 Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm John Farnasi of johnfarnasi.com and I'm so excited to be doing this short or this live stream for you today. Our topic, if he really likes you, he's gonna do these five things if he really, really likes you. Okay, 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 at 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 oftentimes my advice goes against the grain and you have to decide if it works for you. All right, let's talk about those five things guys do when they really, really like you. Now, really quickly, I've noticed a lot of videos for my contemporaries and myself included, oftentimes focuses on love. And it got me thinking that there's a big difference between love and like. I'm gonna repeat that. There's a big difference between love and like. And I actually think like is almost better than love. Now, let me explain why. So for those who know me know that I lost my 19 year old son Connor a few years ago, there's a picture of him and I right there. And during his funeral, I gave the eulogy. And during the eulogy, I expressed something that was very near and dear to me about both my boys. And what was interesting as a parent, it's natural to feel love for our children. In fact, for most parents, it's natural to feel unconditional love for our children. And basically unconditional love means that they can do whatever they want and you're still gonna love them. And in particular with children, I mean, short of them doing some heinous kind of crime, even their worst behavior is something that we accept because we tend to not always unconditionally love our children. And while we certainly don't appreciate bad behavior and we certainly don't really appreciate any really volatile behavior, it's just natural to unconditionally love our children. In fact, I'll be candid with you. One of the challenges I had as a parent was this unconditional love because no matter what, I would love them. And that made me oftentimes very fearful and very scared that God forbid something happened to them. God forbid something happened to them and sure enough, it did. Now, why am I setting this up? Because the fact of the matter is is I didn't love Connor or Colin, my oldest. I mean, not only do I love them, I actually like them. In fact, in particular, I liked Connor for who he was. I liked his personality. I liked so many things about him and certainly I feel the same way about my oldest son, Colin. There's a picture of him right there. Now, why am I sharing this with you? It's not about being a parent. I believe like is a much deeper feeling in a different sense. And what I'm here to lane into today is that I think like is bred from respect and adoration. Let me repeat that. I believe like is bred from respect and adoration. Think about those two words, respect and adoration. The words I love you is thrown about so cavalierly in relationships. In fact, isn't it sad that people could be in violent, physically abusive relationships, not emotionally abusive, but physically abusive relationships saying the words I love you, which is so contrary to what love is all about. So I believe like is a much deeper feeling of adoration and respect. Because think about it, even role models in your life, you may rarely do we ever say we love a role model, but we oftentimes because we respect and admire them, we like our role models or those actors that we care about. And we might say cavalierly we love them. And I think deep down it's really a feeling of like. And that's what I wanna lean into today. Now, before we get into it, I wanna set the stage on something though first. And one of the challenges with dating today is that we are meeting total strangers. We're meeting total strangers, which makes it, which means it takes time to get to know another human being. It takes time to get to know another human being. And currently the method we use to get to know someone is the dating process, is the dating process. The problem with the dating process, it comes to the table with such grand expectations. The grand expectations include that men are supposed to initiate the first date, men are supposed to pay for the dating process, those, that's the traditional expectation and men are the leaders of the relationship. And what we've learned, and if you follow my channel, we've learned men are terrible leaders of the relationship because most men after midlife are winging it, winging it, winging it. And as you often hear me say, I'm your big brother and if I could be there for you on a first date, I'd have the shotgun out, point it at the guy's face and say, what's your intentions? The problem is because men biologically are driven by sex and we use lust and limerence as a way to captivate and capture a person, it oftentimes doesn't mean that we might actually like this person when we're driven by that biological need to satisfy our sexual urges. And this is why one of the big proponents I talk about, I say that it takes about 100 hours of face-to-face time to truly get to know another human being, it takes time to get to know another human being and the challenge is the way our current system is, it's wrapped up in dating. Now, I wanna change the narrative for a second, I wanna give you an example of my oldest son, Colin, when he was in college, he was in a class with a woman or a young woman, I should say, he was in a class with a woman, young woman, that he spent time getting to know, they were also in debate class together, they spent months together and then he finally said, I'd like to ask you on a date. Well, the thing was is he had this tremendous amount of familiarity about her and when he asked her on a date, it was because he already liked her, he already liked her, he wasn't in love with her, he liked her. And so can you see why the challenge in right now is set up was the problem is dating in and of itself. We should shift the narrative from dating and saying, hey, let's spend time getting to know each other without expectations. But wait a minute, Jonathan, men are supposed to lead the process and I'm just supposed to sit back in my feminine. Folks, I'm here to say it's time to change the narrative of the dating process, at least in my purview. And this is one of the reasons why I highly recommend reading the book if the Buddha dated, if the Buddha dated because it takes out the gender expectations that are causing a lot of frustration in the dating process today or in the getting to know you process. And so if we could actually begin to date from a premise of let's take time to get to know each other without expectations, then you take turns planning dates with one another. You take turns spending time with one another like you would a dear friend. And then you have the potential for a much stronger richer relationship that creates a stronger bond. All right, that's just my two cents. Take it for what it's worth. I know many of you are gonna disagree with me, although I believe that if we could go back to like how my son met someone, it'd be great that if we could meet in an organic setting where we knew each other and even better if we knew each other's families, we knew each other's friends, it would make this process so much more satisfying and the challenges when we're meeting total strangers we're having to sift through all the stuff to figure out if they're even really the right person for us. By the way, if you need some support with that, check out the link to a free discovery call with me to see if working with the coach is right for you because here's the thing. My area of expertise is to teach you how to ask better questions in the early stage of dating so you can avoid the wrong guys by being radically honest right from the get go and I teach it based on your personality. So check out the link below. So I wanna invite everyone to operate from this premise going forward from the premise of what would love do and how would love respond? Let me repeat that. What would love do and how would love respond? What I mean is loving for yourself, loving yourself and loving others. I'm gonna repeat that, loving yourself and loving others. All right, that's my two cents. Now let's get into those five things guys do when they really like you. So I'm gonna put on my trusty glasses, here's my notes, bum, bum, bum. All right, so number one, when a man says the words, I like you, I like spending time with you. When a man says the words, I like you, that's actually a really good sign because the word like is a very unique, I don't even, just like the word love, sometimes it's hard to describe and yet like comes from that place of respect. It comes from that place of adoration. Think of how many people you have friends in your life that you really don't like them but you call them friends but you don't really like them. You may not like parts of their personality, you might not like the way they behave, you might not like who they're dating in their life, okay? But we call them friends. Most of my friends I actually like. In fact, I can't think of, if they're not someone I like as a person, I don't really wanna be friends with them and that doesn't mean I can't be cordial and polite and whatnot but I don't consider them a close friend. And by the way, we should talk about friends in another video because a lot of times when you break up with someone, people say, let's be friends, what the fuck does that mean, let's be friends? If you're not an active participant in someone's life, are they really a friend or become a social acquaintance? But that's a whole nother conversation. All right, number two, he asks you lots of questions about your life. He's curious about who you are, a great sign that a guy likes you is he asks you questions about your life. He's curious. And I always give this narrative and I'm gonna share this with you but I've given this narrative before. I'm gonna switch it from a different perspective really quickly but I remember I was dating a woman who was an internet marketing coach. And I was really fascinated and I would say, well, how did you get started in that business? Was number one, what inspires you to keep you going? Number two, and what brings you the most satisfaction from that business? I was really curious. And so I was doing something called drilling down. I was asking a question, asking another question and asking another question. When a guy is actually curious about your, and it's not about your last relationship per se, although that's a good question to ask as well or about your children. I'm talking about drilling down to the things that you're most passionate about. That's a great sign that he likes you when he's curious and this goes well beyond having sex with them. So I mean, they're still continually curious about you other than the, by the way, have you ever asked your child, by the way, for those who have children and you don't have to have children to know this because you're a child of someone's parents but growing up, did your parents ask you how was your day? How was your day? How was your day? Or do you ask your children, how was your day? Most people answer the question, how was your day? They either say fine or good, fine or good because that's such a benign question. It really doesn't go anywhere. It's, I mean, you're really set up to answer it in a very, you know, benign way. So what if you asked your child, who was the person sitting next to you today in class, in your English class and what did you guys talk about? A way more specific question. That specific question actually gives them an opportunity to open up and have conversations with you. And sadly, most people today are dating this way. Text message, how's your day going? Are you having a good day? Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. Wow, I hope you had a good day. You know what, I had a really good day. Like this is the surface level of conversation. I'm gonna tell you, an emotionally mature man who likes you wants to go deeper. Now, an emotionally immature man, emotionally stunted man or woman, they have surface conversations. They all, let me do it this way. Surface conversations, okay? I'm here to say let's go deeper in our conversations by being curious, being inquisitive. And a great way to know if a man likes you is he's curious about you. Okay, number three. He actually says the following. He either says, I respect or admire blank accomplishment. I respect or admire blank accomplishment. Let's go back to that internet marketing person I was talking about. This was someone I dated years ago. I said, wow, I really respect and admire your tenacity, your fortitude, your ambition with what you do for a living. And it's just amazing what you've accomplished. When someone can acknowledge your accomplishments with actually using the word respect or admire, that's a great sign he likes you. The challenge is as most humans these days are having such surface conversations that they're not going into deeper intimacy with one another. And this is why a lot of relationships fail. And this is why lately I've been talking about this book called Oral Sex, Oral Sex, talking and you're listening your way to passionate intimacy. And to follow up with that book, I highly recommend ordering Barbara DeAngelis's book, How to Make Love All the Time. These folks, it's time to shift the narrative from a surface way of getting to know another human being in a much deeper way to get to know another human being. And listen, I know you don't like being the ones to be the leader of the relationship. Here's the benefit of taking charge of your destiny is that most men aren't buying these books. 90% of these books are purchased by women. So you're educating yourself way more than men. That's one of the reasons why if you know my narrative, what I'm about to say next, if the penis goes inside the vagina, you should be purchasing the book Eight Dates by Drs. John and Julie Gottman and purchase two copies of this book and you both read it if you're going to explore a relationship together. There's that book. And I highly recommend getting it. Also, if you haven't gotten my book, What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway, check out the link below. I always plug my book because this is a great book. It's a book of personal developments. It's an invitation to do personal development, self-help and spiritual work, to shift from feeling like you're not good enough, not lovable and not likable to finding a way to inner peace. And that's my invitation for everyone because whether or not you attract a partner in your life or not, what matters most is that sense of inner peace. And that's what I want everybody to lean into today. So, next, oh, this is one I like. You know what a man really likes you? When he's not trying to get you in bed, when he's not trying to get you in bed, he just looks in your eyes. He just looks in your eyes and says, you're beautiful, you're beautiful. I know there were times in my most significant relationship, we would just be sitting each, we'd be sitting across from each other at the coffee table or the breakfast table, I should say. And we had our laptops and we'd always start our day, you know, after we had a chat or whatnot, we'd sit across from each other and work. And sometimes I would just stop and look at her. I'd just stop and look at her. And I would just simply say, God, you're so beautiful. I mean, that's beyond love. That's really saying I like you. I mean, I'm looking in your eyes, you mean something to me, you matter to me. And when guys do that for no reason, this wasn't me trying to get her into bed. When guys say things like that, not as an initiation for sex, just to express their appreciation and gratitude for you, that's a great sign, he likes you. And if you're not familiar with the four As, the four As, that's attention, affection, appreciation and acceptance. And when someone uses appreciation by saying, wow, I really appreciate being with you. Wow, I think you're so beautiful. Wow, and just looking in your eyes, that's being attentive, that's being present. That's saying, you matter to me, I like you. And number five, number five. After sleeping together, he wants to spend more time with you. Let me repeat that. After sleeping together, he's actually initiating more time to be with you. That's a great sign, he likes you. And not just to get you in bed, to go do things, to do activities together, to do hobbies together, to have mutual interests together, to introduce you to family and friends. That's a great sign when someone wants to spend more time with you after you guys have fucked your brains out. That's a great sign that he really likes you. And so we're leaning in today to like, because actually I think what's missing today in a lot of relationships is that genuine feeling of like how I felt about my son. I miss him not just because I love him. I miss him because I like this person so much and I like my oldest son as well. And that's why I can't get enough of wanting to spend time with either one of them. It's not because of love, it's because I genuinely like them. And by the way, I know a lot of parents who might love their children, but they don't like their children. And when you can like someone in a space of unconditional love, that's a great sign that that relationship has some juice to it. All right, those are just my quick thoughts on that. I hope you found value in this so far. It's time for our live stream Q&A. So if you're on live right now, there's a chat box right on the corner here. Those listening to the recording, you won't be able to see the chats, but we're gonna, this is a place to ask questions of me, so write the word question, then post the question there after, so it's easier for me to find. In addition, you can purchase a Super Sticker or a Super Chat. All the funds from a Super Sticker Super Chat goes to a scholarship fund that created in the name of Connor Asley. There's him right there. Also, he's in the back of my book. Where's that picture of him? Anyways, I'll find that later. Super Sticker Super Chats go to a scholarship fund to defray the cost of personal development for those that are seeking personal development and also to gift to the personal development charities that I appreciate most. So again, purchase a Super Sticker Super Chat as your way to saying, hey, thank you, Jonathan, or to ask a question. All right, first question I see on my screen, question Jonathan, you are so damn cute. Thank you so much. I appreciate that kitty cat. Let's see. Let's go swim in. Okay, if you have a question, post the word question, write the question thereafter so it's easy for me to find. All right, we got a couple in right now from Jesse. Question, I was asking a guy who I met online first conversation about his dating history and he started to feel uncomfortable and said he preferred our deep conversation. Didn't ask me questions, thoughts. Okay, a lot of people feel uncomfortable about speaking about their past relationships. A lot of people feel uncomfortable. Now, chances are there's a variety of different reasons why they feel uncomfortable. Maybe they have something to hide. Maybe it was an unhealthy relationship and they don't wanna share about it. Maybe they don't want you to glean that they might have some problems in their life and they're trying to show up as the ambassador of their best selves. That's something Chris Rock says in his comedy show, the ambassador of their best selves. I think people who avoid talking about their past relationships, there's two things. I think people who avoid talking about their past relationships or they talk negatively about their past relationships in my book is a no-no. Do not date these people and let me explain why. Anyone who talks negative about their past relationship, what are they gonna do when they end the relationship with you? They're gonna talk negatively about you. Human beings who do not take ownership in their part to an ending of a relationship oftentimes aren't emotionally mature enough to be in a relationship. In addition, if someone is avoiding talking about their past relationships, they oftentimes don't have that level of trust within themselves to actually be in a healthy happy relationship with someone else. When you have operated from a place of self-love, in my book, what the heck is self-love anyway, you can talk about your past freely, openly. Now, if there's something that's confidential about your past, it doesn't mean you have to reveal everything about your past relationships. However, and it's something that might have to be divulged during time, I think it's important to get a sense of someone's past relationship because let's go back to my son Colin here. My oldest, he's only had one relationship in his life. When you get to mid-life, you might have had one or two marriages. You might have had a couple of boyfriend and girlfriends before you got married. You might have had a couple of relationships after you got married. And a lot of that gives you clues as to their stability. Their stability. I can tell you folks, as a man, it's one of the first questions I ask of women and depending on how they answer, it can be a yes or it can be a no. And I will tell you, most women operate from the premise of throwing their past relationship under the bus. And that is a clear sign to me that this person hasn't really matured within themselves to actually look at their own part in the ending of their relationship. And if you're not familiar with my relationship iceberg, I talk about this frequently, the relationship iceberg, the tip of the iceberg is chemistry. That's attraction below the waterline, the bigger part of the iceberg, shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. And that's where compatibility lies. Here's the problem folks, men and women alike are stunted emotionally. They're stunted emotionally. They have weak emotional skills at best. And in fact, most men and women and ladies, you're guilty of this too. Have poor communication skills. Just because you can vomit your feelings doesn't mean you're good at communication. This is why I continually recommend the book, Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. This was designed to help humans be better communicators in their romantic relationships. So coming back to your question, those are my rough thoughts about someone who either avoids talking about their past. And certainly I wanted to add to that, if they talk negative about their past, that's a really clear sign that they have not healed from their past or it's not a clear sign. It can be a clear sign that they haven't healed from their past and I would be very cautious dating someone who throws their ex under the bus. And I want to think, and I want you ladies to all think about how many times you've done it too. Take ownership in that and maybe you might revisit some of your past relationships going, you know what? I had a part in this too. And ownership is a sign of emotional maturity. I'm gonna repeat that. Taking ownership in your part is a huge sign of emotional maturity. All right, great question there, Jesse. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Our next question from Ocean. Ocean, question. Can like for a partner transfer over to like for partners children or other family members? In other words, do people become infatuated with partners family? What can go wrong? That's an interesting question. I haven't heard that one before. So let me think about that for a second. By the way, I just got this in the mail, be happy. This is from one of you out there in the YouTube universe. I got two letters in the mail today and this gift in the mail today. Thank you all so much for your kindness, your generosity. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate it. So, and by the way, you can go to my website, my business addresses on my website. That's how they were able to find it. So here's the thing, oftentimes I have met women who I've met their children and I've disliked their children. I thought they were either spoiled. I thought they were lacked ambition. I criticized their judgments. I certainly had the experience of the opposite happen and there's been situations where I met someone that I've met their children or family members and I really liked them. That's all a good thing. When you can like people for who they are, that's actually a great sign. And by the way, think of how many relationships are destroyed because you can't stand a family member or that family member can't stand you for some reason. We are riddled with dysfunctionality out in the realm of human interpersonal relationships. It's sometimes it's a wonder actually any people do actually fall in love because we are riddled with such judgment and myopic and egoic behavior within human beings. This is why I continually recommend people doing the work. In fact, if you're not familiar with the book, the Hoffman process, the Hoffman process, this is a great place to heal childhood wounds and traumas that cause negative patterns and limiting beliefs in one's life. And I gotta tell you, I just got a card in the mail from one of you who went to the Hoffman process, the actual physical Hoffman process based on my recommendation. And she went on to thank me with so much gratitude about this change in her life. Folks, the reason why my YouTube channel is different from all the other dating and relating rhetoric out there is because I'm here to discuss human behavior from the understanding that our childhood wounds and traumas cause most of our negative patterns and limiting beliefs in our lives that causes erratic behavior in the dating, mating and relating realm. And this is why I'm such a big proponent of individuals doing the work like what I recommend in my book. And at the back of my book, I outline all the great places that I went to so I could be in a place where I'd like to think, I can't say this with certainty, but I'd like to think I'm more emotionally grown up than the vast majority of people out there, at least the men out there in the dating, mating and relating realm. So this is my invitation for you and I would recommend doing all this work, but coming back to your original question, now I can't even remember the question, because one of the things I do is ramble is can it be wrong or can it go wrong when you like someone's family members? Here's the only thing is when you dislike someone, lots of things can go wrong. When you like them, it's a frustration when the relationship ends. That's the only thing that pops into my mind right now. Thank you so much for that question, I really appreciate it. All right. Oh, I wanna thank 101138 for the Super Sticker, $10 Super Sticker, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That's gonna show the screen to everybody. Thank you so much. By the way, you can purchase the Super Sticker Super Chat, there's a dollar sign right at the chat box, that's where you can order it. All right, let's keep swimming. Bear with me, everyone. Oh, we got lots of questions, woof. Give me a second to scroll through these. All right. Magna says, question, isn't this the best chat ever? Thank you so much, I appreciate it. Heather writes, question. My boyfriend says I love you too, instead of I love you when he says it, wait. My boyfriend says I love you too, instead of I love you when he says it first. Does it mean the same thing as I love you? If so, why does he have to add the two? Oh, now if I'm understanding this correctly, you're saying I love you and then he repeats it, I love you too. Listen, folks, we've been literally indoctrinated with this, think about your children or think about when you were a child, when your mom and dad or you say this to your children, I love you and they go, I love you too, mom, I love you too, dad. It's very natural to follow up with that. Most likely though, when some, but your children rarely out of the blue say I love you. I gotta tell you, when I get a text from Colin that says I love you, breaks, I mean, that's just my heart melts. And so, and my point is, children oftentimes don't initiate even 10 full or even remotely close to the 10 times we initiate with our children. Here's the thing. I think in romantic relationship, if you're not building, if you're not co-creating a relationship together, you're just merely companionship, connection and sex, then oftentimes people feel nervous saying the words I love you because to a man, I love you can mean a commitment to the future that they may not necessarily be ready for yet. So this is one of many possible reasons a man might not initiate the words I love you because that implies that I might, to women's ears, I love you means, oh, you're gonna marry me and you were gonna spend the rest of our lives together. This is why I sometimes prefer the word like better than love. So I'm here to say that when he says I love you too, sometimes it's just conditioning. We've been so indoctrinated this as children and it could also be a resistance to telling you because he doesn't wanna create the impression that he's gonna go the distance with you. That's a possibility. I would have conversation with him about that. I would also invite you to start exploring, co-creating a relationship together by reading the book, eight dates by doctors. Folks, I gotta stop here for a second. I'm gonna hold this book up. Most of you are effing clueless when it comes to the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship. I'm gonna repeat that. Most of you women, most of my audience's women are clueless. If you haven't read this book to understand the mechanics to a relationship, you're basically winging it, winging it, winging it and you're basically expecting men to be the leaders of the relationship and let me tell you something. You're giving the job to the wrong person. Men are terrible leaders at the relationship because they're even more clueless. Now part of the difference is with midlife versus men in their 20s and 30s. When a man is in their 20s and 30s and they've decided they want a wife, they're actively focused on finding the mother of their children. After age 45, when guys stop having children unless by accident, they don't know what they want. And folks, you don't know what you want either. In fact, I just got a letter in the mail saying, Jonathan, let me illustrate this point. I was working with a woman a couple of years ago who called me up, or wanted a coaching session. She's telling me about the relationship and she says, Jonathan, I want more commitment from my guy. I'm like, great, what does that look like for you? But Jonathan, I just want more commitment from the guy. I'm like, great, what does that look like for you? But Jonathan, I just want more commitment from the guy. I'm like, great, what does that look like for you? But Jonathan, and she thought screaming was describing. The screaming, her screaming was coming out of anger that she thinks I didn't understand her. What she didn't understand is I was asking her to describe what it looks like. And this is why I continually share what it looks like for me to give you some context to creating your own. For me, it's like my committed relationship looks like ideally would look like this. We spend three or four days a night a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork building schools, both in our personal and our professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy that leads to either moving in together or getting married. That's what it looks like. But Jonathan, I just want more commitment. Well, then you better fucking figure out what it looks like for you, ladies, because if you, and what I said to her was, if you can't describe it to me, how can he know what it is for you? Ladies, I say this with love, but some of you are batshit crazy, okay? And you wonder why it's so problematic. Now, part of the reason why you're batshit crazy is because you're naive. And I'm grateful you're listening to me. And if I turned you off, then you're not ready for this message. And if I turned you on, and I don't mean by my looks, by my words, what I mean, then I invite you to do the work. That's interesting. I had a contemporary critique one of my videos and in that, I talk about a lot of books and the comment section on his channel was, all this guy is doing is telling us to read books. Who has time to read books? I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. You want a healthy, happy relationship and you're not willing to invest maybe one year of your life reading one, reading 15 minutes a day. In 15 minutes a day, you could literally finish all of the books I recommend in 15 minutes a day or 20 minutes a day. You're not willing to invest 15 or 20 minutes a day, but you'll brush your teeth every day. You'll get manicures. You'll buy expensive outfits. You'll get Botox, you'll get plastic surgery. You'll do all this shit to make yourself look good. I'm being judgmental here a little bit, but you're not willing to do inner work so you can actually be a good partner. Folks, if you're not willing to do the work unlike this woman who went to the Hoffman process I shared with about before, those are the people that are gonna end up in the juicy, delicious relationships and everyone else is gonna have most likely mediocre relationships or worse dysfunctional relationships. Let me tell you something. Esther Perrell said, the quality of our life is predicated on the quality of our relationships. And let me tell you something. Life is all about relationships. First, the relationship with yourself and the relationship with others. And I gotta tell you, most human beings are stunted emotionally. Most human beings are stunted emotionally. When you become emotionally mature, you get tired of people really quickly. It kind of sucks. You have a lot less friends and at the same time, you have much richer friendships when you're with people who can actually be intimate with one another. And intimacy stands for into me you see, into me you see, into me you see. And that's my invitation for everyone. So I went off on a tangent here. I forgot the original question. My boyfriend doesn't say I love you so that's my response to that one. All right, thank you so much for that question, Heather, I appreciate it. Well, quickly, I've got an ant on my computer. I made the mistake of leaving something out and I got now ants. All right, let's look at our next question. By the way, if this is resonating with you, everybody, please give me that thumbs up, like and share this with friends right now. Please tell others about my channel if this is resonating with you. Okay, Lisette says, question. Can a relationship be sustained long-term if you feel like a person? If you feel you like a person and enjoy their company, but don't feel a strong physical and sexual chemistry? This is a great question. And this is the rub. I gotta tell you, here's the thing, you could have a great relationship with someone you don't have chemistry with. Now, what I mean by great relationship, I love, there's a picture of my mom and dad. So they were married 66 years before my mother passed away a few years ago. Now, I doubt they were having sex the last 10 or 15 years of their marriage. I don't wanna know if they did. But I'm here to say is, people can have a companionship-based relationship. That is certainly possible. In fact, how many people are married these days I know personally couples have been married for 25 years. They haven't had sex 15 of the last 25 years. Now, I do believe though, fucking here's my belief on this one. Life is too fucking short to not have the whole boat. If it's not a fuck yes, then I don't wanna go for it. And that includes having sexual chemistry and physical chemistry and emotional chemistry and intellectual chemistry and creative chemistry. By the way, these are all things I talk about in my private coaching, check out the link below. This is where I talk about the deeper levels of chemistry in relationship. And oftentimes women, I've witnessed women who have gone out with men that they weren't attracted to but fell in love with them over time. So women are a little bit different than men. We men need physical attraction, that chemistry to get the equipment up, to get the equipment up. Otherwise the equipment, it looks like this. But that's kind of what men tend to need. Women tend to fall more in love between the ears. So here's the thing, if you're not feeling it, listen. If you feel repulsed to kiss them or feel repulsed to have sex with them, then I wouldn't go for it. If you, and by the way, a lot of people at midlife, God there's shitty lovers. Men and women alike are shitty lovers. I gotta tell you I've dated, listen, not that I'm not proud of the fact that I've probably have been intimate with a lot of different women. A lot of women are shitty at sex just as bad as men are. Now, you can learn how to become a better lover by going to a tantric class or go to a commasutra workshop. Those are certainly places where you can learn or even hire a sex consultant. But I gotta tell you, there's a lot of bad lovers out there. Men, just as many as women. So anyways, I don't know, I'm just going off in a tangent. I guess, Mike, here's the thing, you've gotta do what's right for you. You've gotta do what's right for you. That's my invitation for you. Thank you so much for that question, Lizette, I really appreciate it. I wanna thank Sherry really quickly for this. Hold on a second, everyone. Sherry just gave a $50 super sticker. Thank you so much to the Colin Connor Asley Scholarship Fund. I'm really grateful for that. Thank you so much. And she says, using your son's honor, thank you. We're gonna defray the cost of personal development for folks. Jennifer says, I wanna fuck yes, so do I. Look it, I'm not fucking around anymore. I wanna fuck yes. I want everyone to have a fuck yes. And the way to get to a fuck yes is feel that for yourself first. If you feel a fuck yes for yourself, meaning you love yourself, like you fucking love yourself. You fucking love yourself. When you can fucking love yourself, you become a magnetic attractor for what you want. And I gotta tell you something, I may not have a life partner right now, but I am rich in so many different areas of my life that I know she's coming around the corner very soon. I mean, she might knock on the door any moment now. Ha ha ha ha. All right, let's jump in and answer a few more questions before we wrap up. Don says, Jennifer, apps a fucking Lutley girl. Way to go, Jennifer. All right. PR says, hi, Jonathan, I wanna discuss this sensitive matter with you. I love your videos, but I'm in a dilemma. Please help. How can I reach out to you? Schedule a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. You can hire me at any time by filling out that questionnaire and then we can schedule a coaching session. All right. It's in the description, the discovery call. All right, let's see what we got here. Bump, bump, bump. Let's go swim in, let's go swim in, let's go swim. Oh, Jenny, sweetheart, big hugs to you. Thank you for the super sticker. You're the best, big, gigantic hugs to you. Thank you so much. Brandy says, in relationship, I don't know how you reconcile unconditional love and setting boundaries, which is by definition a condition, any assistance on this dichotomy. Okay, unconditional love is not unconditional relationships, okay? Listen, with children, we can understand unconditional love, even with dogs. Look at, think about a dog who shits all over your house, but you still love them, right? Okay, they broke a boundary. You're supposed to shit outside. Well, you don't have the door open, I'm kidding. But the thing is with pets and children, we experience unconditional love. In a relationship, a relationship is riddled with conditions. So, for example, I said I want a relationship where we spend three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends. If I met a woman who says I can give you one day a week every three months, then we're not on the same page in relationship. My boundary, my standard is that, and what my boundary is saying, this is what I'm going to keep to. So boundaries are very important in relationship. Loving someone, now, loving someone unconditionally, by the way, I don't even know if even the happiest couple on the planet love their partners unconditionally. I think it's a rare percentage of the population that actually has unconditional love, mostly because it's the small percentage of the population is emotionally mature enough to actually love unconditionally outside of their children. And quite frankly, think about your children. How many times when they were growing up, have you yelled at your child? Have you scolded your child? Maybe even hit your child. That's not what unconditional love has done. How many times have you talked down to a child? So the reality is, is I think very few human beings are even capable of unconditional love. I do believe relationships come with conditions and we do our best to love at the capacity we can love. My mom and dad, great people, my dad beat the shit out of me growing up. It was very common for that generation to do that. I mean, I vividly remember several times my father beat the shit out of me. My generate, if you're a boomer, there's a good chance you got hit by your poor punishment was very common. Yet my parents, I know loved me, they just did the best they could. I'm here to say as most people are doing the best they can. They're just not very educated and this shit isn't taught to us in school and our parents didn't teach us this stuff. This is why it takes doing the work. This is why I continually recommend the Hoffman process. But ultimately, relationship is all about standards and boundaries and love is simply love. Thank you so much for that question, Randy. I really appreciate it. Okay, I only have a few minutes left of me before my back goes out again. So let's see, Missy writes, question. How do you explain an abusive relationship in a non-negative way? All I can say is it was abusive, but I'm not a victim and I have healed and forgiven this person to do I need to explain more? Okay. So that's a really good question. Now, a lot of times we, you know, by the way, Missy, I just would have an interest, just a curiosity, I throw this out there. If I called your ex-husband and asked him what he thought of you, what would he say? I'm just curious, you know, like, what if we put ourselves in the other person's shoes? What would they say about you? And if they rattled off all their negativity, I'm just saying, and if there's any validity to it, take ownership of it. I'm just saying that as an example. Now, with that said, here's what I could say in my past relationship. I don't wanna get into the particulars of my marriage. I'd just say that, you know, in my marriage, we had major differences with one another. Some of them were my responsibility, some were her responsibility. And when, because of it, we just weren't able to go the distance. I'm not prepared to share the particular details until I'm more, you know, I feel greater trust with you. I'm certainly open to sharing those details. But at this moment, let me just say this. I take ownership in my part of the ending relationship, and whether she takes ownership or not, I can't lean into it. All I can say is we both weren't right for each other, and that's why the relationship ended. It's a very grown-up way of saying it without any specifics. And the point is, when you say it in a grown-up way, you don't have to give the specifics. The problem is most humans do it in a negative way. And I'm gonna give you an example. I once dated a woman, and I've shared this before. We were on our first, I think it was our second date, I said, well, what happened in your marriage? And she goes, oh, I dated a narcissist. I go, okay, I go, when was your last relationship? And she goes, it ended six months ago. I go, what happened with him? Oh, he was a narcissist. Really? Okay, what about the guy before him? He was a narcissist. Well, what about the guy before him? He was a narcissist. So I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm not a narcissist. I'll be her hero. We dated for six weeks, and this woman bored the heck out of me. She was really, she was just boring to me. I mean, that's all I can say. She was boring to me, okay? Mostly because she was petrified and scared to communicate. And she just bored me for me. So I ended the relationship. You know what happened on Facebook the next day? I dated another narcissist. Fucking, if the clue wasn't there for me ahead of time, she was telegraphing this. Every person she dated was a narcissist. She would think I'd know better and go, oh, I should be picking up on this. But I looked at it from, I'm not one. Here's the thing. A lot of people telegraph their problems in their past relationships and it gives you clues on how to navigate being in relationship with them. And I should have been prepared for this one, and I didn't, lesson learned. So when a person doesn't take ownership in their part of the ending of the relationship, that's a good sign. Be careful. That's my invitation for you. Missy, thank you so much for that question. I really appreciate it. All right, let's go swim in. Kelly says, inner healing and gratitude, the editations have helped me on a lot of my journey. Way to go, I'm with you right there. Jennifer says, our parents did the best job they could with the best job they could with use, we all should forgive them. Yes, in fact, most people are doing the best they can. In fact, one of the things my friend, here, do I have her book? If you're not familiar with the book, the Queens Code, the Queens Code, I haven't talked about this book in a while. My friend, Alison Armstrong, one of the things she says that I love is when you're feeling frustration with a guy, ask yourself, what was his good reason for doing what he did? I'm gonna repeat that. What was his good reason for doing what he did? It's almost like saying, what would love do or how would love respond? So when you can ask yourself, what was his good reason, in other words, put yourself in his shoes, you might find out that it was more genuine than being disingenuous. I'm gonna repeat that. It's more, meaning genuine is authentic to himself. It doesn't necessarily mean accepting bad behavior, but ask yourself, sometimes human beings do mean things not intentionally and maybe there's a reason for it and maybe most likely, let me tell you something folks, the vast majority of men and women were incredibly traumatized as children. I'm gonna repeat that, the vast, on some level and sometimes the most benign thing could be traumatizing. Let me give an example. There's my mom again. My mom, my family and I went skiing one year. I think I was three or four years old. I was three and a half, four years old and I was in this little bunny area and my mom was with me and she walked away and she walked away. Now, what I learned later was only 20 feet from me, but to my child, as a child, I could only see 10 feet around me basically and I thought my mom abandoned me and I kept screaming, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. By the way, she didn't hear me. She was right there, she could see me. She was talking to someone, but she couldn't hear me because I was, mom, where are you, mom, where are you, and I remember this vividly. I thought I was abandoned and in that moment, that actually set up my anxious attachment style of feeling needy in relationship because I felt abandoned in that moment. A small event, she did nothing wrong that traumatized me for life. So I'm here to say our parents did the best they could and oftentimes even benign things we children perceive differently because as a child, I didn't know any better. As a child, I didn't understand. I understand now, but back then I didn't understand because a child's mind can't process at an adult level and that's the challenge that we're all faced today is we're all riddled with shit in our lives and we just don't know about it. Be happy. Thank you to that YouTuber that sent this to me. All right, time for one more question because I'm heading off to the jacuzzi in a little bit. Actually, let me just text someone. I'm going down to the jacuzzi to hang out with people in my complex. Okay, so our last question of the day. All right, well it looks like we don't, let's see, let's go swim in, let's go swim in. Let's go swim in. Jenny says, here we go again. Cheeks hurting and I'm fucking loving myself. Way to go Jenny. Thank you so much. Are you an RN? I could use a doctor right now. All right, you know what folks? I think this would be a good place to wrap up. I'm gonna head out for jacuzzi and grab a bite to eat beforehand. All right, Dawn says therapy is definitely helping me, great to hear. Kit Kat says, is there a space for me in the jacuzzi? Absolutely, join us. It's a gorgeous sunny evening out here in Southern California. Bear with me one second. This was the sunset the other night from my place. There's the sunset from my place. I should post that picture, gorgeous evening. And it's gonna look like it's gonna be like that tonight. All right folks, you know what? This will be a great place to wrap up today. If you found value when I shared, please tell your friends, hit that like button, send this video to friends. If you need some support, check out the links to a free discovery called, check out my group called Midlife Love Mastery. Check out my book, What the Heck Is Self-Love Anyway. Purchase a super stick or super chat to donate to the Conor Asley Scholarship Fund. And we're gonna wrap up this video as we always do. First off, giving myself a big gigantic shot than Bear or Hug 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 tech, turn to someone. A pet, a teddy bear or 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 a lot more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye now. And I wanna thank Sherry and Lisette and Jenny and Dawn and Jennifer and Kit Kat and Sherry and Kelly. Thank you all, Dawn, thank you all so much. Have a fab evening.