 Is it just me, or have you noticed that it seems like men seem more non-committal than ever before? In fact, some men are just scared of commitment altogether. That's for the thumbnail. And I thought it'd be important to do a deep dive into this, especially because I believe there's significant number of men who genuinely like a person, and yet they're afraid to go into deeper intimacy. They're afraid to go into deeper commitment. And I think it's important to kind of not just explore this, but unpack it to give you some context of maybe how you might approach the process, especially the dating marketplace process from a different sense of awareness, because it occurs to me that if we go into the process very cavalier, very naive without a bit of... I don't want to be defensive or from a fear base, but be a little bit more cautionary. And let me reframe that. Let's take out the word cautionary. A little bit more discerning. You might be less likely to be influenced by those men that come on strong, that love bomb, that seem like you're the most perfect person in the world. And then all of a sudden, shortly after being physically intimate with a man, all of a sudden he says he's not ready for a relationship. And I think first you need to understand why this happens. And I am so guilty of being a love bomber. I'm so guilty of coming on strong because when there is a strong connection with someone, a physical attraction, there are chemicals being released from the brain into a man's body. And this is true for women as well. That's why it's called chemistry. Chemistry comes from the word chemical, right? So we talk about chemistry, it's because chemicals are being released from our brain into our body, saying that we like this person, we like this person, we like this person. I don't know how many times in the early stages after my divorce I would meet someone and quite frankly, you know, it's interesting. I'm going to go on a tangent here like I always do. You know, prior to my divorce, it felt like it was much harder to meet people and then you get access to these little devices, actually, or maybe just the dating sites. And all of a sudden there's a plethora of people to choose from. So you meet someone, or at least I met someone, I felt like a strong connection for them. For whatever reason, I certainly came on strong. I envisioned a life with them. Literally on a first date, it could be that chemical is such a drug that it's like the dopamine, the oxytocin, the testosterone, the serotonin, all those chemicals being released, all of a sudden you just feel like you really, really like someone. And then after you physically intimate with them, all of a sudden you're asking yourself, why don't I like this person anymore? And the natural reaction is to run away because we don't, most men don't want to make a promise they can't keep to someone. We don't do this intentionally. We don't do this from a disingenuous place. It's just this is a biological component of feeling that level of excitement. And yet I think we need to dig even past this because, yes, we can control our urges. There's no doubt about it. And I know women have that capacity and certainly have that capacity as well. So one thing you need to recognize about men are men are the gas. And ladies, you are the, you are the brakes. Okay. And being the brakes means to not judge men as being bad for the, for that by all biological desire to be intimate, intimate, because I'm assuming when you're in a relationship with a guy, you're going to want him to be physically intimate with you. Don't look at it bad. It's just understand that that's the way we're hardwired. All right. I know you're pissed off already. But what's missing these days, I think, is that level or desire to be in a committed relationship? Why is this occurring? Why are men scared? You know, especially when they like a person, why is that? Well, let's think about this for a moment. Now, just as a reminder, my audience is the midlife group, which is after baby making years and before retirement. So there's a good chance roughly about 75% of people over 45 years old are divorced. And with divorce comes an emotional unraveling of the tapestry of one's life. And it could be cause fear or resistance to want to commit to someone else, especially if a guy or woman felt like they got burned in their marriage, whether they felt they got used in their marriage, whether they weren't appreciating their marriage. It already builds up some resistance to want to lean into something deeper. You know, I brought out my book, and I think it's important to recognize this, is the other thing that happens for most men at midlife is you've heard of midlife crisis. The midlife crisis is when the blueprint of where you thought your life was, was supposed to be collides with your reality. Boom. And it can be an emotional, Mazel tov, Mazel tov cocktail, Molotov cocktail, fossil tov cocktail. That was funny, Jonathan. A Molotov cocktail going off inside a person, particularly men, because we are so goal driven and goal oriented and career oriented that if something, if the calamity happens in our life, where we thought we were going to be, could really cause an inner explosion. And in that, a lot of fear is built up. Now, if we trace this back to childhood, there's, by the way, folks, you know I'm a big proponent of examining our childhood to see why we make the choices we do in a relationship. And I know you've witnessed many men enter into relationships with women and you're thinking themselves, what are they doing with that person? Why are they choosing that person? This is why I think it's important to read two particular books. And that is the book attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. I've got my notes in there, attached here. So you can understand why you might be attached to a guy who is noncommittal. There's a good chance he might be someone like your father. And this book, Getting the Love You Want by Harvelle Hendricks and Helen Hunt, talks about what's known as the Amago. I am a G.O., which means mirrored. Why we choose people oftentimes like one or both of our parents because we individually are trying to heal a wound that's happened in our lives. So it seems to me these days, and like I said, the dating marketplace, we've adopted a protocol, if you will, of all that is necessary to progress a relationship to a physical level is just the desire to say, I want a relationship. Simply to say, I want a relationship. And to many women, they hear that this person might want a fully committed relationship. I think, really, let's examine the word relationship because I have a relationship with my children. I have a relationship with my friends. I have a relationship with the barista at the coffee shop. I have a relationship with them. So relationship can have different meanings to different people. And I think in the romantic sense, there's a lot of confusion of what a relationship is. And then ultimately, what is desired from this relationship? What is desired from this relationship? Is it commitment? Is it to partner with someone? Is that the desire? Or is it just about spending time with someone? Most of you know my chart on the three types of people actively dating today. There are the users, the spenders and the growers and builders. And the users are simply those people that are in it for the short run, in it for themselves. Those are the love bombers. Those are the entitled people. Those are the gold diggers. They're only in it for themselves. They're using people. And by the way, let me go back to this chart. This is not a fact. This is merely an opinion. I say the percentages are 20, 60 and 20. Well, I say 20% are users and 20% are growers and builders. These are the people. These are the men who genuinely want to be in a committed relationship. Now, sadly, you reject a lot of these guys because they don't fit your type. They don't fit your desire on a multiple levels. So a lot of the growers are being dismissed by women. And by the way, men dismiss women all the time as well based on physical characteristics, physical looks. And women tend to dismiss men based on their physical looks as well as their financial status. What I'm talking right now about the spenders is because they represent about 60% of the single population today. Spenders are people that want companionship, want connection. They want sex. And yet they're non-committal. They don't have a direction. They don't know what they want. And so here's the tricky part. You have a basically six out of 10 chance of meeting one of these guys. This is a guy who genuinely might like you. And yet he doesn't know what he wants. And I think the way to circumvent this, not circumvent this, to approach this from a different perspective, is you're going to have to learn how to ask better questions in the early stage of dating and specifically to your personality, what those questions might be. In addition, you have to be a bit of a detective to determine his emotional maturity, his capacity to lean into a relationship. The challenge for most of you haven't been taught this. Nobody teaches this. You literally have to be a detective. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I began my private coaching. By the way, there's a link in the description below to schedule a free discovery call with me. What do I do? I teach you to get crystal clear on who you are and what you want. And I hear from women all the time. Jonathan, I know what I want. I know what I want. I know what I want. It fascinates me because they all seem to say that. And then they go through my proprietary coaching program. And at the end, can you guess what they say every single time? I didn't know what I wanted. Why didn't they teach me this in school? Why didn't my parents teach me this? Why didn't I learn this before I dated or married the wrong person? Folks, we have to become detectives to determine who is really capable of commitment. Or they just scared or maybe they're just using you as well. You have to be way more discerning in the early stages, which requires asking better questions. And even that is not a guarantee. And yet it puts you on the path of determining which men are really capable to lean into commitment versus those are scared. Okay, so I said 60% of the population are spenders. Now when I use the word spenders, they're just spending time with you. I think you have to really get crystal clear is if you want a serious relationship, then what does partnership look like for you? What does partnership look like for you? Folks, if you follow my channel and you've listened to me, I've talked about this over and over. I've given you examples based on my own life. First off, what does a relationship look like for me depending on the circumstances? We spend three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interest, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork, building skills, both in our personal or professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy that leads to either moving in together, getting married. That's the standard I created. And this is what I have expressed in the early stage of dating. A lot of times it might just be what I share over the phone before I've ever met someone so they get a sense of my standard. Now I'm unique in this because I study this stuff. You know, my path to self-love and, you know, look at my t-shirt, humankind be both. My path and my journey to this didn't happen overnight. It happened over a long period of time. I had to go through many humbling events to actually be in a space to really not just be a provider of the content that I share with you all. It's also to step into this awareness that the only way, I shouldn't say the only way, a man has to be leaning towards wanting to commitment or he's leaning the other way. I think that 60% of spenders is he just really just incapable of fully committing and he just, or is it that he's capable, he just doesn't know how. And for those men, this is where you lead by example by establishing your standard right from the get-go. You establish your standards right from the get-go. Now this is going to weed out a lot of men. In addition, I highly recommend using my dating vows before you get physically intimate with someone. If you're not familiar with my dating vows, I'm going to pull it up right now. By the way, it's listed in the description below, so don't worry. You don't need to copy this, but I'm here to say ladies, if you want to get him to commit before sleeping together, then establish this agreement with him. Now first off, you might have heard the saying women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment. I want you to think about that for a second. You know, it used to be if a man wanted to have sex with a woman, he'd have to make the ultimate commitment of marriage. Well now, all we have to say is I want a relationship and then women will have sex. Now listen, I'm not here to suggest you can have sex with a man whenever you want. If you're watching my channel, I'm assuming you're the type of woman that wants partnership with a man, so you don't want to have sex randomly with men just for the pure pleasure of it, and you are more than welcome to do that. However, if you are genuinely serious about a relationship, then I challenge you, or invite you, excuse me, to challenge the guys to make them jump through a few more hoops before you get physical too soon. So the dating vows go like this. This is where you both share this to one another. And the agreement is as follows. I agree to explore the process of getting to know you with the intent to declare something serious in the next three to six months. I agree to be monogamous sexually while we're having regular sex together. I agree not to actively seek to meet and date others while we're in the dating process, which includes taking down my dating profiles. A lot of guys are in relationship and their profiles are still up. I agree to speak up if this isn't working for me versus pulling back, ghosting or disappearing. And lastly, I agree to invest regular time in the process to getting to know you, which looks like maybe what I shared before, my standard. Now, I'll tell you 90% of men will bail on this because there are thousands of women who will have sex without any commitment or agreement. I also say if all women band together going forward, this will change how men treat and view sex. In the meantime, if he does agree, you have a better chance to commit with him. Folks, listen, this is tricky. It is very tricky because these days we're meeting total strangers on first date. We know nothing about them. We don't know their family. We don't know their backstory. We don't even know if they're safe to be with. I want you to think about this. When you meet a total stranger, you have no idea if they're a con artist, if they're abusive, if they've had criminal records. I mean, this is the sad reality we're dealing with. This is why I say we have to be detectives. I'm sorry, I would prefer it not to be fear-based, but I'm just suggesting being a bit more discerning. A little bit more discerning. What does that look like? Hey, try to meet his family and friends in the early stages of dating. Try to get a sense. Try to Google him. Look him up on LinkedIn. Find out as much about his backstory and not the backstory he told you, but I'm talking about a backstory that actually can be Googled. I once did a blog. If you can't find him on Google, if he doesn't have a Google footprint, that could be a red flag. Listen, I know this is frustrating and hard for you. Again, I would so much prefer to operate from an absolute place of an open and receptive heart. You can do that, and at the same time, you can be discerning, because you have a greater chance of meeting a user and spender versus those growers and builders. Now, the other thing I invite you to do is to do your own inner work so you can actually become a repellent to those users and spenders. That's right. You can become a repellent to them. This is why I highly recommend reading the book, The Hoffman Process. This is a deep dive into healing, childhood wounds and traumas. And more importantly, it invites self-love into your life. And if you're not familiar with my book, what the heck is self-love anyway? By the way, there's a link below to all the books I recommend. This is a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work, because you will actually, when you genuinely love on yourself, when you're genuinely in a good place, when you're genuinely in a place of gratitude and there's no chip on your shoulder, you actually become more of a magnetic attractor for those growers and builders, and you repel those users and spenders growing forward when you lean into your sovereignty, your self-worth, your self-esteem, your self-confidence. That is the recipe for attracting a guy that's more likely to be a grower and a builder. And the grower and builder means he wants to grow something with you, he wants to build something, he wants partnership with you. By the way, is this sinking and is this resonating? Listen, there are guys who genuinely like you, but they're a little bit scared. This is why I invite you to be the emotional leader of the relationship and guide this person along if he's genuinely worthy of it, because if you're sitting waiting, sitting back in your feminine energy waiting to be claimed, you could be claimed short-run with those users and those spenders and find yourself repeating this pattern over and over again. And what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results and I want to invite you to have a different result. Okay, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Please post a comment below. Please share this video with your friends. Please like this video. Please subscribe to my channel if you're brand new. And if you are brand new, I'm going to end with my always my closing. I'm going to end this with my big, gigantic Jonathan bear hug to myself. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a bear hug as well. If that's okay. I'm asking you to turn to someone, a teddy bear pillow. Here's a teddy bear 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. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.