How Do You Handle Dating in Relationships Post Election?
Cathy: Have you wondered how they handle in relationships post election? This is Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/
Cathy: Have you wondered how they handle in relationships post election? This is Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from http://theintimacydojo.com/
Cathy: And someone wrote in and said, “There’s so much misogyny out there. It makes me want to shut down to make sure that none of these men ever get rewarded with my attention. How can I feel turned on with any random men I meet is statistically likely to be a Trump supporter, Red Pill Reddit member or Gamer troll?”
Reid: I’m curious about this statistically piece. I want to…show, show us, show us your science.
Cathy: We’re in California… It’s, I mean, I do understand there’s a lot of misogyny out there. And for most people, there’s some people that are very very entrenched in that and very angry. And I try to approach that most people that are stuck in not seeing the value in others, either haven’t been educated or feel very devalue with themselves. I don’t think people in general. I know when I feel really good about myself. I want everybody to feel good and I want everyone to feel valued. When I’m feeling really bad about myself, I’ve had a rotten day, I feel really depleted out like, “Oh, there’s bad people out there.” So, I try to approach even Trump supporters as maybe they had a different agenda. It may not be about misogyny actually. It might be about something else.
Reid: You are really struggling here.
Cathy: I am.
Reid: Here’s my… May I cut you off?
Cathy: Yes, yes.
Reid: Yes. Let’s just take a little bit of male privilege to just jump right in on a man’s plane everything. I’m being funny about that.
Cathy: Yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:01:49]
Reid: Is it okay that I jump in?
Cathy: No, it’s absolutely okay.
Reid: I’m gonna default the daily new species and I don’t know that in your personal life — your dating life, you should be trying to change in sexism and misogyny. I think, this is…
Cathy: Oh, I’m not advocating dating people that are misogynist.
Reid: Yeah. I don’t even know that you need to try to understand everybody right now. What assessment tools do you have to figure out faster? She don’t put a lot of emotional labor. And figure out faster, but also in a way that’s gentle to you so that you can figure out who’s appropriate for you to put your attention on. And coming up with a system or an approach that is yielding you good results, is helping you find people who truly see you and respect you for who you are as a human being and as a woman, or for you know, anybody else who’s listening — whoever you are, fill in the blank, and how you identify. Having that, I think will help you feel better about the world while you also feel sad about realizing that there are a lot of people who do not share your perspective or your approach. That’s what I wanted to jump in about because it felt like you were trying to be like, oh, well, like you know, hold space for the Trump people and I’m like…
Cathy: I’m not saying you have to give them their attention but I found that if I approach people, I want to be open to people that I’m engaging with, at least until I decide that they’re not…I don’t want to continue spending time with them. And if I feel like, when you feel like they’re all around, it can be easy to kind of be shut down. And so, if I can have some compassion that those people might be struggling with their own issues, at least I’m realizing that for me, it’s not that the world is 50% assholes if statistically or whatever.
Reid: Most people have assholes. It’s more than 50. Not everybody.
Cathy: Almost everybody. I told a different video. And that’s me being more compassionate and open to the people I meet. And I actually, I have people in my family that are Trump supporters. I love them very much. And so, I try to have compassion that hopefully overtime, they will see the light but yeah…It’s challenging sometimes but I try to at least see that not everybody is bad or evil, just because someone voted for Trump. That doesn’t mean they actually believe women should be grabbed or Alice panics or Muslims should be deported. They were looking for something else so that at least it’ll let me walk through the world and have compassion and not shut down and pull away, like you said you feel like you want to shut down. I just want to encourage you not to shut down because there’s so many amazing people out there. They really do support women’s rights and you know, immigration. And you know, they support equality for everyone. So if we shut down, we pull away from one group, then it’s really harder to reach other groups. So, if you can, be gentle with yourself. Realize this is a tough time and there maybe people that you want to be like, “Oh, I’m done with this conversation.” And give yourself the permission to say, “Hey, I was enjoying our conversation, I now realize that you’re not a good fit for me. I’m gonna do something else. Bye.” If that helps.
Reid: Yeah. And I would say, you know, try to aim for the watering holes where your species are hanging out. So, what are the groups, social groups? What are the ways you can adjust your dating profile? Stay away from apps that are looks-based, that don’t give you a lot of information about people. I mean , Tinder’s cool but when you’re swiping unless they’re wearing their make America great baseball cap, you don’t really know. So, you may have to adjust for dating sites and services where there’s profiles and ways for you to that people ahead of time or go into those communities’ watering holes where they are gathering the people that are in your species. And this advice is the same advice for the people that are watching that are Trump supporters. Like, where do you find your species so that you’re finding people who are good matches for you? You know, so, the approach for me is the same and you know, giving yourself room and space and finding resources to handle whatever shock, surprise, confusion, heaviness, that you’re experiencing at any point in your life.
Cathy: One of the things that Reid recommended or idea when I first put up my dating profile, if this is a good fit for you, I put up, I’m a big woman. If you don’t like that, please don’t message me. You could if that’s a good fit for you. Say, if you’re a Trump supporter, do not bother responding. You could, you know, if you wanted to do that. It’s up to you.
Reid: Yeah. My only critique on that is then you might get a lot of people messaging you with, you know, saying what’s your problem, why don’t you like Trump supporters? Which means you kind of deal with that emotional labor of sifting through that. So, you may want to be a little bit more clever or come up with a different vetting process. That would be my only thing right now because…
Cathy: You don’t mean you may not want to…
Reid: Certain people feeling bold and…
Cathy: If you’re already at the point of shutting down, then that might be. And one of the things I really love is there’s been a lot of people on the talking in the sex geek community about how building a wall and saying they are bad…
Reid: Building a wall?
Cathy: Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean that guys. I’m so sorry. Altering people doesn’t allow them to grow or to see that there might be some other options. So, by saying, “Oh, you supported Trump. I’m never gonna speak to you again.” I’m not saying that you have to do this but there’s been some really beautiful articles that I’ve read people saying that and I wish I had them here but I don’t. If you’re [inaudible 00:08:25] allows listening to people and talking to them and helping to understand and explaining where you’re coming from in a gentle loving way, may actually help people that just weren’t informed or were surrounded by people that they were hearing one message and that’s all they heard. So, if there’s [inaudible 00:08:45], again I’m not saying anyone has to do anything but choosing an individual basis whether you talk to people more and go a little bit deeper, and see the value in all human beings, might make a bigger difference in the long run than saying, “Oh, you’re bad. Go away.”
Reid: It might be nice to do on a date, but my…I mean, this will be my opinion.
Cathy: I agree don’t date someone who’s…
Reid: Don’t date somebody whom you’re trying to change their political views. Just don’t. You can be kind to people. You can certainly try to engage people in conversation, try to expand their viewpoints in cocktail parties and things like that. I’m gonna say, probably, your best milage is gonna be finding people who are already a good fit for you and then seeing if they’re good fit to continue dating.
Cathy: Right. Well, I’m not saying like, continue dating them time after time but like, if you’re on a date and you’re waiting for the food to arrive anyway, maybe getting curious and asking them more details and explaining your viewpoint. [inaudible 00:09:51]
Reid: Yeah. Stay curious and take care of yourself.
Cathy: Yeah. We hope this helps. I know it’s a really challenging time and there’s a lot of people with a lot of feelings. And we hope you find some amazing people.
Reid: Yeah. Thanks for the questions.