 If you're like me, you'd like to have a significant relationship where you feel valued, appreciated, respected, and quite frankly even indispensable to the person you're with. So if you can relate to that, I want you to stay tuned to see how this can actually happen in today's dating dynamic. I just said dating dynamic is because the reality is we no longer live in small little tribes, little villages, little towns where we can connect with people whom we know on a regular basis. Maybe they grew up with you, maybe they know your family, maybe they know your friends, and there was a sense of familiarity that certainly was this is what it was like back 50, 60 hundreds of years ago. Now today, due to our devices, we have access to a variety of different people and quite frankly, they are strangers in our life. Why is this important to recognize? A stranger is a person you barely know. You know, not barely know, you basically don't know who they are. You have no connection to their family. You have no connection to their friends. You have no connection to what their life was like before you met them. This is why dating is a relatively new phenomena. Believe it or not, this is relatively new. Maybe 50, 60 years people have been dating. Prior to that, they had short-lived courtships or quite frankly, they met each other. And similar to my sweetheart, Marie's parents, they met in 12 days later. They were married. Oh, that doesn't exist anymore. By the way, partially because if you wanted to have sex, you had to get married back in the day. Now today, sex is relatively easy to obtain without any real commitment. All right, I'm diverting here for a second. Coming back to the dating process and how to get to that point of being indispensable to be appreciated to be respected. Okay, our current dating dynamic here is we can connect with a variety of people, as I said earlier, whether they live around the corner, they live thousands of miles away. And in those dynamics these days, people are spending very little face-to-face time to connect with one another. They're actually spending more face time, and I'm using my phone as an example. Although I'm an Android, I know half of the population is iPhones or more. Okay, I'm Android. But they can use face time to connect. But for the most part, these days, people are connecting with their phones, and they're spending more time text messaging each other than actually connecting with one another. And I want you to think about this. There's this false sense, this artificial intimacy that is built through our devices. I want you to think about that word I just said, artificial intimacy. So you can have this belief that you've become indispensable, appreciated, and respected by someone. And yet if we recognize today it's built on very weak legs. And I want to dive into the legs needed, the deep roots of trust needed for a relationship to sustain that long-term partnership that I talked about. Now today, dating might mean you meet someone, and if you're hoped a God, you actually have a bit of attraction for that person, and you hope that they, if you have attraction for them, you hope that you both want to see each other a second time. And yet people are vying, there's so many people vying for their attention. In other words, through our devices, you're connecting with multiple people. So you might meet someone that you like, but they're talking to three other people, or someone likes you, but you're talking to a few people, and this is where it gets chaotic in reaching this point of being indispensable, appreciated, and respected by someone. And so what does it require? What do we need to have happen? Well, what I think needs to change is spending more significant time together face to face. If you've watched my channel before, I've mentioned how Jay Shetty says it takes about 40 hours of face to face time in a relatively short period of time to begin to get to know someone. What is the dating process to getting know them? Well, there's a big difference getting to know someone through your devices versus physically interacting with them and watching them interact with other people. So for those 40 hours, you basically start to get to know someone just a little bit. And then it takes, I always say it takes about 100 hours of face to face time just to build the first layer of trust. Now, what is trust? Trust isn't about fidelity. Trust is, does this person have my best interest at heart? I mean, that's what really trust is all about. Can you share something knowing that they'll keep it confidential? Can you ask for help knowing that they'll want to invest in you instead of only focusing on themselves? And you see, coming back to our early dating process, these days, most folks are more focused on what they can get versus what they can give. That's sad. And in particular, what do men want to get? They want to get sex. It's built into us biologically speaking. I know a lot of dating coaches are talking about how men are hardwired to seek sex. Yeah, that's true. But then also men have the capacity for self-restraint so they don't have to go spread their seed to multiple people all over the place. All right. With that said, it takes about 100 hours of face to face time just to build that first layer of trust. And there's multiple layers of trust. And the other thing Jay Shetty says, it takes about 200 hours of face to face time to build a good friendship with someone. Now think about this. Think about your friends in your life. Are they indispensable? Do they appreciate you? Do they respect you? See, a big component of the dating process is to build this fundamental piece of friendship. Friendship is like, I can share things with you. I can be myself with you. I can share personal things about you. Know that I'm in a safe space. You see, through artificial intimacy, which many people are experiencing these days, they feel as though that they can trust this person. But just keep recognizing it isn't real until it's real. Watch all these reality shows where people have spent years communicating via their phones only to find out it's a disaster when they meet in person. So you've been dating someone maybe for a couple months. Maybe one month, two months, three months. What's going to shift this dynamic to be indispensable, appreciate and respect by someone? Ultimately, it's going to require doing this and that is integrating each other into integrating each other into each other's lives. Think about that. Integrating each other into each other's lives. See, without that, you can be very dispensable if you're not integrated in each other's lives. This is why if you follow my channel, I've talked about the relationship iceberg and it looks like this. The tip of the iceberg is attraction and this is where a lot of dating rhetoric is focused on attraction, which is basically chemistry. See, below the iceberg, the tip is attraction, chemistry. Below the waterline is shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. So I want to lean into that blendable lifestyles because to be indispensable, once you integrate to each other's lives and there's a real solid deep root that's been established, one of the things I talk about in my private coaching are the deep roots of trust. By the way, here's a link to schedule a discovery call with me to see if working with the coach is right for you. These important roots must be established to become indispensable in this person's life. Now one of the first things, yes, intimacy is part of that, both physical and emotional intimacy. And I want to remind you all, how do you become indispensable is when you've integrated into each other's lives through social activities, through hobbies, through mutual interest, spending time with family and friends when you begin to do these activities together with the people in your life, you only want to do it with this person. Once you've built an attachment to this person and you mutually attached to one another. See, rather than be cavalier, rather than just expect men to be the leaders of the process and all you have to do is sit in your feminine energy, I want to invite you to think about from a long-term perspective, what's it going to take to make this relationship successful? Sure, you can be asked out on a first date and yes, if a man asks you on a first date, he's got to pay, I get all this stuff. But what are you going to do for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth? How are you going to shift this narrative if you like this person? Well, it's going to require having an understanding of the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship which includes these blending of lives with one another. Now, I know this is kind of scary because as I said earlier, we're meeting total strangers. Do you want to invite this person in your life? That can be a scary thing if they're a dirty John, a Tinder swindler, a scam artist. Well, scam artists only work through the Internet. So you're not going to have to typically, it's rare that you get a con man these days face to face, it's all done through the Internet. So what's going to have to change? Well, I'm inviting you all to start doing a bit of due diligence. Do a background check on someone before you give your heart away. Make sure you've investigated their social media footprint. Meet some of the people in their lives. But Jonathan, he says, you know, Jonathan, but he won't invite me to his home. Well, that could be a red flag that he's married. He won't introduce me to his friends. Maybe he's got contentious relationships in his life. You see, keep in mind when you're meeting strangers, all you're doing is hearing their narrative on who they are. How do you find out who this person is? Meet their friends, meet their family, go to their place of employment. And it should be reciprocal in this way. Because if you look at the healthy, happy relationships out there, most couples have integrated into each other's lives, and once you've integrated into each other's lives, it becomes much harder to end something because you feel a sense of connection with this person. Now, listen. I said earlier, attraction is the top of the water line. But compatibility comes with shared values, blendable lifestyles, and emotional maturity. You see, also in this equation is you have to show up as a grown-up in relationship. If you act in title, if you act with contempt, if you're not giving the relationship, it's necessary time together. And by the way, this is true for men and women alike. I'm not singling you ladies out here. If you're not showing up as an emotional grown-up where your actions match your words, you have a level of victor consciousness. Instead of this victim consciousness that's suffocating our world here today, or at least here in the United States, you know how to resolve conflicts from a non-confrontational way. See, many people operate from emotional immaturity. They have weak relationship skills, particularly in the capacity of resolving differences between one another. It requires what's called nonviolent communication. This is a book written by Marshall Rosenberg. By the way, there's a link below to all the books I recommend. To show up as an emotional grown-up, and he has to show up as an emotional grown-up as well. And it's important to have empathy. And empathy isn't just, I can feel your feelings. Empathy is, I care about your feelings. And more importantly, it's also important to care about your own feelings. This is why I wrote my book, What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? A Journey of Personal Development, Self-Open Spiritual Work. Again, there's a link below to get my book. What I recommend this is to show up as an emotional grown-up. It requires to be an individual grown-up for yourself and then evaluate, is this person also in the same capacity as myself or at least close to it? And lastly, one of the most important fundamental pieces for relationship success, good relationship skills, is to be transparent. And transparency simply means if something is material to the relationship then you speak up about it. See, sadly, many of you ladies have duct tape over your mouth and you're fearful to speak up and I'm here to encourage. If you want to become indispensable, appreciated by a man, then it's time to have these deeper conversations. I call it radical honesty, laying your cards on the table and the rules of engagement. The rules of engagement simply is have this understanding of what it is you want in relationship to establish your standards and then follow these standards as you're beginning to get to know one another. I know many of you recognize that the time has passed since I said earlier and if you wanted to have sex, you had to get married. These days sex is relatively easy to obtain and yet, quite frankly, this is something we should covet. In other words, not cavalierly have sex with people as a way to entice them to become indispensable, appreciate and respected. What I'm here to encourage everyone to do is to recognize to become indispensable, appreciate and respected by someone, it's going to require integrating into each other's lives. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Please post a comment below if this did. If you have something to share, it did resonate with you. For those who are in my group called Midlife Love Mastery, I invite you to tell your friends on my website, jonathanasley.com. Have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group. I'm going to sign off today's videos I always do first off, giving myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrow 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 pet, a teddy bear pillow and give Iter 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.