Tag Archive for: date

Zoom Date Tips & Tik Tok for Lovers

TIPS FOR YOUR ZOOM DATE

Hello Lovers! Are you having a hard time connecting over your zoom date? You’re not alone.

As we embrace the new normal I want to make sure you have all the tools and tips you need to make a connection in the most disconnected time in history. Zoom Dates might just be our only option right now.

Last year I talked to Susan Ibitz – The Human Behavior Hacker – who told us how to read faces on dating apps to choose your match just based on what their facial features reveal about them. Now we brought her back to help us level up our dating skills for the new system of online dating, zoom dates, and social distance dates with masks.

What can you infer about someone from your first Zoom date?

How can you tell someone’s facial expression with the ability to only see their eyes?

What kind of facial qualities would indicate the right match for you?

Susan is going to give us the scoop on the scientific shortcuts to human behavior that are written all over your face.

But first we have to talk about this week’s headlines:

DATING DISH (1:28)

The latest dating trap:

“Woke fishing:” What is it? Are you in danger?

Tik Tok for Lovers

Tik Tok brought together two lovers, Natalie and Josaiah. While historically we’ve been cautious about mixing social media and dating, it’s shaping up to be a big part of coronadating.

Mama Yenta? Is that you?

New dating app JustKibbutz has the best take of the week on dating apps: “Do you really think an algorithm knows you better than your own mutha?!?”

Zoom Date Tips (11:00)

Today Damona spoke with Susan Ibitz, a longtime professional in face reading and behavior hacking. You might remember her from an episode last fall where she taught us how to analyze your dating app matches using the same tactics she’s used to negotiate hostage situations for the police. 

Today, Susan and Damona teamed up to use those same human behavior hacking skills to teach you how to show up for your COVID style dates.

We discuss:

  • the importance of good mics
  • Hands!
  • Camera positioning
  • The importance of backgrounds
  • Zoom date and self esteem
  • Anna Ferris was right: The eyes really are the nipples of the face.

Did you know that Susan did some more personal human behavior hacking and set up one of our daters for real success? You can find the video on Patreon!

TECHNICALLY DATING (29:40)

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • Em on IG- She’s having some trouble reading herself these days. She’s 26 and online dating and she’s feeling like she’s ready to meet someone to start her life with this is what I’m says the past few people I’ve been talking with and dating are really sweet and easy to talk to. But I’m not feeling attracted to them once I meet them. Even after a few or several dates. I’m trying to figure out if it’s just that I’m not ready to be dating right now. Or if the person or these people are not the right match for me or do I just need to keep putting myself out there for new matches?
  • Jocelyn on IG – She says she’s a single 41 year old nurse working in a hospital with potential exposure to Corona virus on a daily basis. She says I have to work hard to keep myself safe and healthy. But obviously some risk still exists. It’s a it’s difficult for many healthcare providers to get tested. She says she’s never been tested and doing so on a regular and ongoing basis is unrealistic for her totally get that. She’s seen very few people and would be okay accepting a man into her bubble. But she says she’s only interested in so as careful as she is, is it hypocritical of me as a nurse to ask for this level of caution

What is Patreon?

Patreon is a platform that allows you to support creators like me to keep making helpful content that you want to hear and allow you to get amazing listener benefits by participating

Our page is Patreon.com/datesandmates

What will you get if you sign up?

There are three different tiers. One for our loyal listeners who want to connect with others and keep this show going strong for another 7 seasons.

Sign up at patreon.com/datesandmates for: 

  • an opportunity to work with Damona directly
  • to get quality advice that is tailored to your dating challenges
  • and to become part of a community that will help you find the healthiest, most loving relationships this year

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Unknown Speaker 0:00
It’s a tale as old as time. He’s handsome, debonair. She’s pretty and sweet. They lock eyes across the room.

Damona 0:10
Okay, hold on. Honey, you need to get your facts straight. Finding love today is more like

Unknown Speaker 0:17
we supposed to get my swipe. I don’t want

Unknown Speaker 0:19
somebody to share my life. What does this text mean? Maybe he’s just not that into me or even

Damona 0:31
you can keep waiting for the fairy tale, or you can get on board with the new rules of relationships. If you’ve read my advice in the LA Times, then you know, this ain’t your mama’s love advice. This is dates in mates with damona Hoffman

Hello lovers, welcome. Well COVID just keeps on trucking. And so do we over here at dates and mates as we embrace the new Normal, I want to make sure that you have all the tools and tips you need to make a connection in the most disconnected time in human history, or maybe the most connected depending on how you view technology. Last year, I talked to Susan ebbetts, the human behavior hacker, who told us how to read faces on dating apps to choose your match just based on what their facial features reveal about them. Now, I brought her back to help us level up our dating skills for this new system of online dating, virtual dates and social distance dates with masks Of course, what can you infer about someone from your first virtual date? How can you tell someone’s facial expression with the ability to only see their eyes? What kinds of facial qualities would indicate the right match for you? Susan is going to give us the scoop on the scientific shortcuts to human behavior that are written all over your face. But first to hop over to the headlines, including woke fishing, what is this latest dating term? And how do you look out for it? And Mama yenta could your mother be a better matchmaker for you? Plus, is tik tok the way to your heart? I’ll tell you how to make a meaningful connection on social media. Then, at the end of the show, I’ll answer your questions including how do you date during COVID as a medical professional, and 26 and online dating without any real attraction? Is it you? Or is it this new method of meeting people? All right, get your pen and paper ready because this is going to be one of those study session types of episodes that you will want to take notes for. And we will begin at all with the dish

Unknown Speaker 2:46
these dating dish.

Damona 2:48
You know I love a good dating term and the online mag the tab has brought us up to speed on woke fishing. This is when a guy says he’s feminist and anti rape But turns out not to be the jury’s still a little bit split on whether this is something intentional, if this is actually a phishing situation, or this is just something where he thinks that he has more liberal beliefs than he actually does. Because, you know, it’s I guess it’s hip to be progressive right now. And they realize that a lot more women are trending this way. And so to get in with them, they might present themselves as Oh, so woke, but not really being supportive things like Black Lives Matter. Or they might just slip up on a racial slur. I heard a story from a listener not that long ago that dated a guy for a year and a half. She’s biracial and discovered that the guy she’s dating actually isn’t so into black people.

It’s a complicated web we weave out there, but you want to be on the lookout for people trying to be overly sympathetic. To your views or to overreach on things that they don’t appear to know anything about. We’re all in a place right now where this is new learning for so many of us. And if we can just stay in that place of discovery, you don’t have to be so woke to be so dateable. But just be yourself and be open to listening and learning. If you’re looking for love, and maybe you’re afraid to get and woke fished on a dating app. BuzzFeed told us about a cute story of a couple that met on tik tok. And it went viral. And let me tell you, I learned a lot. And I think there’s a lot that you could take away from this couple and how you might be able to make a connection via social media, right? We can’t go to bars anymore. We can’t just be wiling out in the streets. But you can actually be really strategic about who you meet using social media. All right, this couple I’ll tell you, Natalie and Josiah. They met by a typical A post that Josiah made. I have to tell you, I totally didn’t get it. It was like about him dropping a fry in the car and like how you never see it again. Anyways, I’ll let you see him. I’ll put the link to the BuzzFeed article in the show notes, but she it made her laugh. It doesn’t have to make me laugh. It kind of goes back to that point. I always say with a sense of humor. Everybody wants someone with a good sense of humor but what one person finds funny and what another person is cannot believe that you wasted countless hours creating are two very different things but Natalie was charmed by it. And let me tell you what she did. Instead of just engaging with him on tik tok. She went a level deeper. she searched for him on Instagram, and then she followed him on Instagram and liked a few of his other photos. Pro tip that I learned from producer Leo, it’s considered polite if you follow someone to go through and like some of their photos. If you’re following me on Instagram at damona, Hoffman, maybe go through and like a couple of my posts, so I know what you’re responding to. But it also can signal interest. And clearly that’s what happened with Natalie and Josiah. Because then he started following her back. And then they started chatting. And then they went on this cross country road trip, and it was Oh, so cute. You can read the story there. But I want to give you some tips on how to have your own social media meet cute. So the first thing is search for hashtags that are relevant to you. If there’s a particular show that you’re interested in or something like I was saying that indicates your sense of humor sensibility interest that you have, check out that hashtag see who’s talking on on that thread. You can also search for interesting comments on other profiles that you follow and see who might be cute and might be interesting. to chat with just through that particular thread or on that particular page, and see where it can go from there. Then of course, if you like, and he likes, and then you like additional photos, and then you’re following each other, you have a direct line to the DM. Another much underutilized resource is the Facebook group. And there are several groups like I’m in a bunch of podcasting, Facebook groups love coaching professional Facebook groups, you know, political interest, Facebook groups, whatever it is that you’re into, the weirder the better, I would say, but if you can search for a group that fits that particular interest or value system, and then become active in the group, don’t just be a looky loo, actually actively comment and engage with other people in the group that are cute. And start making yourself visible. I talk about this a lot in my dating program. That you, you have to be out there you have to be visible in order to be found. So if you are initiating posts, and you are also commenting on other people’s posts one, you’re going to be boosted in the algorithm. We’ll talk about algorithms next episode. So don’t get ahead of ourselves, but it will make you more visible to others and it will make your posts be shown higher up the next time you post. And you can get seen by those kinds of people that you want to meet. One thing just make sure your account makes it very clear that you’re single, none of this single shame. You’ve heard me talk about that last season. I’m continuing on season eight, no single shame. You’re single, you’re ready to mingle. You don’t have any pictures of exes. In your profile. You don’t have anything that’s that’s vague about what your relationship status is. You’re on Facebook, you can say straight up. I’m single and I’m looking to meet men, women, whatever it is, so be bold. Be clear about it and take a chance you never know you might make a match. If you still feel like you haven’t found a match in today’s world, maybe you should just ask your mom, the Atlanta Jewish times told us about a new app that will launch this fall called just kibitz. That allows Jewish moms to be yentas for their kids. Fun fact, I almost called my my sight Sister yenta when I first launched this, for those of you who don’t know, I’m both black and Jewish, so it’s fitting for me, but it’s probably fitting for some of these moms. And when I originally started as a writer for JD, I used to get a lot of moms that were like, Can I just do this for my kid? Can I just set them up on dates? Can you help me help them? So this allows moms to be mom masters and set their children up on dates. Here’s a really funny part. They asked this sample selection of people would they go out on a date set up by their mom and only 50% of them said that they would. And then they said, Well, what if the date was prepaid? What if mama pays for it? 92% of them were like, sure, then I could go out with somebody. So I’m interested to see how just kibitz works. And they have an interesting slogan. They have an interesting CEO named Jeffrey Kaplan, who said, other dating sites are investing in algorithms and artificial intelligence. You really think a robot knows you better than yo and mother. That’s much sugar. Our site is powered by maternal intelligence. I love it and I whether you have a Jewish mom or not, I think this is a really interesting turn on the online dating landscape. Those are the headlines for this week. Before the break, I have a special announcement for those of you who are looking for love and want to hear more of the kind of tips that I just gave in the dating dish. I’m going to be doing a free webinar. On September 2, all about how to find love in the new normal. Yes, it is possible to meet your match in the middle of a pandemic. Yes, cuffing season is coming. And yes, I have the secret to dating and I will share it with you. So why not join me so you know what to do to get out of the dating rat race and get on to that relationship of your dreams. You can register for free at validating secret calm again, that’s th e dating secret.com. We’ll be live on September 2. And I’d love to meet you virtual style. Of course, you can check for the link in the show notes. I hope to see you there. Welcome back. As I mentioned at the top of the show today I spoke with Susan Ive it’s a longtime professional in face reading and behavior hacking. You might remember her from an episode last fall where she taught us how to analyze your dating app matches using the same tactics. She’s used to negotiate hostage situations. For the police. While today Susan and I team up to use the same human behavior hacking skills to teach you how to show up for your COVID style dates. Here she is giving me a list of her biggest zoom date tips on sound, hand gestures and camera position.

Unknown Speaker 12:20
From all the things that you need to invest, invest in a good microphone, the boys is really important. Why we’re really boys with calm. One tip the most people forget show your hands. If you put in the camera to highs like you looking down on me and that is not a good first impression. So make sure the cameras in 90 degrees, you have at least one or two fingers on the top not too much. In is from the umbilical cord up. Show your hands we use our hands as a nurturer as a touching. So if I can see your hands, it’s more human than if I I only see your shoulders up.

Damona 13:02
Camera positioning is everything on the zoom or FaceTime date for a lot of my clients. There’s an impulse to think of camera angles as we would for Instagram or headshots, but that shouldn’t be the case at all. Treat your COVID style day the same way you would treat a real date to normalize this experience as much as possible. dress in a way that makes you feel confident. Try to be yourself. Remember on an in person dinner date your date would be able to see you from at least the waist up so just keep that in mind but let’s try not to get carried away about the normalization Susan says to remember that people can still see the background behind you make sure you check with a friend that there’s nothing too distracting or nothing that gives away all your secrets. Why you see

Unknown Speaker 13:48
and what the other person see are different. So record yourself and send an if you’re a man send it to a female if you’re a female, send it to a male says is anything on the bathroom. That is giving the wrong message. Because you can present yourself perfectly done. Nails may come care, but I see a mess on the back. And like

Damona 14:11
years ago, I had someone on the show who was a refrigerator analyst. Yeah, so he would have people send in pictures of their dates fridge, and that would tell him everything that he needed to know about the person that they were dating. Like, if they have a lot of fruits and vegetables, then they’re healthy or like he did it from my fridge. He was like, you have like two gold gallons of milk. You must have kids. I’m like, How do you know?

Unknown Speaker 14:39
I have a confession. And let’s see who silently don’t confess the same first date. You’re going to the apartment of the person you’re dating and you go to the bathroom. What is the first thing you do? Open the cabinet? Ah,

Damona 14:54
yes. Or honey look in the toilet. Like if that toilet hasn’t been Oh my God. My husband’s my husband’s bachelor apartment was just I was just talking to him about it actually yesterday as well. Like that was a terrible, terrible apartment. I’m so glad I got him out of there. We all have bachelor apartment horror stories, so maybe it’s good that we can delay the personal hygiene conversation. If your apartment is messy, just tidy up a bit. And don’t use zoom backgrounds. It looks like you’re trying to hide something. But let’s not get too bogged down with your date zoom background, Susan says you need to look at how your date pays attention.

Unknown Speaker 15:36
The first thing that I will look in a person is how we smile to you and how pay attention if you’re shy or an introvert with says put the camera on the system that you only see the person talking to you. Because 75% of the people is afraid to public speaking. This is worse because you seen yourself and you get more nervous from yourself in reflection then from what the other person is doing.

Damona 16:04
I’ve been hearing that from a lot of people that it’s bringing up self esteem issues just having to constantly look at that image of yourself back in the in the window.

Unknown Speaker 16:15
You know what, I have a trick. I something called oxytocin. oxytocin happen when we are taught when we are exchanging with people we like how you replace that in a virtual error. Watching funny videos before you’re going to get to a date to be relax, and to be present and be in a happy place. Three minutes of happy videos or bloopers or pet or whatever, get you to a happy place. Do it and you’re going to see how your body postures is more relaxed. They didn’t imprison. It’s uncomfortable in these computer virtual body language is worse.

Damona 16:58
That’s a really great tip, I reckon. recommend using gifts and funny videos in texting, like that’s a tool when people are like, how do I get the vibe back? I say like send them a joke, send them a gift, send something that you can connect on and laugh about, and that can shortcut getting back into the conversation. What about, like drinking before the date I just, I’m now I was so I write for this column in the Washington Post called date lab where we matchmake for people introduce them and then send them on a date. So for the last few months, the dates of course, have all been on zoom and virtual, which I really hate. Because it’s always the same. It’s always the same date and then people are like, I didn’t really feel a connection. Well, yeah, you just met a stranger that you knew nothing about at least if you’re coming from Bumble or something and then you’re going into the chat you’ve connected you you know that there’s some things in common but this is they’re trusting me and and the date lab team to just set them up and they don’t know who they’re gonna To me, so, anyways, I was just talking to one of the date labs that I’m writing about and they were saying that they, they, they both pre drank to kind of loosen up for the date. I wouldn’t do that but I’m I’m a super lightweight What do you think about about that and like how drinking alcohol can impact the way that you present yourself?

Unknown Speaker 18:20
The pendant how alcohol affecting you, people get aggressive people get too too warm filter it and sometimes the first time is not good.

Damona 18:29
Right? I also I’ve talked about this on the show before but just as a reminder to everyone that’s new to the show or that maybe forgot. Also gamifying the day having an activity exactly what Susan’s saying. Making a theme but also maybe making a game out of it. 20 questions sipping paint night. I just found this app. I swear you guys i’m not i’m not being paid to say this. I just legit really have fun with it. It’s an app called let’s roam and they have in home scavenger On so you can do things where you’re like, you’re like playing this virtual scavenger hunt. And you have to go and grab like your sylius tat or, you know, do it try to do a handstand or something goofy that makes it sort of fun. So those are a few tips for virtual dates. But a lot of people are over the virtual date Susan, they’re ready to move out into the real world. And many people are now even skipping the virtual agent just going right to social distance dates. Well, here’s the problem with social distance day hits. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of someone online but you’re meeting them with a mask on your face reader. You know a lot about human behavior. What can you tell about someone just from looking at the eyes, you know, mid know mid nose and eyes above, they’re wearing a mask.

Unknown Speaker 19:48
First of all, don’t try to show more of your face that you should,

Damona 19:52
you know, like give a little notes.

Unknown Speaker 19:56
Ya know, be the other person is willing to take the mass is willing to take a risk. Then I don’t know if I want to be taken with that person is irresponsible. So actually, everybody seeing that emotions happen on this smile on the lips. Actually the seven microexpression happened on the eyes, the expression of happiness and anger happening on the eyes and the eyebrows on the forehead.

Damona 20:20
So, Tyra Banks was right all along. You smile If you don’t smile.

Unknown Speaker 20:28
Well, some people don’t do it.

Unknown Speaker 20:30
Pay attention to the emotions. Because everybody’s so fixated on the mouth. We’re not paying attention with the eyes is telling us the word and we have all the body to say. I know it’s difficult not to kiss or handshake. Now you can pay attention to other things. And again, go in front of the mirror, put yourself a mask in practice emotions, and I don’t know watch videos, record yourself as your friends to watch a movie together. So You can be analyzed and how emotions happen on the face.

Damona 21:03
This is an important skill to learn because we may be wearing masks for this may be the new normal culturally, this is it’s different in, in the US I know people in other countries like in Asia that this has not, it wasn’t such a leap, right to go into mass culture. But it’s something for a lot of Americans that we have to learn from scratch how to inspect

Unknown Speaker 21:30
the world was born for the first time in Asia, and most Asian people know how to read faces. So whatever you want to learn from this experience is going to make you more human in a better communicator.

Damona 21:46
This is an unprecedented period of time, and we’re forced to reconnect in a completely different way. But hopefully, this episode convinced you that this doesn’t mean that the quality of our connections has to be any different If you learned anything new from Susan, you should check out our previous episode together. Or you can see the amazing private session she did with one of our listeners Mel. Susan actually was able to read some really personal qualities about her just by looking at her face and use that information to set her up for success in dating. They are exclusively available on Patreon and I’m not bragging or nothing but they really did work. You will see us dissect Mel’s profile and really set her up for success. Just a month after our session she met her ideal match and they’re still dating today I just checked in with her so go learn what you need to do to your profile just by watching Susan punch up Mel’s profile with me. from each of our individual expertise. The cost is just five bucks to join and you can get those profile hacking videos plus bonus dates and mates content including a live q&a at Behind the mike session every single week on Facebook, if you love this show, if you’ve gotten helpful advice from me, why not support us to keep making this content and join the club for just $5 patreon.com slash dates and mates? In a moment, I’ll be answering your dating questions and dear Dimona, so don’t go anywhere. We’re back. This is dear to Mona.

Mona help me. I so love that new intro. I hope you do too. Thanks to my dear friend Jenny Wren genuine music for recording that. All right, we have so many questions I’m going to answer to today but just know if your question doesn’t get answered. It is in queue to be answered on a future episode. This one came to us from M she says she’s been listening to the podcast for about a year. Thank you. Um, she says she’s having some trouble reading herself. These days, she’s 26 and online dating, and she’s feeling like she’s ready to meet someone to start her life with. This is what um, says the past few people I’ve been talking with, and dating are really sweet and easy to talk to. But I’m not feeling attracted to them once I meet them, even after a few or several dates, I’m trying to figure out if it’s just that I’m not ready to be dating right now. Or if the person or these people are not the right match for me, or do I just need to keep putting myself out there for new matches? Well, I think this is a problem that a lot of the people at home are nodding their heads to like, yeah, girl been there. And you cannot force a connection. But what you can do is evaluate your dating patterns. And if this is a longtime pattern of you, like you go out with someone a few times, and it fizzles or you don’t start to feel butterflies, and this has happened over and over and over again, not just the last few months, but like the last few years, then that might be something thing that you want to evaluate because it might be that who you think you’re attracted to, and who you’re responding to, on paper is different than who you would respond to say, in person or who you feel natural chemistry towards. Of course, everything’s different in COVID. And we’re only really able to meet people virtually at first right now. So I really would love for you to spend some time getting in touch with your own attractions like as you’re watching a movie like Who who are you feeling attracted to you when you’re watching a movie as you are? I don’t know on a group video chat with friends. like God forbid you’re not going to Las Vegas Pool Party. Please tell me you’re not doing that. But if you do, you know who what, what is it that you are attracted to an individual people What are you curious about? And some of it is the pool I’m sure if you are not putting yourself out On enough dates, I think sometimes we put too much pressure on each individual date, if you’re only going on, say, one date, a month. But if you feel like you have a lot of people in the pipeline, and when I say going out on one date a month I, it could be a video chat date, it could be a social distance date. But if you aren’t getting enough options in the pipeline, it can feel like you’re putting so much pressure on somebody to work even if it’s not really a match. So I would take a step back, go to that mindset piece that I’m always talking about, and then go to that, that place of attraction and see what is the pattern? What am I responding to, and what am I getting? Where am I feeling this lack of attraction and see if you can, you can analyze yourself a little bit and then create a dating plan that’s going to be more successful for you off of that. Another question comes to us from Jocelyn she says she loves the podcast and she You heard our advice on dating during the pandemic. You may remember that episode a couple weeks ago with dear frannie. And I got a couple of notes about my comments on testing. Of course I am in California, I’m in Los Angeles, where we can, we can test as often as we like, and it’s totally covered and free. I realized that is not the case for everyone everywhere. Some of you picked up on the fact that I clarified that, but you have to, first of all get up to speed on what is available in your area and some places you may not have been able to test before but there may be testing available now. So you have to constantly stay on top of I call it the coronas the corona news, but this person says that my advice didn’t quite fit her situation. Here’s the deal with Jocelyn. She says she’s a single 41 year old nurse working in a hospital with potential exposure to coronavirus on a daily basis. He says I have to work hard to keep myself safe and healthy. But obviously some risk still exists.

It’s a it’s difficult for many healthcare providers to get tested. She says she’s never been tested, and doing so on a regular and ongoing basis is unrealistic for her. I totally get that. She’s seeing very few people and would be okay accepting a man into her bubble. But she says she’s only interested in someone as careful as she is. Is it hypocritical of me as a nurse to ask for this level of caution? Jocelyn, it’s not hypocritical for you as a nurse. It’s, it’s not hypocritical for anyone listening right now to try to understand somebody’s risk tolerance, and ask for a basic level of respect. It’s sort of like asking for exclusivity, right. Like you have that conversation. And as long as they’re on the same page, and they give you their word that they’re going to be faithful to you then. It is a covenant. It is immigrant. remount of the relationship, and especially in a situation that you’re in, thank you, first of all, for serving the people of your state and your city. And being there to help people who are dealing with COVID. I can only imagine the the mental toll that takes on you and how that impacts when you’re dating, the way that you filter through your dates. So you are Yes, in a situation that is different, where you need to be very careful of who you invite into your bubble. But for anyone listening, I think we should use as much caution as possible. I just heard a story of a person that got COVID because he went on a double date with with somebody that he didn’t know and then turns out that person had COVID and all four of them on the double date COVID this is just back in June. Like let’s let’s be cautious. Let’s use common sense the one of the most intimate things you can do is to go on a date with somebody or just to, to, like, I went somewhere with a friend. And we’d both recently been tested and I had to ride in the car with her and I was like, okay, we’re taking our masks off. I swear it felt like having sex without a condom for the first time. It’s a little bit scary to break down that barrier and release that wall. And especially in a situation like your job has to come first right now we really need you, Jocelyn. We need you to stay healthy. So anyone that you date has to be held to that same standard and anybody who really would be an appropriate long term partner for you would understand that. Hope that helps you and hope that helps everyone that’s listening on navigating the new normal and dating and relationships. This was Episode 324 of dates inmates if you’re looking out for some more personalized human behavior hacking. Check out Susan at human behavior. labs.com she can do one of these analyses, like, like she did for Mel for you too. And if you want to see what we did for Mel, check out the Patreon to support the show and get all of that behind the scenes and bonus content. It’s just $5 at patreon.com, slash dates, and mates. Also, we will give you a shortcut to today’s headline articles. And, of course, our gift game is strong thanks to producer Leo. Check all that out at dates and mates calm and there’s other free goodies there waiting for you and other show recaps. Remember the Registration is open now for my free webinar on September 2, you can sign up for free at the dating secret.com and I’ll share the secret with you hit me up on all the socials I’m at damona Hoffman you can DM me, let me know what you learned from today’s episode. Or send me a question that I can answer for an upcoming episode of dates and mates. I’ll be back again next. Next week with a deep dive on dating app algorithms. Until then, I wish you happy dating

Dating CEO & Romance Scams

DATING LIKE A CEO

If you’re reading this right now, we know you are a Boss – the CEO of your life, if you will. But sometimes those CEO qualities just don’t match up with your dating life.

Today we’re learning from dating coach and image consultant, Neely Steinberg who will show us how to boss up in our love lives the way we do in business. BE THE CEO OF YOUR LOVE LIFE!! Remember that Love Lessons episode on first impressions? Well, she also has some fab style tips on how to present yourself the way you want to be seen. 

Bye Little Black Dress. Buh- bye.

But first, Damona covers headlines:

DATING DISH (1:28)

Demi Lovato’s relationship is running on quarantine standard time

Did you see who Demi Lovato is dating? Excuse us… Engaged to (according to our sources) ?

FBI WARNING:

Dating Scams are on the rise! HighSpeedInternet.com gives us all the stats.

The Kinsey Institute tells men to just… please… keep it in your pants.

New study on dick pics from the Kinsey Institute! Damona breaks it down.

BE THE CEO OF YOUR DATING LIFE (11:00)

Damona is joined by Neely Steinberg, a dating coach and personal image consultant who helps smart, savvy women take back their power and become the CEO of their dating and love lives. Neely has a Masters degree in Counseling and has been running her business for a decade.

We leave it all on the table

  • Is Match the best dating app out there?
  • How to “massage” the dating app algorithm
  • How to boss up and CEO your dating life
  • How to dress for your body shape

Make sure to check Damona out on Going to Bed with Garcelle later this season!

TECHNICALLY DATING (29:40)

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • I met a guy on match and we’ve done an audio call in a video call and where having a masked walk and talk tomorro w. I’m trying to be open minded but he is 10 years older 64!
  • I wrote my crush a love letter a week ago and haven’t received a real response. (Y’all she sent me the love letter and it was beautifully written) He hasn’t responded to the letter, but he let me know that he’s read it and has been keeping distance so he can process. What should I do?

 

 

Best of all, it’s super affordable – Dates & Mates listeners like you get 10% off your first month with discount code DATESANDMATES 

So why not get started today? We all need someone to talk to right now. Go to BetterHelp.com/datesandmates so you can fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs and get matched with a counselor you’ll love.

 

 

What is Patreon?

Patreon is a platform that allows you to support creators like me to keep making helpful content that you want to hear and allow you to get amazing listener benefits by participating

Our page is Patreon.com/datesandmates

What will you get if you sign up?

There are three different tiers. One for our loyal listeners who want to connect with others and keep this show going strong for another 7 seasons.

Sign up at patreon.com/datesandmates for: 

  • an opportunity to work with Damona directly
  • to get quality advice that is tailored to your dating challenges
  • and to become part of a community that will help you find the healthiest, most loving relationships this year

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Date of the Union & The Entanglement

HOW TO DATE TODAY: ENTANGLEMENT NOW

This week we’re answering the question: Can you date today? Or can all we hope for is just a summer “entanglement?”

Damona gives a “Date of the Union Address” devoted to helping you understand the current dating and entanglement landscape plus get you up to speed on the top headlines that we missed during the Love Lessons special series.

First up, we do the dish with Damona’s co-host for the day, Steve Barnes:

DATING DISH (1:28)

Will and Jada and The Big “Entanglement”

We know you’ve heard about Will and Jada… plus August. But we still have questions: Was this “entanglement” staged? Do Will and Jada have an open relationship? Damona and Steve have some experience with Will and Jada that might change your mind of some of these questions…

via GIPHY

Royally Screwed

So Princess Beatrice’s wedding didn’t go as planned. Not only did COVID completely cut the guest list down to 100 and push it back… her dad’s entanglement in the Epstein case also cast a shadow on a day. Damona and Steve discuss.

via GIPHY

Once and For All: What makes a great relationship

Samantha Joel et al of Western University in London, Ontario have completed the most comprehensive and successful study to answer the question, “what makes a great relationship?” According to Joel, the partnership you build is more important than the partner you pick. Read CNN’s full article here!

via GIPHY

DATE OF THE UNION: THE STATE OF DATE TODAY (11:00)

We are joined by fan-favorite dating coach Francesca Hogi! You’ve heard her wonderful advice on the podcast before, but if you’re new here, Franny is a love and life coach for extraordinary people who happen to be single.

Fun Fact: She is the co-host of the podcast Romantical and the host of the podcast Dear Franny: Uncommon Conversations About Love.

She’s here to help Damona to this “Date of The Union Address” right!

We cover:

  • Were dating coaches wrong? Maybe this isn’t the best time to find love?
  • The New Courtship Timeline: dating is slower, but relationships are moving at lightning speed
  • Summer Time Love is Fake
  • The exact steps to take to find love right now
  • Why you should be on two dating platforms – and we tell you which ones those are
  • Why you should be stalking the people you’re interested in

Read Franny’s full list here!

TECHNICALLY DATING (29:40)

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • Danette –Is 2 weeks to soon to start saying “I love you”? I’ve met someone who is working abroad and we have established quite a nice text relationship. He is head over heels for me and keeps telling me he loves me. We haven’t met yet. I have strong feelings for him but this is making me uncomfortable. How do I elegantly ask him to slow down.
  •  Mary – I wanted to know if in your segment on Dating While Social Distancing, do you have recommendations on physical intimacy? What if you find someone that you would like to start a committed physical relationship with? How do you navigate and set safety agreements?

What is Patreon?

Patreon is a platform that allows you to support creators like me to keep making helpful content that you want to hear and allow you to get amazing listener benefits by participating

Our page is Patreon.com/datesandmates

What will you get if you sign up?

There are three different tiers. One for our loyal listeners who want to connect with others and keep this show going strong for another 7 seasons.

Sign up at patreon.com/datesandmates for: 

  • an opportunity to work with Damona directly
  • to get quality advice that is tailored to your dating challenges
  • and to become part of a community that will help you find the healthiest, most loving relationships this year

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Unknown Speaker 0:00
It’s a tale as old as time. He’s handsome, debonair. She’s pretty and sweet. They lock eyes across the room.

Damona 0:10
Okay, hold on, honey, you need to get your facts straight. Finding love today is more like we supposed to get my swipe. I just want

Unknown Speaker 0:19
somebody to share my life. What

Unknown Speaker 0:20
does this text mean? Maybe he’s just not that into me or even I met him on the street. I know which hospital he worked at. I knew his name is I slid into his DMS

Damona 0:30
on Twitter. You can keep waiting for the fairy tale, or you can get on forward with the new rules of relationships. If you’ve read my advice in the LA Times, then you know, this ain’t your mama’s love advice. This is dates in mates with damona Hoffman,

Unknown Speaker 0:47
members of Congress,

Unknown Speaker 0:49
the President of the United States.

Damona 0:53
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members of Congress, Madam Vice President lovers, This day marks eight years essentially two terms as you’re leading dating and relationship official. We kicked off the season strong with an interview and coaching demo with the real housewives garcelle Beauvais last week. It was beautiful. It was the very best American dating podcast episode about the best. And now it’s time to address your concerns in a date of the Union Address. All right, in all seriousness, we’re in a challenging time for dating and relationships and everyone needs love now more than ever. So today’s episode is devoted to helping you understand the current dating landscape and getting you up to speed on the top headlines that we missed during the love lessons special series. To do all of this. I have two exciting guests joining me today for updates on the date of the Union. Do you get it data you didn’t get it? Well, I have a fan favorite love coach joining me Francesca hoagie who will give us the exact steps that motivated singles need to take right now if they’re looking to find love. But first, we have the headlines. Of course we missed some huge headlines including will and jaida and the big entanglement and the royal wedding. No the other royal wedding, didn’t you here, plus the latest and most accurate study on what makes a great relationship. Then at the end of the show, Francesca and I will handle your questions including Is it true love or is it a catfish? And when is it safe to get physical with your quarantine crush? Joining me to tackle the headlines of the day is my dear friend Barnes. He’s an actor and producer plus. You may also know him from over 20 years of experience as a radio personality specifically as the host of Atlanta’s number one morning radio show. The morning acts for many years. Now, he’s the host of a hot new podcast called the Pop Culture Show. Along with cmts, Leslie Fram and Kobe Bryant from nycs 106. point seven. Please help me give big smooches to my co host for today, Barnes thank you

Unknown Speaker 3:19
very much good to see you. damona.

Damona 3:21
My friend, I was thinking about who can help me figure out what we missed in the time that we were doing our love lessons and who is always on top of the headlines. And of course, it’s you. Of course we do this every week already on the Pop Culture Show. So why not do it here on dates and mates?

Unknown Speaker 3:40
I’ve listened to your podcast for years you’ve been doing it for so long gratulations on all the success.

Damona 3:45
Thank you. And obviously you are a legend in radio and podcasting. So I’m just honored. You’re here to break down these headlines with us. Are you ready to dish with me Barnes

Unknown Speaker 3:56
I am always ready. Let’s do it.

Damona 4:00
stating dish. Bowsher and everyone in the internet has been talking about will and jayda. This all went down when we were doing our love lessons, but it’s just too important not to talk about, in case you haven’t heard and you’ve been living under a rock jayda had what she calls in entanglement with August alsina. And it turns out it happened during a break when she and we’ll were on a break. So she brought herself and will to the red table to talk this all through. Barnes. I got to know from you. I mean, you’ve been covering pop culture for a long time and there’s been a lot of rumors about willing Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 4:40
for a while. We talked about this in the pop culture show while you’re on vacation. And it what’s weird to me is if you follow all of the clues and all the bread crumbs that have been dropped, first of all on the red table show on Facebook, he called it I believe in a fair or a situation And she quickly corrected him and said entanglement and I think that’s key because August seen us song entanglement was already created made and on the platter ready to come out. It’s very suspicious to me I think something weird is going on with that whole thing even though they have a piece of it and this is just a big Hollywood play. I don’t know what’s happening but all the things said in the song are even Rick Ross is wrapped talking about Will Smith kind of under the lines. It’s strange. Just

Damona 5:32
looking at the read Table Talk episode. I just really felt that will was coming from a very honest place. I feel like the bond between them is so strong that, you know we like to banter about what’s going on. I feel like it is and they’ve been I mean, they’ve been together for what like two

Unknown Speaker 5:53
decades. Come on. You know Hollywood. Something is weird about this whole situation. That August is Seen a coming out with an entanglement song and the way she was so purpose driven in mentioning it during that whole thing with Will I agree with you will seem like he was coming from a very honest place. She, however, was the complete antithesis of that. I felt like she was very fake, and very contrived. And very, she was very flippant with him.

Damona 6:24
I’m just surprised that she was able to keep this a secret while doing red Table Talk for so long. But

Unknown Speaker 6:30
all that aside motion,

Damona 6:32
all promotion, let’s say you’re here, so Hollywood with the pop culture analysis. But let’s say for our listeners who are watching this thinking, Oh, that could be me. I just want to know what your thoughts are on the open relationship situation. Like let’s say it wasn’t even really against the rules of relation, the relationship and they are just in an open relationship. Do you think that we’re going to be seeing more more people coming out and saying The rules of your relationship do not apply to me.

Unknown Speaker 7:03
What legendary for years, they’ve had an open relationship and they’ve had multiple people in and out of it. That’s what people say. They came into our studios one time, she came in one time and was very like, she’s the princess snapping those fingers through the hallways like with her whole, you know, posse following her. And he’s the same way we interviewed Well, a long time ago, and he had like multiple people around him. They’re just very contrived. I feel like they’ve gone on a path to their stardom. And even this open relationship thing could just be something to get people talking. But the August I’ll who is August alsina. I mean, Where did he come from? See all of a sudden he’s being talked about.

Damona 7:44
So what is it? Clearly they understand it, they’re pulling all the strings and yes, we are just talking about it. And yes, we’re going to probably buy that.

Unknown Speaker 7:53
But that read the table. Once again, 15 million or something or more views

Damona 7:59
barn’s Let me tell you though. That show is so good. I mean, we could talk about that all day. But you mentioned that she came in like the princess. There was news about an actual princess that happened while we were in the love lesson sessions as well. Princess Beatrice finally got married on July 17.

Unknown Speaker 8:17
This is great

Damona 8:18
delicious snack, Edoardo mapelli mazzi. And she had to keep changing her plans like it seemed like everybody else was just conspiring against her wedding. You may remember back in the fall there when all the Epstein drama was happening. Prince Andrew just fully put his foot in his mouth and they were like, okay, can’t get married now because obviously people are going to be talking about that. And then COVID happens. And so you know, here all of her cousins get these lavish weddings and carriage processions and they’re like, we’re just going to do a tiny little family only thing and and keep it really small but I can’t believe that that Really what she wanted I think she kind of just got the short end of the stick

Unknown Speaker 9:04
well with Prince Andrew and everything going on with Jeffrey Epstein. That’s number one and they use COVID kind of as an excuse. I mean, the Queen didn’t even stay the whole time. The Queen was like, in and out out he but by the Epstein thing, there are still things coming out with that.

Damona 9:20
Oh, it’s so sketchy sketch and like for everyone listening I’m sure a lot of us had plans that got disrupted from COVID. And a lot of us had weddings or in I just heard from a client who was engaged who had to break off her engagement cuz her her her fiance is stuck in another country. It’s it’s been wild, but maybe like you said, Maybe this is a blessing in disguise for them. And then they can just focus on the relationship being about the two of them and not deal with all their drama. And look at this. This is the royal family. And they have all that same drama. Like don’t invite him to the wedding. Who knows wasn’t Sheila

Unknown Speaker 9:59
she was With an American for what, almost 10 years

Unknown Speaker 10:05
research now

Unknown Speaker 10:07
it’s the pop culture show up on Pop Culture Show, I’m just doing dates and maids.

Unknown Speaker 10:12
She was with this guy. Beatrice was with this American for, I want to say 10 years. And when they broke it off, whoever broke it off, he was engaged in a hot minute. So that’s very interesting. And American, I believe living in London, and they get broken up. However, they got broken up, and then all of a sudden, magically, he’s engaged

Damona 10:34
in it. You know, when it works, it works when it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. But that reminds me of a new cnn study that was just published on what makes a successful relationship. And they looked at successful couples. Everyone’s always asking me like, what are the qualities that I need to present to be ready for a relationship or what should I be looking for? What are the red flags? Turns out Barnes it’s ain’t even about you. It’s more about the relationship. And it turns out that the satisfaction the relationship matters a lot more than the individual characteristics. So thinking of things like, like perceived partner commitment, like if you feel like your partner is committed to you, that’s, that can really indicate that you’re going to be in it for the long haul, or appreciation, of course, sexual satisfaction, perceived partner satisfaction, and conflict. I found this study fascinating Barnes and

Unknown Speaker 11:32
I know every, like every hot button. Well, I mean, isn’t that the bottom lines, but I do? Well, hitting the hot button. I guess that’s the key to a successful relationship right now is the third point. But beyond that, it’s Can you ever get it perfect? Because if you had those four things, or whatever that are this, you know, that are the base of a relationship, and three of them are working here. All right.

Damona 11:57
Yeah. Like everyone’s looking for the Holy Grail. I don’t know about I’ve been watching that show Indian matchmaking on Netflix. And you know, so they have the, well, we’re not gonna get into the controversy, but they look at the bio data, right of all the people that they’re matching. And they go so far as to send them to astrologers and to do face readings to try to get the compatibility, right. But really, it’s just about their, their commitment. When you look at it that way. It reminds me actually, you know, my husband, and I remember in the beginning, I was like, What do you like about me? And he was like, I like how you make me feel. And I was like, that’s a cop out. Give me some compliments. But now that I’m seeing this study, it makes a lot of sense that it was more about the relationship and how he felt in the relationship than necessarily that that I was doing anything special.

Unknown Speaker 12:52
Well, look at all the look at all the reality shows. I watch all of them all the dating shows, it’s weird. Nothing is good enough for Anybody,

Damona 13:00
well, you can’t reality TV, you can help who you love. But I’ll put up the the link to the study, of course in the show notes, dates and mates calm. But there were something some individual characteristics that could predict whether you will be satisfied in a relationship or not. These are really interesting barns, life satisfaction, negative effect, depression, attachment avoidance and attachment, anxiety. If you haven’t read the book attached, you can learn about your attachment style, but I was like, This is the key. We did all of these exercises in love languages to get clear on our partner but also to get really comfortable with ourselves. And that seems to be a big factor much more than looking for those qualities in your partner.

Unknown Speaker 13:50
Have you seen the show? I’m sorry, on Netflix.

Damona 13:52
Yeah, no, I heard it’s really funny.

Unknown Speaker 13:54
All about dating. They’re trying to will feroza an executive producer and they’re trying To be the almost Sex in the City, but kind of quirky of this age. I’ll be curious to see what you think about but they talk about these things.

Damona 14:08
I know like three years. I’ll have some on demand. Oh, I know. I have a lot to watch and very little time. I’m busy watching love love on the spectrum. That’s a good one. Barnes. Where’s that? I haven’t heard that. So Netflix, but it’s people who are on the autism spectrum looking

Unknown Speaker 14:23
Oh, I have not seen that. I did see that. I saw it but I didn’t see it. so

Damona 14:27
fabulous. cringe worthy at moments. But actually, you could. everyone listening could learn a lot about relationships by watching what these people go through, because they have to teach them just basic social skills and interaction like things that I assume for a lot of the people listening should just come naturally. But it’s reinforces what I say that dating is really a learned skill. And so sometimes we need to just break down all of the steps and make sure that you’re building the relationship in the right way from the beginning.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Netflix is full of shows like that. I’ll give you two more for homework. Okay, on twisted relationships. One is called Dr. Foster. Okay, which is a UK show a must see on Netflix, I’m

Damona 15:10
sure they have a bad name, Beatrice,

Unknown Speaker 15:13
Beatrice, and then the other ones, another UK show called liar. And those are both about twisted relationships. But a lot of the things you talk about are exhibited in these people. And to your point, is it you the couple, or is it you the individual that’s making the relationship go sideways? If you focus on yourself and make yourself better, is that going to make collectively a better relationship? Now you’ve got to worry about the other side.

Damona 15:39
So much to do. You’re giving me homework barns. That’s

Unknown Speaker 15:43
what we do.

Damona 15:44
This is why I listened to the pop culture show, which all of you can hear at the pop culture show.com or wherever you get your podcast, because Barnes keeps us up to speed on what we need to know whether we’re talking dating and relationships or what’s happening on the hutzler or anything else? You’re my source Barnes and I appreciate you being here.

Unknown Speaker 16:05
We have to have you on our show soon. It’s Mondays at 10am we dropped a new episode.

Damona 16:08
I love it. I can’t wait to be on that show and I can’t wait to have you back to do the headlines with me again here on dates inmates. Thank you. That’s for dish. We’ll be back with updates and actionable advice in my date of the union address with Francesca hoagie. But first, I have to ask, can we be friends? Can we be friends with benefits? It’s not what you think. In case you haven’t heard already, I have a Patreon group for my true friends who want a little more support and love. If you’re looking for a community of daters and behind the scenes insights from me, then you are the perfect person to become one of my friends with benefits on Patreon. You can check it out@patreon.com slash dates and mates. And when you become a member of our community, you get a private Facebook group where you can chat with me and other listeners of the show. You’ll also get access to the behind the mic live stream talk back each week all about that week’s episode, plus secret behind the scenes content from over 300 episodes of dates and mates and 10% off of any of my online programs too. There’s even more, you can read all about it@patreon.com slash dates and dates, and you can join for just $5. And that will allow me to hopefully keep the show going for another eight more seasons as well. Okay, don’t go anywhere. The date of the union is coming right up.

Welcome back. I am here with one of the Dayton mates fan favorites dating coach Francesca hoagie. You’ve heard her wonderful advice and stories on this podcast before but if you’re new here frannie is a love and life coach for extraordinary people who happen To be single, fun fact she was also a contestant on two seasons of the CBS reality show survivor. Francesca is the co host of the podcast romantical and the host of the awesome podcast, dear frannie uncommon conversations about love. And she’s here to have some uncommon conversations with me and do this date of the Union address, right? So please give big smooches to my friend Francesca hoagie. Hey, hi. Thank you hear me, Danny, welcome back. Thank you. Thanks. I’ve been going down

Unknown Speaker 18:38
since the last time you’re on the show. You know, the world just it’s it’s, it’s changed like 20 times in the last six months. It’s pretty extraordinary.

Damona 18:49
That is exactly why I wanted to do this show because we talked about dating like, I’ll be honest, I started out super optimistic me two months ago. Yeah. And I was like, this is great, you guys. Yeah, sure. All my listeners

Unknown Speaker 19:00
are laughing or laughing right now we were all so excited. We’re like, this is actually gonna be the best thing ever everyone.

Damona 19:06
And I think there are positives to it. Like I was saying it slowing down the dating process, which was on hyperspeed and really needed something to recalibrate it. I wasn’t really counting on this, but here we are.

Unknown Speaker 19:21
Here we are. But yeah, yeah.

Damona 19:23
Now like we’re, what, five months into quarantine? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 19:27
10 years, one or the

Damona 19:29
other. It feels like 10 years. And I feel like from my clients and the listeners who’ve written into the show, I feel like the the tone has changed a little bit. And the fatigue is setting in and the frustration is coming up again. So what are you seeing in your practice?

Unknown Speaker 19:47
Yeah, I’m seeing the same thing. I was really really optimistic at the beginning of quarantine and I saw my clients I think, when it first when everything first started walking down there Really was this wave of people who were like, Okay, well, this is it is what it is, it’s not going to be for that long. So like, let’s just, you know, have some video dates and get to know people. And that was happening, like very much happening for my clients like pretty easily at the beginning and I was like, Oh my god, this is amazing. Everybody’s gonna meet their husband and quarantine are gonna be all these like, you know, Corona love stories. And there will be there will be but I’ve just seen it kind of like that initial wave just kind of crash a bit. And it seems like, like you said that fatigue is set in. Which by the way, I mean, even if it wasn’t a pandemic, like this is not, you know, summertime is not the best time to be looking for a serious relationship in general. Because people are always more distracted in the summer and just have, you know, shorter attention spans. And so I thought that kind of the fact that we are still all quarantining for the most part, hopefully would extend This kind of honeymoon period, but it’ll come back around because you know, fall was coming. cuffing season is coming.

Damona 21:06
cuffing season is right around the corner. I’m a big fan of the zoom dates, but I have always said, and for my patreon friends with benefits, there’s a there’s a special video I did that’s just on how to ace a video chat date, because it’s a separate process. And I think a lot of people were kind of slipping into just like, oh, you’re here, let me just click into, you know, the Bumble video or asked or meet me on zoom. And it was like you said it was not very mindful and very fatiguing. And we have to still have something to build up to we have. We’ve lost that anticipation, right? Because there used to be that I’m going to meet this person for the first time. What am I going to wear? How is my hair going to be done?

Unknown Speaker 21:51
Why are they did all that like yeah, excitement. Yeah, it’s so

Damona 21:54
intimate, bringing someone into your home like you’ve never met them and now they’re visiting But still, yeah, that’s a whole different level. It’s a whole different level. Totally. We even get there. You wrote this fantastic blog. You guys when I mean not gender, y’all, this blog is so, so on the money about all the things that you should be doing right now, if you’re looking for love. So she says she’s in a relationship now. But she says, I’m a love coach, if I was single, here’s how I would find love during COVID. So can we just run through it? I want people to check out this blog too. But I can let’s give some of the highlights. You in the blog, you differentiate between dating, traditional dating sites and dating apps. I’ve talked about this on the past in the past on the show, but for the noobs. Let’s get everybody up to speed on the difference between those two things.

Unknown Speaker 22:51
Yes, absolutely. And thank you for the kind words by the way, from the heart girl. So a traditional dating site, you know, Think the will the classic one match.com. Right like so you think of you go on a site, you can put in your search parameters, you run searches, the site suggests people to you, you can message anybody you want, whether they live, you know, down the street from you or across the world. So it’s really you have more controls over your kind of what you’re doing on the site, just because of the way that it’s set up. And also, the profiles on a traditional dating site are they’re just more detailed. So, you know, if you’re looking at a dating app, you might have 400 500 characters say everything you need to say about yourself, which is not a lot of not a lot of room, you know, basically like two tweets. So the subtle lot of room but if you go on to a traditional site, then you can say as much as you want. I mean, you don’t want to say too much, right? You don’t want to bore people with your life story, but you know you you have more of a chance to express yourself a little bit more Your personality, who you’re looking for the kind of relationship you want to have. And you know, all apps have a free version, most of them also have a paid version where you can, you know, upgrade to get some extra bells and whistles. But for the most part, the app experience is a free one. And the traditional sites also usually have a free version, but you do want to pay because the paid versions are where you can really get the full benefit of a traditional site. So the cost, the just the functionality, you know, like I said, on a traditional site, you can sort of run searches and be a little bit more targeted about who you’re looking at. Whereas on a dating app, the algorithm is just basically showing you everyone in your area, who generally is the gender and age that you’re looking for. I mean, you can kind of pay to get a little bit more specific on certain apps, but you’re definitely casting a wider net on apps.

Damona 24:55
Yes, that’s so true. And you also talk about the algorithm and Yes, thank you. I say this to my clients to like, you can be on Coffee Meets Bagel, which is a great app, y’all. But you get one match a day there. And there’s not really much I can do in the algorithm for you. But on like an OkCupid, or a match, I have different ways that I can search I can do I have different ways that I can signal to the app, what you’re looking for. Yes, right. Yeah. So do you feel like it’s a it’s a either or situation or you feel like everybody should be on both a traditional and an app? And is there a max number of apps that you’ve seen people be able to juggle?

Unknown Speaker 25:40
Yeah. So I think ideally, you’d be on to, okay. And I when I say ideally, I mean, this is this is current, okay, so this is August 2020, you know, COVID-19 times, three months ago, four months ago, five months ago, I wasn’t recommending that, that people be on both our traditional site and an app. The reason And I’m doing that now is because because on a traditional site, the bar to entry is a little bit higher, you know, you’ve got to pay, you’ve got to put more work into your profile. My suspicion is that this is the time that you want to, you want to go there, that’s where you want to be like, if you’re looking for something serious, that’s where you want to be. If you’re willing to put in the time and the effort to really get to know someone without the instant gratification of like getting to hang out with them. I think that you are more likely to find more people who are willing to invest that same amount of time on a traditional site, which is why I’m recommending that right now. Particularly for the person who has been on a dating app and you’re feeling really like frustrated, burnt out, you know, you feel like you’re out of matches, like you’ve seen everybody you know, in your city or town, then that’s a good opportunity. Also, I spoken to people who are now because of everything that’s going on and maybe their jobs situation, they’re more geographically flexible, because they’re like, well, I live live in New York, but I, my job now is going to be I can work wherever. So maybe I live somewhere where I can have a better quality of life. So they’re even more open to moving. And if you’re more open to moving, you can go on and OkCupid or match. And you can say, all right, these are the five cities I’m interested in, and you can start running searches for people in those cities, and start connecting with them. So yeah,

Damona 27:22
that I have to admit I’m, I’m definitely adapting my traditional strategy a little bit. And, and it’s also specific to each client. Like I have a client who’s looking for something very specific. And she’s kind of gotten to the end of the Bumble role. And yeah, so I was like, normally, I would not say you need to be on four apps at a time. But if you’re looking for something really specific and you’re eager to get things rolling, like if you don’t have time to play the long game for whatever reason, you know, you’re goals or biological clock or whatever, then maybe this is a good time because you’re working from home and you have more free time. Maybe this is a good time to juggle more apps, as long as you can be active on it. Right? Like, you don’t want to be missing messages and, and being flaky.

Unknown Speaker 28:17
Yeah, exactly. And it basically comes down to Yeah, what is your bandwidth? You know, I mean, I have some clients for, you know, to be on one platform is enough, like, that takes enough of their time, their energy they get, they get enough matches, you know, so they have plenty, they already like, you know, I have plenty of people to, to communicate with who they feel are more or less fitting their criteria. So if you’re in that position, then great, like, do what you’re doing. But if you’re not in that position, and you do have the bandwidth to expand and, and again, I was writing this blog post from my perspective, like this is literally me Francesca hoagie. If my boyfriend and I broke up tomorrow. What would I Well, if we broke up tomorrow, I wouldn’t actually go right now I have to rethink my whole life. But

Damona 29:08
we’re talking how you and your boyfriend, Matt, because you also talk about this. Yeah. And the blog and I think this is really important for a lot of folks listening but especially women, women, folks, yes. Yes, you met IRL. But then you hadn’t you hunted him down girl. I did I do that and YG.

Unknown Speaker 29:32
I met him very briefly on the street on the corner of sunset and tahini and Beverly Hills. And

Damona 29:41
that’s a good corner. It was by the way, it was.

Unknown Speaker 29:45
It was like a brief exchange. He was with his brother and we had all just been at the screening and his brother recognized me. So his brother like was like, Oh, hey, how’d you like the movie? So I started talking to them briefly. And I just thought he was really interesting. I just thought he was like, I know that. We’re just Something about him and our brief interaction. And we had this moment where we kind of made eye contact and like, there was just kind of like, oh, there’s just something there, you know. And I just really listened to my intuition. And my intuition just was really like screaming. You’re like, you’re supposed to keep talking to him. And I didn’t know why. But then we went our separate ways, because he was getting in an Uber to go home

Damona 30:24
and be weird to chase the nuber. Right? Yeah. But we have social media,

Unknown Speaker 30:34
social media, and I knew it too. I was like, I have enough information about him to find him because I knew that he was a scientist. I knew that he worked. I knew which hospital he worked at in LA. I knew he was Australian. I knew his name. So I was like, this is this. I can do that. I got this.

Damona 30:53
And then dm him.

Unknown Speaker 30:55
Yeah. So I slid into his DMS on Twitter and I just said they were was really nice meeting you. And that was my like, that was like my digital link. You know, it was like if he’s interested, because I didn’t know if he could have been married, he could have been, you know, from what I could see from his Twitter. I couldn’t tell, but it was all science. So I was like, there’s nothing personal there. And so, you know, he could have been gay, like, a million things. So I had no idea but I was like, if he’s available and interested, this is enough for him to like latch on to. And it was. So that’s how we met.

Damona 31:29
Oh, my gosh, I am so impressed with because I think a lot of women would, I’m always saying on the show, to take initiative and just just open the door. It’s not changing the rules of chivalry, just to be to show that you’re open, right. But I think a lot of people are afraid that if they start the relationship off that way, that then the whole gender dynamics of the relationship. We’ll be off forever. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 32:02
yeah. Well, part of it is like there’s, there’s this definitely takes a little finesse like this is dating. I love dating. And I think that dating is so important because you learn so much you learn so much about yourself. You learn so much about other people you learn so much like, just about what’s really important in connection if you if you do it the right way, if you do it intentionally and you actually pay attention to what you’re doing. And there’s a difference between being proactive and doing something like I did, which was like, number one cyber stalking him. And number two sliding into his DMS right like me doing that. Some people be like, Oh my god, I don’t want to chase the guy. I don’t want to chase the guy either. And I didn’t chase him. I did take a very proactive, bold step and I call this like one bold step. You can take one bold step and see if the guy is like, oh, wow, I didn’t even know this was an option for me. So I’m gonna pick up the ball and run with it because What happened? Like, I sent him that message I said it was, you know, it was really nice meeting you and he like responded right away, he commented on something that I said in my bio, he like asked me out to dinner like, you know, it wasn’t like, I didn’t have to pull teeth to get that. keep that going. I was just like, pushing it into motion, because there are guys who are good guys who, like they need a little bit of encouragement. Like he, there was no way that he thought in the three minutes that we interacted, that he’d be like, Oh, let me ask her out. Like, he’s just not that kind of guy. Like, he doesn’t have that kind of game, you know? So, and I could tell that he wasn’t that kind of guy. It wasn’t that he wasn’t confident. I could just tell like, if I’m interested in him, I just need to make sure it’s clear and then see what he does. Now if you meet a guy and the guy is super, like suave, Mr. Cool player type that guy, you don’t need to make a bold move with that guy. Right? Right. And you guy will you be chasing?

Damona 33:57
Yeah, right. And you also have to listen to what’s happening, like so many times I hear from people that like, Oh, I wrote him, but then he didn’t write me back. And I don’t know if I should send another message. And I’m like, why are they responded to?

Unknown Speaker 34:12
He responded with his his silence was a response. It was a response. It was a communication, just looking for.

Damona 34:19
Yeah, well, that’s the problem, right? We have expectations. And then when our expectations aren’t met, then sometimes we try to change the narrative or the information that reinterpret the information that we’re getting. But absolutely, I want to keep this going on a positive note, because I am still optimistic. I am still optimistic about finding love in a pandemic.

Unknown Speaker 34:40
Yeah, and

Damona 34:41
I’ll let everyone check out the blog for the rest of the tips because there’s

Unknown Speaker 34:46
10 of them. They all bear 10 different things as fire right now.

Damona 34:50
This is like all the stuff that I would tell you as well. Like, she literally just gives you the roadmap right there. So we’ll put the link in the show notes. But before we do that, I also want Want to talk about social distance dates? Now I’m seeing a lot of people are like, Okay, what is the timeline here? Now that we’ve we’ve connected? Maybe we’ve done a virtual date or two or phone call and a verge zoomed? I don’t know, connected. But where do we go from here? Mm hmm. Are you finding that people are starting to feel comfortable with moving offline into social distance dates? Yes,

Unknown Speaker 35:26
definitely. Definitely. Yes. At first, it was all virtual. Nobody wanted to go anywhere. People weren’t even discussing it. Really. The possibility of meeting in person. But now Yeah, people are definitely doing socially distance dates and there are ways to do it that are safe. I mean, Okay,

Damona 35:43
tell us about that. Like, what’s the etiquette?

Unknown Speaker 35:46
So like, if I were dating right now, like something that I would do is I would say like, okay, we can meet here and, you know, get a cup of coffee, get an ice cream, get a juice and like, take a walk together, you know, and six feet apart. And yeah, as long as you’re like you’re outside, you know, so there’s airflow. That’s really important. You have a mask on. Right? So that’s also really important.

Damona 36:09
A cute mask. Okay? Don’t just get, you know, the surgical blue and white situation. Yes. Why do you stop a cute mask?

Unknown Speaker 36:18
Yeah, we’re gonna be wearing masks for a long time people. So invest in a couple of masks that really capture your style, your personality, like don’t just do the straight, you know, surgical mask.

Unknown Speaker 36:31
Day. Yeah, that’s a missed opportunity. That’s a missed opportunity.

Damona 36:34
Yes, I love how you said that. Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 36:38
So that you know, so you could do that with lots of different things. So basically, if you’re outside and you could do something like you know mini golf, you don’t have to be you know, you have some space together. Have some space apart. We went to a drive in movie last week. I know you did too. You guys also want to drive in movie,

Damona 36:56
you know, I went to see RuPaul drive and drag Coming to a city near you, everybody. It was okay. But it was nice to be outside. It was a

Unknown Speaker 37:07
movie and it was nice. It was fun.

Damona 37:09
But then you have to be in a car with the person so like we had a whole thing

Unknown Speaker 37:14
you don’t have to be in the car with the person because you guys can park next to each other.

Damona 37:19
Okay, okay I’m with you. I’m with you. Yeah I like I tell I had I went with a friend so I tested before I went and she had like a fairly recent test I was like I can accept this

Unknown Speaker 37:32
but we’re getting a car right now like that’s just don’t just don’t do that aren’t

Damona 37:37
next to each other yet.

Unknown Speaker 37:39
Other timing, you could you could go on a picnic, you could go to you know, you can have a picnic on the beach or in the park. You could go for a hike, like anything that you’re outside. You know if you guys if you happen to like I don’t know like playing tennis and you know, you want to play tennis together. Like there are ways to do it and still be and still be safe now. Does it require a little bit more creativity? Yes. Does it require a little bit more effort? Yes, but it’s worth doing. And, you know, that’s, I mean, listen, love is, and this is my point of the blog too, because I’m not expecting other people to look at this blog and be like, Oh, I’m gonna do all these 10 things if this crazy person would do, but I would do all those 10 things if I was really motivated to be in a relationship, because it’s that important to me, you know. And so if it’s important to you, this pandemic is not going to be over anytime soon. And I wouldn’t be willing to put my dating life My hopes were finding a relationship on hold indefinitely. It’s life is just too short for that. So does it take a little bit more effort? Does it take a little bit more determination? That’s, that’s okay. That’s good. And I mean, I think Dimona, like, wouldn’t you agree that the fact that one of the reasons that modern dating has gotten so challenging Pre pandemic is because there were so many people who weren’t put willing to put in effort. And they weren’t actually determined to meet someone like they wanted to meet someone. But if they got frustrated after a few days, like they were out of there, you know, it’s just there was

Damona 39:15
too much happening where nobody could focus on what was in front of them, I think, yeah, we just we had too many options. And now, I think what I’m seeing is that people are also realizing as we’ve been separated for so long the value of having someone that you can trust to go through this experience with and so now I’m actually seeing a lot of relationships that have been on hyperspeed and people that I mean, we did an episode on this a few months ago of people that really bonded, met right before the pandemic and bonded very quickly, like practically moved in together. And so I think there’s going to be a little bit of recalibration on that front, but the timeline once you connect with people I think is actually going to be faster than it had been. I think we had it backwards before. It was like fast, fast, fast, get to the date like sword, sword, sword, sword sword. But then it was a long time to get to commitment and figuring out what was what for a lot of my clients and really, you know, getting to DTR and figure out if this person was real or not. I think now, we’re we’re flip flopping that so we’re, we’re moving into it a lot more slowly. But then once you are like, Okay, this is my person. Now we have to test we have to bubble together and now now we’re bonded very fast.

Unknown Speaker 40:41
Yeah. And I think that makes sense. And that and that’s why we have been so optimistic, you know, starting starting from the start of this that we’re like, oh my god, this is amazing. This is going to slow everything down and give people an opportunity like force people to actually get to know each other communicate what they’re looking for. See if they have to Shared values, see, and if all of those things are connecting, then it’s like, Alright, well, let’s just do this. Like, we just now we just need to see if we actually, like get along and have chemistry and like being together, and that is something that you can determine rather quickly. It’s those other bigger questions that really take time. So I think that, you know, I think that the relationships, I think that a lot of the relationships that are going to come out of this time are going to really illustrate the power of doing just that. They’re going to be a lot of really great relationships that last with people who they may just have that clarity of knowing, like, yeah, we want the same things in life. Like we have the same level of commitment. And we know how to support each other through challenging times because we were there for each other. Like, this person has a reason that I’m still standing after, you know, however long of this pandemic, so

Damona 41:55
yes, it’s definitely changing things. I just made me think I have to shout out one of My former clients who she actually had a destination wedding plan, and I kid you not Franny a year, a little over a year ago, year and a half ago, she came to me and she was like, I don’t know how I’m going to find love again. I’ve been divorced X number of years. And she found somebody, they were going to have a, a wedding abroad, and COVID happened. So now they’re just like, fine. Let’s just do let’s just do a little ceremony, just with family, tie the knot and get it done. So she’s actually getting married this week. Her name is denat. So I’ll be sharing her story on the blog and I’m sure on the show again, but yeah, you know, that will give everyone some hope that even though Yes, COVID is changing our plans. In some ways. It’s changing for the better now she’s going to be married even sooner than she thought she would be.

Unknown Speaker 42:51
That is fantastic. And I also have a client who got married last week. And yeah, and I’m so glad that they did it because first they were going to Wait. And because they were originally supposed to get married this summer, and then they were going to push it, but they just changed it. Like they just did like a very small ceremony on a Wednesday afternoon, like, with just their immediate family in their front yard like but it was, but it was awesome. And she was someone who had never been in a relationship before we started working together and now she’s married to a wonderful man.

Damona 43:24
I love that. Okay, hopefully that is inspiring for all the people listening. They’re like, I gotta do 10 things.

Unknown Speaker 43:32
Just do things you have to be open, you know, and it’s a mindset because it’s like, it’s not like it’s it’s home. It’s not homework. It’s just like, all right, love this. This is the mind strategy. We would encourage anyone who’s looking for love to just embrace and this is the mindset that I truly did very intentionally and consciously embrace for myself, which is I know that love is 100% possible for me. So my only job is to open my myself up to receive it however it shows up. I know he’s out there. I don’t know where he is. He could be around the corner. It could be I don’t know where he is. So why would I shut down any Avenue a potentially a spining each other?

Damona 44:15
You you are a woman after my own heart.

Unknown Speaker 44:19
Like, why would you do that? Like what? Like why would you just like Intel or willfully just decide like, No, I’m not going to do these and you know a lot of people they consider themselves like, I’m out there I’m trying and then like, Okay, what are you doing? And like they maybe they’re on an app that they swipe a few times a week, and then they get frustrated? And then they made it they deleted it. And then they download it A month later and they

Damona 44:41
complain to their girlfriends about being single.

Unknown Speaker 44:43
Yeah. And I’m like, Well, what else? Like that’s not that’s not being out there? like no, that’s not a job to pay your bills. Is that how you would look for a job? Like no like if you want to if you’re determined like you’re put in the effort.

Damona 44:57
All right, everyone, you heard it here. If you want,

Unknown Speaker 45:01
yep, if you want to find love, you got a date like it’s your job, granny. It’s really it’s your hobby. It’s your passion. It’s exciting. It can be fun. It should be fun, make it fun. Maybe that’s my job. You know? It’s like Yeah, well make it make it a job that you love. How can you make it exciting? How can you be more confident? How can you be more yourself so you take away all of that anxiety of like trying to be something that you think someone else wants? Like, you know, there’s just so many ways to make dating such a more joyful experience. Completely

Damona 45:34
frannie This is too good. Your advice is too good. I need you to stick around for the next segment. Because we have questions from our audience and I need you to help me answer them. Okay. Hello, friend. Welcome back. You have questions. We have answers and this is dear Dimona,

Unknown Speaker 45:58
damona help me

Damona 46:00
This one comes to us in an email from D we’ll call her D. She says is two weeks too soon to start saying I love you. I met someone who is working abroad and we have established quite a nice text relationship. He is head over heels for me and keeps telling me he loves me. We haven’t met yet. I have strong feelings for him, but this is making me uncomfortable. How do I elegantly ask him to slow down?

Unknown Speaker 46:27
This is a tough one. And it’s tough because All right, I’m just gonna be unfiltered here. Okay, is that okay? All we do

Damona 46:36
on this show that

Unknown Speaker 46:38
so it is not a good sign that there’s somebody that you’ve met online, who lives abroad who after two weeks is telling you that he loves you. There are scammers out there who actually you know, prey on people and this is what they do. They do this love bombing thing and they just, they just tell you the greatest thing since sliced bread They know what they’re doing. They know exactly what to say. I’ll just put it this way. If he, he starts saying anything about any kind of financial transaction. Just know that this is not a real person. I mean is a human but not this person is not who you think they are. Did she say that she’s only spoken to him on the phone? text, text? Text chip? Oh, yeah. I mean, at the very least, please insist that you do a video call and see who this person is. Mm hmm. And if this person is actually who they say they are, I would be very surprised, wouldn’t you Dimona?

Damona 47:37
Yeah, and I think there are also some red flags around the if you ask them for a video call. And they only want to do it at weird hours or like, they give all these excuses for why they can’t have their camera on or like anything that makes you feel like this isn’t transparant also sometimes, like an accent that you don’t expect, I’ve heard that happen before. Yeah, I’ve heard

Unknown Speaker 48:07
that happen a lot, right? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 48:08
you’re like,

Unknown Speaker 48:11
you know, Max, but the accent is clearly not. Yes,

Damona 48:16
yeah, there are a lot of signs here that this could be a catfish. I like to keep it optimistic too. So let’s just say in, in some universe that maybe this person actually is is legit. And like, I find that also in quarantine. People are kind of moving a little bit more quickly when they like I was saying in the first segment in the earlier segment, when you’re, when once you’ve connected with someone, they’re moving things forward too quickly. So if that happens to be the case for D, I would say just be really blunt about how you’re feeling like this is moving way too fast. I need to get to know you better. You don’t have to be elegant about it. You can you can be direct. Anyways, we have another question and we’re running out of time. Franny. She said do you have recommend on physical intimacy, what if you find someone that you would like to start a committed physical relationship with? How do you navigate and set safety agreements? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 49:12
yeah. Well, I think the question should you have the answer in the in the question, right? Like, it is something to navigate, you do need to have agreements. So you need to talk about it. What’s your comfort level? What are the parameters? You know, when are you guys getting tested with some regularity? How often are you coming into contact with people who aren’t that you know, each other? I those are just all conversations that you have to have. And I would be really clear about it. I wouldn’t, you know, I wouldn’t tiptoe around it. I’d be like, you know, really honest, like, I really want to, you know, I really want to go there. I’ll be like, I’m ready. I think you’re amazing, but how can we do this and really be safe and make sure that we’re taking every precaution to protect each other and, you know, other people think?

Damona 49:59
I think it’s ongoing conversation to like totally. I’ve been hearing from people in relationships that are like, my, my spouse is ready to like move out into the world and I’m still cocooning and nervous. Yeah. And they have different tolerance, risk tolerance. So I think this is a conversation obviously if you can get tested or self quarantine before you actually take the masks off and become intimate with someone and like really think this through what it because once it only takes one it’s kind of like the STI conversation right? It only takes one right One false move exactly one

Unknown Speaker 50:45
time ever and everything is fine. Right? Yeah.

Damona 50:50
Right. So I mean, we live in Los Angeles where we’re testing is free and available. I haven’t even say I tested you know, before I did the ripples drag race I got to same day test producer Leo will attest to this. I got to same day test. I got the next the results by the next morning. It was unbelievable. I know not everybody is in that situation. Yeah. So yeah, it was amazing. You guys. I’m like, I’m like a testing junkie now. I just want to know, I want to know, am I okay? Am I okay? Do it, do it. It’s so great. I mean, if you if you feel like i, this is I do at any time my situation changes, like, if we go out of town, or if like when our babysitter came back, like if your situation changes, it’s a good idea to test if you can get one but if you’re dating someone, and maybe you’re in a state where that’s not available, you have to kind of think ahead of how are you going to prepare right to get to that point. And then you also have to talk about what are they doing after that? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I tested and I’m fine. And now I’m gonna go to like Abba zoo. And, you know, go chill on a boat with opa.

Unknown Speaker 51:59
While my closest friends

Damona 52:04
I wouldn’t be having that. I’m not gonna judge your life. If that’s how you want you and your boo want to do it, that’s fine. But make sure that you’re on the same page and that you understand their risk tolerance in comparison to yours. Right? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 52:16
absolutely. Yeah. And that’s another and it’s also it’s it can it has for some people, like you said, become a bone of contention. You know, if you can’t agree on the rules, if they’re, I mean, I had a client who was dating somebody who he was, you know, she has she’s immunocompromised. She was just concerned about her own health, for obvious reasons. Yeah. And they had, they were, they were seeing each other and they physically were seeing each other. They were seeing each other like a couple of nights a week. But then she found out that he was like, having friends over to his apartment and all these things and she’s like, that’s not what we agreed to, you know, and it and it became like, they actually like stop seeing each other.

Unknown Speaker 52:57
I call this COVID cheating, like infidelity right there is total

Unknown Speaker 53:01
code infidelity. And she was like, I’m not taking like, you know, she felt very disrespected. And yeah, they weren’t able to reconcile it. So that is a real possibility. But I think that you know, just talking about it, just being really honest with each other is the way to go.

Damona 53:17
That is the way to go for most relationship challenges I really

Unknown Speaker 53:21
can’t always answer

Damona 53:25
all of your answers. I love your uncommon conversations about love on dear frannie and

Unknown Speaker 53:30
I love it when you join us here on dates and mate. So I hope you will come back again soon. Anytime. I love being here. Thank you for having me. demona

Damona 53:38
I hope you like the new intro for deer demona the beautiful soulful voice you heard was my dear friend Jenny Wren, and also thank you Alexander, for your wonderful question. Dear Dimona cries. We heard you we’ve listened and also shout out to our composers James Morris for the brand new dates and mates intro and for the deer demona Intro This is Episode 322 of dates and mates. My guest co host today both have fabulous podcasts that you just have to hear. You can find frannie on deer frannie uncommon conversations about love and barns and his crew are the Pop Culture Show. Look for the links in the show notes and find it wherever you are listening to this podcast right now. As always, we’ll give you a shortcut to today’s headline articles, and the best gifts that are fit to print on the show recap at dates and mates calm. And don’t forget to check out that Patreon group and support the show for just $5 at patreon.com slash dates and mates. You don’t want to miss that new behind the mic series and meet other folks in the Friends with Benefits community. So come on aboard@patreon.com slash dates and mates. I’m at damona Hoffman on all the socials. We are banking all these questions you have for future episodes. So don’t be shy DM me and let me know what’s on your mind and how you felt about today’s episode. I’ll see you next week with more modern love advice. Until then, I wish you happy dating

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Manifesting Magic & Marriage Pacts

MANIFEST YOUR FAIRYTALE

Damona usually says ditch the fairytale, but the concept of fairytale ending always seems to manifest in different ways.

Everyone is looking for a magical fairytale ending. They want to be Cinderella and find a Prince who sweeps them off their feet and then live happily ever after. 

But when we talk about fairytales, we usually skirt over the fact that before any of these princesses found their princes, they had to do some hard work to find the magic. Cinderella didn’t just wish on a star and get a whole kingdom handed to her, she had to sweep some chimneys and clean some dishes before she could manifest love.

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth, an Intuition + Manifestation Mentor, speaker, and host of Made of Magic: The Podcast joins Damona to talk about the magic in our lives. Stephanie helps us awaken, embody, and amplify our magic so we can invite the next level in life, love, and business.

 

DATING DISH (2:30)

Do you and your boo need a marriage pact like William and Kate?

According to Katie Nicholle, author of “Kate The Future Queen,” Kate Middleton decided she needed to a marriage pact amidst her on again off again relationship with Prince William. What is a marriage pact and should you consider one?

On a scale of 0 to 100, how “textpatible” are you?

Have you ever been in a situation where you need to change the way your partner communicates over text? We’ve got some suggestions.

What Millennials can learn about flirting from older generations

According to Business Insider, millennials hire Amy Nobile to “ghost banter” – or flirt in their place on dating apps – to learn how to flirt better. What’s up with this? 

MANIFESTING MAGIC (14:60)

Put in work to find your fairytale

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth has a great love story. In the middle of a two year long engagement, she realized that she didn’t feel the magic. Now she’s teaching women how to find the magic in their lives so they can attract the best 

We go in-depth on:

  • What is magic? 
  • How do you find magic? 
  • What does it mean to manifest what you want? 
  • What you want and how you get it doesn’t always add up
  • How do you clarify manifestation methods that work for you? 
  • A huge part of manifesting has to feel good
  • Magic Mornings!
  • Are you settling? How do you know?

Find Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth on Instagram @StephanieDawnElizabeth and make sure to listen to Made of Magic: The Podcast!

TECHNICALLY DATING (31:00)

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • What do you do if you can’t be intimate with your wife, but you still have needs?
  • How to navigate dating as a young professional who doesn’t want kids?

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Damona  3:32  

Hello lovers, welcome to Dates & Mates. I’m your host certified dating coach Damona Hoffman here to help you navigate all of the challenges of modern dating and relationships. You know, I usually say, ditch the fairy tale, but the concept of a fairytale ending keeps coming up. Everyone is looking for this magical fairy tale story of love. They want to be Cinderella and find a prince who will sweep them off their feet and then live happily ever after. But when we talk about fairy tales, we usually skirt over all that hard work, all of that, that manifestation, all of that effort that these princesses are putting out to find their princes. You have to do some work to find the magic. And that is why my guest today Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth, an intuition and manifestation mentor, speaker and the host of the Made of Magic Podcast is here to help me help you get on your mission to make the magic in your love life. Today, Stephanie is going to help us awaken embody and amplify our magic so we can invite our love lives to the next level and maybe it will also impact your other areas of your life and also your business. Please help me give big smooches to my guest, Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  4:57  

Hi. Thank you. As you were talking about like, Oh, is she talking about me?  

 

Damona  5:03  

Yeah, we’re making fairy tale magic here. And your podcast is made of magic. So we want the goods girl. We want to know how we can make this magic happen.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  5:16  

Okay, well I’m here to share.

 

Damona  5:18  

Great and we’re also going to do the headlines including, do you and your boo need a marriage pact like William and Kate? And how to improve your partner’s texting style. Plus what millennials can learn about flirting from older generations. And then we’ll be answering your questions like how to make an LDR work and what’s up with women on dating apps? All that more today’s Dates & Mates! Stephanie, Are you ready to make this magic?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  5:47  

So ready

 

Damona  5:49  

All right, I was checking out the book “Kate to the Future Queen” by Katie Nicole and turns out Kate Middleton And Prince William may have made a marriage pact. You may recall that back in the day they were dating, they met at university – I almost in college, but I have to go English for this. They met at the university. And then it was on again off again. They broke up for a few months. And Kate was like, it doesn’t matter if she’s dating the Prince of England. She’s like, “Listen, I need to know what your intentions are. If we’re going to get back together. We need a pact we need to make sure that this relationship is headed towards marriage.” So according to the book, they actually agreed to take the pressure off their relationship. They didn’t have a timeline, but they said we’re going to end up together if we’re going to get back together. I want to know Stephanie, what are your thoughts on doing a marriage pact? Is it too much pressure?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  6:53  

Yeah. So okay, did they have a marriage pact and not a proposal or did he also propose?

 

Damona  7:00  

No, it was not a proposal. It was sort of like, it was a verbal promise ring.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  7:08  

I feel like this is so hard because I wouldn’t say I’m against it. Like, I actually love anything unconventional. So, like eloping or just deciding we’re going to get married. I don’t know how I I’m like, kind of torn. Where are you at with it?

 

Damona  7:26  

I think that you don’t know the trajectory of the relationship. And yeah, pressure on it, when you’re just getting back together to me seems like a little bit much like I had not a marriage pact with my husband, but I had, I had an understanding before. Before he moved in, I said, I need to know that this relationship is headed towards marriage. Now if you move in, and it doesn’t work, and we end up hating each other So be it, I’m not going to force you to propose, but I just need to know that’s where your head is at. So we don’t really know the terms of Kate and William’s marriage pact, but if it was something like that, then obviously I’m for it. If it was, we must get married and don’t waste my time, William. I love how it’s just, it feels so ordinary, right? This is what we’re all dealing with. And you think you would think that if you’re going to be the future Queen that you’re above all of this, but no Prince William was acting like a fool and you know, being a dumb single guy way back then he’s he’s the prince, but he’s just, he’s just like one of us.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  8:39  

Yeah, like when you were first telling, like that whole scenario, I took it a totally different way of like, they just kind of decided, Okay, we’re going to get married. We don’t know when but it’s going to happen. But which I think is cool. Like, I think obviously, you should have a conversation that you’re moving the same direction you want the same thing, but then the way you just said it, the second time is like you that pressure of like you must marry me, which is totally different energy.

 

Damona  9:05  

Yeah, especially if there’s the whole kingdom is at stake!

 

Well, let’s bring it down from the 30,000 foot level to what people are really dealing with in dating and relationships today. I’m always talking about texting. This is now the way that so many of us are communicating. And there was an article today in elite daily about how to change your partner’s texting style. I found this really interesting that everyone has their specific style of texting which we know right. But for some it’s a deal breaker if texting styles don’t match up. The article actually quoted this term “Textpatible”. And some of the people that they interviewed said it’s not a bad thing if you have to end a relationship over texting in compatibility. But my friend Julie Spira, who was quoted in it said, “Why don’t you just talk in person and ask them if you can shift if they could shift their texting style a little bit.” What are your thoughts on on texting compatibility?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  10:17  

I don’t know. My first initial reaction is it’s kind of funny that that’s a quote unquote problem. But I also understand it from a sense of like, okay, let’s say one person is a person who really like thrives in relationship off of like that communication all the time. You know, like, some people text a lot. Some people don’t text a lot. I can understand that being kind of like a I wouldn’t say deal breaker but a conversation. But in terms of like, they talk a certain way and texts and I don’t like it that I kind of don’t get and I think, like you said, it’s a lot more important to have a conversation in person. I think, conversation in person that’s incompatible would make a whole lot more of a deal breaker than a text. You know what I mean?

 

Damona  11:00  

Yeah, you definitely can’t ask someone to change their texting style over text. But there was actually a tip in the article that I really liked. a linguist and researcher Michelle McSweeney said first you have to ask yourself why it’s bugging you. Because Yeah, if it’s, if it’s annoying you it’s probably violating your own cultural norms. So just because you have a certain text etiquette, text ticket, you have to understand that that person might not be playing by the same rulebook. And I really worry about asking someone to change their text behavior, and then they’re conscious of what words they’re choosing and how they’re texting you. And it might make it less spontaneous, less authentic, and you may lose the communication because they weren’t communicating exactly on your rulebook.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  11:55  

Oh, I totally agree. 100% with what you just said,

 

Damona  12:00  

Although it also said that the longer people know each other and the more bonded they get, people tend to start texting the same way. Now I’ve been with my husband for 16 years, we text totally differently. I’m wondering if this is a bad thing: I have finally after 16 years was like, Can you just acknowledge that you’ve received a text for me? Like if, yeah, I I’m not into sexting, so I don’t send them like, I don’t send them nudes or anything like that. So all of a sudden, it was like a grocery list, you know, and I’ll just be like, I send it into the ether. And then I was like, Can you just like click the like button or just like respond Okay, or something, to just acknowledge that you’ve received it, but he, he’s consistent. He hates texting. He doesn’t like being on the phone at all. He hates texting. He it’s not at all the way he communicates face to face. And I wouldn’t really feel right like forcing him into a different different communication style. Tt hasn’t lined up. I Have you ever experienced that texting like somebody that you’re with?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  13:08  

Not really? Uh, no, not really. That’s why I think I’m just like, oh, wow, I didn’t realize that was a thing. I’m like, actually, probably other people get annoyed with me in the same way where I’m either like, all in on the conversation via text or I totally forget to respond. Not necessarily in like a romantic relationship. But when you were talking to I was just thinking that kind of, you know, like the non response that I could see being a thing just by the other person feeling like, “Okay, are you listening? Do you hear me like do are you recognizing that I’m trying to connect” even if it’s about like a grocery list, but I can’t think of like a time when that was a thing for me in a relationship.

 

Leah Schell  13:53  

I actually have been in this situation. 

 

Damona  13:55  

Oh, Producer Leah in the house.

 

Leah Schell  13:59  

Okay. It was my high school boyfriend and I just hated the way he spoke to me over text. It was just like, he kept misspelling words. And he kept like, I don’t know, this makes me sound awful. But I just got really annoyed. And I think it was like, a manifestation of just like another issue I had, like, I did not like how he spoke in general. So I was just like annoyed about the text messages.

 

Damona  14:23  

You just didn’t like who he was as a person.

 

Leah Schell  14:24  

I was not a great person in high school.

 

Damona  14:29  

No, none of us were. But I know sometimes I think about things I did in high school, and I’m just like, oh my god…

 

Well, being a stickler for grammar, though that does indicates I’m just going to go there. Not that I’m analyzing you right now, but I’m kind of analyzing grammar is an indicator of intelligence in written communication, right. So I don’t know. Maybe you felt like he wasn’t keeping up with you intellectually?

 

Leah Schell  14:57  

Yeah, I did feel that way. I know my parents were like, “why are you with him?” He’s not the brightest person so it just you know… 

 

Damona  15:05  

The doctor is in. But the question is Producer Leah and Stephanie, how was your flirt game back then? And can you flirt effectively? Can you learn to flirt over text? Because according to Business Insider, Millennials are just failing on the flirting game and they actually can learn to flirt from older generations. They interviewed Amy Nobile, who’s the founder of a dating concierge service in New York. She basically does a very similar thing to what I do, but she’ll like jump in there and flirt and banter for people and teach them. I like to teach to do that. I don’t like to do what she calls ghost bantering because I want you to know that you’re talking to the real person and not not me. How many times does that happen? You show up on a date and you’re like, oh, you’re a really funny and charming over text, but now you’re kind of dull. I want to teach people how to be able to do this text banter. But what Amy Nobile, who’s 50 herself and she met her her boo on Bumble. And now she wants to teach other people how to do it. She’s seeing that the baby boomers and Gen Xers are much better at flirting and have developed that skill. I’m always saying that flirting is a learned skill. And if you haven’t flexed that muscle or if you’re only if you’re only flirting over text, then you get on the date and you don’t know how to let that. Let that you know, flirt. The I’m trying to think of like a catchy word now and it’s not coming but like let that you know that playful flirt out.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  16:47  

Oh, yeah. I don’t know if I’m a good floater. 

 

Damona  16:53  

What’s your game like? What’s your style? 

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  16:56  

I don’t know. Like, I’m one I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know that’s that’s like such a I have no idea. I think probably like, maybe charming witty like quick kind of just like go lean in and I don’t even know.

 

Damona  17:17  

I’ll give you a tip then from Amy Nobile who is is all about flirting in the right way because I mean there are definitely ways you can flirt. And there are people that will send you the Hey beautiful text but she says instead Yeah, do it not in a sexual way. But in a warm, charming or validating way. And instead of saying hey, beautiful, which I oh my gosh, I see this up for my clients time. It’s, it’s just like what is the response to that? Hey, beautiful. Hey, she says say Happy Tuesday. Instead, I always say callback something else that picks up on the thread where you left off or picks up a new thread and starts the day like just Happy Tuesday.

 

Leah Schell  18:02  

It seems like a good morning text. I hate good morning texts.

 

Damona  18:08  

What’s the point of that? So we need to step it up we need to step up your tax game. But first, we are going to take a break and when we come back we will be talking more to Stephanie Donna Elizabeth host of made a magic the podcast about how you can manifest love in your life. We’ll be back right after this.

 

Welcome back to Dates & Mates. We are here with Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth, who is going to give us a quick pep talk on our inner magic and how you can manifest the love that you want. Stephanie I’m into this girl! I am into this idea i think, you know, I do a lot of technical dating advice but there is an element of magic in making that connection and having that fairy tale like if I go back and look at the trajectory of any of my clients and how we made it happen I do the foundational stuff, but there’s also a little bit of mindset and a little bit of timing and luck that I think  you can manifest. You can create your own luck. Now tell me you you identify as an intuition and manifestation mentor, what does that mean to you?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  19:46  

Well, just a quick kind of like backstory for me of how I manifested my next level love, like I like to talk about it, and just how I really got to get in touch with my intuition and really had that like spark of figuring out what manifestation was and how I did it and what my magic was? So, about a year ish ago, just over a year ago, I called up my engagement. And yeah, 

 

Damona  20:12  

oh my gosh, sorry. 

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  20:14  

No, it’s okay. it was my choice. And it was what sparked so much magic. I think, so much of my life and you even said this in the beginning, it’s like, all of your life is connected. So your relationship, if it’s out of alignment, a lot of your other life is going to feel and be out of alignment to and that’s going to like really affect your magic and manifesting and all of that. And for me, like that relationship, I had so much of my own intuition like, first kind of whispering at me then talking to me then like screaming at me that this was not the relationship and nothing was wrong. Nothing happened. He’s a great guy, but I always had that like underlying feeling of settling and this is not it and there’s something so magic. That’s like going to click everything into place. And so finally, I just trusted myself and my intuition and called up the engagement last September. And honestly like, although, yes, it’s it was the hardest thing I’ve ever actually had to physically do to hurt somebody else. It 100% changed my entire life and clicked all of that magic into place. Because I gave myself like time to get back to knowing who I was what I wanted. And I was not trying to manifest love or relationship at that time. But two months later, I decided, Okay, I’m just going to go on Bumble. Like I feel ready and I’m so clear in my own power and what I want and what I desire, in that like, unwavering way, and I met my now boyfriend who is 100% my my person, like, a week later.

 

Damona  21:52  

Oh my gosh, it sounds like a marriage pact is coming. No! I’m kidding!

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  21:55  

no, no, no,

 

Damona  21:56  

no, no. I want to back it up. Yeah, or people listening because I, I’m also an intuitive and one of my missions. I’m just going to say it here on the data made show. I haven’t said it aloud yet. But one of my missions is to be able to teach people how to hear their own intuition, because people always ask me like, oh, if you’re psychic, like you have you’ve some, some gift from God, something magic that happened to you and it’s in your family bloodline, and you you, you can do this magical thing. And it’s like, No, no, no, no, everyone, in my opinion, everyone can do this. Everyone has intuition. But we squash it down. We call it we think, Oh, well, I’m already engaged and the invitations are being mailed and everything is moving so quickly. And so I can’t hear that right now. Because I’m already on this panel. And I mean, it happens all the way down to the micro level of should you go out on a date with this person or not? Which a lot of our listeners are dating and going through that decision process. So let’s slow it down for everybody and go back to that moment that you said your intuition was speaking to you first it was whispering then it was nudging you then it was screaming at you. What did that actually feel like look like sound like when you were in the moment?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  23:29  

Yeah. I mean, looking back, I can recognize it. I don’t know if in the moment I was like, Oh, that’s my intuition until it was so loud that I couldn’t not listen to it. But I remember like looking back now times like when we first started dating, I remember actually trying to break up with him. When we first started dating. We dated for five years and got engaged and we’re engaged feel sorry for years then got engaged and we’re engaged for two years. So I remember like, the beginning of our relationship, like when I dates and making it fit. And even like trying to break up with him thinking like, oh, we’re not really that compatible, like, we’re so different he like just that was my intuition saying No, not this isn’t the way and the universe kind of trying to nudge me in a different direction. But then we stay together. And those feelings of like, your intuition for me is like that, knowing that almost I always explain it as there’s no emotion attached to it. It’s that clear? Oh, this person is not right for me, or, oh, I need to call off my engagement. It’s super cold. It has no emotion, but your fear and your ego and all that are so much louder and your human part kind of like takes over really quickly. And so unless you kind of take that time in that space, to give yourself time to hear what it’s actually trying to say and like, listen to it. It’s hard to actually It’s hard to hear it and then actually do the thing. Because the thing you have to do a lot of the time is not necessarily the thing you want to do. So looking back, I can see like all of those feelings in my gut, or when I saw my friends and relationships where they were actually so happy and in love and like, looking at them, like, are they faking? Like, Is this real? I don’t, and looking at my own relationship and realizing that’s not how I feel about him. But this must be everyone must be lying. So I think we always have that knowing, but we cover it up with layers of Yeah, like fear or just stuff that’s true to try and not have to do the thing we know we need to do.

 

Damona  25:40  

Well, a lot of times the thing we know we need to do is the harder thing, hopefully, and then you also layer in the pressure of family and friends at work and all of these other other plans that life has for you, right?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  25:57  

Yeah, well, for me, it was like that. Well, I Already, I, we had talked about getting engaged. I said I wanted to be engaged, deeper pose. And I said I was going to do it. So it was like my intuition was saying this is the thing, but it’s like, well, I already said yes. And I’ve already committed and I can’t change my mind.

 

Damona  26:14  

Right? Right. And what will that look like to other people if I’ve changed my brand? Exactly. No, I didn’t. Yeah, I didn’t know and I’ve made a mistake. Let’s Yeah, let’s now look at this term of magic because I’m sure there’s also some people listening that are like, hold on Dimona. This sounds like witchcraft. I’m not like, I’m a Christian. I’m not here for this. I don’t look at it as witchcraft and I think sometimes using the term magic has different connotations. What is man mean to you? And like what is it is what are the associations that it brings up when you say magic?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  26:55  

Yeah, I love that you said that because it is true. I think sometimes we do have resistance to it or There’s so many different ways we use the word. For me magic is just kind of the word that I use for all of the things that there’s no other word to describe them. So calling off my engagement, and then what happened after that there’s no word for how that clicked and what happened, except for magic. You know what I mean?

 

Damona  27:21  

Right, it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense on paper, but somehow it all worked out.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  27:27  

Yeah. And that and then the thing that I really work with women on the most is really getting back to their own magic, like we a lot of the time are seeking out the right answer or the right thing that’s going to click it all into place, or even when we’re talking about manifesting like we think we have to follow this 123 or to find the relationship we have to follow this like 123 step. And although obviously there are things that are good for a foundation or like learning and strategy if we’re talking about business, that kind of stuff, but everybody has their own unique magic that is the thing that will click everything into place and that’s why you have to listen to your intuition and find what it is for you instead of figuring out what it is for everybody else.

 

Damona  28:16  

So let’s say we’ve tapped into intuition we got that part down check got it what is the manifestation piece when you’re talking to people on on your podcast on made of magic about how to manifest what you want? Because it’s like you said something actually very profound. I don’t know if you realize that you said I wanted to be married and I wanted that wedding. But then there’s this other piece of with the right person that may be left out of the out of the the dream or the wish or the fairytale that you were telling yourself Right, right. Oh, yeah. How do you clarify how do people clarify their, their manifestation process and find one That works for them. Because you’ve said on the show different manifestation methods that work for some won’t work for it necessarily work for you.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  29:10  

Yeah, well, part of that is trial and error in a sense of like figuring out what feels good for you, a huge part of manifesting is you have to have to feel good. So what I do and how I manifest is really journaling in the morning. I call it magic mornings, like creating space, at the beginning phases of okay. I mean, there’s something everyone wants to manifest, whether it’s a relationship, whether it’s getting married, whether it’s a business or whatever. But behind all of that is how you want to feel so what we miss a lot of the times and what I missed was okay, I want to be married. I know that that’s the thing I want to do. I want to have kids, but I forgot like that, like you said that whole piece of who it was and what that person is like and what I like in the relationship, even towards the end of the engagement like that really relationship, I got to a point where I was like, I don’t even like who I am. It’s not even about him. It’s like, I don’t like how I’m showing up. And what happens I think a lot of the time is we don’t give ourselves time and space to stop and ask the better questions of not What do you like not just what do you want in terms of marriage and all of that. But how do you want to feel? How do you want to show up in that? what feels good for you? What doesn’t feel good for you? And then figuring out what in your life is in and out of alignment with that?

 

Damona  30:31  

Yeah, that’s very helpful. And I like this idea of it doesn’t have to be perfect, right? It’s just a to be out there. And for anyone that’s listening, that’s like, I don’t know if I buy it to Mona and Stephanie, I’m not sure. If you don’t have that time to vision, if you don’t have that magic morning, like Stephanie said, it’s at some point in your life. If you haven’t placed the goal in your mind. It’s really hard for you to achieve. And it’s kind of like when you look at just breaking it down to human behavior. When I don’t have the exact stats on this, but I remember reading an article about, there was a particular race pace that everybody was hitting, and nobody can break through the barrier. And then once the first person broke the barrier, then it was like the next person, the next person, the next person because they knew it was possible. And right, what I’d love for people to do is to just place that as a possibility, like you said, you saw amongst your friends that a dream relationship was a possibility. And then when you looked at your own life, at that time, it wasn’t vibrating at that level, but you had to like, you had to set the intention. You had to have that, that dream goal, somewhere out there so that you knew what you could strive for. Right

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  31:58  

100% I love all of what you just said. I think part of it, especially for me, and just especially for so many of us, whether it’s relationships or any area of your life, we do kind of settle in and just settle with that like, thing that feels quote unquote, comfortable. But there could be more out there. So exactly what you said, we think, well, that’s not going to work, or that’s not available to me or, for me, I thought people were just lying, that that’s not actually how people feel. Now, I know that that is completely not true, because I feel that so I think what happens is we don’t have a reference point for that. So I’d never experienced the love that I am experiencing now. So therefore, I didn’t know it was possible. Or, you know, if in our life, we’ve never seen people in really beautiful relationships, they’re out there, you just kind of have to give yourself a reference point for create your own reference point that anything’s possible. And the more evidence you get that that’s true, meaning like Okay, so, whether that’s your journaling and you’re visualizing or You’re just getting back to knowing yourself, and then you start to see the magic or that things, oh, they do click into place, or Oh, I didn’t make that happen, then you start to get that little bit of hope that the things are possible, the more that you see that they do happen.

 

Damona  33:16  

And I like what you said about seeing, seeing the little pieces of it actually come to fruition. We don’t do that enough. We don’t acknowledge where we’ve where we’ve come from. And a lot of times with my when I begin a one on one coaching program with a client, I always have them start with a snapshot of their current dating life, and then set goals for where they want to be a month from now, two months from now, three months from now. And that way you can go back and track your progress because maybe, I mean, lined up for you the magic happened after two months of after moving on from your previous relationship, but for some people The timeline, the magic timeline might be a little bit longer. But if you haven’t taken the time to look back and say, wait a minute, three months ago, I’d had no dates and I felt terrible about my dating prospects. I was not putting myself out there. I was not showing up on dates I I felt miserable. I dreaded going on dates. And then now I’m like, Oh, I can do this and Mad Men on two dates this week. And maybe I haven’t met my person. But that’s still progress. And I think that’s a really big piece of the manifestation and creating magic that people leave out to that that reminder like yeah, you’re on the right path. Keep going with it.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  34:41  

Yeah, I actually literally just wrote excuse me this on Instagram the other day that we’re so focused on how far we still have to go. So what we don’t have or what we are still have so much work to do on it that we don’t either stop and notice the moment of what we actually do have an audience Things that we asked for that are now here, or we don’t give ourselves the credit for how far we’ve already come. Yes. So and that kind of gratitude is so magnetic when you can just stop and be present in the moment with everything that you have, instead of always, because we we can get stuck in manifesting in that way too, which was I love that you said that. We were constantly trying to get more always looking in the future and not really being present in the moment and actually how you manifest the best or how you just feel the best is to be incredibly present incredibly grateful for what is already with you.

 

Damona  35:39  

So true, and even. We were talking about flirting earlier. Actually, I’ll tell you all the secret to flirting. It’s not a magical formula. It’s not really saying Happy Tuesday instead of a beautiful, it’s actually yeah, being present and being in the moment and listening and responding like Stephanie and I are doing right now and having this conversation like I’m feeling really connected to you, Stephanie. Yeah, we’re nowhere.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  36:08  

Yeah, yeah, I was actually thinking that after you were talking about flirting, that the reason I was like, I don’t know, is because we think of flirting as that. That sexual or that the, you know, that old school way of thinking about flirting, but when I’m thinking now of what my flirting quote unquote game is, or why I feel so good in my relationship, and vice versa is because that’s the kind of flirting that we have that in the moment, I’m listening to you, you’re listening to me we’re responding and that it feels so good.

 

Damona  36:42  

And even if we reframe the idea of flirting, like yeah, make it not about not about sexual attraction, but even just make it about exchange of energy because I’ll tell you, my five year old son is like the biggest flirt. I know and I know that’s not it’s not a sexual thing, but it’s just like, it’s this exchange of energy. Like he likes to see the reaction he gets when he looks at them in a certain way. And maybe if we could find a little bit more of that play, and that joy, like you were saying, then we can take the pressure off of ourselves and just be

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  37:20  

well, because then you are just being you’re not thinking, oh, what’s the witty, flirty thing to say for them to like me?

 

Damona  37:29  

Exactly. I I like you. Like everything you brought into dates and mates today. You also have your own podcast. I do mate of magic. What what exciting things can people explore and experience if they pop over to your podcast and what we’ve explored today?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  37:50  

Oh my gosh, it’s kind of like my open diary. Honestly, I share a ton about it’s probably very interesting for people honestly to start from episode one. It actually used to be called the girl kind of podcasts. And when I started it, it was really from a place of just wanting connection and a place for women to share their stories and be honest and say the things we’re all wanting to say. So that’s kind of if you go from the beginning, you’re going to get that kind of those episodes. And then it’s sort of organically changed to native magic. And so it’s probably wild to listen from the beginning because you’ll hear like when I was engaged to when I called up my engagement to meeting Justin to dating and what that was like to where we’re at now. So you can get a huge journey of all of it. And I share so much about what my own intuition has been saying through the journey or ego or all of this stuff. And then I have really incredible guests on to talk about all things magic manifestation what it’s like to be a woman in the world like all the things I love it. I love it.

 

Damona  38:56  

I know people will get so much more from following your podcast made a magic. But before you go, we have questions. Yeah, definitely don’t Elizabeth, we have questions from our listeners. People need some help, and it’s time for our next segment. All right, this one comes to us from Facebook. This lady says I’ve been single eight years and I’ve been in a couple of relationships, but just not finding anyone quality until I met will just call him K. She told me the name but secret. He’s everything I’m looking for. He tells me I’m what he’s looking for, but he’s moving out of state. So we both decide to meet and see if there’s a connection and we have an incredible couple days together. But we don’t know where to go from here. Sadly, we also currently live three hours apart so seeing each other until he moves is limited two weekends for us to even find out if there is more to us. It’s taken me six years to find him and I don’t want to let go how Can we make this work?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  40:04  

Oh, okay, well, I’m not a dating expert like you, but

 

Damona  40:08  

you’re a manifestation expert. She wants to be a relationship girl.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  40:14  

Well, I don’t see anything wrong with long distance relationships. Justin and I like we’re not long distance, long distance, but we live like an hour away. And honestly, I think that was a really good thing in the beginning, I tend to jump into relationships or having a past like real quick, fall real hard and like, go all in and I was all in with him. But that distance kind of allowed us to like slowly get to know each other in a different way, which ended up being so incredible. So I don’t know like, I’m all for it. If you can figure out a way that it’s going to work for both of you and that your needs are both met. And I mean, if this is the person that you been waiting for Don’t think that should break it up. What do you think?

 

Damona  41:04  

First I’m glad that you said slow love, basically, slow it down. I just did an episode of the kind of dating podcast all on this topic about low love. So I will not be labor the issue you guys can check it. If you want to hear me, wax poetic about that. I hear a lot of anxious words, though, in this statement like, because I know she’s been single for eight years and I know what that feels like. It feels like you’ve been in the desert and you finally got a drink of water. And now you’re going to just guzzle it all down. But still, you have to have slow love and you don’t have to figure it out before he moves. So like I think the tendency when you have been looking for someone for so long, and you know she said a couple of times like it took me eight years to find him is to then take this. Take this peg that may or may not fit, and just like jamming in there, we have to figure this out right now. And you don’t like Yes, a lot of time has passed, and you’ve invested a lot, but you still need to proceed cautiously and carefully, and mindfully, and especially if you’re going to be investing in a long distance relationship. Like I’ll say, Stephanie, it can work to meet someone long distance, but eventually you have to have a plan to be together. Hopefully, very few relationships work long term long distance. Yeah. But you just have to, you have to figure it out and not be I think she shouldn’t be in a rush to figure it out before he goes, you will still have Skype dates, you’ll be able to travel to one another. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing that they can only see each other on weekends. because like you said, having that space in between the dates will make it will give you the opportunity to really assess if this is something different if it has that magic like Stephanie was

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  42:58  

that’s so true. So much of what you just said, one being like that energy is different. If the energy is like, hold on, cling, don’t leave me. We got to figure this out, then no, that’s not going to feel good for anyone. And I love what you said about the weekends to even honestly now, Justin and I don’t, we’re moving in together in like a month, but we don’t really see each other during the week. And that’s okay. And for me, that’s what me release and heal so much of that unhealthy attachment or that I need you, you need to need me and has allowed us to, like individually grow in such a huge way and then we come together in a really healthy way. Exactly. That’s the goal.

 

Damona  43:42  

Any relationships? Yeah. relationships. Okay, we have one more question. This gal says women always say that men only want them for sex. But I never get any responses on dating apps. What’s up with

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  43:56  

that? It’s a guy

 

Oh,

 

Unknown Speaker  44:01  

I’m gonna pick up that whole thing. Okay,

 

Damona  44:05  

this question, okay.

 

Okay, this question comes to us from a fella. He says women always say that men only want them for sex. But I never get any responses on dating apps. What’s up with that? So this guy is trying to have like a more serious connection. He’s sending messages on dating apps or women of substance. And he’s getting shut out in the cold. What’s he doing wrong? You think? Other than not manifesting his magic?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  44:36  

Well, I mean, I guess it if you get logical with it, it’s like what’s, what is the conversation? And then the other part of it is like, what’s the energy that it’s coming from? It’s kind of similar to the last question, you were just saying, like, Are you going out with that energy of? I need it now? I want something serious. Where are you? I don’t want anything like that that energy that you come to it with is also super important. Yes.

 

Damona  45:08  

And it’s I feel like we’re coming back full circle to where we began at the show. It’s a combination right of, of the logistics. What What is your profile? pictures? Do you? Do you need the profile starter kit that you can get a dates and mates calm for free. And maybe you need to redo your profile because chances are you if you’re not getting responses back, there’s something amiss in your profile or in your approach. So if you’re not like chasing down women and sending them novels and acting weird, which, if you’re listening to this podcast, then surely or not, you might just need to refresh on your dating profile and have some pictures that really amplify your magic and show people who you are and what what would make you a great match. But I would say don’t be a Afraid, especially for a guy to let people know that you’re, you’re there for something more serious, right? Because if you if people I think are so afraid to say what they mean or say really what their intentions are, they’re afraid someone might run away. So I think it pushes away the wrong people and it magnet magnetized is the right people to you

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  46:22  

100% I say that all the time people Justin and I met on Bumble And people always ask me, my God, how did you find a person on Bumble or vice versa? they asked him to both of us for very honest about what we wanted, and with our energy, but also in what we physically said. And I think especially for women, I mean men to or they were just afraid to say that because we think, oh, then people will leave or they’ll think like, oh, okay, he wants something serious. I’m out. But good. That’s good information that does not the person that’s on the same level of what you want. And so the more Yes, like you said part of it is what does your profile say? What are you coming into the conversation with? And then the other part of it is just be vulnerable and honest about what you actually want from the beginning.

 

Damona  47:07  

And then let the magic take hold. Right? This has been so much fun so

 

all of our listeners will check out made a magic the podcast, it’s on all of your favorite podcast platforms. You can also follow Stephanie on Instagram at Stephanie dawn Elizabeth. We will put the links in the show notes along with all the the links to the dating dish stories. Those are always for your reading pleasure, along with fabulous GIFs by the wonderful Producer Leah at dates and mates.com This is Episode 282 of dates and mates. Do you have a question? Do you have a question that you want me to answer on future show? Don’t be shy. Tell me what’s on your mind. Chances are somebody if you’re having a question, there’s somebody else listening, that’s having the same issue. So you can help somebody else out and also help out your yourself, you can message me at Dimona Hoffman on all the socials. I also love voice messages. So you can call me or you can leave me a voice message on on Instagram. You can call me at 424-246-6255 you can email me, just find me and get me your questions so I can help you out. And don’t forget to do three keep it free. Number one, subscribe to this show on whichever platform you’re listening right now click that little subscribe button number to give us a review. And number three, share this episode with a friend. Everyone has a friend that needs a little bit of manifestation magic in their life. So why not click share and let somebody know that you found a fabulous podcast and you are going to help them live their best life while you’re living your best to. We’ll be back again next week with more dates and mates. Thank you to my guest Stephanie Don Elizabeth.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  48:52  

Thank you.

 

Damona  48:53  

Until next week, my lovers I wish you happy dating