Ep #328 Dating After Divorce

Jill:Welcome to The Run Your Best Life edition of the Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a GenX woman whose brain still feels like a member of the breakfast club but the person you see in the mirror is starting to look a lot like your parents, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Jill Angie and we’re gonna dive into all the weird shit Gen X women are facing right now, so you feel less alone and a lot more empowered. Are you ready? Let’s fucking go!

Well, hello, my friends and welcome back to the Run Your Best Life series, where I talk to experts in the field on issues affecting Gen X women. And today we’re going to chat with the amazing Sade Curry about dating after divorce.  One of my favorite topics. And I know there’s a lot of you who can relate to this one as well.

Now, if you don’t know Sade, she is a dating coach for divorced women. She is the host of the Dating After Divorce podcast. You definitely want to check that out. And she’s also, certified in trauma coaching, feminist coaching, and life and relationship coaching. What she does is she teaches women real strategies for going through divorce with emotional balance, healing, rebuilding, and helps women find love again.

Now, real quick before we start, if you’re a member of Run Your Best Life, don’t forget to download the podcast companion from the members area to help you go deeper into this episode. You ready? Let’s dive in.

All right, my friends. So, let’s dive into this conversation with the amazing Sade Curry. So, Sade, thank you so, much for being here.

Sade: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Jill. It’s good to be back.

Jill: It is. Yeah, I know. We had such a good conversation before. And now that I’m doing kind of this series on some of the issues and, and things that are happening for Gen X women, I immediately thought of you because you know, one of the biggest things and I’ve, I’ve been through it myself is like getting divorced in your forties and fifties and like thinking about dating again, and you are literally the coach that helps women figure that shit out.

So, I was like, well, obviously we need to have this conversation. So, I kind of want to start it out with like, just to Sort of set the scene, like when you work with your clients and just, you know, talking to women in this. Sort of age range. What are some of the biggest struggles that women have when they are getting divorced and dating, or maybe just dating like in general at this age, like whether or not a divorce precedes it?

Sade: Yeah, there’s so, many things and it really goes back to the narrative and the conversation around just being a woman, first of all, and then as you age, because we are aging, I know we don’t like to think of it that way. 40s, 50s. That’s like every babies are aging. So, let’s just agree that everyone is aging in one form or another.

Right. And then as you age. The narrative that like, Oh, your value as a woman, since you’re not of childbearing age, since you’re not as quote unquote, raising quotes, cute. You don’t have the youthful look, which is our looks. We’re good for our looks. We’re good for Marriage and serving others were good for having children.

And so, then when you think about that whole narrative that we’ve absorbed, I mean, socialized with a whole lives and others in society, men, everyone. So, everyone’s given that message, whether they’re a woman or not. So, you know, others will treat women that way. Women will treat themselves that way. Then you get to this age where you’re like, okay, I’m in the dating pool at a time where my quote unquote value as defined by society is lower.

That is like the root cause of all of the struggles so, when I start to name the different struggles, it all goes back to this root of like dating being seen as a value game. Right. I am going on the market and what is my value on the market? Like all of that is just horrible because one, the market is a problem.

Jill: I mean, the way you just explained that, like everything makes sense cause I, I always thought of it as like, Oh, like you’re just feeling afraid about meeting new people or whatever, but that really is the root of it. is we even call dating going, Oh, I’m back on the market. And a market is all about finding the best deal, finding the best product, making sure you don’t get screwed over, right?

Like it’s a terrible metaphor and no wonder people struggle with it. So, thank you for using that, that description cause that is. It’s perfection.

Sade: Yeah. Yeah. And so, then all of the other struggles come with that so, women will struggle with their body image, right? Yeah. We’ll start with our body image just in general because of socialization, then going on the market and then putting yourself in a position where you think people are looking at you and judging your body, what your body looks like they’re judging your value.

So, You’ve been divorced. So, if you’ve been divorced, like most of my clients have been, then it’s like, oh, you’re broken. Now you have baggage, like have emotional baggage. Now you’ve got children, which is like, oh my God, financial and baggage that drains resources is the way all of that is look looked at or talked about in, in the culture.

And I always want to show like, there’s a difference between how these things are talked about in the culture. Like when you just type in dating and see all the horror stories and all the, all the Reddit threads and all the, you know, Facebook groups and things, and how the right individual who’s right for you will actually look at you.

Jill: Okay, say more about that.

Sade: So, when we go in thinking that I want a date and the men on the apps or the men I meet at an event are going to be calculating my value in this way, how do I look, what’s my weight, if they’re younger, can I still have children? If they’re older, do I have children? That’s the way it’s talked about.

So, when you go on Google and Facebook, when you look in the comments and I get this comments when I post things too, if you think that that’s what the journey is going to look like. It makes the journey So, hard. Yeah. Right. Every date is like fraught with like angst with the potential for disappointment, the potential for rejection.

I’m not just like a regular rejection. Like you didn’t get the job, like a rejection with a scorecard. Yeah. How terrible you are. And that is true. When you think about the macro experience because of the way we talk about it, but the actual micro experience, which is what I tell my clients about, which is what I experienced is that I am an individual, right?

And how I look and how I talk and how I show up and how I present my authentic self, my desires and my goals and my children and their ages are perfect for someone. They are exactly what a particular type of man, woman, non-binary person, depending on who you’re dating is looking for.

Jill: Oh, I love that. So, instead of like, I mean, it’s, it’s so, much like, like marketing and business, right? Like where you, you really, you don’t market to literally everybody. Cause we’re not Coca Cola, right? We are, we’re marketing to a specific type of individual. And I think if you, if you recognize, like, I don’t need to appeal to every person that I might, that might be in my partner pool. I just need to appeal to the ones that are a match for me then it becomes. Like, I, I feel like that you can relax into it maybe a little bit and of course there’s the, and which is the next question. All right. So, 3 million people in your city and you’re like, okay, well, maybe 10 of them are a match for me or 10 of them are people I could, I could date or marry. Like, then my brain immediately goes, well, how the fuck am I supposed to find those 10 people, right? Like, how many frogs do I have to kiss before I find, you know, my prince or princess charming?

Sade: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. So, the first thing our brains do is we, there’s this bias, this cognitive distortion, availability bias, which is that our brains only think things exist when it can see them.

If it has evidence that, okay, if like, let’s say you’re sitting at your, on your front porch, I don’t know what who sits on the front porch anymore, but

Jill: I do sometimes when I’m waiting for Grubhub to show up, there you go.

Sade: Love that. So, you’re sitting on your front porch. And every other person is a man, woman, and I’m just going to use men because my clients are typically, you know, heterosexual relationships.

So, forgive me if I, you know, lean towards using men more often, but say every other person that walks by your home is someone that you could date. So, say you are a woman, a heter-sexual woman in her 40s. You see a man in his forties and fifties, he’s kind of fit and active. He looks like he’s in the right profession. All the things line up. If every other person looks like that, when you’re sitting on your front porch, your brain will believe, Oh, there are men out there.

Now, if you’re sitting on your front porch at 12 noon and all you see are young mothers with toddlers, which is likely what you’ll see, then your brain is like, Oh, well, there are no men out there. Everyone is married to these women with toddlers.

And it just makes that assumption. Like it’s the news, like it’s a fact, not because you actually looked at the statistics or you look at what’s happening, but because it’s what you see. And a lot of people have that experience where they’re like, well, there’s no one.

I don’t see any men. I don’t see any men who I could date. I don’t see any persons that I could date. And so, you have to realize that your brain does that first of all. And so, one of the first things I’ll do with a client is say, okay, if they have this problem, how many people actually live in your city? City or in your town, some people live in smaller towns, bigger towns, and we’ll actually look up the statistics.

If you live in St. Louis, there are 3 million people in the metro area, and then it will work backwards from there. If there are 3 million people in this area we can assume that about roughly half of them are men, and then we’ll cut it down to like, how many are of appropriate age, and generally we’ll come to like, you know, there’s 20, 000 people that are probably single of the right age out of 3 million.

And then how many of those do you think you’d like? And they would cut it down to like maybe 20 or 50. And that immediately resets the availability bias. What I did in that moment was teach, you know, that woman. To create her own bias towards the possibility that she could meet someone in her city, which then opens up the creativity of like, well, where would I meet this people?

Like, how would I find 50 men that I could go on a date with? I could have a reasonable time. And so, we start with like, okay, let’s look at dating apps. Let’s look at meeting people in person. Let’s look at social events and let’s look at this big one that people overlook asking for blind dates.

Jill: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Right.

Sade: Let everyone know you’re single and ask them if they know anyone who is single too. Yeah.

Jill: Because you never know. You never know, right? And, and I think people, when I, when I was dating after my divorce, I approached it, I think, very differently than a lot of My friends and colleagues did, and you, we’ve, we’ve talked about this, but I think most women are like, Oh, I can’t go on one more bad date. I can’t like, if I go on a date and it’s bad, then they make it mean that there’s no good, there’s no good partners out there, or they make it mean that there’s Something wrong with them or, or they just make it mean that they’re too old or what have you. And really, it’s just like. Like, when you go to the thrift store, for example.

Sade: I hate the thrift store analogy for dating.

Jill: Okay, when you go to Neiman Marcus. When you go to Neiman Marcus. There you go. There we go. Alright. That was probably a way better analogy. And you’re like, you know, you’re sorting through all the clothes. You don’t pick up clothes and go, Oh, there’s nothing here for me.

You just keep looking until you find the thing and then you buy it and you take it home and, and, or, you know, try it on and whatever, but.

Sade: It might fit, might not fit. It might look good on the model, but not look good on you. And then you’ve got to try something else or the color might not be great for your complexion. There is a process to, in a sense, sifting through what’s available. Once we, once we realize that there are people available, then there’s the next level, which is sifting through that. And I know, you know, dating is referred to as a numbers game and it is. You got to have quantity. So, I often will ask my clients, how many people do you think you have to go on a first date with to meet your person?

And I’ll allow them to choose like, okay, 20 or 30 or 50 for you, you chose 50 and you kind of went through that process, but you also, need quality. So, it doesn’t work if you choose, I’m going to go on 30 first dates. But then like you sit on the apps and like you let the worst people take you on a first date. The guys who are obviously looking for a hookup, who have no respect.

It doesn’t, the numbers don’t work unless you have like a qualifying process. Like, and it seems like it’s intuitive. Like we should. We would assume that everyone would qualify the men before they go on, but when you’re in scarcity mode where you’re like, oh, there’s nobody available.

That actually turns off the part of our brain that becomes more selective because we think there’s no one out there.

Jill: Yeah. So, we’re like, I just need to, I just need to match up with anybody that’s willing to have me instead of like. Matching up with only people that you’re willing to have.

Sade: Mm hmm. Yeah, a hundred percent and so, what we’ll, I’ll, I’ll teach women to like, Hey, you need to have a number that you believe is out there for you. So, let’s say there are 50 men in my city that I could have great first dates with. And so, we pick the number 50 and then. Once you believe that you can then go, okay, I’m going to go on 50 good first dates, which lets you know, if a guy shows up and like you say, he’s not, he doesn’t show up correct. You’re like, okay, well, that’s not one of my 50. And so, you can be a little more selective because you’re like, okay, I’m going to go on 50 first dates. It might take me three months to go on those 50 first dates. It might take me four months. I’m not going to waste that first date on Someone who’s obviously not a match for me.

And so, then you go into the selecting process, the sifting process, which requires sort of its own skill, right? Like what, what can you tell from a, from a profile? So, here’s another thing that I liked. You know, correct with a lot of people. It’s like, Oh, I looked at him. He had tattoos. So, I was sure he wouldn’t be interested in having a family. I have heard this before. And I’m like, what is it? Wait, what? This is how our brains work. Yeah. This is how our brains work. Everyone has our brains really like to be efficient. Like really like to be able to make decisions very quickly, even when it doesn’t have enough information for the decision it’s trying to make.

And so, when you’re looking at a dating profile on an app, there’s some information that you can gather. The key is to gather that information, but no more.

So, no inferences, no inferences, no assumptions. And sometimes you gather just enough information that you feel ambivalent about the profile. Like, well, I’ll hear women say things like, well, nothing stood out to me. I wasn’t super excited to talk to him. I was like, that’s a yes for that stage.

Jill: Interesting. Okay, say more about that. So, in other words, if nothing turns you off, he can move to the next phase?

Sade: He can move to the texting phase.

Jill: Interesting.

Sade: Because why not? Again, you’re not getting ready to go on a date with him.

You’re not sitting across the table from him. You’re simply qualifying him to see if he’s a viable lead. If you don’t have enough information from the profile, we’re programmed to be like, oh, he’s boring because we’re not getting that dopamine hit from the profile. He doesn’t look like what we’ve seen on the movies or like.

And so, I’ll tell my clients, listen, if, if there’s nothing exciting about the profile, it’s probably a yes for the texting stage. And then the texting stage that can lead at that stage, you can vary. So, on the profile, you can verify this person looks decent. If they have what looks like might be a reasonable job, if they are mildly interesting, if they share your religious beliefs, if they fill that out, if they share your political beliefs, those are important.

If they indicated that they’re looking for a long-term relationship, if that’s what you want or casual relationship, if that’s what you want. So, you just, you get the basics. You can’t tell anything more now in the texting phase, you can ask questions. So, if you actually give yourself the opportunity to swipe right on that person and ask questions. Okay. Send a voice note So, you can hear their voice. The apps let you send a voice note. You can, Some people have been like, I heard his voice on a voice note and absolutely not. And I’m like, okay, now you have enough information to say, I do not want to talk to this person. Or I asked him about his family, and he just went off and he Sounds like he has terrible relationships based on this conversation.

You can gather that information in a safe way via texting on the app. And so, I always. You know, I teach like gather the information at the right time when it’s profile time, texting time, there’s some things you can know on the first date that you, you know, and there’s some things you can’t find out until the fifth date.

And so, you’re qualifying the person for every stage. From the profile, you’re qualifying for text. From the text, you’re qualifying for a first date. From a first date, you’re qualifying for the second date.

Jill: Yeah. This is, this is fascinating though, because I think you’re, as you said, this is like the opposite of how people do it. Like, they look at a picture and they’re like, oh my gosh, he’s, he’s So, hot. And. And he’s got like, for me, tattoos, I’d be like, yes, please. Right. And, and then they like, build a whole story about who this person is. And then they meet them and the person is not that story because humans are three dimensional with entire lives and everything.

So, I love that. Like if, if there’s no red flags. Then yes, he moves on even if you’re not looking at him going, Oh my gosh, like I’m weak in the knees. You’re like, Nope, I move on because this is, this is So, brilliant. This is like such a smart sifting process. I had never thought of it that way. I love it.

Sade: Yeah. I worked at, I used to work in it, I studied engineering in college and I used to work in it. I was like, and I had a terrible time on the apps initially, like horrible. I did everything wrong. Name one thing that women do wrong, I, I probably did it. I called guys too many times. I fell for future faking. I got ghosted, all the things. Yeah.

And then I was like, okay, this is. This is not working. How can we make this better? And just in taking a step back to say, Oh, right. If I wasn’t in such a hurry to meet someone, if I felt like it might take me five years to meet someone, what would I do differently to allow for space to learn how to do this?

And that’s how I came up with the process that I use now, which I was like, Oh, there’s no hurry. Well, I may as well just have some really, really good dates. And so, I figured out how to line up really good dates for myself. And enjoy them. And one of the things I would do was I always had a list of things I wanted to do. And so, I just assumed that none of them was my husband. They were just companions to the restaurants I wanted to go to, the events I wanted to go to, things in my city I hadn’t seen. And so, I was always happy to be like, Oh, you want to go on a first date? How about we do this? And I was really just checking off my own personal bucket list with these guys and then I met my husband. He was like, I was like, Oh, I actually want to see this one again. And Right?

Jill: Oh, this is so, good, because first of all, I love that you’re like dual purpose, right? You’re like, I want to be a tourist in my own city and do all of these things, and I can combine that with this other project that I have going on.

And then when you take the the pressure off of it, like, boom, perfect guy shows up.

Sade: Yeah, when you take the pressure off, your brain, it’s almost like it comes out in the dating process in all its brilliance. You have like great ideas for where to meet people, places to go. I ended up finding meetups where there were lots of singles who were interested in the same things that I was doing.

I started going on conferences because I wasn’t trying, I wasn’t attached to the outcome, like we would say. I wasn’t like, Oh my God, this has to happen. It has to happen now. I could have fun. I could do interesting things, which led to meeting more interesting people and better quality dates cause I was meeting them in settings that were I guess more compatible with what I was looking for. And I was able to have slower conversations. And really qualify the people that I went on dates with.

Jill: Yeah, I love that. And I, I think, like when you talk to your clients, would you say that most of them are kind of in a hurry or feeling like they need to get this process of finding their, their partner over with quickly? Are they like in a rush or are they willing to take their time?

Sade: Yeah, Some, what I find more is a lot of internal conflict. Okay. Like there’s especially I mean, if you think about our age, we have so, much going on. We have So, much. We have busy professions. Many of my clients are like business owners or physicians.

They have a lot going on. We tend to have like slightly older children, So, maybe teenagers. Some of us are, you know, thinking about our caregiver. I mean, I’ve been caregivers for our parents that might already be happening or maybe coming up. We’re still thinking about how do I make the most of the second half of life.

And so, there’s a lot of internal conflict around someone might really, really want to meet a partner, but they might also, feel guilty that their lives are a little bit messy at the same time. Or I really want to meet a partner. I’m super lonely. I really want someone in my life, but then my children are So, young. Shouldn’t I be focused on my children or shouldn’t I be focused on my career? Or what if I marry the wrong person and then they hurt my children?

It’s more So, the push pull of not deciding and not having the self-trust to say I want this. I know I can do it right. I know I will get it right. If I fail, I trust myself to correct it and fix it and move on.

Like it’s, that’s usually the space where my clients, they don’t have that like certainty that self-trust in themselves. They’re like, yeah, I want to date. I’m saying it to the world. I don’t care what the world says that I’m dating at this age or at this size or at this stage in my life. And I know that I might fail or I might have, you know, little failures along the way. And I’m not afraid to make those mistakes, correct. And keep going until I get there.

Jill: I love that. And can you say more about failure because You know, when Somebody says, Oh, I might fail at dating. I’m kind of like, I don’t know. Did you go on a date? I feel like that’s mission accomplished, but not everybody thinks the way I do.

So, what does failure mean and how can we reframe that? Like, what does failure mean to most of your clients or women of this age? And like. What would you do with them to help reframe that?

Sade: Yeah, so, this, this brings me back to another cognitive distortion that shows up in dating, which is personalization.

And this is, this is huge, where everything that happens on the dating scene It’s about me. I did something wrong. I created this in some way. So, I will hear women talk about like, Oh, I went online and I had 20 horrible guys reach out to me. I must be attracting this kind of guy. So, they think that they have put themselves out in such a way that the scammers and the losers and the weirdos are now messaging them.

Jill: They message everybody, everybody.

Sade: And so, that fast, and, or if they go on a date and. The man turns out to not be right for them or the man didn’t want a second date. Then they think, Oh, I didn’t, I wasn’t interesting enough. I wasn’t attractive enough. I did something to make him not want to go on a second date, or he ghosted me. I did something. No, like people are just being people out there, but it really is a cognitive distortion. And then because of the narrative around dating and how women don’t have value outside of their relationships. It’s really heightened.

So, failure really feels like death in the dating world, because if your value is tied to relationships and you believe that at a subconscious level, and now you are in this relationship project and not getting an A where 30 hot, rich men are after you every day, it’s really easy to feel like you’re doing something wrong.

And so, we have to reframe failure. Well, first of all, we have to address, you know, that thinking and the socialization and all of that. And then once we do that, it’s like, okay, well, what is, you know, what are the steps that go into dating? And then how can you see each step as being a success? If you complete the step.

And not putting success in the hands of other people, not seeking that validation from other people to say you were a success and not waiting until the end result. Because think about it, if you go on 50 dates before you meet the one quote unquote, that’s 49 failures. Literally dating is like a whole string of quote unquote failure until you succeed.

Jill: It really is. That’s the whole point of it. It’s.

Sade: Yeah. So, we talk about celebrating downloading the app. We talk about celebrating putting a profile on there, you know, that you feel good about that. You feel like truly expresses your core values and is useful for meeting a partner to slightly different things.

And then we celebrate having a good conversation via text. If you match with someone who was decent, you made a human connection. And you had a back and forth and he wasn’t asking you for money. That’s a success. It means that, Oh, we’ve created this path where you’re having good conversations. So, good conversations is already like step one of success.

We celebrate that. We count that. Most of my friends will have numbers. I’d be like, Hey, depending on what they want, you should have, try to have five good conversations this week, whether they turn into a the date or not, whole other story, but five good conversations or 10 good conversations. And then if you go on a first date, first of all, you got out of the house, you got dressed, you went and you talked to someone and he turned out to be okay.

Even if he turned out to not be okay. Right. It’s like, Hey, every little bit of it is a building block in the skill of data. Like I see it as a skill that we were just not equipped with. This is, this should be a high school class, I mean middle school class at this point.

Jill: Well, cause I think when you’re dating when you’re younger is a totally different game than it is when you are older and it, it can feel like the stakes are higher when you’re older cause you’re thinking, Oh my gosh, like, you know, especially if you’re divorced, I’ve already had one failed marriage or maybe two or three, like who knows?

And, you know, there’s this. I feel like I have to get this one right, like, and actually I don’t think you do. I think you can, honestly, you can date as many people as you want. You can get married and divorced as many times as you want. Like none of it’s a failure. It’s all just like, okay, I tried this. It didn’t work.

Well, let’s try something different versus like putting all of this, you know, if. I think like the, the, the belief that you should find somebody in your 20s and marry them and then be married until you die is not, it’s not a useful idea. Like, yes, it works out that way for some people, but other people, first of all, might not meet somebody at that age group and, or they might meet somebody and then evolve and become a totally different person and by there in their forties, they’re like, Oh, we’re not a match anymore. Or they meet somebody and find out that that person evolved or showed their true colors. And they’re like, Oh wait, I was wrong. We’re not a match. And then they, there’s just so, many, there’s so, many factors. I think the amount of people. That stay married for 50, 60, 70 years, right? It’s gotta be pretty, pretty small. There can’t be that many people out there, especially in our current generation.

Sade: I don’t know the numbers, but I do know that a lot of people stay married and are very unhappy.

Jill: Yeah. Oh, and there’s that too. Right? Like I have to stay, you know, in this, like if you were eating a meal and you didn’t enjoy what it tasted like, you’d put your fork down and walk away or like send it back to the. To the kitchen, but we don’t do that with partners, right?

Sade: That narrative is, again, it really comes from the patriarchy comes from misogyny and the concept that women were property. Yes. That’s still in the way we handle a lot of things, the way we talk about a lot of things. Like if I, if I own my phone, my phone doesn’t get to walk away if it doesn’t like me anymore.

Right. My, my, even my, even my, my puppy. I have a puppy. She’s nine months old. She’s a teenager and she’s like a real teenager. She doesn’t get to leave if she doesn’t like me. Right. I hope she likes me, but

Jill: I think she likes you.

Sade: Think about that’s how women were perceived for thousands of years. Yeah. Even until very recent history, we belonged to our fathers who then handed off us off at the altar to our husbands, and then we were made, cook, cleaner, child birther for the man’s farm.

All of that thinking is still there. So, when you think about Oh, you should stay married for 60 years or 70 is who does that? Like who benefits from that idea?

Jill: Yep, exactly. It’s always the patriarchy.

Sade: It’s always, always, always. And so, knowing that, I think it’s really. You know, good for women, people socialized as women to say, what do I really, really want?

First of all, what do I really want? And one of the things we wanted to discuss was, is it okay to say, I’m just not going to date? Yes. In fact, it might be better. I have had some of my friends and I talk about like, listen, if we could have dated women. It would have just done that. Yeah. Would it be way easier and probably, you know, more guaranteed to like work out. I mean, I don’t know statistically if that’s true or not, but we just, it was just a joke about how hard it is to date men and find the right guy. It might better, you know, just the happiest people. Are single, never married, never women who never had children. Like they are the single happiest group.

Jill: Oh, that’s fascinating because they’re, because they really are able to just focus 100 percent are there on their own needs and they’re never like subjugating, like what they want in life for somebody else because they are the number one.

Sade: Yes. Yes. So, all of their, I have a, I have a client who is now dating in her fifties and never been married, never had kids and, you know, and I said, you were just a stay at home mom for yourself. Like, what do you think about that? She’s like, Oh my God, I love that.

Jill: That’s awesome. That is awesome. But yeah, I think, I think there’s an expectation that. You, you know, that we, that we’re supposed to want to be partnered. And if you don’t want to be partnered, that there’s something wrong with you. And, and I don’t think that’s true. I think everyone gets, it’s a line that we were fed and some of us like, like, I like being partnered up with somebody like that feels good to me, but, but also, only if it’s the right person. I remember when, you know, when I got divorced, I said, I’m just going to get really good at dating because I haven’t done it for a while. And. But I did not have the goal of getting remarried or even really having like a serious relationship because I kind of wanted to see what it felt like to not be in a relationship and then I was like, Oh, okay, actually, I do like being in a relationship. So, like, let’s, let’s see what’s out there. But I think like giving yourself the space to make that decision. Like, you know, when a relationship ends to like, take a breath, you and we’ll be like, is, do I really want another relationship or do I just want to like be myself and get to know myself a little bit? Before I take that step.

Sade: That’s actually a decision and a process that everyone has to go through. So, even when, even if you do decide to be partnered, the thinking and the idea and the skill of centering yourself in your own life still continues. Yeah. Like I’m remarried, happily remarried almost five years now and almost six years since I met my husband six years in February.

And it’s a skill that I have to continue if I don’t focus on centering myself and my goals and my desires in my life. My old socialization just kicks right in, like I’m wondering what he’s going to eat for breakfast. And I’m like, exactly. I’m not even bringing it on. Like, well, it’s not even like, it’s like when I’m thinking about what to, what to cook, if I’m going to cook, I don’t cook, but I’m just trying to find an example that fits here. I don’t, I don’t cook So, much, but if I were to cook, it’s usually something that my kids want to eat or my husband, I’m like, wait a second. So, it just. I or, oh, didn’t I? Or let’s take a trip. I auto, my default is to do what will work for my husband not to do what works for my kids. So, one of the skills that I continue to practice that I learned after my divorce was centering myself. And having them orbit around myself and expecting them to center themselves. And I orbit in their life.

Jill: Right. I love that. So, it’s like a give and take. It’s like, everybody just kind of like knows. What they want and what their preferences are and then like, yeah, you can negotiate and be like, okay, well, I want to center you now and, and like, but, but also, with the understanding that sometimes you get to make the decision or you get to do what you want instead, instead of like it always being one sided.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So, I want to kind of talk a little bit about the dating apps, because I think there’s a perception out there that when you’re in your forties and fifties and sixties, that you have no business going on the dating app. Right? Yeah. And I mean full disclosure for anybody who has been listening to me forever and does not yet know this, I met my husband on Tinder and everybody was like, Tinder is not where you go to find a serious relationship and I disagree, they are out there. They are out there. So, what would you say to, you know, what. What, how do you work with your clients on, I mean, we’ve touched on that a little bit, but like, do you find that women are afraid of going on the dating apps? And like, what do you think the expectation is? What, what is the fear? Like, what are their like concerns?

Sade: So, I mean, I’ll say, I’ll start by just saying, listen, do not just go on Google and go down a rabbit hole of what people are saying about anything. Just like, just like, you know, we don’t, we do Google for like medical, like, Oh, what’s the symptom, but you don’t stay there. You go to your doctor and you like really find out what’s going on. Dating apps and dating the narrative and the conversation is just. It’s awful. It’s just terrible. I spend very little time, even when I’m doing research, looking at what people are saying online because it’s So, far from reality that it’s really hurting a lot of people.

It’s hurting a lot of people’s journey and their ability to make decisions around dating. So, my thoughts are on dating apps is that they’re great. Right. And I have So, many analogies that I use with dating apps now, because I’m constantly having to explain to people that they’re not terrible.

So, the first one is email. So, remember 20, 25 years ago now, when we all first started getting emails, we all had our America online email address. God. Yeah. We got a ton of spam and the spam wasn’t in your spam box. Oh, right. The spam was right there. It was part of the journey, right? The spam was right there. You had to delete it. If you really wanted to see that email from your mom or your sister or your boyfriend or whoever, you had to look at the spam. weed it out and get to the email and then the technology got better and better and better over time. Well, we never said don’t use email because there’s spam. I mean, I never heard that. No one ever came to me. I said, there’s So, much spam on email. Don’t use it. That’s exactly what’s happening with dating apps. What’s interesting is. The more people, there was a time where scammers and the bots were like, there was a ton of them. It’s actually getting better. Like, at least my clients are like not finding that they’re overwhelmed by scammers or overwhelmed by bots. They learn very quickly to recognize what fake profiles look like.

Even if they don’t recognize them on the profile, once they get into the conversation, they’re like, Oh yeah, for sure. delete, it’s exactly like that. Dating apps are a tool. That can help you find your person faster with less effort. The mistake that people make is they think that dating apps are like a grocery store.

If I go into a grocery store tonight, well, I’d better walk out with ingredients for my dinner or what kind of grocery store is that? Right? Yes, exactly. And So, we expect that like, okay, I’m going to go into the grocery store. I’m going to go to where I’m making an apple pie. There should be apples. And if I go to the box that says apples and there are no apples, then I know for sure that there are no apples in the grocery store. They’re out.

Dating apps don’t work that way, but that’s what people do. They go on and they’re like, Oh my God, I went through 30 profiles and had 20 conversations this weekend. It was all awful. And so, that means it’s the conclusion. That’s the problem. It’s not that an initial experience isn’t bad or something uncomfortable, didn’t happen. It’s the conclusion people make. So, they use the dating apps as if it’s a grocery store. Like they should just be able to go in, search for, I don’t know, who’s the hottie these days?

Jill: I don’t know. Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling.

Sade: Ryan Gosling, Idris Elba.

Jill: Idris Elba, oh yeah, check for him.

Sade: I should be able to go on there, search for Idris Elba, my version of him, and he should pop right up. And if he doesn’t, that means he’s not on the apps. It is not true. The apps are more like the yellow pages. So, here’s another analogy. Okay. I love it. Everybody’s on there. So, say you’re looking for a plumber, right?

You have, I don’t know, 30, 000 plumbers in the plumbing section. Some of them are going to be terrible. Some of them are going to be out of business. Some of them are going to be too expensive for you. Some of them are going to be, you know, not show up when you eventually book an appointment. The process is to go through that list until you find the plumber that you’re looking for.

And again, I use the yellow pages because, you know, we’re talking to Gen Xers. So, I don’t have to explain what that is.

Jill: But that makes a lot of sense, right? Because when you look at it that way, it’s like here, you’re being presented with a whole list of people. And then it’s, it’s, you have to contact them and have conversations with them to figure out which one is the right one for you.

It’s not, it’s not like going to Amazon. You can’t just like put in your search term. Well, actually, maybe it is because Amazon, Amazon will give you a whole list of items and then you can sort through them and you still have to sort through them on Amazon.

Yeah. The thing that Tinder doesn’t have is you don’t get reviews from people, which I think you should, I think you should be able to review people.

Sade: It will only be terrible reviews.

Jill: That’s true. You’re right.

Sade: If I like a guy, I’m going to marry him. Yeah. And so, there, and that’s another problem with the dating conversation is that those of us who have had good experiences, we just take the good experience and we take them home with us.

Jill: And nobody else, like he’s off the market, that turn of phrase. Yeah. Yeah. And I also, think that those of us who have good experiences on the dating apps are not talking about in general, Oh my gosh, you only hear the negative stuff and you don’t hear the stories of women who had a great experience on there. I’m busy living happily ever after. We’re like, one of my best friends met her husband on. Tinder. Okay. Cupid or one of those, like not long after I met Andy and like yet another, and she had, she dated weirdo after jerk after idiot. And then, and then she met this, she was about ready to give up. And then she met this guy and like, next thing you know, they got married. So, I like, nobody hears these stories though.

It’s only the complaints.

Sade: So, but I will say we’ve been collecting them, including Jill’s story on the dating after divorce podcast. I think we’re close to 70. or 75 interviews now of women who have successfully dated and repartnered after divorce.

Jill: Okay. I feel like everybody listening to this podcast needs to go. This is a great segue because where can people find your podcast? Where can they find more of you? Because you have, you have all of the best advice. And honestly, like you, you like you have a process, but you also, understand the mental struggles that everybody goes through and you are, you know, you’re an excellent coach.

So,, yeah, So,. Where can we find you?

Sade: Yes. So, my favorite place is the podcast. It’s just the dating after divorce podcast with Sade Curry. Sade is spelled S A D E and then curry, like the food, C U R R Y. My website is the same thing. Sadecurry. com S A D E C U R R Y. com. You’ll find me on Facebook. I still hang out on Facebook. and also, on Instagram at Sadecurry.

Jill: Oh, I love that. And y’all check out her podcast. Cause I love that you have 75 success stories on there. Yeah. Cause I think it is, it is like the dating apps are not just for hookups and they’re not just full of creeps.

Sade: Like they really are not. They aren’t. I mean, I just have woman after woman, we go through this process, they find someone.

Oh, even if they haven’t met the person that they, they want to choose, they have good experiences. And I think that’s really the first step is to say, how can I have good experiences on the dating apps? Because once you start having the good experiences, it’s inevitable that you’re going to meet someone that you like.

Jill: I love that. But that, that’s a perfect question. How can I have a good experience on the dating app? And it’s not like, how do I find my future partner on the dating app? It’s literally, how can I, how today can I create this? An experience. And So, like. Like, I want one parting question here is like, how do we create a good experience on the dating app? What are some tips? If somebody’s asking themselves that question, like how would you get them started thinking about it?

Sade: Yeah. So, the first step is really self discovery. So, they’re looking at themselves. So, we’ve talked quite a bit about like the, you know, cognitive distortions and the coaching that goes into that.

Like your mindset matters, then there’s defining what a good experience for you on the app would be. So, one thing I noticed was a lot of people were working off of what other people define as a good experience. Did he take you to a five star restaurant? Did he bring you flowers? Did all of this romance.

I have a podcast episode called love versus romance. Like it’s almost like our girlfriends and our people watching us date have these expectations for what it looks like for us to date. And so, then now we’re under pressure to, if I date a guy, he better show up this way or my mom or my aunt is going to say, well, he didn’t show up right.

What is a good experience for you? For me, it was like good food. Like I love hole in the wall restaurants where I get to try things. And I like being outdoors and I like things where I could be curious museums or whatever. So, that was a good experience for me. The rest of it didn’t matter. Flowers, ambience.

So, defining that for you, conversations that you want to have, the kinds of people you want to be around. A lot of people have lost community because of divorce. Like that’s a big thing. You lose friends, you lose, you know, you know what do you, social circles fall apart during divorce. So, dating can actually be a way for you to reclaim what your social life, what you want to look like.

What do you like? What do you like to do? And you can like express that in this way. So, define a good time. I use this benchmark, like, if you would be comfortable with a man being your coworker and working in the same building with this person, then they’re probably good enough to sit across having coffee with.

And so, some, some give or take, that’s what a good experience would be. You’re out in the world with a person having a good time. Doesn’t have to be an amazing time, not like, but just having a good time biking, cycling, walking, sometimes going to the biggest, best restaurant and spending 300 on a meal can actually be distracting from what you need to check from checking the person out. Like you’re so, dazzled by everything that’s happening. You don’t realize that they’re like a sociopath.

Jill: Yeah, exactly. Whereas over coffee, I feel like you can figure that out pretty quickly.

Sade: So, defining what that good, good experience is, what kind of man now, not necessarily the one partner that you want, but what kind of man could you have a good time with?

What are the characteristics of that person? Like what kinds of conversations would you have? Is it someone who listens to podcasts? Is it someone who’s physically active? Is it someone who would enjoy this kind of activity. So, defining like, Oh, this is, this is a reasonably good time for a reasonable, good time for me.

And then looking for people who match that. So, I teach my clients to like, start with their self-discovery core values. And then we work that into their profile and we do it in this like really cool way. I always, the goal is always to have a profile that nobody else could use. Like your proof has to be So, specific.

Like I like, I tell one of the tips is like, if you’re into music, use specific music references. artists names, albums, or book titles or authors or places, you’ve been like So, specific that when your person sees it, it’s like, Oh my God, I have to talk to her. I’ll give you an example. I have a client who she met her person on the apps and whether or not they’re long term fit, you know, still in question. She’s not sure, but she’s like, Oh, I like this person. I want to hang out. There’s a band and one of the band members, this is from like you’re talking, I think the 60s or 70s and I forget the name. One of the band members is buried in Paris. And so, when she went to Paris, she visited the gravesite. She met a man who did the same thing,

Jill: like, you know, that that’s somebody who shares at least a, you know, musical preferences with you and probably like similar values around, you know,

Sade: yeah, your resume on a really deep level. My husband is the only person that I know who loves Marilynne Robinson. I know that lots of people love her, but I don’t know a lot of people who love her books. She wrote Gilead, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Okay. And he’s like the only person I know on the planet who has read her books that I know in person. That’s why we’re together.

Jill: Yeah. I love that. So, it’s, it’s really about. You know, like in your profile, making it, making it instead of generic, making it So, specific that your person recognizes you, right? And is like, Oh, I see you. Yeah.

Sade: Yes. So, it’s not that your profile stands out to everybody. It’s that your profile stands out to your person.

Jill: Oh, I love that so, much. Oh, that’s great. That’s so, great. Well, thank you so much for being here today and for sharing all your wisdom. I want to make sure again, we’re going to have all of the links in the show notes, but y’all check out the dating after divorce podcast, Sade Curry on Instagram, sadecurry. com and on Facebook. And yeah. Yeah. It’s very consistent. and if you are, if you’re struggling with, with this concept or you, or you have a friend who is like, please reach out because this is she’s, she’s good. She’s like, you’re the, you’re the dating whisperer, I think.

Sade: I love that. This was So, much fun to have this conversation.

Jill: I know. I love talking about dating after divorce because I had such a good experience with it. I want everybody else to as well. So, thank you again.