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Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we ll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right.
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If you re new to the Art of Charm podcast, this is not a great place to start.
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Most of our content is more in-depth and longer format, so check out the best of at theartofcharm.com slash best, or the Fundamentals Toolbox at theartofcharm.com slash toolbox.
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That s where we ve got the fundamentals of body language, nonverbal communication, attraction, negotiation, networking, and everything else we teach here at the Art of Charm.
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All right, let s cut to it.
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Dear Jordan, first off, I want to thank you for all the outstanding content you and your team provide at The Art of Charm.
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I have learned a great deal from the podcast and truly appreciate the advice and information.
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You re welcome.
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By the way, we re breaking this down line by line because it s super long.
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Anyway, you re welcome.
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Alright, my question is about relationship red flags.
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I know you ve covered the topic on previous podcasts, but I m finding it difficult to apply the advice objectively to my situation.
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I m currently engaged to my fiancé, and I m not sure whether the anxiety I m feeling about our upcoming marriage is normal, or if it s something I should be concerned about.
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We ve been cohabitating for several years before getting engaged, and admittedly, I dragged my feet for a long time before deciding to propose.
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My fiance was my first serious girlfriend, so perhaps part of this is because I didn t have a dating history to draw from to determine what is normal or acceptable behaviors.
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Myself being a textbook people pleaser and my fiance being more of a controlling type, I found I ve sacrificed things important to me over the years, which created resentment and is a big reason why I was so reluctant to move it forward.
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I ve pushed back in recent months, standing up for myself when I realize she is being unreasonable, but the conflict that results makes me reconsider if the pushback is worthwhile.
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I hadn t realized until recently that my people-pleasing behavior created this unhealthy relationship dynamic, as I was never able to set proper boundaries from the start.
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This is hard to change after habits are developed over years.
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Yikes.
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Okay, so this is serious and only getting worse from the sound of it, but I want to explain why, even though we didn t kind of get into that before.
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It says that he s wondering if his anxiety about his upcoming marriage is normal.
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I m not in that situation, but everybody I ve been talking to about this situation says it s pretty normal.
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But then we see that he s been cohabitating for several years and dragged his feet for a long time, in part because it s his first serious girlfriend.
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Rarely a good sign.
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in this day and age in Western society, I should put that little asterisk up there, because if you don t have a dating history to draw from, you don t necessarily know what you want, what you don t want, what you re willing to deal with, and that combined with being a textbook people pleaser and her being more of a controlling type, naturally those two attracted each other, of course, he s already saying, I ve sacrificed things that are important to me over the years.
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Sacrifice in a relationship, totally normal.
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It sounds like here he s saying,
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I ve let my boundaries be completely overrun, which has created resentment, as he states, and that was originally why he was so reluctant to move it forward.
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Now it sounds like he s moving it forward because, well, we ve already gone this far down the road.
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So I don t like the sound of that, but, and it sounds like whenever he does, it says whenever he pushes back,
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there s a huge epic battle, battle of epic proportions that makes it seem not worthwhile.
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That s kind of a, not kind of, that s a classic controlling person technique.
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Whenever anybody says, well, you know, I don t really like this, there s an explosive drama instead of a rational discussion, and that s not good.
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So there s no boundaries, there s a,
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culture of conflict inside the relationship and drama inside the relationship.
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That s no good.
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Alright, continue Jason.
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Aside from this imbalance I perceive in our relationship, I know there are a couple of other red flags I m dwelling on and perhaps too much.
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A couple of my close friends slash siblings sat me down after we got engaged and expressed their concern about my decision.
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They said they re behind me either way though.
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I qualified this red flag because they don t know her as well and they really only hear my side of things if we are having issues.
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There is also walking on eggshells at home that I often feel likely due to a combination of a short temper and my tendency for conflict avoidance.
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I found myself withholding information or being outright dishonest about trivial matters just to avoid conflict.
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Example, purchases or upcoming plans with friends.
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This always leaves me feeling guilty.
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We ve gone to relationship counseling in the past, but ultimately old habits always take over before too long.
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So I am aware that marriage likely won t change anything long term with regards to our relationship dynamic.
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Yikes, okay, this is even messier than it was at first glance.
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So, first of all, when your friends and siblings sit you down and express concern, their agenda is your happiness, right?
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They don t know her, like you said, so they don t have this
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sort of out for her type of mentality.
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So take this with a very good level of credibility.
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These people only want you to avoid making a mistake.
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They said they re behind you either way, which means they just want you to be happy, they don t want to cause undue conflict.
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But don t qualify the red flag because they don t know her that well and they only hear your side.
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That might be true, but people are good at reading between the lines.
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If my friend calls me and says,
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My wife, X, Y, Z, God damn it.
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That s not a big deal.
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I don t say, wow, you really need to divorce this woman.
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I realize he s venting he loves his wife.
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That s all there is to it.
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If they re sitting you down and having what sounds like an intervention, the issues are more serious in their estimation and also it seems like you fully agree with them.
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Further, this walking on eggshells at home that you feel due to the combination of her short temper, in other words, the blowups she uses to control you because she knows you ll give in, and your tendency for conflict avoidance, which confirms what I just said, the fact that you re not able to be truthful inside the relationship about things you even consider trivial means that you don t like who you re being in this relationship.
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You re feeling guilty, you feel like this isn t working to your advantage at all, you re not happy,
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You go to counseling, but quote unquote, old habits take over before too long.
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Marriage is not gonna change anything here.
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Things are only going to get worse once you get married, in my estimation, because changing the rules afterwards is much harder than doing it beforehand.
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You ve had counseling, but I wanna know how have old habits come back into play.
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Are they your habits, or are they her habits, or are they collective habits?
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I can t tell if you re just not enforcing your boundaries or if she s decided not to adhere to them at all.
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Continue, Jason.
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I want to be able to be confident that I m making the right decision to get married and not just dwelling too much on the negatives.
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Maybe the issue is more with me and I m a love avoidant with commitment issues or maybe my concerns are legitimate.
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Are there other important questions I should be asking myself or my fiance before I walk down the aisle?
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She s a good person and I do love her.
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I am just struggling a lot with my concerns.
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Hey, this is serious and your concerns are very legitimate from the sound of it.
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You don t sound avoidant, nor am I getting a vibe that you have commitment issues.
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I mean, you committed to your first girlfriend.
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You might have some commitment issues with the fact that you have a little FOMO, fear of missing out from not having past relationships.
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That s not what I m getting from this email.
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Now that said, you can go to a therapist and ask these questions.
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Somebody who knows your situation better than I do through an email.
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I don t want to be irresponsible with my
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adjudication here.
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But even if you are and and you even if you are avoidant right and and you do have commitment issues your family is right and they re concerned for a reason.
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It doesn t matter if they know her or not.
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They know you and that s why they re concerned.
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Just to go back to that they see her effect on you.
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So do you actually think that there may be some sunk cost fallacy going on here with as much time as he spent with her and he s like doesn t want to give up the relationship because he spent so much time with her just to move on.
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Yeah, good point.
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I mean, we see this a lot in every relationship, not just people who are getting married or even committed stages for that matter.
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People say, well, you know, but I ve been with her for three years.
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This is, it s like in The Hangover where Ed Helms, they re like, oh, you re going to marry that girl.
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She sucks.
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She s an awful person.
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He s like, we ve been together for three years.
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This is just the next step.
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This is how it works.
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Remember that part?
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And everyone hates her, and even he clearly doesn t really like her.
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But he s like, well, I ve been in the relationship for a while.
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We see this all the time.
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Well, we ve been dating for a while.
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And then usually the other side of that coin is an unspoken fear.
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Well, we ve been dating for a while, and I ll never get anyone else as good as her, so I need to capitalize on this opportunity.
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It s a self-worth issue and an abundance issue that comes with lack of experience and sense of self-worth.
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That s definitely present here.
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Good call, Jason.
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Sorry for the long email.
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I truly appreciate any advice or insight you can provide.
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Keep up the great work at AOC.
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Signed, Coldfeet.
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Thank you, Coldfeet.
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I think this is something that would require you to get some coaching or some therapy or ideally both.
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I mean, we see this a lot even here at AOC.
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coaching therapy just on your own.
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You don t even have to go with her if she doesn t want to.
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You re gonna get a lot of clarity in what you want, who you want, and who you are if you get some coaching on this subject versus just quote-unquote relationship counseling.
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You need to coach yourself.
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You need to build up your own sense of presence, self-worth, and clarity for yourself, not just, you need to exist outside this relationship.
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There needs to be a you outside this relationship, and it kinda
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sounds like maybe there s not.
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So I wrote you back cold feet with some even more sort of pointed stuff that doesn t make sense to air on the show just because it s really detailed and not generally applicable.
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So I m looking forward to hearing back from you.
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Dear Jordan and team,
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I m 24, single, and living with my parent in a rather isolated area where the majority of the population is the silver generation.
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I ve been suffering from depression for a while.
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Nothing serious, but my go-to reaction was to hide it, and as such, I haven t socialized for a very long time.
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I feel that my life is a little more stable now, so I m ready to socialize again, but I have no idea how to do it.
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Only a small portion of my friends know about my depression, and I haven t kept in contact with many of them, and my skills are rusty, and my confidence in talking and maintaining a friendship is very low.
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How do I build my socializing and friendship skills up?
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Love the podcast and hope to hear from you soon.
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Regards, Rebecca.
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Hey, Rebecca, cool that you are willing to share this and be vulnerable and come out with this.
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It s interesting that, see, a lot of people think socializing and friendship skills will cure depression, and there s definitely something to that.
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Humans are social, we need to be more social.
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It helps a ton with depression.
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That said, I m not able to decide what is a bigger problem for you right now, especially through email.
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I mean, it would be completely irresponsible of me to try to diagnose
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It sounds like you ve been diagnosed with depression, so what I recommend is attacking the depression first.
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Get therapy for it if you re not already.
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Don t worry about relationships, especially intimate, romantic relationships right now until you ve got yourself in order.
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Start a physical activity, working out, exercise.
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These are the things that are gonna help you become more stable and on solid ground.
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The problem with relationships and doing the social thing first is it s such a finicky,
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easy to misread sort of area of your life and you can have these weird things happen where you get into a relationship with somebody or you get a new group of friends and it s not working out according to the way you imagined and it throws you way off.
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So you need to build that foundation and really attack the depression first.
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Get out there, take some classes, learn some skills to build some confidence, even if they re like cooking classes and things like that.
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Go get a trainer and or just work out, play a sport, get your physical,
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endorphins kick in, get the body image back in order, things like that.
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And relationships will help you get out of depression, like I said, but it s just not the first step.
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You can t build a house on a foundation of sand, so you need to get yourself together before you have something to offer.
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outside relationships, offering friends and offering partners as well.
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So slow and steady wins the race on this one, Rebecca, and definitely go after the disease first, build that sense of self-worth, build yourself up physically, emotionally, and then get out there and be social, and we ll be happy to help with you then when that time comes.
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SPEAKER_00
Hello to Jordan and Jason.
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I m an avid AOC fan, so thanks for all.
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I have a question regarding professional distance at work.
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I m wondering what you have to say on the topic and to what extent should one allow the workplace, which we spend most of our weekend, to touch one s personal life.
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I manage a small size team in our company.
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The people on my team are all in their mid to late 20s.
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Because of our close age, I m extremely careful to be respectful of everyone s opinions and ideas and mindful to never sound condescending or over bossy when assigning responsibilities and making decisions.
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I also understand the need and give every individual creative license as much as possible and show appreciation of their hard work by sending samples of their work to upper management and ensuring they get the feedback and credit due.
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The result of my efforts by far has been that we have a great team bond and smooth workflows, overall high motivation and quality work.
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Work-life has been pretty uneventful until a couple of days ago when one of the guys on my team, a 28-year-old, sent a colleague of ours a message to ask me if I would date him.
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I was taken aback because I see our relationship as strictly professional, and besides, we run in completely different circles, making his question irrelevant.
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Things are a little weird between us right now, even though we are both pretending it never happened.
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I m wondering if I m reading too much into this, and if there s anything different I should be doing to ensure a professional boundary.
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Any tips on this?
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I would absolutely love to hear your take on this, and especially appreciate hearing an interpretation from quote-unquote, the guy s perspective.
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Towson Dunk, BB.
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Thanks, BB.
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Wow, he is definitely in the wrong.
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It happens.
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People ask people out at the office, especially if everybody s in their mid to late 20s.
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It makes sense.
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But that s a major faux pas.
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I mean, he s 28.
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He really should have known better.
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What I would say is, here, talk to him.
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Let him know that that was a little bit inappropriate.
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Not in a condescending way.
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Just be like, look, we work together.
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this isn t a good move, let s keep it professional, alright?
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And then just move on like nothing happened.
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If he tries anything else, if there s any other indication that he doesn t take that, accept that, if he s not going to accept that, if he s passive-aggressive about that, report it.
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And if anybody says, why did you wait so long to report it?
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Then you can say, well, because I wanted to handle it like an adult and I don t feel the need to go tattletale to everybody.
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But I would say you need to make a documented record of this.
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If you have an attorney or a family attorney, do so with them.
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That way you don t have to rope in HR, because HR will then be obliged to do something
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with his boss and it could just I mean nobody really in my opinion deserves to get fired for having a crush on somebody even if it is in the office even if he did a bonehead move like that he doesn t need to lose his job and screw up his career over it and make a lifelong enemy out of you for that.
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Go to a family attorney or somebody who you trust.
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Attorneys are really the person to go to for this because they can legally document this in a way that s pretty credible.
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Report the incident to them.
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Say you don t want to make a big deal out of it, but this happened.
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And the reason that that s important is because if things get out of control later or something really bad happens,
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You need to be like, well, this happened earlier, and then have a credible way to rely and lean on that, not just, oh, suddenly now that this has happened, it s a pattern, well, why didn t you report the pattern earlier?
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That s what his lawyers or other people in your workplace are going to say.
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So if you can credibly document it outside the workplace,
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talk to him about this in a way that s very mature.
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Hopefully, you can just forget about this and be friends.
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I mean, at the end of the day, it sounds like he just had a crush on you and he asked you out, whatever.
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No big deal, until it becomes a big deal, right?
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So, this is a tricky situation.
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I m glad you wrote in, and it s something that I actually had to ask people for advice about, and I think this is a decent solution.
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Hi Jordan.
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First of all, thank you for the work that you do.
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I found your podcast about a year ago and I am still amazed that you put all of this information out there for free.
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I ve listened to all but 50 or so of the archived episodes and they have been an invaluable resource to me.
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I m 21 in Southeastern Michigan, your old neck of the woods, and here s my problem.
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Most people my age seem very shallow and immature.
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As a result, most of my friends that I see on a regular basis are in their late 20s and early 30s, with some being significantly older.
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They are an interesting bunch.
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They have traveled overseas, attended grad school, live in nice houses or apartments, and their greater life experience makes them a gold
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mind of information.
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This is fine socially, but it makes things difficult in other areas.
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The women that I m interested in seem out of my league romantically speaking, and I generally find myself in the proverbial friend zone.
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Not that I m complaining.
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I have pretty much resigned myself to waiting until I am 28 or so before looking for any sort of a relationship.
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I have no interest in just casually quote unquote hooking up with women.
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I am only interested in someone that I can spend time with, on both an intellectual and physical level.
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However, the old saying about practice makes perfect keeps on bugging me.
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Am I missing out on something by not finding someone, anyone, to date now just for the experience?
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I feel that this would make me the shallow one, but I m curious to hear whatever advice you can offer.
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Thanks again, The Young One.
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Hey, Young One, definitely you need practice, for sure.
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Dating is what I mean.
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All sorts of issues crop up requiring experience, and it s part of growing worthy of what you want.
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Knowing how to handle relationship.
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I mean when I look at my past relationships.
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I m just like cringing at Jason I don t know about you, but it s just like I m just like why did I?
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What was I thinking?
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I mean, there s just so much of that and it s not that long ago I mean I look back to how I handled relationships
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not even 10 years ago, and I m just like, what the hell was I thinking?
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That was a terrible move.
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What was I doing?
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And I know adults that do this that are 40, and they just, you know, you look at them, and they re in the midst of these breakdowns and these relationship crises, and you re just thinking, what are you doing?
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All these issues crop up later on, you can t just assume you re gonna be able to figure it out as it comes.
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Relationships are strong, or strong relationships might let you have leeway to figure it out as it comes, but it s gonna be much better if you know to avoid things in the first place.
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And frankly, having that experience is part of growing worthy, deserving what you want.
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not just waiting until you re older or until you have more cash or all these other sort of fallacies that especially guys fall victim to, well I need a house, I need a car, I need cash so I can provide.
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That s one channel.
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It s not the whole equation here.
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Lots of guys make this mistake.
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They focus on getting the house and the car and they don t get relationship experiences.
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So unfortunately there s often a huge gap between themselves and the sophisticated women who don t need their money once the guys think they re ready to settle down.
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So you really need both.
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You need to be working on yourself, working on your career, but also gaining that relationship experience in the process.
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Dear Jordan, one of the things I love about your story is the kidnapping thing.
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I need to utilize some of these skills.
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Women are always really good at hijacking me to go to their functions.
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Family stuff, the type of things you hate doing when you have a serious girlfriend.
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Never mind how you feel about it when it s just someone you re seeing casually.
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How do I get out of this kind of stuff?
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Signed, Manjacked.
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A man jacked, nice one.
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I don t suppose you ve just tried saying no.
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It might not be the path of least resistance, but it is the most direct way to avoid this if you want to.
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And I understand you might not want to do that, but when you say no, you can also say why is this important to you?
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and it could be a signal to her that you re serious about the relationship, it might be too early for that, it also might just be that she doesn t want to go by herself, so you need to kind of figure out why, because the consequences of saying no could be, okay, no problem, or they could be, oh my gosh, he doesn t want to go.
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She doesn t feel serious about me.
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Case in point, a few years ago, several years ago, I was dating this girl and she said, hey, my friend s wedding is coming up in a couple of months.
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Do you want to go with me?
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And I said, yeah, I don t know, we ll see.
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And then we kept having dinner.
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And then a couple weeks later she was like, hey, do you want to come to that wedding with me?
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And at that point, I was like, no, I don t think so.
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And I hadn t really thought about the gravity of that, the gravitas of that answer and the relationship, this sort of floating orb of uh-oh that I had created.
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And a couple of days later, weeks later, I can t remember now, she was just like, okay, so this is, you don t wanna be my boyfriend, this isn t like a real, we re not really together, right?
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And I thought, huh.
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No, we re not, but that s interesting.
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How did you come up with that?
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And we had a conversation about it, and she s like, well, you didn t want to take things to the next level by being my date to this wedding.
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and I was like, oh my gosh, I never really attached that level of importance to it.
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So you gotta be careful, because you might just be like, ugh, I hate weddings.
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Meanwhile, she s going, oh, he doesn t wanna be with me anymore.
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Or it might be so early, she s like, I don t wanna go to a wedding alone, and this guy s awesome, drinking buddy at the wedding, cool, he s a good dancer.
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And if you say, no, I don t wanna go, because I hate those, she might just be like, oh, alright, that s totally reasonable, I ll take my friend Sam.
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So you can reply with something like, that sounds pretty intense.
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She might get the hint there, but don t be surprised when she takes this as a hint that you re not planning on taking things to the next level.
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So be prepared to do some damage control and explain to her it might be too early for you to meet the parents and the family.
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So try that next time someone you re dating is trying to corner you into doing something that you really dread, if you feel like that s the case.
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But take it as a compliment.
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Introducing you to the family is a good sign that she sees real potential in the relationship.
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Hey Jordan, this is my story.
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I m about to move to another country in two months since I found a job there.
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I haven t had a girlfriend for several months, and recently I met a girl who really likes me.
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We get along very well with each other, and I still didn t tell her that I m going to leave soon.
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The thing is that I wake up every morning being horny as bleep and almost every hour I think about having sex with that girl.
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I know if I would make some steps in that direction, I will totally get what I want.
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However, I don t want to hurt her by having sex with her and leaving to another continent.
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I don t think I can handle a long distance relationship either.
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What should I do?
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I didn t have sex for almost a year and every time she is next to me, I feel like I m going to explode.
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Sincerely, Jake.
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Hey Jake, I m just going to come out and say it.
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You re really selfish, or at least this seems really selfish.
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You re really only thinking about yourself here.
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It doesn t sound like you re mature enough to be in an adult relationship, and you posted your age here, which is a little surprising because I thought you would be a lot younger.
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You need to tell her this as soon as possible.
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You re lying to her by omission.
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This is a lie by omission.
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By not telling her these key details because you want to get a result, namely sex, out of this.
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She will despise you for this and rightly so.
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If you want really casual relationships, you need to be really forthcoming and really open about that in the beginning.
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Especially given what I m hearing and even just the way you re writing this, I feel like
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you need to be looking at people with less relationship experience and also not leading them on, or people with a lot of relationship experience who are totally cool with casual sex and casual relationships of this sort, because honestly, I m not totally sure this is even a real question, but I wanted to throw this out there, because I know a lot of guys think like this, they tend to be half your age,
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Frankly, I think this needs to be said, because I don t want to ignore this problem.
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Anyway, we did a video this week about gratitude, and not just the whole, like, be grateful for everything, gratitude, bro.
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It s about how to do it in the right way that s not super woo-woo, there s some practical application, how to share it with others and make it more powerful.
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and a practice that you can do that doesn t take up a bunch of time and doesn t require you to, you know, write a novel every week about it.
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A link to this blog post can be found with the video, of course, can be found at theartofcharm.com slash fmf45.
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I hope you all enjoyed that.
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Don t forget, you can reach us at Friday at theartofcharm.com.
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We read everything.
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We d love to hear from you.
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Also, theartofcharmchallenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed to 33444.
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That s charmed, charmed,
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step-by-step guide to help you become better at making personal and professional connections, become a better networker, increase your personal social capital and your charisma.
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It s for both guys and gals.
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So check that out at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed to 33444.
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Quick shout out to Alex in Moldova and Cole in Italy listening regularly to AOC.
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Are you in a strange land listening to my familiar voice?
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If so, hit me up.
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I ll shout you out.
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More from AOC at theartofcharm.com.
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Now have a great weekend.
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Get out there and connect and leave everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to The Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.