Hot Tub Hotness: Dr. Liz’s Online Dating “Rules”

Podcast Intro and Dating in the Wild 0:00

Welcome to Hotness, the podcast that brings you practical tools to balance your hormones and rekindle connection, confidence, and desire in midlife and beyond. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Lister. Hotners is a safe space for honest conversations about menopause, sex, identity, love, loss, reinvention,and desire, because you can embrace your hotness at every age. Welcome, Hot One, to the second installment of Dating in the Wild. And as I said in the first installment, I am going to share with you my rules for dating.

I say it in quotation marks because there are guidelines. This is not like the rules. Someone already wrote that book. But I want to show you what I've had really, really great success. Good experiences. Knock on wood. No problems. My heart goes out to women who really have important problems when they're out in a dating world. And I have not and I really give the credit to these guidelines that I follow Before I met Michael I dated online met quality people and then of course

Online Dating as Meeting, Not Dating 1:12

now since I've gone back into the wild world of dating So let me jump in and share some of my rules with you the first one is to Remember that online dating is a misnomer. That is not the dating part. that is only the part where you meet the person. Thats it. Online meeting. It's not about lots of messaging and anything else like that. it is online meeting and so that's the first thing I want you to keep in mind. The second is when you're on a date, and these are not in any particular order. They will skip around.

The 2nd one is be present when your on date. Be present. This is your precious time. It's the other person's precious. So pay attention to how you feel, to what's being said. And that's all. That's, all try not to judge it on this very first time meeting. The other person could be nervous. So I have more to say about that, but today I want to just touch on all of my little guidelines with you.

Be Present and Ask If You Like Him 2:30

And I them in front of me, so I don't skip any. Third one is, do you like him? And I understand that a lot of what I'm talking about is very heteronormative and I do think it definitely applies even in same-sex dating, but forgive me since that's been the majority of my experience with online dating. So do you like him? We spend so much time getting ready for the date and will he like me? And we may have leftover wounds and other ideas in our heads from earlier phases of dating where we're looking to be liked by the other person.

But this is from a dear friend and dating coach who taught me to ask that question, do I like him? It's a slightly revolutionary question and an important one to answer. The number four is the worst picture on his profile. That's what he looks like. Just assume that. I think it's very hilarious. Someone did a very important scientific study about happiness, and the conclusion was that the key to happiness is low expectations. I laughed a lot when I first heard that, but they were trying to be serious and scientific.

And the person who told it to me was trying be very serious, in any case. So low expectations are always fine. It's always going to stand you in better stead.

Profile Photos and Low Expectations 4:00

This has a corollary about professional photos. I recently broke that guideline and used one professional photo. I've actually shut that profile down. So be wary of those. I have stories to share on every single one of these guidelines, especially because I ask my person that I'm on the date with how their experience has been, because they will always have interesting and a lot of times funny stories, to which I will share with you as we go. Number five, this is related to one that I said, it's related number one.

And this one is meet quickly, unless you really only want the pen pal. If you want to pen pal, great, keep messaging. Even phone calls, even FaceTime, none of that is going to tell you what it's like to be around this person. What do they smell like? What did their teeth actually really look like, okay? So, very important to meet quickly. I have a story about that as well that I will share another time, a personal story. Corollaries to this are meet in a public place. I try to keep it as low-key as possible.I try keep to coffee.

Sometimes if it ends up around a meal time. Men have told me stories of women who literally planned their dating so that they would just be fed. Lunch, dinner, lunch, I think that's rude.

Meet Quickly and Prioritize Safety 5:30

But in any case, sometimes that happens, and the way I phrase it at the end when the check comes is, may I participate in paying for this? Something like that. That's my line. You're welcome to use it. I also have Life360 as an app.I've used it with my kids. Now they're young adults, so I don't watch it, but I did when they were younger. And I have it turned on for myself so that someone always knows where I am or they can find me easily. So again, safety is top priority. All right. Number six. This one's really important, and I think I can do probably a whole episode about this.

Get clear about your dating purpose. Your dating purposes. Do you want fun? Do just want companionship? You want to eventually get married? do you only want sex? It is entirely up to you. But what you wanna do is you wanted to be clear Also, it's a great date question to ask. I usually ask it on the very first date, second date at the latest. And by the way, I have a second-date policy.I usually will give someone a 2nd date assuming that I didn't like very much dislike them, but usually it goes well in terms of the connecting and the online app.

So, I haven't had any that were just really awful. But you know, first date, the other person can be nervous. They might be talking, talking talking. they're not narcissistic. That could be the reason they are not asking you more questions. So that's sort of a little bit of core leader. So you can ask him, and I find that phrasing it that way really works best, what is your purpose with your dating?

Clarify Your Dating Purpose 7:12

And they will be very clear. And if they say, I never want to get married again, please believe him. You'll save yourself a lot of time and heartache if that happens to be your goal. Okay, number seven, flirting is an art. you Can practice, you could get better at it. One of the reasons I stayed in unhappy marriage was fear of dating world and other people made that worse, telling me how horrible it was. It's really not that horrible. And it takes practice. I'm going to tell you that being present is a huge part of that.

Huge, huge, and huge. So that's probably worth its own episode, don't you think? I think I'll do that another time. A couple more. This is number eight. Notice and give full weight to anything that feels off. This is, I think, where women really sometimes, this is where they can get in trouble, is when they don't pay attention to that. He's handsome, he's this, that, financially well off, whatever. Check boxes are checked, but you feel like something is off? Please, please, PLEASE pay attetion to THAT.

Please honor that intuition that you have. And last but not least for today is remember your friends first. This was an early dating glitch that I had last summer.

Flirting, Intuition, and Staying Grounded 8:48

And it was, let me tell you in this order, I'll switch the order. I was very excited about meeting someone.I was on my way home on a plane, short plane ride and I. Was so excited. About it. Then when I got home, everything had disappeared from the app. I still don't know why this happened. I know the app's glitch sometimes, but I totally spaced my friend's birthday dinner. And she wasn't really nice about it either. So, you know, we really have to like, in tango, We call this staying on your own axis.

You're dancing in a dance with someone else, but you need to stay on Your own access. you still need To be able to maneuver, You don't want to let the other person pull you off of your balance. All right. And by the way, I'm sure you've noticed that I am in one of my happy places, which is my hot tub. I chose to embrace my Hotness today in my Hottub. This is a way that i invite you to connect with your own hotness, especially before you're going to go out on a date. Connect with yourself, connect with your body, with own spirit, your own soul.

What makes you happy? And I'd love to hear how it goes. And so thanks for listening to these rules, guidelines that I use that have really stood me in very good stead. I wish you the very best and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks for listening to Hotness. Help more women find these practical tools by liking, sharing, and following the show, as well as leaving a review. As a gift for listing, go to drlizmd.com forward slash hotness for your free midlife guide filled with powerful support for you mind, body, soul, because you can embrace your hotnes at every age.