 The following is a clip from my popular YouTube livestreams answering your questions. If you're brand new to my channel, don't forget to hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you could be notified of new videos. And if any time this video 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 my advice goes contrary to public opinion and traditional expectations. All right, take it away, Jonathan! Well, I want to be candid with you. I actually did this title, a slightly different title of this last year, and I thought I'd revisit it from a different perspective. But before I do, I want to read something to you, which I think is very critical for understanding this. So I'm going to take a different take. And what I said is, but before I do, I want to say this. The dating process today is a mess. I mean, it's truly a shit show. From ghosting to micro-ghosting, to pulling away and saying I'm not ready for a relationship after you did someone coming on strong, having sex, and then disappearing. This is really a mess out there. And I believe that men and women are not truly prepared for the dysfunctionality that exists today due to technology. Humans these days are disconnected, lonely, and worse, worst of all, divided. And the hardest part is the repetitive dating can trigger or reveal all kinds of unhealthy behavior in human beings. I actually want to read that sentence one more time. The hardest part of all is that repetitive dating can trigger and reveal all kinds of unhealthy behavior in human beings these days. So I've been thinking a lot about this. I've been thinking a lot about this. I've just got to send a message here. I've been thinking a lot about this dysfunctionality and partially, and I've talked about this in many videos, is that these days we're meeting total strangers. This is not something new to my audience. I talk about this frequently. And it's scary to meet a stranger. What did your parents tell you about strangers? Stranger danger. Beware of strangers. Don't talk to strangers. So we already have an inherent built-in bias towards people that we don't know. Now, we typically in the dating realm, the minute there's this attraction that you might see someone's picture and you go, oh my God, I'm really attracted to them. All of a sudden, many people become blind. They become truly blind to this process and not to suggest that you have to approach the process to be defensive. I'm not remotely suggesting that. At the same time, when we don't know anything about the person, we don't know their family. We don't know their friends. We don't know their job history. And I'm not suggesting that people are bad. 95 out of 100 people are good people, most likely. They just got garden variety dysfunctionality. But there are probably five out of 10 people that are really fucked up. I'm talking about pathological liars, genuine, truly narcissistic, abusive behavior. Maybe the occasional sociopath, one out of 10,000. I don't know. I'm just speculating here. I'm just saying it's no wonder. And coming back to what I said earlier, at least here in the United States, there's a significant percentage of people who are lonely that want connection with another human being. They want some companionship. They want some sex. They're lonely. They're disconnected from themselves. And worse, here we're a divided country. I mean, it is becoming progressively worse. I watched the news today. And within 15 minutes, I was feeling depressed. I mean, I literally, my whole body began to shut down just listening to the divisiveness that's happening today. And I'm like asking myself, where is the love? Where is the love of humanity these days? And I know it exists. I mean, I know it exists. I'm so happy because in the last 10 days, I've read, I've gotten four text messages from clients who have worked with me in the past nine months who are all, one is engaged. Here, I'll just show her picture real quick. Her and her guy, they're engaged. I'll do that quickly. They're getting married next year. I got invited to the wedding. Another one is so happy. Another one, it was so funny. This other one texted me this morning telling me about her new boyfriend. They've been going out for 12 weeks now. And she held off telling me. And I'm so happy to hear this. And I'm like, send me the pictures. I want to see. I'm so happy. So I know people are falling in love. And yet at the same time, I'm a huge believer of doing it from a place of intentionality. It's one of the things I teach in my private coaching is that, that recognition, you know, not to go in blindly, go in with a sense of, of being inquisitive, being digging deeper than the surface. And I know many of you know, I've been talking lately about a book written by the guy from eHarmony. The book is called Two Dates, Two Dates written by the guy who started eHarmony. I am not recommending eHarmony. I know many of you will complain about eHarmony. I understand that. However, it's important. Let me tell you why I'm reading this book. It's important to understand that the more two people are compatible, the greater success rate they have. And what the book talks about is the 25, 25, or is it the other way around? 25, I don't know how that looks on camera, qualities that the more you're aligned in these areas, the greater chance for success. The whole premise of their website was you had to fill out 300 questions that gave a sense of your personality. And the idea was to take compatibility and ignite it with chemistry. And I like that premise because today most people are dating from a place of, well, if we have chemistry, everything will just magically work out because all you have to do is set your feminine energy and men will claim you. Well, these men you're talking about are really the rare types of guys. And the reality is, as I said earlier, we've got a very dysfunctional population. I mean, a hugely dysfunctional population of people who want companionship, connection, and sex. And by the way, they're not capable of being a relationship. And by the way, as a single man out there, I am witnessing this from women as well. I haven't told you all this, but in the last 60 days, I've been ghosted three times. I mean, absolutely ghosted. Now it's micro-ghosting, so it doesn't really count. It wasn't relationships, although one person we went out a couple of times. But I mean, just absolutely disappeared without any courtesy. If I'm going to say to someone I'm not interested, I man up. I man up. In fact, I did a video this morning for my shorts. I said, when a guy pulls, do this, when a guy pulls away, stop giving guy space. Because this whole idea, just give a guy space and you just live your fabulous life. And he'll see that you're living your fabulous life and he'll go, oh my God, she's living a fabulous life. I better go get her back. I'm like, what fucking planet are people on? This doesn't happen. And I recognize that many of my contemporaries out there got married in their 30s. They're not in midlife. They're they haven't been through like what I've gone through, alimony, child support, visitation rights, family court, erectile dysfunction, elderly parents in assisted living, and worse now, losing a child. Many of you know I lost a child. There's a picture of Connor right there. That's my favorite picture. I'm free. That, by the way, song from the who. I feel like he's free from the burden of all the crap we're dealing with today. And I know he's speaking to me. I know the other day he gave me a sign on someone who was dysfunctional. And so thank you, Connor. And let me just say this, you know, it's not, look it, I'm not trying to be an alarmist, okay? Because people are, again, I got four clients in the last two weeks. By the way, if you want some help in coaching, check out the link to a free discovery call to see if working with your coach is right for you. By the way, if the content resonates with you so far, hit that like button. But what I want to say is not to be an alarmist, but at the same time, I think it's really important not to be naive to this process. And so I made some more notes here. So one of the things I really want to encourage now is I'd like to, I think if you want to be in a relationship, you have to stop dating, stop dating. And what I mean to say is stop dating from the perspective of gender expectations, and start getting to know another human being from both a, you know, from a romantic perspective, when I say romantic perspective, from an attraction based perspective, and at the same time building the friendship piece as well. And I don't, I believe that the best way to do that is through radical honesty, to be vulnerable, to be authentic and transparent. Now that doesn't mean to vomit your feelings. That doesn't mean to give away secrets. I'm saying, be honest about where you're at in your life. That these days, most people are going, I really believe the last five years in particular, swipe dating has bastardized the getting to know you process, has absolutely bastardized. It was a, you know, there was a big difference when you used your laptop. By the way, let me reframe that. Anytime any of these apps got on your phone, it changed the whole dynamic because there's just technology has, has created an absolute overwhelm. I know women tell me they get, you know, I have clients who tell me they get hundreds and hundreds of messages. How do you sort through hundreds of messages? The other day I did a boost on my match profile and I got 15, not 50, 35 messages in one evening. And I was looking through it, I was like, I was overwhelmed. And quite frankly, there wasn't anyone for a fit for me. At least I didn't feel a connection to their profiles or the ones I did feel a connection. They were mismatched. They lived thousands of miles away or their lifestyles were so different. But again, I'm going to show my relationship iceberg chart. I show this, I mentioned this in almost every video, but I'm pointing this out because we today are hyper focused on chemistry, the tip of the iceberg, that's where attraction is, but compatibility is about shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. And so these days, when I'm talking to someone on the phone, I've got my checklist, you know, because if you're, listen, for example, I can't stand people who have extreme political views. I'm in the middle. I'm in the middle. I can't, by the way, I can't stand all politicians. So if someone loves a politician, you know what, that's already a turn off to me. Not that it's, it's not a deal breaker, but it's kind of a turn off. I'm, you know, I'm a spiritual, but not religious person. I've got a flexible lifestyle. These are just some of the things I go through my list to see if we're on the same page, because this idea, well, if we love each other, magic free does will make it all work out. Like what fucking planet do you folks live on? Magic love does not solve problems, compatibility. By the way, eHarmony claims, and I'm not suggesting this is true, but they have a 3% divorce rate when they check off all the boxes. And I believe that that might be fairly accurate because when you're genuinely, the more aligned two people are the greater chance for success. And it saddens me how many women I speak to on a regular basis when guys come on strong, you know, they're chasing sacks, but you know, men are supposed to be the hunters and they're supposed to chase because I'm just supposed to sit back in my feminine and let them chase, you know, and then they pull the bullshit. I can't stand when I hear this. And by the way, I think I can't stand it because I've been guilty of it too. Back 15 years ago, I pulled the, you know, I'm not ready for a relationship card. That's, I mean, guys, listen, it's time to call people out. And that's why I said in my video earlier, when a guy pulls away, you know, after he's invested in you, fucking call these people out. Now you can do it in a loving way. I mean, it's actually possible to do it in a sincere way, but I'm here to suggest calling people out. So another client just texted me a photo of her guy. I don't have permission to share it, but she literally just texted to me right now. I'll just do it like this. Whoosh. She just texted a picture of her and her guy. I'm so excited. I'm so excited from that line from Kat in the Hat. Anyway, so I'm going off tangent. And lastly, I want to share a quick story. I heard from another coach that there's coaches out there recommending the following to women. This is, this infuriates me. They're telling women that if a man's plan to date with you is to ghost the guy, to create conflict, to ghost the guy, that makes him want to chase you. I mean, can you believe that? Because it's like, no, they said to ghost the guy to see how he resolves conflict. I'm like, you got to be fucking kidding me. That's advice being told. And there's another coach out there. I've heard this on a podcast that said, you know, when you swipe on a guy, there's a, on Bumble, there's a feature where it's 24 hours. You let it expire and see if the guy presses the extend button. There's an extension button on the profile here. Like, you can, like, I'll just show it real quickly. You can extend the person. Like, what the fuck, this is game playing and you wonder why the process is so fucked up. There's a lot of coaches giving really toxic advice out there.