What up guys I'm your homie Lisa Pillieu and I just had something that has left my jaw on the floor. Did you know that on average men have three things on their wish list of what they're looking for on a date or in a partner? Wow women wait for it we have on average 300 things on our wish list so guys if you keep finding yourself on bad dates or just keep attracting the wrong type of person That doesn't mean you've just got to make a list even longer.

Today's guess is actually going to help us figure out how to fix our approach and how you can finally find someone that actually is sincerely interested in you as well as someone who is great for you that deserves you. Now today I am joined by the unbelievable psychotherapist Laurie Gottliffe. Now if you don't know who she is, she's a new time special in author and she is spilling the tea on all things dating and relationships. And that includes the difference in how many women approach dating relationships and marriage and how that can cause problems down the line. She also goes into how online dating and the paradox of choice is actually keeping us single. She talks about why you should, for sure, have high standards, but not about what we think we should have high standards for. And then she goes into why it's actually best that all sales at the husband store are final. Now what does that mean? Well stay tuned because this woman has so much relationship with them that she's going to share. Now seriously guys whether single or whether you're looking for someone or you're just back on the dating scene or you're actually in a relationship and you're looking to improve it then listen up my home because there's so much to learn in this episode that no joke you're gonna want to gossip with your homies about. So let's dive in right now, I'm Lisa Billy and welcome to Women of Impact. There are these surveys that they've done, where they looked at what would make you go or not go on a second day. Then, name three things. Women named 300 things holy. Right? And that's the problem. The number one factor that you should avoid when looking for a partner is... It is insane, but the rates of single women and failed relationships are skyrocketing. So the question I have is, should we actually start settling for Mr. Good enough,

or keep our standards fricking high and potentially risk never finding anyone? I want people to have very high standards, but about the things that matter. And I want them to kind of like go a little bit about the things that don't matter. So what I found is that what a lot of of women do they go on a first date, for example, and they say, yeah, you know, I had a good enough time, but no chemistry, no butterflies, so I'm not gonna see this person again. And they don't realize that sometimes, you know, I think they have this idea that you're gonna have this intense chemistry, the second you meet this person. And sometimes that happens, but sometimes it doesn't. And they feel like, well, I have these expectations that it's going to be this incredible script that I have written in my head. It doesn't always go that way. You know, if you had a good enough time, go again and just spend another hour with this person and see what it's like. How many people who do that say, wow, the second time it was so much more fun. I felt, you know, I felt all these things that I didn't feel the first time. I really got to know this person more, this person got to know me more. So I think that it's not settling to go on a second date with someone if you had a good enough time. Like if it was like a six, go again, that's not settling. I love that so much. And the idea of we perceive it as settling versus given something another chance is very mixed emotions. And I think that it then doesn't allow us to then assess whether they're right for us or not. So if you had to like you've just said like if there were sticks on date one, go on a second date.

What other things would you look at on that first date to determine whether you go on that second date? And then I'd love to then go on the second date to determine the third. Yeah well first of all I should say like there are these surveys that they've done where they looked at, you know, what would make you go or not go on a second date?

So first of all, men named three things.

They said she has to be cute enough and by the way, unlike what people think about men, they just meant she has to be like cute to me. She doesn't have to look like Angelina Jolie. She's just speak like cute to me about the baseline, like she's someone who is relatively attractive, but not supermodel. She has to be kind. and she has to be someone that I feel like we have sort of something in common, right? That person gets a second date. Three things. Women named 300 things in surveys. They had 300 things that would prevent them from going on a second date, and they included things like he ordered tap water instead of sparkling water. You don't know anything about what that means or why that person did that. Maybe they wanted to appear easy going. Maybe they don't care about that. You know, these kinds of things. Or someone said, oh, he did this impression of someone from a movie and it was really cringy. Well, maybe he was nervous and he was trying to impress you.

And on a second date, he doesn't do anything like that. You know, I just think that you have to realize there's another human being there. It's not like you're shopping. It's like there's a human and you wanna see how do I feel when I am with this person? And that's all you need to know. Do I feel like, oh, maybe I'd spend another hour

with this person to get to know them better?

So what is there a difference between the men and the women and basically on our want list? I think the difference is that women are sort of natural storytellers. So we come up with a story in our head about how it's supposed to go when we meet the person that's gonna be the right person. And men are more sort of,

I mean, these are gross generalizations,

but as a therapist, this is what I see. I see that men are sort of more like in the moment and present, they're not futureizing so much. They're like, how did I feel about this person on this date? Oh, I'd like to see her again. I don't know yet how I feel about her, But let's see, let me see her again.

Women are like, oh wait, I don't see this going anywhere.

I don't see this as the feel about her, but let's see. Let me see her again. Women are like, oh wait, I don't see this going anywhere.

I don't see this as the person that I'm going to spend my life with, so I'm not going to waste time seeing them again. So we've told a whole story about whether or not they're right for us. Because what we do, we fill in all the stories about what we think it's supposed to be like. What's interesting is that when they've done studies of people, if they follow them

longitudinally, I found this study so interesting, if they follow people starting from the first date, and then they follow them every five years for 20 years. And what they found was that people who were together from that first date to 20 years later and were happy did not remember correctly that first date. So at the time, you know, they might have said, like, yeah, it was fine, whatever. Nothing great, but they went on a second date. 20 years later, they said, oh, I knew right away. That this was the person. Right, so the story has changed in their mind. But people who were either, say, together 20 years later, but unhappy, who at the time said, oh, we had amazing chemistry, would say things like, oh, I knew early on that we were not right for each other and I should have listened to myself, right? So they changed the story in the reverse. So it's really interesting how much we can be storytellers and how much we can be unreliable narrators of our own lives based on the story that we're trying to fit into at the time.

So I say, let's let go of that story and just stay in the moment and say, what do I think of this person right now? Do I want to spend another hour with this person to see more and get more information? Okay. So that's super powerful. But then how do you start to actually do that? And if you're the person that maybe is listening right now and they're like, Oh yeah, I am that person that totally judged the guy because they all did tap water and

still bottled water. How do you start to unwire the beliefs that you have in the type of person that you think you're going to be with? Yeah. Well, first of all, I should say none of us think that we're that person. So, you said that so. So I don't know when the home is so much fun when you're at all. It's really so much about what the culture has taught us, about what things are supposed to be like. So, none of us think they would say, oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't not go on a second date because somebody ordered tap lighter, but you'd have another reason that's similar. And you don't realize it. So I think that it's important also in this culture

of updating, you know, everybody's using the apps,

and everybody thinks there are so many people that you could go on a date with, because you can, you can swipe and have a date two hours later. That's how it goes. So people think that there is so much opportunity for someone, quote unquote, better, that they really don't give anything a chance. And if you look at things like, you know, behavioral economists, for example,

there's a book called The Paradox of Choice

by Barry Schwartz, and it's about how,

if you have too much choice, that actually it makes it harder. We think it's a great thing to have a lot of choice. But you wanna have just the right amount of choice. So you don't wanna be like, in a fish bowl where there's like one fish in the bowl

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