If someone’s dropping the “L” word too soon, or you realize you just want to be friends… What do you do?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: Someone wrote and said, “I recently parted with a female over the New Year’s holidays but now she’s obviously more into me that I am into her. She’s dropping the L word after only a week.”
Reid: Latte! I’m Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Cathy: I’m Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com
Reid: L word is lattes.
Cathy: I think he means love
Reid: Oh love… oh okay. What do they need? What do they need? How we go?
Cathy: He’s like, “Oh breaks on. I’m trying to be stand off with her. No more physical contact. I’m not trying to spend time with her. I just want to be friends. I don’t want her to hate me and I don’t want to hurt her but I’m not that into right so I just have to come out and tell her that I don’t want anything else outside our friendship. How can I do this? How can I find the right words?”
Reid: Yah! Figure it out. You did almost say exactly that. All I would do and we’ve said this in our videos are the thing called difficult conversation formula. You go to ReidAboutSex.com/difficultconvo and read that article download worksheets at the end and basically what I would say is formulate how you talk to this amazing person and say, “Hey, this is what I am afraid of. Here’s what I’d like to had happen and here’s the thing.” See you can create a context before you just blurt out. You using the L word freaks me out and I just want to be friends.” And if you did it, that poorly just blurted it out talking about it…
Cathy: Is better than…
Reid: …way better than holding it in and hoping people would change and the difficult conversation formula is a way that I learn how to have tricky conversation that would help people be a little more in my shoes and be a little bit more empathetic rather than me just blurting things out surprising them.
Cathy: It’s a really effective way and it’s really awkward to talk to a date especially if it’s not someone you’ve not known for a while and they’re really into you. Can we just role model and give that role model but like… is this challenging I had a couple of dates recently where am I like, “Your sweet I know that when I had a couple of dates but I just I’m not feeling it.”
Reid: The other thing too is checking with them what do they mean by love. Right? Because you might have a trigger for certain words and they may not mean like love with a capital LOVE.
Cathy: Yeah!
Reid: And so they just love you. And they love hanging out with you and they love getting into…
Cathy: I mean with their expression
Reid: They just use that word in a way where the words more worry some for you because of how you would use that word. Check your definitions too but nothing wrong with telling them that you really just want to be friends or casual or fuck buddies or whatever that is for you. Like be real and be honest and when you can’t be play and be gentle and then if it’s not good a fit it’s not a good fit.
Cathy: Yeah! So I’m wondering if we can just role model it a little bit.
Reid: Sure! I would love that Cathy. I love doing this videos with you. It reminds me to do something.
Cathy: So Reid, I’m wondering if I could talk to you like something. Can I talk to you about something? He’s difficult sometimes. So Reid I notice that you’re very expressive about how…
Reid: I love your eyes
Cathy: I’d like to talk to you about something.
Reid: I love you. Yeah, yeah!
Cathy: I’m afraid that you might be hurt and I don’t want you to hate me
Reid: I could never hate you. I love you.
Cathy: But our relationship I’m not feeling that same kind of connection. And I want you to know…
Reid: You’re not feeling good? Are you sick or something?
Cathy: And I want you to know and I’ll be honest with you and I’ll be upfront and you can trust me with that but I don’t want to continue having this step with you this kind of connection.
Reid: It’s not good enough? Do you want to go deeper?
Cathy: We can just be friends.
Reid: We are friends. We’re friends and we’re in love.
Cathy: For the sake of this example. The way you’re expressing that makes me felt comfortable. It makes me feel like your way more invested in what we have than what I am
Reid: Okay. So you’re saying you don’t love me?
Cathy: Yes.
Reid: Okay. It’s difficult to hear.
Cathy: I’m sorry.
Reid: So, all these YouTube videos have been a lie?
Cathy: Oh I love doing videos with you. It’s a bad example.
Reid: You get the idea and the challenge is the conversation might not go well. But that doesn’t… being present and gentle yet firm, right? Like don’t heads what you actually have to say. That’s where the difficult conversation formula could really be helpful in getting that really mapped out for you. You even read that from the page and when you do the worksheet. But this is how you start the conversation and it might take a couple of more conversations to actually talk it through but until you start it, it’s never going to make it better in my opinion. And if you blurt it out…
Cathy: Always a surprise
Reid: It easily come out in the wrong time and then people get surprised. A lot of people can’t handle surprises well.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: Those are good role modeling.
Cathy: Thank you. I do love doing videos with you. So we’re going to come back and do one when giving an example when someone kind of pulling the pity card or you’re feeling sorry for them because it’s going to be really hard. So come back to the net video and we’ve got something new…
Reid: Yeah! Hit subscribe. So you don’t miss the next video. We love you!