The Love Expert: Why Women Are Addicted To Toxic Men,"Have A Boring Relationship Instead!" Logan Ury

1. 0:00 – 2:10

   Intro

   1. LULogan Ury0:00

      Most people want to find love. But the truth is, you think you know what you want, but you're wrong. But there's a lot of great relationship science out there, and this might be the number one thing that I want people to take away. So if you're-

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:12

      Logan Ury. Hinge's dating scientist from Harvard. She's renowned for her data-driven approach- To help millions of people find love.

   3. LULogan Ury0:20

      Big things in my work are fuck the spark, the post-date eight, and the three dating tendencies. So let's go through that. The spark is this idea that we go after initial chemistry, the fireworks, but the spark often leads to relationships that burn out. Fuck the spark. The post-date eight are eight questions to ask yourself after a date, training your brain to a new way of dating. And finally, most people suffer from one of these three dating tendencies, and that's what's holding them back from finding love.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:46

      And can you change it?

   5. LULogan Ury0:47

      Yeah. So the first type is Ditch Me. People in great relationships have made a bunch of good choices, and the truth is, the person that ends up making them happy in the long term is very rarely who they thought they should be with. If you are single and you don't want to be, at some point you have to realize, you are choosing a set of problems. Why do I keep falling for dickheads? Or people often confuse pet peeves, the ick, for deal breakers. Like, "He has a Velcro wallet."

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:13

      (laughs)

   7. LULogan Ury1:13

      I can buy you a new fucking wallet. And they say to me, like, "I don't want to meet on an app, it's not romantic," but the number one way that couples are meeting is online. And so, because I want to help so many people find love, these are the top tricks for a great Hinge profile. First of all, your bio.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:31

      I think this is fascinating. I looked at the back end of our YouTube channel, and it says that since this channel started, 69.9% of you that watch it frequently haven't yet hit the subscribe button. So, I have a favor to ask you. If you've ever watched this channel and enjoyed the content, if you're enjoying this episode right now, please, could I ask a small favor? Please hit the subscribe button. Helps this channel more than I can explain, and I promise, if you do that, to return the favor, we will make this show better, and better, and better, and better, and better. That's a promise I'm willing to make you if you hit the subscribe button. Do we have a deal?

2. 2:10 – 5:55

   Why Does Your Work Matter?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:10

      Logan, why does your work matter?

   2. LULogan Ury2:15

      My work matters because most people, almost everyone, wants to find love, and it's really hard. And I meet people and I see how badly they want it, I see how long they've been trying to get it, and they're getting in their own way. And so, I do the work that I do because I want to help people understand the blind spots that are holding them back from finding love, and I want to help them get out of their own way, develop new patterns, new habits, and find love.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:43

      Where are we in terms of love as a society? Love, dating, sex, all these kinds of things. Where are we? What's our direction of travel? Are we getting better, worse?

   4. LULogan Ury2:54

      People are really struggling. If you think about the history of dating, it's actually pretty new, right? So, for most of human history, you were, had an arranged marriage from, let's say your piece of land was next to somebody else's piece of land, so your dads wanted to combine the land so you were married to the person next door. Or there was a matchmaker who made the arrangement. So, modern dating as we know it only started around 1890. So this is very new in the span of human history. And then you have dating apps, which only started in earnest around 10 years ago. And so the way that we're dating now is actually really new. And so when people are struggling with it, I understand. We were not designed to date this way, or we don't have tons of experience. And so we were born knowing how to love, but we're not born knowing how to date. And so I'm out there trying to teach people how to date.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett3:46

      And who are you?

   6. LULogan Ury3:48

      So, I am a behavioral scientist turned dating coach. I work with people one-on-one to help them find love. I also work as Hinge's director of relationship science, so I conduct research and really try to understand what's happening with dating, people who are finding success on Hinge, what are they doing differently? I also teach dating classes. And I wrote this book, How to Not Die Alone.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett4:14

      So for anybody that doesn't know what Hinge is, 'cause I'm sure there'll be some people listening that don't know what Hinge is. What is Hinge?

   8. LULogan Ury4:20

      Hinge is a dating app, and I think it's the best one. What Hinge does differently is it truly is about getting you off the app and onto great relationships. And so before I started at Hinge, I actually interviewed the CEO Justin McCloud for my book. And I was kind of this skeptical person, and I was like, "All right, let's be real. Of course you don't want your users to actually find love, because then they would churn, and then you'd have to find new users and that'd be really expensive. So, get real with me. Of course you want to keep people on the app." And he was like, "No. The best referral system that we have is word of mouth from people finding somebody on the app and telling other people." If you go to a wedding where the people found love on Hinge, that's gonna get you to use it. And since I've been there for almost four years, not to sound (laughs) like a s- a sponsored ad, but I've never been in a conversation that was about, "How do we keep people on the app?" We're really... It's almost a religion. How do we get people off the app and onto these dates?

   9. SBSteven Bartlett5:15

      And you hired a dating coach for yourself, right?

   10. LULogan Ury5:18

       Yeah. That's exactly right, yeah. So, I have compassion for my younger self, but at the time, it was (laughs) just so hard, it was like the classic story of you fall for someone, we're having this amazing time, and emotions are running so high, and you fall for someone and you think, "Oh, well, if my feelings about them are so strong, their feelings about me must be so strong." And we had this amazing week at Burning Man. And then when we came back, I was like, "Oh, well of course we'll date now." And this person was just not interested in dating. And when I look back at my younger self, I can see that we were in this anxious avoidant loop. Are you familiar with

3. 5:55 – 11:26

   Attachment Theories, which one are you?

   1. LULogan Ury5:55

      that?

   2. SBSteven Bartlett5:55

      No, I'm not.

   3. LULogan Ury5:56

      Okay, so you know about attachment theory?

   4. SBSteven Bartlett5:59

      ... loosely.

   5. LULogan Ury5:59

      Okay. So, I'll give you the scoop 'cause I feel like it's really interesting. So, attachment theory is a really great part of relationship research because it's something that has a deep background in research. So, John Bowlby was a psychologist, and he did the most interesting research on this, and this was in the 60s. So, he basically would have moms bring their babies into a laboratory, and the moms would place the baby down and leave the room and see how the baby reacted. And so, some babies would start crying, the mom would come back in the room and pick it up, and the baby would keep crying. So, the mom was there again, but the baby still felt upset, and that baby is anxiously attached. There was another type of baby where the mom would leave, the baby would come back, and as soon as the mom picked up the baby, the baby was soothed. So, the baby was saying, "I want to be with you, but when you're here, I know you're here for good." The third kind, the mom would leave the room, the baby wouldn't cry, but they knew from other signals that the baby was upset, and when the mom came back in the room, the baby would ignore it, and that baby is called avoidant attached. And so, basically, the point is that what we have in childhood often shows up in adult romantic relationships, and this is attachment theory. And so, anxiously attached people, they feel like they're always going to lose you, you're going to abandon them, you're going to leave them, and so they always try to regain closeness. And so, that's why when the mom came back, they're still like, "Are you gonna leave me again? I'm so nervous." The avoidant attached babies, they feel like, "Well, you'll probably abandon me anyway, so I'm not gonna get too close," and those are the people who are always pushing somebody away, "Here's the reason why we shouldn't be together." They're always creating reasons to delay intimacy, and they're afraid of being smothered. And then the securely attached babies who become securely attached adults, they say, "I want some intimacy, but I also want independence," and we sort of think about them as the heroes of the relationship world because they can manage both of those feelings of closeness and independence. And so, what happens is 50% of the population is securely attached, which would be great because many of us could date them, but they actually get into relationships and they stay there. So, the pool is a lot of anxious attached people and avoidant attached people dating each other, and they do this thing called the anxious-avoidant loop, and what that means is, "My version of love is that you're gonna leave me, you're gonna abandon me, and that I have to chase you. Your version of love is you're gonna smother me, so I go after you, you pull back," and we both think, "Oh, this is what love is. We're just doing love." And it's not until one of us becomes more secure or that we date a secure partner that we actually realize that there's another way. So, so much of the work I do with people is actually busting the anxious-avoidant loop and helping them understand, "Hey, you are anxiously attached. When you keep dating these guys who are running away and you have to chase them, it's hurting you and you're not in a great relationship. Look for someone secure." And so, that was a very (laughs) long-winded way of what happened to me with this Burning Man guy. I was definitely an anxious attached dater, he was avoidant, and instead of us just saying, "We're not a match," we were in this loop, and it was so painful. I remember crying on my friend's couch un- n- not understanding why doesn't this person want to be with me, and I, I tried my hardest. I put that Harvard degree to work, right? You try to convince somebody to be with you, but they're not interested. And so, somebody recommended this dating coach, and I went to meet with her, and it was so helpful because, first of all, I acknowledged how painful it was, and then we did an exercise where she says, "How do you want somebody to make you feel?" And I wrote down all these characteristics, desired, respected, admired. "I want to feel like they think I'm really funny." And when I looked at that list, I was like, "This guy doesn't make me feel like any of those things. (laughs) He makes me feel like shit. But there's this other guy at work who actually does make me feel those things." And so, there was this guy at work who I had met originally in college, and then I met him again at work, like, in a casual lunch, and I had told him, "I'm trying to learn this statistics language called R," and he said, "Oh, I just dropped out of a PhD program where I write R every day," and he was like, "I'll tutor you." So, for a few months, he was tutoring me, but I didn't think that we were a good match. He said a couple things like, "Oh, I don't like travel. I don't like people that go to Burning Man." He seemed closed-minded. But then when I worked with this dating coach and I thought about how I wanted someone to make me feel, I was like, "That guy makes me feel that way." So, I put more effort into seeing him, and we went from having lunch maybe once a month to once a week to we suddenly were having lunch every day, and I didn't explicitly ask him out, but I certainly said, "Oh, I don't have plans on Friday. What are you doing?" kind of i- inviting him to ask me out. And yeah, we've now been together for almost nine years, and we're married.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett11:10

      I've got so much to dig into there.

   7. LULogan Ury11:12

      Okay, great.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett11:13

      I was smirking at you because I just... So much of what you were saying rang true with me. You were perfectly describing me when you started describing the avoidant attached. Can you just characterize that again? 'Cause I wanna zoom in

4. 11:26 – 19:31

   What To Do As An Avoidant Attached person

   1. SBSteven Bartlett11:26

      on that.

   2. LULogan Ury11:26

      Right. Yeah. Let me go more into avoidant attachment. And I would say for anyone listening who's feeling really stuck, going deep on attachment theory is one of the number one things that you can do to really understand yourself, understand your past patterns, understand who you've been attracted to, and why it isn't working. And so, there's a lot of great relationship science out there, but this might be the number one thing that I want people to take away. Let me describe what happens when you're avoidant attached. So first, there's a trigger. So, the trigger might be that you go out with somebody on Saturday night, you have a great night, they sleep over, and Sunday morning, you wake up, and you're just ready to do your thing, but they're still there, so you feel triggered by the fact that they're still at your house. Then you do something called deactivating strategies. So these are thoughts or feelings that...... push them away. So it might be like, "Oh my god. It's 10 o'clock and she hasn't brushed her teeth yet. When is she gonna leave? Oh, uh, you know, is she gonna be here forever?" And then you start thinking about flaws in that person, "Well, this is wrong with her," or, "That is wrong with her." And there's all these things that are subtly pushing her away from you. And then you do a protest behavior, which is sort of snapping or just saying something like, "Okay, I called your Uber." (laughs) And I feel like many of us have had that situation where you think you're going, you think things are going well with somebody and then all of a sudden, they're like, "The Uber's here." And you're like, "Oh, so you're kicking me out." And it's so interesting because it's like the other person has no idea what's going on for you. They feel like you just had a great date, and they're like, "Great, let's go out to the diner for breakfast." And instead, that person is like, "I will never have my life back. You are taking over my world." You're really blushing. And so what an avoidant attached person can do, let me give a few tips for them. So one of them is being really clear about what you want. And so it's absolutely fine if you want the person to leave, but saying something like, "Hey, I had such a great date with you. I have a big week of work ahead of me, and so I wanna get started, but I will call you again soon." And so just asking for what you need. Another thing is overriding the flaws that are, become so obvious to you. So there's a really interesting thing called the negativity bias, and even though we're living in this age of ChatGPT and all of modern technology, our brains are running on ancient software. And so our brains have the negativity bias, which is that we're much more likely to ruminate on what's wrong with someone. The reason for this is that if you had five ex-girlfriends and one of them wanted to kill you, it was really important to know which one that was.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett14:01

      (laughs)

   4. LULogan Ury14:02

      And so your brain would remember that. And so to overcome the negativity bias, to overcome this feeling where avoidant attached people focus on flaws, you actually can work on focusing on the positives, so even just saying to yourself five things that you like about somebody. So you could think in your head, "Last night was so fun." "She looked so cute wearing my T-shirt." "I'm really excited to hear her talk more about her work," whatever that is. And so actively overriding this feeling of pushing people away because that's one of the really hard parts about being avoidant is that you feel like those criticisms that you have in your head are so valid, "Well, I need to pay attention to this," but what you don't understand is that that's actually a subconscious way to you to not, for you to not get close to someone. And so I'm coaching someone right now where she told me, "Oh, I went on a date with a guy. Everything was great, but he wore a white T-shirt under his shirt, which reminded me of my uncle, so I can't be with him." And I was like, "Do you understand how ridiculous (laughs) that sounds? Obviously, that's not a reason to not be with someone. That's an excuse for you to not get close to someone." And as we talked about it more, it became obvious that she's really afraid of being hurt. She's been abandoned by many people, she was in a bad marriage, and for her, "If I don't get close to you, then you can't hurt me." And that's part of the avoidant attachment: "If I never rely on you, then you can never let me down." And so part of it is actually getting more comfortable relying on somebody else.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett15:31

      And you kind of alluded to it there, but the obvious question here is where does it come from? Y- you know, I think, uh, from your answer with your client with the white T-shirt ick, I think it's quite clear.

   6. LULogan Ury15:43

      (laughs)

   7. SBSteven Bartlett15:43

      But in my case, I think I, I think I know where it comes from. But generally, where does this avoidant attachment style come from?

   8. LULogan Ury15:50

      Yeah, so if you think about the history of attachment theory and the fact that it started doing research with children and their primary caregiver, there is this idea that it goes back to your childhood. But I feel like it's unfair to really say all of us have these attachment styles because of our parents, or specifically, because of our mothers, and, "Hey, Mom, if I'm single, it's your fault." That's actually not true. I think that's part of it, but there's other societal things that can lead to it, and there's some evidence of different biological reasons why each of us would do this. So the main message that I wanna give away is, do not blame everything on your mother. I think attachment styles is a really good framework, but it's not just an excuse to say, "Oh, well, my parents are the reason why I can't find love."

   9. SBSteven Bartlett16:35

      And can you change it?

   10. LULogan Ury16:36

       The research shows that when people work on it, about 25% of people are able to change their attachment style. And so what that might look like is somebody understanding, "This is my trigger, and when a trigger happens, I'm gonna do something else." And so we talked about for the avoidant person asking for what you need, being really clear and not assuming that somebody is gonna read your mind, and looking for the positives. And you can work on self-regulation. So for example, when an a- when an avoidant or anxious person is triggered, they go into this thing called the danger zone, which is basically like, "I need to get away from you as soon as possible," or, "I need to reconnect with you as soon as possible." And if you don't wanna get into the danger zone, and you wanna stay in the comfort zone, then you can learn how to self-regulate. So that's one thing. The other thing, which I personally (laughs) feel like is easier and was my strategy, is finding a secure partner. And so that's a great way to get outta the anxious-avoidant loop. So with me, right, I was this anxiously attached dater, chasing after this Burning Man guy, had all these bad habits, and then when I started dating my husband, I distinctly remember this moment where I was walking down the street of San Francisco, and I was flooded. I was so angry. I would just get so upset, and I was typing away at my phone. I couldn't see anything else. I truly was in this flooded, cortisol rush moment, and I was telling him all the things he had done wrong, and I knew the pattern, which was then he would fight with me, we'd get into this fight, it would blow up, and then eventually we'd make up. But he didn't do that pattern. He wrote back and said, "It sounds like you're upset. We should talk about this in person."And it was this crazy moment where I was like, "Wait, we're not gonna do the thing that I always do with everyone? We're gonna do this different thing?" And it just dissipated all of the anger, because he was acknowledging that I was upset, but he was suggesting a healthier plan. And I don't think that it's unrelated to the fact that his mom is a therapist. So dating this secure person made me so much more secure, where I broke out of the anxious avoidant loop, I got over the silly Burning Man guy, and I understood what a secure relationship was like. And I feel so lucky to be in this secure marriage, and sometimes when I think about my career success, I'm like, "I couldn't have done it without my husband," not because he's involved with my career, but I really feel like 25 to 50% of my brain was in these spirals, worrying about people, being anxiously attached, ruminating on them, and just being in a (laughs) secure relationship actually gives you a lot of peace, and you can use that brain power for something else.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett19:13

       But only 50% of people you said are-

   12. LULogan Ury19:15

       (laughs)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett19:15

       ... the secure ones that everybody wants.

   14. LULogan Ury19:17

       Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, so I think it's a combination of you can become more secure yourself, or you can find a secure partner. What's hard is that we often confuse secure people

5. 19:31 – 35:03

   How To Find A Secure Partner & Maintain A Healthy Relationship

   1. LULogan Ury19:31

      for boring.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett19:32

      That's what I was gonna say. I was, I wasn't sure whether to say it, but secure sounds a bit, you know, wallpaper.

   3. LULogan Ury19:38

      Yes, and that's what people don't understand. So people think, "Oh," like, I had a client who said to me, "I went on a date with this guy. We went out a few times. I told him I was going to Seattle, and then he sent me all these recommendations for Seattle, so I'm never gonna see him again." I was like, "What are you talking about?"

   4. SBSteven Bartlett19:54

      (laughs)

   5. LULogan Ury19:54

      She's like, "That's so desperate." I was like, "This is just a nice guy who's trying to tell you about a cool bookstore in Seattle. Like, why can't you see that as somebody that's interested in you and putting in effort?" But to her, in the anxious avoidant loop, what she wanted was someone who was unavailable. And that's what's so hard, I feel like there's all these lovely securely attached people out there that are probably like, "Ugh, I'm a dud. Nobody wants me." It's like, baby, somebody wants you, they just haven't figured it out yet. And so, some of the work that I do is train people to look for secure partners, and so things like are they consistent? Do they not play games? Are they clear about their interest in you? And so we actually have to understand that securely attached partners are the heroes of the relationship world, and they're great to be in relationships with, they have healthier relationships, and you have to train yourself to go for that, and to break out of this anxious avoidant loop.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett20:51

      I could probably hazard a guess as to which attachment style ends up in marriage the mo- the most, and stays in marriage, but I'm also quite curious about which attachment style is most likely to get the most attention.

   7. LULogan Ury21:02

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett21:03

      You know? Because from what we've just talked about there, there is a hint of vanilla to-

   9. LULogan Ury21:08

      (laughs)

   10. SBSteven Bartlett21:08

       ... the person. (laughs) There is a hint of vanilla to the secure attachment style, and there's a hint of excitement associated with the avoidant attach style. You know, 'cause one of the principles I learned about attraction is this idea of, um, social proofing, and that, and one of, element, element of social proofing is not appearing to be so interesting.

   11. LULogan Ury21:28

       Mm, mm-hmm.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett21:29

       Because that raises your, the perception of your value.

   13. LULogan Ury21:31

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett21:31

       So if we're having a conversation, if I'm kind of blasé about you and a little bit, uh, uninterested, it raises my social value.

   15. LULogan Ury21:36

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett21:36

       Therefore, you'll think I may be more valuable.

   17. LULogan Ury21:38

       Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett21:39

       Um, so I was thinking, maybe these avoidant attached people are getting the most sort of short-time interest. I don't know, is that-

   19. LULogan Ury21:47

       I think that's exactly right, and even when you said that, it reminded me of how I felt with the Burning Man guy, where the story in my head was, "If you don't want me, you must be better than me."

   20. SBSteven Bartlett21:57

       Mm.

   21. LULogan Ury21:57

       I think so many of us feel that way. It's like, well, as soon as you reject me, you have more power than me, and for me to regain power, I wanna get you interested in me, instead of a much healthier mindset which is, I want the person I choose to choose me back. That's how I'll know that we're a match. So I wanna tell you about this interesting application of research. So the term fuckboy has been around for a little while, and like, people kept asking me, "What's going on with fuckboys? Why do I keep falling for fuckboys? There's Fuckboy Island. There's all this stuff." And I was like, "Why are people so addicted to fuckboys?" And so there's this really interesting research from the psychologist B.F. Skinner, and it's a study with pigeons. So for the first pigeon, the pigeon is in a little cage with a lever. Every time that the pigeon presses the lever, food comes out, and so, that's pigeon number one. Then there's pigeon number two. They're also in a cage with a lever. In the beginning, every time that they press the lever, food comes out. Okay, so now they're the same. But then, the first pigeon, it stays the same. They press the lever, food comes out, and this is called the continuous reward schedule. The second pigeon, over time, the schedule changes. Sometimes when they press the lever, food comes out. Sometimes when they press it, it doesn't come out. Maybe it might take them 5 or 20 times of pressing it for the food to come out, and that's called the partial reward schedule. So with the first pigeon, once they turn off the food, the pigeon will press it a few more time, see there's no more food, and stop pressing it. The second pigeon, once they turn off the food, it will literally keep pressing the lever until it collapses from fatigue. And that's because the partial reward schedule is so addictive. That's also how slot machines work. That's how gambling works. Sometimes I get what I want, and sometimes I don't, so I wanna keep trying and I wanna keep trying. And that's what's happening with fuckboys. So fuckboys give you attention in the beginning, right? You get what you want, they seem interested in you, you go out. Then they start pulling back. They're hot and cold. Sometimes they're interested, sometimes they're not. And you become addicted to that partial reward schedule. Well, this time when I press the lever, will you text me back or not? And it feels really exciting. And so, securely attached partners are the levers in the first one, where they're...... interest in you and their love in you is continuous. And that's what we should go after because that's what a healthy relationship is. But people get so addicted to the fuck boys and to the partial reward schedule that they're trapped in this cycle. And so our brains are really, they really develop in this way where when we don't know if we'll get what we want or not, it's really exciting. But that's not what's aligned with long-term relationship success.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett24:45

       Oh, that makes perfect sense.

   23. LULogan Ury24:46

       (laughs) Tell me about you. I want-

   24. SBSteven Bartlett24:49

       (laughs)

   25. LULogan Ury24:49

       I, I feel like from listening to your episodes, I was like, "This is an avoidant attached maximizer."

   26. SBSteven Bartlett24:55

       None of your business. (laughs)

   27. LULogan Ury24:55

       "This is a reformed fuck boy."

   28. SBSteven Bartlett24:58

       (laughs)

   29. LULogan Ury24:58

       But what was the dynamic like with you and your girlfriend?

   30. SBSteven Bartlett25:00

       So for the first 25 years of my life, I was the avoidant. Again-
6. 35:03 – 38:48

   The "secretary problem" That Could Save Your Love Life

   1. LULogan Ury35:03

   2. SBSteven Bartlett35:03

      (laughs)

   3. LULogan Ury35:04

      There was a couple other things I wanted to follow up from, from this story. So have you heard of the secretary problem?

   4. SBSteven Bartlett35:09

      Only in your book.

   5. LULogan Ury35:10

      Okay, so let me tell you about it, and I, I should give credit to where I heard about it. So there's a great book called Algorithms To Live By, and that's how I came across this. So this is the mathematically correct way to know when to stop looking and when to choose someone. So the idea is imagine that you're hiring a secretary and you have 100 people to choose from.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett35:31

      Mm-hmm.

   7. LULogan Ury35:31

      And you have to go through each one one at a time and say yes or no. So after the first person, yes or no. After the second person, yes or no. And if you say no, you can't go back. So the question, which is part of this way of mathematical thinking called optimal stop theory, is how many people should you go through? Because if you choose too early, you don't know what's out there, but if you choose too late, maybe all the good people have passed you by. And so the mathematically correct answer is that you go through the first 37 people, 37%, and you say, "Who was the single best person of that 37%?" That's now your benchmark person. The next time that you find someone who's better than that benchmark person, you hire them.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett36:11

      Okay, so I go, I, I'm interviewing someone to be my assistant, let's say. I go through 37 people, and this can be used in the context of dating as well.

   9. LULogan Ury36:20

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett36:21

       And I find someone called Jenny, who was the best of the 37.But I've said no to her, so I can't go back and get Jennie. So I've been on a date with Jennie or whatever, or I've interviewed Jennie. So I'm now at interview number 38. What do I do?

   11. LULogan Ury36:36

       The next... You, you keep going until you find someone who you like more than Jennie, and then you say, "I've found her," and you stop. And the reason why this is so important is because if you're a maximizer, and we should get into what that means, you wanna keep looking, and there are so many people who just have found someone who's better than their benchmark person, but they keep looking and they keep looking and then they keep looking, and the pool's getting smaller and smaller, and they don't realize it. And so here's how that applies to dating. We don't know how many people you'll date, but one way we can think about it is let's just approximate how long somebody might date. So let's say somebody dates from ages 18 to 40. What is 37% of the way through? So it's when you're 26.1 years old. So at that point, you should look back and say, "Who was my Jennie? Who was my benchmark person?" The next time you find someone who you like more than that benchmark person, choose them and try to build a relationship with them. And why this is so important is so many people keep looking, so many people keep searching, they're waiting for the perfect person, and they don't understand that relationships are about finding somebody great and building a great relationship, not the continuous search to find the perfect person who doesn't exist.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett37:45

       And that's a statistical, uh, mathematical equation that says, on average, if we do date from 18 to 40, then by 26, if you-

   13. LULogan Ury37:53

       You've, you've already met someone who could be your benchmark person, and that you should keep that as the framework. And so the reason it's relevant to your story is you had a feeling that your girlfriend was your benchmark person or was your person, and so you broke, you guys broke up. For a year, you looked around and you were like, "There's nobody better." And so obviously things are not exactly the same. There's a secretary problem, and you could go back, and you were lucky enough to be able to go back and find her, but it was that feeling of, "I've seen what's out there. She's the best. That's who I want." And I feel like so often, people don't recognize how good the person they're with is, or they get way past 37% and they're still looking. And so a lot of the work I try to do with people is to help them understand, I know you're a maximizer. I know you're trying to find the perfect person, but instead, I want you to find somebody amazing and build a relationship with them and not be in this perpetual cycle of trying to trade up.

7. 38:48 – 45:02

   What To Do As An Anxious Attached Person

   1. LULogan Ury38:48

   2. SBSteven Bartlett38:48

      So interesting. You talked about this concept called maximizers, which I wanna double down on, but-

   3. LULogan Ury38:53

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett38:53

      ... um, I feel like there'll be a bunch of people out there who class themselves as the affers- first attachment style-

   5. LULogan Ury38:59

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett39:00

      ... anxiously attached that need some help and advice. So my girlfriend, I think she's a little bit anxious attached. What do anxious attached people need to know, um, to increase their probability of finding love?

   7. LULogan Ury39:12

      So you illustrated this really well in your story. So you talked about how your girlfriend will want attention from you, you don't give it to her. She tries, and then she shuts down. So that's exactly what we see with anxious attached people. So let me give you the equivalent of what I gave you for the avoidant attached. So a- an anxious attached person will have a trigger. So for example, the trigger would be I ask somebody if we're hanging out tomorrow, and they didn't get back to me. So after the trigger happens, they go into activating strategy, so those are thoughts or feelings where you start spiraling, and you're thinking, "They're not interested in me. They met somebody else. There's something else going on. They don't like me anymore." And you really are getting into that danger zone of coming up with all these reasons why that person is going to abandon you, which is your biggest fear. So then, you do protest behavior. So the protest behavior, and trust me, I've been there, is sending 10 texts in a row, maybe it's sending 20 texts in a row, leaving an angry voicemail, so really acting out. And then afterwards, you decide to punish the person, and you shut down. So you send all those texts, you send threats, and then you turn off your phone. And so you're really in this tough place where you've tried to reconnect with somebody, and then you've gotten so upset that they're abandoning you, that you actually pull back. And so that sort of describes what might be happening with your girlfriend sometimes, where she doesn't get what she wants, it's very frustrating for her, and then she shuts down. So the strategies for the anxious attached, I talked about them before, but I'll say them again. So some of the strategies for anxious attached are distracting yourself, so going for a walk, doing something else where you're not on your phone, where you're basically not in a mode where you're waiting for somebody to text back. I feel like those are the longest minutes of my life are waiting (laughs) for that text back from that person. The second thing is to text somebody else, you know, "I wish I could say this to him," and the third thing is this disconfirming evidence. It's almost like inside your head is a judge and a jury, and you're presenting to the judge, "Here's all the reasons why it could not be true." So then you're presenting to the judge and the jury, "Here's all the reasons why that person might not be texting me back." And so you're really doing everything that you can to not get into that protest behavior moment, because once you're flooded, once you're in that protest behavior moment, it's really hard to recover. And so it's both people are working on having different reactions to triggers. And honestly, if you look at all of the mindfulness stuff, if you look at the work of Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning, so much of it is this idea of creating more space between an action and a reaction, and if you can extend that space and choose a different reaction, that's where the growth comes from, and that's how we can overcome these negative behavioral trends.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett41:56

      Something you said there made me think about advice I once gave to a friend that I'm not sure is good or bad advice. She was being ghosted, and (laughs) she came to me, telling me she'd been ghosted, and she showed me her phone and was like, "Look." And I looked at her phone conversation with this person, and she was basically peppering him. She was dragging the conversation. You know what I mean?

   9. LULogan Ury42:18

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett42:18

       Where she's like asking the questions and he's giving, um, closed responses, then she's asking another question, then he's giving a closed response. It was that cycle over and over again. Then the next day, she'd text him, and he didn't reply, and I said to her...She's a good friend of mine. She works in one of my companies. I said, "I think it's important to realize that people do what they wanna do." And the reason I said that to her is because she had started justifying, I think, in her- her own mind, what I saw as a clear rejection as something else.

   11. LULogan Ury42:48

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett42:48

       So I said, "I think it's important to let you know that just remember, people do what they wanna do. He would've woke up this morning. I'm sure he brushed his teeth 'cause he wanted to do that. He then would've eaten breakfast because I'm sure he wanted to do that. So if he's c- not texting you back over and over again, and you feel like you're constantly dragging the conversation, I think it's important to know that he's doing what he wants to do." And it's maybe a bit of harsh advice, but I don't know.

   13. LULogan Ury43:10

       I think that's great advice. And I'm- I'm smiling, and I have sympathy for your friend 'cause I feel like I've really been there. Obviously, I don't know anything about her, but let's say she's wired like me. It's like, well, when I want something, I go after it, and it works in every other area of my life. I set goals. I go after them. I achieve them, and people respect the hustle. It doesn't work in dating. You can't hustle your way into a relationship. And I think that's why so many of the women I work with are really smart and ambitious, and they're like, "I've run a marathon. I have amazing personal finances. I've achieved all these goals. Why isn't dating working out for me?" And it does feel like this one aspect of your life where you can't muscle your way through it, you actually have to learn this pretty nuanced dance. And so for her, she wasn't getting the cues, and she wasn't getting the clues, and so I just finished a bunch of research at Hinge on this idea that we're calling DBL, digital body language. And so we talk about body language in normal conversation, which is, what are the non-verbal things that you're communicating? Are you crossing your arms? You're not interested in me. Are you opening up? Are you interested in having this conversation? Even the way we stand. Well, most of early dating is now happening over text. What is your digital body language saying? And so through this research, I have this whole list of good DBL and bad DBL, or signs that somebody's interested in you and signs that they're not, and this guy is doing all of the signs that you're not. He's answering the questions with one-word answers. He's not asking a followup question. He's not matching her style. And so for her, I think it should be a sign that he's not interested, but she wants him to be interested, and so she's gonna keep trying. And in her- in her head, which I have been there, it's like, oh, I just haven't found the perfect question yet for him to open up to. It's like, no, he's not interested in you. And I can hear my college roommate saying to me, "Logan, don't make somebody a priority when they're making

8. 45:02 – 50:00

   Why Icks Are Stopping You Finding Love

   1. LULogan Ury45:02

      you an option." And that's what's happening with her. She's prioritizing him, but he's not prioritizing her. I think your advice is exactly right. People do what they wanna do, and he's choosing not to invest in that relationship. But at the end of the day, that was not your guy. He had already indicated in multiple ways that he wasn't interested. You were still grasping onto the crumbs, but you don't want the crumbs. You deserve the whole cookie. It's not like you ruin things with your person. He wasn't your person.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett45:30

      And she always dates people that are either in marriages already or unavailable (laughs) . That's her-

   3. LULogan Ury45:35

      Yeah. Well, I mean, going back to our theme of the anxious avoidant loop, and she's drawn to this avoidant person, and when they're unavailable, she loves the chase, and how can I convince them? I don't know if she's found love since, but I feel like growth for her will look like choosing somebody who's available and retraining her brain to see their availability as sexy and interesting and correlated with relationship success, which is gonna feel different than how dating has been, which is she's been going after people who are not available.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett46:06

      Something she said to me kinda correlates to this because she was, um, on a dating app. She hates dating apps, but she was on a dating app. Bear in mind, she's a mid-30s woman. Um, and there was this wonderful, like, this really, like, wonderful guy. He's a m- nicely mannered guy, and she said, "I'm not interested in him." I said, "Why?" She goes, "Look at the background of his Hinge or whatever it was photo. There's boxes on top of his cupboard. Ugh." And that was her reason for this, like... I thought he, I was like, that's a really good guy. He's got a great job, seems really nice. He's been really polite to her. And the reason why she didn't want to be with him was because there was a box on the wardrobe behind him in the Tinder picture.

   5. LULogan Ury46:45

      This is what frustrates me about modern dating, and you used the word ick before, so I know you're familiar with it, but the ick has just become this trend where-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett46:52

      Only because of her.

   7. LULogan Ury46:53

      Oh, you know about it from her? Okay, so-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett46:55

      She- she- she says ick to me.

   9. LULogan Ury46:56

      So pe- for people listening who haven't heard of it, the ick is this new trendy word that basically means the reason why all of a sudden, you're not interested in someone. And so my friend is the comedian Jared Freid, and he does hilarious bits about this, and so he travels around the country asking women for their icks. And one of them is you're having an amazing date, you wanna go home with the guy. It's time to pay the bill. You open... You- you pull out your wallet, and you hear, "Sh." He has a Velcro wallet.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett47:23

       (laughs)

   11. LULogan Ury47:24

       The ick? You're not sleeping with him. And he has these hilarious bits. One woman told him, "My ick was that I was on a date with a guy, and I imagined him being late for his bus and running for the bus, and I could never be with him."

   12. SBSteven Bartlett47:39

       (laughs)

   13. LULogan Ury47:39

       And Jared's like, "To be clear, there was no bus, and there was no running." And she's like, "I just imagined it."

   14. SBSteven Bartlett47:44

       (laughs)

   15. LULogan Ury47:45

       And that's what's... You know, the ick is hilarious. When Jared does it, it's hilarious. You're laughing at it. But I'm also like, you know what? I think we should get over the ick because the ick is just an excuse to not get close to someone. And I found in my work that people often confuse pet peeves for deal breakers. So a pet peeve is something that annoys you. Maybe it's the Velcro wallet, but you could get over it. A deal breaker is a fundamental incompatibility, right? I have asthma, and you're a smoker. This isn't gonna work. And so when all these people are confusing-

   16. SBSteven Bartlett48:16

       (laughs)

   17. LULogan Ury48:16

       ... pet peeves for deal breakers-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett48:19

       Sorry. Sorry, it was the Velcro wallet (laughs) . Sorry about that (laughs) .

   19. LULogan Ury48:21

       It's so funny because you feel it. You're like, yes, that's not sexy, get a new wallet, but it doesn't mean you couldn't be with that person.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett48:29

       Now you've said it though, there's gonna be a lot of people that go on dates, and that is gonna be the deal breaker (laughs) .

   21. LULogan Ury48:33

       Yes, or maybe we're saving relationships.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett48:35

       Maybe.

   23. LULogan Ury48:36

       Maybe people are gonna get rid of those Velcro wallets and actually...... get laid more.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett48:40

       What is it about a Velcro wallet, though?

   25. LULogan Ury48:43

       I think it feels very high school.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett48:45

       (laughs) Yeah.

   27. LULogan Ury48:45

       What do you think? Like-

   28. SBSteven Bartlett48:46

       That's exactly... I had one when I was 12.

   29. LULogan Ury48:49

       Right. Like, when you think of... the CEOs that you admire, you're not like, "Jeff Bezos is pulling out his Velcro wallet." Like this guy, maybe he doesn't even have a wallet. But, you know what I mean? And it's just this thing where it's like, because you have this one thing wrong with you, I can't be with you, instead of being reasonable, which is, "I can buy you a new fucking wallet. If we date, this is a fixable problem." But because people get this... People get positive feedback for these stories, right? Like, you have the date with Velcro wallet guy.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett49:22

       (laughs)
9. 50:00 – 1:02:02

   3 Dating Tendencies

   1. LULogan Ury50:00

      but get over it.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett50:03

      Sighs ] Icks. Do you think that icks are, as you said, kind of more of an excuse? Ah, it's funny, 'cause I know, I know someone who runs a dating podcast, and she goes on, honestly, three or four date, dates a week. She is a little bit of a hopeless romantic.

   3. LULogan Ury50:16

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett50:17

      Um, and I wondered to myself, I said, "She goes... She must have been on like a hundred dates a year, and yet she still can't find someone?" Like, statistically, I'm like, y- it can't be a supply problem.

   5. LULogan Ury50:29

      That's exactly how I feel. I meet with people and they say, "Logan, I've been on a hundred dates in the last two years and I haven't met someone. Should I move? What's wrong with the people out there?" It's always about how their city is wrong for dating. It's, "What's wrong with everybody else?" And it... What I say in my head and what I say out loud to them is, "There was very likely somebody within that 100-person dating pool who you could have made it work with, and we need to figure out why it didn't click. Because you will now go on a hundred more dates and the same thing will happen unless you make a different choice." And so this is how I developed this framework that I wanna tell you about called the three dating tendencies. And so really, this is a culmination of a lot of my research, the idea that I've worked with hundreds of people, now thousands of people in my classes, and most people suffer from one of these dating tendencies, or most people can be categorized into one of these three dating tendencies. What they each have in common is unrealistic expectations. So, the first type is the romanticizer, and they have unrealistic expectations of relationships. So they are the person who really wants that meet cute. Their cousin met their boyfriend in high school, and now they're married, and they wanna have a romantic "We met" story. They don't wanna meet on an app. They believe that there's a soulmate, one person for life. You'll know it when you see it. As soon as a relationship hits a rough spot, they think, "Must not be my soulmate, because if it was my soulmate, it would be easy and effortless." The second type is the maximizer. The maximizer has unrealistic expectations of their partner. So this is the person, and I bet a lot of your listeners are maximizers, where they feel like the perfect person is only one search away. "I need to keep searching for that person. I want the ambition of my ex-girlfriend, plus the hotness of this other ex-girlfriend, plus the really great family of this other person, and I can just wait until I find this Frankenstein version of the perfect person." And so they're always waiting, and they have unrealistic expectations, and they're waiting for the perfect person. The third type is the hesitater, and they have unrealistic expectations of themselves. So they're not dating at all. So in their head, they fill in the blank. "I'll be ready to date when. When I lose 10 pounds. When I get a more impressive job. When I clean up b- my apartment. When I go to therapy. I need to do these things to be lovable, and then I can date. I can't date now because nobody would be interested in me." And so they sit at home, maybe trying to get better, maybe just thinking about trying to get better, but they're not actually dating. And they don't understand that the only way to get better at dating is by dating. And the only way to figure out who you wanna be with is by actually going on dates with people.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett53:12

      And if I'm, if I'm a romanticizer... So th- in the example I gave there, with my friend's going on a hundred dates and she's finding no apparent suitable match, it could be any of the first two, I guess. She could be a bit too romantic about how love should look. Or she could be a little bit too romantic about how a perfect partner should look.

   7. LULogan Ury53:31

      Exactly. And I would wanna understand more about her, but yes, definitely one of the first two. If she's going on a hundred dates, she's not a hesitater. So I'd wanna understand, why aren't things working out? So it could be that she's finding that they don't match her image of the soulmate. They don't come in the package that she's expecting. My guess is the kind of person that goes on that many dates for that long is a maximizer. That's just, to me, more associated with it, because to go on that many dates, you probably are meeting on the apps. And so she's not obsessed with the "We met" story. And so I think she keeps going on these dates waiting for something different to happen instead of understanding what's in her control. And so if I was working with her, what I would say is, "First of all, tell me about these dates." And she'd probably say, "I go on so many dates. I mostly go on coffee and walking dates."

   8. SBSteven Bartlett54:18

      Yeah.

   9. LULogan Ury54:19

      And then I would say, "Well, do you feel sexy on these dates or does it feel like a job interview? Are you saying the same things over and over again? Are you pressing play in your mind? How long have you lived in London? How long have you done your job? How long have you had a dating podcast? You're not even in the moment. You've said these things to so many people. You're not present. You're not connecting. You're not flirting. You're just having a transaction. And you expect that all of a sudden you're gonna feel this spark, but of course you're not. Your, your environment isn't creating a spark." And so I often tell people-...the dating environment is so important. I had this one client, and he kept going on dates with men at 7:00 AM. He would say, "I'm really busy, and I need to meet with them in the morning. And so, I meet them at Starbucks below my office." I was like, "Who feels sexy or flirty at 7:00 AM before they've had caffeine? This is a terrible way to date." But in his head it was like, "I'll know it when I see it. When I meet the right person, I'll have that experience." That's absolutely wrong. The environment plays a huge role in how we feel connected to people. It's why sometimes somebody might meet somebody in one setting and not be interested, and meet them years later and be interested. I met my husband many years before we started dating. I met him in college. We- it wasn't the right time for us. And then when we met again, it still took a year. The environment matters so much. And so, really, can you create a flirtatious, romantic environment for a date, and can you really think about what does that look like? And so if you're going on daytime walking dates to save money and that's not working out for you, try a wine bar. Try going out and sitting side-by-side. There's really interesting research that shows when we make eye contact with somebody, it can actually be harder to listen to them and to speak because we're so focused on the eye contact. When we sit by si- side-by-side, it actually takes the pressure off us and can make it easier to communicate and connect. That's why people open up to each other on long car rides where you're both looking forward. That's why I recommend that people sit side-by-side in a bar instead of across from each other. And so for her, she's going on one type of date and getting the same result, and she's thinking it's the guy. It's not the guy. It's also you, and it's also the environment.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett56:28

       So, what is then the perfect environment? And I want you to give me as much detail as possible, including, you used the word bar there, which is associated with alcohol.

   11. LULogan Ury56:36

       Yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett56:36

       I wanna know if alcohol is a good or bad idea for a date.

   13. LULogan Ury56:41

       So, I don't drink, and I'm a fan of sober dating. And in my work with Gen Z, that has come up a lot. So, sober dating has become a much bigger thing with Gen Z leading the charge, and there's a few reasons why. So, one is they feel like, "I wanna meet you, not you under the influence of two cocktails." Another thing is we know that they struggle with mental health. They feel this hangxiety, and they don't wanna have that the next day. And so, way more people are going on sober dates. And even, especially in New York, I've seen bars that have zero-proof menus. And so, this is definitely getting normalized. And so, anyone who's interested in sober dating or just taking a month off drinking should try. So, absolutely don't feel like you need the liquid courage. What makes a great date? So, I want people to think about what is the part of you that often doesn't come out on dates. So, let's say somebody is really serious, but they have a funny side. Think about the last few dates you've gone on. What side of you is coming out? Maybe you're going on these interview-style dates where you sit across from each other and you have a latte and you talk about your work. The silly side of you isn't coming out, and you're just being very serious. Can you design a date that emphasizes the part of you that you want to come out? So, can you go and play ping-pong, which you're really bad at? Can you go ice skating and make a fool of yourself? Can you be in an environment where you're less in control and you can show the silly side of yourself? Or even for me, I love standup comedy. Could you go see standup with someone and then afterwards debrief all the jokes and, and express your love of humor? How can you have your dates show these different sides of yourself? Another thing is understanding that, at the end of the day, people really want somebody to play with. In so much of my coaching, I talk to people after the date, and we debrief. The thing that makes me understand when they like someone is when they say, "It was so fun. We just kept laughing." Everybody wants to laugh. People wanna align themselves with and have a longterm relationship with somebody who's fun. But it's really hard because if you're in your mid-30s and you've been dating for a while and you have this feeling of, "I'm running out of time. Everyone else is married. Am I gonna have kids?" It's really fucking hard to relax and be fun. You have a goal. And trust me, I'm the most goal-oriented person. I get it. But you have to do this dance of flirtation, seduction, playfulness, because people don't wanna be with someone who says, "I have the role of husband open. Will you please fill the role of husband? I'm, I'm searching to fill the spouse position on my team." No. Nobody wants that. They want a partner. They want a person to play with. They wanna have that fun, romantic, playful energy. And so, you have to figure out, are you able to show up that way? And if not, you need to take a break from dating or you need to date differently. So, that might look like instead of going from work to a date where you're in this boss mode, maybe you take a break in between. Maybe you listen to a podcast. Maybe you take a bath. Maybe you...

   14. SBSteven Bartlett59:40

       What kind of podcast?

   15. LULogan Ury59:43

       Diary of a CEO.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett59:45

       (laughs)

   17. LULogan Ury59:45

       Pump Yourself Up with Steven Bartlett. You k- basically, you're shifting your mindset because if you, you know this old f- expression that's like, whether you think things will go poorly or you think things will go well, you're right.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett59:57

       Yeah.

   19. LULogan Ury59:57

       The same thing is true with dating. Your mindset has a huge impact. So, if you've gone on a hundred dates and it hasn't worked out, you're gonna say, "101 is gonna go the same way." It will then go the same way. So, what are all the different things that you can change? You can change what you wear. You can change what you do. You can change what you do prior. You can change how long the date is. One of my biggest things is date like a scientist. What does a scientist do? They have a hypothesis, they test it, and they're open to being proven wrong. And so, maybe your hypothesis is that the coffee dates aren't working for you. Great. Try some dinner dates, try some morning dates, try different things, and see if something opens something new for you. Maybe it wasn't the coffee dates, but at least you tested it. So, one thing that frustrates me so much about modern dating is when women set their height filters for six feet or higher.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:50

       Hmm.

   21. LULogan Ury1:00:50

       I know in the US...86% of men are under six foot. So when you set your height filter at six feet or taller, you are excluding 86% of men. You are only now seeing 14% of men. And then among that group, the pool is much smaller. Maybe you've dated many of them in your city, and now you don't have anyone else to date. Well, you should expand your filters, because the height of the guy isn't going to predict your relationship success. But you've just decided that you want someone six feet or taller, and so you've set your preferences that way. So dating like a scientist, you might say, "I'm gonna expand my filters. I'm gonna date men of any height," or set whatever minimum height you want, and then see, "Can I be attracted to someone shorter?" I do this with my clients all the time, and they find that it is actually much more about the person's personality or face. But your dating app filters are like a bouncer in your club. They're deciding who gets in and who doesn't. And what you s- when you set your filter at something really restrictive, like under the age of 30, over six feet tall, your bouncer is preventing all these people from getting in, and you're not even getting the chance to connect with people who could be a great partner.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:00

       There's also like dating hygiene

10. 1:02:02 – 1:09:37

    Why You Need To Skip The Small Talk!

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:02

       that goes into that, I guess. You- I- me and my girlfriend, when we go to restaurants and stuff, when we're waiting for the food or, I don't know, we sometimes look over at different people and we're like, "Oh, who do you think they are?" Like, "What do you think their story is?" And we try and guess their story, you know, they're married, they've been married for 20 years, they're whatever. And then you get the odd couple who they're super young and they're both glued to their phone, and it looks like it's either a really, really bad day or they just generally have like a- not- not such a great relationship. What is the kind of good relationship hygiene or good dating hygiene that you think is conducive with finding somebody?

    2. LULogan Ury1:02:33

       I'm so glad you asked me this, because we actually just produced this thing at Hinge called the Distraction-Free Dating Guide, and it's basically based on this. It's like, what are all the things that are getting in people's way? And one of them is technology. So I've absolutely seen those dates. And it's really people of any age. I don't think it's just Gen Z. I feel like that's unfair when people are like, "Gen Z is so addicted to technology." It's like, who's all over Facebook? It's boomers. Who's the couple with their phones out? It's often older people. And so the Distraction-Free Dating Guide is about understanding the research behind this. So there's research from MIT professor Sherry Turkle that talks about the influence of a phone on the depth of the conversation. So if a phone is on the table, even if it's face down, even if it's off, you're much less likely to have a deep conversation. Because the reason is right now you and I are going deep. Your phone is not out. I don't feel like at any moment you're about to be interrupted. But if I felt like at any moment I could share something really deep and then your phone could go off and you could grab it, that makes me not feel safe sharing. So the conversation is more shallow, because at any moment you could be pulled away. So the first big tip is to put your phone away out of sight. The second tip is to know that there's other screens involved. Your watch is a screen. You could also be pulled away by that. I also recommend that people finish up any big work conversations or even life conversations before they go in so they're not feeling like, "Oh, I have to get back to that person." Sometimes people pull out their phones to show somebody a meme during the date. Do that later. Let that be your callback where you can get in touch with somebody. And finally, if you have plans for after the date, make sure that they're really solid so that you're not during the date checking, "Hey, hey, let me just see when my friends wanna meet up." And so all of these themes- all of these things seem fairly obvious, right? Good phone hygiene. But people don't understand how much their phones are getting in the way of connection, that if you actually just commit to having a phone-free date, "Hey, let's both- let's both just put our phones away. First person to check their phone buys drinks," it's actually a much better way to create deeper connection.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:35

       So on that point of shallow conversation, a lot of dates and a lot of sort of serial daters will engage in a lot of small talk. What's your view on small talk?

    4. LULogan Ury1:04:44

       Skip the small talk. So much of the research that we've done at Hinge talks about how people are drawn to emotional vulnerability.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:51

       Interesting.

    6. LULogan Ury1:04:52

       They really want you to go deep and they wanna know what you're about. And through my coaching, I've been surprised at how hard this is for people. So I have one client where I said, "You're going on all these dates. They're not clicking. I wonder what's going on. What do you talk about on these dates?" And when she told me the topics, I was getting bored just listening to them.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:12

       (laughs)

    8. LULogan Ury1:05:12

       And I said, "You're sharing facts, not stories. We need you to share stories." And she said, "What do you mean? What's a story? What- how would I- how would I tell that?" So I said, "Okay, off the top of my head, here are some conversations you could talk about." I said, "You know, tell me about your family. Do you have any siblings?" And she said, "Yes, I have a brother, and he lives across the country from me." So I said, "Okay, the fact is that you have a brother who lives far away. What is the feeling behind it?" And she said, "Well, he actually just had a kid, and I haven't even met the kid yet, and I feel disconnected from him." And I'm like, "Great, that's the story. That's the vulnerability." The fact sets us up, but then go deeper. And then we talked about all these deeper things, how she feels when her friends have kids and she doesn't and it's harder to have a relationship, how she feels about her aging parents, how she feels about her industry. And it- it was so interesting to me, because I love conversation, this is my art form, this is what I love doing, but just breaking it down into pieces for her was something that she needed. And so I want people to take away this idea of share stories, not facts, and that means going deeper. And so you don't wanna be TMI and tell everybody about the crazy trauma in your family, but you might let somebody in and say..."Oh, I'm struggling with this thing at work. I have a new manager, and I feel like we haven't clicked yet, and there's been layoffs at my company, so it's kind of been a stressful time." Or saying, "Hey, I'm about to take this pill, because I actually was in an accident a few years ago, and now I need to take this pill to regulate my system." Something like that, where it's just saying like, "I'm a person with baggage. I bet you're a person with baggage too. Our baggage can match." And instead, we're so focused on these dates, on coming across as perfect, but the truth is, when you have a shiny, perfect exterior, there's no cracks for me to grab onto.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:00

       Mm-hmm.

    10. LULogan Ury1:07:00

        You actually need to show me the cracks so that there's something to grip and I can actually feel connected to you. And I feel like a lot of my work with people, especially older people, is telling them that it's safe to let someone in, and they've worked their whole life, 50 or 60 years, to say, "Look at me. Look what I've accomplished. I'm puffing up my chest. Look at how perfect I am." But people aren't drawn to perfection, because then they feel afraid of their own imperfections. People are drawn to somebody who's real, because then that creates a safe space for them to be real too.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:34

        Vulnerability is the bridge. I guess you could say vulnerability creates a bridge to connection. Um, with that in mind, is it conceivable then that people that have the lowest self-esteem feel the need to create the p- perception of perfection the most, and therefore struggle? Because thinking about one of my friends that has low self-esteem, ahead of a date, this person will s- it has like a three-day routine, where they go and get their hair then everything done, fake tan, they probably get their toenails done, wax this, wack- wax my butt, whatever.

    12. LULogan Ury1:08:06

        (laughs)

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:06

        And it's this huge thing. They have a really low self-esteem and they go on- and they go on the date, and I can only just imagine as you were speaking, that they go on the date and try and like hit this person with perfection. Like, "Everything about me is perfect." I know underneath that they're struggling, with their self-esteem and their self-image. But I w- it made me think that there might be correlation between low self-esteem and our willingness to be vulnerable, which will also mean our will- our ability to form connection.

    14. LULogan Ury1:08:32

        I think it's an interesting theory. I haven't studied it. I bet it happens both ways. So, I think somebody with low self-esteem could feel like, "I'm gonna be rejected anyway, so I'm not even gonna date." So, those might be the hesitaters that I talked about. They also might be the people that you talked about where they're like, "I have so many flaws, I can't let you in because if you know the real me, you'll reject me, so I have to keep you at arm's length."

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:53

        Mm-hmm.

    16. LULogan Ury1:08:53

        However, I also think there's this other person who actually has pretty high self-confidence, but they go through the world bragging, or they say, "The way that I got investors in my company is by showing what a big man on campus I am, and-"

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:06

        Mm-hmm.

    18. LULogan Ury1:09:06

        "... how I'm gonna scale my company," and that what society has prized in them is how together they are. So, they've never been in a situation before where their vulnerability has been appreciated. So, it's actually pretty hard for that person, and I think that, just to generalize it, this happens with a lot of men, where society wants people to be strong and wants people to feel like they have all their shit together. And so then to suddenly say, "Hey, be vulnerable on the date," that doesn't feel safe to them. They don't have that.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:33

        Mm-hmm.

    20. LULogan Ury1:09:33

        And so, I don't think it's necessarily just low self-esteem. I also think

11. 1:09:37 – 1:18:15

    The Number One Way To Find Love

    1. LULogan Ury1:09:37

       it's they feel like it's really risky to show that they're not perfect.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:41

       That's the journey I've been on is, when I was younger and most insecure, I was never vulnerable. That felt like a huge risk that I was-

    3. LULogan Ury1:09:49

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:49

       ... not willing to take. And as I got more secure with myself, I've been able to be much more vulnerable, and that means like having conversations where I admit my bullshit. And that's also why I think this podcast has worked for me, because I r- I say on stage a lot, I ran the experiment of being honest. I vi- being vulnerable about my shit, about my imperfection, about my doubt, about my mental health, all of these things. And that experiment resulted in connection that I was not expecting. I thought vulnerability was a repellent. Turns out, it's a magnet. And that was like a revelation in my life, so I've doubled down on that- that concept of just like share it, and instead of repelling people, it actually ends up drawing them closer, which I think is great.

    5. LULogan Ury1:10:28

       I absolutely love what you said, and I hope people rewind and listen to that part again, because that's honestly a lot of what I'm trying to get across. So, a few months ago, I sent out this email to my newsletter and I said, "Do you worry you're undateable? Is there something about you where you feel like people will reject you because of that? What is that?" And hundreds of people wrote in and they said, "I'm undateable because I have a chronic illness that makes me have chronic fatigue. I'm undateable because I don't have a close relationship with my parents. I'm undateable 'cause I've slept with too many people. I'm undateable because I haven't slept with enough people." Every side of every coin, people felt like they were undateable. And then I turned that around, and the next email I sent out, I shared all these things and I said, "This is what you're all feeling. You all feel like you're undateable because of these things. None of these things make you undateable. They actually are your vulnerability, that if you share, somebody will feel connected to you. But you're not putting it out there and you're not sharing and you're not connecting." And I think people who have been on the journey you're on have proven that when you are vulnerable, people feel connected to you because they say, "Steven's struggling with something that I'm struggling with. I wanna be a part of what he's doing, because I can learn from him." When you come across as perfect, people don't feel connected to you, because they can't relate. My friends that don't share their vulnerabilities, I feel less close to them because I'm like, "Well, you must have it all figured out, and you must think I'm a mess." But when they text me what they're struggling with and I text them with what I'm struggling with, that's the depth of our friendship. And I can judge my friendships based on how real we a- we are with each other. And so, I think that younger people, but really, a lot of people have this idea that, "If you really knew me, you would reject me." And the truth is, if you really knew me, you would feel closer to me and we would have a deeper connection.

Episode duration: 1:48:33