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How to avoid getting attached too quickly

2023/5/29
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Date Yourself Instead

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The speaker reflects on her tendency to get overly attached to people early on, only to realize they were not who she thought they were, leading to a discussion on the pitfalls of getting attached too quickly.

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How to avoid getting attached too quickly.

I am the queen at getting overly attached to someone that didn't really like me in the first place, but I somehow delusionally convinced myself that they were obsessed with me. And I would attach myself to this person and the idea that we would get married and end up together and live this happy life filled of butterflies and rainbows and puppies and live on the beach and...

A few weeks later, I would realize that they were full of shit. They weren't who I thought they were. I was living in fucking la-la land in my head. And I realized suddenly that what I thought the relationship was, was actually a load of absolutely nothing.

And it's really funny because I think this is really what my 20s were all about. There were so many learning lessons and there was so much to unpack and learn from in my 20s that looking back now, I could say I've grown and changed and evolved dramatically.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I actually went through. Even though it was really tough to go through these experiences in the moment, obviously my 20s weren't perfect. I had a lot of ups and downs and I went through a lot of shit in the dating world, especially living in Manhattan. It was a total shit show. I dated guys...

that were all very different and all had very different personalities and backgrounds. And yet I was still stuck with this feeling of being overly attached to someone who couldn't give me anything or who was lying or was making up shit to sleep with me or, you know, take me on dates and wine and dime me because they liked me as a person, but they just weren't looking to commit. There's so many different variations of what we go through.

men and women alike. I mean, I know both sides experience these things and situations, but for me, I'm just speaking from my personal experience, what I went through with men and how it shaped me into the person I am today.

Being attached to someone and getting too close too soon is super common. Rushing into the dating process and becoming obsessed with someone that we like is a super common feeling that a lot of people experience because if you're an emotional person and you like true, deep, authentic connections with people, it can be really easy to immerse yourself and immerse your energy into

into someone that you start to care about and that you start to like because they have really amazing qualities and you like their personality and you think they're attractive.

And when you find someone you finally connect with and vibe with, and you're getting along and you feel like you've known each other for a while, even if it's early on, it's easy to get attached because all of a sudden you're like, this person's different. This is the one, this is the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with because they're treating me well. And I really like how I feel around them, et cetera, et cetera.

We all know those feelings, that feeling of butterflies where we're starting to get to really know someone and we just become a little bit too close for comfort too soon. We're just like, this person's my boyfriend. We text the group chat and we're like, hey, I just found my husband. Meanwhile, this guy literally saw three other girls after your date and you probably had no idea.

I'm actually kidding, but I mean, I'm half kidding because sometimes we get too attached too soon when the other person does not feel the same way. And we think they feel the same way, but they actually don't feel the same way. The only way to really know if someone's obsessed with you just as much as you're obsessed with them is if they're spending time with you a lot and

And they say it crystal clear. I want to be with you. I want to date you. Let's make this official. And their actions are speaking to that, right? If they're just telling you they like you, they see you once a week, they're not really putting in a lot of effort, but they're nice. That's not enough. Oftentimes we glue ourselves to people that just treat us nice because there's a lot of guys who have treated us bad. So when we find a nice one, we're like, oh my God,

I'm obsessed. I love this guy. And meanwhile, it's really not that difficult to be nice. And I've made other podcast episodes dedicated to this. It's really not that hard to be a nice person and a good person. So if you're settling just because this person is kind to you and treats you with respect, that's not the end game. That's the bare minimum. And

When I was in my 20s, especially my early 20s, I dated a lot of people who were nice to me. They treated me right. They treated me with respect technically, but they still weren't looking for any sort of commitment. They still weren't looking to get attached the same way that I was getting attached. They still had no intentions of being my partner. So

Looking back, I'm like, wow, there were so many red flags. Like there were so many signs that this person actually had no desire to date me, but I stuck around because they treated me technically nice on paper.

And I attached myself and fixated on the idea that it would turn into a relationship. It would turn into something serious. It would turn into something bigger once I showed them how amazing I was. When in reality, first of all, why are you trying to prove how amazing you are to someone? They should recognize that and value you. If they're getting to know you, they'll see that you don't have to bend over backwards to prove anything to anyone. And second of all,

That is coming from a place of you not truly valuing yourself and knowing your worth. If you're constantly attaching yourself to people that you barely know and that you've only met and you're on your third or fourth date and you don't really know them that well yet because it's so early on, that's coming from a place of not valuing yourself. Because if you truly, truly, truly had yourself on a pedestal,

you would take your sweet fucking time in really letting someone get close to you. And not to say that you need to be guarded and have a million walls up and make it difficult for the other person to date you.

But just having really good, solid boundaries and standards for yourself will help you weed out the bullshit and will help you make the right decisions about people who should be in your life and who shouldn't be in your life. And I struggled with those boundaries, right? So like I would always...

I would glue myself to these guys that would treat me well and we would go on dates. We would go to dinner. We would have wine nights. They would come to my apartment. I would go to their apartment. I would even stay at their apartment for a couple of days at a time. They would cook me dinner. I kid you not, they were doing boyfriend duties without the title of having any sort of relationship. And I was like, wow, this is great. This guy really likes me. This guy wants to be my boyfriend. Meanwhile, and this has happened more than once.

They were still not looking for anything serious. They were just nice. They were just treating me the right way, maybe to have sex with me more frequently or whatever it is. They were just doing the bare minimum and I was treating it as if it was like this huge, amazing grand gesture and we were going to get married and fall in love and blah, blah, blah. Also...

I know not everyone is like this, but I tend to fantasize a lot about the future of things and how things could be. And it's really easy to get caught up in this idea of the potential of a relationship versus what it actually is in the reality of your life. So for example, if you're meeting someone new and you've gone on a few dates with them and you become attached to them because you're like, I think I've met my soulmate, then

Just try to take a step back and think about it more realistically and logically instead of getting caught in this fantasy that you're going to get married and have three kids and live in Bali on the beach. Because this is what I would do. I would fantasize about the ultimate potential of a good relationship with this person.

and think about the future with them. And then I would catch myself and be like, oh my God, I'm crazy. I'm crazy. But I feel like this is the one. And the truth is, sometimes it's nice and healthy and fun to fantasize about the future, but it's

In relationships, when it comes to really getting serious with someone, if you're constantly thinking about what it could be versus what it is in reality, you can get yourself attached to something that doesn't even exist so easily. You can get so fixated on this bubble in your head of total and complete utter fantasy that you forget to actually look at this person from a clear lens in real time. You become clouded because you're like, oh, you know,

I think it could turn into this. And then one day, you know, he'll start treating me this way and then he'll be my boyfriend and he'll finally want to commit because he saw how cool I was and no other girls compared to me. And then you get lost in your head about a fantasy versus what it actually is in real time.

So just being aware of that and more self-aware of where you're letting your brain go when you're starting to get to know someone, because trust me, I know from experience it's easy to fantasize and it's easy to get lost in false hope.

Just try to take a look at it realistically. How is this person treating you now in real time? Are they making consistent plans with you? Are they texting you on a consistent basis or fairly consistent basis to really get to know you? Do they ask you important life questions? Are they really trying to know who you are and your heart? Or are they just looking to have a quick hookup? The truth is, it's so easy to also...

hype someone up in your head if you find them super attractive. It's really easy to get latched on to someone if they're super hot. And coming from experience, whenever I've dated a guy that was exceptionally attractive and I'm like, damn, I'm super physically into them, it was really hard to detach from that because I was super sexually attracted to them. And I wanted to be with them all the time because I was super physically into them. But

For some reason, after I would hook up with this person, I'd be like, hmm, okay, so what are we doing? Are we going to get into a relationship? Is this going to be something serious? And I didn't realize that this person was really looking for something casual. This person was not interested in ever being anything serious with me, and it could have taken no amount of time to

at all would have changed this person's answer about me. No amount of time or anything I would have done or said

It still wouldn't have mattered. He still wouldn't have given a fuck. He still wouldn't have cared. It didn't matter if I bent over backwards and did fucking cartwheels for him and jumped to... It wouldn't have mattered. Regardless of what I did, it wouldn't have mattered if I traveled around the world for him. It wouldn't have mattered if I just became the president of the United States. Okay, that's a dumb example, but you get what I'm saying. It wouldn't have mattered...

What type of status I had, what role I played in his life, what I had done for him. It didn't matter if I cook him dinner. It didn't matter if I got into the best shape of my life and cooked him dinner every night. Nothing I would have done or said to make him happy would have fucking mattered because he just didn't see me for me. He didn't see my value. And also that was a reflection of how I felt about myself because I put up with it and I also...

hooked up with him consistently thinking it was going to lead somewhere. But deep down, I knew how he perceived me because he really didn't respect me. He really didn't care about me. And I continued to dismiss it and fantasize about the potential of the relationship. Oh, it's going to shift and change. He's going to realize that I have a cool personality. He's going to realize I'm the best. And I was so attached to this idea of us finally being together one day when in reality, he couldn't have cared less.

And he was showing that to me, that he didn't care less. There was moments where I remember we made plans for dinner and he completely ghosted me. He ghosted my ass one night. It was like a Thursday night. I remember so vividly it was a Thursday for some reason. And we had made plans to go out on a date and I texted him. I was already dressed and ready to go and he did not reply to me.

He never followed through with the plans. He never followed up with a text. He never said, hey, I can't make it tonight. He didn't even cancel on me. He just straight up fucking ghosted me that night. And I was just like, okay, what the fuck is going on? The least you could do is just cancel. That would be a better option to me than you just disappearing on me. I don't know what I did wrong. And...

Okay.

Okay. There was no shot in hell. He lost his phone and the way he said it, I just knew that something was sketchy about it. However, there was no proof. There was no evidence. I couldn't say he was lying. I wasn't going to start, you know, going crazy on him. But the reality was there was proof in the actions of just not giving a fuck. There was proof in the actions of him not following through the plans and ghosting me.

Yet I was in a place in my life where I think I just fantasized about the potential of what it could be. Because after that, he blew up my phone. He called me a bunch of times. He texted me apologizing. He wanted to see me again and he apologized profusely about it. So lucky me, I gave him another chance. And that's me being very sarcastic. And...

We did date for a significant period of time, way longer than I would have liked, but we did. And what ended up happening was I started to lose more and more respect for myself as the relationship went on.

It was me constantly devaluing who I was, taking myself off the pedestal that I was on before I met him and devaluing myself and losing my sense of self and losing my value in a way in my head. I felt like I was disintegrating and becoming someone that I wasn't and lowering myself and lowering my value.

to stay stuck in a situation where someone did not value me or see me for me.

And he probably has his side to the story too, where he didn't do anything wrong. I don't know. The truth is though, it doesn't matter what their side of the story is. All that matters is that you know your worth. And when you know your worth, you'll be able to filter out anyone or anything that no longer serves your growth and that no longer makes you feel good or productive or happy or at peace. Remember...

If it costs you your peace, it's too fucking expensive. I love that quote. I live by that quote. And it's so fucking true. If it costs you your peace, it is too damn expensive.

And that's facts. And more oftentimes than not, we attach ourselves to people who cost us our peace. We attach ourselves to people that cost us everything. We drain ourselves. We drain every part of our value to level up to someone who's not on our level, to make a relationship work with someone who doesn't fucking deserve us in the first place.

And our intuition and our gut tells us this as we're in the situation. More oftentimes than not, I know I've said that a million times, but more oftentimes than not, we know before we actually are okay with admitting it to ourselves. Our gut, our brain, our body reacts to things that are toxic for us.

So, if you're currently going through this, if you're in a situation where you're attached to someone that you know isn't good for you or you know isn't giving you what you need or you know doesn't see you for you and isn't valuing you, just try to remember this. Try to go back to this podcast and replay it 10 times if you have to. We often attach ourselves to people that aren't willing to...

even give us the bare minimum. And that's crazy because we know what we deserve deep down. We know we deserve peace. We know we deserve someone that loves us.

But maybe we just don't love ourselves enough to get there. Maybe we don't value ourselves enough at that current moment to actually say, you know what? Fuck this. I'm out. And it's time for me. It's time to put myself first. It's time to date myself. It's time to love myself. And eventually I will meet someone who will respect and love me exactly the way I am. I don't have to force it. I don't have to change them. I don't have to beg them. I don't have to cry about them every fucking night because they're not meeting me where I'm at. And...

Being attached to someone is easy because it makes us almost have something to do with our lives. This is another point I wanted to make, but maybe not everyone will agree with this. I feel like I would attach myself to people the most when I had nothing special going on in my life. I was bored. I had free time at night and I would go on dates and meet guys and take up some free time by doing so. I would...

attach myself to a guy and make him my world for a temporary period of time because I was fucking bored and I didn't have enough going on in my life. And this might sound a little harsh, but honestly...

It's so real, at least for me. From my personal experience, this is what I've felt before when I've gotten to situations and focused all my fucking energy on a person that didn't even really care about me. It was because I was bored. I didn't have a million things in my work going on. Yes, I worked during the day. I worked in the morning. I worked in the afternoon. But at night, I was bored. I went out. I tried to invest my energy in other people. And I attached myself to people who

who couldn't fucking care less about me because they had their own shit going on or they had some other person they were interested in. And I would just make it part of my routine because I had some free space in my day. And maybe you might say, okay, that sounds weird. That sounds pathetic.

Lists, what the fuck? But this is me just being straight up transparent and honest. In my 20s, I had more free time. Now I'm in work mode. I'm doing so much with my brand. I'm building a brand. I'm working really hard on the podcast. I have shit to do. I have a lot of things to work on and I've filled my schedule with things to do. So a relationship right now is the last thing on my mind. I'm not attaching myself to any man. I'm not attaching myself to anyone or anything that's not

helping me propel forward in my career because I have goals, I have dreams, I'm putting myself first, I'm dating myself. And if I do eventually end up in a relationship, it's going to be with someone who compliments my life right now. That's making me work harder. That's making me be a better person. Not someone that doesn't give a fuck about me and I'm attaching my energy to them and saying, oh, like when is he going to text me? When is he going to ask me on a date? No.

I already went through that phase and that's why I'm here on the podcast kind of relaying all this information and explaining my experiences so I can help people. If you have free time on your hands, work on a passion project, make a vision board, write down everything you want to accomplish before the day you die and get started because it's

We only have one life to live. And if you're constantly attaching yourself to people that don't give a fuck about you or don't care about your goals and your future and anything else in your life, you're wasting your fucking time. And I always think about this because the amount of time, years of my life in my 20s that I spent going to dinners, grabbing drinks with people I never saw again because it just didn't work out, even if it was one date,

I could have been working on something much more productive. I'm being completely real with you. I could have been working on a passion project of mine. I could have been working on music. I love to sing. I could have been writing more songs. I could have been in the studio. I could have been...

brainstorming new ideas for my career and trying to rebrand myself in new ways. Now I'm doing that. And now I'm in a phase of my life where I'm busting my ass and grinding because I've gotten to a place in my life where I realized that I've been through enough relationships to understand that if you're dating someone that's wrong for you, or you're clinging onto someone that just isn't a part of your future, you could be putting that energy in such a better place. You could be

devoting that energy to a place that's way more productive than begging someone to text you back and to date you. And...

It's hard because we're human and we have emotions and we have feelings and we all want love. At the end of the day, I do want to be married. I do want to have a family. I do want to spend the rest of my life with my soulmate. Of course, I think people misinterpret my brand sometimes on the podcast and they're like, oh, so you're just saying you want to be single and miserable for the rest of your life? I've gotten messages like that all the time, usually from men, but still. And

I'm like, no, you're completely misinterpreting the whole point of the brand. You should be dating yourself until you have someone that's going to compliment your life in the best ways and make you happy, make you a better person than you already are. Obviously you can make yourself happy right now, but yes,

And eventually I do want to settle down, but just not with someone that's wrong for me. And that's going to suck the life out of my soul and drain my fucking energy 24 seven, because that's not productive and life is short and I want to make the most of it. So I'm not going to waste any more time doing what I did in the past, especially in my twenties. Being 30 is such a big shift. And I've spoken about this before.

Being 30 is such a big shift and it's not just about age. It's just all the lessons you learned in your 20s just really start to stick and you really start to take your own advice for the first time in your life. I was always the queen of giving advice to my friends. I was always the person that people would go to and ask for relationship help, but I couldn't help my fucking self. I think a lot of people go through this where you're really good at dishing advice, but not taking your own. And through my 20s,

I would help people with their relationships, but then I would date the douchiest guys on the planet. And I was like, oh no, it doesn't apply to me. My situation's different. This doesn't apply.

But in reality, I was just fooling myself. Of course it fucking applied. If you don't value yourself, you are going to constantly attract people into your life that don't value you or just value you the same way that you feel about yourself. So for example, if you're in a state of anxiety and insecurity because you need someone and you're desperately trying to date someone and you're trying to date this person and you're doing everything you can to make them notice you,

It's not going to work because you're coming from a place of absolute desperation. I've been there. And when I was in a place of vulnerability and loneliness and I felt like I needed someone, I would date these guys that sensed that and took complete advantage of me and saw my vulnerability. And they're like, oh, this girl is going to be easy to take advantage of.

And at the time I was so blinded to it. I was so naive. I didn't realize that they were taking advantage of me in the moment. But looking back, I'm like, holy shit, what the hell was I settling for?

I did this thing where I used to screenshot a lot of my conversations from dating apps and from text messages with guys that I was seeing. And I just like to keep a documentation of our conversations. And I never did anything with them, but I just sometimes like to give myself reminders and memories and look back on previous conversations I've had with people. And I have a folder of it on my Dropbox. And

And so actually last night I was going through everything. It felt very Mercury in retrograde appropriate. And I stumbled upon a bunch of screenshots from this guy that was asking me to hang out at 11 p.m. every night. And he didn't have another free time. He was like, can you come over from 11 to 12? I'm like, dude, plan a fucking date at a normal hour. I don't understand why this is so difficult. And he would constantly either...

ditch the plan altogether. Or he would say, no, I'm working, working late. I have a business meeting. I can only hang out between the hours of 11 and 12 PM or 12 AM midnight. And I'm like, dude, what the fuck are you saying? Who has a schedule like that? That doesn't even make any sense. And looking back as I'm reading through these conversations, I'm

I'm like, how naive and stupid could I be to even answer a text message like this? Because right now, if a man asks me to hang out at 11 p.m., you know, one, he only wants one thing. He wants to have sex and then kick you out after. That's just coded for that. But he was making up an excuse that he had a work event and he's always working and he's always busy and he only has free time between 11 p.m. and 12 p.m.

dude, obviously he was fucking using me for sex. But at that current moment, he gaslighted me into thinking that I was crazy by saying, you don't like when we hang out at this hour, but it's the only time I'm free. And he was making it as if I was being the difficult one. Obviously now it's so clear and crystal clear obvious to me that his intentions were so bad. But

In that current moment, in my 20s, I was so naive to the way men text and the way they spoke to me. I was so naive to the whole idea of just really not giving a fuck about someone. And I thought that there was room for change in people. So that was my biggest thing when I attached myself to someone that wasn't good for me. I would always have this idea that there's room for potential. There's room for them to grow. There's room for them to change.

But there's so many things wrong with that mentality. And when you're a woman that values herself or anyone that values themselves, not just women, you wouldn't take that

Even remotely seriously, you would not even answer that text message. I know from a place of loving myself and knowing myself and respecting myself now, I would have fucking laughed at that message and blocked his number. But at that time I was like, oh, you know, he might just want to hook up, but he'll change his mind about me after he sees how cool and smart and funny I am, whatever. Yeah.

So I actually go with this plan. I actually go to this guy's apartment late hours of the night. And I think I made it the time. I think I negotiated the time a little earlier, but I make a plan with him and...

He was so disrespectful. It was the weirdest thing. It was just so clear that he had no intentions of ever dating me or taking me seriously the second I walked in the door. There was nothing I could have done that would have changed that. It doesn't matter if I'm the queen of the world. It doesn't matter if I'm a famous celebrity. I'm the best actress. It doesn't matter, okay? It doesn't matter if I was...

the hottest girl he's ever seen in his life, which I know I wasn't, but it wouldn't have mattered either way because there was no changing his mind about me from the second I walked in that door and agreed to his plan to meet up at 10 p.m. or whatever the fucking time was. He had his mind set on one thing, sleep with her, kick her out. He had no intentions of ever dating me, taking me seriously, getting to know me, nothing. And at that time, in my delusional head,

But looking back, I know this is just because I didn't have enough experience with dating. I thought, oh, if he sees how funny and cool I am, maybe he'll start to like me and date me. No, that's not how it works. A man knows if he wants to date you almost instantly. Within the first few dates, he knows if he wants something serious with you. It's very black and white for people. And for me personally,

I was like, "Oh, I'll change him. Oh, you know, even though we're having sex now, I know that in a few months from now, once he really gets to know me, things are going to change." That's not how it works. That's not how getting into a relationship with someone works.

It's very rare. I would say maybe 5% of the time it can turn into something different and shift into something different. But most of the time a man knows what he wants almost instantly. And if he's not getting sex from you, he's probably going to get it from somewhere else. It doesn't make a difference in his mind.

Now, yes, there are exceptions to every piece of advice I give on the podcast. There are certain stories. I'm sure there were flings and situationships and hookups that turned into marriage for some people. My podcast is just my experiences and my perspective and my advice. So take what you will with this advice, okay?

I'm just speaking from the knowledge that I've acquired through my own dating experiences. I know there's exceptions to every situation. So if you think you're an exception and you're like, list, this is bad advice, then okay, that's fine. But for me personally, nine times out of 10, I believe that a guy who's asking you to come over at 11 PM at night and then kicks you out after you're done having sex, obviously it seems so crystal clear now, but at the time,

there was this concept, room for change. I'm going to give him room to change. I'm going to give him room to realize that I'm the best.

Which in reality is ridiculous. It's stupid. It's naive. It's a waste of time. And you're not going to change his mind. And it's not your job to change someone's mind about you. It's not your job to prove yourself to anyone. As I said in the beginning of this episode, it's not your job to baby them into liking you because it's a waste of fucking energy and it's silly. You should not have to prove yourself or show someone how amazing you are. They should recognize that the second you walk in the door.

So tying this back into the whole point of the episode about getting too attached, the key to getting not so attached is really to know who you are and know your worth and know your boundaries. Understand that this often comes with a lot of shitty experiences. It's easy when you...

are secure with yourself. And it's easy when you're super confident and you love yourself and you know your worth. But let's be honest, most people have insecurities because that's being a human being. And I have my fair share of insecurities and moments where I'm like, I feel like crap. I don't feel confident in my skin at all whatsoever. And it

It can be easy when you're going on dates and you're actually getting to know people. If you're in a frame of vulnerability and insecurity, you will settle for things that you might not have settled for if you really knew your value and knew your worth and you went into dating with the mentality of, do I like them? Do I like them? Are they worthy of my time? Are they worthy of me investing any sort of energy and commitment into this? Do I like their character?

Instead of thinking, do they like me? Am I good enough? Oh my God, I'm getting attached. I don't know what to do. I'm obsessed. Because it's easy to get that way. It's easy to lock yourself into something where you're not being treated exactly the way you want to be treated, but you're going to just roll with it because you got nothing better to do, or you just don't value yourself enough, or you don't value your heart enough. Your heart is...

something that is extremely valuable and should be protected and your peace should be protected. And trust me when I say having a broken heart is not just some sort of like concept someone made up. You fucking feel it when your heart's broken. Your heart actually hurts when it's broken. I'm sure many of you have gone through something like that where you feel it in your heart physically that you're dying.

And it's not fun to go through a broken heart over and over again. So when you're constantly attaching yourself to people that aren't worthy of your time and not worthy of your heart, and you keep breaking it over and over again, it's just not fun. And I've obviously had my fair share of mistakes and learned things the hard way and settled for shit I didn't deserve. But I'm proud to say that

Throughout all these experiences and throughout being treated like garbage, I've learned so much about what I do want, what to look for, what I deserve, how to value myself, how to love myself better, and how to be my own partner in a way, just taking care of my needs, taking care of my own company and life.

doing what I have to do to make myself happy on a daily basis without anyone else involved. And if that special person comes into my life at some point, whether it be this year, next year, whatever it is, I know I'm in a place of want and not need. I know I'm in a place of content where I'm content with being alone. I'm content with working on myself. I'm content with everything else going on in my life. And if you come into my life, I'm not getting attached to you

You're going to compliment whatever I'm doing. We're going to have an interdependent relationship. I'm not going to be codependent with you where we're feeding off of each other's energy 24 seven. A healthy relationship is when two people come together and can grow together and work together and build something really special. My dream relationship, maybe this is going a little off topic, but I thought I would just share this.

My perfect dream relationship is someone I can work with so I could have the best of both worlds. Someone that I could build a business, a company with forever.

I'm working long hours, but I have this partner by my side and maybe they'll do other things too and have other things going on in their life and me too. But then when we have like a mutual shared project we're working on, we could spend time together, build our goals, build our dreams and travel together and have like an amazing productive relationship. I kind of had that situation with one of my ex-boyfriends. We did work together and it was

incredible. We didn't work out because of other reasons and we had a lot of differences personally, but we were working together. And I remember I was so productive and he was so productive and we built something really special together. And that's a piece of that relationship that I would want to carry into my marriage and the person I ended up marrying. I would love to be in the same career field because of that, because I feel like then you could have the best of both worlds. I don't know why I'm just...

talking about this right now, but it just sort of came to my mind. I was like, maybe I'll just share my ideal relationship on this podcast. And if you know anyone that's

I don't know. If you know anyone that wants to build a lifetime of cool shit with me, let me know. No, but honestly, I just feel like it's so important to know what you want and go into every situation or every dating situation knowing what exactly you're looking for because that makes it easy to weed out anyone that isn't good for you or that's not compatible with you or you just think isn't going to be a good fit for you long term.

And it does tie into the whole idea of being attached because you're not going to get attached to someone if you know exactly what you're looking for because it's going to be special to you and unique to you and...

Not everyone's going to check those boxes and fill those requirements. So I would make a list of everything you really, really desire in a relationship and a partner and stick to that list. And don't make it super shallow and messed up, okay? Don't say, you know, he needs to be over 6'2 and he needs to, you know, have perfect blue eyes and blonde hair. No, make it all the qualities you would actually want in someone's soul. I think that's the best way to approach type of manifestation list if you want someone in your life, if you want to marry someone.

writing down all the qualities you would want in the relationship, how you want the relationship to be, how you want it to feel. And, um,

Let the universe work its magic that way. I think it's such a beautiful way to manifest someone. I've done it before. It really works. I will say you should probably get really specific with it though, because the last two times I did this, it did work. I did attract my boyfriends into my life. However, I wasn't super specific on certain things. And I was like, yeah, those were problems anyways.

I think that concludes today's episode. I really enjoyed making this episode. One, because I had no notes. I had no plans of what I wanted to talk about today, but one of my followers messaged me on Instagram and asked me if I could make an episode dedicated to this idea of attachment and how to not get so attached to someone right away. So it just popped into my mind. I was like, oh wait, I think this was an episode request. So

So I'm really glad I got to cover it today. Thank you as always for listening to Date Yourself Instead. If you want, feel free to message me or DM me on Instagram at Liss or on the podcast account at Date Yourself Instead. Be sure to follow me on all my socials. And also if you could kindly just rate the podcast really quick on Spotify and Apple, it would mean the world to me. It definitely helps me and I really appreciate all the support and the love and the feedback. Thanks again for listening and stay tuned for next Monday.