Modern Dating Rewards The Wrong People - Mercedes Coffman

Chris Williamson 0:00 I've heard you say that avoidant culture is changing relationship expectations.

Mercedes Coffman 0:05 Yes.

Chris Williamson 0:05 How so?

Mercedes Coffman 0:06 Well, there's a couple of different reasons. I mean, I think avoidance culture is making people have to minimize themselves because we're interconnected human beings. We need to be connected to other beings, right? It regulates our nervous system, it makes us feel good, it stabilizes us. And so nowadays, with everything being expedited, we live in an era of immediacy, and everything is geared towards reinforcing avoidance versus intimacy. Everything is about instant gratification, getting results right away. And so people, especially emotionally available people, which is who I largely work with as far as my clientele, they're noticing that they're lowering their standards in order to keep a relationship. And so the only way that now people see an opportunity for a relationship or maintaining a relationship is by changing their standards. Otherwise, they feel like there's no hope left.

Chris Williamson 1:04 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04 Because especially in dating apps, everything is about convenience and speed, about disposability, and nobody really wants to take the time to have gradual development.

Chris Williamson 1:15 Is that avoidant culture?

Mercedes Coffman 1:16 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:17 Is that how you would define avoidant culture?

Mercedes Coffman 1:19 Yes. So avoidant culture is really just avoiding anything that's inconveniencing or anything that causes discomfort, meaning anything that takes too much time, anything that requires too much effort, anything that requires consistency or follow-through, that would basically fall into avoidant culture.

Chris Williamson 1:36 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:36 And nowadays, especially on most of the dating apps, they're designed for that. They're designed for rewarding avoidance because it's all about novelty, it's about dopamine, it's about new matches every single day, and nobody really spends the time to emotionally invest in one particular relationship anymore.

Chris Williamson 1:55 How does being with someone avoidant psychologically transform you?

Mercedes Coffman 2:00 Well, there's several different ways. It's terrible for the nervous system, first, because an avoidant person, although, for example, an emotionally unavailable person who largely is avoidant, they don't just present themselves as emotionally unavailable. They usually present themselves with intensity, with love bombing, and so you get pulled into that dynamic pretty quickly, even if you're an emotionally available person. And so now you're getting attached to an emotionally unavailable person, but once you start requiring effort and consistency and substance of the relationship, a lot of these people tend to reveal their true selves, which is a lack of capacity. They cannot sustain relationship responsibilities. And so your nervous system has this, you know, it starts to get attached, and then it slowly starts to have to withdraw, which is kind of like this dopamine spike of excitement. But then there's a crash because this emotionally unavailable person pulls away. They become more and more avoidant, and what tends to happen is you're now dealing with micro-grief. You're now wondering what happened, and your nervous system now is spiking in cortisol, which is your stress hormones. And so a lot of the times, this changes people because they are experiencing fatigue, mood disorders, uh, sleep disturbances, appetite disorders. So I think that avoidance in general and emotional unavailability is changing people's nervous system, and it is much more harmful than we think it actually is.

Chris Williamson 3:30 Hmm. In that way, does modern dating punish emotionally available people?

Mercedes Coffman 3:35 Yes. Yes, and it doesn't-- it's not that modern dating apps are designed to punish emotionally available people. It's that it is reinforcing emotional unavailability.

Chris Williamson 3:46 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 3:46 So the people who are emotionally unavailable have a much better time on dating apps than the emotionally available people.

Chris Williamson 3:52 Why?

Mercedes Coffman 3:52 Because emotionally unavailable people are looking for dopamine. They're looking for comfort. They do not want to put in a lot of effort in a relationship. They d- they do not have the capacity to put a lot of effort into it. Whereas emotionally available people are looking for consistency and follow-through and to focus on one person at a time. And dating apps and swipe culture is all about the dopamine of more and more and more. And the more options we have, the less invested we are in those options.

Chris Williamson 4:20 Why are emotionally available people particularly vulnerable? What is it about them that makes them on the receiving end of this?

Mercedes Coffman 4:29 Because emotionally available people are looking for depth, and there is very little of that in modern dating or modern day in general. Everybody is looking for quick results, and nobody's really looking to invest in things that causes discomfort or inconvenience. So emotionally available people, they want something of substance. They want a relationship that will go the, the whole way. They want the slow burn. They want gradual development. Yet what happens is they get pulled in by an emotionally unavailable person, and then contact slowly starts to decrease, and eventually ghosting starts to occur, which is detrimental to the nervous system. And then a lot of emotionally unav- emotionally available people deal with these crashes where they just do not trust themselves anymore, and they don't trust the dating sites or dating in general. And so that's why I think there's this loneliness that we're seeing in modern day now, because emotionally available people don't trust it.

Chris Williamson 5:28 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 5:29 And emotionally unavailable people don't sustain any particular connection.

Chris Williamson 5:34 Presumably then, if emotionally available people leave the dating pool or become damaged and become emotionally unavailable or closed off, that's bad for everyone. It's kind of like a race to the bottom-

Mercedes Coffman 5:46 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 5:46 ... where the few emotionally unavailable people-- uh, the very few emotionally unavailable people become emotionally available by dating someone who's emotionally available.

Mercedes Coffman 5:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:58 But way more available people drop out or become hurt by it. So it's kind of this entropy in the system where the people who are prepared to be open say, "This is what I want."The likelihood of them becoming damaged, it's a one-way street

Mercedes Coffman 6:13 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 6:14 Rarely do people that are broken get fixed-

Mercedes Coffman 6:16 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 6:16 ... but people that are already fixed become broken

Mercedes Coffman 6:18 Yes, sadly. And it doesn't mean that there aren't emotionally available people in the world or into dating. I, I'm, I work with lots of emotionally available clients, males and females. The issue is, is that they're not easy to find, right? And nowadays we're looking for what's easy to find, what's convenient, right? If you look at everything is expedited. We wanna find somebody on a dating app. We don't go out to meet people anymore. We don't really have, uh, social groups and social circles or community events. And so a lot of us and a lot of people are relying on dating apps to find a match and to find someone who's compatible. The issue with that is, is that that is built for speed, and so emotionally available people do not have a community where they can go and say, "Oh, these are other emotionally available people who wanna go the distance, who wanna just focus on me, and don't have 5 or 15 other matches in their app."

Chris Williamson 7:17 Wouldn't it be good if there was, uh, some sort of psychometric evaluation that people had to go through, or you had to keep some sort of running CV, like a Trustpilot score? If you're gonna have a Trustpilot sc- you've got emo- emotional availability score out of five.

Mercedes Coffman 7:29 Yep

Chris Williamson 7:29 And if you manage to stay above a four, you get to be on the app, and if not, you have to go away and build up your Uber rating back to above a four-

Mercedes Coffman 7:37 Yeah

Chris Williamson 7:37 ... and then you can come back in

Mercedes Coffman 7:38 I am working on a dating app-

Chris Williamson 7:40 Okay

Mercedes Coffman 7:40 ... for emotionally available people because I've noticed how discouraging it is and how most of my emotionally available clients are just not interested in dating anymore. And they, they are completely fatigued and discouraged. And, you know, whenever you slide too much in one direction, it's not good for your health, right? So, um, emotionally available people now are not dating at all, a lot of them.

Chris Williamson 8:05 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 8:06 And chronic loneliness is just as unhealthy for the nervous system as dating or being in situationships because neither one of them are really tending to your needs. So what's happening is emotionally available people, although they have the right intentions, being lonely right now and having that chronic loneliness is just as detrimental to their health.

Chris Williamson 8:26 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 8:27 And so we need to figure something out and design a system where they can meet partners who are held accountable, 'cause there's no accountability in the dating apps nowadays. There is low effort because there are so many options, which means there's more disposability. And so if we have a place where these emotionally available people could go and be seen and don't feel so disposable, I think that they'll believe in love again.

Chris Williamson 8:52 How can you work out whether or not someone is or is not emotionally available?

Mercedes Coffman 8:57 There are some signs that you could detect in early dating. So one of the ways is, I think, delaying gratification. So if you meet someone and you're on a date with a person, watch for patterns instead of potential. So don't just rely on the intensity or the chemistry that you might immediately feel with the person, but notice how they react when there is no physical reward at the end of the night. Know how they are with the waiter if the food is a little too late. What's their patience like, right? So you could assess for their capacity. And once you see that this person could manage their emotions, this person could talk about intentions, they could deal with feedback without withdrawing or avoiding, th- th- those are some of the quick ways that I tell clients to assess for emotional availability and capacity in early dating.

Chris Williamson 9:48 Hmm. It's interesting you said, used the word standards earlier on.

Mercedes Coffman 9:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:52 People have to sort of lower their standards, and I think when you first hear that, it sounds like something to do with physical standards, height, income, age, but what you're talking about here is emotional standards. And this is a-- it's a weird thing to talk about. I guess the prevalence of therapy culture in a good way, the good side of therapy culture, has made people realize, well, ultimately, someone's looks are a depreciating asset, but their mind is an appreciating asset, and my relationship is basically one long conversation. It's one long shared nervous system.

Mercedes Coffman 10:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:27 And then we'll add some other beings in maybe to this nervous system, and if theirs is fucked, uh, it is making my job significantly harder.

Mercedes Coffman 10:36 Yes.

Chris Williamson 10:36 Uh, so yeah, when it comes to emotional standards, I guess we could call it-

Mercedes Coffman 10:42 Yeah

Chris Williamson 10:43 ... it's just a, it's an interesting, it's an interesting element that I don't think that people were necessarily thinking about before, maybe because it was less important. You know, our parents' generation weren't thinking about relating in quite the same way.

Mercedes Coffman 10:58 No, and I agree with you. I think nowadays we have to assess for different things, and a lot of the dating apps now, you know, I've done my research that a lot of them, if you look at a profile, most of the things that they advertise on a profile, if you were to go on there and look at someone's profile, it'll talk about the person's age, the things they enjoy doing. But it doesn't talk about what's their conflict repair, what's their love language, what's their emotional availability, what's their emotional capacity, what's their emotional maturity. It doesn't assess for any of those things. And so what happens is people are bonding over surface-level things.

Chris Williamson 11:35 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 11:36 "Oh, we went to the same school. We live in the same town. You like the same food I like," you know, or physical attraction, but it's not really assessing any compatibility regarding relationship values, and I think that's where a lot of people are getting attached to the wrong people. Because it's a misalignment because we're not really doing the assessment on relationship values before attaching to a person

Mercedes Coffman 12:00 that we meet.

Chris Williamson 12:01 What does true alignment look like? Let's say that you were going to give the gold standard for someone to try and work out whether them and this person are a good match-

Mercedes Coffman 12:09 Yes

Chris Williamson 12:09 ... emotionally. What does that look like?What matters, what doesn't matter?

Mercedes Coffman 12:13 Emotional availability is the first. Are they willing to be invested in this relationship? Meaning, do they have good work-life balance? Do they have time for a relationship? Someone could be interested in you, they could be emotionally intelligent, they could have emotional capacity, they could be emotionally mature. But if they do not have time for a relationship, it doesn't matter. You will not be aligned with that person if you're emotionally available.

Chris Williamson 12:37 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 12:37 So the willingness to have time, to invest time in a relationship is the first thing I would tell people to assess for. The second is capacity. Can they hold their own emotions and your emotions as well? Meaning, can they deal with discomfort without retreating, without withdrawing, without avoiding, right? So whenever a conversation gets uncomfortable, whenever it's a conversation about growth or intentions, can they sit through those feelings in that conversation without avoiding or getting defensive? And then emotional maturity, I would say, is third on the list. How emotionally mature is this person? That's about can they manage rejection? Do they get aggressive? Do they get reactive or can they remain responsive? And you could detect that early on in conversation as well.

Chris Williamson 13:26 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 13:26 So that would be the gold standard, an emotionally available, high capacity, emotionally mature person.

Chris Williamson 13:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:33 That doesn't seem to me to be much about compatibility.

Mercedes Coffman 13:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:38 More so just these are some green flags from an emotional standpoint.

Mercedes Coffman 13:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:44 Is there something to say about why two people who fit all of those criteria-

Mercedes Coffman 13:49 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 13:50 ... might not... I mean, there's a million reasons, right?

Mercedes Coffman 13:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:52 Like physical attractiveness, age-

Mercedes Coffman 13:53 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 13:54 ... life direction, all the rest of it. But again, from an emotional, you used love language-

Mercedes Coffman 13:58 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 13:59 ... uh, uh, attachment style, stuff like that.

Mercedes Coffman 14:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:02 Uh, what are the next levels of, uh, how does this meal come together from the ingredients? How can some meals that have great ingredients-

Mercedes Coffman 14:10 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 14:10 ... not work when they're put into a dish?

Mercedes Coffman 14:12 Yeah. So I think that some of the things that will s- if you have all those things aligned, and we both have those qualities and those relationship values, some of the things that would hinder that would be unresolved stuff. So unres- resolved stuff in me, unresolved stuff in you. If that's worked out and all the surface level things as far as chemistry and physical attraction is intact, the relationship has a really good shot, right? But I think that we're not attaching based on that. We're attaching based on chemistry and intensity first.

Chris Williamson 14:48 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 14:49 And I think it's backwards because there's a lot of broken hearts because people attach to the wrong things first.

Chris Williamson 14:55 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 14:57 And, and we can't blame the world because everything is about speed. It's about, "Hey, are we a match or are we not? I don't wanna waste my time."

Chris Williamson 15:06 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 15:06 Right? And so we have this thing of time is of the essence, and so you mentioned earlier generations. Yeah, I think back in the day, the difference is, is that social circles were more connected back in the days, and they were more interconnected, they were smaller, which means there was more accountability. There's much less accountability nowadays in dating, which means that people could just ghost with a tap on their phone.

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Chris Williamson 16:39 One thing, I, I agree that there is a transactional high speed element to dating-

Mercedes Coffman 16:48 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 16:48 ... at the moment. That being said, the whole reason that the sort of two modes of attachment that humans have, moving from passionate to companionate love-

Mercedes Coffman 16:59 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 17:00 ... um, you know, honeymoon phase to long-term commitment-

Mercedes Coffman 17:04 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 17:04 ... typically between six, if you're unlucky, and, you know, a long time. Like, some people say that they're in passionate attachment for the rest of their life.

Mercedes Coffman 17:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:12 Uh, I'm not sure if that would actually be very useful. But the reason that the system works like that is kind of to con you into seeing this person with rose-colored glasses. There's a l- a period of time where you're completely obsessed with them.

Mercedes Coffman 17:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:27 You think that the shun- sun shines out of every different hole that they have.

Mercedes Coffman 17:31 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 17:31 And your, your goal is to put a baby into them. And then by the time that that's happened-

Mercedes Coffman 17:37 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 17:38 ... it's too late for you to, "Actually, I, I don't know if we-

Mercedes Coffman 17:44 I like you

Chris Williamson 17:44 ... if we fit all that well." So I get it. Um, the reason I say that is people who are thoughtful and reflective, I think a lot of the time blame themselves.

Mercedes Coffman 17:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:55 "I should have seen the red flags earlier. How did I not think..." A few million years of evolution conspired to convince you that this was your person. That is the way that the human attachment system works.

Mercedes Coffman 18:11 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:11 Like, this is your soulmate.

Mercedes Coffman 18:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:14 This is everything.

Mercedes Coffman 18:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:16 And only after a while does sort of [gasps] The veil gets revealed. You poke your head above the water of this hormonal fever dream that you've been in.

Mercedes Coffman 18:24 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:25 And I think people blame themselves a lot for that. And I mean, sure, should you learn lessons from it? Yeah, probably.

Mercedes Coffman 18:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:31 But whipping yourself into submission and saying, "I should have known better."

Mercedes Coffman 18:36 It's not good.

Chris Williamson 18:38 Your brain conspired to kid you about this thing, and yeah, are there lessons to learn for the future? But basically, I think that you need to treat yourself... When you're first dating somebody, you need to treat yourself as a future drug addict who hasn't yet taken the drug. Uh, okay, I currently have my faculties intact. I'm able to use my reasoning. My free- prefrontal cortex is working correctly. I've got the right amount of serotonin to actually deploy this.

Mercedes Coffman 19:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 19:04 Pretty soon, all of this is gonna go through the floor-

Mercedes Coffman 19:07 Yep

Chris Williamson 19:07 ... and I'm just gonna be this kind of crazy person.

Mercedes Coffman 19:09 Yep. Yep.

Chris Williamson 19:10 I need to steward my future self well.

Mercedes Coffman 19:14 Yep.

Chris Williamson 19:14 And that means being incredibly discerning.

Mercedes Coffman 19:16 Yes. And it's, it's very hard. I mean, the good thing is I, I worked a lot with addicts and alcoholics, and I see a lot of that happening in dating nowadays, is that a lot of what's happening is kind of conditioning people into that cycle of addiction, right? Because of the obsession. Everything is very obsessive nowadays. And you're right, there are biological components. Evolution kind of geared us towards that. I think that one of the ways to prevent a person from getting too attached, and then by the time they have kids with this person, they're like, "Oh my God, I don't even like this." I-

Chris Williamson 19:49 I fell backward into a golden retriever and a house and a g- marriage and childhood.

Mercedes Coffman 19:53 Right. So there's ways to slow down. I kind of u- give my clients the framework MOP, M-O-P. M stands for match effort, right? So don't go overboard. When chemistry hits and you feel attached to a person, you want to go overboard. You wanna over-give because you wanna hold onto it. You feel like you found your person, and that over-investment is when you fall into that addiction even faster.

Chris Williamson 20:16 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 20:17 That starts clouding your mental clarity more and more. So if you match effort. Second, O means observe for patterns. A lot of times people don't wait until they've discovered what a person's patterns are. If you give it a couple of weeks or months, you'll see what a person's patterns are. You'll be able to maintain clarity at that point. And then the last one is pace access. Because the moment you give someone, especially physical access, you are much more likely to get into that dopamine fix.

Chris Williamson 20:47 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 20:48 Clarity goes backwards, and you will become a full-blown addict at that point.

Chris Williamson 20:52 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 20:52 And so I think that at that point, you know, justification and minimizing stuff t- in order to maintain the relationship is all things that that person will use to keep that attachment. But if we stay anchored in our own reality and we watch a person from the framework of, yeah, they're beautiful and they're handsome and they're incredible and they're emotionally intelligent, but I wanna match their effort. If he's not going overboard, I'm not going overboard. If he isn't making an initiation or effort, I'm not giving more effort than he's giving, and vice versa. So to be reciprocal and not to over-invest, that will keep you grounded.

Chris Williamson 21:33 Does that not create a war of attrition where both people don't move?

Mercedes Coffman 21:36 No, because naturally it will move. You'll want to move as long as you remain authentic. You'll want to move. "Hey, you know, you wanna go out? Sure, no problem. We should do this again. Let's do this next time." But I'm not gonna say, "Hey. Oh my God, we should do this all the time, and we should get married and have kids," because I don't wanna let go of this dopamine and this euphoria-

Chris Williamson 21:58 Mm

Mercedes Coffman 21:58 ... that I feel right now. So when the desire outpaces the effort is when you should know that you're now in a biochemical cycle and not in a mental cycle.

Chris Williamson 22:08 Yeah. Being too understanding can hurt your dating life in that regard-

Mercedes Coffman 22:12 Yes

Chris Williamson 22:12 ... as you tumble through those stages of attachment-

Mercedes Coffman 22:14 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 22:15 ... and things begin to be excused. This behavior that normal you-

Mercedes Coffman 22:22 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 22:23 ... would have seen as abhorrent-

Mercedes Coffman 22:24 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 22:24 ... or just unacceptable.

Mercedes Coffman 22:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 22:27 Now, "Well, you know, they were busy. They've got a lot on their plate," or the, "Me, I, he, he didn't mean it like that. He didn't mean... He, I'm sure he... 'Cause what he said about the thing... And it's his mom. It's his mom."

Mercedes Coffman 22:40 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 22:40 "You know? It's 'cause he's got a thing." You go, "Okay." Your ability to be discerning gets worse and worse.

Mercedes Coffman 22:47 Absolutely, because the dopamine gets higher, and the problem is is that-

Chris Williamson 22:52 Serotonin gets lower

Mercedes Coffman 22:54 ... serotonin gets lower, dopamine gets higher, and so kind of w- one of the excuses you just used, right? "Oh, he's just busy." I often hear my female clients say that. "Oh, he's busy. He told me he's busy," right? And so women tend to trust words a lot more than men do. Men kind of just look at behaviors 'cause that's how they bond amongst themselves. Women tend to believe words, right? Because for evolutionary reasons, we were supposed to believe the words that men told us. [laughs] And so what's happening now is that a man could say he's busy and therefore doesn't have time, and a lot of times women can't discern, is he really busy or am I just a low priority? And one of the ways I tell people to recognize the difference is that no matter how busy a man is, a man who's genuinely interested in you will give you clarity.

Chris Williamson 23:40 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 23:40 On his busiest days, you will know exactly what you mean to him. A man who thinks of you as a low priority, you'll continue in this confusion. You'll attach to words. He'll tell you excuses. You'll minimize your feelings only to keep that attachment. And so I think it's always important to go, "Do you have clarity?" If you don't have clarity, this might be a misalignment.

Chris Williamson 24:04 Well, what also is a misalignment, I really appreciate that you said time is the first element here.

Mercedes Coffman 24:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:10 That there are sort of two things going on. One is someone's ability to prioritize you around their level of busyness.

Mercedes Coffman 24:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:19 The other is just how busy they are.Uh, there, there is a world in which someone is simply too busy-

Mercedes Coffman 24:25 Absolutely

Chris Williamson 24:25 ... to be in a relationship with you at the level that you want to be-

Mercedes Coffman 24:28 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 24:28 ... regardless of how much they want to be in it.

Mercedes Coffman 24:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:30 And that's a difficult one, I think, because if you're an empathetic person that's sensitive and sees the good in others, what you're going to see in this person is, well, they really want this. That's fine-

Mercedes Coffman 24:42 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 24:42 ... but they may not be able to commit the time. They may be giving 110% of 10%.

Mercedes Coffman 24:49 It's, it's a capacity issue at that point. So he really wants to. And a lot of the situations, the desire is really there. It's really genuine. So it's not as though these people are just malicious in dating. A man could be, or a woman, could be really busy with their career and really want to make this relationship work with this partner. But at that point, when there's no work-life balance and their work takes up all of their time, they just don't have the capacity to meet your needs. And at that point you need to be honest with the fact that it's misaligned, because you're gonna put pressure on them and they're gonna start building resentments against you.

Chris Williamson 25:29 Discernment is basically a kind of proactive healthcare for yourself-

Mercedes Coffman 25:34 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 25:34 ... in that way.

Mercedes Coffman 25:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:36 If you are unable to work out who is good for your life and who is bad for your life-

Mercedes Coffman 25:43 Mm

Chris Williamson 25:43 ... you are condemning a future version of you to damage.

Mercedes Coffman 25:52 Absolutely. D- and discernment, I think a lot of times people feel as though that should also mean being understanding of other people's limitations. And two things could be true at the same time. I could be understanding of people's limitations and still know what I need-

Chris Williamson 26:09 Mm

Mercedes Coffman 26:09 ... and still advocate for what I need, right? So if I am looking for a particular type of relationship, no matter how much I understand your limitations, it's just not compatible.

Chris Williamson 26:21 It's still not your obligation to accept them.

Mercedes Coffman 26:23 Exactly. And a lot of people have a hard time with that because they really want that person. A lot of times people will tell me that they are attracted to a person and they go, "But Mercedes, he's such a good person," or, "She's such a beautiful person." And I'm like, "I know, but they're not your beautiful person."

Chris Williamson 26:39 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 26:40 You know, they could be great in every other area of life, but they're just not emotionally available enough for what you want.

Chris Williamson 26:46 I'm gonna draw a parallel here between Kanye West and beautiful people in dating.

Mercedes Coffman 26:50 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 26:50 You weren't expecting that. Um. You know, Ye just sold out, uh, SoFi Stadium two nights out of three-

Mercedes Coffman 26:58 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 26:58 ... uh, a couple of weeks ago in LA. Look, he's not exactly showered himself in glory over the last few years.

Mercedes Coffman 27:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:08 He's got bangers, and because he's got bangers, people are just gonna turn up, and I think that music is a unique area of psychological hacking, that it's really hard to not like a song that slaps, regardless of how much you hate the person that made it.

Mercedes Coffman 27:27 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 27:27 It's much easier to say, "That person's comedy set I didn't enjoy. That person's podcast, that, that talk that they gave." Like, ah, that's actually not that... You know? But for some reason, music is so penetrating and it's so, um, like, emotionally charged.

Mercedes Coffman 27:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:43 You just can't do that.

Mercedes Coffman 27:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:44 Right? It's real hard to do that with music.

Mercedes Coffman 27:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:46 And I think that beauty is one of those other things. It's, this person is a fucking asshole. They, all they do is make my life worse. They ruin my sleep. They hurt me. I, I, I'm, I'm permanently on edge. F- so beautiful. And y- that is this weird reality distortion field. I mean, I, I think about this to do with, you know, beautiful women, really beautiful women. It must be so, like, disconcerting for them to move through the world, 'cause they basically have this weird sphere that sort of follows them around, and a room is completely normal, functioning as it's supposed to.

Mercedes Coffman 28:25 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:26 And then they arrive in it and everything goes haywire. No one can behave normally. I think the equivalent for men is somebody who's of very high status, right? I've been in, uh, Mitzi's, which is the bar downstairs in, uh, the Comedy Mothership here in Austin, Rogan's place. Rogan's not there. The bar functions normally. Joe walks in. Everybody turns weird. Everyone turns weird. There's this odd sphere that sort of follows him around, and there's a few people that are his friends and that know him very well-

Mercedes Coffman 28:54 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 28:54 ... that are kind of able to withstand this distortion field.

Mercedes Coffman 28:59 Chemistry.

Chris Williamson 28:59 Yeah, this distortion field that sort of follows him. But the same thing's true for women. And, um, they, they, they are never going to have... A beautiful woman is never going to have a normal interaction with men-

Mercedes Coffman 29:10 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 29:10 ... for the most part.

Mercedes Coffman 29:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:11 Maybe they, uh, find a person who doesn't care, the guy that's gay maybe, but even the guy that's gay is, "Ah, she's so hot and, like, beautiful. Tell me what you do for your skin."

Mercedes Coffman 29:19 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 29:19 Like, you know. And that fact that there are certain, there are certain, uh, unlocks in the back of sort of the human system that allow you to sort of face plant as hard as Kanye has over the last half decade and then go and sell out a stadium two nights in a row and crush it, and everyone go, "That was amazing. Look at how good the songs were. Look at the performance, the stage show."

Mercedes Coffman 29:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:49 And the same thing is true for you trying to work out, "I, I, this person is not good for me, but they're beautiful."

Mercedes Coffman 29:56 It's not easy.

Chris Williamson 29:56 "I don't like Kanye's politics."

Mercedes Coffman 29:58 But his songs are incredible.

Chris Williamson 29:59 But he's got bangers. He's got bangers.

Mercedes Coffman 30:00 Yeah. Yep. I mean, I agree, and I love that you kind of gave that parallel because it's true. That's the balance between when you become biochemically hijacked, right? Where you just, the chemistry just feels so intense and you're like, "But I just want that person."

Chris Williamson 30:18 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 30:18 Like, "I just want that person," and it becomes a challenge, and everything in you is giving off the pheromones that, "Hey, I'm available to you," right? And so there's a-Sure, that's one part of us is our biochemistry, but the universe didn't just give us that. It also gave us a frontal lobe, and that part goes, "Hmm, yeah, this drug might give me energy, but it also will make me lose all my money," or, "This person is incredibly handsome, but they're gonna break my heart."

Chris Williamson 30:49 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 30:49 Right? But that requires pause. It requires processing. It requires going, "I know what I'm feeling. I'm feeling attracted to this person, but let me take a pause. Let me think about it. Let me step away, because if I act right now, I'm gonna act on biochemistry."

Chris Williamson 31:09 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 31:09 And that has nothing to do with mental clarity. It just has to do with in- the feelings, the, the, the sphere you just described, and that doesn't tell me anything about how this person's gonna treat me.

Chris Williamson 31:21 Yeah. Romantic discernment is a form of preventative healthcare.

Mercedes Coffman 31:24 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 31:26 [laughs] Just need to make that-

Mercedes Coffman 31:27 You just have to do it

Chris Williamson 31:27 ... need to make that great.

Mercedes Coffman 31:28 And that pause just, it doesn't happen anymore. People don't pause. I mean, I just watched, I don't know if it was... M- was it Matt Damon in, in one of his new movies where he talked about... 'Cause I used to watch movies, and I love gradual development. I love seeing character development.

Chris Williamson 31:43 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 31:43 I love kind of... Psychological thrillers are my thing. I like to know how people think and solve an issue. Nowadays, movies start in the middle at the most emotionally gripping part of the story-

Chris Williamson 31:55 Hmm

Mercedes Coffman 31:56 ... because we don't have the attention span to sit through character development anymore, and that's the same with dating. We want to know the most intense part first because we don't wanna sit through, "I gotta take her on another date, and I gotta find out where she's from, and I gotta find out what he's into and what was his life like and his childhood," because people just wanna know, "Is he making me feel the biochemistry that I'm used to when I get Amazon next-day delivery, when I get Uber Eats, when I get Instacart, when I fast-forward commercials?" That's what I want. I want it right away, and I don't wanna wait.

Chris Williamson 32:31 It's interesting that that's what people want but probably not what they need, because-

Mercedes Coffman 32:34 No [laughs]

Chris Williamson 32:35 ... you know, if you speed run the first few dates, w- everybody asks that question. "So how'd you guys meet? So how'd you meet?" And if you say, "Drunk in a club at 3:00 in the morning," you go, "Ah, yeah. What were the first few dates like?" "Uh, Netflix and chill."

Mercedes Coffman 32:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:49 It's like that is embedded-

Mercedes Coffman 32:52 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 32:52 ... in your relational history for the rest of time if this is the p- if you're trying to do this se- If you're not trying to do this seriously, club at 3:00 in the m-... I ran nightclubs forever, right? I have seen the various states of disrepair that happen after 1:00 in the morning.

Mercedes Coffman 33:06 Yeah.

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Chris Williamson 34:23 at checkout. Talking about sort of modern media culture and stuff, what do you make of the influence that romance movies have had on the sort of men that women choose? 'Cause I'm gonna guess the vast majority of the consumers of these sort of romantic movies are going to be women.

Mercedes Coffman 34:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 34:42 And if you look at some of the archetypes, uh, Titanic, The Notebook, I don't know. I'm, uh, I'm not sure if women would choose that for their friends or for their daughters.

Mercedes Coffman 34:57 Yeah, so [sighs] Notebook is pretty good. I think we would choose him.

Chris Williamson 35:02 You would... So question on that, which is an interesting one. She says no to the guy that's a decorated war veteran-

Mercedes Coffman 35:10 Yeah

Chris Williamson 35:10 ... who is a accountant and lawyer-

Mercedes Coffman 35:12 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 35:13 ... but chooses the guy that's kind of emotionally up and down. Now, it ends up working out great.

Mercedes Coffman 35:19 Right.

Chris Williamson 35:20 Uh, and Titanic obviously ends the way that it does.

Mercedes Coffman 35:23 Yeah. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 35:24 Uh, [laughs] I don't know. I just think it's, whatever the subtext is of that, that stable is boring, that, uh, regulated-

Mercedes Coffman 35:33 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 35:33 ... uh, means no spark-

Mercedes Coffman 35:35 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 35:35 ... that what you actually want is something closer to a rollercoaster.

Mercedes Coffman 35:38 Intense. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:38 You need to fix him.

Mercedes Coffman 35:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:39 Uh, somebody who isn't there but makes you feel. Uh, is that not the exact recipe-

Mercedes Coffman 35:46 Absolutely

Chris Williamson 35:46 ... that you're worried about?

Mercedes Coffman 35:47 For disaster, absolutely.

Chris Williamson 35:48 You were finessed by The Notebook.

Mercedes Coffman 35:49 Yes, I was finessed by it.

Chris Williamson 35:51 [laughs]

Mercedes Coffman 35:51 But the thing is this, is that, you know, I think that because... And women say this all the time. We wanted both of the guys from The Notebook to be put in a blender and become our ideal guy.

Chris Williamson 36:04 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 36:04 It just, he just doesn't exist, just like that perfect woman doesn't exist, right? And so I think that we are seeing more and more, you know, what media did to women as far as what women started looking for is what dating apps do for men.Social media do for men, OnlyFans do for men, right? It's that idea of what a typical woman sh- they don't all look like that, right? But it's the same thing as with movies, romantic movies or rom-coms. Women want that emotional intensity, the guy that will sing her a song and write her poetry and go deeper with her because they're looking for depth.

Chris Williamson 36:41 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 36:42 And sometimes they forget that depth isn't the only thing. And so in a lot of these movies, if you notice, Chris, these guys aren't their only guy. It is only that they get with the Jack and Noah because their other guy didn't have the emotional availability and the romance, per se, that they needed.

Chris Williamson 37:03 There's a trend of romantasy at the moment.

Mercedes Coffman 37:06 Mm.

Chris Williamson 37:06 You know romantasy?

Mercedes Coffman 37:07 Mm-mm.

Chris Williamson 37:07 Romantasy is cultural appropriation of women of the longstanding male literary genre of fantasy. So it's turned something about orcs and warlocks and, uh, it, it's written for autists like me that like to read it in their bedroom.

Mercedes Coffman 37:21 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:22 Uh, and it's made it into soft-core porn. And there's a, a trend on the internet at the moment of talking about the standards that are set for women in, uh, both fiction and in porn.

Mercedes Coffman 37:33 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:33 And guys have decided to use that to kind of highlight what they're seeing when it comes to literature as well.

Mercedes Coffman 37:41 Oh. The mother's dead by in water. Wife's dead with balloons. Father's dead. The father's dead.

Speaker 37:46 I like the idea for this video. Now I'm gonna do one with books. He's got a big thing. He's got a big thing.

Mercedes Coffman 37:53 [laughs]

Speaker 37:53 He's got a big thing and something in his eye.

Chris Williamson 37:55 [laughs]

Speaker 37:55 He's got a big thing, but he's an asshole. He's got a big thing, and he's a stalker.

Mercedes Coffman 37:58 [laughs]

Speaker 37:58 He's got big fingers. He's got a big thing with wings. He's got a big thing with dragons. He's got a big thing and likes to murder people. They all have big things, but you never see them.

Chris Williamson 38:07 [laughs]

Mercedes Coffman 38:09 [laughs] Oh, my God.

Chris Williamson 38:10 Yeah, I think it's so good. And there's an endless number of those video- that dude's just, like, run it back over and over. The official Steven Walker fucking crushing it there.

Mercedes Coffman 38:18 Oh, my God.

Chris Williamson 38:19 Yeah. Um, but yeah, look, I, I think the opportunity for, uh, people's desires to be turned up to 11 has happened with porn, video games, but it's also happening emotionally, and that's really, uh, if you're doing it through a book-

Mercedes Coffman 38:32 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 38:32 ... you're so involved, right? You're, you're creating these situations, these environments yourself.

Mercedes Coffman 38:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:38 It's almost like a self-generated movie.

Mercedes Coffman 38:41 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:41 Right? As you read it, it doesn't give you the story. You make the story yourself.

Mercedes Coffman 38:45 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:45 And I, uh, I don't know, I, I, I would be fascinated to see what the levels of relational satisfaction are for women that are deep in romance, romantasy, dark romance. I wonder whether that is giving them, uh, more inspiration or creating a standard of, "He's got a big thing. He's got a big thing. He's got a big thing and something in his eye. He's got a big thing [laughs] and, like, wings."

Mercedes Coffman 39:14 Yeah, I mean, I, it-- I would like to see kind of what that turns into because things are constantly changing, right? So it changes people's expectations, and I am noticing how a lot of my clients, both males and females, are adapting constantly, are trying to adapt to what's expected nowadays. And they're losing themselves because there's more and more of a disconnection 'cause you're like, "Okay, well, I guess I gotta keep up what, what the new thing is now." I mean, even the reading of books, I f- I wish that people would do more of that because that, in and of itself, delays gratification.

Chris Williamson 39:47 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 39:48 It stabilizes us, and it makes us more patient, and people aren't really doing it as much anymore-

Chris Williamson 39:54 Hmm

Mercedes Coffman 39:54 ... sadly.

Chris Williamson 39:55 How is emotional capacity not the same thing as emotional or relational readiness?

Mercedes Coffman 40:01 So emotional readiness is a person simply saying that they would want to be in a relationship with you or that they actually have what it takes. Now, emotional capacity is very important because it determines if a person could actually sit through what a relationship needs, which is the growing pains of it. Can they sit through an argument? Can they sit through unresolved conflict that you might trigger about their past or their traumas? And a lot of people have desire, but it outpaces their capacity. So they want to make-

Chris Williamson 40:35 Hmm

Mercedes Coffman 40:35 ... the relationship work, but desire in most relationship now outpaces capacity and emotional maturity. So now you have misalignment, not because people don't want the person they're with. It's just that they can't sustain a relationship with the person they're with.

Chris Williamson 40:51 And I suppose that's one of the times where somebody that sees the best in another person-

Mercedes Coffman 40:57 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 40:57 ... is going to be really damaged because they go, "Well, they want it."

Mercedes Coffman 41:00 Yes.

Chris Williamson 41:00 "I, I, I just need to believe in their potential to be able to get there."

Mercedes Coffman 41:03 Yes.

Chris Williamson 41:03 But we can't see potential.

Mercedes Coffman 41:05 No.

Chris Williamson 41:05 We can't see whether or not this person is going to-- This realization was done immediately. There was a Instagram post I saw the other day from some guy saying, uh, "Spending my time at the gym as opposed to writing a 2,000-word text message to an emotionally avoidant person on how to love me properly." And, you know, there's something about that dynamic of-- Alain de Botton's got this great video where he says, "After a while, the late-night couples counseling and the co-journaling sessions and the 'we just need to work through this,' you probably just need to admit, like, this is, this is just not the right fit, or this person is just not where I am."

Mercedes Coffman 41:48 And it's hard to do that because the thing is, is that a lot of the times a person could start off with emotional capacity and emotional availability. Serotonin's high, dopamine's high in the beginning, novelty is high, and they have the high desire. So everything is aligned in the beginning. It's just that once consistency, effort, and follow-through is required and now you're talking about a future and maybe moving in together, that's when people's limitations are revealed. So it's not as though-- And so that's why people want to stay and hold onto something longer 'cause they go, "I seen it in the beginning. He had all those qualities in the beginning. So they gotta be there. I'm just gonna remain patient until they return."And the truth is, is that, well, no, he could have genuinely had them at that time, but now you're on a different level, and he might not have the fuels for this level.

Chris Williamson 42:41 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 42:43 And then we have to accept it, you know, and kind of just go, "Okay, we're at the fork of the road. You don't have any more energy to keep going, and it was great while it lasted, but we have to be honest with

Mercedes Coffman 42:53 ourselves."

Chris Williamson 42:54 I saw some research suggesting that relationship self-sabotage affects about 63% of people at some point. 2021 study published in the Journal of Couples and Relationship Therapy, based on interviews with about 700 people, found that the most common drivers were fear of getting hurt, fear of rejection, and low self-esteem, often leading people to end relationships before they could get too attached.

Mercedes Coffman 43:17 Yes. And I think the reason why there's such a fear of rejection is because ghosting is such a normalized thing now, which wasn't the case before. It's not like people are inherently, uh, more insecure or have lower self-esteem now. That's not the case. It's that ghosting has become more normalized than it's ever been before. There were ghosters back in the day and, you know, years ago. The difference is that it wasn't a normal thing, and there was some shame attached to it. Nowadays, it could happen almost anonymously, and you never have to see the person again. And so a lot of people are afraid of that rejection because it does trigger grief. Being ghosted isn't just something that you get over because you're like, "Oh, I just known him for two weeks." You biochemically are going through withdrawals. You're dealing with grief and all the stages of grief. And so I do think that a lot of people fear that, "Oh my gosh, if the narrative now is there's no good men left in the world, there's no good women left in dating apps," everybody's saying, "Well, why would I get in that pool?"

Chris Williamson 44:19 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 44:19 And so they start self-sabotaging the moment they see something because they have the confirmatory bias of, "It's probably not gonna work out." And so the confirmatory bias is gonna see what confirms the bias.

Chris Williamson 44:29 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 44:30 So the moment he is delayed in his response or she seems like she's not capable of sustaining attention, people start self-sabotaging. "Ah, this is better off," because people don't wanna get rejected again.

Chris Williamson 44:44 Interesting. You've got sort of two barbells going on at the same time, people who will continue to withstand stuff that they shouldn't and people that can't withstand stuff that they should.

Mercedes Coffman 44:52 Yes. And those people who can't, they don't ever grow their capacity. So although it gives instant gratification to just not enter the pool-

Chris Williamson 45:01 Hmm

Mercedes Coffman 45:01 ... and not have to deal with the discomfort-

Chris Williamson 45:03 I'm safe now

Mercedes Coffman 45:04 ... they're safe, right, but it's instant relief. The thing is they never grow their emotional capacity or their emotional maturity.

Chris Williamson 45:10 What does growing your emotional capacity look like? How can people do that?

Mercedes Coffman 45:13 So one of the things is sitting through uncomfortable conversations, even if you feel anxious, even if you-- whether that's a first date, whether that is a conversation about growth, whether that is someone giving you constructive feedback, learning how to just sit through your feelings and recognizing that they're not gonna swallow you whole. If you cry today, you're not gonna be crying all day. So just kind of recognizing what you're feeling and sitting in that. Another thing is not to overload your life, because you could have capacity during the good times, but if you're, whether it's work-life balance or your life is overloaded and your nervous system is stressed out with cortisol-

Chris Williamson 45:51 Hmm

Mercedes Coffman 45:51 ... you will not have the capacity for connection or conflict repair. So n-never overload your life. Practice things for your nervous system stabilization. So whether that's meditation, have a gym routine, have a workout routine, discipline, which is another thing that is disappearing more and more. So I think that if we do that, our nervous system tends to regulate itself, and you'll be able to build your capacity over time.

Chris Williamson 46:15 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:16 Talk to me about the relationship between unresolved trauma and self-sabotage.

Mercedes Coffman 46:21 Yeah. So a lot of the times, if-- unresolved trauma is a big pool of things, right? So it could be whether it was abuse or neglect. So there's lots of different things that fit in that category. But whenever there's un-unresolved trauma, the narrative that is created from that is, "I can't trust intimacy. I can't trust connection." And so when a person then gets in a relationship, no matter how good the partner is, there's always that n- that hypervigilance in the nervous system that just waits for this person to abandon or for this person to leave or hurt or harm them. And so I think a lot of people who have not healed their trauma tend to re-injure their own wounds subconsciously by doing that.

Chris Williamson 47:09 Hmm. How do you explain to someone that they have trauma when they don't see themselves as a traumatized person? I think there's probably two buckets of people. There's people who aren't traumatized, but say that they do have it, and there's people who are traumatized but don't realize it.

Mercedes Coffman 47:25 Yeah. So the thing-- I think the reason why a lot of people do not want to explore their trauma is because they think that trauma has to look a certain way, right? They think it has to be these big events, uh, whether that was terrible physical or sexual abuse, and that's not always the case. Trauma could be anything that made you feel incredibly dysregulated in your life, at any point in your life. It doesn't have to just be childhood. And so a lot of people have a discomfort talking about it, and one of the ways that you could tell that there's unresolved trauma is based on a person's reactivity. So a person who doesn't have trauma typically could sit through their feelings and not get easily triggered. But when relationships become increasingly more intimate and they get reactive in those relationships, it's usually unresolved trauma from childhood relationships-

Chris Williamson 48:19 Hmm

Mercedes Coffman 48:19 ... with either a parent or a caregiver. So that's a way that you could tell, "Okay, there's some unhealed stuff here." If I tend to get reactive when someone just said something very simple to me, I probably need to look at what that is.

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Chris Williamson 49:32 What's a way that someone can rebuild their self-trust?

Mercedes Coffman 49:38 One of the ways is to always be honest with ourselves, right? So that requires self-reflections after every relationship, because I think relationships are beautiful mirrors, right? They're great ways to look at ourselves. How a person treats me is a reflection, or it's a reflection of what I allow, what I tolerate. So the relationships that I'm in are a good way to start looking at, "Hmm, how much do I value myself? How much do I trust myself based on how these people in my life that I value treat me?" That's one way. Another way is to build your emotional language. What am I feeling at any given moment? I always give people an emotional wheel because there's so many more emotions than just mad, glad, sad, angry, right? So there's all these things that we don't really tend to internally because we're so focused on the external, and because of that, we're trusting other people, places, and things much more than we trust ourselves because there's so much self-abandonment. Even the most confident person has probably some level of self-abandonment that they're not even aware of.

Chris Williamson 50:43 What, what are some of the small ways self-abandonment shows up?

Mercedes Coffman 50:47 Prioritizing other people, places, or things. Not really taking a pause to ask yourself, "Am I okay with it? Do I feel safe in this environment? Do I feel safe with this person? Do I really want to go to this party, or am I just people pleasing?" Every time that we override that and we go against what we feel is right or regulating to ourselves is the way that we self-abandon.

Chris Williamson 51:11 Hmm. Yeah, it's, uh, it's strange to think about how people that are really thoughtful often end up thinking themselves out of prioritization. Like I, I see the best in this person.

Mercedes Coffman 51:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:28 I, I-- they made me happy.

Mercedes Coffman 51:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:30 They make me happy sometimes.

Mercedes Coffman 51:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:33 So I'll just continue to sort of shunt my own needs to one side. I'll put them over here.

Mercedes Coffman 51:38 Yes, and then they self-abandon. And the thing is, I mean, one of my favorite quotes that I love that I tell a lot of my empathic clients or understanding clients is, "Suffering breeds compassion." The more a person has suffered in their own life, usually the more compassionate they become to others because they don't want anybody else to suffer the way they did, right? So oftentimes overgiving and being overconsiderate is a reflection of how you were abandoned and how you're still abandoning yourselves.

Chris Williamson 52:08 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 52:09 A lot of people will continue the trauma that was inflicted on them, but they do it themselves. At some point in adulthood, they start becoming the perpetrator to their own pain.

Chris Williamson 52:21 It's a unique kind of self-harm though, because it's one that society would see from the outside as something noble.

Mercedes Coffman 52:28 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 52:29 Isn't that so strange?

Mercedes Coffman 52:30 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 52:30 It's so funny.

Mercedes Coffman 52:31 They're like, "It's so kind."

Chris Williamson 52:32 Tragic.

Mercedes Coffman 52:32 "So-- You're so kind." And that's, uh, I love Dr. Gabor Mate. He talks a lot about that, where he says if you go and look at all the eulogies of people who died an early death, they'll talk about how this man would give the shirt off his back to anybody. He was the kindest person. And nobody looks at, well, that may have led to the self-abandonment that increased his inflammation, suppressed his immune system, and eventually got him to be dead now.

Chris Williamson 53:02 Yeah. I-- it's strange. A lot of the things that are pro-social are, uh, abandoning to the self. So Joe Hudson has told this story to me, which is, it's so great. His daughter kept on crying in the bathroom when she was nine years old, and he went in, and while she was crying, she sounded also, she was yelling.

Mercedes Coffman 53:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 53:20 S- And he said, "Hey, are, are you sad or are you pissed off?"

Mercedes Coffman 53:23 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 53:24 She says, "I'm pissed off." He said, "Well, how come you're crying?" She says, "Well, when I get angry, my sister runs away, but when I cry, she comes and gives me a hug."

Mercedes Coffman 53:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 53:33 And it's this weird, the sort of pro-social nature or the antisocial nature of making your displeasure known, of prioritizing yourself, and the sort of pro-social nature of domesticating that, and that usually means turning outward discontent, rage, anger, displeasure, criticism-

Mercedes Coffman 53:53 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 53:54 ... into something that's just a bit more palatable-

Mercedes Coffman 53:56 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 53:56 ... for people, right? You don't get mad, you get sad.

Mercedes Coffman 53:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 53:59 You don't get angry at the world, you get angry at yourself.

Mercedes Coffman 54:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:01 And, um, the, it, it just, it makes people less confronted. It means that they don't need to deal with their shit in the same way the people around you because they c- they get to still be the hero.

Mercedes Coffman 54:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:12 They don't have to be the bad guy in quite the same way. Even if you're sad about something that you're justified in being sad about that your partner did to you-

Mercedes Coffman 54:20 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 54:20 ... they still get to kind of be the hero because they get to come in and, and save you.

Mercedes Coffman 54:25 And fix it. And that's the thing. I think that we, we don't look at that enough, and I think it just keeps us becoming even more and more isolated from ourselves, right? And so the question then becomes how can we expect ourselves toGet in aligned connections when we're misaligned within ourselves.

Chris Williamson 54:45 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 54:45 Right? Because everything's a reflection. If I'm not aligned with what I want and going after what I want, or my nervous system is disconnected from what my brain says I want, then how can I find connection in another person or alignment in another person? I'm probably gonna find the same misalignment. It's just like the example you gave, is that we- what we ultimately want as human beings is belonging. We wanna feel like we belong to a person.

Chris Williamson 55:10 Yeah.

Mercedes Coffman 55:10 So a lot of the times, the crying and the anger thing is that it's easier to be sad, which is why you'll oftentimes see people, I, I see that too, where on social media, people have an easier time sharing tragic situations or illnesses than they have sharing their victories. Because there's such a judgment sometimes on, "Ugh, don't get too cocky."

Chris Williamson 55:34 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 55:34 "Don't, don't get too confident. It could be taken away at any moment." But there's such a, "Oh, at least we're all struggling," right? And there's this belonging of shared suffering versus, well, why don't we do both? Why don't we continue to be compassionate towards the suffering of others and ourselves, but also uplift ourselves and others?

Chris Williamson 55:55 People feel like they need to caveat their accomplishments with the, "But this was me five years ago when I was living, I was sleeping on the bedroom floor."

Mercedes Coffman 56:03 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 56:03 Because the, yeah, the immediate, "Oh, easy for you to say."

Mercedes Coffman 56:07 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:07 "That's lucky for you to say."

Mercedes Coffman 56:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:09 But that, the... Because again, it throws into sharp contrast if we have something, it reminds people what they don't have.

Mercedes Coffman 56:17 Absolutely. And a lot of people are unhealed with that, because they can't just say, "Well, Chris has that, but I have this other thing," right? And because we don't self-explore and we don't anchor ourselves in our self's worth enough, we constantly are looking, like the crabs in a bucket, where like the moment one crab goes to the top and starts talking about, "I'm doing good," they're like, "No, no, no, come down here, you're not that great."

Chris Williamson 56:39 Also because the, uh, landscape of success has been flattened to only a really small bucket of things.

Mercedes Coffman 56:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:47 It's very difficult for you to flex the quality of relationship you have with your grandmother, right? Like, uh, uh, in as much as your grandmother can be aesthetic on Instagram perhaps. But there's usually an upper bound of that. Um, how much do other people rely on you?

Mercedes Coffman 57:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:05 How reliable are you as a friend?

Mercedes Coffman 57:07 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:07 Uh, how much do you make your local community feel valued? How much are you a member of that-

Mercedes Coffman 57:14 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 57:14 ... that contributes, that gives more than you take?

Mercedes Coffman 57:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:16 Uh, how good are you with money in a responsible way?

Mercedes Coffman 57:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:20 Not in a, "I've accumulated shit tons of wealth" way. Like, it's small things.

Mercedes Coffman 57:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:24 And, um, because, yeah, the landscape for what people want to advertise, people will often trade observable metrics-

Mercedes Coffman 57:35 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 57:36 ... for hidden metrics.

Mercedes Coffman 57:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:37 So observable metric, job title, car that you drive, postcode you live in, size and square footage of house.

Mercedes Coffman 57:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:44 Annual salary.

Mercedes Coffman 57:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:45 Hidden metrics, quality of relationship with your partner.

Mercedes Coffman 57:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:48 Amount of spare time, peace in your mind as you go to sleep at night, amount of time that you spend asleep at night.

Mercedes Coffman 57:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:54 You know, and we will often trade the stuff that's hidden for the stuff that's observable, because that's the ultimate game.

Mercedes Coffman 58:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:01 Right? People can see this, but they can't see this.

Mercedes Coffman 58:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:03 And it's, it's a radical thing to say, "I'm satisfied now." It's one of the most radical statements is go-

Mercedes Coffman 58:11 "I'm good"

Chris Williamson 58:12 ... "I'm good."

Mercedes Coffman 58:13 It's tough, because everybody... You know, just like you talked about with good-looking people, right? There's different standards for good-looking people. They can't, they can't re- they have to minimize themselves to a certain degree.

Chris Williamson 58:27 Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 58:27 They have to go-

Chris Williamson 58:28 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 58:29 You know. I saw s- I think I saw something you did where... I did research. I was like, "Who is this Chris guy?" I did research. So I saw something-

Chris Williamson 58:38 How far back did you go? [laughs]

Mercedes Coffman 58:40 No, I didn't go too far back.

Chris Williamson 58:41 Good. Keep it relevant.

Mercedes Coffman 58:41 But I saw something you did where someone [laughs] when someone asked you, um, about your looks or something, and you're like, "Well, I mean, yeah, sometimes it's easy to get certain things, but..."

Chris Williamson 58:52 I get some extra biscuits on a plane.

Mercedes Coffman 58:54 And then you were, and then you were like very humble, trying to still be like, "No, but you know, it's not... Sometimes." And then I was like, that's exactly what we're talking about right here, where you just, you can't just go, "Yeah, I'm a good-looking guy, and I know it," right? Like, you, you can't just say that, because something in us says we have to still belong, whether that is to our followers or community or clientele. And so there's this thing where we don't want to outshine, because belonging is the most important human need. And I just think it's pretty sad, because it's self-abandoning to a certain degree, and it's, it kind of censors our authenticity to a certain degree as well.

Chris Williamson 59:36 It feels very gauche to do that. It's also, I'm British, so sort of self-fellating is, we're kind of averse to that. You know, we don't have a massive culture of ego in the same way that, uh, America might do.

Mercedes Coffman 59:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:50 Uh, and still people will minimize themselves in America.

Mercedes Coffman 59:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:52 But yeah, it feels... I think the main reason for me, and I have thought about this a lot, because, you know, for a long time I was a commercial male model for over a decade, a DJ, a nightclub promoter. I was all of the red flags you don't want-

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:06 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:00:06 ... from your future son-in-law, and-

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:09 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:00:09 ... I'd collected them like fucking Pokémon cards.

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:12 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:00:14 But you, there is a kind of dislike that anybody has for someone that seems like they got something that they didn't work for. There is a difference between somebody who's good-looking and somebody who's got a good body from the gym.

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:29 And people who train really, really hard and show their body off on Instagram, they'll get some criticisms, but people understand that nobody's born-

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:41 Mm

Chris Williamson 1:00:41 ... with a great figure-

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:42 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:00:43 ... in that sort of a way.Same thing's not true when it comes to just straight beauty.

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:47 Women can kind of respect it in other women, uh, but they secretly really, really don't like it. I think that it triggers a type of visceral competitiveness-

Mercedes Coffman 1:00:57 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:00:58 ... and rivalry that, uh, beautiful women know-

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:01 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:01:02 ... and no one is gonna ever give them sympathy for. If you're a good-looking woman-

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:05 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:01:06 ... you are persona non grata and almost always going to be on the receiving end of other women's ire. Men will open every door in the world for you-

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:17 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:01:17 ... because you've got your reality distortion field that follows you around. But I would maybe even go as far as to say that beautiful women are disadvantaged by women more than they're advantaged by men. That's total... I mean, actually, hang on.

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:31 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:01:32 Yes, yeah. I would say that beautiful women are more disadvantaged by other women-

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:39 Yeah

Chris Williamson 1:01:39 ... than they are advantaged by men.

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:41 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:41 These... I put these on when I need to say something insane.

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:44 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:01:44 Or something that might get clipped out of context. Um-

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:48 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:01:48 And the reason is female intrasexual competition is almost always hidden.

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:53 Male intrasexual competition is out front.

Mercedes Coffman 1:01:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:55 There's this great study from Tracy Vyainko where she says female basketball players... There was a study done, the physical affection of female basketball players. Female basketball players on the same team-

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:07 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:02:07 ... showed less affection to each other physically than male basketball players on opposing teams because the rivalry is very hidden.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:15 And, a- this paints a very sort of ugly picture of women.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:18 Right?

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:18 Which, I, you know, men can be bastards too-

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:21 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:02:21 ... and are a lot of the time.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:23 However, beautiful women have this weird cost-

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:28 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:02:28 ... that they have to pay.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:30 And I... Sorry, I'm putting you off with these. Um-

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:32 I was like, I- I'm getting used to this new guy.

Chris Williamson 1:02:34 Yeah, that's right.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:35 I'm like, "Okay."

Chris Williamson 1:02:35 He's nice. Where do you... Yeah, yeah.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:36 He's actually nicer. I like him.

Chris Williamson 1:02:38 Oh, damn.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:38 No, I'm just joking, Chris.

Chris Williamson 1:02:40 Oh.

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:40 I'm joking. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:02:43 Is that what the... What was that thing you just said? Um-

Mercedes Coffman 1:02:46 But it's true. And I, you know, I, I think it's quite sad because I do... I see it with my female clients and my male clients, that there's just different rules that people have to play by, right? And I think kind of like you said, we do wanna see that people have worked for stuff.

Chris Williamson 1:03:02 Yep.

Mercedes Coffman 1:03:02 Like the gym example. We wanna know that, okay, this body was... It was hard work that got him there, and th- those people get great comments, typically, feedback-wise on social media.

Chris Williamson 1:03:12 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:03:13 But at the same time, when it comes to people's personal lives, they wanna bypass that gradual process. They want to bypass it and get the quick fixes.

Chris Williamson 1:03:22 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:03:22 And that's the same for beauty, that's the same for jobs, that's the same for money. Nobody really wants to do anything that takes time or discomfort anymore, and I think that's the issue. We say we want the job that will pay us for the rest of our lives, we say we want the relationship that's gonna last us a lifetime, but our nervous system is like, "Mm." I've had clients who are emotionally available, will go on a date with a guy and come back and say, "I just... It just wasn't really intense. Like, I just... I'm just used to that intensity and I just didn't feel it." But I know what intensity from past patterns they're talking about. The emotionally unavailable guy-

Chris Williamson 1:04:01 The reason that you're in fucking therapy.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:02 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:04:03 The reason that you're here with me is because of that, that intensity.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:06 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:04:07 How do you... That's a great point. Uh, there is a, a, a world of dating for certain people where if you were to draw a timeline of their dating life-

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:18 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:04:19 ... it would be relationships with people who are, to them, superbly exciting and totally terrifying and disregulating.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:29 And relationships with people who think that they're wonderful and they hate because of how boring they seem.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:35 Punctuated with brief periods of terrifying loneliness in between it.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:40 And they just sort of swing between partners that they fear but are excited by, and those they feel safe but bored with.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:47 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:04:48 Talk to me about this-

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:49 Yes

Chris Williamson 1:04:49 ... avatar, the safe but bored, excited but fearful.

Mercedes Coffman 1:04:54 So yes, I think that the reason why that happens is because people have created a belief that our partner is supposed to be our everything. They're supposed to bring us excitement and stability and fire and calm, and there are other areas in our life that could give us that. If your relationship is stable but not intense or exciting enough, have an exciting career.

Chris Williamson 1:05:21 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:05:22 Go bungee jumping, do exciting hobbies and activities, have friendships that are exciting. I just think that we have w- we... It's almost like staying in the casino and not leaving when you win a good prize 'cause you're like, "I feel like there's a better prize out there and I wanna win more." And so that's the issue, is like we don't know when to leave. We don't know when to go, "No, but this is stable and this is good. I'll get my excitement elsewhere." Because all intensity and excitement nowadays is, is nervous system activation. It's not that this person is so much more exciting. They give you the love bombing in- intensity, and that makes you feel alive because we've become very numb nowadays. We're overstimulated, and so when you're overstimulated, it's almost like being shot with an anesthetic. You need something really hard to awaken you.

Chris Williamson 1:06:10 Oh, you're like a masochist at a sex party who needs car batteries clamped on his nipples-

Mercedes Coffman 1:06:15 Absolutely

Chris Williamson 1:06:15 ... before he can get started.

Mercedes Coffman 1:06:16 Because you feel something. [laughs] Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:06:19 That's right.

Mercedes Coffman 1:06:19 I'm not even gonna ask you where you, where you've seen that, but I believe everything you said.

Chris Williamson 1:06:24 Who said seen? I may have ex-

Mercedes Coffman 1:06:25 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:06:25 The, the, the, the guy wearing this nose and mustache may have experienced it. Uh, before we continue, as you're probably aware, I'm not a massive drinker, at least not anymore. But even if you too are not drinking, sometimes you just want something cold, frosty, and tasty without the fear of a hangover the next day, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co.Thank you very much. Their non-alcoholic brews taste just as good as the real thing. They've got IPAs, hazy goldens. They're so good that you'll forget that there's no alcohol in them until you wake up the next day feeling fantastic. It means that you can enjoy the ritual without the wreckage. No hangover, no 3:00 AM panic, no wasted Sunday recovering from Saturday. That is why I partnered with them. You can find Athletic Brewing Co.'s best-selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you, or best option, you can get the full variety pack of four flavors shipped right to your door. Right now, get up to 15% off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or heading to athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout. Near beer, terms and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all

Chris Williamson 1:07:34 times. Why is the feeling obsessed, the love bombing thing in early dating a red flag?

Mercedes Coffman 1:07:41 Because obsession is rarely ever about the other person. Obsession is about nervous system activation. Because in early dating, you do not have enough data to know if this person is compatible with you. You do not know enough about their patterns. You do not know enough about alignment between you two. And so if you're feeling obsessed in early dating, meaning you can't stop thinking about this person, you're having intrusive thoughts about this person, you're constantly waiting for their messages and rereading messages, that's your nervous system saying something is uncertain, and the nervous system is designed to create certainty out of uncertainty. So when a person is inconsistent and they don't give you enough clarity, the likelihood of obsession is much higher in that situation, in that connection, than a person who gives you stability and clarity early on.

Chris Williamson 1:08:33 Isn't that so interesting that what people are looking for a lot of the time, which is the spark and the rush-

Mercedes Coffman 1:08:41 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:08:42 ... is the, the presence of that is highly predictive of this person not being good for you-

Mercedes Coffman 1:08:49 Yes

Chris Williamson 1:08:49 ... as opposed to being good for you.

Mercedes Coffman 1:08:50 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:08:50 What a cruel trick.

Mercedes Coffman 1:08:51 And you know why? Because we started saying these things that confuse children and teens by saying, we started calling it butterflies, and that's so pretty and cute. "Oh, he gives me butterflies." No, he, he activates your nervous system. He's not good for you, [laughs] right? And so we don't say it as that. So everybody starts being conditioned into the belief that when I feel a lot for this person and I'm feeling anxious around them, that this might mean that this is my guy or this is my woman.

Chris Williamson 1:09:21 You think it's that much due to sort of modern cultural conditioning? There's a lot of push-pull dynamic, intermittent variable schedule reward. I mean, this is the same tempo that slot machines use.

Mercedes Coffman 1:09:34 Yep.

Chris Williamson 1:09:34 It's the same dynamic that social media companies use.

Mercedes Coffman 1:09:37 Yep.

Chris Williamson 1:09:37 So I don't disagree that referring to chaos as chemistry-

Mercedes Coffman 1:09:44 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:09:44 ... is not good re-patterning.

Mercedes Coffman 1:09:48 Yep.

Chris Williamson 1:09:48 But this is bottom of the brain stem stuff too, right? So again, the reason that I say that, when people hear explanations for situations that they've been through, a lot of the time the self-blame comes up.

Mercedes Coffman 1:10:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:10:01 And you go, "I get it. Would be great if you could break this pattern. I'm sure that you can."

Mercedes Coffman 1:10:05 Mm-hmm. It's not easy.

Chris Williamson 1:10:07 There's a long history. How many of your ancestors-

Mercedes Coffman 1:10:11 Have done this

Chris Williamson 1:10:12 ... you, you would not be here if it wasn't for this dynamic.

Mercedes Coffman 1:10:15 Absolutely. It's not easy. It's not easy.

Chris Williamson 1:10:17 You are the proud progeny of people that were gaslit into thinking that they-

Mercedes Coffman 1:10:20 Yes

Chris Williamson 1:10:20 ... loved the person they were with.

Mercedes Coffman 1:10:21 Yes. And it's not easy. The difference though is, is that I think with awareness, we could just learn to marry the limbic system and the primitive part of the brain with the front of the brain. That's all it is. It's integration. If we could just integrate, and the best way to do that is to take space. Whatever we feel to just say, "It feels really good. This person is number one on the list right now, but they're not my only one, and I'm not completely emotionally investing in this person because I now know that this is biochemistry more so than this is clarity."

Chris Williamson 1:10:58 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:10:58 Right? And so awareness is how we break generational patterns. It's how we... That's why, I don't know if you read it, but birth rate is extremely low right now because of that. I think there is-

Chris Williamson 1:11:08 Oh, I got in lots of trouble for talking about this. My- Put the glasses on. Wait. Uh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. That's, uh... Birth rates. Go on.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:16 [laughs] Well, am I gonna get in trouble? Should I wear that too? [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:11:19 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:20 No, no, no.

Chris Williamson 1:11:21 We got another one for you. Yes, yes. This is good.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:23 No, no, no, no, no.

Chris Williamson 1:11:23 This is g- You're gonna look great.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:23 No, no, no.

Chris Williamson 1:11:25 [laughs] But it, it would go with your outfit.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:26 I'll let you do it. No, no, no, no, no.

Chris Williamson 1:11:27 It would go with your outfit.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:28 No, no, no. Okay.

Chris Williamson 1:11:29 Okay. They can live that.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:29 So, um, [laughs] yeah, I mean, I, I think that because there's more emotional literacy than ever before, there's more therapy than ever before, there's more social media awareness and education about relationship dynamics than before.

Chris Williamson 1:11:43 Hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:44 And so, you know, our fathers ghosted women or our mothers before. Things like that happened. It's just that there was shame attached to it at that point. There was accountability.

Chris Williamson 1:11:56 And it was very costly.

Mercedes Coffman 1:11:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:56 It was very costly. You know, to, it's the equivalent, when you were saying it before about how, uh, easy it is for people to ghost now, it made me think about the difference between a drone operator being able to press a button from some industrial estate-

Mercedes Coffman 1:12:08 Yep

Chris Williamson 1:12:09 ... in middle America-

Mercedes Coffman 1:12:10 And it's done

Chris Williamson 1:12:10 ... and a guy who's got a gun or a knife-

Mercedes Coffman 1:12:13 Yeah

Chris Williamson 1:12:13 ... and has to, you know.

Mercedes Coffman 1:12:14 Yeah, and do the effort, and that's the thing. We don't, we don't... Everything is built for convenience nowadays, which means that the things that actually matter, which is how to keep a job that is sustainable, a career, a relationship, children, like a lot of the things that require effort are no longer interesting to people anymore.

Chris Williamson 1:12:35 The crazy thing is when you look at the dynamic between you and e- even somebody that you really, really like, that this person, it, it gives you the butterflies and the chemistry and all the rest of it, but makes you feel highly dysregulated.

Mercedes Coffman 1:12:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:46 I was talking to a friend who recently went through a breakup, and he saidWhat he realized was the pattern that him and his partner were going through at the moment was going to be the model for love that their kids were going to see. And would you choose this person for your kids to have as their role model for love? Forget the kind of abstract thing of would you want your best friend to be in a relationship with this person? Would you want your kids to be in a relationship with this person or whatever. So more, much more direct than that is the way that you and this person communicate, relate, and disagree-

Mercedes Coffman 1:13:20 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:13:21 ... are going to be what your kids think romance is. That's what they're going to think-

Mercedes Coffman 1:13:26 Absolutely

Chris Williamson 1:13:26 ... a mommy and a daddy do.

Mercedes Coffman 1:13:27 Absolutely. But not just that, that's what their identity is gonna be. They're going to associate their identity with the identity of whoever you choose to have children with. And so it's not just a, "Ugh, we would make cute babies," it is, I mean, what are we teaching them as far as what love means and hard work and conflict repair and emotional availability and how to... what kind of person to be? I just think that a lot of times people make big decisions and take big risks back in the day, and I think a lot now too, based on just the chemistry of it.

Chris Williamson 1:14:04 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:14:05 Because everything is about we're just a bunch of addicts at this point. You know, it's all about what feels good. And if it feels good, we'll figure out how to deal with it later.

Chris Williamson 1:14:13 Car batteries.

Mercedes Coffman 1:14:13 Yeah. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:14:15 Uh, can we talk about limerence?

Mercedes Coffman 1:14:16 Yep.

Chris Williamson 1:14:16 This is a term that I only learned pretty recently-

Mercedes Coffman 1:14:19 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:14:19 ... but is just fascinating. What's limerence?

Mercedes Coffman 1:14:21 Limerence is an emotional fixation with a person that is usually fueled by uncertainty. So it is, you know, some of the signs of limerence is a unusual fixation with the person, constant ruminating thoughts about the person, extreme highs and lows in your mood regarding this person, waiting and craving their validation, and this usually happens very early on in dating. So you don't really even know the person fully, but you just notice a deep obsession with this person, and that would qualify as limerence, which we're seeing more and more nowadays.

Chris Williamson 1:14:56 Is there a certain type of person who's more vulnerable to limerence?

Mercedes Coffman 1:15:01 Yes. So several different people. So the, the first group of people are the people who have unresolved issues as far as unresolved wounds. So people with certain attachment styles are more likely to fall for limerence because limerence is oftentimes based on uncertainty and inconsistency. So if you had a childhood where love was given only, uh, sometimes and it was unpredictable, there was emotional unavailability there, you're much more likely to fall into limerence. If you are a highly imaginative person, you're much more likely to fall into limerence-

Chris Williamson 1:15:36 Mm

Mercedes Coffman 1:15:36 ... because you fall for the fantasy of a person, and you could imagine what life with them could be like or intimacy with them would be like. So those types of people as far as, um, a person who is either emotionally intelligent or highly imaginative, they typically-

Chris Williamson 1:15:50 Creative artists

Mercedes Coffman 1:15:52 ... they tend to fall for limerence because they build a story around the chemistry they feel for a person. Um, a highly empathic person because they extend understanding. "I understand why he's not always available. I understand why he's inconsistent." So they're much more likely to fall into limerence as well.

Chris Williamson 1:16:08 Large scale surveys s- found that 64% overall prevalence for limerence with 32% experiencing it at the level of full person addiction, far higher than the previously circulated estimate of 5%. Anxiously attached people were significantly over-represented. In an analysis of two and a half thousand self-identified limerence found personality try- types that were dramatically over-represented. Uh, highly intuitive, feeling-oriented people were the most prone, INFPs, INFJs, INTJs, INTPs, ENFP. So it's the intuitive, it's the feel, uh, the most common personality types, ESFJ-

Mercedes Coffman 1:16:48 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:16:48 ... ESTJ, and ISFJ, those are the most common ones, barely represented at all.

Mercedes Coffman 1:16:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:16:53 Which is interesting.

Mercedes Coffman 1:16:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:16:54 So it's out on the tails for limerence.

Mercedes Coffman 1:16:55 Yeah, it's introverts. The introverted ones more likely to Is, more likely because they're more introspective, more empathic oftentimes, also more imaginative. And so, uh, same with anxiously attached people, because anxiously attached people usually come from childhoods where there was lots of unpredictability. And people who they typically fall into limerence with are unavailable people. So there is a resemblance to familiar patterns from the childhood.

Chris Williamson 1:17:25 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:17:26 So anxiously attached people, introspective people, introverted people, um, much more likely to fall into full addiction with another

Mercedes Coffman 1:17:35 person.

Chris Williamson 1:17:36 Interesting. I was thinking the other day about some of the ways that sort of chaos or unpredictability in the home might show up that people might not realize.

Mercedes Coffman 1:17:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:17:45 One of them being an unpredictability around praise and what performance and doing well-

Mercedes Coffman 1:17:51 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:17:51 ... is.

Mercedes Coffman 1:17:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:17:52 Because every kid just wants m- mom and dad to say, "You did a good job." But if you don't know what the standards are for you to be able to do that-

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:02 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:18:03 ... that's a kind of unpredictability that strikes pretty close to the heart of what a kid cares about. Yeah, the basement has a trapdoor and a slide that goes down all the way to neglect and abuse and stuff like that.

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:18:14 But assuming that that's kind of niche for the reason that it's horrible-

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:19 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:18:19 ... a much more common way that this might happen is, well, you played a sports game, and you got in the car with mom and dad, and you got feedback, and you had no idea about why you were a good boy or a bad girl that day. You just didn't know.

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:18:33 And that's a, a type of unpredictability and chaos, I think, that gets kids who then become adults to try and work out, "Well, what do I need to do?"I just want to feel like I matter, like I belong, like I'm good-

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:46 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:18:46 ... like things are predictable and stable.

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:18:48 Uh, it doesn't feel like that. So w- how do I need to just reconstruct and deconstruct this thing-

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:53 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:18:54 ... so that I feel safe?

Mercedes Coffman 1:18:54 Absolutely. I think that a lot of those children, I mean, I write about it in my book too, because a lot of kids, I mean, I find kids fascinating because that's really where a lot of dysregulation occurs, right? Um, I think that a lot of children who had this praise where it's unpredictable when you're gonna be seen, when you're gonna feel valued, because belonging is the most important thing for children, too.

Chris Williamson 1:19:19 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:19:20 A kid won't stop loving a parent, no matter how abusive the parent is. They'll stop loving themselves, right? And so a lot of the times a child will start turning inward and going, "What did I do wrong? How can I be better?" This creates a hypervigilant nervous system, which is I'm always alert to make sure that everybody is pleased with me, whatever room I walk into. And then they bring that into dating, where it's, uh, "Oh, this person doesn't seem happy with me today. What can I do to keep them happy?" And so not only is there self-abandonment that's been in the making for a long time since childhood, but now there is this dopamine every time this person looks at you, responds, even if it's days later. You are now biochemically addicted to this other person because your parents didn't give you the consistency to anchor into your own identity.

Chris Williamson 1:20:10 And it's strange that this very pro-social, very giving, very charitable, very reciprocally altruistic, you know, kin selection-y type thing is self-destructive.

Mercedes Coffman 1:20:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:20:22 You f- you don't know whether someone is doing something that's pro-social and caring and charitable because they want to or because they need to.

Mercedes Coffman 1:20:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:20:32 And, uh, would it be great if there were more people being pro-social in the world? Yeah.

Mercedes Coffman 1:20:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:20:37 But at what level of self-abandonment is that going to happen if those people are doing it from a place of desperate desire for you to see me, because I can't exist with your displeasure, even if you deserve it?

Mercedes Coffman 1:20:49 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:20:49 Even if you deserve this displeasure, I keep on picking up loads that aren't mine to carry-

Mercedes Coffman 1:20:54 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:20:55 ... and then wondering why my shoulders ache all the time.

Mercedes Coffman 1:20:57 Absolutely. I, I think that, and that's where I as a therapist oftentimes am heartbroken for clients like that because I know that their kindness comes from a wounded place, right? The overextending comes from a wounded place. The issue is that nobody really takes the time in everyday life to go, "Oh, this person's so nice. I am curious what happened to them that made... Like, how did they suffer deeply that made them now wanna make sure nobody else suffers?" What people just go is, "They're so nice. Whenever I need a nice person, I'm just gonna call that person again."

Chris Williamson 1:21:34 Yeah, because we don't want to talk about the cost of someone's niceness.

Mercedes Coffman 1:21:38 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:21:38 I'm benefiting from it.

Mercedes Coffman 1:21:39 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:21:39 It seems to be pro-social.

Mercedes Coffman 1:21:41 It works.

Chris Williamson 1:21:41 It seems to be coming from a good place. And I don't think, for the most part, I think this is self-deception, not sort of conscious deception.

Mercedes Coffman 1:21:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:21:48 I don't think that we're shoving to one side someone's obvious drug addiction-

Mercedes Coffman 1:21:52 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:21:52 ... because they are a good hang at parties.

Mercedes Coffman 1:21:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:21:56 The equivalent here is, "He's, he's just great. He's always supportive. He a- makes sure that I'm n- never upset whenever I need to ring him. He's always there."

Mercedes Coffman 1:22:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:22:05 You go, we don't know, we don't recognize that that's coming from a place that could be pretty broken.

Mercedes Coffman 1:22:10 And we don't ask. That's the thing. I think that if I had to suggest or encourage anything, it would be check on your nice friends. Ask them what they need. Actually, don't even ask. Just do nice things for them. You know, the person who always listens, listen to them. The person who always does, do for them. The person who always pays, pay for them. You know, because the thing is, is that we-- the brain looks for shortcuts in identification. We wanna know that this friend is good at this, this friend is good at this. Because the brain can't go, "Sometimes they're good at it, sometimes they're not." We want certainty. So if the friend is always nice, we're like, "They're the nice friend. We don't need to change it," right? Because if we change that, now we gotta change something about ourselves, and that's just too dysregulating.

Chris Williamson 1:22:55 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:22:56 And so we want people to play certain roles in our lives, and that causes self-abandonment in and of itself, because now I know that I have to always show up as the therapist. You have to show up as all the things that you show up as, right? And so it doesn't allow for flexibility to be all that we are. Sometimes I don't wanna listen. Sometimes I want to be heard. And so I just think that we need to give people more of that space to be all of who they are instead of just relying on them to remain the same person that we may or may not have benefited from.

Chris Williamson 1:23:32 One of my friends wrote a tweet that I did a little essay about that I wanna tell you about.

Mercedes Coffman 1:23:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:23:35 "You are a different character in the mind of each person who knows you because their impression of you is made of the bare bones of what they've seen, fleshed out by their knowledge of themselves." So I've got this idea, the lonely chapter-

Mercedes Coffman 1:23:46 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:23:46 ... which is when you're so developed that you don't resonate with your old set of friends-

Mercedes Coffman 1:23:50 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:23:50 ... but you're not yet sufficiently developed that you've got a new one.

Mercedes Coffman 1:23:53 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:23:53 But the lonely chapter has another perspective to it as well-

Mercedes Coffman 1:23:57 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:23:57 ... which is as you grow, you don't fit in with your friends, but this means that they don't fit in with you either, and this causes a reaction from their side.

Mercedes Coffman 1:24:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:24:06 So the hardest part of changing yourself isn't just improving your habits, it's escaping the people who keep handing you your old costume. And others don't remember who you were. They enforce it, which is why reinvention so often feels like trying to break out of a prison that you can't unsee.

Mercedes Coffman 1:24:22 I love that.

Chris Williamson 1:24:23 Yeah.

Mercedes Coffman 1:24:23 I, I do wanna read that if you could, uh, wherever we could find it.

Chris Williamson 1:24:27 S- I certainly can, yeah.

Mercedes Coffman 1:24:27 Um, but I agree. I mean, even when I worked in a recovery center, a treatment center, it would go as far as the extremes of, uh, parents bringing their addicted child to treatment, and they've been used to this child relapsing for years, and they've always been the identified patient. Now this... adult is in treatment, recovering, goes back home, doesn't drink anymore, and they don't like that person who's sober. They're used to him when he was drunk. And so what do they do? At the first party they have, they hand him a drink, and they're the people who make him relapse because they're used to the old person, kind of like you said, they give you the old costume back.

Chris Williamson 1:25:13 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:25:14 Because it's easier for you to be who you once were to us because our identity is built on that identity.

Chris Williamson 1:25:20 Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:25:21 And so I just think that we're not flexible enough in our minds, in our identities, in our feelings, in order to really kind of sustain things that will give us the safety and the space to be who we truly are.

Chris Williamson 1:25:37 Why do you say that the wrong people are the hardest to get over?

Mercedes Coffman 1:25:41 Because they're the most addicting, and the reason why is not because they're so great. It's because the wrong people oftentimes are the emotionally unavailable people, the people who do not have the capacity to sustain something substantial with you. So whenever there's uncertainty and unpredictability, there's dopamine spikes, which is highly addicting. There's also cortisol spikes, which is highly stressful. And then there is nervous system dysregulation because the nervous system is designed for certainty. So the wrong person triggers uncertainty in you, and all your brain and your nervous system wants to do is focus in on this person to get clarity. And so you're really chasing clarity, but you're now reframing it as, "I must really love this person, and I can't get o- I can't stop thinking about them, so I'm wondering if they were my person all along." No, that's just your nervous system trying to regulate itself.

Chris Williamson 1:26:34 After the breakup.

Mercedes Coffman 1:26:34 That's why it's obsessed. Yes, after the breakup, because your nervous system is saying, "I felt this intense high with this person that I haven't felt with anybody else since. There must be something meaningful there, and I am not ready really to let this go." Also, whenever there's uncertainty, there's all these gaps of clarity, which makes projecting a fantasy much easier. You could paint anything on a blank canvas. So if someone just gives you limited pieces of themselves, you're like, "Ugh, he told me he likes me, but I also think that what he really likes is this, this, this, and this." He never said that. But because he didn't give you enough, now your brain is going to fill in the gaps with a fantasy that works for you, and if we have to choose fantasy or reality, we're much more likely to wanna hold onto a fantasy and not be able to get over a fantasy than a reality.

Chris Williamson 1:27:29 That is so

Chris Williamson 1:27:30 good. What do you say to people who feel like they're regularly a bad picker?

Mercedes Coffman 1:27:35 I tell them not to be so hard on themselves because I think it goes back to the self-blame, right? Like, it's not that, you know, we like to say our picker is broken, but I don't think that our picker is necessarily broken. I just think that our nervous system has-- is starting from a dysregulated baseline, and that's because modern day has conditioned a baseline that is determined by dysregulation. There's so much uncertainty, and there's not enough clarity, and so what we're picking is probably gonna be uncertainty. We're probably going to pick based on intensity and chemistry. And so I think that the people who feel like they have a history of misaligned relationships, I would say take a pause, do some self-reflection. Therapy is always helpful. I'm always pro therapy. Um, and really kind of just learn what your patterns are and find out what your standards are because usually bad-- people who are bad picks or emotionally unavailable, they usually overstep boundaries. They usually disrespect the person, and we just kind of let it go.

Chris Williamson 1:28:46 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:28:46 So realign with yourself and what your standards and your boundaries are, and you'll start picking better people.

Chris Williamson 1:28:54 What about when it comes time to hold a boundary as someone who is emotionally available, empathetic, sees the best in others-

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:04 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:29:04 ... and the, the fear, the who am I to, is this me being too demanding?

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:29:12 My needs usually don't matter. How do you advise someone in that moment? Boundary needs enforcing.

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:29:18 Not passive-aggressively three days later.

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:29:20 Not resentfully-

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:21 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:29:22 ... after the dinner's finished. How do you advise someone in that moment to become more comfortable?

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:28 Great question, because oftentimes people have a hard time setting boundaries because of fear of abandonment, right? Which is pretty normal. It's-

Chris Williamson 1:29:34 It's a tactical problem, right?

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:36 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:29:36 We're talk- We can throw pithy aphorisms around all day-

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:39 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 1:29:39 ... but ultimately, this is gonna come into conflict with your nervous system.

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:29:43 How does someone get better at being the bad guy?

Mercedes Coffman 1:29:46 You reframe it and say, "My boundaries are not gonna push them away. My boundaries are gonna keep the good person, and it's gonna protect the relationship," because boundaries are not pushing good relationships out. They're just protecting good relationships. So speaking up and saying, "Hey, Chris, you did this one thing, and it hurt my feelings, and I would like for us not to do that," that's me saying, "If you wanna stay in a relationship with me and if I wanna protect this relationship between us, I have to say this." That's my advocacy for what we have.

Chris Williamson 1:30:16 Mm.

Mercedes Coffman 1:30:17 But most people see a boundary as I'm gonna hurt their feelings, and they might then reject me, and they don't really consider, but the relationship has its own needs. And if you don't speak up and you don't say what that boundary is, you are abandoning that relationship and its needs.

Chris Williamson 1:30:34 So good. Mercedes Coffman, ladies and gentlemen. You rule.

Mercedes Coffman 1:30:37 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 1:30:37 Everyone should go and check out your Instagram. I love it. I think the stuff that you put out is fantastic. Where else do you want people to go?

Mercedes Coffman 1:30:43 Instagram is good, mercedescoffmantherapy. And then they, they could also go to my website, which is on my Instagram.

Chris Williamson 1:30:48 Heck yeah. Mercedes, I appreciate you. Thank you.

Mercedes Coffman 1:30:50 Thank you. Thank you, Chris. It was an honor.

Chris Williamson 1:30:52 All right. Goodbye, people.

Mercedes Coffman 1:30:54 Bye, people. This is fun.

Chris Williamson 1:30:56 You nail it. That was fucking-

Mercedes Coffman 1:30:58 Thank you

Chris Williamson 1:30:59 ... epic. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, another one that I know you'll love is just here.