 Have you ever been with a man and he's ignored you and you've wondered why this happens? Well, I want to dive into this quite a bit deeper because it's interesting. I looked up the definition of ignore and it meant intentional disregard, intentional disregard. And I think this happens at two different stages in the dating mating or relating process. First in the early stages when you just met someone and you feel like there's a connection with someone. And certainly when you're in a seasoned relationship and I think it's really important to dive in to explore the why this happens and maybe what you can do about it when this happens. So as I was reflecting on this title, I was actually mentioning to my girlfriend the other night, I was sharing how right after my divorce, I would I was actively in the dating marketplace. I guess I've been actively in the dating marketplace until I met my beloved. And I remember that first year after my divorce, as I was dating women, I'd meet these really, I'd go out on a date, meet a really nice woman, have a really good time and something wasn't right. And this was happening again and again and again. And with some of these women right after. And so with those with those ones that I just want to say was a first date and didn't go anywhere. I didn't feel like if I didn't follow up on a date, even if it was a good date, I didn't feel like that was ghosting or ignoring someone because I just didn't feel like asking them out. Now I could put the ball in the woman's court and say she could ask me out. So is it really ignoring someone if you've had a date or two and they don't follow up on another date? I don't think that's ignoring and I don't even think that's ghosting, if you will. That's just non-interest. But I've certainly had situations where I met a woman, had a great time, we became intimate with one another. And then for what, for some reason, I didn't feel like following up on a date. And because of that, I felt in this perplexed position within myself. I had these conflicting feelings of like, why did I like this person so much to want to be intimate with them? And at the same time, I wanted nothing to do with them. And as I was sharing this with my girlfriend, she was telling me about a friend of hers who said the exact same thing, and we started to dive into why this happens. So in the early stages of dating, mating, relating, men and women can experience lust or limerence, lust or limerence. Now, limerence means extreme infatuation. And lust means that desire to be sexual with a person. So it's a very common thing that happens. Our chemicals are on fire right now, our testosterone, our cytosine, our estrogen, dopamine is on fire. And so what I believe happens with men, when a man is physically intimate with a woman and his testosterone levels drop, all of a sudden there's a chemical reaction that says, I don't like this person anymore for some reason. I don't believe that this happens with those of us who are fully committed relationships and we feel a genuine sense of love with someone. We don't feel it that way. But certainly when someone is practically a stranger in our life and these days in the dating marketplace, we're mostly meeting strangers. In other words, we haven't developed the deep roots of trust to support the emotional effects that happen in a romantic encounter. So coming back to what happened with me, all of a sudden as soon as I ejaculated, I found myself not necessarily in that moment, but the next day wondering, why don't I like this person? I mean, seriously, and I'm not suggesting this from any malicious sense, I found myself going, why don't I like this person? Or why don't, let me reframe that. Like isn't the right word. Why do I feel disconnected? Why do I feel like a lack of interest? That might be a better way to interpret it. It was a lack of interest and during that space of lack of interest, I didn't feel a desire to communicate and in that space, it might seem to her that all of a sudden I was ignoring her as if it was something intentional as if it was something malicious. And that wasn't the case. I found myself conflicted in this moment. Now, that doesn't make it right. I'm not suggesting that my experience, I'm validating this experience in some way. I'm merely saying what happens to a lot of men when they've experienced a quick sexual encounter with someone that they barely know and why this might happen. This is why I'm such a big proponent of ladies and men to explore the deeper understanding of a relationship. And this is why I continually recommend the book Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman. By the way, all the books I recommend are at the link below. At least chapter one, chapter one is about trust and commitment. Why is this so important to understand? Because the reality is today in the dating marketplace, again, I said we're meeting strangers, there seems to be a lack of commitment to commitment. I'm going to repeat that, a lack of commitment to commitment, particularly by men. Because the need for commitment is very low. What I mean to say, the barrier to entry to be physically intimate with someone is rather low. Because of that, I mean, men can certainly offer a level of monogamy and exclusivity in a relationship. To me, commitment is more about building deeper trust with someone and trust isn't just about fidelity. Trust is, can I really count on this person to care about my feelings as much as I care about my own? Does this person have my best interest at hand? And so when I was having these, when I had a physical encounter with someone I barely know, I didn't have their best interest at hand. I didn't have their best interest in my heart. Not again, from a malicious perspective. And I certainly recognize that we can have a level of civility and a level of courtesy to people. But at the same time, this is the problem with engaging with complete strangers. And do you know, realizing that most successful marriages have a family nucleus associated with the relationship, you're truly integrated with the balance of your friends and family in life and support the relationship and why I'm bringing up marriage for a moment. Because the reality these days, I truly believe the dating is just a new word or not a new word. Dating is really just hooking up today. The fact of the matter is since most people only engage in a casual relationship, the dating experience is merely an opportunity to hook up with a number of people repetitively over and over and over again. And so what we're finding is that the emotional wear and tear on a human being who experiences a short lived encounter with someone, whether it's a few dates, a few months, maybe a year or two, a short lived encounter can wear on someone's emotional well being. I believe dating triggers the number one emotional health issue faced by most everyone, which is I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. And I'm not likable. So imagine if you get ignored for just even a moment how that can be such a trigger on the inside. And all of a sudden you might feel despair, you might feel lack of even interest in putting yourself out there to be seen by single eligible people so you can engage in a relationship. Do you hear those birds? Shooting this video off my balcony, I'm overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Anyway, so coming back to this emotional wear and tear, this is one of the reasons why folks, if you're not familiar, I wrote my book, What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway, a Journey of Personal Development, Self Help and Spiritual Work. By the way, again, the link below to in the description for all the books I recommend is because I believe we have a distressing lack of genuinely loving ourselves. And my book is just merely a vaccination to emotional chaos. What it's also there to encourage everyone is to do the deeper work, which I'm about to share in a second, because I believe we can circumvent the pain of feeling ignored. And remember, I said I'm going to talk about what happens in season relationships in a second. We can circumvent the negative feelings of being ignored when we do personal development, self help and spiritual work. This is why I highly recommend everybody reading the book, The Hoffman Process, The Hoffman Process. This is a deep dive into healing childhood wounds and traumas, as well as the adult traumas that cause us to get triggered in such a way that when you feel ignored, when you feel ignored, it feels like a complete abandonment and a betrayal. And it's almost as if the sky is falling. And it can be incredibly painful. Folks, let me just be blunt with everyone here. For those of us mostly in midlife, which is after baby making years and before retirement, it's going to get progressively harder to meet a suitable eligible person that's actually aligned to who you are and what you want. That's right. It's going to get progressively harder. It isn't easier. And I don't want to blow smoke up your ass. And the reality is, is while you can engage in a relationship, it doesn't mean it's a juicy, delicious, healthy relationship unless both people have done the inner work to establish the context of how to really nurture and co-create a relationship. And let me tell you what's what's missing these days in the dating marketplace is a lack of emotional maturity and a lack of understanding of emotional intimacy. This is why I highly recommend reading the book Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters. Now you might be thinking, Jonathan, you're just recommending books. Yes, if you want to have a grander experience in your romantic love life, then I'm encouraging you to do some work. And since my audience is predominantly ladies, I'm here to say you're the emotional container of a relationship, not men. Men are more tactile. Men are more physical. Women actually have the capacity. And when a man genuinely cares about you and a man genuinely cares about you, he appreciates that you're leading the emotional aspects of the relationship. And I know some of you are going, Jonathan, you're full of crap. Well, I'm talking about men who genuinely like and care about you and men who genuinely want to go the distance with you. This is why, listen, I said earlier, dating is just now hooking up because the vast majority of people are experiencing casual relationships. They want companionship, connection and sex without any level of commitment. This is why when I started my private coaching program, it's to help women get crystal clear on who they are and what they want. But more importantly, how to vet for emotional maturity and how to vet if he's truly compatible with you. And by the way, there's a link below to schedule a free discovery call with me. Folks, if we don't ask better questions in the dating in the early stage of dating, then what you may find yourself experiencing is you get sucked into this, you know, the bandwagon of, you know, lust and limerence and chemistry without ever, ever really knowing if this person is genuinely compatible with you. Folks, right after my divorce, I was clueless to this work. I was rather clueless. Now thankfully, there are a lot of good men out there that are introspective. They may not know about the books that I've talked about, but they actually have the capacity to lean into a deeper relationship with someone because they are looking beyond the surface. Many men are they just don't know how to do it and they don't watch channels like mine to read the books. I know some men do, but they don't. Not by some malicious unintentional way. It's just it's not in their consciousness. That's why simply introducing this content can make a big difference in your love life. I'm going to share with you. I have a client who went through my boot camp and shortly after she, she was actually engaged in a friendship with someone that they met, I believe in like a meetup type of environment. And when he expressed some romantic interest in her, she went through the questionnaire I helped her create. And during that process, they found themselves really engaging with one another on an emotional heart centered way. And what eventually happened afterwards, she he asked her, you mind giving me a copy of all those questions? I'd like to give it to my brother who's single these days, because I think he should do the same thing. Men have the capacity to go deeper. If you just introduce it, if you if you lead by example, it's absolutely possible. So I mentioned early in the beginning about short lived relationships. Why would a man ignore someone that they genuinely care about? And they genuinely and they've spent a significant amount of time. Why would this happen? Well, it's even though the language says intentional disregard. Most men what they experience is absolute confusion. They care about someone. And at the same time, they're uncertain about where this relationship is going with them. So there's care on one end, uncertainty at the other end, and that space in between is so much confusion that in that space, they take space internally. And during that space, it might feel like you're being ignored. This is why I recommend reading the book nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg. Now this should have been titled compassionate communication. Why when you understand the simple tools, these are this is simple. The simple languaging of how to shift communication in a way that evokes emotion and communication from another, you can actually begin to repair that space and you might at least come to maybe it's a conscious uncoupling at that moment. But certainly it won't be this vast chasm of uncertainty when you begin to engage with someone. Now, it's interesting because my girlfriend, folks, many of you know, I'm now living with her. And I'm really excited about that. And I see a long term future. I genuinely see that because I am committed to commitment, committed to commitment. In fact, I'm committed such that I would like to get remarried some point. And she introduced me to a book that I found fascinating. I think many of you should consider reading this. It's called making your second marriage a first class success. Now I know many of you may not want to get remarried. I get that. But why is this so critically important to read? Let me grab a chapter two for you. Why is this so important? Because this really helps you understand how to revisit relationships that second or third go around. For example, chapter one, avoid the same mistakes. What happens? You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We think just because we might have been in a marriage that all of a sudden we know everything and I'd be candid with you. Most people are rather clueless. And then this chapter two, planches commitment, coming back to understanding what is the mechanics of a healthy, happy relationship through the level of commitment. And then exploring a variety of different things. Most importantly, if you want to be in a successful relationship, it requires that emotional maturity and relationship skills, particularly in the area of conflict resolution. Conflict resolution. In fact, in the book Eight Dates by Dr. Sean and Julie Gottman, chapter two is all about resolving conflicts, folks. Most of us are living in this fantasy that a relationship has to be perfect for it to succeed. And if you ask anyone who's been in a seasoned relationship, the number one component for a successful relationship is the ability to resolve differences in a relatively easy manner. In other words, it's not being at the opposite ends of the football field. You're actually coming to the 50 yard line and saying, how can we do this as a team? Folks, I know you love the idea of being swept off your feet because you can just sit in your feminine energy and the man will naturally claim you. Romantic notions sound great for television and sounds great by a lot of my contemporaries that sell you on that idea. But the reality is, is if you don't listen, I'm suggesting you reverse engineer this process. Look at what all things that can go wrong and why and figure out how to find the potholes early on. In fact, one of the things I asked my girlfriend right off the bat is, hey, tell me a red flag about you and I'll do the same for you. One of my red flags is, I get very anxious at restaurants or anytime I'm waiting, I get incredibly impatient and I recognize that's part of my, my emotional makeup, my personality. Why did I bring this up? Because for some people, that's a huge issue. And for some people, that's no big deal. We, we talked about what could be the potholes in front of us right from the early get-go so we can actually build a bridge over these potholes and prepare ourselves so that when we've done this enough times, if something big comes up, we're holding hands getting through this. Instead of finding the need to ignore someone when you're conflicted between liking them and feeling that sense of confusion and that space in between or that, that a doubt I should say which causes confusion causes someone to shut down and possibly ignore you. Look, this isn't easy work. You can sit in the fantasy land and just expect men to, like I said, be the leaders of the relationship or you can be in charge of your relationship destiny. That's my invitation for every one of you. Read the books I recommend. Start drilling guys from the perspective of asking better questions early on. Again, schedule a discovery call with me so I can help you in that capacity. All right, I think you get the gist of where I'm going today. I think I'd be a good place to wrap up my video here. If you have some comments, please post it below. If you have anything to share, please say it to me. I'd like to hear it. As always, if you find value in my videos, please like this video, please share it with friends, please subscribe to my channel. And I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do. First off, giving myself a big, gigantic John the bear hug of self love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm going to ask you to turn to someone, a pat, a teddy bear, a pillow and give it or 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. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.