Fresh Start Monday #62: Most of us have no idea what we want
Another big theme that came up in Logan Ury's book, How to Not Die Alone is that most of us have no idea what kind of partner will fulfill us long term.
Logan shares how clients often come to her with a long checklist of qualities they want in a partner. She can help, but it's not about finding a partner that magically hits every trait.
I'm reminded of a friend who was in a long-term relationship and once told me, “Kevin checks off boxes I didn't know I had.” What's even stranger about our checklists and thinking we know what we want is that most of us have not dated that many people.
It's the same with the job you want and the place you want to live. We judge and decide, before we do.
This boils down to challenging your assumptions.
Take one criteria or filter you've created in one area of your life and ask, how do I know this is true?
Have you ever tested this assumption in your own life?
Where did this assumption originate from?
If we work together 1 on 1, I often challenge the assumptions, beliefs, and ideas that you come up with. From your own view of the world, they might seem true, but from an outside perspective, it looks like an unfounded narrow perspective.
For example, in 2021, I wanted to move away from the East Coast. Los Angeles checked every box. I believed I knew what I wanted from a city. I did a lot of research. I had friends who lived there. I signed a one-year lease shortly after I arrived. And proceeded to hate LA more than any city I've ever been to.
Contrast that to before I moved to Boulder. In the two months before leaving LA, I spent a week in Portland, Oregon, and a week in Denver, CO to better understand if I'd like to live there. I spent one evening in Boulder, and that's all I needed to end up here instead.
That one evening was actually on a date with a girl. Sometimes all it takes is one date, one day, one dance class, or one exposure to challenge an assumption that you have.
My assumption was believing I needed to live in a big city. I had previously lived in New York City and other cities worldwide. Both Portland and Denver had metro populations of 2 - 3 million. Boulder has a population of 100k.
I assumed that living in a small city would be boring. Would I just get bored after six months? In reality, that thought has never crossed my mind living here. I didn't know what it was actually like to live in a smaller place.
When Logan conducted in person interviews with people who met their husband or wife offline she asked, if you had seen your current spouse online, would you have swiped left or right?
Many people told her they wouldn't have seen their future partner at all because their app settings would've shut them out. "My age limit was up to one year older than me, and she's five years older than me," and someone else, "my app setting was for jewish men only, and he identifies as Buddhist."
What's a belief you can challenge this week?
P.S. My favorite crazy stat from the book. This is copy and pasted from the book and edited for brevity.
“The easier it's to compare to certain traits, the more important those traits seem…You can go out on a date with one of these two single men. One guy is five-nine and one is five-ten, but the shorter one makes more money. Who do you want to go out with? How much more money per year would a shorter guy have to make for you to find him as attractive as a taller man?
Research from Dan Ariely which utilized data from a popular dating website, has found that a man has to earn $40,000 more each year to be as desirable as a man one inch taller.
But a one-inch difference in real life is barely noticeable.
A woman's income has no effect on her desirability. The quality that men cared most about when evaluating attractiveness was body mass index.”
Currently reading: The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine.
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