Thank you personally, Morgan Felsman.
I cannot close up the Love Month series without bringing on a true expert in the field of love. I watched Materialists, and now I'm fascinated by the world of matchmaking and how.
It all works.
So if you're curious too, or one of my single friends out there, this one is for you. It is the Love Month. So of course I had to be joined by a matchmaker.
Naturally.
I feel like I would do a disservice on this podcast if I didn't, so please welcome Alessandra Conti.
Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Morgan. It's so nice to be here.
I'm excited to talk to you about all things relationships and love. But first of all, how did you get into the matchmaking business?
Oh my goodness, how did I get into It's now been almost fourteen years, which is so wild. It's just so wild to me professionally anyway. But my sister and I we always set up our friends when we were young. It was just what we did. We liked to refer to ourselves as like sandbox matchmakers, so we were like in the sandbox saying, oh, Johnny, I think you would be great with Jessica. We just always would set up
our friends before it was socially acceptable. But yeah, then I graduated with my undergrad and my sister was graduated from Oxford with her masters, and we just always had this dream of moving to LA and starting a matchmaking company, Like it was just always what we did through all the stages of life. And so when we graduated, we moved to LA and then we really just hit the ground running. And I'm skipping a whole lot in between from our prom setups and even through college just always
matchmaking our friends. But yeah, so we moved to LA now, like I said, almost thirteen years ago, which is just so wild, and we started our company and it started so organically just going out and meeting these incredible people and then starting our business. And we started with one client and then it just snowballed. And now it's been almost fourteen years now and we have a team of matchmakers and they're just so incredible, and so yeah, it grew very organically.
It grew very organically.
I'm skipping a lot of it, but that's I think the general gist of how it all came naturally.
I have to also ask, then, have you and your sister set each other up on any dates or any relationships.
I actually set my sister up with her husband, so she's now married with three kids. I introduced them Dan. Yeah, I introduced my sister and her husband, I want to say now like almost seven or eight years ago. And it's just it was so beautiful. I met him volunteering at church and then we went to a party and I was like, Christina, you need to meet like the most incredible man.
This is Dan.
And yeah, now they're married, they've had they have three kids. Sadly they moved to Nashville, right, yes, yep, there where I am. Oh, my gosh, that is so beautiful. It's such a great place to raise a family. Like it's it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful.
Oh, it definitely is.
So does that mean she left the matchmaking and does that mean she is not still actively trying to set you up?
No, no, no.
No? I have the most incredible partner. Whenever I'm Obsasti's amazing. I have been through it in my own dating life as well, because I was a single girl just dating in LA and there's nothing like more traumatizing than dating in Los Angeles. It is a really it's a difficult city. But I feel like a lot of women feel like
that about their cities. I know for me, it's so incredible because I can really come from a place of viscerally understanding how difficult it is for women and just all of the emotions that you go through as a woman that genuinely wants to meet her person and wants
to meet her partner. I failed so many times, like brutally failed, like all I was like, wow, I really botched that, Like I really didn't see the signs that, And so I understand that if this is my profession, if I can be if I I went through what I went through, I know how the girls. I just have such a heart for the single women, and you too, Morgan. That's how I found you, and that's I just saw your video.
And I was like, oh, she gets it. It's tough and very much so.
And I'm right there with you now being engaged and finally having found my person. I still have it for the single girls and the single guys out there, because I know how rough it is in those streets to find your person to date, to just put yourself out there constantly all of those battles I know that are so difficult.
So I do want to get into it with you.
Talk to me about why it is so many people think their city is the one it's so hard to date in. Why is this a common theme that we're seeing across social media and everybody has these relatable stories of I live in this city and it's so hard to date here.
Yeah.
I think it's this thing that I like to call city fatigue syndrome. When you've been in your city for two long you almost you feel this fatigue. You're like, I've dated, I've done enough, and that I think also is exhausting. I think the women are just like exhausted in their cities. Every city has different types of men.
Like I know in La the guys that live on the West Side are very different than the guys that live on the East Side, or the guys that are in Beverly Hills bel Air are a lot different than the guys that live in like Redondo Beach and like the South Bay, and then even like different communities. I'm a proud Christian girlie. I love the Christian men and women. I love match making them, but we don't only match
make Christian men and women. We're working with Jewish men and women, Muslim men and women, agnostic, like all of the types, and in each of the communities. Even in the Jewish community, there's like the Persian Jewish community, and there's a struggle where I know with one of our clients, it's this a little bit of a struggle because it's like we find these amazing men that are Persian Jewish and then we're like, oh, this is the guy, and then she's we literally grew up together, like we grew
up together. Because these communities are really small, so I think even if you live in a big city like LA, it's really challenging. And even in Nashville, our matchmakers primarily and our clients primarily are LA based, but we definitely get some outside some like Nashville when they're doing like a national membership, which means that they could meet a member from anywhere in the US. So we have everywhere from all the way from New York, we have Colorado,
we have DC. So we have clients that are all over but they're doing a national membership. And because a lot of them are like I'm just feeling like I know the types of men in my city and I'm done.
But I also I don't know. I just don't. I don't agree with it.
I think that if a woman is feeling fatigue, or if a man is feeling fatigue in dating in his city, it's just take a break from using the dating apps. Do a date cleanse. Take minimum one month to just get off the apps and just cleanse and then revisit.
What do you think, Morgan, what do you think about this? I get it to a certain degree.
I understand in general that cities are hard to date in you like, I always realized in Nashville specifically, that we had a lot of dreamers in the city. A lot of people would come here and then they'd leave. And I think you have that in a lot of big cities.
You have a lot of dreamers.
I think you have people in smaller towns who don't ever want to leave, and then you also have dreamers in there. So the problems remain the same, right, They're the same, They're just in different communities. What I think is a exactly what you said is that dating is exhausting, and that's actually what's happening is we get tired of dating. If you look at the population of a city. It's massive.
You don't know everybody in it. You might know everybody in your community, but you don't know everybody in the city. So you definitely haven't gone to the ends of the earth to try and meet every single person. It's physically impossible unless you spend fifty years doing it. But more than that, if you do so much of it, you're going to be exhausted. And that's what we're seeing. We see people get so exhausted and they're like, it has to be my city because this is where I live.
You get used to an environment that you're in, so naturally you're going to take it out on that environment. And I was the same way, So I can't preach that it's wrong because I did the same thing.
Yeah, exactly.
And then it's I think people then bring that energy when if you're exhausted dating and you bring that energy on dates, oh my gosh, like this is not the way to go because then the person is going to pick up on They're gonna pick up on that energy and they're gonna be like, Okay, what is going on here? She's bitter, she's exhausted, like she's and there's nothing worse than a person complaining about dating on a date. There's
nothing worse. And I feel like people think that, Like people forget that, Oh I'm meeting a brand new person, and all it takes is one person. That's all it takes, you know that, Morgan. All it takes is one and then everything can change. But you have to kiss a lot of frogs, a lot of frogs, and you know what, though, sometimes you don't actually have to kiss the frogs. I think it's like a lot of women are like, oh, I have to kiss all the frogs.
I'm like, well, maybe you don't actually have to kiss them. Maybe just it can just go.
To the pond and hang out exactly all the frogs exactly, no need to kiss them, just allow them to hop away if they're not your prince, and that's okay.
But yeah, I think, gosh, it's yeah, it's definitely super challenging.
But all it takes is one. All it takes is.
One, yes, very much, and it's always the wrong one until it's the right one. And that's what we go into and that's what you hope with dating. I do want to know, from a match banking perspective, how do you prepare people to be matched up. What are the questions that you're asking them, What are you trying to get them to think about themselves, or what is the preparation for them to be matched with somebody?
Yes, so what we do at our company we do what we call a best match interview and personality assessment. So essentially we are ideally with clients. We're meeting with them in person. Our office as Beverly Hills, so we meet them.
It's so cute.
Oh my gosh, Morgan, next time you're in next time you're in La, you have to let me know.
You'll come to the office.
We'll go to Dante, we'll get Martini's for Martini Hour.
Oh my gosh, it's so lovely.
But so yeah, our office is right off road day, which is it's such a blessing.
Oh my gosh, how fabulous and fun.
So we have the clients come to the office and we meet with them in person. And it's so good also to meet them in person. I think like real matchmaking happens when you're in person because you can again get the sense of the person's energy. And yes, Zoom is fine and a lot of our data interviews have to be conducted via zoom because it's usually like we have to do a lot of interviews of potential matches for the client verse.
With the client. We're meeting them one on one. It's just a lot.
Fewer clients verse potential matches for them, so a lot of matchmakers. That's usually what happens, actually not usually, because some it depends on the match making company, the size of the match making company, all of that. But with us, we try to meet all of our clients as in person as humanly possible, and yeah, we do the best match interview and.
Personality assessment with everybody.
So what that means is they meet with one of the matchmakers. So I'm I work alongside the team of matchmak even though my sister and I started the company all those years ago. I luckily, and to be completely honest, working as a matchmaker is emotionally exhausting. So I have learned that I can manage a small number of clients that are my clients and I will go to the
end of the earth. And I know how sensitive I am and like I really want their success, and I've become obsessed with I'm like I need to find I need to help this person. I really really love my clients. But with the team of matchmakers, it's so wonderful because I'm able to help the other matchmakers. So I'm able to go to different events and scout and meet different potential matches. Like back to some of our Jewish clients. I love the Jewish men and women because I also
am very entrenched in the Christian community. So I think it's so fascinating, Like the Jewish community is so strong, and they're just a lot of the guys are oh amazing to matchmake. They're just like I love these I love the Jewish guys.
They're so great.
So I the other day had gone to this event and it was, oh my gosh, it was such an incredible event. It was one of the hostages was speaking at the Beverly Hills CINAI Temple. Oh my gosh, talk about I have been changed for good. But I went and I'm at this event and one of my girlfriends who's also a matchmaker, she works for our company as a consultant. She's amazing, she's a Jewish matchmaker. I also introduced her to her husband. I was maid of honor at her wedding.
The less us.
But anyway, I am so tangenting right now. But it's when I'm going to an event and I'm meeting these I'm meeting these like great single they could be older, like I met like a sixty year old seventy year old man, and it's great because I can be like, oh, my goodness, I'm a matchmaker. I know the client you
could possibly be a great match for. Let me get you booked in with one of the other matchmakers to do your proper interview, so then I push them to the other matchmaker or if it's yeah, So it's just
it's a really fun job. I feel like at this stage I'm so blessed because that's a big part of my job or just is just going to these different events and meeting really interesting people that could potentially be great matches for the court, like for the matchmakers and the city clients who are working with the team of matchmakers. So I then don't have to deal with all of the actual matchmaking.
I can just be like, oh, I think this is a great puzzle match, and then book But.
Yeah, we learn all about them, all about everybody. We ask the tough questions and we ask pevver cheat in a relationship before ideally, what are your plans? What's your ideal relationship goals? What is your intention? Are you dating with the intention of marriage? We literally ask, and especially in twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six, we have to make sure are you looking for a monogamous relationship
with one person? There are different questions now that we ask that are It's really interesting the times.
Obviously get clients, people come to you because they want to be matched up with somebody. And then once that happens and you go out to these events and you do these things. I'm assuming you're seeing people and just introducing yourself like in these situations to see if they're single, if they might be interested, because they could be a potential at least physical match, and then you start to do a full interview to then take that next step and see, okay, is this also a personality matchup?
Is that kind of what's happening?
And mind you, my limited experience of this is from watching Materialists the movie and that's all I got us.
The one movie that is out about matchmakers is They're Oh with Materialists. At the first few minutes, I had never felt More Seen. I was like, oh my gosh, because they were doing the interviews with these people and the guy was like, he's in his mid forties I think, and he was like, yeah, just I'm ready for a more mature girl.
And she was like, oh great, okay, like thirties.
He's like, no, no, no, twenty like late twenties, I'm ready to go above twenty five. I watched that and I was like, huh, I've never felt more Seen. But the rest of the movie, I was like, what, how did it go so off the rails? In my whole career, I've never heard of a man getting that leg surgery. Like spoiler alert if you guys haven't seen the movie, they do this.
Leg surgery, Like what is going on?
Never have I ever had a client nor database member, and we've worked with thousands of.
People at this point.
Never have I ever and some of the wealthiest guys we're in Beverly Hills, we attract a certain type of guy. Never have I had a guy that got that lex And I mean, unless they just didn't say anything.
But it's pretty awesome.
But do guys struggle with the fact that he the height is a thing, and you girls really request that because that's a hot button.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's a tough it's a tough element for the guys. It's a tough element. And I would also say for women, if you're struggling meeting a really great guy, lower your height a little bit, lower your height bracket, because these women will come in and they'll just be like, the apps are terrible, I'm not meeting anybody. And then we'll process it a little bit more and then they'll say, yeah, I only want a data man
six foot two and above. And I'm like, you just cut out ninety five ninety eight percent of the popular of the straight population. Okay, oh, yes, height is a thing, but there are so many great short kings out there, and so I think if women could open their minds a little bit to that, it would just make things so much easier. And just like, it's such a superficial quality. What did you see that in Nashville, Morgan that do you have girlfriends that are very height conscious?
Very much? So, there's a lot of people who have preferences when it comes to height. And I'm so funny because this is the one topic on dating that I am horrible at because I'm barely five foot one, so everyone was taller than me. I never, literally, I never had to worry about wearing heels or anything. So I can't relate in the aspect of knowing what that's like because everyone has always been.
Taller than me, even women bloss Morgan.
But I do know that it's a thing. It's a conversation that happens a bunch a lot of women, and he is a very uncomfortable topic for everybody involved.
Yeah, and what I've seen and no, I completely hear. And to be clear, I'm a hypocrite. It's not that I didn't allow men under a certain height, but my beloved is six two and my sister's husband is like six eight sixty five. Actually, But that being said, I will say something that yeah.
So sorry, sorry ladies.
But all this to say, I think that what I've found just having done this job, when we really break it down, it's not even about the actual height. It's about a woman wanting to feel feminine, right, That's at the core of any of these asks, Even the ask of a woman that says I want to date a man that makes a certain amount of money. It's not even about that certain amount of money. It's that she wants to relax in her feminine she wants to feel
protected provided for. She wants to just sit back. And a lot of the women also that tend to hire matchmakers tend to be high achievers, like they are very successful in their careers. Because it's not inexpensive. It's quite expensive to work with a matchmaker. Our memberships begin at twenty twenty five, sometimes plus de pending on waitlist and it goes up to one twenty five. It's an investment and it's not for everybody. Working with a matchmaker is
not for everybody. So therefore, we tend to attract these super high achieving, beautiful intellectual women that have a lot of times prioritized career and or have picked their hyper empathetic, emotionally intelligent, so they've picked the wrong guys. They've had so many experiences of giving these men the benefit of the doubt because a lot of these women tend to be the ones that are incredible loyal and they are what they say they mean, therefore they expect the same
from a man. So that's why you see these high achieving, intelligent, emotionally intelligent en path women just constantly having their pickers off. Their picker is just completely off, and they keep picking these men that do not earn. These are not men of integrity. These are not men that are operating at
the level that they're operating at. So I genuinely believe when a woman comes in and she's like, yeah, I want a dat a guy that's six foot, it's that she wants to feel protected, she wants to feel feminine, she wants to feel small, like not small in the sense that, oh, I want to dim my light.
The opposite of that, she wants to just feel cared for, versus.
Being the A lot of these women in their careers, they have to be the alpha. They have to put that work switch on in their job because they have to be in that energy. And women have both masculine and feminine energy. That's totally fine, but when they're dating, it's like they tend to go for the guys also that forcibly initially make them get into their feminine but a lot of those guys tend to be toxic masculine guys. So then you get no narcissist, narcissist narcissist that narcissist.
And because the women are trying to make sense of what just happened to me in this experience.
I'm Tangenting Morgan, but this is really what I know. True. Yeah, that's exactly what happens.
It's exactly what happened to me, and very much a big part of my story is so much of that. So it exists. It exists on so many levels. And it's hard, honestly to in this day and age with dating when you're out there by yourself and I say in these streets, because you're in the streets doing this, it's hard to trust and believe in people because we
have a lot of information. Now, we know almost too much, and it makes it difficult to just put it all the noise aside and just date like our parents used to date, when you'd be at a dance and you ask somebody to dance, and now all of a sudden you have a husband. It's not like that anymore. You got too much information. You know that somebody could be unsafe. You know that there's a possibility that they have a track record, or that they could be on a who are we dating the same guy?
Facebook page or those.
Are my gosh, there's just so there they are like a ring of the bottom place.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's hard because, like I support that in a way that I love that women are looking out for each other. I think that's awesome, but it's also a little diabolical because if somebody wrongs you, you can post something there and then that whole person is tainted. So I have a love hate relationship with those. I think it came and started from a good place and has now morphed into something else, which is what we're
just seeing in general. Is everything on the internet that we're seeing about dating and relationships and us even talking here is all coming from a good place. But when you have so much information, it makes it difficult to be out there dating and just actually date without thinking about everything else that you have to think about when it comes to it. Yeah, and I think that's a lot of what you're talking about here.
One hundred percent.
And I love the phrase trust but verify, And I think that as women, women do.
Have to be careful. They just do. There is especially with the apps.
And I know I've had a horrible cheating experience where I knew something was off, but I didn't listen to my intuition. It was such an amazing learning experience for me, and hopefully I can I know that the Lord, you don't have a test, you don't have a testimony, blah blah blah, like okay, enough tests. But all that to say, I do think that I went through that experience so
that I could help women to know that you know it. Yes, there's, of course, there is a big difference between anxiety and intuition.
But at the same time that if the whole goal of partnership is transparency, is giving each other, just affirming each other and knowing that, hey, nobody's perfect, and if you need a little bit more reassurance because you've been through a situation where you were betrayed or something went sideways, I think that just having a partner that understands the call and can work with you in that way, I
think that's so important. So I definitely just having It's such a fine balance between we don't want to throw caution to the wind and just say oh whatever, Oh okay, he's following all these girls on Instagram that are like random, scantily clad or whatever. We have to be aware of the basic signs that a guy is maybe not who he's proclaiming to be and also having an open dialogue
with your partner I think is just so important. It's been such a game changer, I know in my relationship, just to be very upfront and be like, hey, if you're the type of person that is you have really high privacy needs, we're not the right match. We are not the right match because I will look when you're texting somebody like not in a and if you're covering it or putting your phone on do not disturb. That is going to get my amygdala working wild because of
my experience. But I think it's just such a beautiful policy. And I think it's also from a matchmaking perspective. I learned that there are some people that totally are fine with privacy situations. There are some girls that are like, no, this is my phone, do not look at it, but this is my privatelah blah blah blah blah. But then there are other women that are like, no, my gosh, whatever, you know, within reason, obviously you're not doing daily phone checks.
And some men that are the same way. And I think that matching those people, we want to just make sure. It's such an unspoken thing. But like when i'm matchmaking. I like to learn. Okay, where are you on that scale? Are you somebody that really values that the very insular whatever, or you more open is? What does this look like even with like male female friendships? How do you feel
about that? There's so much there's so much Morgan that I learned in my personal life that I'm then like, Okay, I am these are new questions that I have to start asking people because.
And it's hard once until you've had the experience to then ask those questions. It's really difficult. Like a healthy relationship to mimic you want to mirror that. So that's what you're now experiencing, right, So yeah, but I am curious now that you mentioned the privacy the friendship, what are the top five things that you have to make sure two people align on to ensure Like you've obviously had a lot of successful matches and a lot of people that have gotten married. What are those I'm sure
there's more than five. There's probably a whole plethora of things, but like top five that you're really paying attention to to make sure two people are evenly matched for each other.
Yeah, I love that.
So it's funny. One of our matchmakers. JD always says that we have a lot of successes, but we have a lot more unsuccessful matches. But that doesn't mean that. So with any client that comes in they are meeting. Say that a client is coming in and it's a bachelorette, She's going to meet ten different bachelors or something like that.
Nine of those are going to be failures nine and there's going to be one success, right, So that's really but we're gaining so much information and definitely as a team of matchmakers, we've learned so much from those failed matches, Like we've learned, oh, this does not work, and that's okay, that's intel. We're gathering intel. The elements that absolutely have to be there. Are you both aligned with wanting marriage? Are you both aligned with wanting to have kids? And
is religion compatible? So marriage, do you want marriage?
Kids?
Religion compatibility? Those are deal breakers. I'm not big on the word deal breaker except for those three elements because we've seen that it doesn't matter if there are two people that are like the most incredible personality match and they just like they both like love to travel, love this, love that, love the other. If you're not aligned on those three elements, this is not your future husband or your future wife.
It just isn't.
And then so those would be the three that absolutely must be there. The other elements that are like priorities, so right, these are like priority elements of things that a woman or a man should look for. It's understanding values.
So it's sharing shared values. And that's why I really love the Jewish men that come in and the Christian women that come in, or the Christian women and Christian men that come in, because there's an agreed upon set of values that I already am understanding that our team gets that these are. This is a generally speaking, obviously you do get some of the Christian men that are they're Christian by name, but not by the way that
they're comporting themselves. But shared values are really essential. I think boundaries with just boundaries with male female friendship, I would say as a really big one, and just being aligned with aligned alignment there because they're certain people that they're like, oh, my best friend is Jessica and Isabella and I talk to them all day every day, and we're going to go to dinner, and we're gonna go
to coffee together and that's okay. And there are certain women that are like, oh, yeah, I have a best guy friend that's John and Eric, and yeah, they bring me a coffee. We're gonna go to this concert together.
This da da da da.
Fine, those two people are going to be a great match. Verse the woman that is like, no, I don't really have male friends like I do have male friends, but I do have really strong boundaries with them. I don't want to do one and ones because it can lead to even if you have two really good people, it just it's not an appropriate thing. So I've seen that be a really big one. That is something that I like to ask that a lot of people like. It
just shows a lot about a person. I think it's such a specific thing, but I really think it shows so much.
No, and those are all really good ones, and definitely ones that I anticipated. Also really interesting to me that I didn't realize I needed in a partner until the very end, right before I met my fiance. I needed
somebody who had a heart the same as mine. And this is an interesting perspective because you like to think, well, like love and understanding love, it's all the same, but it's really not how we love and how we show empathy and how our heart decides decisions and impacts who we are as human beings is actually one of the essential parts of your personality and your shared values. So I realized what I had missed all along and the partners that it didn't work out with, was we did
not have the same heart. We did not see empathy the same way, we did not see compassion the same way, we didn't interact with the world around us in the same way. And so I'm curious if you've seen also that kind of translate into anything with matchmaking.
Oh, definitely, absolutely, I think the best matches are two people who really want a partner and want love and are willing to fight for love and to really open their hearts to each other and to learn about each other's hearts and to learn about each other's love languages, and absolutely, and I think that also touches on attachment style and attachment styles are so huge, and I love to ask very pointed questions just to see where people
fall in the attachment scale of anxious, avoidant, disorganized, and secure. So because if somebody has an avoidant attachment style, a lot of times they'll attract the anxious. They're like magnets to each other. They are just like magnets.
So I've had a lot of magnets in my dating life.
One hundred percent.
Yes, it's like the avoidant is no my independence, and then the anxious is, I love you, don't abandon me. And it is just like a cat and mouse. That is vicious cycle, a vicious cycle. One thousand percent. So I think avoidance, generally speaking, need to just get out of the dating market.
Until they become a different one, right, No, exactly, No, I'm joking.
I'm like semi joking. You need to go to therapy, not a matchmaker. But I think that the avoidance tend to it. There's a lot of self work that needs to be done because a lot of times you see this dynamic where this will be anxious, and it's usually the anxious.
Woman and then the avoidant man. Oh, bless my girls, my girls. I love my anxious girlies.
The girl loved me, Oh my gosh, Morgan, already I do now, But I'm so glad you're in a secure relationship because it drives his women crazy, like it just
drives them insane. And then the thing is they're the ones in therapy, they're the ones doing all this self work, and then the guy is just so all of that To say, I love attachment theory because I think it does describe also the heart of a person, right, Like an anxious heart is they really crave closeness and they just need a little It's an anxious person at hot take.
I love the anxious I love an anxious man.
I love an anxious I think they're a lot easier to match make and a lot easier to like actually be in relationships honestly, too anxious together obviously working on themselves to not be like in that.
What's it called.
Surreal answer real yeah, yeah, yeah, but too anxious can really sue each other's nervous systems, and it's so beautiful. I've seen this happen a number of times where and it's just like coaching them to be like.
No, it's okay, you can ask.
You can just tell your partner like, hey, I read the book Attached Together, so that you are aware of it's Attached by Amir Levine, who I'm so excited. Oh my gosh, I'm meeting him for the very first time. I talk about this man probably every day to my clients.
I'm meeting him.
He's speaking at the Matchmaking conference in two months. I'm so excited he's presenting, and I'm just going to be like a mirror, thank you for your work.
Because it really has changed.
I learned about attachment theory, like you're two of matchmaking because I was like, what is going on? Because it's one thing to set up your friends in the sandbox, it's another thing to set up fully formed adults that we're like, what, why is this not working? I don't understand you're perfect for each other. And then we're like, oh, this is why. It's not a lost cause for avoidance.
It's not.
But they too need to be actively working in therapy doing all the things when they feel those feelings of even though it's called avoidance, they feel anxiety when closeness. Closeness comes, and so then they want to retreat and they do, and they push the woman back, and because they want to keep their independence, they're like.
I want my independence, stay away.
But then as soon as they feel safe again, then they come they're like, oh wait actually.
And so again cat and mouse.
All of that to say, I do think that if two people are working on themselves independently of each other, regardless of attachment style, just trying to be secure and also verbalizing to each other, not avoiding that conversation of Yeah, some days, I might just have a higher level of anxiety in this relationship, and I might just need a little more TLC. I might just need a little more affirmation. I might just need a phone call before bed.
Or whatever it is.
Just ask for what you want, because also I found that there are plenty of people who will give you what you want. So if you're in a relationship that's not that's bringing you more anxiety, and if you're feeling unclear, this is not the right relationship, like it's difficult to walk away, But there are plenty of people who have compatible hearts and compatible attachment styles that can actually we soothe your nervous system and you don't have to live in a state of confusion.
Yeah.
Well, there's a few things I heard in there. One is that you are basically a therapist and a matchmaker. You follow both for your clients. You're doing both.
I am an unlicensed, completely unlicensed. I am a life I am not a therapist, but thank you, I will take that.
I'm trying to learn. I'm constantly learning.
You have to understand the human psych to be able to match, make and to connect people.
That's part of it.
So you're doing great at that. But the other thing I heard is that there's plenty of people I love the talk of abundance because it really allows people to stop staying stuck in relationships that they shouldn't stay in and understanding that truly, there is a lot of fish in the see even if there are some bad fish out there, there's a lot of fish in the sea. And that was something that I heard that I wanted you to emphasize a little bit further.
One hundred percent.
Yes, I think that it really just goes back to the fatigue that people get when they're dating, and the kind of hopelessness that can settle in somebody when they're in the dating world and then they meet somebody and they're like, Okay, I get back out there. It's tough, and I'm not going to say it's not difficult.
It is.
Even if you have the most incredible mindset, it's not easy.
Believe me. Believe me, it's not.
You could have the best mindset, but it's so so hard, Like it's not easy. Some of it is a humiliation ritual unfortunately, and it is what it is. But that's why I think as a man and woman, that's like going into the dating world, knowing what your boundaries are is just so important and it will shield you so much from the deeper level of despair that a lot of times dating can bring. So knowing boundaries. But yeah, ultimately there is coming from the mindset of that there
are so many incredible men and women out there. And we tell this to our clients all the time. Like you, they have to reprogram, they have to reprogram the brain instead of that scarcity mindset of oh my gosh, I want to put all my eggs in this one basket. And no, you want to come from a place of supply and not the place of demand, because when you're in that place of demand, then the blinders come on
and you don't see the waving red flags. And truly, as a matchmaker in one of the hardest cities in the world to date and working with men and women in New York and Nashville and all these other places, there are so many incredible men and women there are. It's just a matter of finding that one person and like we said, you might have to kiss a lot of frogs, but you don't.
That's the other thing. It's like, once you know your boundaries.
For the men and women that we work with, maybe in the past they were like, well, yeah, I like to sleep with a guy after the third date, just to see if that physical connection is there. And we say, okay, how has that worked, And they're like.
Oh, it's terrible. Then the ghost to me three days later whatever it is.
So we say, okay, why don't you just stop sleeping with mene, just stop sleeping with men, Like what a concept?
Take your power back. Just stop.
Because also when that happens, the women then are bonding through oxytocin, and again the blinders come on because they're like, oh my gosh, they have this surge of hormones and emotions and it's not even about what the man thinks, Like, we don't care whatever if a guy or a how
a guy is operating. It doesn't matter. It's about the woman, and it's about being clear and having clarity and not missing those waving red flags in the early stages of dating and not rushing into a commitment just because you're like, oh, my gosh, this seems like a great guy. It's like slow and steady, allow the man, allow the woman to unfold. But date intentionally as well. If you're dating with the intention of marriage, there's nothing wrong with saying that in a lovely way.
I was very much the sloth when I was dating, and I operated once I learned my boundaries, which I learned what I wanted, what I was looking for, and I really started to figure out myself more. And I was, probably towards the later part of my twenties, often called myself a sloth. I was like, I'm moving at a sloth pace and nobody is gonna move me. And that's just how I operated for a long time. Of course, I still had a lot of mishaps in there, but the sloth was a majority.
That's a part of it.
Alesondra, I do want to ask you. This isb I always end the podcast is either it's a piece of advice, motivation or inspiration, or maybe it's a topic that we didn't address, and you're like, Morgan, we have to talk about this, and I give the floor over to you, so take it away.
Yeah.
I think I would just say, especially to the single women, when they're dating, just flip that vacation mode on after you've affirmed that, Okay, this guy is who he says that he is, he has the job that he says that he does, and he's not do a little social media check make sure there's no marriage photos or girlfriend photos or he's not following a million girls on Instagram. Once you've done that due diligence, I want you to really put all of that to the side and flip
your vacation mode on. And when you're going on a date, just be so present, pretend like you're on vacation, and make it the goal to enjoy this man's company.
Make it the goal.
You're not doing a job interview. Everything is going to unfold naturally, but in the moment, enjoy, be playful, give compliments, have fun, truly have fun. And I think also when a woman is dating, in her boundaries, if she says, Okay, well I'm not sleeping with a man, I say wait till marriage, ladies, save.
Yourself some trauma.
But whatever it might be, if it's like, Okay, I'm not sleeping with a man until XYZ until at the minimum needs to be in my opinion, just having done this as a matchmaker at the minimum, until there's exclusivity like commitment, actual commitment.
Now I've learned this through the years.
All that to say, have fun, be playful, don't be afraid to flirt, and be gracious and give gratitude.
That's what I would say to the girls.
Enjoy, Enjoy, enjoy, because what you learned, Morgan, and what I learned, and what a lot of our clients learn.
When you do meet that guy, you want to.
Look back at your old self and be like, honey, it's gonna be okay, Like everything is gonna be okay.
You're gonna meet an amazing man and.
He's gonna be like better than you ever thought, and that you know, you're gonna really really be grateful.
Yeah, So that's what I would say very much.
I love that.
I love that.
It's such a perfect place to end on because we should be living life like we're on vacation. Heck, we should all be on vacation a lot of the time, which would be so great.
But that's okay, that's okay.
Thank you for sharing, and thank you for giving us your wisdom, and I'm excited to see all the matches you make in twenty twenty six and beyond, and I'm just excited for people to find their love.
So thanks for being here. Thank you Morgan, it was so lovely to chat.
Alessandra made so many valid points in this so hopefully it can help anyone in their dating era maybe do some reevaluating and recalibrating it so they can find their beautiful rainbow fish in the sea. We are all deserving of love, but more importantly, we are deserving of safe, full, secure love, and it's out there.
Check her socials.
If you want some more matchmaking content, it's in the show notes. Next week, I'm excited to start a new series that focuses on how we show up in the world and our intentions. I have two great guys coming by, Walter Green and Danny Morrell. Subscribe now so you don't miss the episodes. You can also watch all of these on YouTube. If you love a good binge, watch now.
This is where I leave you. I'll yep with your friends next week.