Chris Duffy

However, the reason why you've made that choice is worth examining.

I thought that was a really interesting idea and I'd love for you to tell us a little bit more about what you mean by that.

You talk about, people often think of standards, of having standards in dating, as meaning who they would date.

Like, I would not date a man who is shorter than six feet.

I would not date a woman who looks in this different way.

And you talk about the standards that we should care about are the standards for once you're in the relationship with a person.

How they're gonna treat you, how you two will relate to one another.

Those are actually the really important standards.

But people tend to,

think about them less.

And often there's like this implicit idea that if I could get a man who was 6'3 and has blonde hair and green eyes and makes $250,000 a year, then it actually doesn't matter how he treats me.

You also talk several different times in the book about how it's really important to whoever you are, not just at face value, except the messages that we sometimes get from society and culture about desirability or beauty or datability.

You talk a lot in the book about the messages that you've received as a black woman about who might be willing to date you and whether you are a desirable dating commodity or not and how important it is to push back against some of those messages.

On a previous episode of the show, we interviewed Priya Parker about the art of gathering and something she said that it feels really parallel is she's like, the way to have a really boring party is to make it an event that anyone would want to go to.

What you want is to come up with an idea where some people are gonna say, that is not for me.

Because other people then are gonna be like, oh, that's totally for me.

And I feel like you're saying the same thing with dating, which is like, you want people to see who you are in a way where some of them are gonna go, that is not my type of person.

We're going to be back with more wonderful weirdness right after this break.

So don't go anywhere.

We're talking about love, attraction, and relationships with Francesca Hoagie.