 Have you noticed these days it seems like for those of us who are over 40 that most relationships seem casual? In fact, I call dating a string of a long drawn out version of friends with benefits. And one of the main frustrations I hear from women is their desire to keep a man's attention, their desire to, you know, in what's the word I'm thinking of, like grow the relationship. This is one of their strongest desires and what they oftentimes think, if they just keep putting in more and more and giving more and giving more and giving more that the man will love them. Now, I'll be candid with you, giving more in a relationship oftentimes comes from a place of chasing someone's love. And I want to encourage a different way to approach relationships. So I want to invite you all to do something different instead. Now, while the title is keeping a man's attention, quite frankly, men should be doing everything they can to keep your attention. Can we agree upon that? Men should be equally investing in the relationship. And while it's interesting in the red pill community, they often talk about how women have the power. And mind you, they're talking about the younger generation, the generation of 20s and 30s that are going out to clubs and whatnot. Yes, women do have the power because those men oftentimes are just chasing sex. In fact, in the early stages of dating for those that are in midlife, men are chasing sex. So and to some degree, women do have the power of when they choose to want to engage in a physical relationship with someone. But I'm here to take this to a whole nother level because the reality is at the end of the day, as I've said this repeatedly, women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment. So the minute two people have sex together, it changes the whole dynamic because women oftentimes are chasing men to get that man to commit unbeknownst to them. And what I mean by chasing, like I said earlier, they put more and more into the relationship, hoping that he will meet them. Now I like what my friend or my contemporary Matthew Hussie says, I invite you to invest and test, invest and test, let him invest and then you move forward. In other words, a relationship should be somewhat of a two cars traveling down the same lane instead of this narrative of just sitting back in your feminine energy and hoping a man will claim you. Yes, in the dynamic of polarity, there is a masculine and feminine energy. But at the end of the day, when we're talking about true human behavior, human behavior, the fact the matter is for most men in their forties on up, they've got childhood wounds and traumas that are bubbling to the surface. They have adult traumas to bubbling to the surface, just like many of you are experiencing the same thing. In fact, one of the reasons why I wrote my book, what the heck is self love anyway, a journey of personal development, self open spiritual work. In fact, this is where you can get the book, selflovethebook.com. Why I'm talking about this right now is that what's most important is not so much about you keeping his intention. Your job is to be in your sovereignty, your self worth, your self esteem and most importantly in your self respect because I don't want you to ever chase a man. I want you to focus on what are the building blocks to create a healthy, happy relationship? What are the building blocks? That is how you keep his attention. And what I mean to say is how you mutually keep each other's attention. What are the building blocks? And yet many of you are operating from a naive place, from an ambivalent place. In fact, men in particular operate from a naive and ambivalent place. So what do I mean by that? So folks, I want you to think about this. So if you're saying you're 50s and 60s, really quickly, I'm just gonna address this part of the audience for just a moment. The days in front of us are often times shorter than the days behind us. What we seek at this stage in our lives is a life mate to, for lack of a better word, grow old with, okay? And this can be complicated, especially if you're in your 40s, because many people in their 40s, by the way, you think about it, right at age 40, there is a significant increase in divorces, significant increase in divorces, many times with those who have children. So when you're in the dating marketplace in your 40s, it becomes very complicated to potentially blend lives with another person until children are off to college or out of the home. And certainly, and what I was about to say for those in our 50s and 60s is really, as we age, things start to happen. For us men, it's erectile dysfunction, health issues, and certainly in our professional capacity, that could be something that could dramatically affect a relationship. In fact, if you watch my channel, I frequently talk about the importance to vet a man to see if he's compatible with your life. Vet a man to see if he's emotionally mature enough to be in a relationship. By the way, there's a link right here to schedule a discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. I'm here to say what I particularly teach you, many of you focus on what type of man you want and you think that's the relationship. But until you understand who's truly compatible with you and more importantly, is he emotionally mature enough to be in relationship with you, you might be spending years upon years investing either in the wrong person or continually going out with people based on our egoic type without really addressing the core facet to a healthy happy relationship. This will keep anyone's attention when you address this core facet of a relationship. Yet many people have been hurt in the past, they're reluctant, they wanna take things slow. But you know, it's fascinating. One of my YouTube followers said, why is it that women give wife, they give wife benefits at girlfriend prices? And I thought that was kind of interesting. What that means is when you are physically intimate with a man without any commitment, without any agreement of monogamy, without any agreement of exclusivity, you're literally allow him to, you know, what's the expression, you know, why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? Why is it that way? Folks, you are in the driver's seat. You're in the driver's seat. In fact, I continually say, you know what? Women are in charge of their relationship destiny. And I'd look, I know you wished you had a big brother in your life like myself. And I'd have the shotgun pointed at the guy's head and say, what's your intention? Ladies, it's imperative upon you to establish what the rules of engagement very early on, particularly before you invest in the romantic end of the relationship. And yet romance is so seductive when someone romances you and God forbid you get loved bombed by a Tinder swimmer or something. You know, you might find yourself giving tens of thousands of dollars away to a person who genuinely didn't love you. This is why it's so important to do what I talk about is radical honesty, laying your cards on the table and the rules of engagement. Is simply what are your standards? Laying your cards on the table is talking about your past experiences because our past experiences give us insight into how someone might operate or more importantly, their past experiences give you insight into if they've healed. And radical honesty is like, let's have some real dialogue instead of this, how's your day going? Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. Again, that's from Seinfeld Kramer. He goes on to say, well, there's more to that if you wanna Google it. But my point is people are having surface conversations instead of diving deeper. Now, let's address some of the other elephant in the room. Many of you spend more time on your devices texting someone versus talking on the telephone and more importantly, having that face to face time with one another. But Jonathan, I'm in a long distance relationship and we can't meet. Folks, let me just be clear about something. Men do not bond on the telephone. Let me tell you what men do do on the telephone. They use you as his therapist. I'm gonna repeat that. He uses you as a therapist. In other words, you are a confidant that he can talk to about his problems and yet you're not building the deep roots of trust. In fact, in my private coaching, we go into what's the important mechanisms to build the deep roots of trust so you can actually not worry about chasing someone. You're actually learning how to bond together. Okay, so what are you gonna do to keep his attention? My suggestion, you have to establish the following very early on. You have to establish a building block of real connectivity with another person. A building, like building blocks, like a Lego building blocks for real connectivity and how does that happen? Let me just be clear about this. Through social activities, through hobbies, through mutual interests, spending time with family and friends. And yes, intimacy, which is both physical and emotional intimacy, but more importantly, that emotional intimacy is in the unpacking of your past experiences. It's in the radical honesty stage and it is in the setting up of your standards very early on. That is how emotional intimacy is built. Now, more importantly, you have to be on the same page financially. By the way, do you know fifth or the second most common reason for divorce, and this is true for relationships as well, has to do centered around money. And in addition to this is this, do you have the capacity to speak each other's love language? Are you familiar with the five love languages? If you're not, I highly recommend checking out this book. And by the way, here's all the books I recommend. Check out this book, The Five Love Languages. When you are communicating at each other's love language, it encourages the man to want to be more engaged in your life. Now, a lot of men, their love language is acts of service. That's how men oftentimes show their love. Women more often, by the way, men tend to be physical touch and acts of service. Women tend to be quality time and words of affirmation or if you were with a Leo, it's words of adoration. I happen to be words person. Sometimes I think I'm part chick. I'm sure I'll get a comment below on that one. But my point in bringing this up is, if you wanna build the deep roots of trust, it starts very early on. Now, does it start on the first, second or third date? Yeah, it does. It really starts. Now, look at, first off, let's be clear. When you meet someone the first time and they're a total stranger, that's a meet and greet. That is not a date. We oftentimes call that a date. That's a meet and greet. When you actually agree to see each other a second time, that's your first date. And that's an opportunity to dive a little deeper and the third time you see each other, you dive a little deeper and the fourth time you see each other. But Jonathan, I'm just not supposed to ask questions. I'm not supposed to interrogate someone. That's what all the dating coaches say. Look at, you don't have time to waste with someone who's not on the same page with you. You should be interrogating someone. Look at, ideally, you would have a matchmaker in your life that would do all of this for you. What I do is help clients to become their own matchmaker and I get calls all the time. It's amazing. Women make investment in my private coaching and I get calls every week. Jonathan, I met a great guy. Jonathan, I met a great guy. Jonathan, I met a great guy and they know the difference because now they're more focused on having their needs met instead of always focusing on the man. Ladies, you have this propensity to give your power away. And by the way, let me just give you the, I said this earlier, but the imbalance starts is if women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment, then let's be clear. Men do the asking of marriage. Women rarely do the asking of marriage. So they are always in the driver's seat once sex has been fulfilled. This is why it used to be in the past if men wanted to get laid, they had to get married. That was our narrative for a very long time or for the most part, it was sex wasn't involved until there was a real commitment. These days we are, look it, dating apps, dating apps, dating sites is a plethora of opportunity to hook up with people. Now, not every man is seeking a hookup but let me dive into this really quickly because there are three types of men actively dating. There are the users, there are the grower and builders and what I call spenders. These are the men that will spend time with you. Okay, let's talk about users for a quick second. Those are the love bombers. Those are the men who are only in it for themselves, women are users as well. The grower and builders are those men who genuinely want to grow and build a life with someone, they want a life partner. The spenders are the trickiest one because they represent 60% of the population. The two bookends are 20% each. The spenders, they want companionship, they want connection, they want sex without any real capacity for deeper commitment. These are wounded men, these are emotionally dysfunctional men, these are emotionally constipated men. These are men who, they want something but they're not able to go any deeper. Maybe they're still in a contentious divorce. Maybe they have health issues, maybe they have professional issues and you ladies are beautiful human beings. You will invest years in a man who is rather dysfunctional hoping that something will turn around. Folks, I'm here to say it is your job to be your own matchmaker because I can't be there for you. I can certainly help you with that process but you're incumbent upon you to only invest in those men or let me just be clear. This is an invitation for you. You don't have to do what I'm suggesting but if you want a life partner, if you want someone that you have mutual respect for one another where you have attention, affection, appreciation, acceptance for one another then it starts from the very beginning. As soon as two people, there's the first, the meet and greet, that's the sniff test. You sniff each other basically like two dogs do at the dog park, okay? After that, if there's mutual attraction you see each other again. Now, it gets tricky because men are evaluating you too. By the way, I did that with my beloved, there's a picture of my sweetheart and I, I vetted her, I vetted her, I actually practice what I preach. I met my beloved on a dating app and I vetted her, okay? My hope is she did some of the same with me. How we keep each other's attention is because we are co-creating a relationship together. What I mean by co-creating was we mutually invest in this relationship. What does that look like? In the beginning, we kind of took turns taking each other out. I mean, in our particular case, because it was long distance, it wasn't exactly like that. But for the most part, we took turns. But more importantly, we took turns laying our cards on the table. We took turns sharing about our past experiences. We took turns being very vulnerable, authentic and transparent with one another. We took turns even treating each other out. She took me out on a number of dinners. I took her out on a number of dinners, okay? We mutually invested in one another. And through this mutual investment, we built those deep roots of trust that make us wanna stay together. And is there a guarantee it's gonna work out? I don't know. There are always twists and turns that can happen in our life. And yet, what's most important is that you feel safe in this relationship. You feel a sense of peace. It's not about butterflies in your stomach. Butterflies only as a sign of anxiety. Of course, you wanna be excited to see with one another, but from a safe, calm place. And how do you make this happen? Just to remind you, social activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork, building skills, both in your personal and your professional life. And that intimacy, that's both physical and emotional intimacy, those are the cornerstones for keeping each other's attention. And ladies, men should be making as much effort as you. And if they're not, then lay your cards on the table. And if he doesn't want to, if he's not capable of meeting you, then you better learn that four letter word I say frequently, next. N-E-X-T, next. Can you say it with me? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Post a comment below if you're willing to say, Jonathan, I'm gonna stand in my power. And if a man doesn't meet me, I'm gonna say next. All right. I think that covers it for today. Hey, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Please post a comment below. If this resonated with you, hit that like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel. Check out all the links I recommend, whether it's my book, whether it's my coaching, whether it's my membership program. I invite you all to invest in yourself because the benefit of that is whether you find a partner or not, you are gonna be happy in the long run. And that's what I want for you. All right, I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do. First off, give myself a big, gigantic, Jonathan Merrick 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 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, bye-bye.