 Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of JonathanAsley.com, and I'm so excited to be doing this live stream for you today. Our topic, the five signs he's serious, and he may go the distance. We're gonna get into that in a second. Really quickly, if you're brand new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if any time during this video, the content resonates with you, please hit that like button so I can be seen in the YouTube algorithms. Really quickly, my coaching is what I call heart-centered radical honesty. It's direct, a little tough love, and a lot of heart. And occasionally I use expletives to enhance a sentence. So if an F-bomb or two isn't your cup of tea, I suggest logging off right now. Lastly, these are my thoughts, my perceptions, my opinions, by no means do I suggest this is the truth. You have to decide the truth for yourself. I'm a bit of a contrarian, so my advice goes contrary to public opinion and traditional expectations. All right, so I want to share something with you that happened to me this morning. Well, not really happened to me, but I had an invitation from a client to listen to a podcast on the prevailing narrative. That's the name of the podcast. And in the podcast, the host had an FBI negotiator on there, and I thought it was really interesting because it was talking about how people lie. And they were giving a lot of different examples of how people lie, and in particular, they were talking about the Netflix special called the Tinder Swindler. That's right, the Tinder Swindler, how this man conned many, many women out of multi, multi millions of dollars. And I thought the podcast was fascinating listening to an FBI negotiator because their job is to read people, to understand people. And one of the things I thought was rather interesting is that human beings have a propensity to see the good in people. That's right, human beings have a propensity to see the good in people. In particular, people who are strangers, which I thought is rather fascinating. Now, to the extent that they see the good in people, what it means is that there isn't necessarily this intentional mistrust, but we oftentimes want to see the good in people. We want to believe people. And so why I'm bringing this up is because I'm not necessarily talking about lying per se. Okay, I mean, the Tinder Swindler was kind of an extreme situation and this was a genuine con man. What I thought was more fascinating was just how humans operate, particularly in the dating realm, because these days we are meeting total strangers. That's right, we're meeting total strangers. We don't know much about a person when we connect them with them through our online devices. And because we don't have any degrees of separation, I mean, I want you to think back 30 plus years ago and beyond or back in time, I should say, for the most part, if you mated with someone, they were from your tribe, they were from your village, from your town, from your workplace, maybe from your college, you had people that knew people about the person you were going out with. And this all changed with these little devices. It changed in particular. It first started with online dating when we used to have to use our laptops. Remember when you had to use your desktop or your laptop? And now everything is done through a swipe. And these days when we're meeting total strangers, we know very little about a person. We know very little about a person. And there's this misconception that if we talk a lot on the phone and especially when we're clicking with someone, especially when our estrogen and our testosterone levels are up and the dopamine levels are up and we start to feel this chemical reaction. Oftentimes this chemical reaction is limerence. And if you've never Googled limerence, I highly recommend typing it in your computer later after this broadcast because limerence is extreme infatuation. Extreme infatuation. What oftentimes happens is when we have this extreme infatuation, it moves into lust. And when lust takes over, when that dopamine rush of lust takes over, men in particular can say almost anything to make you believe that they actually genuinely care about you. And I want you to think about this. In many cases, you've only known the person a nanosecond. And I often believe it's the movie Pride and Prejudice that sets you up for failure because Darcy knew Kira Knightley for only a nanosecond and he was madly in love with her. He literally said 10 words to her at a 10 word exchange and he was madly in love with her. You know, really? And today, we would think that's kind of insane, right? But this narrative that many of you have grown up on, this Disney narrative plays into this. And I know cognitively, I know rationally, you don't think this way and yet it happens over and over and over again. This is why this morning when I wrote, I did a short video about the importance of testing people, of testing people. And in particular, the test is not to jump into bed so quickly. And this is gonna piggyback on what I'm gonna share later, but it's so important to actually spend about a hundred hours of face-to-face time just to get to the first layer of trust to invest that time getting to know another human being not over the telephone. You know, by the way, did you know 90, and by the way, this is the FBI profiler talked about this as well. You know, 90% of communication is non-verbal. It's looking at their facial clues. It's feeling their pheromones. It's their hand gestures. All of that plays into communication. And that's why all this incessant telephone communication doesn't really give you a full picture of a person. Now, why am I saying this? Because I think it's hugely important to recognize that chemistry doesn't equal relationship success. And I have everyone who knows my relationship, Iceberg, and by the way, one of you beautiful Sam fans out there sent me this, although I'm only gonna use it once because of the glare, but they update, this is my current relationship, Iceberg, what I'm gonna use there is today. I wanna thank Gloria for this. So you can see that up above the, see the light's gonna reflect too much. So I'm gonna use mine. You can see above the water line is chemistry. It's the first thing we see or feel, but below, and that's attraction and below the water line is compatibility where we share the same values where our lifestyles are blendable. And more importantly, is this person emotionally mature enough to be in relationship with? Because all the chemistry in the world cannot fix dysfunctionality of a person. Can I repeat that? All the dysfunctionality of the world cannot fix the dysfunctionality of a person. And listen, going back to lying, I was thinking in this broadcast, so many women in particular and men too, in their own way, but if a man's age on his dating profile was off by a few years, you'd say he's a liar. And if he said he was six foot tall when he was five foot nine, you'd say he's a liar. Okay, I get why people do that because it's not genuinely lying to deceive you. It's the misrepresentation is because of fear of rejection, a fear of rejection. The real lying you should be worrying about is the people that lie to themselves, that lie to themselves because whatever they say to you is indicative of a true misrepresentation about their genuine feelings. When I mean lying to themselves, and let me give you an example. I'm gonna share a personal example right now. After my divorce, I thought I want a relationship, I want a relationship, I want a relationship. I mean, I was like so ready after my divorce wanting a relationship. And I met this woman and we began dating. And sure enough, three months into it, I'm like, I can't handle a relationship. I was lying to myself. And yet what happened is when we ended it, I was back online because I was thirsty for connection, companionship and sex. And yet I wasn't ready for the most important thing and that is commitment. And many human beings are actually lying to themselves. That's the bigger lie you should be worrying about, not whether or not they fudged on their dating profile. And by the way, women do this as well, men do this as well, women do it on their body, women do it on their height, okay? It's because the reality is is human beings judge one another based on those surface things above the water line. And what they don't realize is human beings are actually lying to themselves below the water line, in particular in their emotional maturity and their relationship skills. And if you're not familiar with my chart on emotional maturity relationship skills, here it is. By the way, this is not a fact, this is an opinion. Most people have clinical issues, clinical issues. And while I say 20% and while I suggest that 20% are healthy and I'm being ridiculously generous, the vast majority of people believe they're, not believe they are dysfunctional but they believe that they're healthy and I'm pointing the finger at you watching this because I really do believe the majority, a significant majority is lying to themselves on their real relationship skills. So why is this critically important to understand? It's because it's, I'm here to remind you that dating today is a clusterfuck. It is a clusterfuck because you're meeting total strangers. This is why I've been repeatedly recommending this book called Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell, what you should know about the people you don't know because the reality is this. The strangers out there, what I mean by strangers, what we don't know about people can effectively affect us long-term when we've gone on repetitive dates that go nowhere or we invest time in people who aren't really capable of being in a relationship. It can wear on our emotional well-being and sadly, most humans are so thirsty for emotional connection that oftentimes you'll settle on crumbs without doing a vetting process. So I just wanna remind you all this. It takes a hundred hours of face-to-face time just to get to that first layer of trust and remember that. And I will tell you that the people that genuinely are interested in like you, the ones who are serious, the ones that'll go the distance, when they meet you and they like you, they'll actually be okay with investing the time because many of you know, I say this before and I'll say it before again, before the penis goes inside the vagina, you better be reading the book, Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman because if you don't, and this is a test, and guess what, testing people isn't cruel, it's for your benefit because they are strangers. Read this book, it teaches you the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship and that's my invitation for you going forward because the reality is you don't know a person until you actually get to know a person. Food for thought. All right, I wanna talk about those five signs, he's serious and he may go the distance, there's my notes, I'm gonna talk about that right now. All right, so first off, it's important to understand that what I'm about to share is for those men who have already had sex with you and you've been dating for a little while. Let me repeat that, you've already had sex with a person and you've already had sex with a person, you've been dating them a while because here's the thing, a lot of times men have sex with you and then they disappear, they're just not ready for a serious, committed relationship, okay? So, so this is how you'll know he's serious. Number one, he makes effort to spend more time with you, in other words, after sex, he makes effort to spend more time with you, okay? Number two, he introduces you to family and friends, he introduces you to family and friends. Now here's the thing, sometimes when men are in that limerence stage, again, extreme infatuation, they might wanna introduce you family and friends before sex, but that's not a really good sign. I think you should wait till you've actually agreed on being in a monogamous exclusive relationship before you begin meeting their family and friends in vice versa, that you're an agreed, mutually committed relationship, it's monogamous, okay? But he introduces you to his family and friends, that's a great sign, he's into you and he may wanna go the distance, okay? Number three, he is considerate of your feelings, he's considerate of your feelings and he wants to hear about how you're feeling. Again, this is all after you've been intimate with one another, when a man is progressing the understanding and desiring to get to know you, he's gonna be considerate of your feelings and he's gonna wanna hear how you feel in your day, not just how's your day going? Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. But really about how you're feeling about life, your passions, your professional life, your kids, all the different things that bring you joy. Number four, he apologizes when there's a misunderstanding or a conflict, he doesn't get defensive, that's a great sign, he's serious, gaslighters get defensive, people who are incapable of being in a relationship get defensive, but someone who's serious about wanting to be in a relationship with you, he's capable of going beyond the surface, he's capable of going on the surface and he's capable of apologizing to you when there's a conflict or a misunderstanding. And number five, he progresses the relationship forward, meaning here's the bottom line, most women who are in healthy, happy relationships today, they rarely ever felt doubt in this relationship. If you're feeling doubt, if you're feeling uncertainty, and I mean, listen, many of you can create that doubt and uncertainty in your head, he doesn't text for a few minutes and all of a sudden your anxious attachment style pops up, but that's not his issue, that's yours. I'm talking, he's progressing the relationship forward, this is after sex, this is after you've become monogamous and exclusive with one another, he's moving the relationship forward, that's a great sign that he's serious and he may wanna go the distance, now I say may wanna go the distance, the reality is you could be in a relationship for a year or two and it may not be a fit for one another, just may not, sometimes that happens, usually men who aren't, okay, so men who are just seeking companionship, connection and sex, they'll nest into a relationship, men who are seeking companionship, connection and sex and commitment, okay, companionship, connection, sex, I should think of a C word for good sex, what would be a good C word? Someone come up with a good C word that represents sex, connection, connection, companionship, sex and commitment, when a man is genuinely ready for that, by the six month mark, he pretty much knows it with you and he's progressing the relationship forward, it may not be about marriage, but again, men who are in it for just companionship, connection and sex will nest into a relationship but they won't progress the relationship forward, it's not moving, it's in a standstill, it's in a standstill and when you're feeling that, you're usually feeling like the relationship is going backwards, but for those women who are in healthy, happy relationships right now, they're not feeling doubt because the guy is, you're both, let me reframe that, you're both progressing the relationship forward and that's a great sign that he may go the distance for the long run and again, men may nest in a relationship but men who are genuinely interested in a long-term commitment, they'll progress the relationship forward. Now let me repeat those five things really quickly and then we're gonna take questions. So one, he makes effort to spend more time with you, not less time, he introduces you to family and friends, again, this is after you've agreed to monogamy and exclusivity. Number three, he's considerate of your feelings and he wants to hear how you feel. And number four, he apologizes if there's a misunderstanding or conflict, he doesn't get defensive and number five, he progresses the relationship forward, meaning you're not feeling doubt. These are great signs that he wants to progress the relationship beyond, he might wanna go the distance any serious about you. All right, oh, someone said copulation. That's a great C word. So connection, companionship, copulation and commitment. Thank you for pointing that out or coitus. Thank you, Heather, for that one. I think I'll go with copulation. All right, this'll be our time for taking questions. So those who've been a regular on my channel you know that if you have a question to write the word question, post the question there after or you can purchase a Super Sticker Super Chat. All the monies from the Super Sticker Super Chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor Asley. That's him right there and that's him right there. He's my son who passed away a few years ago. All the Super Chat monies and Super Sticker monies go to a scholarship fund in his name to be given to charities like the Hoffman process, the Insight seminars and to help those defray the cost of personal development in their lives. So purchase the Super Sticker Super Chat in the chat box and if you're listening to the audio you won't be able to see that. So we are gonna take questions. Looks like we have our first one ready to go from Rebel. Question, in love with a man who's fighting cancer not seen since 25 years ago, platonic love. Now he pulls back because of his illness. I'm almost lost and very deep connected to him. I'm sorry you're going through that. Since you don't have a question, I don't know what you're asking, but I'm just sending you a lot of love for going through that. All right, thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate it. All right, let's see what else we have. Let's go swimming, let's go swimming, let's go swimming. Let's see, we don't have any questions. We've got a bashful group tonight. Well, if we don't have any questions we're not gonna be able to go very much longer. Come on, post a question. Write the word question or purchase the Super Sticker Super Chat. Otherwise we're gonna have a short one tonight, which is fine by me, it's Friday night. You should go out and have some fun. All right, here we go, Danielle has a question. Question, was dating a guy seeing each other every day till Christmas break? He even said that he, that killed what he, wait, he even said that killed what we had. What the hell do I do to get him, get it back? Wow. So just literally a few days apart and that killed the relationship, that's pretty sad. So that seems like a person to me who isn't very, he's probably emotionally immature or has terrible relationship skills because if literally he lost interest over a short break that just tells, and I don't wanna blame it on he's just not that into you. I think that's a person that's just not that into themselves, they don't have really good relationship skills and emotional maturity because that's a bullshit fucking reason to diss someone after a short Christmas break. Maybe he met someone else. I mean, there's a whole host of things can happen. As far as I don't believe in chasing someone to try to get them back. Listen, if you haven't read my book, What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? A Journey of Personal Development, Self Health and Spiritual Work. By the way, there's a link below to get my book. By the way, there's also a link below to schedule a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. Listen, if you're chasing a guy, if you have to convince a man to wanna be with you you've already lost. I gotta tell you, I remember once I was briefly seeing a woman and she just basically said she wasn't that into me. And I spent the next 45 minutes on the phone telling her how wrong she was and how stupid I'm the greatest guy on the planet. You'll never find a guy like me, blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, and we hung up. And then I thought to myself, fuck, Jonathan, were you that desperate that you had to sell yourself to a person? And I looked in the mirror at that moment. Here's a mirror. I looked in the, there's a mirror right there, okay? And I looked at myself and I'm like, what are you doing here? You are an amazing human being. You never have to sell yourself to another person. You never have to do that. If someone genuinely wants to be with you, they're gonna wanna be with you. And if they don't, that's on them. It's not on you. It's not your job to convince someone to like you. And I know this is a reflection of when you were a kid, that little boy that was in the playground that wanted kids to play, but they wouldn't play with you. And you tried so hard to get them to play with you. That was hard for you as a child. But it's okay because the right people wanna play with you. And the wrong people, that's okay too. Because you love yourself enough to know that the right person wants to spend time with you. And that's what matters most. That's my invitation for you. Don't ever try to convince someone to wanna be with you. When you love yourself enough, that's okay. Because if they don't wanna be with you, then they're not your person. I hope that helped. Thank you so much for that question. I really appreciate it. Wow. Okay, we got a lot. Julia says, where is all the love gone? Yeah, where is everybody tonight? It's a bashful group. Rebel says, question how to build a relationship with him and make him believe in love, even in adversity. Rebel, what I just did in that mirror exercise, I want you to do for yourself. And then come back to me. Because do you really wanna be with someone if you have to convince them to be with you? I hope not. All right, Zim says, question. If I had to Vancouver, Canada, I met my current girlfriend. However, my ex might scare of manipulating on her. She's older than my ex. I'm sorry, I don't understand that question. Thanks so much, Zim, for the question. I don't understand it. Julia says, question, how do you know what a man considers you? Possibly wife, fun, buddy, friend? Listen, a man who wants to be in a committed relationship with you is gonna wanna have sex with you. So that's pretty good sign that he wants to be in a relationship with you. A man that wants sex agrees to monogamy and exclusivity. That's a good sign that you're not in the friend zone. You're in the friend zone when he doesn't try to. Now, again, he wants me a monogamous exclusive and have sexual, he wants copulation with you. So that's the way I would look at it. All right, Lynn Rockwell says, how often would an interested guy contact you after two dates if he's interested in your opinion? Wait, how often would an interested guy contact you after two dates if he's interested? Look, if I'm really interested in a woman, I'm gonna do my best to talk to her most every day, most every day, at a minimum of five times a week. That's a good sign that a man is genuinely interested in you. Now the problem is differentiating between the guys who are only horny for sex versus those who want to actually get to know you. This is why it takes a hundred hours of face-to-face time doing social activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, teamwork, building skills, traveling together. That's how you get to know someone over a period of time. Doing activities, go hiking, go for bike rides, do things together, go shoot a game of billiards, go bowling, go to a park, spend time doing shit together. That's a good way to get to know someone. Remember, everybody is mostly a stranger. And ladies, guys are rather clueless out there. They're winging it, they're winging it. A lot of guys want commitment. They just don't know what they're doing. So you guide the process. You are in charge of your relationship, Destiny. You are the emotional leaders of the relationship. So start taking charge of your destiny. Don't leave it up to mostly clueless guys because the right guy is gonna be happy to invest in the books I've talked about. Let me tell you, I mentioned the book, Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman before the penis goes inside the vagina. Let me tell you something. I'm getting email after email after email from women telling me, this is a great strategy. I'm now having clients. Oh, by the way, I just had a client reach out to me. I'm happy to share her picture, eight months into a relationship. There she is with her guy. I'm so happy for her. This is a client who worked with me about their, let's see, she worked with me a year ago, a little over a year ago, and she's in an eight month relationship. And I just went, oh, oh, so going back to, I even have clients who are just starting dating a guy saying they have to talk to my dating coach. Like I have two clients right now saying they're dating a guy and they must talk to me first before they're gonna have sex with the guy. I love it because I'm your big brother. If I could be there on a first date with the shotgun pointed at the guy's head, I'd say, what's your intentions? These clients are asking me to talk to them, to these guys, to vet these guys for them. That's what your big brother should be doing for you. Find the big brother in your life or call me to have that do that because guess what, if a guy really likes you and they understand this is important to you, they want to be vetted. They want to be vetted if they genuinely like you. If they're only hit it and quit it, they're gonna run away as fast as possible. So it's okay, have them speak to me. I'm more than happy to do that for you if you're my client. Check out the link to a free discovery call to see if working with a coach is right for you. All right, I hope I answered your question, Lynn. Let's see, Louis says, question. How can I meet available quality men? I'm a 32-year-old woman and I'd like to meet someone in person. So it's getting progressively hard to meet people in person because of online dating. By the way, folks, do all things with love. That's my invitation for you. It is getting progressively hard to meet people these days in person. I wish I had a great answer for you. You know, I could say go to the grocery store, do meetup groups, do all this shit, but I've done all that and that hasn't worked. I've gone to speed dating events. And yet people do meet these ways. I think, you know what I'd like to suggest? Get a group of friends together and have them call a bunch of male friends. Okay, so you get a group of friends together. Each one of you has to bring a male friend. So you get five female friends and they each have to bring five single men to a social gathering and you meet at a bar and you start doing, do that. You know, when I was in my 20s, it used to be go pick up chicks in bars. Well, create your own pickup type of environment in a good way. I'm not talking a healthy way. Get five or six of your girlfriends. They each have to invite a single guy and do social gatherings. And who knows? One of them might, two of them might get lucky. And then the next time, do it again, again, again. Because listen, it's hard to be seen by single eligible people. So you have a choice. You could just sit and say, online dating sucks and I'm just gonna sit in my room and just hope that the burglar that comes to my house, that burglar, that female burglar who's trying to steal my television set and she happens to be dropped in. Gorgeous says, hey, Jonathan, you look kind of cute. Would you like to go out? Hmm, is that really gonna happen? No fucking way. You are in charge of your destiny. Six friends call six guy friends and schedule something. That's my invitation. Who's willing to do that? Are you willing to do that? Say, yes, I'm willing to do that in the next couple months. All right, by the way, is this content resonating with you? If it is, please let me know. Say, yes, Jonathan, this resonates with me. All right, this is gonna be our last question for the evening because I'm gonna go relax. Question from Heather. I know it's not right to chase someone if they want to break up with you but what if you broke up with them and later realize you made a mistake? Is there any going back? Great question. Well, first off, I don't think there's anything wrong with trying. If you sincerely state what caused you to for break up. Now, if it was about them, I guess the question is how are you gonna resolve that in your mind? If it was about you, a fear, then I would just say, hey, look, I got scared and I realized that I shut down when I get scared and I become avoidance and I made a hasty decision. Now, if it was about them, how you've gotta reconcile that in your head. And if it was a character defect in them, I think it's gonna be very difficult to reconcile that in your head. So I would say that if it was on you because it was a fear, then reach out to them, tell them what happened and have a conversation, have a conversation. By the way, if most of you don't know, by the way, most of you have terrible relationship skills. You don't know how to have good, healthy communication. This is why I wanna recommend two books to everyone. I hear you and excuse me, and Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. This will teach you how, by the way, you can go into YouTube and watch videos on these two books, okay? I recommend checking them out to help you get better acquainted with how to have better conversations with people because most of you, actually one of my gifts as a coach is when clients reach out to me, I'm literally writing their scripts of what to say to their boyfriends or to the men they're dating to help them learn better communication skills. This has taken me a decade or longer to learn how to be more of an effective communicator. Now I say decade or longer, I used to be in sales before that. So I had a running start, but from an emotional perspective, by the way, I highly recommend checking out this book, Couples Guide to Communication. It's a short little book, but it'll help you so much, get better acquainted with how to communicate more effectively because ladies, I know you don't like hearing this because it sounds graphic, just because you can vomit your feelings doesn't mean you're good at communicating your feelings in a way that's seen, heard, and understood. Your girlfriends get it, but guys, you sometimes say 10,000 words and we're only hearing 100 words. So learning how to be more of an effective communicator, I know this doesn't directly relate to your question, but it does, is gonna help you determine or it's gonna help you overcome maybe the original block that caused you to wanna break up with them. That's my invitation for you anyway. If this has been resonating with you, please purchase the Super Sticker Super Chat before we wrap up this evening. I'd love to have some money in that Conor Asley Scholarship Fund tonight. As always, if you find value in this, please like this video, please share it with your friends, please give it a thumbs up. If you'd like to connect with me, check out the free discovery call with me, check out my group called Midlife Love Mastery. Check out my book, What the Heck is Self Love Anyway. Or you can follow me on Instagram or go to my website and follow me there. I think this would be a great place to wrap up for today. I wanna thank you all from the bottom of my heart for being on. It's my true pleasure to be able to share this content with you. Am I making a difference in your life? If I am, please post it. I wanna hear about that. Just say Jonathan, you're making a difference. And my sincere invitation for all of you is to do the personal development, self-help and spiritual work. Because it's not about finding the mate. It's about finding the mate inside of yourself. And I wanna end on one more book. This changed my life. The Hoffman process. The Hoffman process. This is a deep dive into healing, childhood wounds and traumas. And I invite you all to do this because you'll be better prepared to attract in a healthy, happy relationship when you can heal from the past and certainly heal those traumas you might have existed in your adult life. And do all things with love. That's my invitation for you. All right, I think this will be a great place to wrap up today. First off, I'm gonna give myself a big, gigantic shot at the marriage of self-love. I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone. A pat, a teddy bear pillow and give either of them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. I wanna thank, I wanna thank Mastoref, Carol, Heather, Mel, Angie, Rebel, Bridge, Al, Sandra, Zermi, Zim, Robin, Lynn, Elise, and all of you in Bridge, all of you and Paula. Big, gigantic hugs to you all wishing you a fabulous weekend. You be well. Bye-bye now.