Sexuality Professor Answers Dating Questions

I'm Dr. Zhana Vrangalova, a relationships consultant

and professor of human sexuality,

and today I am here to answer your questions

from the internet.

This is Dating Support.

[upbeat music]

All right, let's see.

1stthing1st asks, Is it true that guys

are no longer approaching women in public?

It is, and you could argue for better or worse.

I would argue it is for the worse

because humans evolved to interact

with each other in person.

And while dating apps are great,

they are one of the many tools in the toolbox,

we should not forget about that organic way

of meeting people that can happen on the street,

at the coffee shop, at the gym.

That is often a lot more magical when it happens

than when you're on a dating app.

But because of partially dating apps,

partially also because of greater awareness

around sexual harassment, sexual abuse,

especially post #MeToo, there's more realizations

that the way people have approached,

especially the way men often approach women

in these non-designated flirting areas,

can come across in a way that makes women feel unsafe.

And I would love it if we brought it back, but in a way

that does not make people feel unsafe or threatened.

lifewithnai asks, How important is physical attraction

versus emotional attraction?

For a long-term relationship,

emotional attraction is really, really important.

That's what sustains us over the long-term.

The trust, the connection, the intimacy,

all of that is really important to have.

So if you're gonna date someone for a long time,

if you're gonna marry them,

have kids with them, settle down,

make sure you have emotional attraction and connection.

Now, the physical attraction is a bit more of an it depends.

It's really, really important for some people

and far less important to other people.

It's also something that's a lot more important

in the beginning of the relationship.

It often gets people excited about each other,

but then over time it's just not that important.

And it's important to remember

that physical attraction can increase

the more you like the person,

the more emotional attraction exists between you two.

Actual_Parsnip says, Change my view.

Dating is generally far easier for women

than it is for men.

This is an interesting one.

The truth is, a little bit of both.

On one hand, dating is easier for women

in terms of meeting potential partners.

Women get approached a lot more.

If you're on the dating apps, you have so many more options.

So it's definitely easier to meet someone and go on a date.

On the other hand, women often don't get

what they actually are looking for

because many of these men

who are approaching women are looking for something

that the women are not actually looking for,

casual sex versus romantic relationships.

And also, can you get the high quality romantic relationship

that you want?

That's often something that women don't get.

And so if you are a man

who's looking for a long-term relationship,

oftentimes you can have a pretty good experience

and a lot of options to choose from

because a lot of the other guys being on offer

are not offering that.

A Reddit user asks, Are situationships

really changing the dating game

and why do people put up with them?

So first, what is a situationship?

It's one of these ongoing sexual

and maybe even romantic relationships,

but they don't really have a clear definition

and there's no clear commitment around them.

If you don't want to get stuck in a situationship,

then don't allow it to happen.

I mean, situationships exist

because usually they work for one person

who's happy to have that sort of undefined state of being,

and they usually don't work for the other person

who would like to have a bit more definition,

but they're just not getting it

and for one reason or another putting up with it.

And you could argue it's not really ethical

if one person knows

that the other person is not really enjoying

and loving this situationship to keep it going,

but on the other hand, everybody has responsibility in this.

If it's not working out for you,

you also have the responsibility to say it's not working.

One person can't have all of the responsibility.

They also can't be mind readers.

That's why communication is so important.

Talk to each other.

123mando asks, Does anyone have tips

on how to handle rejection in a healthy way?

First and foremost, accept rejection gracefully.

It's never fun to get rejected, but it's also part of life,

and we have to learn how to take it in stride.

Try not to take it personally.

Very often, it's not personal.

It has to do with not being compatible,

not being the right time, or simply other circumstances.

So be compassionate toward yourself.

Feel your feelings, but don't go too hard on yourself.

A Reddit user asks, Should you always trust your gut?

This might sound like old wives tales,

but the gut is actually a real thing

when it comes to our connection to the brain.

It's sort of like a second brain

because it actually has over 100 million neurons

inside the gut and they are connected

through the vagus nerve.

It takes in information,

and in those moments of fight or flight,

when something is off, it can tell us

get out of that situation,

or if something feels good and right,

it can also pull us toward that situation.

So don't ignore the gut.

If the gut is saying get out of here,

then probably there's something off about that person.

That said, the gut is not

all you should be paying attention to

because there are other pieces of information

that the gut cannot take in and process,

and for that, you need your brain.

So make the brain and the gut work together with each other

when deciding who's a good potential partner and who's not.

A Reddit user asks, Why are men much more willing

to have casual sex than women?

Oh boy, this is a big question. That's a big answer.

Two big pieces of that answer.

There are evolutionary biological differences

between men and women

and there are sociocultural reasons why this is happening.

On an evolutionary biological basis,

there are very obvious differences

in our reproductive anatomy and physiology.

Men make lots and lots of sperm.

They can easily deposit that sperm in as many vaginas

as they have access to and make lots and lots of babies.

Then they don't have to put in any amount of effort

into doing anything to have that baby be born,

potentially survive, and so on.

They can literally do the bam, wham, thank you, ma'am,

and that's it.

Now, that might not be in the best interest of that kid,

and there's a whole conversation around, well,

if you don't put in any effort beyond

the bam, wham, thank you, ma'am,

is that kid actually going to make it?

In general, there is a much lower

what's called minimum parental investment

that men need to put in in order for a baby to be born.

Females, on the other hand,

have a very different math when it comes to sex.

And for women having sex often meant getting pregnant,

and that carried the cost of pregnancy for nine months,

breastfeeding for usually about two, maybe three years,

and during that time,

you can really be having or making new babies.

And so there's a very different cost of reproduction,

which plays into the way we think

about having these more casual context for sex.

The interesting thing that has happened

over the last 50 or so years and more and more

as we have developed all of these new ways

of interacting in society, greater gender equality,

greater access of women to economic means

and political power and greater independence,

as well as the access to birth control

and decoupling basically of sex from reproduction,

what we have now is a situation

that has never really existed before

in the history of humanity, and that is that sex

no longer has to lead to pregnancy.

So women have that luxury of having casual sex

that does not lead

to that potentially unintended consequence.

LadyMinxNI ask, Also in the context of dating,

what on earth is orbiting?

This is like a whole other language. It is.

If you just look at what's happened

to the dating language over the last five to 10 years,

we have so many terms that we never had before,

for better or worse.

So what is orbiting?

Orbiting is when someone

that you either was dating or started to date

or maybe even you were in a serious relationship with,

and that ended and they stopped communicating

with you directly,

so no more texts or calls seeing each other,

but they still kind of stay connected with you

on social media usually.

So they will like your posts, they are following you,

they're viewing your stories, following your activity,

so they kind of keep you in their orbit,

but without actually having

any kind of meaningful communication,

which to a lot of people can be distressing

because you feel like there's no closure.

speckrex asks, Can we define the term [beep] boy?

It's an important term.

[beep] boy is someone, typically male, who likes to pursue

multiple sexual relationships simultaneously,

not really put in a lot of

or any emotional commitment into them,

which in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing,

but the key piece about the [beep] boy

is that he usually does it with some lying and cheating

and not being honest about his intentions,

so there's manipulation,

which is why it's often a disparaging kind of term.

Ashley Groussman asks, How do you decide in a relationship

what is a deal breaker?

By knowing yourself and what matters to you.

Everybody's different,

what is going to matter for them versus other people.

You wanna think about what are your core values

that matter to you long-term.

For some people, it will be religion or politics

or how you approach money

or whether you want children or not

or how you wanna deal with family.

So make sure that you are on the same page on those issues.

Other things like behavioral patterns,

like what kind of health behaviors do we engage in?

Are there any addiction issues, abuse, dishonesty,

communication patterns?

How do you wanna live your life?

Do you wanna live in the suburbs or in the city?

Do you want to party and travel?

What kind of career path do you wanna have?

Those are all things that are gonna come up and bite you

if you're not on the same page.

Ok-Statement-2 asks, How do you decide if you're settling

or being realistic with your expectations?

It's a good question. We can't have everything.

Something is gonna have to give,

but you have to know yourself

so that you know what your core needs in a relationship are.

You're likely settling if you're ongoingly,

unfulfilled, resentful,

if you feel like you're compromising on your core values.

If you are staying in a relationship

mainly because you fear of being alone

and you're being realistic

if you're making some compromises on certain preferences

if most of the time in the relationship

you feel like your core needs are being met

and you are generally happy and satisfied.

sxr444h says, What attachment style is it

where you yearn for the man

who doesn't consistently show his interest in you, if any?

[sighs] This is a common thing that happens.

The attachment style that usually goes with that

is the anxious attachment style.

Well, people often don't have

a very high opinion of themselves

and do have a higher opinion of other people,

and they are willing to put up with treatment

that's not necessarily the greatest

just because they're afraid of losing that person.

It often comes from not having healthy role models

for what is a good, healthy kind of relationship

where the person does show interest in you.

The thing to do is work with a therapist.

It's absolutely possible to get to a healthier dynamic.

It just takes a little bit of work.

a_lucid_casadilla asks,

How important is chemistry in a relationship?

Chemistry is in some sense elusive and it's hard to define,

but it's about that sense of strong attraction.

Often it's physical.

Sometimes it might also be intellectual or emotional.

But it's that feeling like we really gel, right?

It's something really pulling me towards you

and you're being pulled towards me

and it feels pretty magical.

For most of us, especially in the West

and the way we like to start our relationships,

it's pretty important,

especially if you want that physical attraction

or connection that propels you into a long-term experience.

For some people, it's not that important.

They make their decisions to be with someone

based on more kind of rational criteria,

like will they make a good parent

and do they have good financial prospects

and that kind of stuff, and so that's okay too.

ROWEBOT3339 says, Would you rather be ghosted

or have someone tell you why they don't want to see

or talk to you again?

Well, it depends.

People have different preferences.

And there's no real research asking people

what they would prefer so that we know what the majority is.

My best sense from talking to students and clients

is that most people prefer to have some sort of indication

that the person doesn't want to see them again

so that they have a little bit of closure

and know where they stand.

There are some people who would prefer to just get ghosted

because that on one hand is maybe a little less awkward.

You don't have to face the rejection directly.

It kind of leaves things like, well, you never know.

Maybe this person will come around,

and so they find it easier, especially when it's early on.

NafulaO_M asks, Do attachment styles change

with different partners or is it constant?

Like, can I have an anxious attachment style

with one partner and avoidant with another?

There is actually a lot of science going back decades

about attachment styles, attachment patterns,

how they develop, how they impact romantic relationships.

So this really is a real thing.

And so our attachment styles

are something that is relatively consistent

and it's something that we start to develop early on

through our interactions with our primary caregivers

as we grow up, and then they get reinforced

as we start to interact with romantic partners and friends

and other adults in our lives.

And while there is certainly some level

of continuity over time, different people can also elicit

different kinds of reactions from us.

So when we interact, let's say,

with someone who is very avoidant,

even if we're not particularly anxious,

it can elicit somewhat of an anxious response from us

because they are acting so avoidant.

Vice versa, if we are interacting with someone

who's really anxious, very clingy,

and requiring a lot of time and attention

and reassurance from us,

we can start to act a bit more avoidant,

even if we're not technically very avoidant.

So it absolutely can fluctuate

depending on who we're interacting with.

The good news is, even if we have an attachment style

that is no longer optimal

or that we're not happy with as adults,

like if we're really avoidant and really anxious

and we wanna do something about it,

we can do something about it.

These things can change.

They can change with just knowledge

about what our styles are, where they come from,

and so that we can catch some of those reactions

when we have them.

Sometimes it's good to have a therapist

to work through some of those issues,

especially some of the stuff that comes from childhood.

And very often what helps us overcome some of these

no longer serving as types of patterns

is pairing up with someone

who has a more secure attachment style

or is willing, even if they themselves have some avoidant

or anxious tendencies,

but they are willing to be aware of it,

and then work with us to catch each other

and hold each other accountable

for when some of these things flare up

and bring them back down, down regulate them.

salute_ace asks, How do I tell my partner

I wanna have a threesome for the first time?

Oh, this is a spicy one.

Threesomes is the single most common sexual fantasies

that Americans have.

Go figure, and yet it can be a pretty dicey thing

to ask someone because what if they're not on the same page

and that blows up in your face?

So kind of two main avenues for how you can go about this.

You can take a more indirect approach

to find out what their opinion view generally is

on threesomes before maybe you ask the big question,

and you can do that by bringing up, I don't know,

something that you've read or seen in a movie or a TV show

or heard about your friends doing

and then asking your partner what they think,

so you kind of probe a little bit.

The other way is, talking about your fantasies.

Maybe have a moment where you decide

that you're gonna share

your top three fantasies with each other.

Make it kind of low stakes.

Acknowledge that sharing fantasies can be pretty vulnerable

because there's so much sex shaming and taboos.

This is stuff that, you know,

it's something that you fantasize about occasionally.

Doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it

or you want to do it.

It's just something that you wanna share with your partner.

WideSandwich69 asks,

Is it possible to grow into loving someone?

Absolutely yes.

Love has these two stages,

especially the way we do love and relationships in the West.

The first part is that crazy infatuation

when we lose our minds over this new person,

and then over time, that subsides

and turns into this long-term attachment

where we are in a calmer state,

but we also know there's a lot more security,

there's long-term care, we are invested in their wellbeing,

they're invested in our wellbeing.

It absolutely is possible,

even sometimes when you don't necessarily

have that initial stage of infatuation

to over time grow into loving them

and turning that into a long-term attachment.

In fact, when people in many cultures

have arranged marriages, they start out with no infatuation.

Very often, they barely even know each other.

But over time, as they spend more time with each other,

they grow into that attachment level love.

kdizzlin asks, People are really out here in relationships

with no traveling together, no dates, no spice,

just arguments, [beep] sex, and going to sleep.

What the are you doing? It's a great observation.

There are a lot of people

who are in low quality relationships.

Why are people doing it?

Often because they feel they don't have a better option

because they are afraid to put themselves back out there

because often they think that's all they deserve.

A lot of us come from families

and have these role models for what relationships are like

that are not of a high quality relationship.

And so, yeah, many of us are stuck in poor relationships,

and if this is you, reconsider either work

on getting that relationship to a much better level

or move on and find someone who's more compatible with you.

That's all the questions we have time for today.

I hope that was useful. Until next time.

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