Why So Many Are Struggling in Love

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Transcript provided by YouTube. Slightly edited with AI.

[Music] What is up YouTube? Welcome back to the Love Life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, and Audrey Hussey, who is sitting opposite me. Before we get into the show, what are you doing on May the 4th this year? Can I tell you? You’re joining me for an event I am doing called “Find Your Person”. This is going to be a live coaching event with people from all over the world. It’s virtual, so anyone can come. There is only one way to get a ticket to this event: you can’t buy your way onto this event. The only way to get access is to grab a physical copy of my new book, *Love Life: How to Raise Your Standards, Find Your Person, and Live Happily No Matter What*.

In addition to that event, when you get the book, you’re also going to be entered into a brand-new giveaway for book buyers. This includes many prizes: live retreat places for my event in Florida this year, where we’ll spend six days together transforming your life, doing deep healing, working on your emotional patterns, and helping your confidence. We’re also giving away one-on-one sessions with me for private coaching. We’re giving away Love Life sweaters, which many of you have seen me wear at our recent events. We don’t have them for sale; we’ve never done merch as a company, but we do have some that we’re giving away to buyers of the book.

So, that is the only way to get one right now. We’ve got some smaller prizes as well. All of this is over at lovebook.com. There are even a couple more bonuses that everyone gets, whether you’re a winner or not. Everyone gets these extra bonuses. You’ll find out all of these things on lovebook.com. Buy a book now so that you can join us on May 4th, get the extra bonuses, and be entered into that giveaway that we are doing with all of these really incredible prizes. Go to llifebook.com to get yours now.

Episode Introduction

[Music] Well hello everyone. I hope you’re having a lovely day out there. I hope everyone’s happy. And if you’re not happy and if you’re struggling, then I am at least grateful that you are here with us. So welcome Audrey. You brought a topic today that you thought would be great for everyone out there. And I think when you told it to me, I was like, “Oh, I think everyone’s going to be grateful that we’re talking about this.” So what did you want to talk about today?

Yeah. So I wanted to talk about this phenomenon that a lot of people are coming to us with when it comes to finding love and dating in 2024. And that is the phenomenon and the feeling that nobody wants to commit. And that leads to a chronic fear of coming on too strong in dating, not knowing how to calibrate our interests, being self-conscious about expressing our feelings and how we feel about people. And you know, generally, that feeling that so many people have. I know that like I had it when I was single, all my girlfriends who are still single now or when they were single also had experiences of this. So this feeling I think is just such a common one.

Challenges in Early Dating

A lot of the advice that sometimes we share is almost speaking to having these very honest conversations, very upfront, you know, kind of hard conversations where we express our standards, where we encourage people to open up and to be more vulnerable and all of these things. But how do we even get people there? Because that whole bit before somebody is even willing to commit to us or open up or even have enough of a dialogue and a back and forth with us that we feel like we’re part of their lives in a meaningful way, that part in the beginning is the really, really hard part for so many people.

I just want to talk to you about it because I think that you’re going to have so many great insights. And what happens, which is another side of it which I also want to talk about, what ends up happening for people is that they then are paralyzed in the way that they approach people in dating. And they go, “If I put myself forward, if I show my interests, if I kind of express that I’m into someone, if I don’t play it cool and don’t constantly act like I’m not bothered and aloof, then I will come on too strong and I will lose my power in dating.”

Of course, what happens with that is that people then never really end up getting there with someone, right? Because then they’re not really showing themselves. And the other thing that happens, which I also want to talk about, is it makes you prey to avoidant people. It makes you the perfect target for avoidant people. So it’s a big subject. I’m kind of brain-dumping it onto you, but I just really want your thoughts on how to combat that fear of coming across too strong, how to calibrate who you are in early dating so that you can even get to a place where having the conversation of “What are we?” or feeling close to someone is possible.

Authenticity in Dating

If we want to attract an authentic, healthy relationship, then we have to be an authentic version of ourselves, which means bringing forward our actual wants and desires, not hiding them. Because when we don’t want to be vulnerable or when we don’t want to make ourselves vulnerable, we hide the things we want or the things we desire. Because if we want something and we make it known, then we can get rejected.

Yeah, that’s exactly it. It’s the fear of rejection. Yeah, that’s exactly how people feel. It’s this feeling of like, “I’m not even going to be open about the fact that I want love. I’m not even going to admit that I’m looking for a relationship, that I’m looking for love, because my value will go down. I will be perceived as desperate, and I will be rejected by the people I want. Instead, I’m going to play a game. I’m going to be cool. I’m going to pretend I have no needs.”

You’ve talked about this for a while now, this idea of people feeling shame around their wants and their needs in their love life, the shame that so many people feel even in wanting to find love. And you know, I had a coaching session with someone recently where they were asking me for help on their love life, but simultaneously talking about how they don’t want to do what their friends are doing. Their friends are all on dating apps and they’re playing the numbers game and they’re getting out there and dating. She was kind of basically saying none of that for her. But when I asked her what she really wants, it didn’t, it wasn’t the first answer. But when we really boiled it down, what she wants is to find love.

And there was a kind of inherent, not that it was in any way done in an intentional or malicious way, but there was an inherent kind of shaming of her friends about them going out there and putting themselves out there, because going on a dating app is a brave act. It’s vulnerable. And I don’t think anyone should be shamed for going on any platform or medium to go and find love, because at the core of it, it’s just a very human thing. We want to find love. We get so caught up in talking about dating. And dating itself is like, I don’t know, there’s something about that word that can carry just a negative connotation on its own. Because maybe even most of the people who really want to find love aren’t that excited about dating.

Desire for Connection

We all want to find love, whatever that means to us. I want to just pause there because what you’ve just said is, I think, potentially the most important thing that we could be saying on this subject, which is everyone wants to find love. Even people who are playing around, sleeping around, doing all these things, the seemingly emotionally unavailable people of this world, deep down, what they’re seeking is a connection, a validation, a need to feel at home and at peace and connected to someone.

This is to say that when we come from a place of thinking that it’s ugly to have a need in this area, it shuts us down. It stops us from really being vulnerable because the last thing we want is to be perceived as desperate, to see ourselves as desperate, to be rejected, to put ourselves out there and then be rejected and feel even more desperate and unworthy, to be made a fool of. You know, some people’s greatest fear is that “I’m going to be made a fool of here, I’m going to embarrass myself, I’m going to put myself out there and learn that they don’t feel the same.” And I realize looking back on my life what is really clear to me is how my approach to finding love throughout my life really lacked vulnerability. It’s almost like I would wait for massive confirmation that someone liked me before really putting myself out there because the worst thing was to try harder than someone else. I relate to that.

I can look at a lot of times in business, most of my life I’ve operated the same way. In business, when it comes to partnering with other people or when it comes to making social connections in business and so on, I think that I led a very introverted life for a long time because it was always safe for me to make a connection when I learned someone already liked my work and was a fan. Then I would connect with them, but I would never put myself in a situation where I was the one doing the reaching out, and I was the one who was putting myself forward because it ran the risk of someone going, “Who are you? I don’t care.”

There is a very brittle construct of the self that we have, and it’s almost like the foundation from which we operate, right? The way we perceive ourselves, our identity, we build it around these. It’s a bit of a house of cards. We’re like, “I am this kind of person, and I am this kind of person,” and as long as we protect that identity and we protect it from the outside world, essentially, we get to exist in this world where we believe we are all those things. So, for you, for instance, I bet that introversion in business and in love came with a massive confidence, a quiet confidence of like, “I’m amazing.” But also deep down, a fear that you’re not actually because if someone was to say, “No, actually, I don’t want to work with you,” it would throw into question this entire identity you’ve created for yourself.

The Construct of Unworthiness

I think it’s not as simple as a lack of bravery, a lack of confidence, a lack of self-esteem. I think oftentimes it’s baked into a belief system about ourselves that predates what’s going on right now. That basically says, “You’re unworthy, you’re not good enough, you’re going to get found out for not being good enough, or no one is going to like you if you’re truly yourself.” And so, we build this castle of cards around ourselves to protect what is at the core a very, very vulnerable view of ourselves.

There’s something inherently flawed about the idea of trying to be good enough in the first place, right? Because it takes our intentionality away from the desire to just connect with another human being and turns it onto needing another human being to validate how good we are. And if we need another human being to validate how good we are or how special we are, then we’re deathly afraid of a human being coming along and telling us otherwise because that house of cards will fall down. People think that these are the issues of people who are struggling. It’s also the people who struggle with options, but it actually is a condition that everyone faces. You can have the people that have built their image around being the best-looking people are often the people the most afraid to take risks, 100%, because their whole thing, their whole identity is value built around this idea that “I am incredibly desirable.” So, if you’ve built your self-esteem on the idea that you’re incredibly desirable and then you go and approach someone and get rejected, it’s like an existential problem. Yeah, of course.

You and I have both been in rooms where there is the most famous person in the room, where everyone else is just fairly regular human beings, and then there’ll be like a person in the room who’s the most famous person. Sometimes by a long way. It’s amazing to see that so often the most famous person in the room is the person hanging back the most, letting everyone come to them. I’ve watched them isolate themselves in like a little circle of people where they don’t interact with the room in a normal way. And part of that… this isn’t because they’re famous and it’s hard for them to talk to… no, because this is a room where they’re safe. This is not just in the middle of a mall somewhere. They’re in a room where they… it’s just a safe social setting, and they could just behave like a normal person. But they’re choosing to be very vulnerable and very guarded where they don’t talk to people. And so much of that for so many of them is because their image is built around their self-worth, is built around their status, and they’re protecting their status by not just going over to people and introducing themselves in the way that everyone else is.

That’s so true. And it’s like, “No, my status needs people to come to me. I can’t go over to other people.” Especially if that other person then doesn’t recognize me or doesn’t care who I am. That invalidates this status I’ve built for myself. So, no one gets off scot-free here. What’s the answer to this?

The Source of Power

I think that we have to look at what’s the source of our power. Because if the source of our power is maintaining this image I have of myself, then we won’t do anything. If the source of our power is the energy I want to put into the world, you know, I want to go and… my power is my ability to reach out or my ability to connect, then we go looking for connection. We don’t go looking for validation.

Wow, I even think about that now with this new book because anytime I feel anxious, it’s because I’ve stepped into a realm where I need to know it all and I need everyone to validate how great the ideas are or so on. But if my power is how much I know, well then, if I’m met with a stronger presence in terms of what someone else knows, then my confidence disintegrates. But if the source of my power is this excitement I have to begin a conversation… you know, if this book is a way to begin a conversation about something that really matters to me and I’m open to where that conversation goes, all of a sudden, there’s kind of a fearlessness place to be because I’m like, “Oh, I’m just beginning a conversation, and I’m excited to see where that conversation takes me and for us to build on it together.”

When you are looking for love, what is the source of your power? Is it never being rejected and showing that, like, having that as a badge of honor that no one ever rejects you? Is it how cool and indifferent you are? Is it how attractive you are to everyone? Or is the source of your power the intent that you have to form meaningful connections in the world, wherever you find them? You will do very different things depending on where the source of your power is coming from. And I think so many people either hold back or get their confidence obliterated by trying because they’ve rooted the source of their power in something that ultimately either limits them, makes them incredibly guarded and unable to be vulnerable, or makes them incredibly fragile when any form of rejection appears.

I think what people might be feeling when we’re talking about this is like, “That’s fine, ’cause I used to be the cool and indifferent person. That used to be me.” And it came from a place of not wanting to be rejected and also from a place of the more cool and indifferent I was, the more people seemed to chase me because the economics of value would happen, right? People would go, “Oh my God, she’s so cool and aloof and I’m so great. She must have something amazing about her.” That’s what people think. So, it worked in a sense. I mean, I think it just attracts avoidant people, but it worked in terms of the immediate thing you’re trying to do.

Managing Emotional Energy in Dating

One of the primary reasons people experience burnout in dating is due to mismanagement of emotional energy. Often, individuals enter relationships with an open tap, indiscriminately pouring out their emotional energy without assessing reciprocity or responsiveness. This unregulated approach can lead to feeling exploited or hurt, ultimately causing individuals to shut down emotionally and vow to avoid dating altogether.

So, we need to control that tap based on the stage we’re at with someone. Have you known them for five minutes or five months? The level of investment on their part, the extent to which trust is being built and consistency is being felt in the relationship. You start to turn it on more often or more consistently in response. That tap is responsive. It’s not just on. And that’s also how you stop your… you know, your source being taken advantage of. That honey… oh God, this honey metaphor is going in really deep now. You’re making me hungry.

To understand why some people consistently take advantage of us, we need to recognize the role of an unresponsive emotional tap. When we are overly eager to find love, we may fail to gauge how much we should invest based on what the other person is offering. This imbalance sets the stage for prolonged exploitation and emotional depletion.

The key to avoiding burnout lies in managing this emotional tap effectively. It’s crucial to regulate how much emotional energy we release and to whom. This approach allows us to maintain a sense of agency and control over our emotional well-being in relationships.

Valuing Self and Others

Self-trust plays a pivotal role in this dynamic. By learning to trust ourselves to manage our emotional investments wisely, we can navigate dating without the fear of losing ourselves or being taken advantage of. It’s about valuing what we have to offer and understanding that our emotional energy is precious and deserving of reciprocity.

While there’s a risk of initially misjudging how much to give, viewing it as a learning process rather than a failure helps us grow. Just as in building genuine friendships, dating requires us to approach interactions as givers, recognizing that not everyone will reciprocate our efforts equally.

Ultimately, mastering the art of managing our emotional tap empowers us to navigate dating with confidence and authenticity. It enables us to build self-trust and resilience, ensuring that our emotional energy is invested wisely and reciprocated appropriately.

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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