Ep. #74 Avoiding and Leaving the Wrong Relationships with Jesse Owen PhD

[Angel Donovan]: Hi Jesse, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, thank you for inviting me.

[Angel Donovan]: No problem. You’re one of the many scientists to come on to the show, and as we’re starting to learn, there are many different types of scientists; it’s not just one, big group of scientists with one focus, one set of ideas and so on. Can you give us an idea of where you’re coming from, what’s your perspective and how you approach this whole subject of dating, sex and relationship?

[Jesse Owen]: I’m a psychologist trained in the United States. I’m currently an associate professor at the University of Denver and my main focus is to understand the process of how people date and understanding all the dynamics and all the different kinds of relationships that are out there to help people have better relationships and better sex.

[Angel Donovan]: Great. So how would you compare this to evolutionary biology or evolutionary psychology, what you do?

[Jesse Owen]: The evolutionary folks take a look at processes that typically are founded in evolutionary concepts, so the idea that men and women have certain societal roles and some of those societal roles are based on evolution.

I really take a focus on a more social, constructed narrative where people’s roles and how they know things, it’s based on influences of their family, influences of society and the messages that they receive. Of course, there’s some evolutionary aspect to some of these things, but I’m more interested in those individual differences that get people to think differently via people’s decisions, where we could influence people’s decisions so we can, for instance, do therapy or do relationship education or coaching and help folks make better decisions for their lives.

I think, to me, that’s one, big clear difference where we’re talking about social norms, for instance. What is it? What are the social norms about what it means to be a man or to be a woman, versus what does evolution say about what does it mean to be a man or be a woman?

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So you’re also at the nurture end of it. You want to understand how we’re formed by the context of society and what’s going on; these are things actually which we can control and improve about society more easily than our biologies, of course. So you’re more interested in these things that we could possibly improve on and to improve relationships and so on, about education and all these kinds of aspects of society. Is that correct?

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, absolutely.

[Angel Donovan]: Great. We’re of course very practical here; that sounds like a great perspective for us – things that are actionable that maybe we can also understand from our past.

Also, could you give us a quick context in your personal background? Where are you at your stage of dating, sex and relationships in your life? Are you married? What are you up to in your life?

[Jesse Owen]: For sure. I’m 38 years old, I currently single. I was in a long-term relationship for a while, and recently that ended. I’ve had long-term relationships in the past; I don’t have any children and I’ve never been married, but that’s my history.

My mom is from Malaysia and my Dad is from the States, and so I have a little bit of the bicultural, biracial element to my perspectives as well.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, great. So [unclear 10:58] interest, what kind of cultural perspective do you bring to it? Also, in terms of your work in science, has that influenced the way you look at relationships at all in your life?

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah. The cultural angle for me is trying to understand different social norms nested within cultures. When we think about what it means to be a man and what messages – those silent [clear 11:19] messages come down, are we talking about just white men? Are we talking about men from different countries? How does this play out and what are the different statements and messages people are sharing?

It’s culturally specific, so what it means to be a black man in America is very different from what it means to be a white man in America. Those two things are very different than if you go over to Malaysia and understand those different cultural messages and what is being said.

I’ll give you a practical example here. Is it okay to be a 38-year-old person and not be married? [Chuckling]

[Angel Donovan]: Well I think so! [Chuckles]

[Jesse Owen]: I think so too! But there’s clearly some cultures that – my mom definitely loves for me to be married right now and have some kids so she could be a grandparent, whereas my dad is like, “Well I want you to be happy and do what you want to do.” I think there’s a little bit of a cultural difference that we can see and I think people can share those stories quite equally.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. There does seem to be more pressure from mothers from that perspective. If you talk to everyone, everyone gets pressure from their mothers until your mothers give up. My mom gave up a while back [chuckling] and so I’m happily free now.

[Jesse Owen]: The interesting cultural spin was my mom would – “we have relatives back in Malaysia, we could do an arranged marriage.” Those kinds of statements, I think, adds a different cultural context to the understanding the different pressures and knowing that that’s much more real for some folks. I think my mom was joking, but I’m not sure if she really was.

[Angel Donovan]: [Chuckles] Right. What would be your advice to someone – because I’m sure we have listeners on the show that have these kinds of pressures, whether it be cultural, or whether it just be their mothers and fathers are putting this kind of marriage pressure on them. What would be your advice to them about that?

[Jesse Owen]: Well, I think for me the main advice is to listen to what they’re really saying. Most parents love their kids so much, and they see relationships as being a key source of joy, and that’s what they really want. They want their kids to be happy, and just to hear that message versus the potentially nagging message of “Why aren’t you like this?” – which can be part of the massage, but I think it’s a little bit more nestled within a sense of love and security that parents just want their kids to be happy and secure, and relationships can be that for a lot of folks.

But I also don’t want people to feel pressured into getting into a relationship just because of social norms or social [unclear 13:47] of making sure that everybody’s in a relationship, but I don’t think that’s a good strategy either.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. We’re all individuals and we find our own path. I certainly started out as a serial relationship guy; from the age of 17 to about 28, I was constantly in a relationship. I’d finish one, jump into another one immediately, and I’m sure that was mostly societal – just what I was supposed to do. I’ve never thought about it until I aged, and I’ve been way happier since I started thinking more about it.

I think the message here is to think about yourself and understand where your parents are coming from. They grew up in a generation when everyone just had relationships and no one thought about it, and for them, happiness is being based on that.

Like you say, they want you to be happy and they only have their own experiences to go by. Most of them haven’t experienced anything apart from a relationship to be happy, so they’re going to push that on you.

I would say some cultures seem to have more of a societal status concern. I lived in Asia for a while and in China and places like that, some of my ex-girlfriends have got a tremendous amount of pressure to get married, and even close to getting kicked out of the family if they didn’t.

One of the girls, she decided right at the last minute that she couldn’t go through with her marriage because it just wasn’t her. She was very independent – unusual for a Chinese girl. She decided the last she couldn’t go for it for her own happiness, and she had a lot of problems with her family because they lost face with all of the rest of the family, with society. I’m sure that goes on to a certain extent as well; I don’t know if you’ve looked into that in terms of research.

[Jesse Owen]: I have not, but I think that’s not uncommon by any means.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. I just realized that that’s just in a dynamic – and I don’t think that's something you should take into consideration. For me, it’s not something – what other people think should not factor into the kind of decisions you’re making about your own happiness, but you should understand that some people, just because of where they’ve grown up and their generation and their culture, they’re going to put a lot of emphasis on what other people are thinking and that kind of background.

[Jesse Owen]: I think that’s definitely true. I also kind of worry that people will sacrifice their own values and what they want in relationships because of that pressure. I think that’s very useful. Settling is a tough term, but there’s a certain compromise that everybody makes in relationships, but if you’re settling on some of your core values, that’s not a good thing. And I hope people aren't feeling pressured out there to do that.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup, exactly. So one other topic we wanted to cover today was a little bit about the settling dynamic. I know that a lot of your research is focused on the decisions to stay in relationships versus not and how those come about and the context where it’s a good thing and where it’s a bad thing, where the end result is a healthy relationship versus an unhealthy relationship.

Could you give us a quick overview of where your research started into this area?

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, I really got interested in this idea of commitment and wondering what commitment looks like, and how do people make decisions about committing or not committing. There’s a lot of good stuff in commitment which we call dedication, where statements like “Yeah, I can see myself with this person for the next ten years,” or what I hear with couples, when they start talking about themselves as “We.”

“We did this this weekend” – that “we” language or that couple identity becomes stronger, and I suppose the wanting to sacrifice for your partner, those are the good things about commitment. Those are things that if you see that in a relationship and you feel that in a relationship – those are the things that we want to obviously promote.

The other side of commitment is this constrained commitment, where you do the things that aren’t necessarily bad, but can get people stuck like buying a house together or getting in on a lease together, or buying a dog together. Or even just the tangible things of, “I put so much time and energy. I bought this for you; we’ve been together for three years” – whatever those kind of constraints are, those are the things that kind of get people stuck and feeling like “I want to get out of this but it’s costly to leave.”

Those are the places that I think we have the biggest capacity of adult people who make [unclear 18:00] decisions and figure out what are they really afraid of and what are those things that they need to do to make those decisions. Honestly, we could think about the people who feel stuck in a relationship they want to get out of, but I also wonder about the process of getting to that point, and we’ve been thinking about this idea of sliding.

Some people just slide into relationships and don’t really think too much about the steps, whereas other people have clear conversations with their partner and clear discussions about where the steps in the relationship are going.

A classic example from my clinical practice is that I was working with a couple where they didn’t even know they were living together until it came up in therapy. The guy, basically, he was living with some roommates, and he was slowly moving his stuff over to his girlfriend’s place. Like a lot of couples, they spend a lot of nights together and then till the lease ran out, he never re-did his lease.

He just ended up staying every night there, and then during therapy she’s like, “Well why don’t you just go back to your old place for the next week?” and he’s like, “Oh, I don’t have a place anymore.” By just her eyes, it was like, “Holy crap! How did we get to this point?” A classic sliding move, and ultimately very, very difficult for them to end up separating.

We were able to work on some strategies to get to that point, but that’s a really bad setup of sliding into a relationship and not making good decisions along the way. And so that’s the key piece, and so what we want couples to do is to think about – and this is just hooking up or other types of relationships as well – just make sure that you’re clear about what you want and what you think the outcome is going to be before you get into that situation.

It’s not necessarily about being overtly deliberate or too analytical for every single thing in the relationship, but there are some clear, big steps that people take – like deciding to have sex with somebody or moving in with somebody or even deciding to be in an official relationship with somebody. They should really have some clear decision-making points there.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Over here I have a couple of scenarios which we see a lot with guys which really fit into this. We very, very often see guys who don’t have a lot of experience with women – maybe they’ve never had a girlfriend, or maybe they’ve had just one or two. They’ll meet a girl that they like, maybe on a scale in terms of 1 to 10 in terms of liking her, it’s probably about a 7, so it’s pretty good but it’s nowhere near an ideal 10 or anything like that.

It’s also the first scenario where he’s come up with something that wasn’t good enough to go with it, and we’ve very, very often seen – because what will happen is we’ll start teaching them stuff, they’ll start learning some stuff about how relationships work, and it’s like the first time they get a little bit of luck in the process. They learn a few things about communication and so on and these things, and they get their first chance at luck, and they meet a girl, and finally there's a girl that likes you and that you think she’s pretty nice too.

Although she’s pretty still far off from what you’re really looking for in life and maybe you haven’t thought about it this much at this stage because you’ve been so concerned about not being able to meet women or women not being attracted to you that you’ve never actually considered what you really want about it; because you’ve had these insecurities and things that you had to get over first.

A lot of guys will jump straight into a relationship head first at that point – nearly every single time, they’ll come back to us in six months, three months’ time, and that relationship had worked out really badly. It just wasn’t a very healthy relationship; it just didn’t work out, or pretty soon the things he didn’t learn about relationships started working against him and the girl left him, or he realized the girl was not actually anything to do with what he really wanted.

What we always try to get guys to do is say, “Calm down. You’re just getting the first bit of luck, but that’s going to be a bit of dating experience to find out what you want in life and understand what the options are and not jump on these insecurities, basically – the fact that this is our first break in this area of our lives and jump all over it.” Is that something you’ve seen before?

It’s a very emotional event for these guys’ lives, when it’s the first time that they got this bit of luck with women and it’s working out. I struggle with how to communicate with them, to hold back a bit, in a way that they’re actually going to accept and take in and think about it a bit.

[Jesse Owen]: I can see that, especially once you do some – in the initial dating process with somebody like you were saying that it’s a 7, it’s very exciting. Now you’re not only excited, but you also have the cloud of physical-ness and everything else that definitely clouds the decision-making process.

I guess for me, when I hear stories like that, I always think about the idea of “Did you do enough exploration of who you are as a person before you started dating?” Because confidence is sexy, and I think that translates to me. If I’m talking about myself, I’m going to take the time to make sure that we’re doing this right, and making sure that I’m not jumping into the relationship. Like after two day, you’re like “Oh we’re boyfriend-girlfriend now. We’re a thing now.”

That’s defining the relationship talk and it should take some time. Really try to vet out some of these things, like “Is this true to my values? Is this person really committed? Are we having fun? Is this the type of person that I can really myself being with?”

I think it’s about trying to get people to slow down, and I think some people just don’t want to because, like you said, the first time that they had a little bit luck in the dating process – and that’s challenging. I think if they do more work on the front end of really exploring their values and having a clear bottom-line of “Okay, if I see this, I’m not going to put up with this. This is not something I want to be okay with.”

And so I always hear individuals and couples talk about “Oh, this is a testing phase,” or “We’re going to test things out.” I think that’s made a good mentality, but unless you know what’s a passing score on a test and the failing score, then you’re just putting somebody through the ringer for no good reason. And so having a clear bottom-line is that failing grade.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. I think the word you used earlier – sliding – is a great word, because basically people may think that I’m just going to try out this relationship with this girl, because it’s mostly guys listening to this podcast. But as you say, they don’t have any fixed criteria yet because based on one thing, they don’t really know who they are.

If you don’t know who you are, if you don’t know what you value in life, it’s very hard to have any boundaries about what’s right and what’s wrong. You won’t know what to judge the relationship on, like “This is what I like in relationships, this is what I don’t like, this is what’s going to be healthy, this is what’s going to be interesting for me, this is what’s going to work.”

All of these things about boundaries until you actually know who you are and you’ve explored your own side – you have some self-awareness and you’ve explored your own life and know what you want – then you can’t set boundaries with other people. It’s just impossible.

If you have this kind of fluffy, flexible idea of who you are and what you want and what you’re doing in life, it’s impossible to set your boundaries with other people, because you’re evolving just on a day-to-day basis. To actually start governing the outside relationships as well, it’s a whole another level.

And so when you get into this relationship and you don’t have a fixed idea, like you were saying, of boundaries, it’s going to slide because of the emotions, the passion. It’s probably going to slide into a relationship more likely than not just because of the way oxytocin, dopamine and these things work.

You may feel like you’re going through this testing phase, but actually you’re not; you’re just letting your emotions and the hormones decide, and then most likely they’re going to just push you straight into a relationship. If you’re having sex, it’s going to push you into a relationship. Our bodies like sex and that’s the direction it’s going to push us.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. It’s that the sliding piece and that you will slide into a relationship sooner or later. I think the weird piece about some of this is that there’s messages out there like, “Just take it easy, go with the flow, just be chill; do whatever, you’ll figure it out” and those messages are good to lower people’s anxieties.”

But it’s really a counter-message of “When you’re on a date, be chill. When you’re in this process, it’s not like you’re interviewing somebody.” It’s also a chance for you to explore topics with another person and see if your values are connecting. A lot of the other stuff will work itself out – you can get better at communication, you can do some of these things, but if your values are not aligned, that’s a clear, early warning sign that we know just is a great predictor of breaking up and separation and divorce.

And those things will come back. If you don’t want kids, and the person your with wants kids – you need to think about some of these things. Actually, depending on how old you are, some of these decisions are huge decisions that people need to be thinking about. “Where do I really stand on this issue?” It goes deeper than “Do you like Applebee’s or Cholly’s?” You need to really get clear on who you really are and what you really believe.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Have you got any ideas or suggestions or anything that’s come out in research in terms of how people can pre-prepare? Because what I was talking about how guys need more dating experience, but you’ve also brought up the equally interesting and important topic of exploring ourselves so we can define that before we actually start dating, and so the whole process becomes easier.

Have you any ideas or anything that’s come out of research in terms of actions we can take to start exploring and developing ourselves?

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, one of the programs that I’ve run for years is a program where it’s talking about deep values and expectations that you have, and those are the expectations that are going to be a little bit different for each person. But one way in Westernized view that’s kind of fun and kind of interesting is thinking about societal things that are happening every day and thinking about, “Where do I stand on this issue?”

You think about things like abortion – it’s a really tricky topic for a lot of folks, but it’s a clear, value-based statement that’s broader than abortion. Those types of things, like how do you feel about immigration? How do you feel about gay rights? These types of things will help you get in touch with “What do I really believe on this topic?” and not just be a passive observer of these kinds of societal things that are going on, but using those moments to reflect on whether “If I was [unclear 28:40], where would I place my vote? If I had to give a speech on this or a TED talk, what would I say in those minutes about this?”

Those are the values that people care about and those are the things that happen to society that trickle down to us. And so certain things are going to be more important to some folks than other, but it’s difficult to get a clear blueprint that’s rather huge to explore. That’s an avenue, and the easy avenue, and just start reflecting when you’re reading the news, when you’re watching the news, have a discussion with people and talk about what are your values about these things, your perspective and what do you believe.

That will actually make you probably a deeper person on dates, too – not that you should be talking about abortion on the first or second date by any means. That would just make you more informed about where you actually come from and what stance you actually take up on these things.

[Angel Donovan]: Asking questions about abortion on the first date probably isn’t a great idea. However, I do think that people shy away from these topics and sometimes the advice given to them is to shy away from topics that are philosophical or important to them, and to keep it very light.

I think you can actually do both at the same time; you can mix up light and serious conversation, and this is the ideal. When you’re looking for a relationship, probably not in your 20s – you know when you’re in your 20s and you’re just exploring relationships, you can keep it very light. But when you start to get to that point where you’re looking for a relationship, when it’s kind of that time in your life and you’re looking for things that are more important –.

I’ll give you an example. Tinder is supposed to be a very casual app, right? It’s very light and everything. But I met a girl on there yesterday and spoke to her this morning, and the second question I asked her was a deep philosophical question about her life – because I don’t want to waste my time [chuckling].

I felt very comfortable with that and I know it works and it’s fine. I’m just saying, the advice normally is not to do that kind of thing, but you can make a joke of it. You just say something like, “I just want to get all the deep philosophical questions out of the way right now.” She’ll laugh and then she’ll answer the question, and then you’ve got really important information whether you want to continue or not and invest more time in this.

She answered the questions correctly and I’m meeting up with her tomorrow morning.

[Jesse Owen]: Really.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, I’m able to qualify and find out if someone’s interesting to me by asking those questions versus some of the dating advice out there that’s just like “Keep it light.” So you’ll keep it light, you’ll meet up with her tomorrow or sometime later in the week – there’s time investment and stuff going on. You could go on that date and maybe it will be a waste of time, or maybe if you’re not thinking about it enough, you would just start sliding into something, because you’d be afraid of asking the questions on the date as well.

And I think most people have this attitude where they’re kind of afraid – men more than women, I would say – a lot of women will ask you questions, because they’re really concerned about the relationship aspect. Guys don’t tend to do this so much. I don’t know if any research addresses that.

[Jesse Owen]: It’s interesting that in some of the research that we’ve done, it seems like women are more likely to say that they want a conversation or hold a conversation about deeper stuff. “Where is this going? Is this really a thing?” – those kinds of elements that speak to what you’re talking about in terms of the philosophical, deeper connection type of statements that we find in our research more so than men.

When they want this information, they’re more likely to ask questions and I think the biggest mistake that I’ve seen in my clinical practice is guys just talk about themselves way too much and forget –. It’s good to talk about things; it’s good to talk about stuff, but at some point in time you have to talk about really who you are, and I think some of these philosophical questions get to that who are you really and what do you really believe. “I don’t care about your job, but what is it about your job that makes you passionate about it?” is a very good question.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Classical mistakes from guys are talking about cars, money, jobs – all that stuff that is of no interest to anyone. And actually I find, on a social level, people are more aware that – this used to be advice we would give out, and it wasn’t so socially well-known, but I’m finding that more and more people are just aware of it. They’re like, “It’s so boring when people talk about this stuff.” So I think the level of social consciousness on that angle has actually been increasing vastly over the last ten years.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, and I also think there’s a way to get into some of these topics. One of the things that I encourage my clients to start out conversations with if they’re having trouble finding conversations, Netflix and Hulu and all of these other things – people TV binge more than ever, and it’s really interesting to see what shows people like.

You can start there and ask, “Why do you like this character? What is it about you that makes you like certain characters?” I think some of those questions can then turn into more of a philosophical conversation that’s spawned by something pretty light, like Dexter.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that’s a good point because everyone watches some TV – Game of Thrones, or whatever. Is there anyone who doesn’t watch Game of Thrones? We were just talking about it last night. When we managed to find one of our buddies who hasn’t seen Game of thrones, we were abusing him a bit [chuckling].

So yeah, you could do that kind of thing – and he was even aware of some of the characters, it’s so funny because it’s all over Facebook and everywhere, and so he was aware of a lot of this stuff but had never actually watched.

That is a great angle into understanding someone – what kind of shows they like, which are the characters, and then you can bring in these conversations where you understand a bit more what motivates them because they like one character and why and so on, and not to be afraid of starting those conversations.

[Jesse Owen]: And especially to start thinking about it yourself to make sure that you know why is it that you like these people. Do you identify with Dexter because he’s a serial killer, or do you identify with him because he’s aloof and slightly introspective? It does have very different answers there.

[Angel Donovan]: We’re talking a lot about the topic of thinking about dating and relationships, basically. I feel like a lot of people don’t think about what they want in this area. Is there anything your research looks at that – how many people actually bother to think or it occurs to them that they should think about what they want and these kinds of things like why I like x character and does this mean anything for my relationship interests and all this kind of stuff?

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, in one of our classic studies we found that people who think more in their relationships about the steps along the way are less likely to end up in situations where they commit infidelity, or they’re in relationships where there is infidelity. When I think about that, that’s a really interesting place because my guess is people who slide into relationships and feel stuck have no investment in that person over time.

If you play this about 10-15 years, that’s a long time and you could think about all the constraints in the world that would get you to that point.

[Angel Donovan]: That’s very interesting. So the more you think, the less likely you are to get into infidelity. Does that work both ways, less likely your partner is to –?

[Jesse Owen]: That we don’t know, but my guess would be probably yes, because these are probably qualitatively different relationships where people are actually invested in a different way because they’ve thought about it from the get-go.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. We’ve had previous discussions on this show about the fact that infidelity often kind of follows people, and those people who tend to. So that kind of fits with your theory if people have a tendency not to think about their relationships, then it’s going to happen again and again and again.

That’s certainly a pattern I’ve seen; it’s a big, warning red flag for me, if I start a relationship and the girl starts with infidelity. My last relationship actually started like that – not on purpose, but it was kind of a red flag, the way she dealt with it afterwards. Not so much the fact that it happened, because stuff like that happen.

You meet someone new and then sparks will fly and she decided she liked me more or whatever – I know that stuff happens in life. But the way you deal with it, I think, can give you a lot of signs and when you learn about their past and if it’s happened before and stuff like that. It’s maybe this thinking aspect, and what was interesting about that was I was thinking really, really hard, and she was kind of “Let’s just go with the flow” like you were saying earlier. “Let’s go with the flow, let’s take it casually” and she was accusing me of being too serious about it because I take my time very seriously, and she was putting a lot of pressure on me and even trying to persuade me a little bit into relaxing about it and not qualifying her so much and making the decision so early.

I think the right thing is you should stand up for yourself if someone’s saying, “Hey, chill out. It’s going to be fine,” right? Because I think this happens in relationships as well, and you’ve got to stand up for what you want. If you want to take it seriously, take it seriously. If it’s a time in your life where you don’t want to put extra time investment and things into a relationship, or that you’re really concerned about making the right choice, then don’t let someone push you or cajole you into it. Or just the way they’re talking, saying, “Hey man, chill out. It’s going to be fine.”

And I think guys are guilty of doing this to women more than women are doing it to men, in general.

[Jesse Owen]: I think it's actually for the physicalness too. How people end up saying, “Oh it’s cool, we’ll just chill out. Have another drink” and so you have another drink is like code for let's slide into some bad decisions. I’ve never seen any company be like, “You know, we have to make some pretty important decisions for our company; let’s go out and drink.” That just doesn’t happen. Nobody really says, “Let’s make decisions while drunk.” That’s why when starting the night, or starting whatever you’re doing, start with the thought of how this could end is probably a good thing.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. We were just talking – I was over with a whole bunch of dating coaches yesterday and we were talking about how none of the best relationships have ever started in bars and clubs. Our industry has put a lot of focus on bars and clubs, but if you talk to the guys, that’s normally not where their longer term relationships actually started.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, I even think – there are a lot of dating sites out there. You mentioned Tinder before and all these different avenues to meet people which definitely is just fantastic, and it could be very helpful. But I also have found that there’s something that’s lost by just looking at everything online.

You can see all the points of compatibility and all those other things, but a conversation that turns to happen when you’re talking about “Are we compatible or not?” is a very different conversation than “Are you a democrat or republican?” How did you get to be a democrat or a republican is probably a much interesting story.

[Angel Donovan]: Yes, exactly! I think I have really good ways or approaches as I ask girls for their story. “What’s the story? How did you get there?”

The girl this morning, she’s just decided to travel away for a year and she’s making some really, really big decisions in her life so I’m like, “That’s really interesting. What drove you to that?” It’s the story – the story is what’s interesting and it tells you a lot more than the fact that she’s doing it.

[Jesse Owen]: Absolutely, yeah, and that’s part of the decision that you process, right? It’s to not look at one piece of information and think of that story, and I think that’s the piece that –. The ease of information now, you can Google anybody and get a hundred pieces of information, but information that’s not overly crowding your judgment, too; making sure that you hear what that story is, is probably much more interesting.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Another point I wanted to make, I think something else – we’re talking about basically it’s like qualifying people, asking more questions about them when you’re getting to know them. I think one of the concerns that guys have is they’re only pushing, like when a guy likes her, he’s only pushing her to get into a relationship, so he’s going the other way and he’s not asking the questions and he’s pushing.

This is interesting from an attraction perspective also because if he’s doing that, he’s more likely to push her away just because it puts more pressure on her and pressure tends to push people away. There are other factors into it that we’ve discussed many times on the show before.

Whereas what we’re talking about now, I think, really hardly ever can hurt the relationship and the dynamic. Guys will have this fear of asking these kinds of questions when they’re getting into it, because maybe it will raise conflictual issues or whatever, but I think it has completely opposite effects, basically. In terms of the attraction, you can just increase it; people see you have standards and so on. I don’t know if you’ve got any perspective or research behind that.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, I don’t have research but just anecdotally, the thing that I hear a lot from – I do a lot of couple’s therapy. I say, “When was that moment or when did you guys know that you guys are going to be a couple?” and the story that you hear is typically after “We spent all night getting to know each other and we actually talked about x, y, z” and it’s never like “I just saw her walk in the room,” like the cliché with movies [unclear 40:56].

Generally, she opened up her mouth and said something smart and was passionate about it. Passion is the most underrated, I think, attraction mechanism for daters. Be passionate about something. Who cares if it’s darts, or if it’s your job, or if it’s charitable work – just be passionate, and people will gravitate towards that. A; You know, I think you bring up a very important thing. We often talk about standards and raising your standards and not settling for something you want, and I think you just introduced a very good standard.

A lot of guys, like you said, they’ve seen a movie and you fall in love at first sight, and that’s a very low standard. That’s just like “She looks hot” [chuckles] – that happens all the time, guys! That’s nothing special.

You see a hot woman across the room, you’re like, “She’s hot.” But if you have a conversation that goes all night and you guys don’t fall asleep – and this has happened many times in my life, and I think it’s a shame that for many guys they kind of think that that’s not accessible.

You meet a girl and you guys just want to talk the whole night; you don’t sleep the whole night, you talked through to dawn, and this is an amazing experience. That’s the standard, because that doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens a lot if you’re looking for it.

And that’s the point – if you open your eyes and you start looking for it, it’s going to happen way more and you’re going to give yourself the opportunity for it to happen. I’m glad you brought that up, because that to me is a good standard. If you can do that and that happens, it’s like “Wow, this is an interesting person. This is a person you really connected with.”

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, and I think if you’re just looking for somebody who you’re attracted to and that’s your standard, that’s just a low standard because you’re going to see that all the time. I mean, all the time.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we’ve talked a lot about this. I know there are a couple of other issues we wanted to talk about; I think we’d go way deeper on this, but I’d like to touch on the other things as well.

One of the topics we talked about addressing is you’ve looked at things called microaggressions in some women’s studies. Could you give us a few examples of what microaggressions are and what those studies are about?

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, microaggressions in general are invalidations or put-downs or insults that may actually sound good or sound positive in some way, but it really sends a secondary message.

For instance, if you’re talking to a woman and you say, “Yeah, you look really good today” that’s a compliment, yes, but at the same time unless you really know that person, you’re also saying, “Your looks are more important than anything else.” Or the societal messages that say, “Women should care more about relationships and be in relationships.”

Women will get messages like, “It’s great that you have a job. Oh, do you have any kids?” and sends the message of “Oh, your work is secondary to your ability to raise kids.”

A lot of these types of messages are even more subtle than that. When women are walking down the street, are you looking at their face or are you looking at their body? Those types of micro moments can have a large impact on women.

There’s a great study about how much women feel that men, in particular, that other people just look at their bodies versus their face or actually care about who they are. It shows that it relates to body image issues, it relates to their well-being, and so these types of subtle messages are really clear indications of how we can even, in a benevolent way, send the wrong message.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. To connect with that, I used to teach boot camps in clubs and such. I used to take guys into clubs – this was over ten years ago now – and one of the biggest things that guys would do to bomb their chance is this very bad habit. They would walk up to a girl, start talking to her and look down to her boobs and then look back up her face, or basically look her up and down.

It was interesting that they were doing this and they wouldn’t even realize they were doing it and they would find it hard to do as well. The second they did that, the girl would lose interest, and I’m not sure the girl even knew why she was losing interest, but from your perspective it’s this judgment that you’re not interested in me, and many women of course aren’t just looking at someone to look at them sexually.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, absolutely. I think the subtlety in glances, especially on the interpersonal connection when you’re trying to talk to somebody and you’re spending more time with your eyes roaming, that’s sending a clear message of “I don’t care what you’re saying; I care more about what could happen later,” which may be a true statement but is not a very useful one if your goal is just really to connect.

[Angel Donovan]: There’s this big noise at the moment on the Internet and pretty much everywhere; it’s kind of a big dating event at the moment. It’s this coach called Julien Blanc from Real Social Dynamics, who’s been in pretty much all the newspapers in a very negative light for the stuff he’s teaching guys and for the stuff he’s taught in seminars. I want to talk a little bit about that, because it’s a big topic at the moment, and I’m sure there are guys out there in the audience who have seen some of the noise about it.

I understand that there are two ways people are responding to this. I’m getting hate mail; we have nothing to do with Julien Blanc. We’ve got a stream of hate mail just because some of his products are on our site, because we have everything on our site.

I can see how these men and women are sending us hate mail. And the other thing that’s happening is that I’m pretty sure that more people are signing up for boot camps and services around this also just because of the amount of media attention it’s got, and I know that people have been trying out some of the techniques that he’s proposed.

Two of them are kind of disturbing things and things people are most upset about on the Internet, artifacts that – he’s got videos where he’s showing walking up to girls and putting his hand out and kind of choking them as the first way to start talking to them and the second one was in Japan. He had a seminar where he talked about “White men can do whatever they want in Japan” and he has some videos showing where he’s walking up to Japanese girls, grabbing their heads and pulling them down to his cock and yelling Japanese words and thinking it’s funny.

The context for that is that in Japan, which he obviously doesn’t understand, that the culture is that Japanese women can’t respond to something like that. In their culture, they can’t do anything about that. That’s why there’s a lot of – in Japan they’ve had problems in the subways, for example, where Japanese rapists and perverts will come up behind Japanese women in the metro and they will start fondling them.

Japanese women, historically, haven’t been able to do anything about that because of the social rules and the culture. They just have to stand there and put up with it and they hate it, but because of the way Japanese culture works, that’s what they do.

And so he’s really abusing that culture and not understanding it, and he sees these girls giggling, but actually that’s scared giggling – that’s what Japanese girls do when they’re scared and they’re nervous and they don’t know what the hell to do. This has been a really big thing in the news. What would you say about this type of behavior? I think some guys find it empowering and attractive and it’s just an interesting thing that’s going on in the Internet and the responses.

[Jesse Owen]: That’s interesting, we were talking about microaggressions, and it doesn’t sound like there’s anything really micro about this approach or these behaviors. I guess for me, it’s troubling to think about – our previous conversation was about being thoughtful and really getting to know people on a deeper level, and then they share about these types of gimmicks that basically put women in a one-down position and really try to manipulate and control them – that’s just appalling, and I don’t think there’s really –.

If you’re looking for a real relationship, that’s clearly not the approach that's going to win the day, and I think when we were talking about values and really getting true about values, if guys sat back and said, “What do I really value? Do I value treating women like this? Do I value myself being seen as somebody who would go up to somebody and potentially start a conversation by choking them? Would I want this in my life? Would that be something that would be useful for me? Would my mom approve of this, if she saw me doing this?” Those are the kinds of questions that I think we should be telling men to think about – not these kind of gimmicky things. If you need to put yourself in that kind of a power position and you think that that’s true to your values, maybe it’s time to rethink a few things.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. My actual belief is that the videos are so extreme that it was kind of obvious that the public was going to respond at some point to these things. I think it’s actually a PR stunt that’s been setup by the company in order to drive traffic and it has driven a lot of traffic and so on.

I think it’s important to say that this is actually being done because it’s something sensational and that's what gets in the news these days, so in my opinion, that’s actually what they were looking for. It’s not something real, it’s not something you should try out, it’s not something that works or is even desirable. It’s just really bad advice, and really dumb ideas which got a hell of a lot of PR potential to drive traffic, in my opinion.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah. To men, if the motivation is PR, I’m sad to know any of this – to know it. But the idea that we could use sexism or racism or any of these types of things where it sends a clear societal message. There are also girls and high school boys who are learning about this stuff via social media, and the fact that you can get attention this way is, again, another thing that's basically – what are the values of these companies who think that this is the approach to do this?

Would they, at the end of the day, look back and say, “I contributed to society in a really positive way by sending this message.” For me, the answer would clearly be no. Everybody has to make up their own mind at the end of the day as they sit there at night and think about who they are as a person and who they want to be as a contributor to society.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. I’ve given my opinion about it, and it’s just one of those kind of events. I mean, it’s just a PR stunt. If any of the audience out there has other ideas, put them in the comments in the show notes; let’s hear what you’re thinking about that if there are other things.

But I don’t know that there’s a small percentage of guys out there who are actually trying this stuff out because they think it’s going to be effective, or it’s funny or something like that. I just see it as really detrimental in every respect, so I just want to point that out.

In terms of microaggressions inside relationships, is that something you see?

[Jesse Owen]: I think it does happen quite a bit, and I think one of the interesting things about these microaggressions is it relates back to expectations. It becomes a little bit cloudy because it’s a fine line to dance.

Can I say something nice about how somebody looks? And that’s fine within the relational context, but other people have to be cautious a little bit in a broader society. If I say these kinds of things, what’s the impact going to be? What message am I really sending to my female coworkers if I see them one day, I think they look nice, do I say that? Is that going to give me a sexual harassment suit, or is that just me being nice?

It means probably something very different within the context of a relationship. I think as people start to get to know their partners, it’s a lot easier to understand what is going to be a microaggression or seen as a microaggression.

[Angel Donovan]: When it comes down to it, is microaggression – is it where the girl feels something negative, or she feels pressured to be a certain way? How would you describe that?

[Jesse Owen]: I think it’s invalidating who they are. We were talking about looking at their body versus who they really are [unclear 52:24] certain message, but I also think other messages that sometimes guys send like “Oh, so I just expected you’d want to have a family.” It sends that message that “you should be this certain way” versus just asking a question like, “What are you thinking about in terms of family?” I mean, that’s a good question; that’s a good conversation, but to have that pre-expectation about, “Oh, of course you’ll want to stay home and raise the kids” – that’s a very different level of an expectation that sends the wrong message.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, I think it’s interesting; we call it qualifying – a lot of people like to call that qualifying in terms of asking questions to see if someone fits. There’s different ways you can put that. You can make it a very heavy qualification where you’re making them “jump through your hoop,” we say sometimes. In that [unclear 53:11] saying, “Oh so how many kids do you want? When are you going to start your family?” It’s assuming that that’s going to happen.

I think at a certain stage of a date, if that’s the most important thing to you and you’re looking for a woman who’s really interested in that, maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Or you’ve already been talking for a while and it’s time to get to the point. Then you think it’s the end of the world if it’s at that point where you want to make a decision whether you’re going to see her for another date, or maybe you can phrase it in a better way, because it’s going to upset the girl in some way.

What we would say is leave the person better than when you first met them. If we go through life and everyone we meet is walking away a better person, having a better experience and so on and it can only help us in our own lives as well, so that’s a very important point.

Do you think that it’s always a bad approach to have more of an assumption that it’s going to happen at some stage? I mean, even if it’s, say, I’m a huge family guy and I want four kids and that’s huge for me, how would you say that if that’s a qualifying thing that in your world would fit in a context where it’s not microaggression; it’s not having a negative impact?

[Jesse Owen]: I guess for me, asking an open-ended question doesn’t hurt. Asking the question, “Hey, are kids in your vision of your future? Is that how part of your narrative moving forward?” This gives the person the out of saying, “No, it’s not really a part of my narrative” or “Yeah, I want four kids.” It allows a lot of flexibility there.

If you say, “So how many kids do you want?” That doesn’t allow that flexibility, and so I think it’s an easy adjustment in terms of language and questions; just make it broader. Don’t make the assumption that it’s totally fine on a date, if you want four kids, to put that out there. You have to own what you want and that’s sending the message of “Well you have to be this way too because this is what I want.”

[Angel Donovan]: Right. You would say something like, “Kids are huge for me; I want about four of them. I’m thinking four – what are your thoughts on it?” – that’s more open.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, something like that. Whether you’re putting yourself out there, which – I think also some of the tendency might be where we’re insecure, we tend to ask questions rather than put ourselves out there first. Some guys might actually be asking these kinds of questions where it’s kind of an insecurity in their heads, in a way, and they kind of follow it.

They’re not doing it in purpose, but just because of the way that their perspective is, that all women should have kids or something and not really thinking about that some women don’t want kids and maybe this girl in front of him doesn’t. He’ll ask her a question, and he’s not actually doing it on purpose; he doesn’t realize that that could be pushing her into a corner and making conversation more difficult. And often when you make a conversation more difficult, it isn’t ideal for dating anyway.

[Jesse Owen]: [Chuckles] Yeah, I think that’s the key thing. I think most people have committed microaggression at least once or twice or a hundred times in their life, and it’s important to know that that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means you need to be a better person.

I clearly have committed microaggressions in my life, and that’s probably one of the reasons why I went to study some of these stuff. I guess, for me, it's just things like – we’re all human, we all make mistakes. Just think about, like you said, how do you make the conversation easier and what you’ve said before about the club as somebody stares down at a woman’s body and she starts to disengage – it’s these subtle things that happen during a conversation that sends the message of “I don’t like where this is going.” They may not consciously think that, but it just doesn’t feel right.

[Angel Donovan]: I just want to make one point clear here – we’re talking about rapport, connection, communicating better with people. When we’re talking about attraction sometimes, and I know this is something I’ll do, like maybe commit things that you would term as a microaggression, with a smirk, when I first meet a girl. But she’ll understand that it’s kind of in a joking, cocky way; it’s not a serious –. I don’t know what kind of subject – I haven’t really got a clear example in my head.

It could be, maybe my first question to a girl in a joking way is like, “So, how many kids are we going to have?” or something silly like that. Obviously, it’s the same words, but it’s not at all the same context. I just want guys to realize that some of the stuff we’ve talked about in the past about attraction where it’s more about displaying confidence and joking around a bit and putting these funny frames on things, like “Are we going to have kids together” or something like that.

The girl is going to respond – she’s probably going to get that and she’s not going to take it as a microaggression.

[Jesse Owen]: Right. Here’s a clearer example of one. I have a colleague who’s a physics professor and she always gets this, “Oh, you’re in Physics? Oh wow!” Basically the message is, “Oh I didn’t know women did that.” Those kinds of reactions are those things that are subtle that you need to watch yourself a little bit.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, and verbal tonality and everything. There’s a way to say that, but if I met a girl – and I would love it if a girl studied physics; I’m really into science and everything. When I first meet her and if it’s in a more playful context like a party or something, I might look at her with a smirk and I might say, “Really? You’re in physics?” and she’d get that I was joking around.

Just to make sure that the guys are understanding that there’s different ways to do it, and there are serious and non-serious, so it’s more than just the words – it’s a the whole perspective, the way you’re looking at it, and the way you’re thinking about things.

I think the main thing here is how do you think about women? Are you pushing them into boxes, or are you just, “Oh, there’s lots of different types of women. Let’s see who she is.”

Something that’s been brought up before on this is by a guy called Rob Judge; he’s a dating coach. One of the things he says and I find really helpful is that he’ll be saying – because this is [unclear 58:37] the anxiety about talking to women, one of the ways he talks about getting over that is he’ll say, “Your mission is to discover the truth about her. Who is she? Is she interesting?”

Some guys, because they’re anxious, they’ll be like, “She’s probably not interesting.” They’ll say things to themselves which stop them from even talking to her or anything, or even exploring that, but a very, very useful frame which fits with this is be curious. Be open. Find out who people are, because people will surprise you.

Sometimes you’ll see this person, and maybe they don’t look that interesting because that day they’re not smiling so much, or they’re not wearing their nicest clothes or whatever, you go up and you start talking to them and all that stuff would start coming out and you’re like, “Wow.” If you’re open to life, then it’s going to be more interesting that way.

I know time is coming along and I know that one other cool thing that you’ve been up to is looking at the effectiveness of relationship education or therapy and how that works. That’s something that we haven’t spoken about here before.

A lot of people go into therapy especially when their relationships get into trouble, when they got marriage that are getting into trouble, and I know you’ve done some research on that. What kind of things have you been doing there?

[Jesse Owen]: One of our most recent studies is looking at this thing called commitment uncertainty. What we’ve noticed is, in couple’s therapy, a lot of couples come in where at least one partner is thinking about leaving the relationship, or wondering, “Should we stay or should we go?”

The key piece for me is, as a couple’s therapist – and this opinion varies widely – the key is to understand what’s the best outcome for this couple? Staying together isn’t always the answer.

And so my question is if the goal is to not stay together, how is it that we could help them separate in a good way? There’s a lot of collateral damage that can happen when couples split, especially when there are kids involved, and so there are smart ways to do it and there are some completely destructive ways to do it.

My goal over a part of my career has been to figure out what are the ways that we can teach therapists and help encourage couples at any stage, no matter if they’re wanting to leave the relationship or not, that they can come into couple’s therapy or relationship education and learn good strategies for getting out – if they want to get out – or learning good strategies to make the relationship better.

I think for a long time, the message has been “You only go to couple’s therapy if you want to save the relationship,” and that’s really bad. There are so many ways that this can work out in a good way, even for the folks who don’t have kids. “I want to make sure I end this relationship without ending it angrily or violently or anything else. Let’s end this in a way that we both feel good walking away.”

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, and the questions is, anything you do in your life, do you want it to be a good experience? Because there are so many people who’ve walked away with divorces and stuff, and everyone looks at that as huge. They look at it sour, they kind of regret the years they’ve spent together – even though there were some good ones – and it doesn’t make any sense at all. But that’s the status quo, right?

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah. In couple’s therapy, I think the real question that we’ll be looking at is “How do we make sure that this ends well, regardless of whatever that outcome is?” and making sure that if feels more mutually decided among the couple than not.

What we’ve been finding is that there are some clear ways to help people and help couples navigate this process. In particular, by looking at what is it that’s getting them to be uncertain about moving forward and really wondering what are those statements and those aspects of the relationship when you’re saying, “I could be in this relationship tomorrow or not” and what are the other behaviors that you’re doing that are fueling that decision to go or not?

For a lot of couples, when they’re in the state of uncertainty, they start doing things like hanging out with their friends but not their partner; they start flirting a little bit more and considering other alternatives versus working on the relationship. Some of these behaviors make sense because they’re really testing, if they will, should they stay or should they not, and I think that’s the piece where we’re like, okay, if you’re going to want to test and flirt with other people, make a smart decision about that. And maybe that message is saying, “You shouldn’t be in your current relationship” if that’s really where you want to put your energy.

[Angel Donovan]: This is great stuff, because these are the damaging behaviors that turn relationships sour. When you haven’t spoken about it, the uncertainty, one person might be committed and the other one’s not feeling so committed or feeling uncertain and they haven’t said anything and they start doing this kind of thing, and that could be super hurtful.

It really damages and then it creates this whole negative experience where obviously the longer the relationship the worse it’s going to be, but this is really the default because people are scared to talk about things at the end of the day.

Will Smith – famous celebrity – his approach to it as I know is that they basically started therapy with his wife on day one. He’s like, “Let’s work on this from day one,” and I think that’s a great attitude. I’m not sure if everyone has to do it because maybe some people are open communicators and can learn.

I try to start every single relationship super open and talking about everything, and I think that’s a very important starting place. I think most people are scared to do that, to talk about things and they don’t realize what the collateral damage is down the road, which could be that you have four years afterwards that you look back on and you’re like, “Terrible four years, I hate this girl” where none of that necessarily means and she hates you.

It’s this horrible, negative thing in your life which is going to affect you moving forward. I see a lot of people also, it affects their perspective going forward about relationships. Even guys who have been studying this stuff for a long time, I’ve seen it and it’s a real, real shame because sometimes it can take a few years for them to get back to a positive place where they’re looking at things and relationships in a positive light and so on.

I think what you bring up there is really important about clarity. I don’t know what kind of things you discovered that are the most important about this.

[Jesse Owen]: Well I think the key take-home message for anybody who’s in a relationship or want to be on a relationship is once you start feeling like “I’d rather not say this; it’s easier if we don’t talk about this,” that avoidance piece is the secret killer here of the relationship, because then years can go by. If people can be in very happy relationships because they’re good friends, they like to do things together, or life is just so busy that they’re basically roommates, they can continue on that way for years. Yet they don’t really address the emotional void that’s in a relationship.

If you ever feel in a relationship that I can’t talk about this, the real answer is yes you can and you should. You should do it pretty soon once you realize that you’re avoiding things, because if you don’t, then you’re talking about the situation that you were saying. Years down the line, bitter, disappointed, and it has a residual effect in following relationships.

It’s not just that you’re hurting yourself for this year, for this relationship; you’re probably hurting yourself moving forward. You’re not learning the skills about how do I communicate my needs in a relationship, and that’s important, and people don’t do it enough.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. If you want healthy, fulfilling relationships – this is really relationship skills here – this is essential stuff. It seems like a good part of it is courage.

[Jesse Owen]: Courage, yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: The courage to bring stuff up that might bring up conflict. Sometimes also we’re having a good time and we don’t want to interrupt that flow; it’s a short-term perspective, right? Any relationship that has long-term potential, you have to start thinking on a long-term basis towards that.

You have to think: what are your expectations? Is this some kind of long-term relationship? Will you start thinking about long-term? If it’s a very short-term thing, maybe you don’t have to talk about these things, right? If this is just a hookup, if this is just a week-long thing, you don’t have to talk about these things. You can just have fun and you don’t have to talk about them, right?

It’s the context there – is it short or long-term? We have to start thinking and working on a short or long-term basis. If it’s long-term, you have to have these difficult conversations and have more courage about it.

[Jesse Owen]: Absolutely, and I think that’s the key for this longer term – the real relationship skill is you don’t have to be skillful at talking about these issues. You just need to be able to put it out there, because most people will be able to navigate this conversation without it going downhill too quickly.

If you keep it real, like if you’re actually talking about true feelings and not get defensive, these conversations will work themselves out; you just need to start and make sure that it’s the right, appropriate time for both people to have that conversation.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, and the more you do it, the easier it gets. In the first few times it’s going to feel awkward, of course.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, I tell couples they have relationship checkups at least every couple of weeks, and even if there’s nothing going on, at least they have the time to set aside to say, “Hey, are we doing okay?”

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, so is there a practical – do you suggest that they do that in a specific way? What do you tell them to do? How do you tell them to do that?

[Jesse Owen]: I tell them to have either a weekly or bi-weekly – depending on the state of their relationship – couples meeting. There’s no company out there in the world that I know of that doesn’t have a meeting. Why? Because it’s important for them to be on the same page.

And so even if it’s “Hey, are we good?” “Yeah, things are going great!” “Okay, end of conversation. Let’s go to dinner and have some fun time!” Or “Hey, are we good?” “Well, this thing that happened last week kind of pissed me off.”

There’s the time and it’s set aside. For most couples I’d say make sure that it’s structured to be a half-hour or an hour; don’t make it a marathon meeting because it’s just too emotionally exhausting, but have some structured time built in, and make sure that it’s protected from the kids.

Don’t do this when you’re out to dinner; have a little amount of private time where you can actually get into a real conversation where if somebody starts crying, it’s not going to be like, “Okay, should we leave? Should we go? This is embarrassing.” Do it at home and just protect that time.

[Angel Donovan]: That’s some great points there. I wonder what you think about this. This is something that I’d been doing for many years and I find that it works well, and I believe there’s scientific evidence for its efficacy.

I tend to have these conversations after sex, and the reason is I know there are some scientific research that says we’re more open, we’re less defensive. You brought up defensiveness, and I found defensiveness to be a big issue when having these kinds of discussions.

I found out after sex – lately some researchers say that we’re less defensive after having sex with each other, being more intimate, basically. So I’ll tend to wait until that kind of moment. If I put some stuff to talk about, or I want to bring these topics up, and I find it works much better than [unclear 01:08:42]. It’s also helpful because you’re in each other’s arms and you’re closer, and if anything does go wrong, if it does bring up some emotions and stuff or you can just hug each other. You can hug the girl a bit tighter and it’s easier to bridge that gap to comfort her, make her feel better in that conversation.

Or even if she gets angry, you could just hold her tight and say, “Hey, calm down, it’s cool.” I don’t know what you think about that kind of approach.

[Jesse Owen]: Whatever works for whatever couple and whatever dynamic, the key to me with that – it probably depends on the topic that you’re bringing up. But if it works for you, then it works for you. My only worry is that it would be – depending on how often that actually happens, it may start to be a conditioning situation where the person’s expecting difficult conversations after sex, and then that affects the sex.

[Angel Donovan]: Ah, right. Yeah, I never thought of that. I definitely don’t mean every time. I mean, ideally, you’re having sex five times a week and this happens once every two weeks [crosstalk] I kind of put it down like that, or once a month, depending on the relationship. Some relationships are more complicated than others.

Well, this has been an excellent chat. What I like is you’ve done the science and you’ve also got this clinical perspective, so you’ve actually been in the field, practicing this and helping people improve their lives.

A couple of questions we always round off with: who besides yourself would you recommend for really good, quality advice in this area of life – dating, sex or relationships?

[Jesse Owen]: That’s a good question. One of the great thinkers to me is this guy named Scott Stanley. He is just a phenomenal thinker about relationships. He does a lot of the science as well and he comes at it from a very, very different perspective, but he had a lot of the same, similar beliefs.

He’s older than I am – not that that matters – but he has the ability to see different generations and different views, so he’s a great guy.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. Why is that? For the readers at home, what is different about his perspective?

[Jesse Owen]: He actually comes at things at times with a little bit more of a conservative view, and I think sometimes when we start talking about relationship, sex and dating, there’s a somewhat of a liberal bias in some of the things that we end up saying and suggesting, and I think he gives a good counterbalance to sometimes that –. I don’t know where exactly he is on the spectrum, but he’s definitely a little bit more conservative than I am, for instance.

He always gets me to question things. We were having a conversation one day about, “Is breaking up really a good thing and should we test this a little bit better? Are the effects on kids for breaking up good or not?” It’s really challenging the notion of maybe this isn’t a good thing; maybe we really should be encouraging couples to stay together and work it out. It just gets me to think in a different way.

Well, I don’t think I want to have somebody encourage me to do that, but it is a good question, as a policy-type thing for the nation. Should we really be thinking about different policies that should be implemented that influence divorce proceedings or anything else. Those are big ticket questions.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. I agree with you – we need more people who go against the grain of different perspectives and test those. Mostly what happens in society when we’re going right down the wrong path is it’s because everyone kind of starts walking the same path and we don’t test those other areas.

And we see this in all types of research – food, nutrition, diets; it’s like one of the biggest areas where they’re always finding out, “Oh, we’ve been wrong for a decade because we were walking down the wrong path.” I think the biggest revolutions you see is because some guy, or some woman for that matter, scientist will be really arrogant and go against the grain for years and not be rewarded for it, and eventually manage to persuade people going the other way.

So it takes a lot of courage to go against the grain, but it often leads to some kind of revolution. Of course not all the time, but I think some people have to do that, otherwise, we’d never progress.

Alright so the last question i

[Jesse Owen]: what would be your top three recommendations to help men in a practical way get results as fast as possible with women, to improve their lives in this area? I’m thinking of things like – what would be the most surprising things from you, maybe from research or your work, that you’ve found that were helpful for men in their relationship, or the most practical things that you found that worked consistently?

[Jesse Owen]: I think, considering all the themes today – not a big surprise, but I think getting in touch with your values, knowing yourself before you start the dating process is key. Obviously you’re never going to fully know everything, but really reflect on those pieces about yourself. So what values are true to you? What values are most important? I think the second piece of advice I would give is be curious. Have questions. Just come at a dating situation or any kind of approach with people in a humble, but curious, way. I think the idea of listening to other people is really attractive and it will get you more connected on a deeper level with people than just sitting there, talking about yourself. Third, I would say, make sure you have a passion in life. If you hate your job, you hate this, you hate that and you’re just giving off that vibe of negativity, it’s not good for your well-being, but it’s also not good for relationships, it’s not good for dating. If you have a passion in your life, do it and be excited about it, and that’s infectious.

[Angel Donovan]: Those are some great, very concise points. I don’t know if you’ve prepared those, but they’re very well thought-out. Definitely that last point – whatever’s inside is going to eventually come out as well; it’s going to affect you on the outside, so you have to get that bit right and your passion is an important thing. You have to be having fun in life and following that.

Thank you Jesse so much for your time today. It’s been a really interesting discussion; very broad, and like I said, you bring a great perspective from the practical and the research elements, so it’s been great talking to you.

[Jesse Owen]: Yeah, thanks for inviting me. I love this; this is great!