 I suspect we could all agree on the following, what I'm about to share, and that is the dating marketplace today is an absolute mess. I mean, it really is a mess compared to what many people fantasize about and what many people hope for. And this is true for men and women alike. And I think one of the things we have to examine of why it's such a train wreck out there, and I'm calling it for what it is, because I think to fantasize about something so overly romantic like the movies or Disney or whatnot is absolute delusion in my mind. And I think the vast majority of human beings have a weak understanding of the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship, what it takes to create a healthy happy relationship and more importantly, being capable of being in a healthy happy relationship. So why is it a mess right now? It's partially a mess because we have a significant percentage of the population that has weak emotional or weak relationship skills to begin with, okay? So right off the bat, we have a significant population with weak relationship skills, weak communication skills, weak listening skills, weak conflict resolution skills. And more importantly, we have a significant percentage of the population that operates from victim consciousness and not victor consciousness, which is one of the key elements to emotional maturity. Add to that that we have, again, this pool of people that are absolutely dysfunctional, you have a greater chance of ending up with a dysfunctional person than that person that has the emotional maturity or relationship skills to lean into a relationship. And then add to that the fantasy that chemistry equals relationship success. I'm gonna repeat that, that chemistry equals relationship success. And many of people are in this fantasy because there's a deception associated with chemistry because most humans don't consider the more important factors to a relationship and that shared values, blendable lifestyles. And as I've been talking about emotional maturity. So let's talk about this emotional maturity for a second because one thing I've observed for those of us in midlife and if you're in midlife, that's after baby making years or before retirement. I always say my audience tends to be 42 to 69. Those are the women that tend to hire me most. By the way, there's a link below to schedule a discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you can schedule a free discovery call. One of the things I've observed in midlife is that roughly 75% of the single population the population that is actively in the dating marketplace over 45 years old are divorced human beings. And with a significant percentage of divorced human beings you have a lot of dysfunctionality depending on where they are in the spectrum of their divorce. And what I mean is are they in the beginning stages of the divorce? Are they in the final stages? Are they divorced? And then do they have a contentious relationship with an ex or do they have a contentious relation throughout? Or maybe they're just going through garden variety midlife crisis. Maybe they have issues with their children. Maybe they have professional issues going on in their life. Maybe they have health issues going on in this life. This is true of men and women alike. So what I've observed in the divorce category is this rise in what I call dating as a replacement for therapy. I'm gonna repeat that dating as a replacement for therapy. And what I mean to say is there is a significant percentage of people that are using the online dating platforms to connect with people to as a form of therapy. And what I mean is as a temporary, actually not even therapy as for some people it's self-medication. So instead of doing drugs and alcohol they're using the online method to connect to soothe whatever pain is going on inside of that. And I know this because I was that guy that literally was addicted to the online dating process to soothe the pain I was going through after a divorce and then after losing my significant, my quarter million dollar a year job and I was addicted to the online dating process for over a decade. So I shared with you as a form of therapy why that's so critically important to understand is a lot of men in particular, this is true of women as well, but men in particular finally in midlife feel like we've stuffed our emotions for so long and if we've got a viable prospect at the other end of the phone we might vomit all of our insecurities, our fears, our weaknesses just so we can feel validated by another human being. And to many of you women you think this is music to your ears. You're like, oh my God, he's being vulnerable. He's being insecure. He's so emotionally mature. And yet all he's doing is vomiting his feelings because he's probably never gone to therapy and actually have done some genuine introspective work. So one of the reasons why I wrote my book What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? A Journey of Personal Development Self Up in Spiritual Work. There's a link below to get a copy of my book. Why I pitch my book so often is a journey to begin shifting out of this pain and suffering many people are feeling as a catalyst to begin a process of personal development work. So you can get out of the need of using online dating or talking to people incessantly as a form of therapy. And I want you to think about this. Even people who do therapy oftentimes just go so they can get someone to listen to their problems and feelings and oftentimes validate them but not with any real genuine forward progress help. This is why when I think of my coaching I'm gonna be candid with you. I look at all of you human beings out there as a bunch of children, as a bunch of children. And the way I scream and yell in my videos is because I look at you. I look at most everybody in the dating realm as children and I'm your parent scolding you for your stupidity. And I say stupidity because it blows me away women in particular how often you give your power away to men and I'm sorry I'm gonna call you out on your shit. It's time to let go of the narrative that you can just sit back in your feminine energy and just let some man claim you. It is time to step into your empowerment. And one in particular is speak your truth to a guy instead of the fear of expressing yourself that he's gonna run away. And this is why I've been lately continually recommending this book, Why Men Love Bitches. And bitch stands for babe in total control of herself, yes. It's an empowerment book. So you don't fall to the, you don't fall in this trap of becoming a guy's therapist because as music to your ears this might be it is setting you up for failure. It's setting you up for the, you're gonna see the signs shortly thereafter of how he's probably going to leave you at some point. Now the other sign and what I'm about to share really, really fucking sucks. I'm just sorry I've got to call this out. But men experience, okay, so we all know that men are hunters and they love to hunt and they love the chase. Of course you guys are naive like we're really hunting around like I want a relationship I'm hunting for a relationship instead of going guys hunt for sucks myself included. Listen, I'm no angel here. I try to have sex on the first date. I'm just, I'm a horny guy that is sometimes impetuous. I mean the chemical reaction of lust and limerence can make me absolutely the shark's eyes roll over and I wanna go for the kill. So I'm no picnic here, I'm a typical male but oftentimes when we're chasing sex and we basically experience it in other words we have sex with you, what happens next and you're not gonna like this terminology but I pulled it off of the internet so I'm gonna share it with you. Oh, it didn't show up. Hey Google, look up post not clarity. Your guys are gonna die on this. So post not clarity defined on the urban dictionary immediate clear mindedness or soberness and individual gains after orgasm or orgasm you're busting the nut. The concept of post not clarity has been bandied about for years in many different contexts. So why I'm sharing this with you is a man's real feelings for you show up after sex and it's almost binary either likes you or he wants to run the other direction. And the problem, okay, there's three actually. Okay, I apologize, there's three. He either likes you, which you all wish was the case either runs away, which is most often what happens or he wants to go for repeat performances because he's basically a user or a spender. And if you're not familiar with my user spender category I'm just gonna show this to you real quick. Users are the roughly 20% of the population. This is not a fact, this is merely an opinion. These are the love bombers, the players, the gold diggers, the entitled people and the spenders are those people that want companionship, connection and sex but they have no real direction in a relationship. So sometimes these people that are and by the way, the growers and the builders are the ones who genuinely want a relationship, okay. So coming back to, you could be with a user spender who may wanna keep coming back for more. Those are the usually the guys that are really dysfunctional needing your therapy so they'll keep coming back for more because the therapy and they get to have sex with their therapist.