 This question came in, so I want to share this with everyone. All right, my sweater is a little off. Jonathan, oh wait, let me keep my glasses on. Jonathan, there's a guy I met and I'm feeling really anxious because I like him, what to do? Jonathan, there's a guy I met, I'm feeling really anxious, I like this guy, what do I do? Oh my God, I love this question. And it kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my monthly clients yesterday. She has a propensity to get anxious in the early stages of dating. And we were talking about managing her emotions during this time, and I thought I would share what's actually happening to me right now as we speak. So I'm gonna share something personal and to help illustrate what to do when you're feeling anxious. So now let me just be candid with everyone. If you're not familiar with love attachment style, I highly recommend checking out the book attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. Love attachment, there's basically three types of love attachment, there's anxious and then there's some versions of anxious in there. There's avoidant and then there's secure. Anxious, avoidant, secure. Anxious are needy people, avoidant are kind of emotionally closed off people, and secure are people that can lean into a relationship. Okay, so just giving you the concept of that. I personally have what's known as a anxious love attachment style. That means, and what we typically do is when we're an anxious, we tend to choose avoidant personalities and when we're avoidant, we tend to choose anxious people. And what that means is I get highly, I get a ton of anxiety when I don't feel safe in relationship, that's what happens to me. I get very, very anxious. And this is even true in the beginning of these days of dating and it's really fascinating to witness my personality when I'm anxious and this has just happened to me. So about 10 days ago, or nine or 10 days ago, I connected with someone through a dating app. I'll be candid with you. The dating app is called The League, The League. And if you're not familiar with it, I recommend checking it out. I'm currently on Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, Match.com, Millionaire Match. I look at each one of them as the spoke in the wheel as an opportunity to meet people I wouldn't otherwise meet my daily life. I work from home, so I don't meet people in my daily life. So I use the dating apps as a vortex or a vehicle to meet someone. And I met this person on Hinge and we exchanged, you know, over the course of about four days we exchanged a message with each other. And then, you know, and I was attracted to her photographs and I really appreciated the messages. And then we jumped on a phone call and we ended up having a two-hour phone call and we really, really hit it off. I was like, I was really feeling like a sense of like a wow. Like, you know, and I've had lots of telephone calls that didn't feel that way. And I've had other phone calls that have felt that way as well. And I found myself going to bed that night and I was feeling rather excited, rather excited. In fact, I had a hard time sleeping. And she was currently traveling and she actually just returned today. This was on Monday, our first phone call. And we had another phone call on Tuesday. And I noticed our communication styles was a little bit different when it came to organizing the telephone call. And I found myself getting incredibly anxious. Oh my God, what was going on inside my head? I was spinning out of control. I was spinning out of control. And then we didn't speak the next day, which was Wednesday. And then we jumped on the phone again on Thursday. And it was fascinating to witness the feelings going on inside of me. Now the old Jonathan, when I was feeling the mismatch in communication, I don't mean when we were actually on the telephone call. I'm talking about our communication just to organize the telephone call. Felt, I'm very demonstrative. I'm very effusive. I'm a flirt. And she's not that type. That's not her personality style. And for all I know, she's just being a little bit reserved because she doesn't know me. And the fact that I've gotten over infatuated isn't very uncommon. Now, you might've heard the term love bombing that men do. Listen, when a man is excited, we can go through an alliteration of different types of feelings when we feel excited. And certainly love bombing or planning the future is very common. You don't have to be a narcissist to do that. The garden variety, red-blooded guy can be that way. And by the way, everything I'm sharing, a woman can feel this way as well. And so what was interesting when I got on the phone with my client on Thursday before I spoke to this woman, and by the way, we have a date planned on Sunday, lunch date. And what was interesting when I shared with my client because I knew she would appreciate this and I shared almost exactly what I just shared with you. And as I was sharing it to her, she goes, oh my God, Jonathan, I so resonate with that. I knew she would because we've had these conversations before. Now, what she pointed out in what was interesting, back she pointed this out earlier before we had the conversation, was the idea of awareness, awareness. I was aware of my emotions. I was aware of my emotions. So the old Jonathan, when there was a mismatching communication, I would have kept trying harder, trying harder, trying harder, trying harder. Now you've heard the term chasing someone. Chasing someone is when you are trying harder than them. I'm gonna repeat that. Chasing someone is when you try harder than them. And I had to really sit with my emotions. So I sat with my emotions and did nothing other than spin out of control inside of myself. Now you would think, gosh, with all the personal development work I've done, how could this happen? I'm a red-blooded human being like everyone else. As much work as I've done to heal my childhood wounds and traumas and my adult traumas and my negative patterns and limiting belief at the core, I'm still a red-blooded human being. And my default love attachment style is anxious. So first, an 80% of this is awareness. I was just really aware of my feelings. And I was able to articulate my feelings to my client to help demonstrate this just as I am with you. And the one benefit I do come to is a place where I can actually articulate my feelings from a non-victim-based consciousness. I'm gonna repeat that, the non-victim-based consciousness. Sadly, most human beings communicate their feelings very much from a victim orientation. Women, you do this, men do this. And this is one of the reasons why couples are butting heads with each other because they're not communicating in a healthy emotional way. Now to piggyback on this, so 80% is awareness. What I told my client is 10% is navigating your emotions. In other words, I didn't vomit my feelings with her. I didn't try to force the situation. I stayed contained in my feelings. And then here's what I wanna share for this person that wrote in. What I did afterwards was take inspired action. So we end up getting on the phone last night. And as we were talking with one another, and again, we're planning our date and we're just getting to know each other. She actually asked me a really personal question. She asked about my childhood, which I think is a great question to ask someone to get a sense and get us, because we had talked about doing therapy and we talked about personal development such. She asked about my childhood, which I really appreciated. And I said, and I'll just, her nickname is Minnie Mouse. My Pilates instructor nicknamed her Minnie Mouse because she's got this interesting quality of a very like girl next door kind of voice to her, which I really appreciate. And I said to Minnie Mouse, I said, I have something very vulnerable to share with you. Is that okay? I'm something very vulnerable to share with you. Is that okay? Now the rule book would say, never do what I'm about what I did. The rules would never say this, but I love myself enough to know I can say anything because if it's sincere and from the heart, I can't scare the wrong person away. And what I did was I shared the feelings I was experiencing and what happened next floored me. That didn't really floor me. I actually, I think I had a sense. I knew how she would respond. She was so grateful, so appreciative of me sharing my feelings. And she even let on that she had a little bit of a crush for me and I'm saying this in a tiny sense, not a crush, but that she genuinely liked me. And she said that she liked me even more because I was vulnerable, authentic and transparent. Now I know a lot of my male contemporaries out there, not necessarily contemporaries in the dating coaching business would call me a wimp. They'd call me a simp. They'd call me a pussy. They'd call me pandering to women. Here's the thing, vulnerability takes courage. Vulnerability takes courage. Radical honesty takes courage. There is nothing wimpy, wussy, pussy, whatever terminology some people would use. There is nothing weak about sharing how you feel. And the right person actually leans into the conversation with you and the wrong person runs away. Ladies, you can actually be vulnerable, authentic and transparent with someone and the right person will appreciate it. And you will only scare the wrong person away. So coming back to this original question, where did it go? Jonathan, there's a guy I met and I'm feeling really anxious because I like him. What do I do? You know what you do? First, be aware of your feelings. Next, that's 80% of it, be aware of your feelings. 10% is managing your feelings. And then lastly, take inspired action, whatever that looks like for you. And it might not be doing anything. In my case, I shared my feelings. And my hope is that she actually is getting to know me at an intimate level, at an intimate level. I don't mean sexual intimacy, I mean emotional intimacy. Into me you see, into me you see. Because ultimately, if you wanna be someone's one and only, you're gonna have to reach that level of emotional intimacy. And as I recommended this book earlier, emotional intimacy, if you really wanna experience a juicy, delicious, happy relationship, it's time to get radically honest with people because the current dating process of chasing chemistry and using romance as the indicator of relationship success isn't working. It isn't working. And it isn't going to going forward. What's going to happen is it's going to require being a little bit contrarian than the normal person out there. At least that's my invitation for you. I wanna thank that person for the question once again. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it giving you a big gigantic hug for that one, allowed me to share my own feelings. All right.