found your partner. Well, um, so, I'm old,
Speaker 1: I'm over seventy and I got married to him about
Speaker 1: eight weeks ago. Congratulate. Okay, here's without getting married with somebody.
Speaker 1: I married somebody when I was twenty three for about
Speaker 1: four months. I didn't want to marry him. When I did,
Speaker 1: I was scared of my mother. I went through it,
Speaker 1: but that was ridiculous and nobody had any property. Every
Speaker 1: he was happy with the divorce, et cetera. That and
Speaker 1: you know, and I've had long, beautiful partnerships with with
Speaker 1: two other men. But anyway, one thing led to well,
Speaker 1: this is a good story. Actually, um So this guy.
Speaker 1: First of all, he um was on staff the New
Speaker 1: York Times for for twenty two years. So He's interviewed
Speaker 1: me many times over the years, and and um, I've
Speaker 1: liked him, but I've never put the move, ever put
Speaker 1: the move on anybody in my business world. So we
Speaker 1: came and went and now and then I always really
Speaker 1: admired who he was and everything. Anyway, Uh, six years ago,
Speaker 1: we were invited out to a private ranch in Montana
Speaker 1: and this and our host had invited about twenty UM
Speaker 1: journalists and writers. And he offered to give me a
Speaker 1: ride back to the airport. So we were in his
Speaker 1: car for about two and a half hours, just the
Speaker 1: two of us. He's driving along and he says to me,
Speaker 1: I didn't know him that well. Uh you know, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm never he was going to a horrible divorce, I
Speaker 1: mean really really bad. And he said, I'm never going
Speaker 1: out with another woman. Never. Never, as long as I live,
Speaker 1: I'm never ever going out with another woman. And I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, you know, I'm the only one in
Speaker 1: the car. I think he's trying to tell me something.
Speaker 1: So so I said, well far out. You know, those
Speaker 1: other boys in the in the world for god sexy.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so we started to go out every six
Speaker 1: weeks or so with a group of people and at
Speaker 1: the end he'd give me a nice hug. And I
Speaker 1: always liked them, but I never going to put the
Speaker 1: moves on them. So anyway, finally we were I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys are from New York, but bottom
Speaker 1: line is it was in May and we were a
Speaker 1: week a year later and we were going to have
Speaker 1: an early dinner, walk the high Line and then go
Speaker 1: play pool. So I don't know what got into me,
Speaker 1: but I pulled my cocktail napkin out from underneath my drink,
Speaker 1: and I said, why don't we secretly right down, um
Speaker 1: what we would like to win if we win at pool?
Speaker 1: So I wrote on my a real kiss. And I'm
Speaker 1: sick of the hut. I didn't know. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I anybody had written down. So anyway, um, we
Speaker 1: go play pool. He kills me at pool. I had
Speaker 1: play pool ten times in my life. He grew up
Speaker 1: at the pool table in his basement. So I opened
Speaker 1: his little napkin and it says sex and clarity to
Speaker 1: the point. So I said, I got you. I got you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I figured out what you mean by the sex, But
Speaker 1: what do you have in mind for clarity? And he
Speaker 1: wanted to be friends with benefits, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: make it very clear, and I said that would be fine.
Speaker 1: But I said to him, we walked up town and
Speaker 1: we weren't going to do anything that night. I would
Speaker 1: say three am. But then and I said, I said,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I studied love, and uh, I said,
Speaker 1: I just would like to ask you one question. You know,
Speaker 1: when you have sex with somebody, it can triggered the
Speaker 1: brain circuitry for romantic love. Any stimulation of the genitals
Speaker 1: can drive up the dopeming system and trigger feelings of
Speaker 1: romantic love. And with orgasm there's a real flood of
Speaker 1: oxytocin link with attachment. There's a possibility that you would
Speaker 1: fall in love. Are you willing to take that chance?
Speaker 1: And he said, yes, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: all is the right response to that. That's like the
Speaker 1: most like analytical. I think that's really adorable. It's so
Speaker 1: it's not falling in love with you. That's that's the
Speaker 1: that's the adorable part. I mean, listen, listen, I get it,
Speaker 1: and I agree with you. It's a beautiful story. But
Speaker 1: it's so funny that we've all had that same conversation,
Speaker 1: probably multiple times with multiple different people, but we never
Speaker 1: put it so eloquently as saying exactly what Dr Helen said.
Speaker 1: We all try to say it, we all all try
Speaker 1: to say multiple times, but we don't put it that eloquently.
Speaker 1: We don't. We're not that clear, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dean. There's another part of the story. You know.
Speaker 1: You asked what have I learned? And I there was
Speaker 1: something very very valuable with him. You know, he really
Speaker 1: was going through a terrible divorce. I mean, I won't
Speaker 1: go to the details, but anybody would agree that this
Speaker 1: was an otter nightmare. And um uh. And after about
Speaker 1: three months of starting our friends with benefits, it was
Speaker 1: about Thanksgiving time and he said to me, said, you know, Helen,
Speaker 1: I am just overwhelmed with it, all of my issues here.
Speaker 1: I just have to stop this relationship. I wasn't mad
Speaker 1: at him. I've never been mad at him, because he
Speaker 1: was clear and he was honest. And he said I said, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I get it. And it was in Grand
Speaker 1: Central Station. He says this over a drink. I walk
Speaker 1: home in tears. Of course, I never called him again,
Speaker 1: I never wrote him again, I never badgered him to
Speaker 1: change his mind. I never showed him that I was suffering. Never.
Speaker 1: And about six weeks later he writes me, and he says,
Speaker 1: I think I made a terrible mistake. And what he
Speaker 1: had learned was that here is the woman who he
Speaker 1: could get rid of. It's very important to hold somebody
Speaker 1: with an open hand so that they know they want
Speaker 1: to be there. And I think I would have done
Speaker 1: that even without knowing what I know about love. But
Speaker 1: I certainly have learned it. And I mean and and
Speaker 1: it was a success. And so the bottom line is
Speaker 1: that people don't want drama. They want to know that
Speaker 1: they're there because they want to be there. And um,
Speaker 1: and he learned that, you know if you and I
Speaker 1: even said to him, you know, after we got married,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm never going to divorce you, but if
Speaker 1: things go bad, I'm just gonna move out and change
Speaker 1: my will, you know, I mean, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we oddly enough play this one day at a time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in it for the life. I'm in
Speaker 1: it for life. He's in it for life. It's not
Speaker 1: a problem, and we will not have a problem. We
Speaker 1: see the world the same way. But the bottom line
Speaker 1: is I like this concept of of doing it one
Speaker 1: day at a time on some psychological level, so you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, uh, And also we are l
Speaker 1: A T. I said, I said, I'd love to marry him,
Speaker 1: that's for sure, but I'm not moving in and uh, um,
Speaker 1: so we'd keep our own apartments. He lives in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: I live in Manhattan. What does l a T stand for?
Speaker 1: Living apart together? And so there last night. Uh, I'll
Speaker 1: go back on Friday night and we're gonna go away
Speaker 1: for the week all next week. That's great. Um, So
Speaker 1: there's a long periods of time that I stay with him.
Speaker 1: But he likes his evenings of eating pizza and and
Speaker 1: reading all night. And I like my evenings of going
Speaker 1: out with girlfriends into the theater and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And you know, we weren't built for two seven. I mean,
Speaker 1: as an anthropologist, our ancestors were always what they call
Speaker 1: it fish and fusion. I mean men would go hunting
Speaker 1: for several days and women would go gathering and go
Speaker 1: see friends of relatives for two weeks. I mean they
Speaker 1: came and went, which you can do if you trust somebody,
Speaker 1: and and we do. So we're l a t Look,
Speaker 1: that's one of the beauties of today. You know, we
Speaker 1: can build the kind of partnerships that we that we
Speaker 1: really want to have. It's not a cookie cutter thing.
Speaker 1: I remember that. You know, Jared was saying, well, in
Speaker 1: the past, you know, um, you know, you really had
Speaker 1: to really a hundred years ago, you had to marry
Speaker 1: the right girl or boy from the right ethnic background,
Speaker 1: from the right social background, with the right amount of money,
Speaker 1: with the white religion, and hopefully from the farm next door.
Speaker 1: They really had some very rigid criteria of who you
Speaker 1: could with. These days, that's all off the table. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we can now pick somebody for whatever reasons
Speaker 1: that appeal to us. What we're really looking for in
Speaker 1: my studies with match is for companionship. What singles want
Speaker 1: today of all ages is a companion. Doctor. What I
Speaker 1: what I find so so interesting as well, but not surprising.
Speaker 1: The slightest is that earlier in this conversation as well,
Speaker 1: you mentioned how important education, intelligence, but most importantly communication is.
Speaker 1: And I've noticed the thing that you continue to touch
Speaker 1: on about your partner now is how communicative and honest
Speaker 1: he is with you and you are with him. And
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think that communication and honest
Speaker 1: you are the two most important pillars, uh for anything,
Speaker 1: because it's like, okay, cool, do I waste my time
Speaker 1: with this person so I continue carrying on? If I
Speaker 1: carry on, are they gonna be honest with me about
Speaker 1: the things that I don't like? The things I do like?
Speaker 1: All these types of things, And then you can obviously
Speaker 1: make your own decisions. There's no guessing, there's no trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what they're thinking or what they're doing,
Speaker 1: all those types of things, and that definitely seems to
Speaker 1: be the thing that makes things work the best. But
Speaker 1: Dr Helen, we appreciate you joining us. Um. We hope
Speaker 1: to have you again soon. We hope to hear from
Speaker 1: you again soon. In best of luck with everything okay,
Speaker 1: and thanks Dr, thank you so much. A lot is up,
Speaker 1: sucky dators. Welcome back to our favorite segment. It is
Speaker 1: the email segment. Before we get into it, do not
Speaker 1: forget to email us. I suck at dating at i
Speaker 1: heeart media dot com. It's our favorite segment. It literally
Speaker 1: is the only reason I signed into this podcast every
Speaker 1: single week just three you know, I could care less
Speaker 1: about Jerry's true and it's it's in his I could
Speaker 1: care less about anyone else. All I care about is
Speaker 1: the email, So keep emailing us. I Suckle dating at
Speaker 1: i heeart media dot com. We have Easton on the
Speaker 1: other side of the wine, who is very gracious. You're
Speaker 1: gonna read this email for us, so let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the invite, Dean, I appreciated. This email
Speaker 1: is from Grace. I am newly married and my husband
Speaker 1: and his family are still not over the fact that
Speaker 1: I don't want to take his last name. Every time
Speaker 1: I go over to my in laws, they bring up
Speaker 1: the fact that I don't have their last name, and
Speaker 1: that gets my husband fired up. I lost my dad
Speaker 1: as a teenager, and I built a career with my
Speaker 1: maiden name. How do I have this conversation with them
Speaker 1: without hurting their feelings or insulting them. Well, Dean's phone died,
Speaker 1: so I'll answer this email. Um, I think listen, Chris,
Speaker 1: don't feel pressured into taking your husband's name. It's if
Speaker 1: you want to keep your maiden name, keep your maiden name,
Speaker 1: or not even made a name, keep your name. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, I know it's very traditional. Some people feel
Speaker 1: compelled that they have to change their last name to
Speaker 1: their husband's last name. Who cares keep your last name?
Speaker 1: Like you said, you've built a career on it. Uh,
Speaker 1: your your father. Uh, you lost your father at a
Speaker 1: young age. You want to keep his name? Keep it? Uh,
Speaker 1: don't feel pressured. Okay, that would be my advice. Don't
Speaker 1: let somebody pressure you into it. And if they are
Speaker 1: pressuring you, I think that's wrong on their part, especially
Speaker 1: thinking about the circumstances that you're going through. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: your name. Uh, you are an independent person. Uh. While
Speaker 1: you're in a marriage, you are very much allowed to
Speaker 1: keep your last name. So I would just stick to
Speaker 1: your guns and tell them exactly how you feel and
Speaker 1: be honest with them. You're not insulting anybody, uh, and
Speaker 1: hopefully you won't hurt their feelings. Um. And I just
Speaker 1: feel like their feeling shouldn't be hurt. I just feel
Speaker 1: like they should understand. Yeah. I think a name, uh
Speaker 1: is the name is most important to who holds that name,
Speaker 1: and that is you, Greace. So what of her name
Speaker 1: you want? I mean, frankly, when when I got married,
Speaker 1: I told my wife, I was like, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't care if you take my name or not at
Speaker 1: the very least, it's a ton of paperwork and it's
Speaker 1: a lot of time and effort. Like, Man, if you
Speaker 1: don't want to do that, I understand, I don't care. Um.
Speaker 1: But but she did it because she know I'm just kidding. Uh,
Speaker 1: but she she she did take my name, that that
Speaker 1: was important to her. Um. But at the very least,
Speaker 1: it's so much work to change your name. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand if you don't want to do it. For anyway,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of homework. Yeah, so tell him, tell
Speaker 1: him to tell him to shove it. They can keep
Speaker 1: their name. Yeah, I told, I told Ashley I'd like
Speaker 1: for her to take my name, but it certainly was
Speaker 1: not a requirement if she wanted to keep her name,
Speaker 1: keep your name, because especially I can understand where Grace
Speaker 1: is coming from about losing her father at a young
Speaker 1: and she wants to keep her name because actually Ashley's
Speaker 1: dad had two girls, so his iconected name is not
Speaker 1: gonna last because there's no one to pass it on. Um. So,
Speaker 1: but actually wanted to take my name. I think she's
Speaker 1: hyphen ating, but it's her name. She can do whatever
Speaker 1: she wants with it. I have no say in the matter.
Speaker 1: Uh and that's the bottom line, Okay, because stone cold
Speaker 1: Steve Austin said, so ere we go. We're just talking
Speaker 1: about fantasy football and w w E on this podcast.
Speaker 1: Really just you know, honing into our target audience. So
Speaker 1: now that Deans has gone on, behalf of Dean Anglert.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning into this podcast, everybody,
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. A big thank you to Dr
Speaker 1: Helen Fisher. Please go to Helen Fisher dot com. She's
Speaker 1: written a vast amount of books on love, relationships, sex, uh, dating,
Speaker 1: slow love, lust, so go check her out. Um, big
Speaker 1: thank you to everybody listening, everybody emailing in grace. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for emailing us. Please keep your emails coming.
Speaker 1: Like Dean said, it truly is our favorite part of
Speaker 1: the podcast. We love you guys because without your podcast,
Speaker 1: without you listening to this podcast, there is no podcast. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you guys truly make this uh this engine go. Uh.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everybody who follows us on social media again,
Speaker 1: Shamus plug go check us out. Help I suck at dating.
Speaker 1: I posted a video the other day and it's probably
Speaker 1: my favorite video in the history of filmmaking. So go
Speaker 1: check that out. Where in the world is Dean Unclert
Speaker 1: is the title of it um. Thank you to Easton,
Speaker 1: Thank you to everybody who makes this podcast. Go uh.
Speaker 1: And Dean Unglert may or may not be back next week.
Speaker 1: I think he will be as long as he has
Speaker 1: more than one percent on his phone. So make sure
Speaker 1: you tune in where hopefully we all suck just a
Speaker 1: little bit less. Follow help by Suck at Dating on
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to podcast