This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. You're listening live either on KFI AM six forty or on the iHeartRadio app. Ah, you know I've told you before I met my man Julio on a dating app that one happened to be Bumble. Although you always ask me that question, don't you which dating app do you suggest,
Doctor Wendy. I think all the dating apps are the same as all the nightclubs we all used to go too. It's the same people the cruise around all the different dating apps. They might change a few pictures in their profile, they may write some things differently, but it's not about the app. It's about the way you use it. For instance, years ago, I was coaching a young woman. She was an executive at a tech company,
and I was helping her go through her Tinder. But she was in her early she was looking to get married and have a baby, and so I told her. Because Tinder has a little bit of a reputation now, the Tinder executives would tell me I'm wrong about this, but I'll just tell you because I know how our culture is. It has a bit of reputation for being a hook up app. Look think about it. Tinder evolved after its predecessor, Grinder, was so successful. You don't know what Grinder is.
It's because you're not gay. Grinder was the very first dating app that had GPS in it, so you could literally find you know, lots of minority communities, either sexual minorities, ethnic minorities, religious minorities are just if you live in a really small town minority. They find each other on apps. That's why apps are so great, because you find somebody like you anyway.
Grinder was the first app to be able to pinpoint where you were and pinpoint where the other person was, and you could find somebody and you could have joy and pleasure very quickly with that person. So Tinder became originally the heterosexual I think Tinder's got it all now they all have it all, but app for that. So it's got this reputation of being a meat for sex kind of app, even though they have worked very hard to not have that reputation,
and lots of people have met and married but I digress. So because they had this reputation. I'm coaching this young woman and I said to her, listen, the very first text when you match with somebody should say, I know this app has a bit of a hook up reputation. Just want you to know from the outset that's not what I'm into, and that's not what I'm here for. I'm actually looking for a long term relationship. She's like, really, like, say it right there at the beginning, just
like that, Yes, say it right from the beginning. Who you are and what you want is what you need to say. Now. I know I hear you. I hear what you're saying, but I don't know what I want. I don't know if I'm ready. I just kind of want to see what's out there. Okay, then you're going to get the riff raff that's out there walking through your bedroom. Okay, that's what's going to happen because you aren't clear with yourself why you're on those apps and what you
want. So I want to go through the five steps to finding love on a dating app. I know it works because I followed these steps exactly. You don't think I do what I do, just so that you can have a better life and better relationships. Oh no, no, no, no. Like every psychology student, mostly they're taking courses to fix themselves. And mostly I tell you this so that I can stay on track. I can listen to my own advice. I could stick to it, and I did
and it worked. Okay, so let's start. You open up that app, you make that profile. Here's we could do many, many, many segments about what to put in your profile and what not to put in your profile. I will just say this, if you're over forty, keep your shirt on. All right, I'm done with this. All right. You can have form fitting clothes and do a full length shot and they know that you're basically fit. But remember when people are swiping plenty of no matter what
gender, they're swiping a wide range often a wide range of ages. So they might swipe a twenty five year old and next is the forty five year old. Now you might be the hottest forty five year old out there with your shirt off, sir or madam. But if you show up in their feed immediately after a twenty five year old who's filled with human growth hormones, you don't have so many of those anymore, then you're gonna look terrible.
Okay, So I'm just saying, just look a little like hold it in, okay, just a little bit, keep it back, all right. So some of the rules are about profiles. Women, you should have at least one full body shot. When I say full body, have some clothes on. Secondly, you should have a headshot. But guys don't like all the filters and all the makeup and the lashes. You can do one beauty shot like that, but do something natural with natural light, out hiking,
no makeup. Whatever. They want to see who you really are, you know what. I went on a bunch of dates before I met Julio a few years ago, and I remember one guy saying that his theory is this, he goes, you go through someone's profile and you find the most unattractive picture of them in their profile. Now, they still chose to put it up there. So he said you should only look at that most unattractive picture. Do you know why, because he said, that's actually what they look
like. Okay, they put it up there they believe it's reflective of them, and so that's all you should expect to be meeting, not all those other ones. Guys, as far as you can, you get off the baseball hat and the sunglasses. We know you're balding. It's okay. We love bald men means bigger brains, right, So there's no reason to hide under a hat in every single picture and sunglasses. Really, who are you hiding from? Are you a movie star? I don't get it, so
anyway, I just want to say that. And also, guys, show some teeth. You're stern. I know it's hard for you to smile. Guys don't smile very much. I also know that many guys take pictures alone in their bathroom mirror. I know you, I see you out there. Do you not have a friend who can take a picture of you? I mean it could be your sister, because you really look like a lone wolf to us when you're all alone in your bathroom mirror. And those are all
your pictures. Okay, so get some pictures taken. I will say that Julio did something really right. I always tell men to do this. Look. You may not be rich, but you want to make sure you look high class and rich. I don't care where you live, what zip coach you're in. Go find some classic doric columns somewhere in some classical building.
You can find them at museums, you can find them at usc you can find them at the Huntington Library. And Hulio had one of those who was standing on the steps with these giant Roman columns behind him, and I was like, ooh. He was at Cornell University on a visit, of course, and he did have people take pictures of him. And I liked to shoes and it was a full length shot, but I you know how you pinch with your fingers in a zoom, right, and I'm like, oh,
those are good shoes. Right. Listen, Jen woman. You may think that we are only looking at you, but we are studying the background as much as we are studying you. We are looking at that lamp behind you and trying to decide if it's from restoration hardware or IKEA. Okay, so you have to think about everything going on in the picture. But I digress. How do you actually use the apps? There's all kinds of advice
you can get on profile building. When we come back, I want to give you the six steps to going from first match to the what are we conversation? When we come back, you are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I AM six forty. We live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I Am six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty and live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Remember you can follow me anywhere on my
social media. The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, wherever you like to get your videos. I am there a reminder to everybody. I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor at cal State Channel Islands. I've written three books on relationships into my dissertation on
attachment Style, because I am really obsessed with the science of love. But I also love to share my experience, and many of you who have been following me for a long time know that at the beginning of the pandemic, when we were all lonely, I was cloistered in my home with two young adult daughter teenager, young adultish who basically rolled their eyes anytime I breathed, and so after dinner I'd go into my bedroom to see what was remember Tiger
King, what was streaming. I'd pour myself a glass of wine and I said, you know what, you can't be doing this way. You gotta get this done. So I went on the dating apps. I should tell you that because it was at the beginning of pandemic pre vaccines, I got
to use as a litmus test my carefulness around COVID exposure. In other words, I would say to guys, if you want to meet me in the real world, it's got to be We can do FaceTime dates, whatever, zoom dates, we can talk on the phone, but if you want to meet in the real world, it's got to be outside social distancing at least six feet preferably with a lot of wind blowing and masks on. And you know, there are a lot of guys who wouldn't do that, and so
it was great. I got to go, Okay, you're not for me, moving on, But anyway, whether you're in a pandemic or not, here are the six steps to going from that first match on a dating app to the what are we now? Conversation? According to me, I made this up because I did it and it worked, So just do what I did okay. Number one. All humans suffer from something called a paradox of
choice. When you have too much choice, you are less likely to commit to one of those choice, And when you do commit to one of those choices, you are less likely to value that person because you're always thinking about the bigger, better deal that got away. So dating apps aren't actually designed to help you find love. They are designed to get you addicted to the app, and they use paradox of choice. So how do you hack the bio hacking of the dating app? You only match with two people at once.
Now there are people on their dating apps who may be messaging five or ten or even twenty people all at once. How do you even remember their stories? How do you remember anything? Don't do that. Don't go as we say, don't go back to the deck. It's like a deck of cards. You're swiping right. Don't go back to the deck until you have two people and you've assessed at least one and gotten rid of them. And I'll tell you how to get rid of them too, in a polite,
nice way, in a minute. So you got two people in your message box, ladies, I just want to tell you this other thing. So men and women use dating apps very differently. When women use a dating app, they pause, they read the words very carefully that you, gentlemen wrote hint? Are you listening? Guys? If you don't put words in your profile, we just swipe away. I don't care if there's just a picture there. I don't care who you are. I know I need to hear
you, I need to feel you. I need to read your words. Okay, so you got to write something. So we scrutinize the words. We try to think what does he mean by that? What is he implying by that? We scrutinize the pictures. We wonder who took it, where he was, how many years old it is, what room of the house it's in, Does he own that thing in the background. We look at
everything and ask those questions. So what men do? Unfortunately, and there's all kinds of research to support this, men are less choosy when it comes to relationship partners than women are. Women are more selective. Look sex is a higher risk cobby for women than it is for men. We have more chance of catching an stright because of our unique biology, we have more chance
of accidentally falling in love with you. Because our bodies emit so much oxytocin, the bonding hormone, we also are more likely to catch an eighteen year case of parenthood. So okay, we have evolved as women to be more choosy now because men are less choosy. Here's what happens. They basically swipe right on every single woman they see. I mean, unless you look like you just got off your broom and you are a witch and they're scared you're
gonna cast a spell on them. Otherwise, they just swipe on everybody. So when women first get on the app and they do all their close scrutinizing and they find that kind of one that they think, oh, this could be a really good match. Oh my god, he's good looking and I love everything in his profile, and then they click swipe right, and all of a sudden, the app goes, yeay, you're a match. And then women go, oh my god, oh my god, this one that
I was so into, I'm a match. And then twenty five guys later, she sees another one who could be he could have potential to me. I should just see I could to kind a match with him. See if I swipe right there, and then boom, it's a match. Some of them have like fireworks that go off and stars that fly, and the girls are like, oh my god, I'm killing it on this app. No, you're not. Every man on the app has already matched with you and they are waiting for you to try to match with them. Okay, you're
not killing it on the app. It's just that men and women use the apps differently. That's something that everybody should understand. Okay, so get your first two matches, people of all genders, and send a couple texts. Now here's one of the problems with Bumble. For instance, the women have to talk first. Otherwise the match expires in twenty four hours, so you got twenty four hours to say something. But it defies mother nature because as
far as I know, sperm chases egg and not the reverse. So if women are out there talking first, you already get devalued in men's eyes. I'm sorry. I know it sounds like patriarchy and all that, but it's evolutionary psychology and I have read the research on this. So ladies, I'll tell you there's one word you can say on Bumble as your first little chat, and I used it all the time. It's a winning word. It's amazing how it gets a response immediately from guys. The word is high and
that is it. That's all you're allowed to put. Okay, if he's into you, he's going to write back then. I also heard this is other technique that women are using is when they're on Bumble, they let the match expire and see if he rematches because he gets a little note going, she didn't talk to you, it's been twenty four hours. Do you want
to try to rematch with her? Okay? I didn't even know Bumble work this way, but apparently Julio tried to rematch with me like five times over a two week period, but I hadn't been on the app, so by the time I said something to him, he was like, oh my god, you're there. It's like I built up that sense of anticipation without even knowing it. Well, imagine if you could kind of manipulate it and make that happen. All right, So match with only two people at once.
Number two, get on the phone fast, exchange two or three texts, and then give up your phone number. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how to give up your phone number, how to keep yourself safe, and after that phone call, how to get rid of them. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I Am six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I AM six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. I want to say something about the iHeartRadio app. You know, there are many cars right now that don't even have AM radio. I happen to have one, and so I listen to everything on Bluetooth streaming through my car. So I just listen to the iHeartRadio app, and I choose the music I want and everything I want. But I'm telling you this because you can
always listen to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand on the app. So if you've missed a portion of a show, if you've missed past shows, if you're doing a big drive up the five for five or ten hours, you could just listen to doctor Wendy Walsh all day long. Oh god, that's creepy. Just the thought of it. You know one of the guys in my
Patreon zoom room who's been a loyal follower for years. I think he found me through my podcast Mating Matters. He's in Australia and he's like a big tech executive and he finally admitted that he um, he became a fan because he used my podcasts to fall asleep at night. I know that's what I said. He said, there's something soothing about your voice. Here, I'll do the voice. So now you're getting sleepy, you're falling asleep, and if you're driving, to stop right now. We want them to listen.
Doctors that funny. I get what he means, though, you do have a very calming voice. He's falling asleep to my fight, he goes he would just pick up where he fell asleep last time and go back and listen to the rest of the pod. Anyway, I am talking about the six steps to finding love on a dating app. I mentioned only sending a few texts and then getting on the phone fast. Look, you don't want to
date somebody who can't give good phone do you. And also my experience I remember this is all from experience, is that if you meet somebody and they won't get on the phone. They just want to text with you and get you into the real world. They're hiding something. They're hiding something. They're poor social skills, their ability to an inability to connect with you emotionally or
be funny, all kinds of things that they could have going on. So they want to just get you in the real world to try to convince you there that they're a good person. But somebody who's smart gets on the phone. If they won't get on the phone, don't meet him for coffee. Okay, now you've had the phone call and you've realized, you know what, we might not be a match here. Please do not ghost them.
That's a real human And you know what, if you're searching in your zip code or even in your city, you're going to run into them somewhere a farmer's market, at the beach, a business god prop, a business meeting. Right, They're human in your world, in your community, in your age group. I hope it's age appropriate, but anyway, so all you need to do is compose a nice little text mine, I cut and paste it. I'd add something personalized at the top, like, hey, it
was great chatting with you. Good luck at your daughter's wedding next week. It sounds like it's gonna be fun. I don't think romance is in the cards for us, but I promised to keep you in mind for a friend. Listen. Nobody wrote me back and yelled at me. Some of them didn't write at all after that text. Some of them wrote, hey, thanks for not ghost in, or thanks, yeah, I'll keep you in
mind too, whatever, like just sweet, nice conversation. One guy, an English guy, actually wrote back and said, you know what, just that phone conversation was enough for me to get my mojo back. If I could have a woman like you to talk to me, I can get anybody. I was like what he was, just like, so impressed with my phone. I guess I give good phone. Yeah, I give good radio. So get a phone anyway. Okay, so you get rid of them
now. I want you to remember that finding love is a process of elimination. It's about saying no to many, many, many, many, many inappropriate people until the right one is standing right in front of you. Okay, so get rid of them. If it's not clicking right away, all right. If they did give good phone, then you're gonna meet for a coffee, all right. You're gonna take a few days after that phone call and then genderly meet out and say hey, you want to reach out and
just say hey, do you want to grab a coffee somewhere? Always act very busy and happy, busy and happy people of all genders. Hey, I have a few minutes in between two things. I'll be on this part of town. Maybe we can meet. Make it quick, because that way you can make a quick getaway if you want. Now, here's the thing. You always have to leave them wanting more. If you go on a twenty to thirty minute coffee date and you allow yourself to stretch it into a
lunch in an afternoon movie, you've lost. You've lost the meet in game, all right. You've got to get out of there, leave them wanting more. Now, if you've done the phone call and they've passed, if you've done the coffee date, now is the time you're going to have your first date. Basically, the third meeting. The first meetings on the phone, the second meetings in coffee. The third meeting is your first date. That's when you can get dressed up and go somewhere or do something interesting.
You found what things you like in common, for instance. Right, so that's when you have your first date. All right, I'm on number five already, number one match with only two people at once. Write this down number two, get on the phone fast number three, send a no thank you text, or meet for coffee. Number four. First date comes after coffee number five. And this is the big one. Now you're going on a few dates and you like this person. Have the sexual exclusivity conversation before
you have sex. Once the barn doors open, it's too late, folks. Hopefully you're not as big a barn door. Just saying, but anyway, have the sexual exclusivity conversation before. And here's how the conversation should go. So I'm really into you, I'm really attracted to you. I love how this is going. We don't know what the future is going to be for us. We're still just checking each other out. We're evaluating. But i'd like to have sex with you, and if I do, I'd like
to know that I'm the only person you're sleeping with. Be brave. It's usually women who say this, by the way, men don't say it. But be brave and say it and if they now, I know what you're going to say because you say it to me online all the time. But they lie. They say they are but they're not. Like then you are having sex with somebody who don't trust. You need to listen to your stomach
and ask yourself do you trust this person? Okay? Then you continue having dates, you continue having sex all great, protect use protection, folks, and then you have the what are we conversation? When do you have that? Well? Research shows that men tend to fall in love first, women tend to say I love you first, and it's usually somewhere between three and six months. For me. With my Julio, I said it first, and it happened at a gas station. He thought it was terribly unromantic.
But what happened is we were on a very long car trip. He had done so many nice things for me in the days before, and we stopped for gas. I was driving. I was driving at that point because we're switching off, and he jumped out of the passenger seat and started pumping the gas, even with his own credit card. It was my trip because I needed him to come with me on something I was doing. Anyway, I'd never had a man pump gas for me before. Can you believe that?
Can you believe? I was raised with all brothers where we were all independent, you know, it was just like every man for himself. And I looked I was just like And he came around to the driver's side door while the gas was pumping, and he opened the door to lean in to give me a kiss, and he gave me a kiss, and I just out of nowhere, said I love you. And he said, at a gas station. Really, this is how unromantic are you? I cannot believe the first time you say it, it's at a gas station. But I knew
he already felt it. He already felt it. You gotta be brave. You gotta have the what are we conversation? All right when we come back? Why slow love works? Why slowing things down in a new relationship can really work to create long term love. You are listening to The Doctor Wendy Walls Show and kf I Am six forty We Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio album. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I Am six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I am six forty.
We are in the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. If you've been with me for three hours, good for you. I'm so happy been here. If you missed any part of the show, remember you can always go to the iHeartRadio app and you can listen to it. It will be up there. I want to talk about slow love. It's an idea
that I proposed years ago. I think when my book came out, The Thirty Day Love Detox, it was really a book about slow love, and really it's something that I recommend to many people who are looking for long term attachments. Again, no judgment. If you want to have a short term relationship because you want pleasure, or you want to get your mojo back, or you want to get back at somebody. I don't know many reasons why
you might want a short term relationship, there's no judgment. But we do know that long term, committed people live longer, have better health, mental and physical health, and even accumulate more wealth. I mean, those divorced lawyers are pretty expensive. So I'm a big proponent of taking your time.
You know what Diana Ross says, can't hurry love right. You want to slow down, and so I recommend again only if you're looking for long term, committed relationship, that you delay the onset of first sex in a new relationship. Now I think it was almost three months into my current relationship that we had sex for the first time. It's not that we didn't have affection. We were kissing and holding hands and touching and whatever, and ask for
permission to do everything. Lots of consent there. But by the time we got there, we knew each other so well we'd built this intimacy. Now. I've also had a long life of all kinds of relationships, including see we used to call them one night stands. Isn't that quaint? But now they're called hook ups? What else do they call? Kayla? Do they have names when there's a quickie, A sneaky side guy? Yeah, yeah, I think you got them covered. Okay, nothing wrong with that.
But it's very, very difficult to convert a short term relationship into a long term relationship, and sometimes that's what people hope to do, because once they get into it, they realize they really like this person. They forgot to fall in love in the first place, and now their brain is being assaulted with a cocktail of neural hormones that feels so delicious. Maybe they think they're in love, but I don't know. Here's why slowing things down matters for
women. It helps prevent what's known as the oxytocin effect. So men and women when they have sex, both release this neuro hormone called oxytocin in large amounts, and oxytocin is a it's often known as the bonding hormone. Like the other time in a woman's life where her body emits so much oxytocin is when she's breastfeeding to help her bond with her child. Okay, now here's the problem with the oxytocin effect. You start to fall in love with whoever
you're having sex with over and over again. So you might be thinking that this is sports sex. You might be thinking this is just a hookup, but you start to catch feelings. Why is this a problem for women. Well, men, although they do have a lot of oxytocin when they have sex, the response or the result, the impact of that oxytocin is trumped by a huge amount of testosterone. Right, So the testosterone blunts the effect of the oxytocin, and men tend to not fall in love through sex.
So what ends up happening is two people will start having a situation ship. You know, a situation ship isn't means they're in a situation where they're meeting, they're having dates, they're having sex, but nobody is saying what are we or nobody's talking about feelings. And in that situation ship, the woman is starting to have feelings and fall in love with this guy and doesn't know how to bring it up. Honestly, I know this because you send me
dms all the time asking me how to convert this. I mean. The other problem for women is that you could just accidentally fall in love with a loser. Like literally, there's women have come to me and said, oh my god, he's so great, that's going I'd been singing He's that's amazing, And I'll be like, didn't you say that that was just a hookup
or a sports sex or an arrangement or whatever. Yeah, But now that I'm seeing him a lot, I'm really into him, and I'm like, you know, he doesn't have a job, right, and you know, like he has whatever history of whatever. A lot of women who are engaged and he left the altar four times, like, why would you He's got six baby mamas and eight kids, and why Well, you know he's different with me, right, No, he's not. You have oxytocin in your
brain, That's what's happening. So it makes women unable to assess well for the new partners. Now, there's another thing that happens to men when you have fast love instead of slow love, and it is men get disappointed because evolution designed them to avoid women who shared their eggs with the whole tribe or the team. And when a woman gives them sex easily, they think to themselves, well, this is fun, and this is wonderful, and this
is great, but this is not wifey material. Honestly, ladies, I know you hate to hear this, but on every first date, the guy is thinking to himself, am I going to meet my wife tonight? Or am I going to have great sex? They never think it's the same thing. They have evolved to have a split and it's not patriarchy. It goes back to our anthropological past when if a man risked hooking up with a woman who shared her eggs with the team, he could end up, you know,
raising another man's gens right. So I learned this firsthand a very painful way back. When I was a young woman and single. I met this guy. He was a music producer, he was wealthy, he was great, and I thought, oh my god, this could be perfect. I could live in this mansion with them. Everything would be great. And like by the third date, we had sex, and you know what he said after sex? He said, I'm so disappointed. And I said, what, excuse me, I'm lying there in the glow of perfection. What And
he said, I wanted to court you. Why didn't you let me court you? He literally said that, And I was so confused. I was like twenty eight years old. What did I know? Right? Thirty years old? Something? I didn't get it. But now I know because I've read the science on it. Men want the opportunity to court a woman. They want a woman to play a little bit hard to get, sorry, but they do well. People of all genders value something that they have to
work for a little bit. The most important reason to practice slow love is it gives you time to evaluate. It allows you to grow communication skills. It allows you to grow emotional intimacy, which the research says is the number one thing that keeps people together for the long term, it's the glue emotional intimacy, and you get to do that without being overwhelmed by those sneaky neuro hormones who send you bad advice. So there's my advice. Slow things down.
If you're looking for a long term, committed relationship, if you're a woman in your fertility window who wants to have kids. If this is what you're looking for, hey, if you want to hook up, no judgment here. Enjoy yourself. I've been there. It's fun. But if you're
looking for love, practice slow love. Thanks so much for listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I Am six fort If you'd like to follow me on my social media, you certainly may The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh, but I'm always here for you on KFI every Sunday night. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on kf I Am six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.