#5 Teal's Most DANGEROUS 1st Date and How To MULTIDATE Ethically

Summary
In this episode of The Tinder Project, hosts Mark Rosenfeld and Teal Elizabeth explore various aspects of online dating, including the dynamics of women messaging first, the importance of unique conversation starters, and the ethics of dating multiple people simultaneously. Teal shares a humorous yet cautionary dating story from her past, while the discussion also delves into the psychological principles that can enhance dating experiences. The episode concludes with a profound reflection on maintaining presence in the dating process while holding hope for the future.

Key Takeaways
The concept of women messaging first can change the dynamics of online dating.
Unique openers can significantly impact the quality of responses in dating apps.
Pattern interrupts can create excitement and engagement in conversations.
Self-disclosure is crucial for women to feel valued in dating.
Dating multiple people can help break unhealthy patterns and provide contrast.
Seeing a partner in various situations reveals their true character.
It's important to avoid rushing into commitment to maintain healthy boundaries.
The Stockdale Paradox illustrates the balance between hope and presence in dating.
Expectations can create pressure in relationships; it's essential to manage them.
Being present in the dating process allows for a more authentic connection.

Chapters
00:00
Introduction to The Tinder Project
00:58
Experimenting with Women Messaging First
06:12
The Importance of Unique Openers
07:04
Teal's Ridiculous Dating Story
11:15
The Ethics of Circular Dating
19:10
The Stockdale Paradox and Dating Mindset

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:58 00:58 Experimenting with Women Messaging First
• 6:12 The Importance of Unique Openers
• 7:04 Teal's DANGEROUS Dating Story
• 11:15 HOW and WHY To Multidate Ethically
• 19:10 The Stockdale Paradox and Dating Mindset

Transcript

[Speaker 1]
G'day and welcome to The Tinder Project, the podcast where a straight Aussie man attempts to survive 365 days dating online as an American woman. I'm your host, Mark Rosenfeld, Australia's dating coach for women. I'm here with my sidekick, self-love coach, Teal Elizabeth, and together we have one mission to make meeting good men fun and easy for you.

Let's give it a go. Can I survive 365 days straight dating online as an American woman? What is Teal's most ridiculous dating story and the art and ethics of multiple dating, or as Teal calls it, circular dating, how to do it right?

Welcome to The Tinder Project. It's fantastic to have you here. I'm joined by the amazing, the lovely, the wise Teal Elizabeth.

[Speaker 2]
Hi guys, good to be here.

[Speaker 1]
Great to have you here, Teal. Teal, before we get into it, shall we talk a little bit about the project?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, tell me, tell me updates.

[Speaker 1]
You want to know what's going on on the project?

[Speaker 2]
I do, very much so.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I decided for the first month to run a little experiment. Now, I did do a couple of warm-up months, but I decided for the first month, I was really curious about this idea of women messaging first.

[Speaker 2]
This is a big one. Yes. There's so much controversy about this.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And what I wanted to do is I wanted to test it on what we call a cold audience. So typically on an app like Bumble, when women message first, it's people they've already matched with.

I was more curious about whether or not the quality or kind of message from a woman has a major difference on what's received by the man and the future quality of the conversation. So I decided, now this experiment, I don't have final results yet for this part. I will in a week or two.

I decided to head over to Match.com and I'm using two accounts, different age women, and I wanted to test different kinds of openers to see if the response rates and basically to see if the quality of responses is different amongst them. We've all had really nice openers from people, men or women, all had really lazy openers. The reason I'm testing on a cold audience.

So by cold guys, I mean, this is people who have not yet liked your profile. You're basically, it's only a thing you can really do on Hinge and on Match.com, Tinder and Bumble. The super like function a little bit they do, but on most apps, it's kind of hard to do this or it's a bit more unusual, but I wanted to do it this way because I just want to know purely on the quality of the message.

What's going to, is there a major change? Is it worth it? Let's say you see someone, you haven't matched with them yet, and you are on an app where you can message them.

Is it worth doing that? And what sort of message should you open with if you do want to do something like that? So as I say, I don't have final results yet, but the four types of messages we are testing are the following.

The first is a pattern interrupt. A pattern interrupt, you probably know this, is where you say something a little bit ridiculous, a little bit unexpected, a little bit, ideally a lot of bit fun that surprises the person. It would be like me saying tomato sauce right now.

It comes out of nowhere. You go, where did that come from? Black cat pajamas.

It surprises you. You're not expecting it. And often in online, we are so bored.

There's so much monotony going on, not for our clients, but out there in the world that we're looking for something, anything to kind of wake us up, to give us that little dopamine hit, to make it exciting. So I'm really curious about pattern interrupts. The second.

[Speaker 2]
Well, I'm thinking of, I think, and I think you have Tourette's.

[Speaker 1]
We did one recently. It was great. This dude looked like a carbon copy of David Blaine.

I swear this was David Blaine, hook, line and sinker. So all caps, David Blaine, I saw your show recently. It was amazing.

He's like, hi, do I know you? He said, oh, I love that you're going under an alias, but your show at the, wherever it was that MGM grant or wherever he does was just wonderful. And he didn't get it.

And so I still thought it was funny. We had a good laugh at it, but eventually we told him, we said, Hey, it's a celebrity thing. You look like him.

Still didn't find it funny. It was like, oh, okay. And then blocked us.

Like I wanted nothing to do with this patent interrupt, but I thought it was the greatest thing. Anyway, that's an example of a patent interrupt. Second is self-disclosure.

Self-disclosure is something I teach to clients a lot. It's basically talking about yourself. I'm strongly of the opinion, women, especially ask too many questions online.

And unfortunately it puts them in the masculine energy, which means they then feel exhausted and don't feel valued by the man. So what a lot of my clients, when they first come to me about it, I don't know if you see this with your clients is actually talking about themselves because we're always taught it's polite, Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people, ask people questions about themselves, make them talk about themselves. Well, you're the shining light.

And I believe the woman should be. So self-disclosure helps make her shine. The third option is a question, simple, plain question.

Hey Mike, where do you like to hike? Hey Steve, that's a really cute dog. How old is he?

That's your question. Pretty mentally. And then fourth is basic boring.

Hey Bruce. Hey Mike. G'day Steve, whatever.

Right. So those are the four types of responses that we'll be testing. And next week I will be able to share some data on what I have learned from using these two different women's profiles.

And is it worth transitioning between these four different types of responses? If you are opening the conversation, keeping in mind that this is a cold audience. So this is someone who has not validated your profile yet.

And that's what I do with my spare time.

[Speaker 2]
I love this. This is why this show is so unique and different and why I just absolutely love it. And I think all the listeners are also loving it.

By the way, if you're not loving it, why are you here?

[Speaker 1]
What are you still listening for?

[Speaker 2]
Give it a like, give it a subscribe, because we want this to get out to as many, many people as possible, because there's real value in what you're doing here. It's not just, like I said, it's not just for entertainment for you or, you know, your clients. This is about really actually beta testing and getting scientific about dating, which is really, really fascinating and not something that I see out there very much.

So I love that you're taking it from all these different angles. You're being very strategic. I know you've got spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of data, and you're going to help crack the code on this Tinder project.

[Speaker 1]
We're cracking the code tail. It's very exciting stuff. I love spreadsheets.

I do have a special place in my heart for spreadsheets. Well, Teal, you said, I've got this ridiculous story and I want to share it. We said this episode, let's share a couple of ridiculous dating stories.

You said, I've got the best one. This is actually back from obviously before when you met your husband. It's from a little while back, isn't it?

[Speaker 2]
I had to go into the depths of my memories here.

[Speaker 1]
I have not heard this one guys, Teal kept this a secret before the episode. So Teal, hit us with your most ridiculous dating story so that everyone can feel a little better about all their own weird ones.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I know. The happily ever after will come even if you've had the shittiest upon shittiest experiences like I've had. It's just kind of part of the rite of passage of this whole online world, isn't it?

This was back in college and I went to a party school. I was a diligent student at a party school, UC Santa Barbara, go Gauchos. But all the guys there when you're 21, 19, 18, the guys there are not looking to meet their wife at that age.

They're there to party and have a good time. And me at that time, I wasn't. I wanted to lean into having a really fulfilling relationship.

And so it frustrated me so much that my pool of picking was all these stupid frat boys. So what did I do? I went out online to the neighboring college town it was an engineering college with a lot more serious men, but it was about a three hour drive to get there.

And I basically just started putting myself in the pool of all these smart, hot, sexy engineers down the way. So anyways, I start chatting with this one guy. Long story short, I'm so desperate to finally meet this guy because we've just been texting back and forth, but I can't fit it in my schedule.

He can't fit it in his schedule. We just decide one night when we're texting, it's probably like nine 30 at night to just meet up that night. Cause I'm just so tired of waiting.

And we just decided to meet halfway from where we both lived. So we just both got in our cars, drove an hour and a half to meet each other. We literally found the exact equal meeting point, which was off the freeway in a dirt lot and had our first date in a dirt lot on the freeway at midnight in the dark, dark, freaky, cold, airy, weird area.

And I swear it was like such a thing out of like a psycho thriller movie.

[Speaker 1]
I was going to say, this is how people die.

[Speaker 2]
Mom, please don't listen to this because you're going to like shit bricks. If you hear this, I was so stupid that I thought that was a good idea. Let me go meet this guy off the internet that I've never met on the side of the freeway at midnight in the middle of nowhere.

And not only that, this is the weirdest part. We drive up and we both have the exact same car. We're both driving a hot blue Honda civic, like old ancient Honda civic.

So we both drive up with our headlights, blaming at each other. And we see the car and we're like, this must be it. And then what do I do?

I go and I go and sit in his car. Idiot. We chat for like half an hour, have our little date.

He tries to kiss me. I'm not into it. I get out.

I say bye. And I drive home.

[Speaker 1]
Wow. Teal Dodgers abduction part one.

[Speaker 2]
You better hear first.

[Speaker 1]
Were you, were you both Libras?

[Speaker 2]
I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
I thought that'd be the first question you asked. If we got the same car, if we're both Libras, then let's head to Vegas because we may as well just sort out this marriage.

[Speaker 2]
Fairness was a part, a big part of it. Yeah. Not my smartest days in the past.

And I swear, I swear I have angels watching over me to make sure I have not died many times. But yeah, I have to say that was probably the most ridiculous date I've ever been on.

[Speaker 1]
You just had a nice day at midnight with an internet stranger on the side of the freeway.

[Speaker 2]
Beautiful.

[Speaker 1]
Don't try this at home. Don't do as we've done in the past.

[Speaker 2]
But onto more important matters. I really would love to actually get your inputs on this because I have a lot of women that come to me that, you know, get really excited about a new prospect and they start to kind of want to go down the path of dating and giving this man all of their attention. And then they get mad at me when I say, you should probably date other people as at the same time.

And they get worried that if they do that, that the man is either going to lose interest or he's going to think that they're cheating on him or they just don't, they're not very comfortable with this concept of dating multiple men at the same time. So I'm curious your thoughts on it. And if this is something you would advise to clients in their early days of dating, what are your thoughts?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I'm, I'm 100% for it. I think it has a lot of advantages and very few downsides. Some of the advantages include, it really helps you break patterns.

So if you've had any sort of similar person in the past, the contrast of having a couple of people allows you to see different patterns between what you've had in the past versus what you've got now. It helps you measure characteristics that are a little more obvious. There's a principle in psychology called the contrast effect.

And it just says that things are more obvious when you see them next to each other, as in differences are more obvious when you see them next to each other. So you get this huge bonus of, Hey, I'm looking for a partner here. And I'm looking for these variety of different things, chemistry, compatibility, conflict skills, emotional availability, consistency of investment.

And it's easy to kind of delude yourself that some of those things are good until you see, Oh, wait, that's good. This is like a five. That's actually good.

But I think the most important piece, well, I'd say there's probably two, there's two really big pieces that this benefits. The first is it's a really good boundary test for the guy. So if a guy has to live with this length of time of you not being exclusive yet, first of all, you have to have that difficult conversation, which is a little relationship challenge for you guys to get over in the beginning.

But it also means that any insecurities he has will get shown up like narcissists and extremely possessive guys don't do well in this system at all. So you weed them out really nicely. That's a big one.

And what was I going to say? The other piece is that when you've got all this time passing and you've had to have a guy support you with these difficult conversations on the way, or just kind of put your boundary first a little bit, that amount of time passing means you will see him in a number of different environments at a number of different stress levels and a number of different tiredness levels. And you'll have to figure out a number of different problems with him.

And because of that, you get so much more information on how a guy shows up on his worst day, as opposed to his best day, which is really actually what matters when it comes to building a relationship. So you sort of stretch everything out. You have this huge span of time.

And of course, between that, seeing the guy in all these different lights, seeing him with all these different situations and pressures put on him, and the fact that of course, it just slows your own chemistry down, because naturally, if you're seeing a guy three times a week or three guys once a week, you're naturally going to be a little bit less attached to each one. The fact that it does all these things, it helps you keep healthy boundaries established because you're not getting so obsessed so quickly. It helps you see him in all these different lights.

It challenges his insecurities a little bit and sees if he can respect those boundaries. And it provides that wonderful contrast, not just to each other, but to people you've seen in the past. I am all a hundred percent for it, especially, especially, especially if you've not attracted good men in the past.

If you've had a consistent history of really good guys, those clients, which aren't very common, but those clients are often short in the timeframe because they're usually really dialed. But for most clients, like 90% or more Teal, I always say, give it your 12 weeks, give or take, let the time pass. I know it's hard, but I know sometimes guilt comes up and you've got to deal with it, but I'm all for it.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. And I loved what you said about seeing them at their worst as well as at their best. And I think that's a really big part of it, letting them actually show their true colors in all the aspects of themselves.

Because if you're really saying, and this is, we're not talking about sleeping with all the guys at the same time, you know, if we're dating multiple people, this is dating multiple people at a somewhat reserved level. We're not going too far with any of them too soon. We're giving that spaciousness.

[Speaker 1]
If you sleep with all of them, it gets very messy, literally and figuratively, actually. So don't, not recommend it. I've seen people do it.

And if you have no sexual shame around that, if it's just your thing and you want to try before you buy, I've seen clients do it, but it's, it gets very tricky for a number of reasons. And I wouldn't generally recommend it for most.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. And I think with that, you know, if you are pushing back on holding, you know, holding off on sex until a monogamous relationship piece, it gives you time to see if they're actually truly invested in you, or if they're just wanting to hook up with you, because that can be a big thing that men will say, they're like, Oh, I want to be monogamous with you. Or they come in really strong and love bombing.

Like they want all of it. And you're like, okay, sure. Let's go into all of it.

And then they pull back and they're actually not really invested in wanting to build a relationship with you. And then you're thrown off because we've just deepened as a woman into this beautifully intimate connect, connecting moment. So it gives you really a chance to see more objectively before getting, like you said, too attached.

Are they actually here for me? Or are they here to have a good time with me? And I think for, for what I've noticed in the way I advise it as well is that it helps us as women to not put a man in a pressure cooker too soon, because it's easy to do.

We have expectations as women. Have you ever noticed that Mark?

[Speaker 1]
I've once or twice actually. Yeah. It's come up.

It's come up.

[Speaker 2]
You have a lot of expectations, a lot of needs, a lot of things that we think a man should do when he is our boyfriend, right? Our labeled boyfriend. And so as soon as we get that monogamous label of you're my boyfriend now, we feel good.

We're like, Oh, I can relax. But what we're actually doing is we're not relaxing. We're putting all of our expectations on this one man really soon.

If we do it within a few dates or even after a month too soon. And we haven't actually given this man a chance to decide, do I actually want to be this boyfriend material, this perfect man for her yet? Or do I just want to continue to get to know her without any of that pressure?

So when we don't put that label on, we're taking the pressure cooker off. We're taking some of those expectations off of this guy so that he can actually just show up because he wants to show up rather than because now he's feeling obligated and then making us feel disappointed if he's not showing up in the ways we want.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And I think it also just gives you so much more time to analyze him and analyze is maybe not the perfect word, feel into him, assess him, whatever you want to call it. Even the big three C's, which is chemistry, compatibility and conflict skills.

Yeah, sure. Chemistry, you know, pretty quickly within a couple of dates, but conflict skills, which is really the meat and potatoes of what makes a relationship work. It's just really hard to know that stuff in two, three, four weeks.

You need at least some time to assert some boundaries. And this is why I encourage clients to have lots of boundaries so that they can appreciate when the guy's doing well and also giving feedback when he's not. But you need these conflicts to test the guy and to test the relationship.

And it's, it's very hard to get them so soon that they don't come up and not only having more conflicts then, but you're taking a step back and you're being the chooser instead of the choosy. You're saying, all right, I'm going to figure out if this is the right guy for me. He feels that energy from you.

So there's no pressure cooker, as you point out T, or he's going, oh, I really hope I win this woman. She seems like she has good standards and I kind of have to work hard for it. He works hard for it because of the IKEA effect, men who work or any humans who work hard for things, value them more.

And naturally that increases his investment and everything works better. And I think just to add one more thing here, you brought up a really good point. I think women more often than men, in my experience, see dating as a bit of a speed bump and sometimes use it to kind of escape that pain of uncertainty or even loneliness that comes with being single or dating.

And there's this rush for commitment. Cause it's like, once I've got a boyfriend, then there's a certain pain I don't need to deal with there. Or there's a certain uncertainty that I don't have to feel in my body.

Whereas the people who really succeed the most in dating, they're not using dating to escape that they are using dating to meet a person, but they're not saying, oh my God, I've got to get away from this as soon as possible into commitment. They're very much sitting there. They're sitting with their present feelings, even if they're uncomfortable and yes, they're still moving towards a relationship, but it's not to escape the present feelings.

It's to say, I'm going to do my process. It'll be as uncomfortable as it needs to be, or as comfortable as it needs to be. It will be what it needs to be.

And from there, when the time is right, I'll be in a relationship, not before then.

[Speaker 2]
Beautifully said. Oh, beautifully said. Yeah.

And I think for anyone listening, this is a real good gut check conversation to ask yourself, are you rushing through this process to avoid any pain? And are there either expectations from other people that you need to be somewhere that you're not? Are you giving into those expectations?

Do you have expectations on where you think you need to be? And can you just let all of that go, take a big, deep breath and just relax into the process?

[Speaker 1]
Have you ever heard of the Stockdale paradox?

[Speaker 2]
No, please enlighten us.

[Speaker 1]
It's something I talk to clients about a little bit with this. So James Stockdale was, I believe he was a wing commander. He was very high up in the US Navy in Vietnam and he was flying over, basically got shot down and had to parachute down with a bunch of North Vietnamese sitting there waiting for him to land.

And he knew at that point, his life was going to be very, very different. And long story short, he spent seven years in this camp with the North Vietnamese. So he was a POW for seven years, obviously, worst thing you can possibly imagine for anyone.

And in that time, he was the highest ranking officer that they ever had there. And he organized prisoner resistance. He was the leader there.

And it got to the point where the Vietnamese wanted to parade him as this prize capture. So he would actually, it's a little graphic, but he would self-harm to the point where he couldn't be paraded on camera so that it made the enemy basically look bad if they brought him out. So an incredible hero.

But afterwards, when they finally rescued him, I forget the name of the operation, but they rescued him and they said, people came and went from the camps. Some people stayed with you the whole way through, but you were kind of the guy. How did you do that?

And he said, I never gave up faith and certainty that rescue would come, but at the same time, I never used that future to escape my reality. I was always a hundred percent present with exactly what was going on while holding in the back of my mind, the faith that it would change. And I know that comparing a POW camp to modern dating is a little bit extreme, but it's the same thing.

It's the paradox that we can completely believe and know that the future is coming for us while being completely present and facing whatever grim feelings and whatever reality is throwing at us, we can be a hundred percent with it and we can handle it. And we can sit with it while the future comes, whenever that happens to be. So if anyone's curious, look up James Stockdale, absolute American hero, and has a very, very good tale to tell about it.

[Speaker 2]
That was profound, Mark. Wow. At first I was wondering where is this gruesome, gory story going, but that was really profound and I'm a little bit in awe right now of how beautiful that was and a great takeaway.

[Speaker 1]
Amazing man with an amazing story. I actually highly recommend you guys read it. So with that lovely note guys there, it is time to end the Tinder project.

Teal, thank you so much for joining me today.

[Speaker 2]
Always a pleasure.

[Speaker 1]
Guys, if you want to give us a review, if you're appreciating the podcast, go ahead and give us five stars on the relevant app. We will be back next week. Teal, thanks again for joining me.

You've been listening to The Tinder Show.