 So, last night my girlfriend and I were watching a reality TV show called, or actually take that back. I was watching it. She was in the other room called Love at First Swipe and it's a basically a makeover show for people to improve their dating profiles. And I thought this would be an interesting conversation to have today because the reality is meeting people today feels like it's incredibly hard given that predominantly these days we meet people online more so than organically. And I thought well how does that relate to commitment? What's the challenges today getting guys to commit? So give me a few minutes I'm going to intertwine these two things together. So in this particular episode there was a woman whose profile looked like most of her pictures were taken in lingerie even though they were dresses and most of the photographs were very seductive. And while she was defending her position by this is who I am, this is who I, you know this is my personality, she also said most of the men that she meets in the online dating world according to her are pigs that only want sex. And the makeover people were saying well look you're putting this out there and yet she was still arguing her position. Now what eventually happened was they did a complete makeover they made her seem like the girl next door type which they did a fantastic job I have to admit that. And her and she ended up getting a lot more activity in the online dating world. So part of the challenge we have today in the dating mating relating world is the attraction piece. In other words getting interested parties into us. See it didn't used to be this way you know when we think back 30, 40 years ago in fact while my beloved and I were on a cruise recently we sat next to a couple who had been married for over 33 years and what's interesting they met they said they met cruising the boulevard you know this was back in the day when cruising streets in a small town used to be a big deal and I thought that was kind of a cute story and when they were happily married they appeared to be happily married for over as I think I said 33 years they have four children and I asked them it's the secret what was the secret for the two of you to really get this far into your relationship. And they immediately both said literally without batting an eye is they said they married their best friend so okay so why am I bringing this up because it seems like this is the common thread for happy successful relationships they married their best friend and it doesn't mean that they were the best friend when they met is that they became their best friend so how do we go from this person who's a total stranger and on a screen oftentimes where you know little about them to end up becoming friends well I think it's really important first that if you're going to use the medium of online dating to connect with people that it's important to put your best representation of yourself the quality representation because a quality representation will attract I don't like using the word quality people but people more aligned to who you are and what you really want and then secondly is throw out the dating narrative that men are the leaders and that they must be completely in charge and why I say that is most men are rather clueless these days it's a completely different world than it was 30 40 50 60 years ago and what I am encouraging people to treat the mating process as a two-lane street in other words they equally invest in getting to know one another but the important factor in getting to know one another is how to build that friendship because if it seems like that's the common denominator for happy couples then how to get there is the most important piece how do we get from from that place where they're a total stranger where we actually get to know them to actually becoming friends with them now here's the challenging part for most of us in midlife because most of us in midlife come to the table with some childhood wounds or traumas that's right childhood wounds or traumas or adult traumas most often the adult trauma is going through a significant breakup or a significant divorce and what happens is people aren't actually bonding through that friendship piece they're bonding through their individual traumas with one another and they feel a sense of familiarity a feeling a sense of camaraderie a feeling a sense of belief of friendship and yet that's a very weak link a very weak link to build a relationship on is through your individual traumas what and most of the time it's the trauma of going through a divorce or a significant breakup and part of the challenges is when you go through a breakup or divorce there's an unraveling of the tapestry of your old life and what happens is people immediately attach themselves to someone else for that companionship that connection that sex without really being in a position to actually commit to another human being and more importantly being emotionally healthy enough to be in a significant relationship this is why in my relationship hierarchy I talk about the the four elements of the relationship hierarchy is first is being your best self emotionally physically spiritually being your best self in your mind body spirit and emotion being your best self number two is really understanding the importance of compatibility and more importantly that friendship piece and what it takes to actually build a friendship with someone that third piece is the attraction piece in other words being putting out the best representation of yourself and lastly and most importantly is the understanding of it what's it take to maintain a good relationship and more importantly what does it take to make it thrive so what I've observed that common thread with men and commitment centers around that piece of friendship and friendship isn't going to be built through your individual traumas friendship is going to be built or at least this is my invitation for all of you is through social activities hobbies mutual interests spending time with family and friends traveling together it is critically important to find your common mutual interest with another human being and quite frankly exploit that what I mean by exploit that is really cultivate that as much as you possibly can because without it it's not going to feel like you build the deep roots of trust in your relationship and ultimately what is it what is that friendship piece about it's about saying I can trust this person to be there for me when I'm going through a hard time this person cares about my best interest that's really the element of friendship but more importantly the other element of friendship is not about love it's about genuinely liking the person you know it's the common thread it's not love love is oftentimes we associate unhealthy attachment with another human being as love but ultimately what the common thread that I've seen with happy couples particularly men happy in relationship is that they genuinely like that person they genuinely like that person because they genuinely get along with one another this is why folks I'm habitually telling you the importance of spending a lot of face-to-face time together to build that friendship piece through social activities hobbies mutual interest that's why I'm not a big proponent of long-distance relationship and while I briefly had a long-distance relationship what I mean to say is we did have distance we shorten that distance quickly because we recognize the importance of building that friendship piece to build the deep roots of trust in our relationship ultimately if you're not contemplating this if this is not in your consciousness I'm here to say if you're giving the job to the man to be in charge of your relationship destiny you're giving the job to the wrong person not that men aren't good people but this isn't in their consciousness and this is why I invite you to I said the word exploit but what I really meant earlier is cultivate those social activities hobbies mutual interest spending time with family and friends to build those deep roots of trust those deep roots of friendship that's going to carry the relationship maybe as your last relationship you ever have in your life and that's my hope for all of you is this sinking in is this resonating please let me know all right I think this would be a great place to wrap up this video first off if you find value in the group please tell your friends about midlife love mastery send them to my website Jonathan as a comm have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group and I'm gonna sign up this videos I always do first off give them myself a big gigantic Jonathan bear hug of self love I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm asking you to turn to someone a pet a teddy bear 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