@DrWendyWalsh is offering her Wendy wisdom with her driveby makeshift relationship advice. (09/29) Hour 2

opinions on the science of love. If you'd like to send me a DM with a relationship question, I will keep your identity private. The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. All right, here we go. First listener, Hi, Doctor Wendy. Men feel like calling and texting is just enough these days? Where are the men who buy flowers and write notes? Are women accepting less? Why don't people try anymore? I have a very long winded answer to this, but I'm gonna shrink it for you, guys.

Women are accepting less. And one of the reasons why women are accepting less is because we have an oversupply of successful women in the mating marketplace and there's high competition for men who you might consider to be a high value mate, and so women are accepting less. The other reason people don't try anymore is because there is also access to so many potential mates through dating apps.

I mean, evolutionary psychologists speculate that back in our hunter gatherer past, in our entire lifespan, we never laid eyes on more than one hundred and fifty people yet today, and most of those people, by the way, were related to us in our tribe. But today a new mate is a thumb swipe away. You can meet potentially thousands of people if your thumb doesn't get too tired every single day on those dating apps, just by swiping and swiping and swipe. So it tells the brain you don't

have to try very hard. Supply is high, so the price is low. But having said that, let me use my favorite analogy tomatoes. Let's say one year there is a bumper crop of tomatoes, and let's say the price of tomatoes drops to one cent per head. I promise you there is still a small market for an artisan, organic heirloom tomato. That's two dollars ahead. So which are you. We teach people how to treat us, and we don't teach them by being demanding. We don't say I expect

you to send me flowers. What we do is we practice slow love. We don't rush into bed with somebody because all of a sudden you have become that one sent tomato. We take our time, we assess, we're polite and friendly, and we reveal, but we don't rush. We make mates work for us, and this applies to all genders. We appreciate people who we get to sacrifice for. Did you hear that language? Who we get to sacrifice for?

Give someone the opportunity to sacrifice for you. And now you're gonna say, yeah, but the ones I want to sacrifice for me don't. Yeah, So let them move along because they're not ones you should want. You see you have. It's like a test. And yes, there are beautiful, wonderful, amazing men out there. They're listening right now. Who say I buy women flowers? I write little notes. My Julio writes beautiful cards. He's a card guy. He's the romantic anyway.

So if you set your criteria, if you set your standard, and you are polite with setting your boundaries, not demanding, you'll see people will show up. We'll treat you kindly. Dear doctor Wendy, I don't like dating apps, Well, most people don't. I just had some awful experiences. What are some organic ways to meet men in twenty twenty four? Okay, so I do want to say that dating apps are no different than what a crowded singles bar was like

in the nineteen eighties. Okay. All they are is a place to sort of meet a stranger and then figure out who they are. And so there are some skills that you need to learn in order to use dating apps correctly. So that's the first thing I'll say. It's not that you've had some awful experiences, is that you probably didn't say no and eliminate them early enough. Right.

You can often do it by reading the profile and reading into it figuring out hmmm no, Or you can do it after a couple texts, or you can do it after one phone call. But you're if you are instead projecting onto this profile that this person is the most perfect person and then you meet in the real world, is completely different. It's like, well, you didn't do your due diligence. There's a few layers. But having said that. I am a big believer in the fact that we

are missing a third space in our culture. We have our workplace and our home place. We don't go to pubs like the English do as much. I mean, we hang out at Starbucks, but really are you meeting people? This is why probably the most expensive grocery store in America, air One, has become the biggest single bars. It's crazy a grocery store has become a singles bar. I don't know if you know what air One is, but you can.

There's a small section where there's very expensive organic vegetables, it's some organic wine, and then all those packaged new age foods that you don't recognize. But really it's all about the prepared food and the lineup, the slow lineup for the prepared food, and the people talking, and the smoothie bar and the coffee bar and the tables outside. I don't care if you're in the one in calabass or Venice. It's packed with single people. I will say that.

But I do think we need a third space, and you can find that third space by joining clubs and also doing volunteer work. That's a big one because you find compassionate people who are doing compassionate works. So volunteering is very important. Uh, but also learn how to use those apps. Just want to say that. Okay, I think we have time for one more before we go to the break. Hey, doctor, Wendy, the lover in me is dying. Oh and I am becoming cynical. How can I keep

the lover in me alive in this terrible mating marketplace? Well, I will say this, the process of finding a good mate is really the process of eliminating many, many, many many mates. Remember we have access to so many through the dating apps now, and so it can get a little bit demoralizing to constantly be like, no, no, no, no, Oh they're bad. No, I had hopes for this one. Oh, that one's gone. All right. So I'm a big believer

in taking breaks. Get on the apps for a few months, and then go out for a few months with your friends and family and co workers and have fun and remember how lovable you are and don't even worry about those apps. Okay, So just take breaks, go back and forth, keep going back to reminding yourself how beautiful and fabulous you are and how great life is. Just because you're not a match with the last four hundred people doesn't mean the four hundred and one person four hundred and

first person would be great for you. Okay, when we come back, I'm going to continue to answer your social media question. Send me a DM on Instagram at Dr Wendy Walsh. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty one Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App.

all there. They're there. If you'd like to send me a DM, I will keep your identity private on my Instagram at d r Wendy Walsh. Producer Klea scrolls through there and finds your questions here we go. All right, dear doctor Wendy, this is a tough question. Oh tough question. I better get ready for this one. My boyfriend frequents this spa like once a week. I understand life gets

stressful and I love a massage myself. But I was at a bar recently where my friends and I met some men, and these men were saying that this spa in particular is where men go to have sex with other men.

he's going to give you. So what you're going to say is, hey, some people told me that spa you go to is where men have sex with men. Is that your experience? Can you tell me what really goes on there? And just a curious mind, like, I need to know what have you seen there? Now? This gives him a great opportunity to lie. Yeah, I heard about that. I've saw some guys go in another room, but not me. This kind of gross or whatever. He'll just say, he'll lie.

It's not gross, by the way, that's just what he might say to lie. And so you have then got to discern he knows he's now on alert. If in fact this is happening, you might say to him, I would feel more comfortable if you could go to like Burke Williams, or like a run of the mill, regular spa, whatever, and see if you can't say, look, if that'll make you feel more comfortable, sure, I'll go there, find one the same price. If he says I can't afford that, I have to go to this one. I know it's

a tough one. But if you grow real intimacy, hopefully what comes along with that are feelings of security and trust, and hopefully you can have these conversations more easily. Okay, moving along, here's one. Dear Wendy. I am recently divorced and I'm getting back into the dating game. I am forty seven and have not been single in twenty years today seems dangerous. What are some ways I can be safe dating in this new climate. Well, we're two kinds

of safety, right, physical safety and emotional safety. Let's talk about physical safety first. You're largely meeting strangers who you've met online. Make sure when you meet them, you meet in a very public place, you bring your own transportation, You watch your drink carefully. I mean literally, I mean things happen, right, So I would say make sure you do a longer assessment before you meet in the real world.

Don't get into a long text relationship. The only times of my life where I've only texted people and then meet them in real life, there's a reason why they didn't want to get on the phone, trust me. And then you meet in real life and it's like, ooh, this is nothing like those texts. So get on the phone, have a couple of conversations, maybe even a zoom so you know it's a real person. Also, worry about the people who won't meet you in the real world and

won't get on the phone. That should be red flags, right, So that's a little bit. And also just let your friends know where you're going and who you're meeting. Right. That helps. So that's about physical safety. The emotional safety are about skills that you need to learn. Relationships are all about skill, they're not about luck. And people with good relationship skills naturally will be more attractive to others and find more people attractive. So I would suggest about

emotional safety that you get a therapist as your wingman. No, the therapist doesn't go to the bar with you, but you go back and report here's what happened, and here's what they said, and what do you think that meant, et cetera. So you kind of have somebody with some real knowledge who can help you through this, because, yeah, if you haven't been dating in twenty years, it's not that things have changed, it's that you've changed and you don't remember how it was and how to protect yourself.

But do protect yourself, all right, Dear doctor Wendy, I was trying to date the most perfect woman. There's no such thing, by the way, I was trying to date the most perfect woman for three years, and she paid me no mind. I just bought a car and it's pretty luxury. I posted on social media and now she's actually messaging me back. Can I make a successful relationship with someone who wasn't interested in me until she saw my car. Alrighty, let me think about this for a minute.

We know that women are stimulated by resources. A display of resources by a man indicates that maybe there's a time where she can actually take time off to have a baby, and there's going to be enough food in the fridge for everybody. Okay, that's basic survival needs. I wouldn't be put off that she seems like a bit of a gold digger, because all women should be a little bit of a gold digger. On the other hand, I don't know what you did for three years where

she paid you no mind. But if you were sacrificing a lot and she did nothing and now she's interested, it may indicate that her values are one hundred percent gold digger, that it's not about you at all. So she's messaging you back. I don't know you really like her. I know you really like her, But how are you ever going to trust her if it's all about the car? You know what you could do? This is so what I would do. I would go out on a date with her, see how it goes, and then on the

second date, if it seems to be going. Well, say to her, by the way, remember for three years when I was trying to get your attention and you didn't, And now I got a fancy car and you're messaging me back because I posted on and do you want to talk more about that? And she's going to say no, no, I'm just at a different stage of life now. You see I was seeing this other guy. Then I had nothing to do with your car. That's what they will say. Say, but at least put her on alert that you're on

to her and you can watch. All right, I think we have time for one more real fast, real fast. My boyfriend went viral, oh really and gained a lot of followers. Recently, he's getting tons of attention. He likes it a little too much and it's a turn off. Should I let his fifteen minutes of fame passed or address this issue with him? He isn't cheating, but he's posting a lot and going live all the time. But he's not trying to monetize it. He's just getting attention. Okay,

So why does he need all this attention? I think this is a time to open a door of opportunity for communication. So you can say Hey, honey, I'm feeling a little neglected because it feels like you're giving more time to your social media following than me. And also, can I have your password to look at your dms? Because I'm telling you it's only a matter of time.

Because what does do? People online attract a ton of mate poachers, right, and if you have a safe, secure relationship, he should feel comfortable letting you know that there's no mate or those mate posters he's ignoring them or whatever. I would bring it up. It's an opportunity to talk,

all right, when we come back. If you are in a long term relationship and you guys argue or fight and you're worried if you should stay together, some psychologists have come up with something called the five second rule. I'm going to break it down for you when we come back. It is fascinating and it could save your marriage. You are listening to the Dr Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

It's tiny border skirmishes all the time where they are just resetting their boundaries, and this prevents the huge, knockdown, blow them out arguments. Kayla, have you ever had a relationship of a relationship, a little argument with some of your dating that starts out really small and then for no reason it blows up.

And it was just some tiny little thing that happened on my wedding weekend that she she did I that I never brought up to her, never talked to anybody about. And then somehow she said something about that weekend that triggered me, and I just and she looked at me, she goes, where did that come from? And I was like, oh, I just exploded. That's interesting, But that's how it works. So I want to tell you about this really interesting study. It's brand new. It was published just in August in

an academic journal called Communications Psychology. I should mention the lead researchers, Anna McCurry and Robert May and David Donaldson. So here's what they tried to do. They wanted to try to figure out what escalates couples arguments, how come a small thing can turn into a big thing? Right? And they also more importantly wanted to find out how

to prevent these kinds of escalations. Escalations escalator escalations. So they did research using six thousand trials, six thousand couples fighting. This is huge. Okay, this is a huge. This We should pay attention. You know, if you read a research study and they say, oh, yeah, we had fourteen couples in our studies, you're like, well, you missed out my peer group, right, No, this is so they're trying to study aggression. Here's one of the problems with studying aggression.

It's really hard to be ethical because it's not fair to see some you know, to get somebody so mad they hurt somebody. Right, So here's what they did. Each couple did. Oh so it wasn't six thousand couples. It was six thousand tries. But each couple did thirty rounds. So you'd have to take six thousand divide it by thirty. Help me, kayla, we should be able to do that. Just get rid of because three goes into two. Is that two hundred couples? It's two hundred couples. Yeah, that works, Yeah,

that's my Calculator's still a huge number. Okay, okay, So they each completed thirty rounds of a reaction time game. They were face to face they were wearing headphones. There was a game that they had to do, right now, get this, The winner of each round was given an opportunity to blast a very loud, noxious noise into the loser's headphones. So it'd be like, let's say you beat your husband at something and then you got to just blast him in his ears. So it allowed them to

be aggressive to their partner. They call this ethical. By the way, I guess if it hurts your ears, I don't know. Well, it doesn't cause any real harm, all right, This is a blast for a second, but it jars them, right, So you can imagine that they could also keep track of who was feeling more agitated, because if you were losing more often, you would be the one being more agitated. Right. So,

but here's the interesting thing that the researchers did. They changed around the timing of the opportunity to do the blast, so in one group, couples could send the blast the loud noise right after winning the game, immediately after. In others, they were forced to wait either different groups depends either five seconds, ten seconds, or fifteen seconds before blasting the sound. Surprise, surprise, surprise, they found that when somebody was agitated. Aggression increased by

eighty six percent. Of course, if someone's been blasting my ears for the last ten minutes, they're going to get a big old blast for me, of course. But as the games progressed, couples often matched each other's aggression levels. The louder the partner went, the louder the other followed. Now, I want you to think of this in terms of our kitchen table argument. Right you're having an argument about which way to load the dishwasher or how to fold

the tea towels. I don't know what you argue about, and as one person gets loud, the other person gets louder. Now here's what the researchers found that if you waited, the aggressive response decreased significantly. So, Kayla, let me ask you this. What do you think They had one group of couples wait five seconds before they did the blast, another group wait ten seconds, and another group wait fifteen seconds. Which group do you think significantly did a much softer blast.

The group that waited fifteen seconds didn't matter whether it's five, ten, or fifteen. So therefore the research have come up with something called the five second rule. So here's how we can put it into our own lives. This is news you can use, folks. According to the researchers of the five second rule, tell your partner what I just told you that if you're mad and you want to say something, that you should wait five seconds before you talk, especially

if you're mad, just five seconds. But you also have to set your terms. So is there a code word? Is there a countdown? Like, for instance, if you're about to go you an idiot? Can you instead learn to say five four three two one? It really hurt me when you said that. See, see it goes like that. Right, Maybe you do a countdown, Maybe you have a code word and you just pause, right, Is it okay to pause as you know? Are you going to keep the

conversation going? Remember this rule creates a little cool down, to de escalate. It does not solve the problem. It's not a get out of jail free card for difficult conversations. You don't get to avoid the conversation. It's just to de escalate so you can have a real conversation. So the next time you feel the tension rising, give that whatever signal you've agreed upon, Maybe just hold up your hand like this with fives like tuck to the hand five second rule and you move your fingers and you

count down to five and see if it works. You might be completely surprised. That's called putting the research to work. All right, when we come back, maybe it did have a big argument. Maybe it's time to apologize. When is a good time to apologize in relationships? And when should you never apologize because it's not your fault. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show I Am six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

do apologize a lot. And what she didn't know is that, in my case, it's completely cultural, which is Canadian.

just a thing, right. And I also didn't know when Boniorno changes to Buenos Aeria, but it's two pm a heart like around one or two in the afternoon, all of a sudden. So anyway, sometimes it's not good to always apologize to your partner. There sometimes when a legitimate, honest, vulnerable apology is necessary, but taking the blame for everything in your relationship is not necessary. So in my opinion, there are two times when yes, you should definitely apologize.

One is if you violated your relationship agreement. Now, whether it's something big like infidelity or something small like you got home before them and you watched an episode of the series you guys were watching together. Did you sneak ahead? You know what the penalty is for that, You know, right, you got to rewatch it with them. That's the rule. You know what's interesting. And I'm digressing, but it's true.

I did it one time and I said to Julio, that's okay, I'll watch it again, because I was fully prepared to watch it twice. And he said, no, no, I'm uncomfortable sitting there knowing you've already seen it. Of course, I said, I'm getting senile. I forgot half of it anyway, and we're watching Showgun where you're reading the subtitle is going so fast, like okay, but whatever it is, if you've actually violated your relationship agreement, it's okay to say

I'm sorry. Another example is if you have violated one of your own personal core values, so you have to understand that you behaved in a way that fell short of who you aspire to be in this relationship, and you feel guilty, you feel shame, you feel yucky, right, then it is okay to say, you know, let's use an example of You went out with your friends. At the last minute, you had said you were going to cook dinner at home. You left your partner with no food,

and you abandoned them without letting them. You know. The thing is, when you're in a relationship, you do have to confer with somebody. You got to make sure they're taken care of. You can't just live like you're not in a relationship. Right, So you did it. You go out, you have a good time, and then you feel bad. You come home and they're asleep already, and you look and there's a pizza box. They ordered something, and you're like, oh,

I should have at least prepped something for them or whatever. Right, that's one of your core values. Your value is that you liked to in this case care for people, right, And what are relationships but an exchange of care? Right, we care for each other. And so then it's a good idea to apologize and say I behaved a way that in a way that's not you know, fitting of me, This is not what I want how I want you to think of me. That's okay. So when are you

not supposed to apologize? Well, psychologists would say, if you immediately want to say you're sorry just out of a habit. Well that's what I do. I did say sorry. I don't know it works in my relationships. But and also, don't apologize if you don't mean it right, like an extracted apology. And if you are somebody out there who attempts to extract apologies from other people, like you need to apologize for what you did, let me say you're sorry, right,

and then they do it. You don't feel any better because you know it's a lie, right, you know it's a lie, all right? How to make an apology sincere and work? Instead of focusing on the reasons why you did the bad thing, we always do that. We make the sense I'm sorry, but you know I was My boss kept me late at work, and i'm sorry, instead of saying, instead of focusing on seeking their forgiveness, i'm sorry, can you find a way to forgive me for being so late and having the dinner burn or get cold

or whatever? So you want to focus on what it means to them, not providing excuses for your behavior. Also, be really specific about what you're apologizing for. And I'm a big believer in saying the words i'm sorry, not I apologize. If I apologize sounds distant, it sounds a step away. But saying I'm sorry that I did this, repeat the bad thing you did. I know this hurt you. Can you find a way to forgive me. That is

how you give a sincere apology when it's warranted. But if you're saying sorry, sorry, sorry all day long, you either have low self esteem or your Canadian just want to say anyway, And that brings the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show to a close. I am here for you every Sunday from seven to nine pm. You can also find me online at doctor Wendy Walsh dot com, on my social media and you can also join my Patreon group on Wednesday nights Patreon dot com slash doctor Wendy Walsh.

But I'm always here for you on KFI am six forty. Thanks for listening to the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us lie on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.