[SPEAKER_00]: you met someone and from the very first conversation it was electric.
[SPEAKER_00]: They responded immediately to every text and within a maybe a few weeks they told you they'd never felt this way before.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to see you all the time, talked about the future, agreed with everything you said, you thought finally, this is it.
[SPEAKER_00]: this is the real thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then a few weeks, months, or maybe even a year in, you realize you been with someone who couldn't actually love you, or who was controlling, or who slowly turned into someone you didn't recognize.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing you couldn't shake was, but it felt so real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm not doing the standard look for red flags thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate that phrase.
[SPEAKER_00]: It puts the whole burden on you to spot something that by its nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't look like a flag at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you don't see it, you know, somehow that's your fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_00]: so stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not we're not doing that here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason red flags feel like green flags is that high intensity behaviors mimic the outputs of real love, you know, things like attention and certainty and devotion without including any of the inputs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, things like time, consistency and
[SPEAKER_00]: really being known, being actually known.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today I'm walking you through eight specific behaviors that consistently get mistaken for green flags, plus one tool I call it the paste test that does the work of all them at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're going to leave with a real radar for this so stay tuned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Relationships Made Easy Podcast, where I give you the exact steps to create connection, joy, and ease in all your relationships, whether it's with your partner, your family, your friends, or most importantly yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Dr. Abby Medkath, psychologist, bestselling author, TEDx, speaker, and the bossy Jewish mom you didn't know you needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each week you'll get no nonsense, research back strategies, serve with humor and love, so you can stop second-guessing yourself and start having the relationships you deserve.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll always leave knowing exactly what to say and do to shift your relationships for the better.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, you know who I am, Dr. Avian Metcalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And woo, this is a good one today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing, uh, on my TikTok, I've done a lot of like red flags that look like green flags and they always get a ton of views.
[SPEAKER_00]: People ask about this a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, let's, let's, let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So why, why do red flags feel like green flags?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the obvious
[SPEAKER_00]: These behaviors confuse you, not not because you can't see them, but because they activate the same rewards circuits in your brain that genuine connection activates.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the problem is they do it faster.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real intimacy is slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Performance is fast and really, that's the whole story.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I did an episode on situationships recently or not that long ago that I will link to and whenever by the way, I'm going to give you some good research today and whenever I say, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: link to a past episode or the research or the great free giveaway today.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that can be found below the video if you're watching a new tube or on my website.
[SPEAKER_00]: Abby McCalf.com, just go to this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to talk about anthropologist, biological anthropologist, Helen Fisher, again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've talked to better a million times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Total girl crush, I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has spent decades scanning the brains of people in early stage romantic attraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what she's found in her colleagues is that the early phase of love, that early phase of love,
[SPEAKER_00]: um, it activates the same circuits that light up in cocaine use.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've talked about this before.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It acts like an addiction in the brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when someone loved bombs you, or future fakes with you, or mirrors you back to yourself, they're not just being charming, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not all that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're flooding those circuits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those those those.
[SPEAKER_00]: circuits that are all about addiction, literally, and motivation and focus on something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this intensity itself is really what your brain is reading as the significance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and if you layer on top of that, you know, the cultural script, I think all of us have absorbed about what real love is supposed to feel like, you know, they chemistry the certainty, they can't think of anyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, it's like a perfect storm, but obviously in a really bad way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, perfect storms aren't a bad way when we talk about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the behaviors that should warn you
[SPEAKER_00]: Confirm to you that this is the one.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's again, part of this whole issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, if something in my eye, if you're watching me on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we're better.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why this is harder now than it used to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: I get asked that a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, is this different now?
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like it's harder than it used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to take a beat here to really name something specific to the time we're in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in my day, yeah, I'm 100 years old, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We all know I'm old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Way back in my day.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you met before cell phone, when I was dating, before cell phones, before
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, anything, you know, before all this interaction, if you met someone, you might call them on the phone once or twice before your first date.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, remember we had one phone in the house for, you know, there's a lot of people in my house growing up, you know, it was in the kitchen with, so there was no privacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, it was like that, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you'd maybe talk to them once or twice, but again, like not in super high detail because people were listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd see them in person, get a real read.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after the date, you would talk again to plan the next one.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was space between contacts, time to feel your own feelings, time to notice whether you were actually interested or just flattered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, I will say this, you likely knew people who knew that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's probably how you met or you met them at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'd seen them for a while or it's school.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd seen them in your classes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is how you used to meet each other back in the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone introduced you that you knew, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, so you got people you can question.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have context for their behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's some known history.
[SPEAKER_00]: to make decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even if you have that great first phone conversation, it's maybe because you've already talked to the person that introduced you, like, hey, I've got a cousin who's really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should meet him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's why.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it gives you all the, you know, oh, he had a girlfriend for a while, but they broke up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now this happened, but, but, but, but now, it's, you know, nothing except with the person tells you, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: anything except for what they show you in a very short amount of time, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So now you have no idea who this person really is and can you can only base your opinions on what they tell you and how they act in those moments that you interact with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: and like as there's the problem is there's a false intimacy right away because you can text someone all day every day from the moment you match right hundreds of messages before you ever sit across from each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: So by the time you do your brain is convinced this is a real relationship because in your nervous systems accounting you've been in a constant conversation for two weeks
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a relationship to your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is why, I constantly tell people stop with all the texting, get in front of a person, meet them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so much better, yes, you need to have some whatever to rule out people that are crazy, or really have nothing in common with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But although I will tell you, I had someone
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my clients who said very clearly, very clearly in her profile on the dating apps, she's on a couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to date anyone with children.
[SPEAKER_00]: End of.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fine if you, you know, good luck if you have them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not what I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to date anyone with children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, I don't have any.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to date anyone with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, you know, take yourself out of the equation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, she matches with this guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have multiple conversations, seems good.
[SPEAKER_00]: They go out of date.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the first day, he says he's like laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, he, he, he, like, I have this funny thing to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I get, you know, I need to let you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do have a three-year-old son.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so clear about this and he's like, well, you wouldn't have gone out with me if I told you and I knew we would have good connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unfringing, believable, what people will do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, that wouldn't happen in the old days, my days, because you knew more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody would have told you, oh, yeah, you know, my cousin, oh, but he has a kid, and you would have been like, oh, never mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't even introduce us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, it's so much harder now with all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is, actually, okay, so this is what we can talk about another girl crush I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have many of them, don't I?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of amazing women in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an MIT researcher named Sherry Turkall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read one, oh god, she had this trilogy of books.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had this one book alone together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read many years ago, changed my life, anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's been, that's not the book I'm even talking about though.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's been studying technology and human connection for decades at MIT, so she, you know, she's reasonable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go to say she's smart.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to tell you, I remember when I read that first book alone together, it took me so long to get through because she's so friggin smart.
[SPEAKER_00]: are time reading it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so good and worth your while if you like science and all the things I'm going to talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: She writes beautifully, but you know, I'm just not a smart disservice, so it takes a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, she's been documenting all this for decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: The constant low friction, availability of digital communication creates the appearance of closeness without the actual, what we're doing, without the actual weight of shared real-life experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, your brain doesn't differentiate well between hours of texting and hours of being with someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both register as time spent in your brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of them is real and one of them is in, one of them is a screen and that is the problem and her, her research and this, I don't think anyone's even close because she's been doing it so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, can you imagine calling someone on the phone as much as you text them in early dating?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If every time you were texting, all those little tiny texts were all phone calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be horse, you would have a voice left and exhausted by week two.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have sadly to me and to many researchers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have normalized a level of access that in any other context, would be considered way, way too much, way too fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we wonder why everyone seems to move so quickly into something that turns out to be wrong or hollow or not a good fit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to keep us in mind when I get to the AP behaviors in a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But every one of them is amplified by texting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So love bombing, which I'm gonna talk about, isn't, it's not just verbal anymore, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It that's like 47 messages before noon.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's love bombing too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hyper availability, which I'm also gonna talk about, isn't just being free for dates, it's being on the other end of every text instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: All day, the apps haven't changed what red flags are.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've changed how fast they can be deployed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the issue here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have what I call the paste test, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So before we get into the eight, I want to give you the through line.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the through line because once you have it, you don't actually need the list anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to give you the list, but you don't need it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because real connection moves at the speed of trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say that again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to write that on a piece of paper and put it on your mirror, write it on your mirror, whatever, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: connection, moves at the speed of trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trust is built incrementally through small, very small moments of consistency over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see someone in different contexts under different stresses with different people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You watch what they do when they're tired, or when you've disappointed them, when they don't get their way, when the waiter brings the wrong meal.
[SPEAKER_00]: each of those moments adds another piece of evidence and your sense of who this person is gets built, brick by brick, which is how it's supposed to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Performance can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Performance has to skip the time part.
[SPEAKER_00]: because time exposes performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So performance compresses everything into intensity.
[SPEAKER_00]: A month of texting becomes a relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: A weekend together becomes the one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The grand declaration replaces again the slow accumulation of evidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because intensity feels like depth,
[SPEAKER_00]: your brain reads the speed as significance, that's what happens, that's the biology of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the pace test, it's really kind of one question I have, when something feels really good in early dating, I want you to ask yourself, is this happening at the speed of getting to know someone or at the speed of someone needing more, needing me to commit before I can see clearly?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's it, that's the whole tool really.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every behavior we're about to walk through fails the paste test in the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really does.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I say with love, I've been doing this 40 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I did a quick like TikTok video about the see other day that and someone put wrong in the comments like, no, that's not right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, where's your degree from?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, and obviously, I say with love, you don't have to have to agree, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: I take that back.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do have 40 years of experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing this a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: in multiple states, countries, people over the, like, I'm telling you, I'm, I'm, I'm with so much love in my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it, I could tell that person who wrote wrong under my video, right, was poor baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh, there's somebody who fell mad.
[SPEAKER_00]: They love with somebody and they think they know all, you know, and I'm not saying that a hundred percent of the time you can't
[SPEAKER_00]: In my experience, it's so unbelievably rare, I can only think of a few examples of the thousands, tens of thousands of people I've talked to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I could come up with 20 out of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, you could be that, but what would it hurt to slow it down to make sure you're that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's like, what is the fear about slowing down?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can tell you that the people, again,
[SPEAKER_00]: who come after me, or come to me after, sorry, who come to me after one of those relationships, ends, almost always say the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I find, that they do know.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll say something that I knew, some part of me knew and I overwrote it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I wanna give you today is the language for what you're noticing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the next time something feels too good to fast,
[SPEAKER_00]: Or like you know something's off but you can't pinpoint it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't override yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's really where we're going here Okay, and I did an episode a while ago on how to know when you're following your gut how to know how to how to trust your gut And how to know when you're following that and I will link to that in the blog also so on the website You know go to this episode or I'll link to it under the video on YouTube
[SPEAKER_00]: So here are the eight, let's get to the eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, of course, I already said love bombing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so with each one, I'm going to kind of tell you what it looks like, why it's wrong and what the tell is, kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what love bombing looks like, within days, hours, weeks, they're telling you you're different from anyone they've ever met, they text constantly, they send gifts, they plan elaborate dates, they talk about the future, the volume of attention is overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm going to be honest, it's intoxicating.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been on the other side of love bombing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've even loved bombs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was dating, you know, way back before I, you know, had more therapy, I know I've done it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So why it reads as positive is because your brain has been trained.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, by every romantic comedy you've ever seen and every pop song, you know, your brain has been trained to read this kind of intensity as love.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love is supposed to feel, you know, like fireworks, like being chosen and being loved, bombed feels exactly like being chosen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the tell, you know, is that the intensity,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, I say, what love isn't responsive to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same with everyone they've ever dated, trust me.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you watch closely, the things they're saying I've never felt this way, you're not like anyone else, are about an idea of you, not the actual you, because they don't know you yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: that they haven't known you long enough to be specific.
[SPEAKER_00]: The real version of devotion, it's specific.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real care notices the small things.
[SPEAKER_00]: It references what you actually said two weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in a really, in a way that shows they were paying attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love bombing is, again, I see what so much love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is a performance of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real care is paying attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how we know the difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might be thinking, no, no, it feels so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying it doesn't feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying it's not healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two is something, you know, that they call like future faking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what that looks like is within the first few weeks, they're talking about moving in together, taking trips next year, what your kids would look like, having babies with you, they include you in major plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, for holidays that are months away for, you know, oh, yeah, my family's having a reunion this summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait for them to meet you, you know, and it's January, you know, it's not and you've been dating since, you know, early January, this is not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why it reads as positive is that when someone offers a vision of the future with you in it, your nervous system reads safety, your nervous system is so happy, you don't have to wonder where this is going, there's no more uncertainty, you don't have to feel anxious about being chosen, they've already chosen you and they've done it very loud.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the tell, you want to watch for the gap between the future they're describing and the present they're showing up for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they planning a trip to Italy in 18 months, but consistently late to dinner?
[SPEAKER_00]: I had this with a client a few months ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they talking about buying a house, but they're unable to fall through on small commitments?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or they don't even have a job?
[SPEAKER_00]: or they have a job where they're not really making much money enough to buy a house or they, you know, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Real partnership is built in the small reliabilitys, again, in the present, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not in these big cinematic promises about the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: The future faker,
[SPEAKER_00]: can describe where you guys are going beautifully, the destination they can describe that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just can't tell you how today connects to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't tell you how they're going to get to it, get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, how well do they really know you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Have they seen you in multiple scenarios?
[SPEAKER_00]: With your family, friends, through a difficult time at work?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can they be so sure you'll be great a year from now when they haven't been through anything
[SPEAKER_00]: Difficult with you currently.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have not been through something difficult with someone and by the way That's another red flag to me, which I'm not gonna go to but if you're already having a really difficult time very early in the relationship You shouldn't be you shouldn't be
[SPEAKER_00]: Very early in relationship is the yummy, lovey part.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, take it slow, but that's, you know, we got love goggles on.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're already having fights all the time and there's jealousy and there's controlling and there's all this stuff, you already have your red flags very clearly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those aren't green flags at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you already know if this should be the easier time-wise it's so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three is mirroring, and what mirroring looks like is that they love everything you love.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same music, the same books, the same political views, same childhood traumas, same favorite restaurants, the compatibility, maybe feels,
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a little eerie, like you found someone who finally gets you, you know, like, I've never been seen like this before.
[SPEAKER_00]: It reads as positive because this is the soul mate fantasy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the soul mate fantasy in action.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this sort of larger cultural script says that the right person will feel like, you know, like coming home, like meeting somebody who already knows you and mirroring
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly that feeling.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why it feels that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know right now you're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not healthy stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: The the tell here is that real compatibility includes friction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've mentioned this earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: People who fit well together still disagree.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have different tastes, different rhythms, different opinions on everything from
[SPEAKER_00]: movies to how to load the dishwasher, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Friction doesn't mean you're not a match.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means you're too whole people, which is really the only way to actually be a match.
[SPEAKER_00]: If everything is seamless, you gotta ask yourself whether you're meeting your equal or your reflection, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is this person at this point?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number four is hyper availability and what it looks like, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They text back instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single time they never seem to be busy, their schedule, reorient around yours immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're available emotionally, physically, conversationaly, like around the clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: So of course this reads as positive because when you've been left on red or kept waiting in past relationships,
[SPEAKER_00]: hyper availability feels like the answer to every prayer, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, somebody who's into you, someone who is in playing games, but the tell here is that healthy adults have lives, they have other relationships, they have jobs, responsibilities, sleep cycles, internal states that aren't always available to a new partner, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The healthy version of availability is
[SPEAKER_00]: responsive without being constant.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they text back when they can.
[SPEAKER_00]: They prioritize you in real moments, but their life continues to exist around you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If their life seems to be you within weeks, that vacuum will eventually need to be filled and nobody can fill someone else's life and stay whole themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, again, and what I say a lot is also if they're blowing off other people to be with you, what does that tell you about who they are?
[SPEAKER_00]: And because you can be guaranteed, guaranteed, that they'll be blowing you off in the future when something else seems more important in that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: because that's how they, that's what they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: They get excited about something and they blow you off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have had this countless times in my practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, someone will say to me, oh my God, they used to devote all their time to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I texted, they would be right there, dead it up and now we've been together a year and now they're doing, you know, maybe they're playing soccer all the time and they're really into their buddies and they're doing this and they're doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: They showed you who they were early.
[SPEAKER_00]: They showed you that they were they blew off everything else for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you think what that their real life wasn't going to come back or that they weren't going to have a next thing that they were passionate about or excited about or work was going to, you know, that pendulum has to shift at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it doesn't, that's even creepier to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But do you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: Number five is, I don't want to say this, I would say.
[SPEAKER_00]: early vulnerability, like two early vulnerability or trauma dumping, something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what that looks like is, you know, on the first, second or third date, they tell you the deepest, most painful things about their childhood or their last relationship, their mental health, maybe they cry, they share things, they say they've never told anyone that is the worst.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, if you hear ever on the first month of dating,
[SPEAKER_00]: that I've never told anybody this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Run, don't walk away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Run, run, run for the hills.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, why it reads is something positive, why it reads is a green flag, is that, right, vulnerability, vulnerability.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the hallmark of intimacy, Abby.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the thing I've been waiting for.
[SPEAKER_00]: You read their willingness to share as a sign that you're trusted, that this is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: You feel honored, you feel, and naturally, right, then you wanna start sharing at the same depth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You wanna go there too.
[SPEAKER_00]: The tell here is that real intimacy again is slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's built through reciprocity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is built through reciprocal, graduated disclosure.
[SPEAKER_00]: When someone skips the gradual part and dumps deaths on you immediately, they're not building intimacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're establishing obligation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You now feel responsible for them in a way you wouldn't if you'd known that longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't want to say this or that because, you know, now I know that he comes, you know, he was beaten as a kid or something or oh, I don't want to abandon him like his first wife did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel kind of guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that we're good.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've also, they've short-circuited the normal vetting process, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to say notice someone who just told you about their abuse history and that's the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone with a healthy relationship to their own pain doesn't share it with strangers as a connection strategy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They share it when there's been enough trust built that the sharing is appropriate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I'm, I'm pausing for, you know, a moment there for you to, to get how important that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number six is the fixer or rescuer and what that looks like is that they want to take area, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to fix the things in your life that are hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: They notice everything you struggle with and have a solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their attention to your problems is, is, is total.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, why that reads this positive, is it feels like being seen again, it feels like being chosen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice how often I use that word.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like being chosen by someone strong, who can hold you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you grew up a parentified, right, as like kind of an adult child, you know, a parentified kid, or you don't get your needs met easily, being on the receiving end of this is, it's,
[SPEAKER_00]: it's a relief unlike anything else you've ever experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I've been in relationships like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: The tell here is that a healthy partner is interested in your problems, but not invested in solving them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say that again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody healthy, a healthy relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they're interested in your problems, but they're not invested in solving them, especially early on.
[SPEAKER_00]: They support you while you handle your own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fixtures, the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are identity in the relationship depends on you needing them, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So watch what happens when you're doing well.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I'll tell you what'll happen, are they happy for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is there, what I see is there's like a flatness, even often a quiet sabotage, sometimes I'm not so quiet sabotage.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you don't need their help anymore, I see it all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see that so commonly I can't tell you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The relationship was perfect when you were struggling, the minute you stabilize, not so perfect, not so perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they even maybe start to gas light and other stuff starts to go on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't get good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you sure that you're okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: You sure you still want to talk to your mom?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was really mean to you before.
[SPEAKER_00]: You seem like you gave him real quick when you made up with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number seven is possessiveness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any possessiveness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what it looks like, they want to spend all their time with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They get a little jealous when you mention an old friend, but it's cute because they want you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: They check in really often.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to know where you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've already got all your locations locked in on your phones.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to know who you're with when you'll be home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the location phone thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to tell you that right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like why do you need to know, especially early, especially early, obviously years in our, I guess, like know where they are, but otherwise, what on earth do you need this information for?
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I had a lifetime of dating and marriage before there was ever locations, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved it, I love it now with my kids and my kids like to know where I am, which is kind of cute, I think, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I might forget to tell them, oh, I got a speaking engagement, I'll be in wherever, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause we don't live at home anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to know sometimes where they are, you know, like maybe I'm calling and I'm wanting to know, like, oh, are they at home or are they not, or just for my Jewish mother anxiety, I like to physically know where they are, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, so okay, that I get my kids want to know where I am where their mommy is, you know, where their mom is, okay, but my partner, we don't have locations on for each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not have that with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I know where he is, he tells me, I tell him, I, I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, it just speaks of something else, and I'm not saying that you're wrong if you have this, but definitely, if you had a partner, if my partner was had a chronic illness or something, or, you know, I was worried about them, or I don't, that's the only time I could think that I would want that, you know, to know where they were in case of an emergency, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if they were,
[SPEAKER_00]: like had some life-threatening illness and I was afraid they'd pass out somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, it's really, think about why you have that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think and think about how often you check it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, why this possessiveness reads as positive is because possessiveness gets coded as proof of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wouldn't be jealous if they didn't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wouldn't want to know where you are if you didn't matter, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, there's this cultural training to read this kind of attention as desire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the tell here is, is that, what's the tell here?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an early stage, of course, of control.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what else to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, I'm going to use strong words on purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's research on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Evan Stark, one of my favorite.
[SPEAKER_00]: He pioneered the kind of modern understanding of course of control.
[SPEAKER_00]: he as a pattern rather than like a series of incidents and his research has shown that over and over that early possessiveness is one of the most reliable predictors of later abusive dynamics.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not I'm not always saying physical abuse but abusive dynamics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, rarely is going to announce itself, it shows up as flattery, it shows up as I just love you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't stand the thought of you with anyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love you so much, I want to know where you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: A real desire wants you to be more of yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It celebrates your other relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real desire supports your independence.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gets excited when you have your own things going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: real love, real desire is expansive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your your world gets bigger and not smaller.
[SPEAKER_00]: Control will want you smaller.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wants you more contained, more available.
[SPEAKER_00]: So really watch the direction of the pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it expanding you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it lighting you up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it shrinking you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Making you smaller.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the final one I want to talk about is anybody who disparages their exes or talks a lot about not have no drama, you know, no drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, what it looks like is they probably tell you their last relationship was a nightmare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their ex was crazy abusive manipulative.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so glad they don't have their drama in their life right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't do drama, something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it raises positive because
[SPEAKER_00]: It's signaling to you that they value peace, that they've moved on, that they're done with the chaos that ruined their last relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: You somehow hear it as maturity.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the tell here is that this is a preview of how they're eventually going to talk about you, even when you're together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I talk about the Gothman's all the time, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: John and Julie Gothman.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're, they're Gothman Institute.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've done decades of research on relationship breakdown.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, you know, we they talk about the forehorsesmen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they show that contempt, especially contempt expressed about a partner.
[SPEAKER_00]: is one of the strongest predictors of relationship failure, end of, end of.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone who speaks just contemptuously about their last partner is showing you their default.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what they're showing you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That no drama, claim, in particular, to me, what I see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, 40 years of doing this is often a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like they're preemptively labeling.
[SPEAKER_00]: any of your reasonable needs as drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll suppress them to keep your spot in the, you know, in the no drama column, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Healthy people can describe a hard relationship with nuance.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can name what was difficult and also acknowledge their own role.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they don't need their
[SPEAKER_00]: with no curiosity, no accountability, no complexity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're seeing the operating system of this person and it's not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same lens is going to be turned on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, whether you stay together or not, you are still going to be because they don't take accountability.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have curiosity when things go wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are showing you themselves, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Over and over.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a big, big problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I'm just gonna leave it there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so what if you recognize yourself in all this there's those eight right what if you've been seeing they're going like I did kind of like, oh, I've loved bombed right Again, you might be hearing you know you're listening and you're nodding and you're seeing yourself not as the like quote unquote right
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you see yourself as not as the perpetrator because the person who keeps falling for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that's where you are the work goes deeper I've and I've gone into detail in another episode about why you keep choosing the same kind of person That's the one I did about the wrong picker and what the inner work looks like and I will I will link to that right
[SPEAKER_00]: The short version is that your nervous system is responding to what's familiar and what's familiar isn't always what's good for you, right, familiar feels safe to your brain even when it's terrible for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the neuroscience of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for...
[SPEAKER_00]: But for today, I will say, so go listen to the picker episode, you know, why your picker's broken and it's not broken and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The move is simpler.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to do all that in a work before you can use this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just need to slow down enough to apply the pace test, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, if you see yourself in, oh, sorry, so I went both ways here, sorry about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you see yourself in this, you're like, oh, I'm doing the love bombing, I'm doing this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: right like to see where because that might be why you're picking the wrong people also because you're acting in this unhealthy way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, hope I did I do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think I think I said all that pretty well but we'll see.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say to you know you're gut already knew you just couldn't hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I again really believe that you're rarely
[SPEAKER_00]: You always know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do always know somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just not listening, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not here in your inner self.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so again, I want you to listen to the episode, but as always, this boils down to mindfulness, it, you know, you have to be in your moments enough to notice how your body's reacting, to notice what responses you're having.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, it's the single most
[SPEAKER_00]: for everything we've talked about today, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you need that ability to slow down enough to actually feel what's happening in your body in this person's presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes, your gut already knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your gut almost always knows before your brain does.
[SPEAKER_00]: The trouble is that your gut speaks more quietly and fear speaks really loudly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of us spend a lifetime listening to the wrong voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I did this other episode where I went deep, but the short version is that your gut speaks in your body.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quiet, it's slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost never urgent.
[SPEAKER_00]: It shows up, it's sort of this nagging sense that something's off when everything looks fine on paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like, how your shoulders or won't drop when you're with this person, you notice that your shoulders are up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You notice that you're holding your breath, maybe before you walk into the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you keep mentally rehearsing what you'll say, what you'll do, how you'll act before your interactions with this person who supposedly makes you so happy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're always second guessing yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, fear is the opposite, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fear is loud, fear is urgent, it's fast, Fear is the voice it says, you know, I have to commit right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna lose them, fear is the voice telling you to ignore the small thing you notice because what if you mess this up?
[SPEAKER_00]: And fear is what is really keeping you matching their pace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And...
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's probably the part you don't want to hear, but I love you and I want to say it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The loudest voice in your head, the one telling you to commit to dive in, to not be too cautious, to not blow this.
[SPEAKER_00]: That voice isn't your gut.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not your gut.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your gut is the quieter one underneath it that's been trying to get a word in and hasn't been able to.
[SPEAKER_00]: The the the apps and texting culture really makes all this so difficult, so hard, the constant pressure, you know, to respond to match enthusiasm to keep up with someone else, right, is all that feeds fear, all of it, none of it feeds gut, your, your gut needs space.
[SPEAKER_00]: It needs the kind of time and quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can only get when you're not, you know, being texted, being notified 47 times a day, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If, if a relationship later turned out to have red flags, you've probably had the experience of looking back and realizing something and you knew, you, again, you felt like the tightness, you felt the health breath, you felt the inability to relax, you, you just couldn't slow down enough to hear that quieter voice over the louder one.
[SPEAKER_00]: that that's what's happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and of course I have my free mindfulness starter kid if you haven't gone in, just go download it for God's sakes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you do if you're already in this kind of relationship?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're already recognized yourself, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: or recognize someone you're with here, the answer doesn't have to be a traumatic exit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying this means it's all for not, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer is just a deliberate slowdown.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stop accepting the future talk, stop matching the pace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch what happens when you don't lean in as hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: Real connection holds up under a slower pace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Performance falls apart because performance can't sustain a slower speed without exposing what's underneath it so that the to me the pace test is it it's not like diagnostic it's it's protective you know slow it down slow your role the and the truth shows itself I'm telling you right now I'm telling you it shows itself so let me wrap up let me let me let me wrap up this episode because we've been out in a minute so these
[SPEAKER_00]: eight behaviors all share one thing in common.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, they give you a feeling that's supposed to come at the end of a long, slow, mutual process of getting to know someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they give it to you at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The intensity is the wrong ingredient.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the right ingredient is time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when something feels too good and early dating, the question isn't, is this real, is this real?
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is this happening at the speed of trust or at the speed of someone who needs me to commit before I can see clearly?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pace itself is the message.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to get this perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the more you can train yourself to feel the pace to notice when something is moving faster than it should.
[SPEAKER_00]: To honor those small moments of, this is a lot, you know, this is fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: The less likely you are to end up six months or six years from now, wondering how you missed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really what I want to say, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't miss it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You felt it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just need to trust yourself enough to slow down when you do feel it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all I want to say on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've got to have a great free resource for you on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm calling it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I call it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a green flag or just a red flag?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a quick self check for early dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's a free resource.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a, you know, tool you can use the next time you're in early dating or to look back honestly at a past relationship and see what you might have been picking up on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as always, if you want to go deeper this week's therapy to go bundle is awesome if I do say so myself and I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's built to help you really map your own patterns, give you scripts for slowing a relationship down without explaining yourself, walk you through.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's journaling that helps you, journaling prompts that help you understand why.
[SPEAKER_00]: fast feels safe to your particular nervous system.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a ton, there's like a bunch of, and they always include today's free download.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want that, it's all just $10.
[SPEAKER_00]: Highly recommend if any of this is feeling like, oh my gosh, this is so me over and over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, that's it for today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I love you so much, thank you for being here with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel, yeah, so incredibly,
[SPEAKER_00]: grateful and blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're getting right at the end of season eight of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to cry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to cry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just can't believe I've been doing this so long and you've been listening and here with me and it's just it's my favorite part of the week.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really is talking to you and just writing these and doing the research and putting them together and hearing your responses and it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you so much, have an amazing week and, you know, please please do the work.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, bye.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for spending time with me today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're loving what you're learning here, come join my one love collective.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my private community where we take these conversations even deeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll get a ton of bonus content, live Q&As with me, guided visualizations,
[SPEAKER_00]: and an incredible community of like-minded people ready to support you as you create more ease and joy in all your relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all waiting for you at AppieMedKev.com or right on Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you next week.