The great animal debate continues. The online dating stats say that men who have cats in their profiles get fewer messages, but men who have dogs get more. Then there are the people who say men ARE dogs. But I wouldn’t insult dogs like that… heyooo! Just poking fun, we love men and dogs. But most of all, we love looking at what humans and animals can learn from one another.
If you and me ain’t nothin but mammals, is there anything we could learn about love from looking at other animals?
That is precisely the question at the core of the new Discovery+ series, Love in the Jungle. Today Animal behavior specialist and show consultant, Dr. Jennifer Verdolin, will school us on love lessons from the animal kingdom. She’ll tell us why we should trade romantic images of swans for vultures, the real reason that red works in your dating profiles, and so much more.
DATING DISH (2:42)
What to do if a “nice-guy” turns out to be not so nice:
If you think you know what a nice guy is, Reddit has got another thing coming for ya. According to this Newsweek article and Reddit forums, “nice guy” is now a phrase referring to a man who believes acting nice or moral entitles him to sex, romance and affection. This is not a new phenomenon, especially because the article notes how the anonymity of social media allows feelings of rage to come to the surface and be expressed more easily.
You may actually recognize the usual pattern of a Nice Guy, which is as follows: When you first start talking, they’re perfectly nice and give you lots of compliments. Soon after, they make an advance. If or when you decline, they immediately turn on you. They begin name calling, acting dismissive, and saying things like “I didn’t think that you were pretty anyway.”
So here are the clear traits you can look out for in a potential “nice guy.”
- When you meet them, they may act in passive aggressive ways.
- In person, they may be much more withdrawn or express their frustration in a different way.
- They don’t really have emotional intelligence, the ability to express or manage their emotions in an effective manner.
- They don’t accept help or support, or even want to address their emotional challenges.
- They use love bombing to disarm their targets.
- Big changes in emotion, like quickly becoming angry or insulting.
If you end up finding a “nice guy” out in the wild, what should you do? According to this article, they are probably not in the position to really think about their behavior reasonably, so stay polite as you exit. If you become rude with them, they’ll see that they’ve gained emotional control over you, and it may just make them even worse. Also, don’t try to educate them. And most importantly, don’t be afraid to block and report this person for abusive behavior. Damona notes that all dating and social media apps take online abuse very seriously, particularly if people are violating the terms of the app. So don’t be afraid to let the app know that we don’t accept “nice guy” behavior.
Damona takes a moment to talk to the ACTUAL nice guys, and talk about a strategy she developed called the Nice Guy Nine. Since the nice guy is often overlooked (and because she ended up marrying her own nice guy), Damona ended up creating techniques to help these men attract the women they want.
Below are some of the tips from the Nice Guy Nine.
- Get her talking about the things that she loves when you are on your date – maybe her dog or a favorite activity. Talking about these things will bring up positive feelings, she will then associate those positive feelings with you.
- Give her unique compliments. If it’s obvious that she’s gorgeous, she probably has guys complimenting her looks all the time. Go a level deeper. Can you give her a compliment on something that she’s wearing? Or do you notice something unusual about her? Maybe she’s reading a particular book you can comment on? Also, consider complimenting her on a quality that reveals something about what you’re looking for.
- You want good eye contact, but not creepy eye contact. So it’s not staring, but it’s glancing and looking away. A lot of times, actual nice guys tend to avoid eye contact because it feels awkward. But try holding the gaze a little bit longer than you think is comfortable. Usually it’s at that point that the eye contact becomes intriguing.
- Just tell her you like her. We’re all playing it so cool that nobody’s really saying what they want.
- All in all, be open hearted and you’ll be amazed at what meets you back.
Are you an actual nice guy who needs a little help getting any matches? Damona’s FREE Profile Starter Kit will help you completely revolutionize your online dating experience, switch up your profile, and magnetize the dates to you. It’s not going to be free forever, so download yours HERE!
JENNIFER VERDOLIN (13:15)
Dr. Jennifer Verdolin is an internationally known animal behavior scientist, podcast host, and author of “Wild Connection: What animal courtship and mating tells us about human relationships”.
She is also an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona
(14:01) Dr. Verdolin’s background:
How does one find a career at the intersection of animal behavioralist and dating show consultant? Dr. Verdolin states that she’s always been able to see the parallels between humans and other species (whether it be a dragonfly or a cardinal). “I study wild animals and all the things that go into their social lives and their love lives… And then there was my own dating life. And I found myself, after I got my PhD and I was single again, going, ‘Okay, why is it that a chicken can make a better choice in a partner than I can?’” So Dr. Verdolin set out on a mission to date like other species, using some of their principles to guide her to a mate, rather than being guided by romantic comedies.
(16:20) Love in the Jungle:
Damona calls Dr. Verdolin’s new Discovery+ show, Love in the Jungle, a mix between Survivor, F**kboy Island and Married at First Sight. Basically, 14 unlucky-in-love singles are thrown into the jungle to mix & mingle and compete in challenges reminiscent of different mating rituals – all while being unable to speak. “We use words so much. We manipulate each other with words and we present an image to each other with our words. And sometimes, you know, we don’t pay attention to other things, because we’re so caught up in the wonderful words. So by taking that away, you’re left with observing how somebody interacts with others. You are left with noticing their body language, you’re left with how creative they can be with what they’re trying to communicate to you. They have to find other ways to show you.”
Dr. Verdolin describes that one of the things that surprised her the most while filming was how much the contestants embraced the philosophy of the show. She addresses one of the challenges on the show, where the women had to cover themselves with pink feathers and dance like a flamingo. “You know, you’re doing [these challenges] in front of potential mates, which is not something we typically have to do. We always make ourselves very comfortable, we dress the way we feel the best, we go places that we feel comfortable with, to activities that we’re confident in. And it’s really unsettling to be vulnerable in that way, super vulnerable.”
(20:08) Define ‘high-quality’:
A time-old concept that has pervaded both our culture and the animal kingdom, is the idea of the Alpha Male. Damona inquires if the Alpha Male mentality is one that we should be looking for or even need anymore?
Take the aforementioned bird, the Cardinal. If you are a male Cardinal, you are judged by female Cardinals on how red you are (and unfortunately, there isn’t a red spray tan salon for cardinals). “But here’s the thing, why do female Cardinals care so much about how red the males are? Well, because they become red through their diet. And so that red is a signal of, ‘I’m a good male. I can find food, I’m going to be a good father, I can provide while you are in the nest.’”
This is what Dr. Verdolin refers to as an honest signal, referring to a visual trait that is hard to cheat. And those honest signals don’t have to be about strength or size. They can be intelligence, they can be sociability, they can be all kinds of traits.
Honest signals work into the the Alpha male/female dynamic, in that they inspire competition. “What we see in humans and other species is intense male-male competition, intense female-female competition, right? Or however you want to mix it up, it doesn’t really matter. There’s always going to be competition for high quality mates, depending on whatever we decide is high quality.”
(20:48) Seeing red:
One of Damona’s classic pieces of advice (that you may have caught on the show before) is to include the color red in your dating profile pictures, since it inspires such a strong biological and emotional connection.
Dr. Verdolin brings up the power of red in an example involving Zebra Finch. For a long time, people who studied birds put different colored bands on their legs to be able to tell them apart. Turns out in this instance, males that got red bands were apparently seen as super sexy to the females. (Female Zebra finches tend to love novel traits). So for some reason, the males that got green bands lost fights with males that had red bands, and females didn’t like them as much.
“We are attuned to different factors, and the thing that I like to bring people’s attention to… is to notice this, pay attention to this. Because you might be drawn to somebody based on that [unique or specific quality]. But that doesn’t make that individual the right partner for you.”
(26:36) Love at first smell:
Let’s talk about the pheromone in the room… how much does smell really play into human attraction, according to Dr. Verdolin? Plainly, she says a huge amount. “I think that we do a disservice to each other by covering our smell… There was actually an experiment done, I don’t remember where it was. But it was basically a speed dating experiment using armpit swabs. You basically went around sniffing jars, and you wrote down what jar or jars you were strongly attracted to. And then if there was a match, you got time with that individual.”
Mate-wise, we get a lot of the information about potential partners from smell. Particularly through something called MHC genes, or major histocompatibility genes, which are our immune function genes. Dr. Verdolin adds, “We are most attracted to individuals that are opposite to us. And why would we be most interested in individuals that have sort of an opposite set of genes? Well, you combine two different sets of immune genes, and you have babies that really have the best of both of their parents when it comes to immune genes.” (AKA, genetic diversity.)
Dr. Verdolin also drops the fact that when women are on birth control, the medication changes their smell preferences. They tend to end up feeling attracted to individuals that are MOST similar to their MHC genes, which can sometimes become a problem when they get off birth control, because they may not be able to stand the smell of their partner.
But with all these natural pheromones floating around, does using scented deodorant or perfume mess up our scent-ses? (See what I did there?) Dr. Versolin thinks so. “Of course, one should have good hygiene. We’re not talking about not bathing for a week so that you’re ripe by the time you go on your date. That’s not what we’re talking about… I feel like there was this push to have us be embarrassed about our smells. And you know, I say bring it back! But again, this is just a piece of information on your genetic compatibility, your sexual compatibility, your kind of attraction compatibility. And that can be great for one night or for, you know, 50 years.”
(34:19) Monogamy or nah:
Similarly to other species, Dr. Verdolin states that we can also be attracted to multiple people at once. Which begs the biological question, are we meant to be monogamous? Dr. Verdolin has seen that in any species, there is variation among the individuals (for example, there are currently over 50 human societies where women have two husbands).
Dr. Verdolin brings up the Bewick’s Swan. “You have some infidelity in some partners, right? So some partners are super faithful, and other partners are not so much. And even like one-sixth, or one-third of the little cygnets, which is what baby swans are called, are not related to the male. It’s the females that usually step out! And so we call that socially monogamous, but not genetically monogamous.” (Hot tip: this Valentine’s Day, try giving your partner a card with Black Vultures on it, who Dr. V says are SUPER monogamous.)
And then there’s the Prairie Dogs, where females mate with on average two plus males. “I study prairie dogs and, you know, I’d see them traipsing all over the place. And I’m like, oh, it was thought it was the males that were doing all of the philandering. And it turned out it was the females that were going out and visiting other males.”
We tend to have these stories about what our relationships are supposed to look like, and that they’re supposed to look that way for everybody. But we’ve changed so much culturally in the past decade and at a really rapid pace. And some people just aren’t as monogamous as other people. Dr. Verdolin’s hot take is that “the problem comes in when we don’t have a society that permits people to say, ‘You know what, I struggle with monogamy.”
(43:53) Tap into your animal intuition:
Intuition plays such a big role in how we suss out people in our own dating lives, so Damona asks Dr. V how intuition shows up for different species. Like, do they have a special spidey sense (maybe literally) for picking up red flags?
Dr. Verdolin returns back to the Cardinal to answer D’s question. “Remember when we started out with the cardinal, right? There’s no female that’s like, ‘Okay, I mean, he has potential to be better. I think if I just work with him, and I show him where the berries are, you know, he’ll become more motivated. He will be more of an ambitious Cardinal.’ We know in our gut, when we have that feeling, we know what feels good and we know what feels bad.”
“But we also have sort of been told that relationships are hard work, right? That everything is hard. And we also have storylines that tell us we will get this wonderful feeling when we first meet somebody, but then they don’t treat us as well as they should. And then we go through all this pain, we break up and then they come back and they’ve had an epiphany about us and they’ve come back to be with us.”
Unlike other species, Dr. V believes that all of this mixed messaging has messed with the way we listen to our intuition… For most species, not listening to their intuition will always have more immediate consequences than when humans ignore their intuition. So let’s take a lesson from Dr. V and the Cardinals and trust our gut more. Because in the end, we lose less time on situations that aren’t right for us, and we will therefore be able to stay positive.
Be sure to follow Dr. Jen on Instagram and Twitter @RealDrJen.
And check out her website for links to her podcast, Wild Connection, and her book, “Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Tells Us about Human Relationships.” Check out JenniferVerdolin.com.
DEAR DAMONA (54:06)
Submit your questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:
- IG Message from Wanda – Hi Damona! I love your podcast and all of your fantastic advice. I DM’ed you a couple of weeks ago about not knowing where to start in the world of online dating, after the end of my 25 year marriage and 9 year permanent separation. Your suggestion was to start out with writing a profile which I did, then I took it one step further and signed up for OK Cupid and Silver Singles since I’m in my 50s. After I downloaded some recent photos and created my profile, my inbox became flooded with messages from local men (and a couple were even patients from the hospital I work at). Well let’s just say the apps became quite overwhelming! I think because I work as a Nurse Manager in the ER at the only hospital in this city, I may have to figure out how to go on dating sites more incognito. I’d appreciate any advice on navigating this, thank you Damona!
DAMONA’S DEALS
Date Lab: The Playlist Didn’t Match the Vibe
“After gaining a bit of liquid courage from a White Claw, Conner House, 29, walked over to San Lorenzo Italian restaurant on Ninth Street NW and looked around for his date, Diego Sanchez, 24. His first impression was that Diego looked cute. Conner also picked up on an accent and was intrigued. He complimented Diego’s classic white Reeboks, and they went off to take pictures.
Diego, who works in technology sales, admits he is not camera shy, so he was happy to take photos, even though it was awkward to pose with a stranger. At least in Diego’s description, this stranger was ‘well dressed,’ which he values in a match.”
How did the rest of the night go? Click here to find out!
Married at First Sight & Can Cheaters Change
Welcome to another episode in the Dates & Mates Summer Encore Series!
In case you missed it, we are opening up the vault on some of Damona’s favorite past episodes of Dates & Mates. These are conversations that were previously only available to VIPs and select clients… but they were just TOO HOT to stay hidden away this summer.
This is a particularly special episode as you’ll be hearing from the show’s former co-host Ray Christian, who offered a male perspective on dating for 2 amazing years of Dates & Mates, in addition to today’s guest.
Being in a long term relationship, we see our partners and ourselves grow and change, our needs and goals shift, and the dynamics of our bonds evolve. It’s a good thing! It’s part of the process, but it can be tricky. That’s why Dr. Pepper Schwartz is joining us today, the only expert to appear on all 15 seasons of Married at First Sight. She will be explaining the importance of the “relationship check-in”’ and outlining key topics to cover in that conversation.
PEPPER SCHWARTZ (1:45)
Dr. Pepper Schwartz is an esteemed researcher and author of over 25 books. Two of those books, American Couples and The Normal Bar: The Surprising Secrets of Happy Couples, have been on the NYT’s bestseller list and on a little show called Oprah.
She is currently teaching at the University of Washington in Seattle. And, she is AARP’s first Love & Relationship and Ambassador. And lastly, she is one of the stars of the hit TV series Married at First Sight.
(2:51) The importance of the “relationship check-in.”
What are the benchmarks that we should look for to know that our relationship is on the right track? And what things should we be doing to make sure we keep things in our relationship spicy (or “peppery” in this case)?
Dr. Pepper Schwartz weighs in, with a surprising stat about holding hands.
(9:00) Lubricants, moisturizers, and toys – oh my!
Damona asks Dr. Schwartz for advice on pain during sex. If you’re experiencing sharp pains during intimacy, then definitely hit up your doctor. But if what you’re feeling is a milder discomfort, Dr. Schwartz says this is nothing a little lubricant or moisturizer can’t fix. Plus, she shares the crucial difference between lube and moisturizer.
As for the guys, Dr. Schwartz shares some words of wisdom for how to work with sex toys in the bedroom (hint: a toy isn’t your competition, it’s your colleague).
(12:30) Intimacy in your 20s vs 30’s.
Dr. Schwartz has learned a lot about couples through her 15 years on Married At First Sight, some of it good and some cautionary. The good? That you can never assume how mature someone is by how old they are. And the cautionary? Dr. Schwartz notes the times she’s been shocked at the kinds of things people will say to each other when in conflict.
(16:14) Can sexual chemistry be built?
Damona’s co-host Ray asks a question for the ages – is there really no hope for someone if y’all don’t vibe in the bedroom? Dr. Schwartz says that building sexual chemistry with someone can be difficult, but not impossible.
For some people, having a restricted sexual vocabulary (i.e. how we think intimacy is supposed to happen, what we’re open to, our sexual triggers) can keep you from being able to adjust to your partners. But stay open to how that person makes you feel emotionally, and it just might enhance your chemistry in the bedroom.
You can find more hot takes from Dr. Pepper Schwartz at her website https://pepperschwartz.com/ and on Lifetime’s Married At First Sight.
DEAR DAMONA (19:10)
Submit your Dear Damona questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear your answers in a future episode of the show!
Master Class: First Dates
If you’ve been a long-time listener of Dates & Mates, then ya’ll know how many topics Damona has covered over the past 400 episodes. But if you only see 100 episodes available right now, you’re not having a heat stroke. The remaining episodes have been locked away for VIPs and clients only… until today.
For the next month and a half, we’ll be reaching into the vault and shelling out the very best for you, in our Summer Encore Series! You’ll be hearing a mix of mini master classes and interviews that are making their comeback on Dates & Mates.
As for today’s episode… Getting through the matching process and screening process seems tough, but a lot of people worry most about the preparation process. So we’re kicking this series off with a masterclass on first dates.
Keep in mind that Covid is still a thing, so please take that into consideration when listening to this episode’s suggestions.
P.S. If you need more insights on dating safely in pandemic times, you can refer back to Damona’s recent Dating Health Update with Dr. James after listening to this episode.
FIRST DATES MASTERCLASS (2:46)
In this masterclass, Damona will cover topics like:
Submit your Dear Damona questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear your answers in a future episode of the show!
DAMONA’S DEALS
Love on the Spectrum & Singles Parties
While we are each unique in our biology and our upbringing, there is typically one thing we all seek, one of our basic needs… love. The thing is, there is no “general education” when it comes to dating and relationships. Sure, most of us get the sex talk. But what about the empathy or communication talk?
That’s why we’ve got Jennifer Cook, the expert of Damona’s favorite Netflix show, “Love on the Spectrum,” joining us today. She will be shedding light on the not-so-obvious social rules of dating. She’ll also be sharing what it’s like dating with autism or dating someone who is on the spectrum.
DATING DISH (1:36)
The rise of singles parties – is this the new way to find love?:
According to Yahoo News, there is a major vibe shift happening in favor of singles parties. New research from the global dating app Inner Circle shows that pre-lockdown, three quarters of singles wanted to meet people in real life. But that definitely didn’t include singles parties, since 4/10 refused to attend one. But now, 87% of singles think it’s more socially acceptable to meet someone at a singles party than it was before the pandemic.
Of the singles that Inner Circle surveyed, people have become more open to the idea of singles parties either because it’s a fun night out, because they know everyone there is looking for a match, or because they believe it’s the closest thing to meeting someone “in real life.” And not only are the attitudes towards these parties changing, the parties themselves have been leveling up – think outrageous quiz nights, burlesque shows, museum tours, night cycling, and more.
So here are the article’s tips on how to set yourself up for singles-party success, plus Damona’s personal take:
If you want more dating help from me, my Free Profile Starter Kit will help you refresh your dating profile and get on your way to more dates. It’s not going to be free forever, so download yours HERE!
JENNIFER COOK (9:22)
Jennifer Cook is an autism advocate, speaker, author and the on-camera Autism Expert in Netflix’s internationally-celebrated series, “Love on the Spectrum – US.”
She is the author of 9 bestselling books including Autism in Heels and the creator of Belong, where people can gain community and learn more of Jennifer’s expertise. Her personal story has been featured in The New York Post, The Guardian, BBC World Service, NPR.
(10:02) The rules you should just know:
As dating coaches, both Jennifer and Damona know the ways in which we can all feel bewildered by dating etiquette and the rules it seems we should all just know. From this expectation, we tend to make a ton of assumptions about the rules that we commit to and operate from. Being a dating specialist for individuals on the spectrum, Jennifer knows that this challenge is one that lies on a human spectrum. “One of the things I’ll say frequently is that nothing that I teach, nothing that I suggest, nothing that I talk about, is exclusive to people who are on the autism spectrum. Because life with autism is just life with the volume turned up in some ways, but it’s just life.”
Jennifer continues that “that which is intuited by neurotypical people isn’t often by neurodivergent people. And so there has to be a lot more intellectualizing, a lot more explicit teaching, that goes into just ordinary social situations.”
(13:01) A mid-life diagnosis:
Part of what is unique about Jennifer’s career in helping people navigate living with autism, is that Jennifer herself didn’t receive a diagnosis until much later in life… at 35 years old, to be exact. “You know, I was really just told my whole life that I was too smart for my own good, which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me. Some people with autism struggle very much with language… I mean, I make my living with words writing and speaking. So when that’s your area of savant then it’s often unrecognized, especially among girls and women.”
After being told that she is on the spectrum, Jennifer was able to recognize all the instances in her childhood and young adulthood in which the diagnosis totally made sense (like always feeling more comfortable around adults and always wanting to be teacher’s pet).
Jennifer had kind of remained a social dud, up until one fateful school musical. Her high school drama department was doing a production of the musical Damn Yankees, and Jennifer had been cast as the fiery Gwen Verdon role, Lola. At one point, Lola has a big number titled “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets” complete with a full-on strip-tease. “Well, at 15, I was doing a striptease on stage for three nights in a row. And that will change your social life overnight… Then I was really thrust into a situation where suddenly I was ‘socially successful.’ But I was having to mimic and copy.”
Jennifer’s newfound popularity and mastery of mimicking social cues literally got her the nickname Flirt. But she warns that being really good at copying social cues can get you into a lot of trouble if you don’t understand the intentions behind them. “If you’re not really sure what signals you’re sending out… you learn to be so good at something that you don’t understand the power of, and flirting is powerful stuff… And so, you know, it’s, it’s something that I’ve learned to teach with a whole lot of care.”
(16:55) A conversation is a game of catch:
In one coaching session on Love on the Spectrum US, Jennifer was teaching charming and princess-obsessed Abby the social cues for having a conversation. Plain and simple. In this exercise, Jennifer decided to use ping pong balls as a physical representation of how a conversation should feel, rolling the balls back and forth with ease and equal participation. Jennifer also used the balls to show Abby what it’s like to only ask questions or only be the receiver of questions, rolling multiple balls her way without a moment to recuperate.
“A lot of times I say, for folks on the spectrum, that our minds will be interchangeable from moment to moment, like fireflies. And in that case, Abby was very much in firefly mode… I knew that if she was going to be able to find a way to have any kind of conversation with anybody that wasn’t just one liners and like you said, like an interview, right? Then we were gonna have to ground her thinking in something concrete.”
Jennifer wants her clients to become comfortable with flexible communication – in her words, it’s like being either cooked spaghetti or uncooked spaghetti. Rigid thinking is like being uncooked spaghetti, but with a little warmth and time, you can get all flexible and then your thinking softens. Damona adds, “I hope for anyone listening, they really feel empowered that you don’t have to be like a victim in a conversation… you always have the ability to shift the topic or move with the conversation.” And that is flexible communication, my friends!
(24:08) Neurodivergent vs. neurotypical:
You may not know this, but Damona herself has a neurodiverse child! Specifically, with sensory processing disorder. Damona explains, “I’m still learning about what that means and how we make modifications. But sometimes the environment that [these people] find themselves in can impact their behavior. So if it’s too loud in a room, or if they’re wearing clothes that feel uncomfortable, they can’t really be themselves.”
Jennifer further defines “neurodivergent” as disorders like ADD, ADHD, nonverbal learning disorder, and more. Aka, all the D’s. And if you don’t fall under this umbrella of disorders (or differences, as Jennifer prefers), then you are most likely neurotypical.
Although sensory processing disorder is its own thing, Jennifer notes that sensory experiences are at the core of every human being’s basic experience. “If what our senses are telling us isn’t good, then nothing else – no higher order thinking experiences, no rational thinking, no logical thinking, no cooperative thinking, no learning, no emotional balance – can happen when your sensory systems are offline.”
Weirdly enough, you can calm your dating nerves in the same way you calm down sensory overload! Jennifer suggests drinking a very thick drink (like a milkshake or a smoothie) through a straw, because the sucking motion helps to stall your senses. Another one you may have heard of is chewing multiple pieces of gum or gum with a really strong flavor. This chewing motion then sends a signal to your brain which is read as a massage sensation, so your brain tells your body that it’s okay to calm down.
(28:51) Tone markers:
Damona asks for Jennifer’s thoughts on text conversations – with both tone and facial cues being absent from texting, does Jennifer have any advice on communicating better in the digital space?
Jennifer immediately brings up something called tone markers. These are basically abbreviations that can be sent along with your text to indicate your intentions. For instance, SRS tells the recipient that you’re being serious. Here is a larger list of tone markers and some info on why they’re important.
Additionally, Jennifer remarks that mind blindness is another obstacle in allowing people on the spectrum to understand social cues. “[Mind blindness is] an inability to naturally take somebody else’s perspective, right? We don’t naturally step into someone else’s shoes. That’s why a lot of times, especially for younger people [or those who] haven’t learned really good social skills growing up, why it can seem that somebody is not caring and not empathetic, which is like the biggest complete lie about people on the spectrum. We can be among the most caring, compassionate people you’re ever going to meet, to the point of emotional pain. But we have to be taught from situation to situation.”
(35:56) The most interesting thing you can be is interested:
So are there any other good communication practices that can keep us from making misguided assumptions (like around texting)? Neurodivergent or not, Jennifer believes one of the best things you can do in dating is to just be clear and honest. “If we are putting ourselves out there and somebody else is putting themselves out there, be present. Have the kindness and the decency really to be forthright about how you’re feeling.”
One communication technique that Jennifer often uses (and teaches in Love on the Spectrum) is to use the phrase “tell me more.” As mentioned in this episode’s Dating Dish, having your conversation icebreakers on hand is always a good idea and will save you in moments of panic. But if you feel like you’ve hit another roadblock in a conversation, you can always ask the other person to tell you more about something they’ve mentioned – what they do for work, how they got into their favorite hobby, and etc. Jennifer adds that “you don’t have to be feeding all the information. You can just be listening more. The most interesting thing you can be is interested.”
Be sure to check out “Love on the Spectrum – US” on Netflix. It is sincerely the feel-good show of the year.
And follow Jennifer on Instagram @jennifercook_author and check out her website www.jenniferotooleauthor.com.
DEAR DAMONA (40:43)
Submit your questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:
(TW: Relationship abuse)
**If you or someone you know is facing a domestic violence situation, or if you’ve seen any of the signs that Damona talked about on the show, please call the domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (1-800-799-SAFE). You can also text START to 88788.
DAMONA’S DEALS
Love In The Jungle & Dating Incognito
The great animal debate continues. The online dating stats say that men who have cats in their profiles get fewer messages, but men who have dogs get more. Then there are the people who say men ARE dogs. But I wouldn’t insult dogs like that… heyooo! Just poking fun, we love men and dogs. But most of all, we love looking at what humans and animals can learn from one another.
If you and me ain’t nothin but mammals, is there anything we could learn about love from looking at other animals?
That is precisely the question at the core of the new Discovery+ series, Love in the Jungle. Today Animal behavior specialist and show consultant, Dr. Jennifer Verdolin, will school us on love lessons from the animal kingdom. She’ll tell us why we should trade romantic images of swans for vultures, the real reason that red works in your dating profiles, and so much more.
DATING DISH (2:42)
What to do if a “nice-guy” turns out to be not so nice:
If you think you know what a nice guy is, Reddit has got another thing coming for ya. According to this Newsweek article and Reddit forums, “nice guy” is now a phrase referring to a man who believes acting nice or moral entitles him to sex, romance and affection. This is not a new phenomenon, especially because the article notes how the anonymity of social media allows feelings of rage to come to the surface and be expressed more easily.
You may actually recognize the usual pattern of a Nice Guy, which is as follows: When you first start talking, they’re perfectly nice and give you lots of compliments. Soon after, they make an advance. If or when you decline, they immediately turn on you. They begin name calling, acting dismissive, and saying things like “I didn’t think that you were pretty anyway.”
So here are the clear traits you can look out for in a potential “nice guy.”
If you end up finding a “nice guy” out in the wild, what should you do? According to this article, they are probably not in the position to really think about their behavior reasonably, so stay polite as you exit. If you become rude with them, they’ll see that they’ve gained emotional control over you, and it may just make them even worse. Also, don’t try to educate them. And most importantly, don’t be afraid to block and report this person for abusive behavior. Damona notes that all dating and social media apps take online abuse very seriously, particularly if people are violating the terms of the app. So don’t be afraid to let the app know that we don’t accept “nice guy” behavior.
Damona takes a moment to talk to the ACTUAL nice guys, and talk about a strategy she developed called the Nice Guy Nine. Since the nice guy is often overlooked (and because she ended up marrying her own nice guy), Damona ended up creating techniques to help these men attract the women they want.
Below are some of the tips from the Nice Guy Nine.
Are you an actual nice guy who needs a little help getting any matches? Damona’s FREE Profile Starter Kit will help you completely revolutionize your online dating experience, switch up your profile, and magnetize the dates to you. It’s not going to be free forever, so download yours HERE!
JENNIFER VERDOLIN (13:15)
Dr. Jennifer Verdolin is an internationally known animal behavior scientist, podcast host, and author of “Wild Connection: What animal courtship and mating tells us about human relationships”.
She is also an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona
(14:01) Dr. Verdolin’s background:
How does one find a career at the intersection of animal behavioralist and dating show consultant? Dr. Verdolin states that she’s always been able to see the parallels between humans and other species (whether it be a dragonfly or a cardinal). “I study wild animals and all the things that go into their social lives and their love lives… And then there was my own dating life. And I found myself, after I got my PhD and I was single again, going, ‘Okay, why is it that a chicken can make a better choice in a partner than I can?’” So Dr. Verdolin set out on a mission to date like other species, using some of their principles to guide her to a mate, rather than being guided by romantic comedies.
(16:20) Love in the Jungle:
Damona calls Dr. Verdolin’s new Discovery+ show, Love in the Jungle, a mix between Survivor, F**kboy Island and Married at First Sight. Basically, 14 unlucky-in-love singles are thrown into the jungle to mix & mingle and compete in challenges reminiscent of different mating rituals – all while being unable to speak. “We use words so much. We manipulate each other with words and we present an image to each other with our words. And sometimes, you know, we don’t pay attention to other things, because we’re so caught up in the wonderful words. So by taking that away, you’re left with observing how somebody interacts with others. You are left with noticing their body language, you’re left with how creative they can be with what they’re trying to communicate to you. They have to find other ways to show you.”
Dr. Verdolin describes that one of the things that surprised her the most while filming was how much the contestants embraced the philosophy of the show. She addresses one of the challenges on the show, where the women had to cover themselves with pink feathers and dance like a flamingo. “You know, you’re doing [these challenges] in front of potential mates, which is not something we typically have to do. We always make ourselves very comfortable, we dress the way we feel the best, we go places that we feel comfortable with, to activities that we’re confident in. And it’s really unsettling to be vulnerable in that way, super vulnerable.”
(20:08) Define ‘high-quality’:
A time-old concept that has pervaded both our culture and the animal kingdom, is the idea of the Alpha Male. Damona inquires if the Alpha Male mentality is one that we should be looking for or even need anymore?
Take the aforementioned bird, the Cardinal. If you are a male Cardinal, you are judged by female Cardinals on how red you are (and unfortunately, there isn’t a red spray tan salon for cardinals). “But here’s the thing, why do female Cardinals care so much about how red the males are? Well, because they become red through their diet. And so that red is a signal of, ‘I’m a good male. I can find food, I’m going to be a good father, I can provide while you are in the nest.’”
This is what Dr. Verdolin refers to as an honest signal, referring to a visual trait that is hard to cheat. And those honest signals don’t have to be about strength or size. They can be intelligence, they can be sociability, they can be all kinds of traits.
Honest signals work into the the Alpha male/female dynamic, in that they inspire competition. “What we see in humans and other species is intense male-male competition, intense female-female competition, right? Or however you want to mix it up, it doesn’t really matter. There’s always going to be competition for high quality mates, depending on whatever we decide is high quality.”
(20:48) Seeing red:
One of Damona’s classic pieces of advice (that you may have caught on the show before) is to include the color red in your dating profile pictures, since it inspires such a strong biological and emotional connection.
Dr. Verdolin brings up the power of red in an example involving Zebra Finch. For a long time, people who studied birds put different colored bands on their legs to be able to tell them apart. Turns out in this instance, males that got red bands were apparently seen as super sexy to the females. (Female Zebra finches tend to love novel traits). So for some reason, the males that got green bands lost fights with males that had red bands, and females didn’t like them as much.
“We are attuned to different factors, and the thing that I like to bring people’s attention to… is to notice this, pay attention to this. Because you might be drawn to somebody based on that [unique or specific quality]. But that doesn’t make that individual the right partner for you.”
(26:36) Love at first smell:
Let’s talk about the pheromone in the room… how much does smell really play into human attraction, according to Dr. Verdolin? Plainly, she says a huge amount. “I think that we do a disservice to each other by covering our smell… There was actually an experiment done, I don’t remember where it was. But it was basically a speed dating experiment using armpit swabs. You basically went around sniffing jars, and you wrote down what jar or jars you were strongly attracted to. And then if there was a match, you got time with that individual.”
Mate-wise, we get a lot of the information about potential partners from smell. Particularly through something called MHC genes, or major histocompatibility genes, which are our immune function genes. Dr. Verdolin adds, “We are most attracted to individuals that are opposite to us. And why would we be most interested in individuals that have sort of an opposite set of genes? Well, you combine two different sets of immune genes, and you have babies that really have the best of both of their parents when it comes to immune genes.” (AKA, genetic diversity.)
Dr. Verdolin also drops the fact that when women are on birth control, the medication changes their smell preferences. They tend to end up feeling attracted to individuals that are MOST similar to their MHC genes, which can sometimes become a problem when they get off birth control, because they may not be able to stand the smell of their partner.
But with all these natural pheromones floating around, does using scented deodorant or perfume mess up our scent-ses? (See what I did there?) Dr. Versolin thinks so. “Of course, one should have good hygiene. We’re not talking about not bathing for a week so that you’re ripe by the time you go on your date. That’s not what we’re talking about… I feel like there was this push to have us be embarrassed about our smells. And you know, I say bring it back! But again, this is just a piece of information on your genetic compatibility, your sexual compatibility, your kind of attraction compatibility. And that can be great for one night or for, you know, 50 years.”
(34:19) Monogamy or nah:
Similarly to other species, Dr. Verdolin states that we can also be attracted to multiple people at once. Which begs the biological question, are we meant to be monogamous? Dr. Verdolin has seen that in any species, there is variation among the individuals (for example, there are currently over 50 human societies where women have two husbands).
Dr. Verdolin brings up the Bewick’s Swan. “You have some infidelity in some partners, right? So some partners are super faithful, and other partners are not so much. And even like one-sixth, or one-third of the little cygnets, which is what baby swans are called, are not related to the male. It’s the females that usually step out! And so we call that socially monogamous, but not genetically monogamous.” (Hot tip: this Valentine’s Day, try giving your partner a card with Black Vultures on it, who Dr. V says are SUPER monogamous.)
And then there’s the Prairie Dogs, where females mate with on average two plus males. “I study prairie dogs and, you know, I’d see them traipsing all over the place. And I’m like, oh, it was thought it was the males that were doing all of the philandering. And it turned out it was the females that were going out and visiting other males.”
We tend to have these stories about what our relationships are supposed to look like, and that they’re supposed to look that way for everybody. But we’ve changed so much culturally in the past decade and at a really rapid pace. And some people just aren’t as monogamous as other people. Dr. Verdolin’s hot take is that “the problem comes in when we don’t have a society that permits people to say, ‘You know what, I struggle with monogamy.”
(43:53) Tap into your animal intuition:
Intuition plays such a big role in how we suss out people in our own dating lives, so Damona asks Dr. V how intuition shows up for different species. Like, do they have a special spidey sense (maybe literally) for picking up red flags?
Dr. Verdolin returns back to the Cardinal to answer D’s question. “Remember when we started out with the cardinal, right? There’s no female that’s like, ‘Okay, I mean, he has potential to be better. I think if I just work with him, and I show him where the berries are, you know, he’ll become more motivated. He will be more of an ambitious Cardinal.’ We know in our gut, when we have that feeling, we know what feels good and we know what feels bad.”
“But we also have sort of been told that relationships are hard work, right? That everything is hard. And we also have storylines that tell us we will get this wonderful feeling when we first meet somebody, but then they don’t treat us as well as they should. And then we go through all this pain, we break up and then they come back and they’ve had an epiphany about us and they’ve come back to be with us.”
Unlike other species, Dr. V believes that all of this mixed messaging has messed with the way we listen to our intuition… For most species, not listening to their intuition will always have more immediate consequences than when humans ignore their intuition. So let’s take a lesson from Dr. V and the Cardinals and trust our gut more. Because in the end, we lose less time on situations that aren’t right for us, and we will therefore be able to stay positive.
Be sure to follow Dr. Jen on Instagram and Twitter @RealDrJen.
And check out her website for links to her podcast, Wild Connection, and her book, “Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Tells Us about Human Relationships.” Check out JenniferVerdolin.com.
DEAR DAMONA (54:06)
Submit your questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:
DAMONA’S DEALS
Access Daily: The Love Shack
Damona is BACK with the Access Daily crew, bringing you a whole new segment… The Love Shack! Damona sets up at Universal Studios Hollywood to answer the dating dilemmas of park-goers.
She’ll be answering questions like:
Hear what Damona has to say below…
The Daily Show Podcast: Sexual Racism
On this episode of the Beyond the Scenes Podcast, Damona joins Roy Wood Jr. and Ronny Chieng for a discussion on “How Sexual Racism Affects Online Dating.”
This podcast episode revisits a 2016 segment done on The Daily Show, exploring the ways in which sexual racism shows up on dating apps.
Listen to the full conversation below!
The Angry Therapist & Attachment Theory Redo
We’ve all had THOSE relationships. The ones that make you wonder why you keep finding yourself dealing with the same drama again and again. The ones that make you wonder if all relationships are this difficult. The ones that make you say “It’s not me, it’s you.”
If you’re ready to break the cycle of bad relationships, psychologists John Kim (who you may know as The Angry Therapist) and his partner Vanessa Bennett are here to talk about their forthcoming book, It’s Not Me, It’s You. Damona and the guests dive deep into breaking bad relationship cycles, plus Vanessa will share her special sauce for manifesting the relationship you want.
DATING DISH (1:33)
Has attachment theory gone too far?:
Damona would say yes. This recent article from Refinery29 covered the rise of attachment theory, and how we may have become too attached to the theory ourselves. If you’re not completely clear on what attachment theory is, we’re here to give you a little history lesson. Attachment theory was actually developed in 1958 by a British psychologist named John Bowlby. He was interested in how a child’s relationship with their mother (i.e. what he called the primary caregiver) shapes their subsequent approach to the world. If a mother was what he called “affectionless” and not able to fulfill the feminine maternal ideals of emotional support, her child would be “damaged” and experience long term cognitive, social, and emotional difficulties.
There are three main attachment styles central to this theory: secure attachment, anxious attachment, and avoidant attachment. Secure attachment refers to those that feel comfortable with intimacy, and are usually warm and loving. Anxious attachment includes people who crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back (aka kinda clingy). Lastly, those who feel avoidant attachment equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness. And there have been many offshoots of attachment since then (anxious-preoccupied, avoidant-dismissive, disorganized, fearful avoidant, etc).
But this new wave of attachment theory rose to popularity in 2010 when a book was released called Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant, or Secure? How the science of adult attachment can help you find – and keep – love, written by Dr. Amir Levine (who Damona has actually studied with) and Rachel Heller. Additionally, attachment theory has slowly seeped its way into self-help culture, with users consistently making TikToks and Instagram posts all about how to identify certain attachment styles in one’s self and in other people. And although Damona respects all the work that has been done on attachment theory and appreciates the tool, she believes that it can be a gross oversimplification of how we bond with others. With so much info circulating on attachment theory, we’ve become so quick to want to label and diagnose people that it prevents us from experiencing the nuance of others. Or on the other end of the spectrum, we see posts about certain attachment styles that we relate to and then deeply internalize it as part of our identity instead of finding ways to continue to grow.
There are many problems with attachment theory, one being that the original study puts way too much emphasis on the mother for influencing how you attach. The study also insinuates that your childhood experiences are permanently imprinted and unchangeable, which is not true. Bottom line – Damona requests that we don’t self-diagnose. “I know that our nature is to lean into self diagnosis. But I really don’t want to do that to people, because I believe these are tools to inform you, so that you can use this information to change what you don’t want in your life… And the danger in searching for a label for yourself or for the people that you are dating, is that that label can actually excuse behavior that needs to change. It can prevent you from going deeper and seeing these conflicts as an opportunity to lean in, to learn more, and to choose differently… Every experience that you have changes you, informs you, evolves you. And I think it’s really time that we just pump the brakes a little bit on the attachment theory.”
JOHN KIM & VANESSA BENNETT (10:03)
John Kim (aka The Angry Therapist) and Vanessa Bennett are licensed therapists, authors, and podcast hosts.
You might have heard John on this podcast before talking about his bestselling book I Used To Be A Miserable F*ck. Since then John has also written the bestseller Single on Purpose, and he dishes out advice on his podcast and social media under the title The Angry Therapist
Vanessa is a Licensed Holistic Psychotherapist, Codependency Expert, and cohost of the podcast Cheaper Than Therapy.
You can read all about their story in their new relationship book It’s Not Me, It’s You (which is available for pre-order now). But today, you will hear the highlights of all their baggage, imperfections, and relationship challenges.
(12:16) How you came together:
Damona asks John and Vanessa to share their relationship origin story. John starts: “Our relationship in the beginning was kind of bumpy. It started with a friend that I worked out with coming up to me and asking me if I liked white girls, and I said, ‘yeah I like all types of women.’ And then he said, ‘Well, I have a therapist for you.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t just date therapists.’”
Vanessa adds her perspective. “I had been following John for a while [on Instagram] but not really engaging… And then randomly, one day, I saw something he posted. And for whatever reason, It kind of piqued my interest. I did a little internet stalking and told my friend at the time, ‘I’m gonna date this guy.’ We [John and Vanessa] had a mutual friend… And so I had this plan to have my friend hook us up. So I went to the friend’s place and randomly out of nowhere, the friend goes, ‘I have this friend that I feel like you’d really get along with.’ And so it kind of felt a little Kismet at that point.”
Vanessa confirms that their relationship was rocky in the beginning, mostly because John was trying to live his single life at the time. John shares, “Damona, I was trying to be single. I wanted my next one to be the one you know, and so I wasn’t done trying to make up for everything that I didn’t do in my 20s. I was in a relationship at that time, so… I never had a one night stand. I never did drugs with someone. I never woke up with someone I didn’t like. I wanted to have all those crazy stories, experiences.”
Vanessa also believes that there was some manifestation at play. “So usually when people say how did you guys meet, my very straightforward answer is I manifested him… I had recently, within the past six months before meeting him, had my heart broken in like a very short but very intense relationship. I had gotten out of a six year engagement and moved across the country by myself… I was in grad school to become a therapist at the time. And I just remember thinking, I am so ready to meet somebody who can speak that language and meet me on that level. Like, I don’t want to mother the men I meet anymore. You know, I want them to meet me there. And I just kept talking about it.”
(18:00) Do you date white girls?:
Damona pulls the conversation back to John’s friend’s question – “do you date white girls” – and inquires if they had to unpack anything while being in a interracial relationship. Vanessa brings up her short but intense relationship before meeting John. “So this relationship I had been in was a Latino man… He kind of out of the blue said, ‘I need to marry a Latina.’ And I remember just being floored and devastated… The reason why [John’s] friend did ask him that is because I said to him, half jokingly, ‘does he date white girls?’”
In their upcoming book, It’s Not Me, It’s You, John also details his experience coming from a very traditional Korean family. “They wanted me to marry, of course, a Korean woman and have Korean babies and all that. But my first girlfriend that I brought around when I was 21 was Caucasian. And then the person I married was Caucasian… I grew up in a very kind of white world in the 80s. And so, you know, when we’re going through our wonder years, the posters on our wall are how we kind of trace who’s around us. And so, for some reason, I didn’t have a lot of Asian friends growing up.”
Weirdly enough, Vanessa goes on to say that the biggest cultural difference between them are their coastal origins (Vanessa is from New York and John is from LA).
(22:00) Feeling chosen:
In another section of their book, John goes into having had a pattern of getting close to his matches and pulling away – even while dating Vanessa. So how did John start to unravel and change that pattern? “I think it’s different for everyone. But generally, we don’t change unless we have to, right? Usually it’s many broken hearts, losing something, whether it’s your love, custody, job. There are things that we lose where we wake up, and we’re like, ‘Okay, we have to look at ourself.’ And so I think for me, it was her having some honest conversations with me. She actually tried to leave once or twice. But I think because of my ambivalence or not looking at my patterns, [realizing] that the House of Cards can collapse, was a cold shower for me.”
(TW: Misscarriage)
John shares that a defining moment for his and Vanessa’s relationship, which bonded them more than anything, was when they lost their first baby. “There was a moment when we were in the hospital, and we found that the baby didn’t make it. There was this weird, deep connection I felt because we were a family for a minute, you know? And so the loss of a baby, for some reason, ignited something in me to really work on this.” It was at this moment that Vanessa found the need to create a boundary – she voiced that she needed to take a pause and breathe, before being able to come back to the relationship and restart the commitment conversation. Vanessa states, “I’m not for or against breaks. What I am for is standing in your truth and not chasing, not begging, and not expecting somebody else to make you feel chosen. And so I think I had a real dose of reality… I just hit this point where I felt like I had spent my lifetime hoping others would choose me. And in that moment, I had this really clear sense of like, I choose me. And he’s wonderful, and he’s great, and all the things on paper. But like, I don’t deserve to feel unchosen in my relationship.”
(End of TW)
(26:44) The definition of love:
Of all the chapter titles in John and Vanessa’s book, “Happily Ever After is Bullshit” is probably the best one. Damona hops on this thought, agreeing that the fairy tales and stories that make us think we should be searching for a soulmate, for “the one,” actually keep us stuck. Because we then end up constantly in pursuit of an idea. John adds that this very idea is the thing that kept him in his patterns. “It’s actually the exact thing that kept me ambivalent, what you’re talking about. That there’s only one person for you on this planet and putting all your chips on that… It’s not even about ‘the one’ – it’s about the one in front of you. And to look at the differences.”
Damona then hits John and Vanessa with a huge question – what is the definition of love? John begins hesitantly, “Oh, man, that’s a great question. I think one that love is a choice, right? Yes, love produces a feeling. But it is a daily choice. We were listening to you and Dr. Drew last night, going through your podcast. Dr. Drew talked about how long term relationships can be like recovery in that it’s just one day at a time. And so kind of bringing it back to the here and now… Also, I think that love is about the journey of what comes up and processing that. That’s what puts two people on a path of growth.”
Vanessa’s take on the question? “Carl Jung would say that every one of us, from a soul perspective, our desire is to individuate. Our desire is to grow, our desire is to expand and to elevate. And in that sense, all relationships are unconsciously drawn into our sphere in order to help us with that, right? They help us by challenging us by putting up a mirror, by showing us our blind spots, by showing us our areas for growth. So the way I look at relationships now is like, it shouldn’t just be easy-peasy sex and butterflies and rainbows all the time…. I want the challenge. I want the growth. I want the mirror that makes me uncomfortable, and makes me have to say, all right, like, this is my opportunity to heed the call and do a little self exploration and growth.”
(31:06) An opportunity to practice courage:
A big part of any relationship is the conflict – how to navigate through it, and then how to use those moments as a mirror for reflection (like Vanessa mentions above). Vanessa says that most of us aren’t actually taught how to have conflict in a healthy way, particularly if our families didn’t provide a good model for us. “A lot of us didn’t learn to sit across from each other respectfully, and have compassion and validate the other person’s feelings. Or depersonalize what they’re talking about, so that you’re not in such defense mode that you can’t see the person sitting across from you. You know, and it’s not easy. I don’t want to say that to be like, *womp womp* to the people that are listening. But it takes work and a lot of work and a lot of commitment for yourself to really say, ‘Where can I get better at not taking things personally and not get defensive?’ Because really bottom line, the way that relationships grow deeper is through that rupture/repair, rupture/repair, rupture/repair… And if there’s no rupture, it’s actually really hard to create that repair. That’s where the depth comes from.”
John believes that encountering conflict is actually a perfect opportunity to practice courage. “So every time there’s conflict, there’s an opportunity for you to be courageous. And by courageous, I don’t mean kicking doors down. I mean looking inward, doing things that are uncomfortable. Being vulnerable, being curious instead of judgmental.”
So let’s say you’ve had a conflict, you’ve disagreed and voiced your opinion, and now you’re ready to repair. How do we go about giving an effective apology? “Many people talk around that. And then they don’t actually say I’m sorry, and really mean it,” John starts. “So I think it starts with that. And then I think there’s a responsibility to an apology. Meaning, what are you going to do about it, what’s the ownership?” Vanessa shares, “I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or what, but I think we have this misconception that if we validate somebody’s feelings that we agree with them. And they don’t have to go hand in hand. And I think for a lot of us, it’s such an ego based thing. We feel like by saying we’re sorry, we’re somehow losing a part of ourselves, we’re somehow acknowledging something that we don’t want to acknowledge or agree with. And that’s not the case. They’re separate.”
Check out John and Vanessa’s book It’s Not You, It’s Me. Pre-order your copy HERE, and you can submit your receipt to join their book club – they’ll be dissecting the chapters of their book every Monday at 1p PST.
And be sure to follow John @theangrytherapist and Vanessa @vanessasbennett on insta.
DEAR DAMONA (40:55)
Submit your questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:
DAMONA’S DEALS
Dating Health Update & Party and a Protest
It’s Pride Month – a time for the LGBTQ+ community and its allies to celebrate and to generate awareness about rights for folks in LGBTQ community. Of course this means there will be lots of gathering, lots of close contact… and maybe even the potential to meet more matches. But, while you’re out there doing your thing, it’s crucial to remember to stay safe.
To help you do just that, friend of the show Dr. James Simmons (a.k.a. Ask the NP) is here to give us an update on where we are in the pandemic dating season and bring us into Pride Month. No matter your sexual orientation or gender identity, there’s a lot to learn in today’s episode. Buckle up!
via GIPHY
DATING DISH (2:08)
Straight women are dating in unexpected places, but is it working?:
A recent article from Buzzfeed dove into a cultural movement that has been making waves in the LGBTQ community the past couple of years – straight women joining the gay/queer dating app Grindr. To its own testament, Grindr calls itself the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people. But the reality is that women have been trying to “get it on by getting on Grindr” since it launched in 2009. The push from cis women to make space on Grindr was so extreme, that Grindr’s founder Joel Simkhai eventually obliged, creating a straight version of the app called Blendr in 2011. (Never heard of Blendr? That’s probably because the app bombed after it’s launch, synchronizing with the launch of Tinder in 2012.)
Now cisgender women have actually been allowed on Grindr since 2017. But over the last year, Grindr users have been complaining about the influx of cis women seeking hookups with bisexual male partners. For cishet (cisgender and heterosexual) women, the hope is to explore relationships with men who present alternatives to traditional masculinity, and make connections with bisexual men who maybe aren’t comfortable being out as bisexual on some of the traditional dating apps. But if that’s the case, then Grindr is actually acting as the safe space for a lot of bisexual men. Nowadays, there are more people identifying as bisexual than ever before. According to the article, 3% of US adults identified as bi in 2018, compared to just 1% ten years earlier. Additionally, nearly 12% of Gen Z folks state that they’re bisexual, compared with only 5% of millennials.
So what is Damona’s take on this article? Well, it’s one that you might have heard on the podcast before. “You’ve heard me talk before on this podcast about trying to dictate what an app is used for, like when people ask me ‘is Tinder the hookup app?’ We don’t get to decide how the app is used… But at the same time, it’s creating an environment where the people who are there because they don’t feel safe on the other apps, or have a hard time connecting with people who share their goals, their values, and their gender or sexual identity – they now feel like the place that was their safe space is no longer theirs.” Damona also wants female, cishet Grindr users to be mindful of their attraction to bisexual men, and the possible fetishization that comes with it. “Because unless you’re looking for a thruple where you are having sex with two men, I’m not sure that that person’s bisexuality is relevant in your dating search. What is probably going on is that there’s something else that you’re connecting to among those bisexual men. Maybe it’s the safety and security, maybe there’s something that’s going on internally and rejecting traditional masculine traits. It’s something to be aware of.”
via GIPHY
Who needs Grindr for more matches, when you can get Damona’s Profile Starter Kit! She’ll give you the best tips to revamp your profile. Download yours for free HERE!
JAMES SIMMONS (10:25)
Damona is here with our good friend Dr. James Simmons. Dr. James is a Board Certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, frontline healthcare provider during the Covid-19 pandemic, and passionate on-air medical contributor. He has appeared on NBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, KTLA, Loveline, and more!
(11:14) The covid in the room:
With Hot Girl Summer Vol. 2 approaching and IRL dating coming back into play, it’s easy to forget that covid is most definitely still a thing. But how big of a risk is it? Dr. James says that “it really depends on who you are in terms of risk. So interestingly, some data just came out about Omicron. Remember that everyone was saying ‘Oh, it’s just like a bad cold. Don’t worry about it. No big deal.’ And in some instances, that’s true. But for seniors, so anybody 65 and older,, Omicron actually ended up being more deadly than Delta… We’re in a different world now since the last time we had to talk about this. So hopefully you are at least doubly vaccinated, if not boosted once, and boosted four times if you’re eligible. So if you are not immunocompromised, if you don’t live with someone who’s immunocompromised or has high risk, and you’re vaccinated, I think you can do IRL dating.”
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Dr. James adds that it’s probably a good idea to feel out where your date is in terms of vaccination status before meeting up in person. “So let’s say you match on OKCupid, you’re like chatting, you say ‘let’s meet in real life.’ And they’re like, ‘Well, I’m not vaccinated. I don’t believe in it. I don’t want to get tested.’ Okay, maybe you’re gonna think twice about going on a date with that person. But if you’re like, ‘you know what, the government’s given us 12 free home tests. Why don’t you take one of those home tests real quick, and I’ll do the same thing. And if we’re both negative, let’s meet tonight for dinner.’ I think that’s totally fine.”
(14:34) Monkeypox isn’t a “gay disease”:
A recent outbreak of monkeypox in the LGBTQ community has people kind of freaked out, but Dr. James says this isn’t something to panic about. “Monkeypox is in the same category as smallpox and chickenpox. It’s like a cousin virus… It was first discovered in 1958 in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it probably jumped from rodents to humans. And here’s the thing, it’s really, really hard to catch… You probably shouldn’t get it because, a) we only have about 550 confirmed cases in the world as of the recording of this podcast. And b) it has a very obvious rash, just Google ‘monkeypox rash.’ If anyone has this rash, like don’t touch him, don’t sleep with them. Don’t share anything with them.”
Damona wants to clarify that just because this outbreak started in the gay community doesn’t make it a “gay disease.” Dr. James says this has only become an outbreak because the origin has been tied to two really big raves. One of them was a rave generally for gay men, i.e. a lot of people were shirtless and dancing against each other. So someone in that rave had monkeypox and touched a bunch of people. Then someone probably went from that one rave to another rave the next night, not knowing they were carrying monkeypox, and touched a bunch of people. Some people at this rave probably also left to have sex with each other. All in all, monkeypox generally needs prolonged touching to catch it. The only thing is that generally monkeypox is most contagious when you have the rash, and the rash is active. So keep that Google search on hand, just in case you need to check your partners for the rash.
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(20:36) Ecstasy & fentanyl:
On the topic of raves, Damona brings up how she’s seen a lot of stories lately about certain drugs being laced with fentanyl. Dr. James weighs in: “I’m really glad you brought this up. What we’re seeing, particularly on the hospital side, is that people are ingesting or smoking or whatever drug they’re doing, and not knowing that there are high levels of fentanyl in that drug… Fentanyl is incredibly strong. It’s 100 times stronger than morphine and it’s very hyper concentrated. So it’s not necessarily that fentanyl as an opioid is more dangerous than other opioids, it’s just much stronger and more concentrated.” Another big problem is, as the consumer, you don’t know where along that drug supply chain the fentanyl is being added. When these drugs are cut with fentanyl, it’s way down the illicit drug pipeline. And this is done on purpose to make the drug more addictive so that you come back and buy more of it because fentanyl is highly addictive. “There are tons of places that give out Narcan which is the thing that will reverse fentanyl. So if you overdose on fentanyl, the person can literally just smell Narcan and it will reverse it for them.”
Damona asks Dr. James to cover the signs to look out for in case of an overdose:
(25:33) Times are a-changing:
Damona brings us some OkCupid stats, sharing that 97% of OKCupid daters care are now sharing that they care about LGBTQ plus issues, and 7/10 said it matters if their match does. So what are Dr. James’ thoughts on these shifting times? “I think about how people received me coming out in the 90s in the Midwest, versus now. I recently lost my father, and so I was going back and forth from LA to Nebraska a lot like every other week. But not one person batted an eye in the grocery store, in the hospital, or at the funeral home at any of these places. When I talked about my husband, not one person batted an eye.”
“Now, unfortunately, what comes with that is that we are still trending towards the highest rate of black trans women being murdered this year… So, while we generally talk about the LGBTQ plus community as a whole, I do think it is really important when we have these conversations to sort of separate folks out. So while I’ll say we’ve come a really long way, particularly I think for cisgender gay men and lesbians, we still have a really long way to go when it comes to the people fully understanding and accepting what it means to be trans.”
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(29:25) Bisexual vs pansexual:
Dr. James drops how he has recently been identifying as pansexual, and Damona brings up some more stats. According to OkCupid, since last year there has been nearly a 10% increase in users identifying as pansexual. There’s also been a 250% increase in users identifying as bisexual, and a 29% increase in users identifying as non binary.
Damona asks Dr. James for some insight on how he came to find “pansexual” a better fit for his sexual orientation. “You know, I think semantics and words matter. So just so people understand, pansexual is sort of a sexual attractiveness to anyone, but not necessarily in the same degree. I always like to joke that, let’s say you put Idris Elba and Priyanka Chopra in front of me. Like, I’m always gonna pick Idris Elba. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t think Priyanka Chopra is also really attractive, right? And so there’s rather than bi being ‘I am attracted to cisgender men and cisgender women,’ pan includes our trans brothers and sisters.”
National HIV Testing Day is coming up on June 27! Understanding your HIV status starts with testing, so be sure to get your test this month. Dr. James says you can even Google ‘free at home HIV test kit’ or ‘free HIV testing near me.’
Be sure to follow Dr. James on Instagram @askthenp and @askthenp_ on TikTok. And you can also check out his website askthenp.com.
DEAR DAMONA (35:28)
Submit your questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:
DAMONA’S DEALS
The Love Drive & Changing Labels
Dating is complicated and it’s easy to get wrapped up in the “Dating Game.” But the reality is, everyone is playing by different rules. And, it’s really just a part of life since we all have unique needs and interests. So let’s quit the game-playing! It’s honesty and authenticity that will lead to the intimacy you’re seeking in your dating life and your relationships.
That’s why love coach and host of The Love Drive podcast, Shaun Galanos, is here to talk about intimacy in all its forms.
DATING DISH (1:42)
Do you bring your friends on dates? You’re not alone. No really, you’re not alone:
In one of their recent headlines, The Mirror pointed out that one in five Singletons admit to secretly taking a friend on a date with them (are you guys seriously doing this?). Researchers polled 2,000 single adults, and found that in the last five years, over half of the participants had their friend show up in secret to a date. Additionally, the study found that preparations and pre-date conversations with friends begin around two days before the main event. Some of these rituals include sharing information about their romantic interests (32%), looking their date up on social media (30%), and asking for date location recommendations and advice on the first-date outfit from friends.
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What Damona sees from all this data is that people are bringing their friends into the conversation of dating more. This totally correlates with the shift in popularity towards dating apps, because when you can take your app out into the world with you, dating becomes a more social activity – you can take your dating profiles to your friends on the go. Damona adds that our friends can be great resources for getting ourselves into the right mindset for a date.
But what isn’t helpful to you, is the idea that having a friend on the date is going to make you feel more comfortable, and therefore perform better. Your friend is not going to be in your relationship every step of the way, so better to see what the relationship dynamic is going to be like when it is just you and your date alone. And when we are tasked with navigating relationship dynamics on our own, we are given the chance to dig deeper and find confidence and clarity ourselves, because that is really the key to unlocking meaningful connections.
Have your friend stay home this time, and let Damona be your confidant! The Profile Starter Kit will give you the best tips to revamp your profile, and get you online easily and on to your dating success story. Get yours for free HERE!
SHAUN GALANOS (6:31)
Damona sits down with Shaun Galanos, love coach and host of The Love Drive podcast. Shaun holds certifications in Personal and Professional Coaching, and has created online courses on healthy communication, emotional availability, flirting, and more.
Shaun has worked with Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Good Men Project, and Real Love Ready. Years before making a career in love, people would bring their messy relationship issues to Shaun because he knew how to listen without judgment. Today, he is teaching intimacy and communication tools that will help people get the kind of love they deserve.
(8:49) What I wish I had known:
If you are familiar with Shaun’s content around dating and relationships, you know that he has built a following based on offering and encouraging radical honesty to his followers. “I think we’re just used to making things really complicated and having to play games and guessing what people want, and being coy and all that stuff. And my approach is really like, let’s just not do any of that because no one is playing by the same rules. We never had any formalized standardized dating, relationship education. So everyone’s playing by a different set of rules.”
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One of Shaun’s other philosophies around offering dating advice is thinking about the things he wishes he’d known about when he was younger, one of which seems to be a touchy subject. “I wish I had known that I could be honest about wanting sex. I thought to myself, like why is this so complicated? Why do I have to disguise the fact that I’m a sexual being and want to have sex? And what if I just told people what I wanted and then let them figure out if that’s also what they wanted? … And that even extends to like, hey, I want more commitment. I want to have a family. I want to do all these things. Why can’t we just say that?”
Shaun believes that direct communication is always the answer, and that our expectations for a relationship are really our unspoken needs and desires. So the more we are voicing what we really want from our partner, the more we are saving ourselves from future resentment (not to mention saving ourselves from confusion).
(11:49) Missed communications:
As much as we’d hope for it, sometimes communication in a relationship isn’t as straightforward as Shaun describes. Particularly if you are dating or with someone who isn’t keen on verbal communication, you may have to look for the ways in which they are signaling where their head is at. For instance, Damona’s husband is not a huge verbal communicator. But Damona states that she focuses on observation, and looks out for small changes in his behavior. And after noticing these changes, she is able to open the gateway to communication by taking the first step and asking, “is there anything you want to talk about?”
Shaun backs up Damona’s point on observing your partner’s behaviors, and creating communication through curiosity (particularly if someone is stonewalling you or averting the subject). And although honesty with your partner can be scary, it can simultaneously become a safe space if you practice.
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If you are scared of cultivating open communication with your partner, Shaun recommends diving into that fear. “The fear is that we’re not going to get the answer that we want. So, okay, what is the worst case scenario here? Are they going to run? If they do leave the relationship completely, then maybe that’s not the kind of person that you’re going to be building a long term fulfilling relationship with anyways. If just a conversation about a relationship makes them run away, then they were going to run at some point.” Try to reframe this rejection, or the possibility of rejection, as liberating. If someone rejects you, it just means you have gained more clarity in the kind of partner you want, and are one step closer to getting there.
(17:27) ‘I’m just a safe, magical internet person’:
Because of how candid Shaun’s advice is, he is often asked a lot of questions revolving around intimacy and sexuality. He reports that these questions tend to fall into two different groups: “I’ve done a few Q&As that were sex focused, and I think I could split them up into two categories – How do I ask for this thing that I want? More kink, more presence in the bedroom, longer foreplay… The other ones are, is this okay? Is it okay that I fantasize about my ex? Do guys care about X, Y, and Z?” Shaun notes that because he’s a “safe, magical internet person,” people feel more at ease to ask him these kinds of questions without judgment.
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Coming in hot with the OkCupid data, Damona mentions that recent stats show how liberal sexuality and freedom with kink is on the rise. According to OkCupid users, there’s been a 55% increase in the last year of users saying that they’re kinky or into BDSM. And mentions of this in female users profiles is up 17%. So if there was any time to feel safe exploring or asking questions about kink, it’s now.
(20:39) Everyone’s in too much of a hurry:
Shaun brings up having had a 15-year long affair with OkCupid, since it was the first online dating platform he ever used. In particular Shaun liked the long-form format of the profiles, and that in its early days, OkCupid actually felt more like a forum than a dating site. But since then, the profile format has shifted to condensing the information in people’s profiles more. To Shaun’s point, Damona believes that the shift into dating apps has affected the speed of dating the most – we have access to so many other people looking for love, that it should be easier to make a connection, but we’re in such a hurry to get to the result.
Shaun chimes in, “There is this concept of choice paralysis that really comes into play with online dating, especially if you live in a metropolis, where there does seem to be a seemingly endless supply of people. And what happens is that the person that’s in front of you is never good enough, because there is the promise of something better right around the corner, right? So you never just sort of settle for good enough.”
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As an optimizer himself, Shaun says this mindset will also push us towards seeking perfection in our partner (which, say it with me, doesn’t exist). “You might be on a date with a really great person that is a little weird in some way, that you start thinking, ‘Well, what if I could find this, but a little bit better.’ And then you might just end up sort of forever looking for that better option… I think people feel that they are running out of time, and that they’re in a rush… And so that puts an artificial pressure on these dates to ‘wow’ each other after the second date.”
(24:34) Those darn gender roles:
Damona inquires as to Shaun’s thoughts on gender roles, since many of the questions he gets have to do with “who does what” in a relationship. “I don’t know, it just Feels like we’re going back in time in a lot of different ways. Why are we still having conversations about whether women can have abortions? You know, why are we having conversations about the fact that there’s only two genders? What I can say is that there seems to be some folks that are really focused on this male/female, feminine/masculine polarity thing, which I don’t really understand… I just don’t think you need to ‘lean into your femininity’ and ‘take a step back’ and ’let him lead’ so that you can have this harmonious connection or partnership.”
Damona asks Shaun if he has any advice for women who have been told that they’re too aggressive, too outspoken or strong. “I think it comes down to – am I too intimidating, or are they just intimidated? So I don’t think any woman needs to tone it down for the comfort of others, especially men… There are people that are going to be able to handle you and your strength, and even match you or give you room.”
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(27:25) Meeting your needs:
Damona asks Shaun one last question – how do you identify your needs in a relationship so that you can get your needs met? “You know, needs are interesting, because a lot of times people are scared of being labeled as too needy. I think the reality is that humans are needy…. Love, connection, friendship, sexuality, to be seen, to be held, these are all sort of basic needs. And one way to identify that is [to ask yourself], what aren’t you getting in your life? Where do you find some sort of area of lack where maybe your partner can meet that need? So there’s a lot of ways of getting those needs met.”
Be sure to follow Shaun on Instagram and TikTok @thelovedrive.
Shaun’s 12-week training intensive, The Love Collective, begins June 7th (‘not a cult’ he says). Check out more info HERE.
DEAR DAMONA (30:32)
Submit your questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:
DAMONA’S DEALS
Rejection Reframe & Good Moms, Bad Choices
Disclaimer – this is going to be another spicy episode. We marked it explicit for a reason, but you’ll find out why in a moment…
We all know that the old “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage” narrative gets shoved down our throats from a young age. But life doesn’t always work out this way – and that’s the beauty of it all. Life is unpredictable, and we can redefine these relationship timelines to suit our needs, no matter what order we proceed in.
That’s why Erica and Milah, hosts of the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast, are here to talk about their experiences navigating dating as single parents.
DATING DISH (1:51)
Are you really being sexually rejected… or is it all in your head?:
Mel Magazine came out with an article last week all about rejection… and how couples see rejection that isn’t there. A new study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found evidence that in established relationships, a lot of partners take sexual rejection way harder than they should when their partners may just not be the mood.
In this particular study, researchers focused on 200 heterosexual couples who had been together for at least two years. They had the couples keep individual diaries for 28 days, logging the degree of sexual interest or disinterest in their partners, and then rating their overall relationship satisfaction. In another part of the study, couples who were cohabitating also maintained diaries for 28 days about their experiences with sexual rejection. And when they felt rejected, participants were asked to describe what happened including the degree to which they felt rejected.
The results? After analyzing all the diary entries, men were found to be better at detecting rejection, whereas women were better at recognizing when they weren’t being rejected.
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When we have a tendency to take this rejection personally, it can be detrimental to our relationships – you get shut down, then you internalize the rejection as being something more than it is, and finally, you just stop trying. But rather than giving up on your relationship, use this as an opportunity to learn and grow. Damona says that if you’re not relating to your intimate partner in an intimate way, it’s time to take a deeper look. There’s something underneath all that that needs to be examined (whether you’re not expressing your needs clearly, your partner has a low libido, or maybe they’re depressed or exhausted).
Damona points out how we also use rejection as a way to support the narratives we put ourselves in. “If you have this belief in your mind that your partner’s rejecting you or that you’re always rejected by women when you approach them, and that is the narrative that you are looking to confirm, you will continue to see these experiences as confirmation [of those stories]. That’s our confirmation bias.”
All in all, Damona believes we should try to reframe those moments of the rejection and the feelings that come up with them as a breakdown in communication, not as a refusal. And look at it this way – when you have a breakdown in communication, you then have an opportunity to look at the situation from a new perspective, to find new tools, to find new language, and to find another way to connect.
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Had enough rejection? Let Damona help you redesign your dating profile with the Profile Starter Kit to get you online easily and on to your dating success story. Get yours for free HERE!
ERICA AND MILAH (10:26)
Erica and Milah are the hosts of the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast. Uncensored and outspoken, they are redefining what modern motherhood looks like and breaking life’s archaic stereotypes.
They are currently in the process of writing their book, “A Good Mom’s Guide to Making Bad Choices”. And they recently launched The Good Vibe Retreat – a 6 day retreat in Costa Rica which allows women to tap into their feminine energy and learn to manifest life’s greatest visions.
(12:04) Talking to the kiddies:
With Erica and Milah being so open to taboo subjects, Damona asks the moms how much they think their daughters are privy to. Although both their kids aren’t exactly thinking about the technicalities of birds and the bees yet, Erica says the sex talk isn’t something she’s afraid of. “I’m excited for it. Like, I don’t shy away from it. Because I think when I was growing up, it was something that was really not talked about much. Only when certain things happened, like when my period started and then I was told I could have babies. And so for me, it’s just an ongoing conversation.”
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Damona gives a glimpse into this dynamic with her own kids, and something she’s coined as The 8:30 Rule. “At 8:30 my door gets closed, and the kids do not come in. And usually [my husband and I are] just watching Netflix or whatever. But I might want to Netflix and chill, I don’t know, I’m a married lady. But she will always knock on the door.”
Erica then poses the question – would you rather your daughter’s first experience be to hear strangers having sex, or would you rather it be you and your partner? In a way, is it better if it’s you? Milah comes out swinging with her answer – “No, I think it’s gonna scar them for fucking life. Like, I think we’re talking about it with your mom or your parents makes it less weird when it does happen. But I’m just thinking… hearing people have sex really bothers me sometimes. Like, I’ve heard my friends have sex in the other room and it bothers me. And I’m thinking, is it because maybe I heard my parents have sex at a young age or some shit? But I’m like, ‘what is wrong with you that you’re so triggered, you sex positive lady?’”
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(16:27) The non-existent sex talk:
Much of Milah and Erica’s gravitation towards radically honest conversations stems from their experiences growing up, where talking about sex and consent and pleasure was nearly nonexistent. Erica recalls being extremely curious about sex as a child, while also feeling extremely unprepared to explore that curiousity. “I was asking teenagers and 12 year olds about sex, whose parents also weren’t talking about sex. We were all learning from TV and hearsay… So we were learning from other kids, basically. I wish that I would have known a lot more things… Like, I didn’t need to talk about everything with my parents, but there needed to be more conversation around sex and consent. And to really have autonomy over my body, and realize that, like, my pleasure is the top priority and it’s not about boys.”
Erica points out how when young girls first learn about sex, it’s interpreted as such a male-centric experience. We learn from the get-go that those intimate experiences are not about us. But in terms of approaching their own children with the sex talk, Erica concludes that “you have to do what’s good for you. Like, what’s good for me isn’t good for you, or may feel really uncomfortable for you. You also have to know who your child is. Different kids have different needs, but I think honesty through and through is always like the best policy.”
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(18:23) Dating as a single mom:
Damona describes feeling very desexualized when she became a mom. “It took me a long time to feel comfortable in my body again, once I had kids. It’s probably something I still struggle with a little bit now.” So, she asks, was it difficult for Milah and Erica to rekindle their relationships with their sexuality? “I think for sure we can all, as mothers, relate to that strange aftermath of giving birth and feeling so foreign in your skin. And yeah, being of service to everyone else and just being a machine, not a human being,” Milah begins. “I was also in a relationship that really wasn’t the relationship for me, which also makes you feel alienated. And I was going through an experience alone that none of my friends had experienced yet… It took me a long time to come to terms with that. And in fact, it took me just getting completely comfortable with that being the case… so I think I deliberately, really tried hard to get out of that space by going out, by being sexy, by putting on makeup when I didn’t feel like it. Like that was a big step for me, and even bigger was leaving that relationship that also didn’t make me really feel like myself… So it was just a series of conscious decisions to get back in my body.”
Damona wonders how having kids with a previous partner may affect a woman’s ability to move on, and feel free of all the “stuff” that came with that previous relationship. Erica chimes in: “When you have a child with someone, you are connected to them. It’s this weird, unconditional attachment you have until, I don’t know, there is a severing that has to happen. But I think dating helps. I think hopefully there’s forgiveness, hopefully you have someone who you can have closure with in that way. But I think it’s different for everyone…” Erica recounts having her own defining moment, much like how Stella got her groove back. “When my relationship ended, I joined Tinder. And I remember the first date I went on, and he was kind of a nerd. And I was kind of a nerd. You know, I was just like, how the fuck do you do this? And then it was kind of fun! Like, I can really have access to so many different types of people so quickly. And for me, I needed to go on a date with someone that was going to validate me, period. That’s what I needed, and I got that.”
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For Erica, it was also really important to stop suppressing her own needs and the things she wanted to explore – one of which was being intimate with another couple. “I’d never been able to do that because I’d been in a relationship for so long… [The experience] actually gave me exactly what I needed at that time. For me, in my relationship, there was a lot of distrust, there was a lot of poor communication. And seeing how [this couple] communicated and the trust that they had for one another, restored my faith in relationships. And just the fact that I could see them be so vulnerable and so honest with one another, and share with one another. Like, that really was transformational for me. Especially coming out of a relationship and still choosing to be single, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna wait until I find something that feels like this.’”
(28:27) State of the Union:
So what is the current state of the union in Erica and Milah’s love lives? Erica starts, “What I’m ready to receive is someone that I can just be myself with, and that I can have that really authentic and radical honesty with. Someone who is nurturing to my daughter, who wants to invest time into her and wants to enrich her life and take an active role in her life… and someone I can just have fun with, because I’m fucking fun.” Erica adds how she’s gone through so many phases of wanting a relationship, then wanting casual sex, then wanting to focus on work, and etc. But now is the time when she’d like to take on balancing her work and love lives.
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Milah describes her current relationship status with her lover/friend/non-monogamous partner. “We are really good friends, we are really honest with each other… I’ve realized it has really been difficult because I’m triggered a lot. But I’ve also realized, like, I’ve been triggered a lot in a lot of relationships. And I would rather be on the same page as my person and be honest, and they receive it and vice versa. It’s been difficult to navigate. But overall, I feel like it’s been really rewarding. And I’m learning a lot of lessons about myself through the process.”
Be sure to check out the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast wherever you like to listen. Plus, you can follow Erica and Milah on Instagram @watcherica & @milah_mapp, and the podcast @goodmoms_badchoices.
If you want to join Erica and Milah on their amazing retreat this summer, all the info can be found here.
DEAR DAMONA (32:30)
Submit your questions on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:
DAMONA’S DEALS
Conflict Resolution & Second Date Wait
No matter how amazing any relationship is, there will always be conflict. It’s inevitable. As humans we are going to have differences of opinions, emotions, or beliefs at least occasionally. In the end, it’s how you navigate through the tough times that will ultimately determine the longevity of your relationship.
That’s why Jayson Gaddis, relationship teacher and the host of The Relationship School podcast, is here to share his methods for navigating conflict in dating and relationships.
DATING DISH (1:25)
Will those viral ‘36 questions’ actually lead to love?:
After having been around for years, an article from The Conversation is bringing the 36 Questions of Love back on our radars for discussion. If the 36 Questions don’t ring a bell for you, let us give you a little backstory. These 36 Questions of Love were first published in 1997 as part of scientific research into relationships. But you might actually recognize them from the 2015 New York Times essay written by Mandy Lynn Khatron, To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This. Originally, there was a researcher named Arthur Aaron who, along with his colleagues, had a group of strangers ask each other a series of questions that became progressively more intimate in context. According to the study’s results, they found that through the gradual increase in disclosure between strangers, they also increased in closeness. And following the study, there were participants who actually fell in love and kept the friendships they’d made. Fast forward to 2015, the NYT essay then asked – if we applied these questions to people looking to fall in love, what would happen? If you ask a stranger these 36 questions, would you know enough about this person to actually fall in love with them?
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So what are some examples of the 36 questions? The questions are actually structured into 2 sets which increase in intensity. Set #1 has questions like “what do you feel most grateful for in your life?” Set #2 includes ones like “what’s your most treasured memory?” And Set #3 ends with the hard hitters, like “when did you last cry in front of another person?”
According to The Conversation, the 36 questions don’t lead to love and were never intended to lead to love. But what they DO do, is they help us figure out what is really important to disclose in a relationship. Damona summarizes that you can develop intimacy with a person more quickly through the kinds of questions that you ask. And hopefully, she says, you will not be afraid when you are on a date to get to the heart of what the other person’s values, beliefs, and goals for the future are. “We tend to stay away from conflict when we’re in a new relationship. But it’s so revealing. It can really teach you how you communicate, and it can show you how to be a better listener and to be more authentic in the relationship.” And most of all, as good as it is to be open and vulnerable when getting to know someone, remember that your information needs to be earned.
(P.S. If you want a real blast from the past, check out this show Damona hosted in 2017 called A Question of Love, where the contestants asked similar questions as the 36 Questions of Love to quickly figure out if they were compatible with their partner.)
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JAYSON GADDIS (10:41)
Jayson Gaddis is an author, podcaster, speaker and “personal trainer for relationships”.
Jayson started off as a Licensed Professional Counselor with a private practice, and since then he has founded The Relationship School – a company dedicated to helping people work out their differences to improve their relationships.
Today he hosts The Relationship School podcast where he teaches people how to build street-level relationship skills. His book “Getting to Zero: How to Work Through Conflict in Your High Stakes Relationships” is out now!
(11:26) Getting down to zero:
Since his book completely revolves around the different types of conflict, Damona asks Jayson for his definition of conflict. According to Jayson, conflict = a rupture, a disconnection, or an unresolved issue between two people. His book, Getting to Zero, is targeted toward high stakes relationships, which include family partnerships, business partnerships, every relationship where we have a lot to lose if we can’t resolve the conflict. And the way that we resolve conflict is what Jayson calls “getting to zero.” He evaluates our triggers based on a 1-10 scale, and the further we are from zero, the more activated we are in our nervous system. Meaning, the more we tend to act out and react in ways that aren’t helpful for resolving conflict. “And it’s through that process of getting to zero getting back to a good place, over and over, that builds security in long term relationships.”
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Damona wonders what happens when you are consistently at a 9 on the trigger scale at work, and how this can impact our relationships at home. Because let’s face it – we’re all pretty stressed out these days. “If we’re in a good place [with our partner], then no problem. Our partner can help resource us and they can be a safe place for us to vent and get support. But some of us go home to a shitty, crunchy relationship, and then we’re dealing with even more stress… So many of us are living with a lot of chronic, low grade stress, we don’t even notice the water we’re swimming in. Some of us even grew up in households that were at a 4. And that was considered zero. But it’s not good for us. Again, it creates long term health problems, if we’re living in that chronic environment all the time.”
(15:37) Addicted to the drama:
Damona mentions that people can become addicted to the drama of a relationship. So much so, that finally moving into something more secure feels boring, or like there’s something wrong with the relationship. Jayson adds that growing up in hostile or intense environments can add to that level of addiction, because it messes with your hormone release – messy ends up feeling familiar and safe. Jayson recalls working with a client with the same issue, and having to really ask the client to become comfortable with himself, and become more accustomed to his own fears and discomforts. “I was like, ‘Look, do you want a relationship where you have to leave yourself behind in that volatility, to protect yourself? Or would you rather have a relationship where you get to keep yourself, but you might lose the relationship?’ So we’re helping him deepen and enhance his relationship with himself, so that it kind of weeds out the people that try to seduce him into this up and down thing.”
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() The 5 most common fights:
In his book, Jayson outlines the five most common types of fights people have. The five are: surface fights, value difference fights, projection fights, resentment fights, and security fights. Surface fights revolve around the little things (i.e. not washing the dishes, leaving dirty clothes on the floor), but are never really about the little things. Surface fights almost always lead into one of the other four types of fights.
A value difference fight is a dealbreaker for some people. Those are the types of agreements such as being pro-vaccine and someone else is anti-vaccine, wanting kids or not, moving to the east coast or west coast – these are very large value differences that are pretty hard to work out. “If we don’t know how to accept each other’s values and work with them in a relationship, we’re going to want the other person to come over to our values. And that alone creates a lot of fighting, tension, and feeling judged and criticized.” Jayson also highlights a value difference that is not commonly talked about, which is being willing to work through conflict. If there is a relationship in which one person wants to go to couples therapy and grow and develop, and the other person believes that there’s nothing to fix, that will create problems. You can’t get to zero with someone who doesn’t want to learn how. Damona adds that being clear on your own values is extremely important, because not knowing just contributes to the conflict and lack of clarity on how to resolve the issue.
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Next you have projection fights, which revolve around childhood projections. We tend to find ourselves with people in a long term relationship that remind us of our family of origin, usually our parents or caregivers. And we then project onto them, which will often trigger us. These kinds of fights can be particularly difficult if you don’t realize that you are actively projecting.
Fourth are resentment fights. This is where one partner tries to get the other to change themselves in some way. “If I don’t conform when you want me to change, you’ll resent me. If I do conform when you want me to change, I’ll resent you.” And lastly, you have security fights. According to Jayson’s book, “if any of your four relational needs – feeling safe, feeling seen, feeling soothed, and feeling supported and challenged – is unstable in any way, it will impact your sense of security, and every surface conflict will be more intense because of the unresolved security issue.”
(24:17) Tools for defusing conflict:
When in the middle of conflict, Jayson has a couple of acronyms he shares in his book that will help you move towards resolution. The first is called LUFU, which Jayson describes as being a commitment to listen to the other person until they feel understood – Listen Until you Feel Understood. “In that process there’s eight steps. But the three that matter most to me are I want to take responsibility for anything I did in the listening process. I want to not defend myself, I’m gonna say ‘Yeah, got it, I did that thing.’ So I take ownership. And then I want to empathize. I imagine the impact on you, and it makes sense. That’s the validation part. The last step, ‘it makes sense’ – three words. That’s the easiest way to validate someone. ‘That makes sense that you feel that way, that you feel hurt, that you felt scared, and that you’re upset now.’ I continue to stay in my listening seat until you feel like I’m understanding you. And then eventually, you’re hopefully also going to be generous with me, and you’ll listen to what happened for me.”
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Also in Jayson’s repertoire is the acronym SHORE – Speak Honestly and Openly in order to Repair Effectively. “If you take responsibility for what you did or didn’t do, that alone is going to help the other person’s nervous system chill out big time. And a lot of us don’t do that. We speak, we lead with what the other person did wrong, and how we’re right, and how they made us feel. I think it’s just more efficient to lead with, ‘are you open to having a conversation? I just want to say I messed up there. Yep, I did that thing again that really upsets you, and it makes sense you’re upset. I just want to know how you feel.’”
But as many tools as we may acquire, the one thing to have above all is a willingness to be a team player, to make sacrifices, and collaborate with your partner.
(31:14) But what if I can’t get to zero?:
Getting to zero and working through conflict typically requires two people to work together – but what if only one of you is willing to work at it? Jayson states that family is an easy place to identify those kinds of relationships, where certain members may be particularly closed minded or unable to see their own role in a conflict, not to mention where value differences come into play. But luckily, Jayson maintains that you can get to zero on your own (there’s a whole chapter dedicated to this in his book). And sometimes you have to, because the other person will never come to the table. “I don’t want to stay angry at this person my entire life. I just don’t, it’s energy draining. So how can I get to either gratitude or appreciation, or just appreciating myself at the very least, and sort of letting go of that relationship forever?”
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You can follow Jayson on Instagram @jaysongaddis, and you can learn more about his school at relationshipschool.com. Plus, be sure to check out his podcast by the same name – The Relationship School.
If you liked what Jayson had to say, check out his book, Getting to Zero, HERE!
DEAR DAMONA (35:32)
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