Esther Perel’s Advice For Modern Dating

Do you experience sexuality as a place where you want to experience transcendence, spiritual union, you know, deep connection? Is it for fun? Is it to experience yourself as finally not having to be a good responsible citizen, you know? Is it a place where you can be naughty and mischievous? Is it a place where you can surrender and be taken care of? Is it a place where you can be safely powerful? These dynamics, they are all in our relationships and they all get translated in this other language called sexuality. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Love Life podcast. I know you're going to love today's guest. Many of you already know and love her. Her name is Esther Perel. Before we get into this episode, I want to tell you about an event I have going on on the 22nd of October. It is an online global event for people all over the world who want to know how in today's crazy dating landscape can I actually get commitment, a real relationship. Whether you're single and keep running into emotionally unavailable people or whether you're already seeing someone and you don't know where it's going, this event is going to give you the answers to getting the commitment you really want. Come join us in this event that is going to help you actually get the relationship you want. I promise you this is not going to be a bunch of philosophy. It's actually going to be very practical solutions, things you can do to move things forward with someone. All you need to do to join us is go to lovelifetraining.com. You can register there in seconds for free and I will email you a private link where you can join us on the day on October the 22nd. That link again is lovelifetraining.com. I will see you over there and enjoy today's episode of Love Life with Esther Perel. Welcome back everybody to the Love Life podcast with me Matthew Hussey and today I have something very very special for you. This is one of the, in my opinion, absolute powerhouses out there in the world of psychotherapy, in the world of love and relationships, in the world of desire and sexuality and eroticism. Her name is Esther Perel. She is a psychotherapist, a New York Times best-selling author and is recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. She helms a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Her celebrated TED talks have garnered more than 40 million views and her best-selling books, Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, are global phenomena translated into more than 30 languages. Esther is also the host of the hit podcast Where Should We Begin, a podcast I personally love which is available on Apple Podcasts. Her latest projects include Where Should We Begin? A Game of Stories with Esther Perel as well as the online courses Bringing Desire Back and Playing With Desire, both of which you'll hear a little bit about at the end of today's episode. You can learn more about Esther at estherperel.com or by following at Esther Perel Official on Instagram. But now we have the rare privilege of having her here in person in the Love Life Studio. So without further ado, I present to you the Esther Perel. So hello and welcome Esther. Thank you, it's so good to be back. It's so good to have you. Five years ago. Five years ago, I was, I think I was single. Yes, you were. You don't have to think, I can tell you. I certainly hadn't met Audrey at that point and it's fun for you to walk in and meet her today. I mean, it's really a pleasure to see people's life and, you know, develop alongside their work and how it changes, how the work changes their personal life and how their personal life influences their work. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like that's happened to you in the last few years? Like, has there been a specific way that your life has influenced your work in the last five years since we saw each other? Yes. Yes. I think that probably one of the most important ways my life evolved, I can't say it was completely new, but it became an essential part, is that it became more and more communal. First of all, the pandemic, then some health issues that we were dealing with. And so the concept of, you know, it takes a village became very, very real for us. And I've always written about it, but then to live it changes the way I write and talk about it. Do you feel, have you always been a sociable person who's good at creating that village or has that been a skill you've learned over time? No, no. I kind of was born with that temperament. I've always been not just a social person, but I've been the creator of a lot of the social hubs. I love to connect people. I find it a magnificent, fun puzzle. You know, who would be interested in meeting who, who should talk to who, who could create with whom, you know, and a lot of people in my circle will know, will say that they've met through me or through us. But it's a pleasure. It's something that I do without much thought. It's like somebody who cooks and you look at them and they know exactly what they need to put in and you say, what's the recipe? They say, no, no, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And it's just so artful and so intuitive. I think I have a little bit of that in the relational sphere. I feel like it took me, I've always been something of an introvert and it always, and when I was younger, I was more shy too. Still an introvert, less shy. It took me a little longer, I think, to kind of really connect to the value of relationships, which is ironic given, you know, what I've spent my life doing, but it, you know, I think in my, in my twenties, certainly I just didn't, I, you know, I, I think I was so, you know, on a mission that I neglected relationships to a large extent. But that is not necessarily because you're an introvert. I mean, I think one of the big misunderstandings is that we assume that introverts don't care about relationships. They do, they do often plenty, but they replenish more often by themselves. They fill up the tank alone and then they can go into the world. But that doesn't mean that they don't like the world and that they don't value relationship. They may not value necessarily the presence of large groups. So I, and I think that often when we think of introverts, we think people who, people that, you know, relationships don't matter to them. And I keep being told that that's not the case. And so I want to spread that message. I always was good at having one or two or three key people in my life. That was always the case. But I think I was a little more passive when it came to really investing in a wider circle, investing in other relationships. Did you let them do it? I think I took for granted the ways that people were trying with me a lot of the time. And I think that what ended up happening in some of my relationships was just a lack of reciprocity. You know, almost like you could use the excuse of like, oh, we're like, you know, we're the kind of friends that when you haven't seen each other in a year, you pick right up from where you left off. And I, I understand that concept, but it can be a bit of a cop-out because it can be an excuse not to actually invest. You're the person I would ask to, you're that person then that I would ask, who do you all phone call to? Who have you been meaning to connect with, but have neglected because you keep thinking we're friends anyway, I can do this anytime. Who do you owe an apology to? Who do you know has gone through a rough time and a text that says one sentence isn't enough? And I have yet to meet someone who actually then follows up on this and says that was a waste of time. Well, I think the interesting part is that that behavior often comes off as cold or indifferent to the person on the other end, but it actually internally for me, a lot of it I realized went hand in hand with underestimating how much of an effect I could have. And what shocked me more in recent years was the extent to which that phone call or that text mattered. And I don't think that I ever really, there was an aspect of it in my twenties that was selfish, certainly, but I think there was also a feeling of it doesn't matter. That's not going to make any difference. And I've come to realize what an extraordinary difference it does make. I agree. I always feel like I have so much to talk to you about. You know, you and I, um, I, you know, I hope we can talk more frequently in the future because every time I speak to you, I'm like, Oh my God, I have too many questions for the time that we have. And I was thinking about what I wanted to ask you today. And I kind of, we're going to traverse lots of different areas, but there was a quote that I pulled from you that says in order to want sex, it needs to be sex worth wanting. Wanting means anticipation, looking forward to the anticipation that you're going to experience something pleasurable, that you're going to feel connected to yourself, to a partner or partners, that it's going to be enjoyable and intimate. That idea of sex worth wanting. Could you talk to us about that? Because I think a lot of people will hear that and go, well, yes, I'm in a situation where it feels like the sex isn't worth wanting. And what constitutes sex worth wanting? It's a beautiful question. You know, there's a, um, early on in my show, I asked people if they have ever had a sexual encounter that was also unsatisfying, but they went along with it anyway. And they said nothing. And thousands of people get up. And then I just kind of look around and I just say, you look around too. It's very much an equal opportunity answer. And the amount of bad sex in the room is staggering. And men put their hands up too? You would, there's, it's equal opportunity. It's so clear. Now it's half laugh. We laugh. It's, it's funny. It's, but, but it's because everybody knows exactly in that moment, everyone has an encounter in their mind. Everyone drops in into a situation. And I think that the reason I'm so clear on this wanting is because sexuality is in relationships for most of history was organized around duty and obligation of women. Nobody cared what they felt, if they liked it, if they didn't, if you wanted 10 kids, you needed to have 12. A few were not going to make it. So sexuality was linked to reproduction and to a woman's marital duty. And we switched the concept in the West that we've switched the concept of duty to desire. I want to, desire is to own the wanting. That's one of the many ways to define it. And how therefore do I want? And what does wanting mean? And what is it that I actually want? So sometimes people say this, people are not interested in sex and I'm thinking, really? Or is it that they're not interested in the sex they're going to have? And what does that mean? It's foregone conclusion. It's boring. It's painful. It's disconnected. It's it's a five minute drive by it's it leaves them feeling empty. It leaves them feeling worthless. I mean, there's so many negative consequences. There's so many beautiful experiences, but there's a long list of things for which people can just basically say, why bother? I don't want this. And that is without even talking about early trauma, histories of abuse. So then I'll tell you the next one, because I wanted to translate that sentence in order to want it needs to be worth wanting into a real experience. So I asked also in the show at one moment for people to turn on their phones. And I asked them, put your phones up if sexuality was central in your family life growing up. And very few people put their phones up because by association, we think central means we talked about it. There was affection between my parents. I had good sex education, etc. But then you say, I'm going to ask you this question like this. If it was hidden or forbidden or taboo, put your phone up. If there was violation or abuse or misuse and if there was infidelity, put the phones up. And then you look around and then you have the entire theater with their phones up. And you just say, sexuality is a lot more central than we typically acknowledge. Look around. Every light represents what many of us hold alone in our internal darkness. And that story makes people not want. It's not worth wanting because all of these memories, all of these experiences may stand in the way. I often accompany this by saying, sex isn't just something you do. Don't think about performance and outcome. It's an experience that is basically about pleasure and connections. If it's not about having kids, then there needs to be another reason. And that usually means pleasure and connection of some sort. And then you ask, how do you find it? What is it that you want to connect with inside of you or with another person? What do you express there? You talk about languages that I speak. I think a lot in languages. For me, sexuality is a language. It's actually a coded language for your deepest emotional needs, not for your sexual needs. Your sexual needs and preferences all translate deep emotional wishes and yearnings and fears and wounds. It's like dream language. Why do you like this? Most people have no idea why they like this. And why is it that the thing you like so much, your partner finds so gross? It's like, how do we come up with these things that we so enjoy? And I'm not talking about the touching behind your ear. I'm talking in the broad sense. Do you experience sexuality as a place where you want to experience transcendence, spiritual union, deep connection? Is it for fun? Is it to experience yourself as finally not having to be a good, responsible citizen? Is it a place where you can be naughty and mischievous? Is it a place where you can surrender and be taken care of? Is it a place where you can be safely powerful? These dynamics, they are all in our relationships, and they all get translated in this other language called sexuality. If you don't want, you won't be present. If you're not present, it won't be good. But we are trained to accept bad sex, men even more than women, because they're supposed to want it all the time and take whatever they can get. So in that sense, I mean, there's no winner in this ugly competition. People accept a lot of situations that are deeply compromised, that are unpleasant, that are lonely, and they accept it in their relationships. We're not talking about your hookup night, which could even be better sometimes. When you speak about all of those things, everything I hear comes back to our ability. Well, once we get to the point of starting to maybe connect more to ourselves and our own desires and wishes, so much of it comes down to our ability to actually communicate and to foster an environment in a relationship where that kind of communication can even take place. I don't know what the percentages would be on the number of couples who are actually able to communicate on that level, but it cannot be high. I mean, interestingly, a major reason for creating these courses was to help people find the language and then the communication to a partner or partners. It's very clear that this is a lot, and people tell me, and I found a way to talk about it. But before you can talk about it, you have to have a level of self-awareness. You also have to have a level of, do I know myself? How can people start to get that? Because a lot of people feel very disconnected from their bodies. They feel disconnected from their sexuality. They certainly don't feel sexy. I think there's a stereotype that women need to feel sexy in order to have sex, but I think that's true of men too. I don't think that's just true of women. I think the moment a guy feels like he doesn't feel desirable, or he doesn't like himself when he looks in the mirror, or his confidence is low, I think that affects men's sex drive the same way. This is very important, what you just said. A big chunk of what I do is debunking myths. One of these myths is that men, by definition, want it. They want sex all the time. They are in perpetual motion in search of an outlet, and nothing matters. What you say is that the interior life of men is deeply connected to their sexuality. The fear of rejection, the fear of not being able to perform, the fear of not knowing what the partner, if it's a female partner in particular, is actually experiencing, their sense of self-esteem, their depression, their sense of self-worth. All these things are major influencing factors on male sexuality, never acknowledged. I just want to reiterate what you just said, because it's one of these things that we know, but the popular culture does not support it, and wants men, especially young men, to really think that there is nothing internal involved. As long as they have unprompted, spontaneous erections, they can just get going. I feel validated from you that you verify that. The research stands behind it. This is not just even an observation. There's plenty of research that supports this, and that should be part of education. Part of what you ask is, how do you communicate? Actually, before we even get onto that, how can people get more connected to this part? Maybe partly it is communication, but for men and women, how can they get more connected to their own sexuality? We have a lot of people who are in long-term relationships who have become disconnected from it, but we also have many, many people who have come out of a divorce and are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, who are saying, I didn't feel visible in that relationship for a very long time. In some cases, decades. I have not felt like a desirable person for a very long time in my life. I don't even feel like I'm a sexual being anymore. What is your advice to people to get reconnected? It's a great question. I think to answer this, I need to distinguish between sex and eroticism. Many people may have had sex throughout these years that you're describing, because we are used to having sex sometimes and feel nothing. Women have done this for centuries. You can do a lot of sex and feel very little, but in the erotic, you can do very little and feel a lot. That thing, the erotic, is basically the poetics of sex. It's the meaning we give to it, not just the act, the physical act. It's when people experience a sense of aliveness, vibrancy, vitality, energy, curiosity, imagination, playfulness. That's what makes it erotic. Just getting it done, it works. People tell me it worked. I said, what do you mean? We both come, and then? Then what? What's the experience? It works. It's a performance with an outcome. You can have someone who can no longer touch you, but they see you with eyes. Through the power of your imagination, you know everything about how they would want you at that moment. The experience is 10 times more intense. That is the erotic. It's sexuality that is transformed by our imagination. I don't try to get people to get it done. I don't try to just get people to do it. I try to get people to feel something, to experience something. That starts with things that are not per se sexual. Just this. I'm doing this right now. My hand is on my knee. Now, I would say to someone in my office who is doing this, I say, now, go a lot slower. Go a lot slower. Make sure, actually, just hover. It's what Jaya calls energetic touch. Just hover over. Don't touch. Don't touch. Imagine your hand. Now, slowly, let it just touch. This is your skin. Your skin is your biggest sexual organ. Before you can respond to the touch of another, imagine that you touch you. If you want, you can also wrap yourself. You can hold yourself. You can protect yourself. Then, if you want, you can go inside the shower and just pay attention. Where do you like the water? Where is the contact of the water the most precious place for you? I want you to stay there for two minutes. As you stay there, you just expand your breath because this is pleasure. I mean, I can give you dozens of those, but it's this. Now, you're going to go drink your coffee. Tell me, how quickly do you drink that cup? Do you actually sit when you drink that cup? I want you to put an egg timer. I would like you to not drink it any faster than the four minutes of the egg timer. Slow down. It will increase your self-awareness. It will increase your connection to yourself, etc., etc. All of this is sexual, but people think that they come with an idea that you're going to do something very different. It's really interesting to hear you describe that in an individual context because one of the things I've been talking about for many years, when people say on a date, the thing I hear from a lot of people is, Matt, I can talk to people. I'm a really good talker. I can have a conversation with someone for hours. That I understand. I understand you can talk. You can keep a conversation going, but when you're with someone in someone's presence, there are these subtleties to what actually allows you to, whether you call it flirting, whether you call it seduction, whether you, and so much of that is pace. If you can just slow, when I watch people on a date and anytime I've done a, you know, they've put me on many TV shows where they have, I have an earpiece and I watch people on the camera and the people that don't connect on any kind of a sexual level are always moving very fast. Their gestures, the way they ask questions, the way they have conversations, there is a speed, a frenetic nature. They don't always know it. I say, you know, go from here to here, the slowest possible, or go all the way up your arm and close your eyes. And they think that they are still here, but their fingers are there. So the beauty of it is to actually say, and then they open their eyes and they realize, wow, it's got nothing to do with where I thought I was. All right, we're going to do this again. We're going to slow it down and we're going to intensify the breathing. It's the breath, the movement, and the blood flow. It's all three. I did a session once with 200 men alone and basically, I finally at some point want to say, so what's your piece of, you know, what's your one thing? It's always the one. And in the end, out of everything I could say, I just say, slow down, slow down. But there was a couple I remember one day that I was working with, and he was struggling with rapid ejaculation. And basically, he spent his whole time making sure it works. You're going to hold, you're going to stay. Don't surprise me. And in effect, he was completely disconnected from his partner, because he was so busy making sure, you know. And at one point, I said, just put your hands in her hair. And just, I mean, she asked, I said, where? She said, my hair. I said, okay, now just go as slow, as slow, as slow as possible and connect with her. Doesn't matter what's happening here right now, because what's happening here right now that you are busy so much paying attention to is doing nothing for her. What it's doing for her is just making it look like you're absolutely not with her. And as he was holding, slowly she sat, then she closed her eyes, and then her lips opened like that. And I said, this, this is a response. This is real touch. This is connection. Don't let your penis make the decision. You decide. I love that idea that your focus on that is doing nothing for her. Like this is operating in a world of its own on its own timeline, but it's disconnected from the pace, the way that you're touching her, the way you're making sure it works is not giving her any pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Before I get to my last question, you, you have two programs that I know you're, you have together as a bundle right now. I'd love to just talk about them, because what I love about your work is not just the obvious depth of understanding of everything that you do, but that you have painfully taken time to think about what the practical implications of all of this work is and how people can apply it. Could you talk about these two programs and how they practically kind of, they give people a real roadmap for applying everything we're talking about today. So the desire bundle came out of the, the, the realization and the need that people said, I read your book. I listened to the podcast. What can I do? And not, and I also think that not all of this needs to be done in a therapist office. This is what can the therapist bring to you into your home that you can try. And then you know, if you need more than this, then you'll come to therapy. But a lot of these things are, I'm going to help you sustain something, enter this conversation, create a certain energy, be proactive, and especially have the conversations that you don't even know to have. So it's very practical. There's a, an hour long video, and then there's workbooks. And these workbooks are, you know, in depth. It's, it's here are the exercises that I would do with you if we were working together and that you can do alone or with each other. You can take them as couples and you can take them alone. You can take them alone because you are in a relationship, but you want to do it by yourself, or you can, or this is where you are at in your life at this moment. You know, your sexuality is still a part of you, whether whatever relationship situation you're in. And the first one bring desire back is really for when people are just so stuck that there is not even a conversation possible at all, or there is a nonstop chronic complaint, but it's a terrible conversation. So it's really about helping people get unstuck. If I had renamed this thing, it would be getting unstuck. And because that's the hardest place for people to, to leave. You know, one person never stops talking about it. The other one doesn't want to hear about it. All of these, these impasses. And then the second one playing with desire is really how do we bring back more energy, more intensity, more juice, make it less routine, make it more creative, more fun. And so I wanted this to distinguish these two, because there's no point in telling people the fun they can have when they're at each other's throat, or when they're just in, in, in silence, or when each one is alone in their corner, or when one person feels deeply rejected by the other, or when there has been an affair and there has been betrayal. I mean, there's a ton of situations in relationships, more even than the list we had before. So it's practical. It's simple. You don't do everything at once. You can take one question. I ask you a lot of these questions. Take one and just go with that. You don't have to, you know, swallow the whole thing whole. What suits you now? But it's available for you for years to come. Every time you feel a dip, you just say, let me go see what Perel has to say. Does she have an idea here? You know, I want to do something different tonight. I want to, you know, what can I, how can I bring this up? And then you go and you, you do like, it's like the tarot cards, you pick one. You don't have to do the whole course all the time. It's very, you know, my books are, I know that when people finish reading them, people often say, and now what do I do? So these are a few things that I think you can do. It's not the whole thing, but it's a good start. Yeah. Everything that you do is such a beautiful blend of the idea and then the practical application. So I know people are going to get so much out of these. They can find them at your website, estherperel.com. That's right. And when they're there, is there anything specific they should search? The desire bundle? That's it. The desire bundle. It will appear large. So we also have a promo code for anyone who wants to get these programs. It's hussy15. So for everyone out there who wants to get these two programs, the desire bundle, hussy15 is our audience's promo code. So go check those out. And I'm really, really excited to know what you think of these. I'm, you know, Esther, I have a core of people that over the years, I have quoted ad nauseum and Esther is one of those people that I think I've probably referenced more than anybody else. So it's a true privilege to be able to bring you Esther's work. I know that so much of the ground that you cover is for people who are in relationships, but if we go all the way to the beginning of the dating process for so many people, one of the most common complaints I experience from people is I don't meet people I'm attracted to. I don't feel chemistry, you know, and the story either goes that, you know, there's something wrong with everybody else or that there's something wrong with me. I'm broken because I just never get attracted to people. And usually the people they get attracted to tend to be the people who then treat them horribly. And so there's a kind of pattern there too, that, you know, I've never, I haven't been attracted to anyone in the last three years. And then the person I got attracted to turned out to be the toxic narcissist who destroyed the next year of my life. I just wonder, I suppose it's a big question, but I wonder if you have anything that you would zero in on for people who are out there dating and at least their outward wish is that they could meet someone who is a good human being, who treats them well, that they also feel a sexual chemistry with and attraction for. Do you see there being, from your vantage point, a very, any specific reason why that is or what people can do about it from the point of view of arousing almost more desire within themselves for a broader range of people when they're actually on dates with people? I think that maybe one of the things that's just to start is to kind of situate myself a little bit, right? I've do this for almost 40 years. I do it all over the world. A lot of the things I say, sometimes I put in the context of relationships because I'm a couples therapist primarily, but I work with individuals early adulthood on straight couples, gay couples, queer people, trans people. I mean, it actually is, and they are their unique things, but it's a broad thing. I think that when it comes to the dating people, if the majority of Western dating at this moment is often app based, at some point I'm going to go and meet someone. I'm often going to go meet that person in a noisy bar where I'm going to try to have a conversation that looks more like a job interview, and I'm going to look inside here down and check to see if the butterflies are actually signaling me. It is the opposite of any way attraction actually is created, or the chemistry. There is no context for the chemistry. Chemistry takes place in a context, in a situation, a situation where people are experiencing something together that is fun, that is interesting, that is deep, that is surprising, that is imaginative. Those elements are rather absent of the initial dating. People say, I didn't feel anything. Excuse me, but on what basis? Was there something that could even ignite any feeling? Did you run to a movie that you were just about to miss? Did you go in a club to dance and you suddenly discovered the band that you had never heard before? Did you find yourself rollerblading or skateboarding or whatever your thing is, and noticed something? There is nothing in a static position of you, like you and I sitting now, the way we do, that would ignite desire or arousal or attraction or fantasy, because what it is is the attraction is a fantasy. I sit in front of you and I begin to imagine, what is that? How does he touch? What would it be like? What's underneath his clothes? I like sitting here. I like how I feel about myself as I talk to this guy. I'm curious about him. I'd like to see what happens. It's a fantasy attraction. It's not just a physical, physiological, chemical response. It goes mind and body. But if you are in a sterile situation, you're not likely to feel much attraction. Much of what I say to people is, God forbid your first date should be that. If you could reorganize dating for people and the way people date, what would you do? I'd do a lot of things. The first thing I would do is tell people, especially those who've been for a while, stop leaving your life to go on a date, where you tell your friends, I have a date tonight, and you leave your life. If you had three dates this week, so that's three nights you've not been with the people that you actually care about, that care about you, with whom you enjoy being. No, you went to try your luck at the lottery and bring those dates into your life. We created something very weird here. I meet somebody, I go out with you for a few weeks, a few months, and then comes the big reveal, and I bring you to my friends. Bring the person over. You will have a ton of data points. I was planning to go do a picnic in the park. I was planning to go for a hike. I was planning to go mountain biking. I was planning to go see this exhibit. Would you like to join? As in, I was planning to go with friends, or I was planning? With friends, and alone too. Same thing, but especially with friends. But even alone, it's something that you actually had an interest in doing anyway. I was going to go do this. Would you like to join me? First of all, you will experience something together. You'll be in a situation. Then you'll see how this person interacts with everybody else around. Then if that doesn't work, you're not going back with that pit in your stomach to your friends to say, didn't work. What the **** is going on in my life at this point? This is terrible. I have yet met many people who are telling me they're having a fabulous time on the apps dating. It's not a fun experience. That doesn't mean people haven't met there. Lots of people do, but the experience itself can be quite degrading and exhausting. I don't understand this idea of leaving your life, going to try your luck, and then coming back with this emptiness to say nothing happened. Keep your life and bring these people into your life. They should do the same. You learn so much more. Plus, this face-to-face in the first date is not always the best way. Side-by-side is very interesting. We both are looking, picking up things. We're on the street. Did you notice this? It doesn't really matter the situation. It's just that you need the world to interact with. At first, people look at me like, but you're going to bring those people? Yes. There's this person I'm meeting for the first time. I thought it would be way more interesting to hang with all of you and bring that person along. When they begin to do it, it's not nearly that scary. But to me, the split between our life and our dating is problematic. You already, I think, highlight what you just said is already going to be revealing for some people in what might be harming their love life, which is that life you're talking about, that they're bringing that person into contact with, albeit in a way that's not too much, is a life that a lot of people don't have already. They don't necessarily have social occasions that are happening in their life, or close friendships that they feel comfortable bringing someone into, or in a lot of cases, even activities that they themselves enjoy doing. I think so much of that comes back to why they feel that they need to be rescued from the life they have by this person who comes along. It's because that world doesn't exist. If you are that lonely, and you go on a date, and you hope to experience attraction, when at the same time you're also hoping that the person will help you transcend your loneliness, then you will feel so vulnerable that you will often not allow yourself to be attracted. The attraction becomes too vulnerable, because with the attraction come all the needs that I bring to you, of everything that I hope you will be able to bring to me. Or that vulnerability causes them to immediately try to move so fast without ever really assessing whether there's the right kind of attraction. Correct. Correct. You get both. On the extremes, you get both. Yes. What do you think of my advice for the dating? Actually, I'm curious. It's just one thought, but it's one that I've stayed with for a while. I actually think we have a lot of overlapping thoughts here. Firstly, I used to talk about a great date as being park bench style, not dinner style. If you must sit at a table with someone, try to sit on a corner together, not facing each other. Or sit at the bar, I always say, because at least you'll be interacting with the room. I am a big fan of walking dates or dates where you're focused outwards. Movement. I'm a huge fan of that. I sometimes think of London. Start at one end of the Thames. Start by the Tate Modern and work your way up to the London Eye. You'll walk along the riverbank. If you want to stop and get a drink somewhere, you can, but then you come out and you keep walking and find somewhere else. That has all the potential for an amazing date. I think the interesting thing, I used to say, have a drink with someone before you go meet your friends. If you say to someone, hey, I'm going out with my friends this evening, but do you want to come and grab a drink with me first? That allows the date to be 30 minutes or three hours, because if you're having a great time with someone, you can say, hey, look, you're more than welcome to join me and my friends. If it's not going great, you can leave pretty quickly. It's also a low pressure way of doing it. I actually think your idea is really interesting of the group setting, as long as you can play it off as not a big deal to you, because people take their cues from you. If you make it a big deal, like you're meeting my friends, then suddenly that's going to feel like an intense thing for them. I think if you can play it off like, actually, I'm going on a hike with a couple of friends, you're welcome to come join. I think that's a nice way of doing it. It's a seamless integration of this. And I like that idea of getting more data points, because people do isolate their dating life from everything else. All of the other anchors in their life. That also makes it hard for you to read who this person really is or how they interact when they're not in front of the very one person they're trying specifically to impress and often seduce. But also, all of this prevents you from getting attracted. You get attraction from watching someone, from how they act, how they, you know. This is one of the things I love that you say, is the idea of watching, like even in long-term couples. There's a Proust quote that I always love. And I don't know if you've ever said it, but in my mind, I always connect it with your work on love and desire. But it's the idea of. It's about looking with new eyes. Exactly. The journey of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes. And I always love that idea of in a long-term relationship, the moment the two of you go back to a dinner party when you haven't been out in a long time or a social gathering, and you get to observe your partner over there holding court with a few people, that that allows you to freshly see them with new eyes again. Thank you so much for listening to this interview with Esther Perel here on the Love Life podcast. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you want to send me an email about how much you enjoyed it or what really spoke to you about it, you can email podcast at MatthewHussey.com. And I can't wait to speak to you in the next episode. Don't forget to try MatthewAI if you haven't already. MatthewAI is a place where you can literally ask me a question and you'll hear my voice, not just giving you the answer, but having a full conversation with you. It is extraordinary technology. It's been trained on 17 years of my content. And so when you get an answer from MatthewAI, you're not just getting an answer, you're getting my answer. So if you've ever wanted to ask me a love life question, a confidence question, a question about life in general, this is your chance. Go to askmh.com to try MatthewAI right now for free. And I will speak to you in the next episode of Love Life. Be well, my friends, and love life.