S1 EP3: Why is dating so F*CKED up!

How’s your week been? My week’s been good. It’s been so interesting trying to adjust without my boyfriend here.

Just for those that weren’t here last week: Heidi’s boyfriend is on vacation for the very first time in their six-year relationship, away from her for that long.

It’s so funny because I tend to travel maybe twice a year and I never have felt like this, because I feel like when you’re on vacation you’re occupied, you’re busy, you’re exploring. And now that I’m in his shoes, I’m like, oh my God, the trauma I’ve instilled in him. It’s so bizarre, but it’s been an interesting week of adjusting for sure.

I’ve been Heidi’s boyfriend since the day he left. She has, and she’s been a great boyfriend. Not going to lie, she’s been amazing. I was a little bit sceptical, because as we know, Biba has a little bit of trouble when it comes to committing and being in a relationship, and I just didn’t think she was going to be able to give me what I need.

I’m someone who loves physical touch as my love language, and quality time. They’re the two things that Biba doesn’t do much of at all. Doesn’t like to touch anyone, doesn’t like to be touched, and doesn’t like to spend time with anyone. It’s been ten years.

I was nervous. I was like, how am I going to feel really fulfilled? If you don’t follow us on Instagram, you would know that the other day we were driving and I just got this rush of emotion. Mind you, I’d just got my period, so I was obviously emotional. I was like, “B, I need a hug.” She was like, “What?” We literally parked on the side of the road, and I jumped onto the driver’s seat, put her seat back, let her sit in my arms for about five minutes, had that connection, and I felt much better.

I must say, you’d be a great boyfriend. She took me shopping on Saturday, took me for lunch on Saturday, dinner on Sunday, and bought me dessert. I just don’t know what more you would want in a person. I wanted to take her for a massage but she had period pain. I was not going to be touched by someone I didn’t want to be touched by. I should have done that for you. See, this is where I’m lacking. I’m still finding my bearings.

I couldn’t even imagine myself in a relationship at this point. I don’t think anyone can see me in one. I’ve been single ten and a half years.

You do being single so well. That’s the best compliment. You’re so effortless at it. All practice. It actually is easy. I do find it easier, for me personally, after being single for so long. I genuinely enjoy my own time. Solitude is so important for me. And on top of that, I don’t like to be bothered. When I’m home, I’m home. Phone’s on do not disturb. No one’s getting in contact. If it’s an emergency, don’t even try.

Heidi hates it because Biba calls Monday to Thursday a “school night.” I still count Friday as a school night because we work Saturdays. But you haven’t been in school in like twenty years.

A few weeks ago a guy wanted to take her out and he said, “I’ve got you free Wednesday,” and she’s like, “Why the hell would someone ask if I’m free on Wednesday? It’s a school night.” This man is looking at you like the grown woman that you are. He’s not going to be thinking maybe she has school.

Once again, my problem. He knows. I’ve told him I work a lot, my hours are intense, and I live an hour away from my clinic. But you don’t sleep till midnight. So if you’re getting home at six to seven-thirty in the evening, you could definitely go out for a quick dinner. And what do I do with my kid? Oh, I didn’t think about that.

See, this is why men frustrate me. Because they either talk too much or don’t listen at all. You’re not listening when I’m telling you I run a whole empire, and I’m not sitting behind a computer doing it. I’m actively on the floor, and then I go home after an hour commute, and I’ve got my kid to cook for. I always forget you’re a mum. I do too. I can’t believe I’ve been a mum for ten and a half years.

So back to this guy. I didn’t see him for that reason because he literally presented me with red flags. If he’s not listening, that’s a flag. Because the first thing I said to him was, during the week is a no. So he asked me about the Monday, then he asked me about the Wednesday. If it didn’t work on the Monday, it still doesn’t work on Wednesday. It’s still a school night. I don’t talk to him anymore.

So what is it exactly about a relationship that you find so hard to be in and committed to?

I have forever and a day. What I find the most difficult with being in a relationship, or even allowing myself to approach a situation that could potentially lead to being in a relationship, isn’t just my commitment issues. And I think the biggest reason I feel like I’ve got these commitment issues is obviously past relationships.

What’s a specific thing? When you think about getting into a relationship, what’s the top thing that comes to your mind?

There’s more than one thing, but the main thing is: why do people get into relationships? To, down the line, get married. It’s a long-term thing. The idea of someone trying to get to know someone and having a deep interest in them is to lead to a forever thing, or a long-term thing. To be committed to one person and fight for them every day, and fight for the relationship. For me, that already sounds like a mission.

I haven’t been in love. I’ve loved people, and I find there’s such a world of difference between loving someone and being in love. I truly believe that there’s a massive difference between the two, and I just haven’t got there yet.

I sabotage relationships because when I start seeing issues arise within the first twenty-four hours and pick up on red flags, I think, okay. I’m thirty-six years old now. If I’m going to have to commit to someone and work on things I don’t like about them, change doesn’t happen overnight. I truly believe that you really can’t change anyone unless they truly want to change themselves. And I’m not a mechanic to fix people’s problems. We can address facial concerns at the clinic, but we can’t fix personal problems.

And I just feel, do I need to commit to this person? Little things, like I don’t like the way he dresses, I don’t like the way he shaves his beard. And in saying that, before you all come at me, I’m not perfect either. I cannot ever expect someone to change certain things about themselves for me. And I can never see myself changing certain things about myself for a man. If a man is going to tell me don’t wear this because I don’t want people to look at you, I can’t tolerate that. Don’t tell me you don’t want me to get any more lip work done or change anything about my appearance.

And I’m giving examples. I won’t change something about myself unless I’m not happy with it. But there’s commitment, there’s putting up with certain things, and also just day to day having to check in every day and talk to the same person every day.

So many people stay because they’re holding on to one good trait that that person has, and it makes me really sad. Because I’m the type of person, if I’m going to feel disrespected or my needs aren’t going to be met, I won’t be in that place. Even if it’s a friendship, not even just a partner. Because I know my worth.

And then when I see people who come to us, and they’re like, “Oh, but the sex was really good but he’s not listening to me, he’s cheating on me.” And I’m like, you’re holding on to a relationship and wasting valuable time of your life. Or like, “Oh, he drives a nice car or has a good job.” Stop dating the potential and date the person in front of you.

A lot of people also hang on to the honeymoon period. The beginning is all roses and butterflies and beautiful and rainbows, and that soon comes to an end.

I have an opinion about this, because a lot of people say it comes to an end and a lot of females blame it on the guy. I think it’s so important that it’s a mutual thing. Your honeymoon phase can last forever if you’re both committed to it. I feel like people slack off and then they expect the man to just pick up and continue where he was, and you’ve now dropped. Your standards are so high but you’re not giving anything.

Relationships are such a give and receive. You need to nurture your plant for it to grow. You need to nurture your relationship for it to grow as well.

There were times I was like, “Oh my God, why isn’t he saying these things?” and then I realised I’m stressed at work and I’m not giving anything. You need to give to receive. So it goes both ways.

I’m definitely not selfish, but I don’t make time for men. I don’t prioritise them. After being single for over ten years and making your own table, what is a man going to bring to my table? Because it’s already made. And I’m not going to serve him at my table if he’s got nothing valuable to bring.

I find it’s really difficult for you to find someone for that reason, because you can do so much on your own. You travel, you have your own house, you make your own money, you have your own car. It’s more of the companionship, but then everyone you talk to either talks too much, doesn’t listen, or doesn’t talk enough. There’s always an issue.

My time is so consumed by my child as well. I go home and there are things I’ve got to do, and he has so many requests. Imagine coming home after a long day of work, that drained, and having to go home not only to a child but to a man.

My ex-husband did all the house cleaning and the washing and everything. Do you think I’m ever going to find another man like that? Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place.

You know what, we’re going to do another episode when I fall in love and I’m going to show you. Maybe it will change. I can’t wait for that day. I’m still waiting to just go on a double date with my sister. It’s so crazy.

Do you find it’s more challenging to date someone over 30 with a child?

That’s a really good question. Dating over 30 in itself is very difficult. Anyone I know who’s over 30 and is single, I really feel for you. It’s a jungle out there. And as you get older, you get pickier and it’s harder.

Over 30 is hard. Let alone over 30 with a child. And not saying that I would look at someone who has a child and be like, I’m not going to date you. When I was younger, before I had a kid, I’d sit down and talk to friends about, “Oh, would you ever date someone who’s got a kid?” And it was no way. But I come with baggage too now.

From a man’s perspective as well, imagine being a man trying to talk to you. Your priority isn’t him, it’s your child. So going into a relationship and not being the person with the child is also challenging. Because you’re never going to be their first priority. This child that isn’t yours is their priority. And I feel like it takes so much accepting from the other party.

I was speaking to Zach the other day and he mentioned something along the lines of, “You’re the number one thing in my life.” And I thought, firstly, that made me feel uncomfortable. But it was hilarious because he also followed by saying, “I know your son comes first, after God, then your business, then your sister, and then everything else matters after that.” And I thought to myself, I’ve never verbally said that to him, but I must give it off. That’s what my priorities are. Like, “Hey, I’ve got a free second, what did you want to talk about?”

I believe once you become over 30 with a kid, as much as we all want to date, we all want to find someone amazing, we all want to have someone special to go home to, someone at the end of the day to ask how was your day. Just having that companionship. Absolutely.

If you have a child and you’re a full-time caring parent, you are really limited in the time available to go out for dinners, meets, and coffees. That’s a problem I find in my life. I don’t make the time, but I’m also very limited, and I feel like you will prioritise having your own time over going and meeting someone that you probably know is not going to work.

So in a nutshell, dating over 30 with a child is complicated. Unless you’ve got great babysitters. It comes down to lifestyle. Everyone’s different. I just don’t prioritise it. I choose to spend more time with my child. If it’s meant to be, it will be.

It’s so funny because we hear so many crazy, horror relationship stories in the clinic and I really feel for our clients. Some clients get cheated on, they’re cheating, they’re in complicated situations. It’s crazy and it’s hard. And I would say a lot of my clientele are over 30. I do get a lot of single mothers as well, sharing their horror dating stories.

I believe that’s another contributing factor to why I’ve steered so far away from the dating scene. Because we hear so much. Not one person walks in with an amazing love story. Actually, I do have a great love story. I haven’t even told you this yet. We’ll come back to that.

I feel like it’s not only from the female end where we are struggling to find a proper partner. I feel there’s also been a shift in the dating world over the last five to ten years. The online dating world has gone wild and there are so many options available. From different apps to different people, to different groups of people. There are far too many options.

Too many options makes people unsatisfied, because they think they might be able to get something better. That’s a really toxic mentality.

I feel like there’s also way too much normalisation of certain things. You meet someone online now and you’d be surprised at some of the things people slide into your DMs with. Not judging anyone’s preferences, good for you, but there are some things that have just become so normalised.

This is why even people who are in relationships are becoming a lot more open, because there’s so much out there. I’m not getting into a relationship ever at this rate. I need a prince charming to come and sweep me off my feet.

I’m into Vikings. I want a big, rugged man who’s in touch with his masculine energy. I want him to walk around with an axe, go and claim some land. Put me on a horse and call me his lady. I’ve watched Outlander too many times. I’ve watched The Last Kingdom too many times. I’m sorry but I don’t think Vikings are coming for you. If anyone’s watched Vikings, you’d one hundred percent understand what I’m saying.

Maybe I like them because they no longer exist. It’s not a possible love story. I can only watch stuff that I can relate to. I want a man that holds a sword, an old school battlefield sword, whips it out while he’s on his horse galloping into the horizon with his long hair floating in the air. I’m getting really excited about this conversation.

Something that keeps blowing me away about the modern dating scene is that people are choosing to remain single. I can’t blame people for wanting to stay single with everything that’s out there. It’s honestly easier to just remain single and have your peace of mind, rather than worrying about whether he’s cheating on you or going on a bender this weekend. You just don’t know what’s happening. And it goes both ways. Everyone just has their own issues and their own trauma.

I personally feel like it’s just easier to be single. All my clients who are under thirty are saying they’ve just given up. But don’t give up. You can’t blame them for everything they’re going through.

I believe there’s a lot that society needs to work through. I feel like there has become such a normalisation of much younger girls getting with much older men who are already in relationships. Once you’re scarred, once you’ve gone through something really devastating and traumatising, and such a calibre of betrayal from the one person you love and trust the most, that will scar you. And as you get older, you’re learning more about yourself. As you get older, you get pickier because you’re learning more about yourself and about life.

I also think social media plays such a big part. All I hear is people saying they want to be in their feminine energy and they want this and that. Whatever’s trending is what they want. And it’s only normal because you’re seeing it all the time, so your brain starts to programme itself. The trends go so quickly that you just can’t keep up with what you actually want, and then you’re just confused.

There are so many options of how you want to take your relationship or your single life. And I’ve never met an unhappy single person. I’ve met plenty of unhappy people in a relationship. I’ve met a lot of miserable people hanging on by a thread for dear life just to say they’re in a relationship, because it’s either too complicated to get to know someone all over again, or they fear being single.

I can’t personally understand how people stay in a relationship after they’ve been cheated on. I get that mistakes can happen, but I can’t get there. And I guess once again, society’s standards of needing to be in a relationship have people tolerating things they shouldn’t, just so they’re not alone.

I have terrible sleeping habits but I swear I sleep well not worrying about anyone. It is me, my life, my comfort. My work keeps me up at night. What I’m going to wear on the podcast keeps me up at night. Not a man.

So I believe people are just finding it easier to live alone, stay alone, and have their casual arrangements with no strings attached, rather than be in a relationship where they’re fully committed and consistently being let down. And I also feel like it is a lot more normal to be single at an older age now. When I was younger, everyone I knew was like, I want to be engaged at twenty-one, married at twenty-two, have my first baby. That was the timeline we all thought we were having. But now so many people are thirty and single and it is okay. If you feel good, that is all that should matter.

Someone once told me one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received: you do you, because nobody can do you like you can do yourself. I love that.

So I think we can sit and talk about relationships and the disasters out there forever and a day. But let’s maybe finish on a very positive note.

You know how earlier I was telling you a client of mine told me the most beautiful love story and I didn’t tell you about it?

Oh my God, I was invested. Give me the whole story.

So, a client of ours went to London and was catching up with some friends. They were supposed to go to a restaurant, plans changed last minute, and they ended up going to a bar about forty-five minutes away from the city. Very spontaneous. She meets a guy, he’s from the UK, and they hit it off. They got into a relationship. She’s gone back to see him a couple of times and it was all amazing.

She keeps coming to see us just before she flies out. She came the other day and she’s talking to me, and I was like, hold on, show me that hand. What am I missing? And she goes, “Oh my God, I forgot to tell you.” I said, I don’t want to hear anything else. I need to know this whole story.

So she’s from Adelaide, and she’s given me permission to talk about her story because I asked her, can I share it on the podcast? And she said yes. So this is the kind of love story that gives me hope.

She lives in Adelaide and her best friend is getting married. So her best friend tells her, “I need you to come do the taste testing of the wedding food at the venue.” This venue is a castle that overlooks mountains and it’s just so scenic, beautiful, and surreal. They call out and say, “Whoever’s driving this car, can you please move it, you’re parked in a loading dock.”

So she goes out to move it. She’s got her head down, she’s walking, and someone goes, “Is this your car, Katie?” She looks up, says yes, I’m so sorry, and then turns around and it was her man. He had flown from the UK. He was there. He surprised her at the car. She screamed. She had no idea.

He had planned it all. He had told her he was going to Portugal. He had played a whole trick on her for eight months. And he was sending her Snapchats of him at a beach, only for her to later find out he was taking photos of his laptop screen of him on other vacations in Bali. He had worked out the time difference from Portugal to Sydney and was sending her photos at midnight our time saying, “Look at the beach I’m at, look at what I’m doing today.” The effort.

And then he goes, “Just come, let’s go back inside with your friends. I just wanted to surprise you.” He walks her in and there’s a whole “will you marry me” set up. And she had told him about the venue, so her whole family and all her friends were there. They had the engagement, and he booked the wedding that same night, for a year’s time. They got engaged and booked the wedding all in the one night. And he’d come from the UK to do that.

That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. I know. And I know how much you love love stories. It’s not even about the grand gestures or the signs and all of that. It’s the effort that he went through to keep it a secret, to plan and prepare everything. That is the cutest thing ever.

And this is why people are remaining single. Because I feel both parties have given up on doing these amazing gestures and going above and beyond. Anything thoughtful like that is the best thing ever.

And the most beautiful part: they stood together and prayed. I wanted to cry as well. I’m actually getting emotional. He had a photographer, a videographer, he had everything. This man did not miss a beat. He did not.

So this is why women are getting on one knee now and proposing to men, because men aren’t pulling up and pulling their weight. I actually, I’m still stuck on that story. It was so amazing.

And people would look at this incredible proposal and think, I want this, and then settle for someone who’s not going to give them that. That’s sad. But I don’t ever need to worry about that.

Not in saying that, not all relationships are stressful. Your relationship, touch wood, is amazing. It’s stunning, it’s gracious, it’s loving, it’s Godly, it’s passionate. You’re going to make me cry. It truly is all those things and more. But you both collectively put in an amazing amount of effort. It’s not a one-way road. It’s two people. And it’s never fifty-fifty. Some days I can only give you ten percent, you pull your socks up and give me ninety percent. And he does. And that’s where you guys found that common ground.

I guess that’s what I’ve been trying to say the whole episode. I haven’t found someone to do the hard work with yet. But you need anyone? You have us. We’re a thropple.

Well, that’s been a great catch-up. I can’t wait for our next relationship episode because we’re going to have the questions that our followers really want answered. We want to hear your juicy stories, your relationship stories. Share them with us. Everything will always remain anonymous unless you want us to say your name. Up to you.

Thank you guys for tuning in. We can’t wait to be back next week. We’ll see you next Wednesday. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and follow, and leave a comment below as to why you think relationships are getting harder to stay committed in. We want to hear everything. We’ll see you next week. Bye!