Let me just save you a lot of time. Don't do it. Just don't do it. You can send a little birdie over if this is a friend group and be like, hey, so my girl Kate, she kind of thinks you're cute. Not gonna lie. And she'd totally be open to going on a date with you.
What's up everybody? It's Katie. This is our monthly Q&A for our Patreon community. So for those of you that are watching on YouTube or listening right now, you get to hear a snippet of this Q&A. And then if you want to hear the full thing, you'll have to join our Patreon. You go to patreon.com slash Heart of Dating. And we just love our Patreon.com. No, seriously, if you're a Patreon supporter, just know like you were helping keep the lights on at Heart of Dating.
For like this podcast, you individual person, whether you're giving $5 or $25 or like you are literally keeping on the lights on. You really are. It's been awesome and our community just keeps growing and we are adding some fun things to Patreon for the new year. But one thing we wanted to let you know is that next month, if you didn't know, we are doing our first ever live virtual Heart of Dating podcast recording.
And it's going to be exclusive for our patrons. So our patrons can join for all the patrons watching right now. You guys will be able to join and watch us live and even ask questions live comment live. Like you can come on like the video. That's how cool it's going to be. It's going to be so fun. And so if you're listening, you're not a patron, you can join Patreon and come to our live recording, which will be in early January. We can't wait for that.
So today for the episode, Kate looked at me and she was like, by the way, we actually have some really good questions. We got some amazing questions and we take these questions from our patrons, which you guys are amazing. And then you guys get to vote on which ones you really want us to answer. So there were so many good questions, but we're obviously going to go in order of the most upvoted questions.
So do you want to just start at the top? Yeah, this is a great question. So they asked from anonymous, you know, they want to wrap themselves out. That's okay. Can we get a timeline of appropriate growth and intimacy, especially during the early dating phase, 90 days. Like the first 90 days. Yes. And when slash what should be shared, looking for pacing help. Great. Okay. The first thing I'll say is we will share a bit here, but we go over this in depth in our school of dating program.
Yeah, it's one of the students favorite sessions. It's like in depth teaching on pace how to do this right. So we saved some of the information that we teach for our program school of dating, which by the way is available now. If you guys want to sign up in our patrons at the $25 level and up, you guys do get a discount to school of dating just so you know, but we do have our weightless special right now. If you want to consider joining school of dating for our January class.
So we'll give you just a few tips. So in school of dating, we do teach about layers of an onion and different layers, knowing like how to categorize certain things that are important to you. I'll just tell you how we we space it out is very light level of vulnerability versus medium level of vulnerability versus very deep level of vulnerability.
And so the light vulnerability stuff is the really casual kind of thing. And we go through like emotional and spiritual and all the different layers within what you could be potentially vulnerable with. The light stuff is majority of the stuff you should be sharing in that first 90 days. Now I want to just tell you a really quick thing that's important is that if you have an emotional boundary for example, I'll give an example of mine in a second.
But if you have an emotional boundary about something that is very intense for you or it's maybe a traumatic thing, that's going to be like a high level of vulnerability. And even if somebody asks about that in that first 90 days, you don't have to answer them or you can answer partially and let them know you're looking forward to telling them more about it through time.
So let me give an example. I was dating a guy a few years ago and he asked me a question that, you know, to his credit, he didn't know that the answers to his question, which was seemingly innocent, was very vulnerable for me. It was about somebody in my family. And it was a perfectly normal question for him to ask about 30 to 45 days into dating. But the answer to that question happened to be incredibly vulnerable like 10 out of 10 really high vulnerability for me.
So this is how I pivoted. I told him, hey, I so appreciate you asking that question about my family member. And I know that you had no intention to do this at all, but that answer to that question is actually incredibly hard and vulnerable for me. And so I'm not going to share all of that right now with you. However, I do look forward to sharing that more with you through time as we get to know each other because it is really sensitive.
But I know I feel confident that through time we're going to get there. And the thing is that what putting this emotional boundary up in the initial stages of dating did is it also showed me how emotionally healthy he was because the way he responded to me setting that emotional boundary about something that was incredibly vulnerable for me was he was offended.
And he was like, you don't trust me. Why don't you trust me? I'm like, well, technically no, like I don't know you quite well yet. But that's okay. Like we've only been dating for like 30 days, 45 days. And he was so but heard about it truly, but her name is in that term. So anyway, I do think you can share some layers. Like for example, another example is with JJ, he read my book. So he knew I was in an abusive relationship.
Okay. And he knew that in the early stages of dating. And so it's okay to say, hey, yes, I've been through abuse. It may be an early stage of dating. But what I would say for later on is the depths of the details. I didn't share the details with JJ until we were more in a committed relationship. I didn't share the really, really hard things in it.
And some things that I never even share publicly until I got to know JJ longer and through time. Does that make sense? So the things in those first 90 days should be things that you are willing to share like with a small group. Yeah, if it's helpful thing about like this, the big onion, the outside, the light public stuff, that's stuff that's public. Like if my Instagram is talk to you, if I would to your Facebook, your LinkedIn, read some of your story.
If it was posted somewhere, it's public information. Share that all you want. The next level, a medium level is what you would probably share in a co ed small group. And that's really important. A co ed small group. I like the idea of co ed because it kind of has like an idea of like what's appropriate or not to share if I'm a guy. If there's a girl in the room.
Right. So basically that kind of contradicts what I said, but not really because I said it would be what you shared with small group, which is more to your point medium layer vulnerability. And I would say in the first 90 days, you don't want to share too much of that medium layer. Yeah, you don't want to share little bits. Well, I think you know by the end of the 90 days, you have to have, you have to know if this is an emotion to say person or not.
So you kind of have to put some vulnerability out there that's a little more than the light. But I say co ed on purpose because if there's a group of guys, they're going to talk about topics, they're going to be vulnerable.
They're going to go to places that they would not if there was a female in the room as they should. You know what's really helpful for people to realize is there's not just physical purity or intimacy and areas where you have to have boundaries and dating, but there's also emotional and spiritual. Yeah, so a lot of people will go into relationships or they'll go into dating that first 90 days and they'll cover super hard hitting emotional spiritual topics and they're like level 10 vulnerability.
And then they walk away from those conversations and they say, I just feel so connected. I feel so, you know, I can be so wrong vulnerable. So it's just like almost a false sense of intimacy. Well, it is, it is intimacy. It's just way too fast, right? It's intimacy, but not with the trust. Right behind it because I know that.
So it's like getting emotion and spiritual naked with someone that you don't really know or can trust because you just haven't built a bad question to ask in that first 90 days would be tell me about your lowest moment with God. Yeah, spell it out for me. What was the lowest moment? Give me give me all the details of how you wrestled through that.
Yeah, that or like, you know, what do you struggle with like as far as like an addictive behaviors or like where you currently, but that's also tough because at the end of the 90 days, do you want to be get into relationship with someone who has like an active ongoing habitual sin in their life? Like, don't you want to know?
So the addictive behaviors, I would say that's something you might be able to ask them because you want to know, yes, they have an addictive, they have addictive qualities, but maybe you don't know what got them there. Their story behind it, the ins and outs of how many times they've been in rehab. Yeah, things like that.
Yeah, I think, you know, like besides sexual sin habitual, which I would still want to know that though before going into relationship, if you had an ongoing pornography addiction, when I need you, a month, two or three, like as we're kind of starting to do those last minute checks and balances and really making sure I think that is a great quite like you're going to have to ask some heavy hitting medium level vulnerability.
And then you're going to have a vulnerability at the end of the 90 days to decide whether or not you want to be in a relationship. And I didn't ask you that question and you didn't ask me. I think there's a little bit both assumed, but you never know. And I think we didn't have the right. That would be a great deal breaker relationship question like, I'm sorry, but if you are actively addicted to porn, I don't think it's a good idea that we should get into a relationship.
Medium level vulnerability question should be asked in the 90 days, but I think it's important to also know we're not saying ask that question on a second date, third date, fourth date, that shouldn't be asked in the first 30 days in my opinion. I think it needs to be a little bit longer than that. Yeah, I've heard some stories where people just ask right away and it's pretty blunt and that's just how they roll, but you know, we wouldn't recommend it.
Hopefully that was clear enough for you guys. The next question that was most highly rated is thoughts on from Melissa, by the way, this is not anonymous. Melissa asks thoughts on who pays for dates at different stages of a dating relationship. Oh my gosh, also like the word dating relationship. I just have to say it's always confusing because it's dating and relationship, which we categorize as two different terms, right dating stage relationship stage, but it's totally fine.
Dating stage is a 16 90 days before you are committed exclusively to them, relationship stage is boyfriend, girlfriend, exclusive off the apps, like focusing on that one person and people know you're in a committed relationship. All right, so thoughts on who pays for dates. Why don't we talk about dating and then relationship? My answer would be this, the first 16 to 90 days dating, you're just dating, I think the majority of the meals are probably paid by the guy, I'd say 80%.
However, as soon as you get into relationship, I think it needs to be 50, 50 as much as possible. Yeah, I would agree with that.
And I think that kind of transfers over and what we kind of see is like the natural reciprocity of pursuit and honoring each other, which is in the beginning, it's a vast majority of light by the guy, like 90, 10, 80, 20, and then month by month by month, it's 80, 20, 70, 30, 60, 40, and then relationship is 50, 50, 50, right, the exactly, so I would answer the same way I would say in the beginning, like first few dates and in that dating phase, the guy should pay in my opinion.
Where ladies feel like that, if you feel like you have to, ask yourself why, why do you even have to offer, like ask yourself why you feel like you have to offer, I think that's a big thing that women are like, oh, I have to offer it. Well, like if you, if he agreed to you paying or splitting the bill, like how would that make you feel, would that doc points, would it make you feel like not really pursuit or taking care of?
Are you asking and offering just like out of the test or out of people pleasing, because I think oftentimes women are not leaning back into their feminine, which part of the lean into the feminine is receiving. And so I personally think that like I wouldn't offer it in the early stages, unless the meal or something that he took you to do is a gregis, which hopefully it's not.
Like I don't even like dinner dates and we don't recommend that for our first date, but if you go to a dinner date early in dating and the meal is $25,300, that's a gregis and I'd probably offer to pay for some of that. But hopefully that's not happening or if he surprises you and takes you to like a crazy amazing concert like Taylor Swift, that would be actually crazy.
I would be like, let me pay for some of this crazy rule thumb if it's over three figures, so it's over $100, maybe offer to pay. Now that being said, maybe you're not offering to pay if it's a $50, $60, $70 date night. However, you were not saying that you're going to be ungrateful. Yes, I mean, or treat it like it's nothing. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, if you don't offer to pay. And if he pays, you need to like light up, gas him up, like he is the best guy in the world.
Thank you so much. That is so kind of you. Right. I deeply appreciate it. Like I feel and tell him how you feel. I feel so loved by that. I feel cared. I feel seen by that. So one thing I started doing when I was dating, well, I'll tell you in the back, back in the day, what I used to do is I used to people please and I used to offer to pay because I thought like I had to. And but then if he actually let me pay, I felt weird about it. Or if we split it, I kind of felt weird about it.
And so I just realized through time and leading more into feminine, my feminine nature, like, okay, let me just practice receiving. Like I'm just going to practice receiving from this man. I wouldn't offer to pay or reach for the bill when it came. If in the early stages of dating, and but I would like gas him up and thank him so much. And there were times where something maybe was more expensive.
And then I would offer to pay for things. For example, a great example is actually like at the end of our dating stage, almost to relationship when I was in Seattle visiting you, you paid for my hotel. And then I offered to split that cost with you because it was a very, it was pretty expensive. And you did allow me to do that. I split it with you. Yeah. Are you sure? I'm positive. Oh, because it's like that for you. It did. But it not a bad way.
So obviously, and I think I paid for your flight right. Yeah. Yeah, I paid for your flight. Yeah, that's right. I paid for your flight. Now I was very blessed out of a really, really great job at that time. No guy when he asked you on a date, like a typical date is expecting you to pay. I think for the majority. However, they are expecting you to be appreciative and grateful. Absolutely. I love it though. Getting into relationship. You're expecting more 70 30 or 80 20, 73,
right. Gradually. Let's process. Once we are deep into relationship, you and I were splitting so much. Yeah, it was maybe not 50 50, but we were splitting a lot more. Yeah, but that was fine. I think listen, I made a lot more money than you and I was happy to pay. Thank you. I was poor. Now I'm just kidding. All right. Let's go to the next question.
Do you want to read it? Yeah. How does one encourage men in the church to ask ladies out? Or how does one get over waiting to be asked out and do the asking out? What's up, fam? I'm so sorry. But from this point on, it's only the patron subscribers. Only you get access to the rusty episode. Trust me. It hurts me as much as it hurts you to say that.
But this is where I would just ask you if you have not obviously yet subscribed to us on patron. Would you be so kind to support us? You guys keep us alive. You literally let us do our job. Podcasting and creating content when you support us on Patreon. Just let you in for the rest of the episode. We're answering a few questions like, hey, how do I keep a romantic connection alive? But still respect physical boundaries?
JJ, what did ignition look like for you versus infatuation? Another couple great questions were, hey, it's been six months. How do I still stay hopeful yet? Also realize that my expectations might create a ton of room for disappointment if we ever broke up.
And then lastly, one of my favorite questions of all time, hey, I'm a Christian and they're not dot, dot, dot. What do you guys think? And so it's a wonderful question about Missional Dating. So that's what we have for the rest of the episode. We love you guys. Thank you so much for listening to Heart of Dating. Period. Patreon or not. We love you guys. Have a wonderful day.