Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Are You Too Judgmental To Find Love?

Transcript

Are You Too Judgmental To Find Love? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor psych mom show.
• 0:08
  Today, we're going to be talking about how everyone can really
• 0:12
  find someone to date in the age of internet apps and why?
• 0:17
  If you're going on a whole bunch of dates and you can never find
• 0:21
  anybody that the common denominator there may not be
• 0:25
  everyone else, you know what I mean?
• 0:27
  So you know, it's some tough love and some straightforward
• 0:31
  common-sense as I try to provide generally and we We'll get into
• 0:36
  that it right. After I tell you to subscribe,
• 0:39
  my most recent subscriber episode was on your big swinging
• 0:42
  dick energy and why your wife actually hates it.
• 0:44
  Even though everybody else likes it.
• 0:47
  Conversely. Why if you married your wife
• 0:49
  when you were already very successful, why she may not like
• 0:52
  you, you know, turning different than that if you are losing your
• 0:56
  confidence etcetera, later in life, you know, both sides of
• 0:59
  the coin as I usually try to give you all right?
• 1:02
  So back to the episode at hand. So a lot of people try to date
• 1:07
  after divorce. And they tell me it's
• 1:09
  impossible. It's like so impossible.
• 1:12
  Everybody sucks. All men, / women or terrible.
• 1:18
  They, you know, they got lots of funny stories about how
• 1:20
  everybody was so bad and of course, when they tell these
• 1:23
  stories, it seems, of course, like everybody was so bad.
• 1:27
  You know? Because of course, they're
• 1:28
  cherry picking the one weird thing about, you know, the
• 1:30
  person or maybe they had lots of weird things whatever.
• 1:33
  But anyway after a A while many months, certainly many years of
• 1:38
  dating, if you really cannot find somebody in the age of the
• 1:41
  internet, you know, dating Zeitgeist, you know, like I
• 1:47
  mean, it's almost hard not to write, especially if you're
• 1:50
  anywhere near a city because there's like so many people.
• 1:54
  You can find like a million different people just by sitting
• 1:57
  there and swipe it. So if you can't, you know, if
• 2:00
  you can't find anybody, why may this be?
• 2:03
  Well let's let's go. And as usual, the first one you
• 2:06
  got to look back at is your family of origin.
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  That's always the first place that you're, you know, that your
• 2:12
  mind has to go to if you're really trying to do a deep dive
• 2:14
  and be curious about yourself. So you got to go back to your
• 2:18
  family of origin. I'm willing to bet anything that
• 2:20
  in your family of origin, there was a lot of negativity and a
• 2:24
  lot of, you know, judgment really people were not that nice
• 2:28
  about other people. So if you grow up with parents,
• 2:30
  that are always kind of insulting other people, then
• 2:34
  it's very hard. Hard to keep an open mind when
• 2:36
  you're dating. Because like, for example, if
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  you had a mother that criticized everybody's clothes, then you'll
• 2:41
  be sitting there at the restaurant.
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  A guy will come in, his shirt is not that trendiest shirt on
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  already, you're so turned off. You can't even sit through the
• 2:48
  date, barely because his shirt is so bad, and if you did not
• 2:52
  grow up in such a dysfunctional, a judgmental family with a
• 2:56
  miserable mother. Then it would be, you wouldn't
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  really look at the shirt. You would truly you would and
• 3:02
  people don't believe it. They're like that shirt,
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  everybody. Look at that shirt.
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  I can't imagine how anybody would go on a second date with a
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  man wearing that shirt or those shoes or that jacket or that hat
• 3:12
  or, you know, whatever the case may be, right?
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  And for men it would be a woman who's a little overweight or who
• 3:18
  doesn't dress sexy or whatever. It's the same kind of thing and
• 3:22
  if you grew up in a judgmental home, then it's very, very easy
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  to be judgmental and nobody is perfect.
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  Truly, I mean that sounds like a cliche, but it can be a really
• 3:32
  transformative moment for Were people who were raised and
• 3:35
  extremely black and white judgmental - homes truly, I
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  mean, like really just let it sink it.
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  Nobody is perfect, does that mean you're perfect?
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  Can you be perfect if nobody like you agree.
• 3:45
  Nobody's perfect, right? You're intelligent enough to be
• 3:47
  listening to all these episodes of Doctor.
• 3:50
  Psych mom, the best podcast, the only podcast I've ever listened
• 3:53
  to. But um, so maybe all the rest
• 3:57
  are really a lot better but I would have now, but but the
• 4:02
  point is you're a smart person. They can at least follow along
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  with my multiple tangent and so therefore, you got to admit
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  intellectually that, nobody's perfect.
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  But yet, do you somehow feel that you are except for maybe
• 4:16
  some like throwaway lines? You know what?
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  I call job interview answers where the people say that the
• 4:21
  problem that they're working on is there to perfectionistic like
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  those kind of answers. So you know what?
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  When you do a deep dive, do you come up with it?
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  You're too nice. Is that like your only thing?
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  I have a whole podcast. Some people who say that it's
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  like, obviously garbage. But no, like there's like a lot
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  of shit that's wrong with you too.
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  If we were holding you up to some sort of ideal of like how
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  what a movie star would look like if they were playing like a
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  single person out on a date. Like you don't look 100%
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  perfect. You won't act 100%, perfect.
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  And we've already established that you could be judgmental.
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  So, thus, you're truly not perfect.
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  So, therefore, how could really somebody be perfect and what
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  would perfect look like, you know, a lot of women say, okay,
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  so tall, Ridge, handsome, worldly, And and also he's going
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  to put up with you being judgmental about like like any
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  thing that he has that's a little bit subpar you know.
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  So also we ask to be a little bit of a bitch because he has to
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  put up with that but then also of course you want an alpha and
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  this is not just women who act like this, right?
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  So there's man and this is the one that men want the both.
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  They want a super open minded woman in bed.
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  Right? Freak in the sheets, Etc.
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  So then I'd really try to assess.
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  Oh, great. So you want somebody super open.
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  In minded, man. She'll try anything in bed.
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  She would make a hook or blush. And meanwhile, how open-minded
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  are you? Well, you know, I wake up at 456
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  and I have to a half do because, you know, if I don't get to the
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  gym by 513 then I really can't be out of the shower by 712 and
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  so you know, I mean that I like and I'm making it funny here,
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  right? But I hear versions of this you
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  know? And so the basically, the least
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  opened my eyes Padded any version of any planet is looking
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  for a woman that just thinks that it would be a hoot to try
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  group sex, right? So how is that going to happen?
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  That woman wants somebody fun, you know, you're not fun.
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  So everybody has blind spots when it comes to themselves, but
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  the goal of therapy and the goal really of life and evolving as a
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  human being is to increasingly gain more objectivity.
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  Full objectivity is completely outside of our reach, no matter
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  how fact-based or A rational quote unquote.
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  A person thinks that they are there's really no rational
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  actors. Truly, we are emotional beings.
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  You know, we are made of flesh and blood.
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  So everybody's always going to see themselves through a
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  different lens then the majority of other people would see them
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  but you can work to, you know, decrease and decrease.
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  The disconnect between how others perceive you and how you
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  perceive yourself. So really the number one thing
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  that anybody is looking for in a partner is kindness.
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  And many are looking for open-mindedness despite not
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  being open-minded themselves. So a woman wants a man who wants
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  to travel and do whatever and hang out with her friends and
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  just, you know, play it by ear. But then she herself will not go
• 7:18
  outside the comfort zone physically at all and the
• 7:21
  Inception of the inversion of that is, you know, the guy who
• 7:24
  wakes up at 456, but he wants a woman who's just real down to do
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  anything, right? So open-mindedness is a big one
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  kindness so it wasn't very kind, Kind to judge the one though,
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  Woman's outfit or the man's outfit as they walked toward you
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  or their intelligence or their resume.
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  Not really, you know, it's really not kind to be very
• 7:46
  judgmental, but yet you want. Somebody kind, how does it work?
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  So first of all, you have to look in at yourself and say,
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  gee, you know, like this is a free market economy of dating
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  here. Why am I not partnered if I want
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  to be, is probably something to do with me, you know?
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  My criteria are very rigid and the couple people that maybe I
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  was attracted to didn't seem to be attracted back to me.
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  So there seems to be a disconnect and how I view myself
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  and my marketability. And how other people view me,
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  maybe I could really do one of two things.
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  I could work to make myself much more marketable.
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  And I've talked about this on previous podcast, the number one
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  way to do that, is to work on your personality.
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  You know, you can't can't do as much with looks, as you know,
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  the media would have us think given as the media wants to,
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  Sell Us close and surgeries and just all sorts of shit for our
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  looks, you know, gym, memberships.
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  You know, you're with, you're going in a certain range,
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  therefore what you look like. Most of us aren't going to turn
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  into fashion models or bodybuilders or what have you.
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  But the personality is really where you can change things and
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  really where the magic can happen, you know, people can get
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  a lot more kind open and caring by working on themselves and
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  Thinking back to how they did, not receive such things at home,
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  having some self compassion for how they really never learned to
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  be very kind because these people did not.
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  They learn to judge others, you know, judge and lest ye be
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  judged yourself and to kind of refuse to engage on anything
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  where you get feedback yourself, but only turn that judgmental, I
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  outward and judge everybody else.
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  So that's how you were taught. So it's not a shock that you end
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  up that way, but you can work on it.
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  You could work on not being that way.
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  And you could end the first way to work on it.
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  Besides, I mean, therapy can obviously help but also kind of
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  really, really deciding on purpose to find positive things
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  about those around you instead of negative things.
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  So when you go on dates instead of saying hmm.
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  Yeah. Well, you know, it wasn't a fit
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  because of x y z, you could say maybe it will be a fit because
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  of zyx, right. You know, maybe these other
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  things are personality traits in a person that I would want to
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  Blore or maybe the fact that they do XYZ could be fun.
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  Instead of, oh, just something I don't do.
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  You know whether it's that a woman says, oh, I would never be
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  without guy because he, you know, does these extreme sports?
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  And I'm not extreme sports person or the guy that says
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  about the woman. Oh, I would never be with her.
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  She has too many kids, you know, the would be too much right?
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  Like, whatever the case may be, you know the or anything.
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  I mean people get rid of potential mates for like the
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  silly. We assist, you know,
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  objectively, she like like small superficial kinds of reasons,
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  you know, like some people even for like taste, you know, one
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  like books or art or music or or Hobbies or whatever.
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  Meanwhile, people change like Hobbies fairly frequently or
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  not, probably doing the same Hobbies now that you were 15
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  years ago. So you probably won't in 15
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  years. We do an all the same Hobbies
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  you probably hopefully, we'll learn to evaluate.
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  Alvin your taste of music and books and everything else.
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  If you're exposed to other things to, you know, you may add
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  to your current preferences, you may have different preferences
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  in future, you know, one of the things that I hope to teach my
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  kids more than anything is that you don't know how you're going
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  to change. Change is a constant, everybody
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  that's 14 years. Old thinks they're going to have
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  that musical taste forever, and those friends forever, and that
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  fashion taste forever. And they're never not going to
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  be fun. And spontaneous, well, then here
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  everybody is in their 40s, right?
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  And all Almost nobody has much continuity with that version of
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  yourself that you were. So convinced was the core real.
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  You, you know, and everybody feels like that every kid.
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  Feels like when they grow up, they're going to be the adult
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  that still wants to play freeze tag.
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  If you haven't had enough of my freeze tag analogy for my freeze
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  tag posted, but yet nobody does so, so really, you don't know
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  how you're going to change. If you open yourself up, to
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  potentially pursuing relationships with people who
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  had first Not seem like they check a hundred of your hundred
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  boxes, then you are opening yourself up to a future that
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  could look a little bit different than you expected.
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  But also be very happy. Close-mindedness is really the
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  bane of my existence as a therapist because I see how it
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  keeps people stuck, and it keeps people lonely and it keeps
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  people in real unhappy situations generally.
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  This is, I mean, almost really all the time.
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  I just hate to say, all the time.
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  I'm, you know, but I've never seen that.
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  This is not a world view that is inculcated at home where parents
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  were judgmental and were very rigid.
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  And sometimes they weren't overly judgmental, but there was
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  only one way to do things. Only one way to think about
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  things, and maybe this was a religious way, or maybe it was,
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  you know, completely unrelated. And it was just, this is how we
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  do things in this house. This is the way that you become
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  successful. This is the way that you act
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  with other people. We don't Just anyone we do this
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  we do that whatever or maybe it wasn't a we maybe was just a
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  pair in modeling that they felt this way but when you grow up
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  with a close-minded parent and it's extremely difficult to put
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  yourself out there and sometimes it's actually still related to
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  the actual parents themselves rather than a philosophy.
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  They espouse such that the woman who judges the man's shirt.
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  Cannot imagine literally introducing this actual man with
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  that shirt to her mother who would look down on him for his
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  sure. And she's like 80 years.
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  I sold you know and if that's the case then you got to go to
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  therapy because your mother could live another 20 years.
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  You know what do you you're going to still be thinking
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  always about how you could introduce her to somebody and
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  what she's going to say and this is the reality.
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  For many people for many adult children of dysfunctional home
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  specifically involving judgmental or negative parents.
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  They just literally are terrified still of
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  disapprobation by the parent and that colors.
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  So many of their decisions as an adult's.
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  They're not even real The dog. They are an adult child truly
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  and they are still trying to get the elusive almost at, you know,
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  really impossible approval because if the guy shirt was
• 14:15
  good, then the mother would probably have some problem with
• 14:17
  his job. If the job was good, she'd have
• 14:19
  problem with his kids. If his kids were good, she'd
• 14:22
  have problems with how much money he makes whatever, you
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  know. So this is really something to
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  think about if you're always dating and this is for both
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  genders and always are finding problems with people and the few
• 14:33
  people oh let's go to the other side.
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  I'd why are there a few people than that you're attracted to
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  you say? Well shit, I'm not all bad.
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  I do find some people, you know that I'm attracted to but they
• 14:41
  never liked me. Well, you know why they may not
• 14:44
  like you because they're like you, you know, they're too
• 14:47
  judgmental. Do you can't do anything about
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  those? People can't tell them to be
• 14:51
  more open-minded. What you want to do is to
• 14:53
  yourself be more open-minded Kinder.
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  And just generally more generous of spirit, such that you have
• 15:00
  even more options. Because everybody likes a nice
• 15:02
  person, I mean, I don't know what Police say when they are
• 15:05
  saying that men only go for like hot women, or whatever like
• 15:09
  everybody is in a hot woman. Every woman is not a hot woman
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  and I have a whole podcast about this about men.
• 15:13
  Don't only want supermodels and there was a corollary mendelian
• 15:17
  only or women. Don't only want rich men, right?
• 15:20
  Yes. Sure it's nice.
• 15:21
  Nobody's gonna kick a supermodel or like a super rich guy out of
• 15:24
  bed. Like the first time, however,
• 15:26
  this is not the majority of the humans on this planet.
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  So, thus, we must conclude that there's plenty of happily
• 15:32
  married people. Where the woman is not, Finally
• 15:35
  hot or the man is not traditionally successful and we
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  see that all around us. If we open our eyes to look for
• 15:40
  such things even though it goes against our heuristic of the way
• 15:43
  that the world should work. So frequently we, you know, just
• 15:47
  we gloss over those with our eyes and like every human
• 15:50
  confirmation bias. We look more at the examples of,
• 15:53
  you know, the things that confirm what we pre-existing
• 15:55
  think about the world that we were taught from our parents
• 15:58
  which may be in this case is that men only go for hot women
• 16:01
  but yet if you switch it to men, go for women that make them
• 16:04
  happy. Be women that are kind women
• 16:06
  that are loving, you could see a billion examples of those and
• 16:09
  had you been taught to look for that?
• 16:10
  Then that's what you would have been looking for all along.
• 16:13
  All right, so hopefully this was a good pep talk to expand your
• 16:16
  criteria. I'm dating apps to go on dates
• 16:19
  with more people and to be less judgmental when you see them and
• 16:22
  if this really is a sticking point the judge mental illness,
• 16:25
  this is something that there are P, can really help with, you
• 16:27
  know, is figuring out the origin of the excessive judgment, how
• 16:32
  it's impacted you badly, which I'm sure it has and how to move
• 16:37
  forward in more flexible and healthy ways.
• 16:39
  Particularly so that you're not at risk of teaching your kids.
• 16:42
  This The same faulty big lens, you know, of viewing the world
• 16:48
  as so as filled with. So many disappointing people,
• 16:51
  right? That's not a good way to think
• 16:52
  about the world. Nor is it true but it certainly
• 16:55
  feels that way if you were racing - home.
• 16:57
  Alright guys I hope you got something out of this and I'll
• 16:59
  talk to you soon. Bye bye.