March 29, 2026
Are You Being Sledged, ZipCoded, Or Monkey-Barred? The Ways You're Finding Love in 2026
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RSS Feed We have a blast going over the top new dating trends of 2026 as so many people continue to look for their soulmates. While the names of these trends may be clever and new, think “Zip Coding” and “Chalance”, the concepts have been around forever! We ask, are you looking for a “golden retriever boyfriend” or how about a “black cat” girlfriend? Bottom line, relationships are hard, and while labels might make us feel seen, we all want the same thing… to find our person.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody. It is Sunday, March twenty ninth. It is spring, and for all of you single folks out there who are looking for love, we've got the top new dating trends of twenty twenty six. And I don't know why it's fun for us coupled up folks to even maybe just look at all the folks looking for love and seeing what's hot, what's not what.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: People are looking for these days.
00:00:34
Speaker 1: I get a big kick out of looking at these dating trends and the words that folks come up with to describe them. Maybe it's just me, but without everyone, welcome to this episode of Amy and DJ.
00:00:46
Speaker 2: I don't know, Baby, do you get into it too?
00:00:48
Speaker 1: Do you get as tickled by some of these trends and how they name them as I do?
00:00:53
Speaker 3: I get concerned that the person I'm engaged to marry is so interested in dating trends. That's where I am on this whole. Then I don't find it. Maybe I would find it cute or funny if it wasn't my fiance who keeps bringing these things to me. But sure, let's go have a good time talking about what it'd be like to date these days. Hmmm, sounds fun.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: I think I look at it through this lens. He went through a lot to be together. We went through lots of other relationships and made a ton of mistakes along the way. And I think it's interesting from a sociological standpoint to take a look and see how people try to find their one and what works, what doesn't, and how things change and evolve.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: You know, in our kids.
00:01:37
Speaker 1: My daughters are obviously in the middle of that era in their.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: Lives, and your young one is about to enter it.
00:01:43
Speaker 3: Okay, that's just that's okay, now you you're going too far. Now she's thirteen.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: That's when it starts. I know you started to hear way that.
00:01:52
Speaker 1: Boy, it's not as a father.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: You need to know this.
00:01:57
Speaker 3: I need to know what the dating trends are.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: You might.
00:02:02
Speaker 2: No, this is fun.
00:02:04
Speaker 1: This is fun because Cosmo actually explained why why there were so many new terms, and I thought this was cool.
00:02:09
Speaker 2: They said it creates a shared.
00:02:11
Speaker 1: Language that we can all use to talk about the confusing and sometimes even frustrating.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: Parts of looking for love.
00:02:21
Speaker 1: I think that is isn't that part of the goal for most people? Maybe they don't even realize it, but that is what we tend to do. We spend our lives looking for love, looking for that relationship.
00:02:33
Speaker 3: Why though we're looking for is that really the purpose? When people go out there and they start dating, they get on these dating apps, are you really looking for love? I don't know what people are looking for necessarily these days. That was just an article it wasn't in the Times today about how people have turned on marriage, the idea of marriage these days. I don't know dating these days, I don't know what people are looking at yet.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: Well, there might not be a shared goal, and that's part of some of these new trends. But I do think everyone wants to feel loved, to feel seen, to belong, to have a partner, to have someone to go through life with.
00:03:06
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, as many people don't necessarily admit that. That's just human nature. It is just in us. You don't want to be alone. Nobody does. Even if you tell yourself that mentally, man, nobody wants that. So yeah, it's a struggle for a lot of people. And it's I mean, it could be a challenge, it could be frustrating, but it is rewarding, it is fulfilling. So and you talk about all these the names they give. Isn't that just social media? These bigs it is?
00:03:34
Speaker 2: It's TikTok and social media.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: But I do think there is something cool about having a shared experience with someone where you can actually relate to it with the term yeah, I want that or that happened to me. And I just think that it creates a sense of belonging. When you have a shared experience, you put.
00:03:48
Speaker 2: A name on it.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny and somehow it just it makes it all make a little more sense maybe, And this whole notion of not feeling alone, that other people are experiencing or want the same things.
00:04:00
Speaker 2: We're all looking for that we all want to belong.
00:04:02
Speaker 3: We want labels, We want an easy way to categorize ourselves this or on that which is not. I don't find that to be the best way to go about it, but I see and social media aide. With so many videos and so limited and how much you can say and how much time you can say it, and how many characters you can use, it's easy to have just one word to say that this is blank and what I don't even know what was it? Leg you'd have me do one real light.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: That was one of the newest.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: That was when you you go someone for a bit and then you come back and you try to make them think that you never left.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Like nothing ever happened, which is hilarious.
00:04:38
Speaker 1: Okay, so see everyone ghost people might have a story like that and they feel seen when there's a label that it happened to other people too. So yeah, I've been ghostly or I've done the ghost lighting, but most people wouldn't admit that. I do think let's have some fun here, but there are some actual interesting discussions about where we are is a societ when it comes to finding that person. So I think that there are some really interesting details in the fun of giving these labels.
00:05:06
Speaker 3: The first one, how many you got?
00:05:08
Speaker 1: I picked out the ones that I hadn't heard of before, so I've got lessie, I've got one, two, three, four, five dating trends, and then I've got labels for the type of partner you're looking for.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: So I run this is thorough.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: I didn't even though they were five dating trends out there.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: I chose the ones we haven't already talked about. We don't already know ghost lighting was among them, but I thought we've already been there, done that.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: So how about this one? Schalance?
00:05:36
Speaker 3: Chalance?
00:05:37
Speaker 2: Guess what chalance is? This is a new dating trend chalance. Schalance.
00:05:42
Speaker 3: Is it shalancing? Or I got chalance? Or we are in a schalance like romance.
00:05:48
Speaker 1: It's the type of relationship you're looking for, a chalance relationship.
00:05:53
Speaker 3: Put them together a lance. So I'll go romance at the end, and then I'll say shell so as ay'll love. A relationship is a schalance.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: You're hilarious. The opposite of nonchalance, the opposite.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: So you want a partner who isn't afraid to go all in, who isn't nonchalant.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: It's basically the opposite of a situationship, right, use.
00:06:16
Speaker 3: That in the sentence for me? Used the chalance in a sentence Seriously, I am struggling.
00:06:22
Speaker 2: I want a chalance relationship.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: They want a partner who puts in the effort, who goes into the relationship saying I am all in. I want this to work. I am looking for a serious partner versus someone who's like, eh, we'll see what happens. I don't know, I'm nonchalant about it. We'll like, we'll see where we end up. Okay, you want someone to go in with an agenda and someone who's looking for an outcome of permanence.
00:06:49
Speaker 3: Okay, married at first sight. Those are all people who would classify as shalance.
00:06:54
Speaker 2: You just nailed it all.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: You know what, you just nailed The reason why I merited first Sight has been so successful, and we've seen so many people show up for the auditions because they are saying, I am ready, I am ready for a chalance relationship.
00:07:09
Speaker 3: And everybody who is there clearly wants to get married and wants to take it seriously.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: There you go.
00:07:19
Speaker 3: That's coming together next one.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: It took me a second. This is gonna be fun.
00:07:25
Speaker 1: Sledging is a dating trend. It's a dating trend, sledging, sledge sledge.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: I immediately go to hammer.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: I did too, but I was wrong.
00:07:35
Speaker 3: Okay, schlepping, that's not the same.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: I don't think you're gonna get it because I was kind of blown away. So think about the sled sledging a sled. Okay, so let me I'll explain this. So the the definition is getting into a cuffing season relationship with the intention of breaking things off by spring.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: I mean this is really dark.
00:07:59
Speaker 1: So basically you're sledging the other person because the other person didn't know that the relationship had an expiration date. And how they explain it is sledged a sled. Okay, the sled is the act of dragging someone through the snow in the wintertime with no intention of actually continuing the relationship once you get to warmer weather.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: Now are we on the same page? Do people enter relationships with the understanding that all this is is a sledge relationship?
00:08:23
Speaker 1: They said that in most of these cases, the other person has no idea they're being sledged, but someone goes in with an agenda, Hey, I really would like to couple up with someone during the cold months.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Once it gets warm.
00:08:34
Speaker 1: I'm running, I got my tan on, I'm going to be looking for playing all summer long.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: Okay, isn't that just the same as a summer love or a flinging.
00:08:46
Speaker 1: But you've entered into a relationship during a period of time when a lot of people get serious and start building on a foundation of something to then carry it into the spring and summer.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: And you're speaking of nefarious intent, like you go into it meaning to fool somebody into thinking you're going to.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: I've been sledged or I am sledging someone. Yes, it's a very negative term, but people describe relationships that suddenly they found themselves being sledged.
00:09:12
Speaker 3: I'm saying, but the sledge error is that person. Are they suggesting that person knows what they're doing, they're going into it. Okay, that's problem.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: Yes, so it's kind of like a beware of a sledge.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: Gotcha, gotcha?
00:09:23
Speaker 2: Okay, how about this one.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: Another big trend of twenty twenty six is the friend fluence romance. So according to Tinder, they have like a big year ender. I think we might have even talked about it. And in their year ender, they found that forty two percent of singles say their friends are the major influence on their love life.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: So they let their.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: Friends kind of help guide them whether or not to date someone or not, and they say, you're gonna love You're not.
00:09:52
Speaker 2: A part of this trend.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Thirty seven percent of folks on tenders say they are looking to go on double dates and group dates, like they want to their friends into their relationship. So they want to have somebody who fits in well with their friend group, and that's a huge part of their decision as to who they date, and then they also look at their friends love lives as a huge source of hope for their own. So everything they're seeing their friends do is influencing who they pick, who they choose to date, and why they choose to date.
00:10:22
Speaker 3: That that sounds practical. You want somebody to fit into not just your mold, but the things you have going. I think I don't have that big of a problem with it, but it could. It could lead you to closing the door on something good or great, or quite frankly, you give other people in your life too much power. They might be the problem in your relationship and your relationship not the problem in your friendships.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: I think we've heard this on dating. We watch a lot of dating shows.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: If anyone who listens to our podcast knows, we love our dating shows. But they talk about outsourcing your relationship and basically letting your friends basically have way more of a say than they should in terms of who you date and why you date them because of what they think about them or how they fit into the group. And they just given social media and the way people are operating younger folks are operating these days, that's a huge part of dating. The name of it again, its friend sorry, friendfluence influence.
00:11:16
Speaker 3: You're in a friend fluence relationship.
00:11:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Next one, zip coding zip Ooh and it can have there's two different meanings of this, so even if you get one of them, I'll give you kudos.
00:11:28
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, they had two different means zip coding.
00:11:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can mean one of two things, and it's actually really they're very different.
00:11:34
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, it just sounds like you're dating specific to geographic regions for whatever purpose suits you.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: You nailed it.
00:11:41
Speaker 1: Okay, So the first one would be to date only in a small radius for the people who live nearby, because you want to have like just access, so you you limit mostly like if you're on a dating app or whatever, you really limit who you're willing to date.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Oh that makes it.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, something does to me too.
00:11:58
Speaker 1: But here's the one that I was like, whoa have you ever heard of this? Zip coding can also mean having a location dependent relationship.
00:12:07
Speaker 2: I think we do know people like.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: This in our lives, where you're only together when you're in the same zip code, and when you're not in the same zip code, you're a single.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:12:18
Speaker 3: I'm always amazed how that works. We have seen it, seen it work for years.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: Actually, that's exactly what I was thinking of.
00:12:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, it wouldn't work for me, and I marvel at the fact. But when I read this, I immediately thought of some folks we know, and I just thought, wow, I guess it.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: Is a thing.
00:12:38
Speaker 3: And when you said I immediately thought of ludacrous. Do you remember that song area codes? You said, zip codes? We has a song, whole song I got holes in different area codes. That's the first thing I thought about.
00:12:49
Speaker 1: How all right, so this is an age old practice apparently, all right, zip.
00:12:54
Speaker 3: Codes though not area codes. Zip codes on this zip codes.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: All right, here's the last dating trend monkey barring. Can you guess what it is?
00:13:02
Speaker 3: It's don't please to tell me. This is not for parents who hook up when they take their kids to the playground, guest.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: No, So this is basically laying the groundwork for a new relationship before you end your current one. So they describe it as dangling between two monkey bars, gripping one hand on your current partner while reaching out for someone new at the same time.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, you're the only one's going to laugh at this, But that immediately made me think of a line for Mission Impossible to The bad guy said about Thandy Newton, who was between the two guys at the time, said, you know, women like monkeys. They are never let go over one branch before they get a hold of the next.
00:13:46
Speaker 2: Again, apparently this is true.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: This is something that has been cemented in cinematic history.
00:13:53
Speaker 3: That's okay, I have a weird brain. That line immediately comes to mind.
00:13:58
Speaker 2: I knew you didn't have to this. It's funny.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: We sat down full disclosure before we did this, and I said, Babe, we're just gonna have some fun with this.
00:14:04
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about some dating trends. You'll be fine. Of course, your your memory is hilarious.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Your brain goes right in the exact perfect places that it needs to see.
00:14:13
Speaker 3: And if people haven't figured this out yet, I had no idea about any of these dating trends. See every once in a while we do these issues that he got some for you. You're gonna have a good time. So I hadn't heard of any of these, so I'm hearing them for the first time. Say the name monkey, monkey barring. Okay, do you think that is a good or bad thing, a bad practice, or oh not.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: I think it's terrible.
00:14:31
Speaker 1: I think I think you absolutely if you have done this, and plenty of us can admit that we have, you have to ask yourself, why why can't I be alone? Why can't I be in between relationships? Why can't I take time to reflect about done this? I feel like it's been no, not exactly but close enough.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: For people. You needed more time on your own, You needed to take some time.
00:14:51
Speaker 1: I do think, yeah, oh my god, to be keeping one person as an option while you're looking to see if there's a better one available. That's terrible and manipulative, not true to the spirit of what we're actually talking about, which is about finding love. And it's hard and it's messy, and it gets uncomfortable and it gets it and it goes up and down. But if you're constantly looking for that next thrill where you feel satiated all the.
00:15:13
Speaker 2: Time, you're going to have a lifelong of problems.
00:15:15
Speaker 3: It's I think about the person who is yeah, that's that's not I can't find any way to endorse, to be supportive of that, because it's awful. The person that's in a relationship with you and you're just waiting for something better to come along, Meaning you're not trying to work on this one. You're not trying to improve this one, You're not trying to make this a better relationship. You're just buying time. And this person just happens to be here. Why won't you just break up with them?
00:15:40
Speaker 1: Why won't you just you need to look inward at that point, if you are in the middle of this or have done it before, I think there needs to be some soul searching that goes on at least from that point. But when we come back, we're going to talk about the different types of partners. Do you want a golden retriever boyfriend or girlfriend or do you want on a black cat?
00:16:01
Speaker 2: We'll explain when we come back. Welcome back everyone.
00:16:14
Speaker 1: We are talking about the top new hilariously labeled dating trends of twenty twenty six.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: Is that fair? That is all these are? Is this not new stuff? We just got new labels? Is that fair?
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Probably? Yes, it's just explained you know this.
00:16:29
Speaker 1: Look, there are some clever, fun moments that I think social media has given us, and this is among them where we can actually have some fun talking about things we've all experienced things that have been going on since the beginning of time.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: Every I can only.
00:16:45
Speaker 1: Imagine since man and woman were on the earth trying to figure out how to couple up and how to basically have a happy life together.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: These problems are as old as the earth. I imagine that is the unique.
00:16:59
Speaker 3: Oh, that's an interesting thing. We are not Are we seeing anything different?
00:17:03
Speaker 1: Right?
00:17:03
Speaker 3: Because we always thought people are dating differently. But what people want and how they want it and who they is that stuff necessarily evolving. And what people want, what you truly desire from a partner, is that change.
00:17:16
Speaker 1: I think it's evolved because the concept of what marriage and coupling up was like.
00:17:21
Speaker 2: It used to be a business arrangement, right, It was.
00:17:23
Speaker 1: About safety, it was about survival, It was about repopulating the earth or continuing to bring humans into this world and finding a way to create order over rules and yes, but now I think we have more options. The gender roles are all over the place, and who we love and what's okay in terms of relationship has changed.
00:17:48
Speaker 2: So maybe priorities and intentions, I don't know. I think things have.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: Dusted up a little bit. At the end of the day, Yeah, we all want to find our person. We all want to find our soulmate, don't we.
00:17:59
Speaker 3: I think so For whatever reason, I feel like it's the trend is that it's not okay to admit that. The trend is I need to be an individual. The trend is I need to make sure that the appearance that I am the strong one and this if I'm with somebody, that means it. I chose that because that enhances me in some way, not because I'm trying to be a part of another thing or a partnership. I think that thing that we have evolved in the way we view sometimes these things. But deep down, I mean, I don't know with anybody's heart, but I do. But robes in day and day out. As much as we cover news and relationships and almost any story you see, no matter what it's about, boils down to human relationship a lot of times, doesn't it? Though? And Rose I do. I think our desires are the same. We just don't know how to go about it in a scary ass world.
00:18:54
Speaker 2: That's so true. And I think with.
00:18:58
Speaker 1: I do think that the empower of women is amazing. I am I've raised to women, You've raised your daughters.
00:19:05
Speaker 3: You about to make a great point. Go ahead, I know what you're businessing, but I think it's your point.
00:19:08
Speaker 1: We've lost our way because we need to win and we can't ever be like to submit is to be weak, and that is a problem because we get that in our heads.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: I certainly had it in mind. I have to win. I have to be in charge. I have to rule the nest. I have to be the one. And that flies in the face of a lot of tradition and a lot of things that have been set up.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: And so now you've got this big powder keg of competing interest. Who's in charge, who's the house head of the household, who gets to make the decisions?
00:19:38
Speaker 2: Who has to say? Who has to go along with it?
00:19:42
Speaker 1: Yes, I think it's a big old mess right now, and we haven't figured it out. And so yes, we've got these labels and we're trying to figure out who we mesh best with.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: I think it's so individual.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: I think it's so individual based on the partnership, and so, yes, who we choose, man, does that have an impact on our happiness?
00:20:01
Speaker 2: We laugh because we know, yes we do.
00:20:04
Speaker 3: And it took us a long time in life to figure that out. And we didn't realize it at the time, or I didn't speak for myself decisions that we are making early on how there might be bad decisions because we get in our head what's supposed to be important, what's supposed to be right, how you're supposed to love, when you're supposed to get married, when you're supposed to have kids, and then after that, whoops, nope, you're not supposed to make a mistake, you're not supposed to get divorced, and all these things get there, and it gets in the way of what we all really want is just to be happy with somebody else. I want a partner, I do. I don't want to go through life alone. Obviously not, but but ros I've been told, we are all being told, if this isn't working out, it's okay.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: And find someone else who you can potentially work with, and it is.
00:20:56
Speaker 3: Okay to do that. I agree with that one hundred percent. That I do find that in the partnerships and the conversations we have with younger folks, including kids, our kids, what how they go about finding partners there, how they talk about marriage, how they talk about submitting to a certain degree, I say, submitting but robes. I find so many folks I have conversation stations with under the age of twenty five find it offensive that the suggestion they would change or compromise any bit of who they are for the sake of a relationship.
00:21:33
Speaker 1: And yet that is absolutely what is required for a relationship to be successful. And I think that is something that you said it required. That is not necessarily okay to say out loud, but it is the key. Both people have to sacrifice, both people have to compromise, and if you aren't willing.
00:21:54
Speaker 2: To do that, yeah, you probably should not be in a long term relationship.
00:21:57
Speaker 1: And that's okay if you don't want to, but you need to understand what that may lead to. So they have these labels put on the type of partner people are looking for, right, and one of them is the Golden Retriever. Boyfriend, I think it's pretty self evident what that is, what.
00:22:14
Speaker 3: You said me, Golden Retrieve, the other those black cat Yes, okay, so Golden Retriever, I don't know, you know, I don't know dogs, well, you know, I don't know dog breeds, so I don't know what the Golden Retriever is known for.
00:22:23
Speaker 1: Okay, they are loving, yes, positive, energetic, loyal. And here's the big one, uncomplicated, which I think translates to goes with the flow. Whatever you want, dear, Yes, dear, the Golden Retriever boyfriend is a yes, dear boyfriend.
00:22:40
Speaker 3: That's what it's saying. Yes, that's not a positive, then is it?
00:22:43
Speaker 2: Well? It does workforce.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: Look, if you have somebody who wants to just please, and you have somebody who just wants to be pleased, maybe that works out really.
00:22:51
Speaker 3: Well and it works and that's okay. That's the thing. We're so quick to judge somebody else's relationship that we don't understand if it works for them.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: Like you said, you might actually get I had a lot of joy in pleasing someone else. That brings you happiness, And someone else may say having someone who.
00:23:05
Speaker 2: Pleases me brings me joy. And if those two people come together and work out well, Mazeltov.
00:23:11
Speaker 3: I always learned something when we do these episodes. I had no idea how was your Golden Retriever? I learned something every time we do the see.
00:23:18
Speaker 1: The funny thing is I would describe you as the next as a black the black cat, the black Cattcist No, I didn't know where we were going here. You know, I've told you you have cat and I think we all but you do have cat like tendencies.
00:23:30
Speaker 3: Cat like tendency. That's what I want to be left alone.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: And you have to kind of earn your trust.
00:23:36
Speaker 3: No, that's not okay, go ahead, tell me what black cat thing first?
00:23:41
Speaker 1: All right, here's the black cat boyfriend. Yes, in fact, they actually distinguished this one.
00:23:45
Speaker 2: For whatever reason into boyfriend and girlfriend.
00:23:47
Speaker 3: Wait, can't ask a question. The golden retriever thing could apply to men and women.
00:23:50
Speaker 1: I guess it could, but mostly it's maybe Cosmo who put this list together with.
00:23:54
Speaker 2: Thinking more of the women.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: But they did say a black cat boyfriend, and then they did describe a black cat girlfriend.
00:24:00
Speaker 3: You're not a black hat girlfriend, though, but you think I'm a black hat boyfriend.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: I might be a black cat girlfriend. I want to hear what you think I am.
00:24:05
Speaker 1: Right, All right, here's how they describe a black cat boyfriend, mysterious, slightly moody counterpart to the golden retriever boyfriend. They are independent, intellectual, could seem cold and stand offish, but actually affectionate on his own terms and selective with his romantic attention.
00:24:23
Speaker 3: Very very true.
00:24:25
Speaker 2: That is you two eighteen?
00:24:26
Speaker 3: Oh, that's true. I think about your uh aunt Ann right, didn't wasn't she the one that saw me? We're at a funeral and she saw this first time I was meeting a lot of your family. And wasn't she the one that said, I didn't know he seems so stand off as or cold or whatever else. Wasn't she the one?
00:24:41
Speaker 1: She my aunt Leslie, and she's sorry because you were look a no one had met you yet. But yes, you're very put together. You're you're a gorgeous man. Let's just be honest. And so there might be an intimidation factor just by how put together you are and how and just they're like, oh, look there's TJ and then you have Yeah, that might be intimidating to a lot of folks.
00:25:02
Speaker 2: And so but when she came up to you, you know what you said.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: To her, I'm a hugger, yeah, and you hugger And she was surprised.
00:25:09
Speaker 3: And everything broke down after that to where what you're describing here is they may seem a certain way, but I'm actually as warm as if anytime somebody says, oh, you're from Arkansas. I thought you were from Manhattan. You like, what do you know something you don't know about me? But yes, you've said this and explain this to me plenty of times that from a distance or across the room. DJ. Yeah, you're you're intimidating, and I think I'm just the warmest arcans. I'm from Arkansas. It's like this.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: Beautiful black cats, stylish and sleek, and yet I don't know is he gonna bite me?
00:25:42
Speaker 2: Is he gonna purr? I'm not sure?
00:25:44
Speaker 1: But see that's to me, that's very attractive, that's very inviting.
00:25:47
Speaker 2: I want to find out more. I want to learn. I learned things about you every day.
00:25:51
Speaker 3: Wow, what'd you learn today? Sorry? Just push it on the spot and know how that was gonna work.
00:25:59
Speaker 1: Okay, the black Cat woman is the same as above, but they added this that the women who are black Cat girlfriends value their alone time, tend to be introverted and have a slightly aloof yet intimidating quality about them that does draw people in.
00:26:16
Speaker 3: I don't think that's draw people in.
00:26:17
Speaker 1: It does draw people in because you're like a black a woman, you know, just they said, slightly aloof, slightly intimidating and that draws people in and they do value their alone time and they are slightly introverted.
00:26:30
Speaker 2: I don't think that describes me at all.
00:26:33
Speaker 3: Introverted No, a loof, No, the.
00:26:36
Speaker 2: Other introverted aloof and value alone time.
00:26:42
Speaker 3: No, you can't stand being alone.
00:26:44
Speaker 2: I'm working on it.
00:26:45
Speaker 1: You're right, I don't, and I know that that is an issue and it is something that I have been working on.
00:26:50
Speaker 3: It scares me. Scared me like, oh my god, I better not have a business trip.
00:26:55
Speaker 2: No, I would never not want you to. And that's me.
00:26:58
Speaker 3: That's on me. Okay, I was, But yeah, you do struggle with that anytime. If I might have like forty five minutes I need to go do something, you'll go book a SPA treatment, just so you can make sure you are not sitting in a place by yourself in home for whatever reason. That feels yeah, crazy to you.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: You know what, I think.
00:27:21
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time alone in my room growing up, and I just felt like, man, when I get older, I am never going to do this. And so for me, it's interesting. Everyone's got their different reasons why. But I yes, I like to be out. I like to be about I like to be around people, and I do try to do that. But I don't know what I am.
00:27:37
Speaker 2: I'm not a golden retriever either.
00:27:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's how would you describe me as a I'm a fiance now, but as a girlfriend?
00:27:44
Speaker 2: Is there a label?
00:27:45
Speaker 3: As far as an animal goes whatever? You're like a like the zoo monkey, like the little ones that you can't quite get in. You can't quite see. He's hiding behind some of the trees and the branches, and you keep going trying to get a look, trying to get a cat, trying to look at the monkey, and the mokey seems so happy, and then you make eye contact with the monkey. Oh my god, the monkey loves me. And then there it goes off doing its own thing again. You're a I don't know what type of monkey that is.
00:28:15
Speaker 2: I'm a playful monkey.
00:28:16
Speaker 3: You're a playful monkey, is what I would discribe. Yeah, so this is a playful monkey relationship.
00:28:22
Speaker 2: A playful monkey with a black cat. Yes, do they get along?
00:28:28
Speaker 1: Do?
00:28:28
Speaker 2: I amuse you?
00:28:29
Speaker 3: Cats don't give a damn what the monkey's doing.
00:28:31
Speaker 2: And that's the sad state of our relationship. Now I'm kidding. This is fun though.
00:28:36
Speaker 1: This is fun talking about it, and really we're just talking about how we all figure things out. We can put whatever label we want on it, but I do think that at the end of the day, we're all looking to find our person, and for each person it's different. Everybody wants different things, everybody needs different things. But I do think that these all teach us the most important thing is to have the best relationship with ourselves.
00:29:01
Speaker 2: I need to do and I'm working on it.
00:29:04
Speaker 1: To be alone, to enjoy my own company, and to not need someone else, but to enjoy someone else and to give to someone else. And it's not about what you're getting from some of what you're giving to them.
00:29:15
Speaker 2: That's the goal. That's the goal, to be thinking of others.
00:29:20
Speaker 3: You say to your golden retriever, Okay, you.
00:29:23
Speaker 2: Are so not a golden retriever.
00:29:25
Speaker 1: And with that everyone, thank you for listening to us on this Sunday. I may be roboch alongside my black cat of a fiancee TJ.
00:29:33
Speaker 2: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody. It is Sunday, March twenty ninth. It is spring, and for all of you single folks out there who are looking for love, we've got the top new dating trends of twenty twenty six. And I don't know why it's fun for us coupled up folks to even maybe just look at all the folks looking for love and seeing what's hot, what's not what.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: People are looking for these days.
00:00:34
Speaker 1: I get a big kick out of looking at these dating trends and the words that folks come up with to describe them. Maybe it's just me, but without everyone, welcome to this episode of Amy and DJ.
00:00:46
Speaker 2: I don't know, Baby, do you get into it too?
00:00:48
Speaker 1: Do you get as tickled by some of these trends and how they name them as I do?
00:00:53
Speaker 3: I get concerned that the person I'm engaged to marry is so interested in dating trends. That's where I am on this whole. Then I don't find it. Maybe I would find it cute or funny if it wasn't my fiance who keeps bringing these things to me. But sure, let's go have a good time talking about what it'd be like to date these days. Hmmm, sounds fun.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: I think I look at it through this lens. He went through a lot to be together. We went through lots of other relationships and made a ton of mistakes along the way. And I think it's interesting from a sociological standpoint to take a look and see how people try to find their one and what works, what doesn't, and how things change and evolve.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: You know, in our kids.
00:01:37
Speaker 1: My daughters are obviously in the middle of that era in their.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: Lives, and your young one is about to enter it.
00:01:43
Speaker 3: Okay, that's just that's okay, now you you're going too far. Now she's thirteen.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: That's when it starts. I know you started to hear way that.
00:01:52
Speaker 1: Boy, it's not as a father.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: You need to know this.
00:01:57
Speaker 3: I need to know what the dating trends are.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: You might.
00:02:02
Speaker 2: No, this is fun.
00:02:04
Speaker 1: This is fun because Cosmo actually explained why why there were so many new terms, and I thought this was cool.
00:02:09
Speaker 2: They said it creates a shared.
00:02:11
Speaker 1: Language that we can all use to talk about the confusing and sometimes even frustrating.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: Parts of looking for love.
00:02:21
Speaker 1: I think that is isn't that part of the goal for most people? Maybe they don't even realize it, but that is what we tend to do. We spend our lives looking for love, looking for that relationship.
00:02:33
Speaker 3: Why though we're looking for is that really the purpose? When people go out there and they start dating, they get on these dating apps, are you really looking for love? I don't know what people are looking for necessarily these days. That was just an article it wasn't in the Times today about how people have turned on marriage, the idea of marriage these days. I don't know dating these days, I don't know what people are looking at yet.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: Well, there might not be a shared goal, and that's part of some of these new trends. But I do think everyone wants to feel loved, to feel seen, to belong, to have a partner, to have someone to go through life with.
00:03:06
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, as many people don't necessarily admit that. That's just human nature. It is just in us. You don't want to be alone. Nobody does. Even if you tell yourself that mentally, man, nobody wants that. So yeah, it's a struggle for a lot of people. And it's I mean, it could be a challenge, it could be frustrating, but it is rewarding, it is fulfilling. So and you talk about all these the names they give. Isn't that just social media? These bigs it is?
00:03:34
Speaker 2: It's TikTok and social media.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: But I do think there is something cool about having a shared experience with someone where you can actually relate to it with the term yeah, I want that or that happened to me. And I just think that it creates a sense of belonging. When you have a shared experience, you put.
00:03:48
Speaker 2: A name on it.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny and somehow it just it makes it all make a little more sense maybe, And this whole notion of not feeling alone, that other people are experiencing or want the same things.
00:04:00
Speaker 2: We're all looking for that we all want to belong.
00:04:02
Speaker 3: We want labels, We want an easy way to categorize ourselves this or on that which is not. I don't find that to be the best way to go about it, but I see and social media aide. With so many videos and so limited and how much you can say and how much time you can say it, and how many characters you can use, it's easy to have just one word to say that this is blank and what I don't even know what was it? Leg you'd have me do one real light.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: That was one of the newest.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: That was when you you go someone for a bit and then you come back and you try to make them think that you never left.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Like nothing ever happened, which is hilarious.
00:04:38
Speaker 1: Okay, so see everyone ghost people might have a story like that and they feel seen when there's a label that it happened to other people too. So yeah, I've been ghostly or I've done the ghost lighting, but most people wouldn't admit that. I do think let's have some fun here, but there are some actual interesting discussions about where we are is a societ when it comes to finding that person. So I think that there are some really interesting details in the fun of giving these labels.
00:05:06
Speaker 3: The first one, how many you got?
00:05:08
Speaker 1: I picked out the ones that I hadn't heard of before, so I've got lessie, I've got one, two, three, four, five dating trends, and then I've got labels for the type of partner you're looking for.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: So I run this is thorough.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: I didn't even though they were five dating trends out there.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: I chose the ones we haven't already talked about. We don't already know ghost lighting was among them, but I thought we've already been there, done that.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: So how about this one? Schalance?
00:05:36
Speaker 3: Chalance?
00:05:37
Speaker 2: Guess what chalance is? This is a new dating trend chalance. Schalance.
00:05:42
Speaker 3: Is it shalancing? Or I got chalance? Or we are in a schalance like romance.
00:05:48
Speaker 1: It's the type of relationship you're looking for, a chalance relationship.
00:05:53
Speaker 3: Put them together a lance. So I'll go romance at the end, and then I'll say shell so as ay'll love. A relationship is a schalance.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: You're hilarious. The opposite of nonchalance, the opposite.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: So you want a partner who isn't afraid to go all in, who isn't nonchalant.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: It's basically the opposite of a situationship, right, use.
00:06:16
Speaker 3: That in the sentence for me? Used the chalance in a sentence Seriously, I am struggling.
00:06:22
Speaker 2: I want a chalance relationship.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: They want a partner who puts in the effort, who goes into the relationship saying I am all in. I want this to work. I am looking for a serious partner versus someone who's like, eh, we'll see what happens. I don't know, I'm nonchalant about it. We'll like, we'll see where we end up. Okay, you want someone to go in with an agenda and someone who's looking for an outcome of permanence.
00:06:49
Speaker 3: Okay, married at first sight. Those are all people who would classify as shalance.
00:06:54
Speaker 2: You just nailed it all.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: You know what, you just nailed The reason why I merited first Sight has been so successful, and we've seen so many people show up for the auditions because they are saying, I am ready, I am ready for a chalance relationship.
00:07:09
Speaker 3: And everybody who is there clearly wants to get married and wants to take it seriously.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: There you go.
00:07:19
Speaker 3: That's coming together next one.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: It took me a second. This is gonna be fun.
00:07:25
Speaker 1: Sledging is a dating trend. It's a dating trend, sledging, sledge sledge.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: I immediately go to hammer.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: I did too, but I was wrong.
00:07:35
Speaker 3: Okay, schlepping, that's not the same.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: I don't think you're gonna get it because I was kind of blown away. So think about the sled sledging a sled. Okay, so let me I'll explain this. So the the definition is getting into a cuffing season relationship with the intention of breaking things off by spring.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: I mean this is really dark.
00:07:59
Speaker 1: So basically you're sledging the other person because the other person didn't know that the relationship had an expiration date. And how they explain it is sledged a sled. Okay, the sled is the act of dragging someone through the snow in the wintertime with no intention of actually continuing the relationship once you get to warmer weather.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: Now are we on the same page? Do people enter relationships with the understanding that all this is is a sledge relationship?
00:08:23
Speaker 1: They said that in most of these cases, the other person has no idea they're being sledged, but someone goes in with an agenda, Hey, I really would like to couple up with someone during the cold months.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Once it gets warm.
00:08:34
Speaker 1: I'm running, I got my tan on, I'm going to be looking for playing all summer long.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: Okay, isn't that just the same as a summer love or a flinging.
00:08:46
Speaker 1: But you've entered into a relationship during a period of time when a lot of people get serious and start building on a foundation of something to then carry it into the spring and summer.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: And you're speaking of nefarious intent, like you go into it meaning to fool somebody into thinking you're going to.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: I've been sledged or I am sledging someone. Yes, it's a very negative term, but people describe relationships that suddenly they found themselves being sledged.
00:09:12
Speaker 3: I'm saying, but the sledge error is that person. Are they suggesting that person knows what they're doing, they're going into it. Okay, that's problem.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: Yes, so it's kind of like a beware of a sledge.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: Gotcha, gotcha?
00:09:23
Speaker 2: Okay, how about this one.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: Another big trend of twenty twenty six is the friend fluence romance. So according to Tinder, they have like a big year ender. I think we might have even talked about it. And in their year ender, they found that forty two percent of singles say their friends are the major influence on their love life.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: So they let their.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: Friends kind of help guide them whether or not to date someone or not, and they say, you're gonna love You're not.
00:09:52
Speaker 2: A part of this trend.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Thirty seven percent of folks on tenders say they are looking to go on double dates and group dates, like they want to their friends into their relationship. So they want to have somebody who fits in well with their friend group, and that's a huge part of their decision as to who they date, and then they also look at their friends love lives as a huge source of hope for their own. So everything they're seeing their friends do is influencing who they pick, who they choose to date, and why they choose to date.
00:10:22
Speaker 3: That that sounds practical. You want somebody to fit into not just your mold, but the things you have going. I think I don't have that big of a problem with it, but it could. It could lead you to closing the door on something good or great, or quite frankly, you give other people in your life too much power. They might be the problem in your relationship and your relationship not the problem in your friendships.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: I think we've heard this on dating. We watch a lot of dating shows.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: If anyone who listens to our podcast knows, we love our dating shows. But they talk about outsourcing your relationship and basically letting your friends basically have way more of a say than they should in terms of who you date and why you date them because of what they think about them or how they fit into the group. And they just given social media and the way people are operating younger folks are operating these days, that's a huge part of dating. The name of it again, its friend sorry, friendfluence influence.
00:11:16
Speaker 3: You're in a friend fluence relationship.
00:11:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Next one, zip coding zip Ooh and it can have there's two different meanings of this, so even if you get one of them, I'll give you kudos.
00:11:28
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, they had two different means zip coding.
00:11:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can mean one of two things, and it's actually really they're very different.
00:11:34
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, it just sounds like you're dating specific to geographic regions for whatever purpose suits you.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: You nailed it.
00:11:41
Speaker 1: Okay, So the first one would be to date only in a small radius for the people who live nearby, because you want to have like just access, so you you limit mostly like if you're on a dating app or whatever, you really limit who you're willing to date.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Oh that makes it.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, something does to me too.
00:11:58
Speaker 1: But here's the one that I was like, whoa have you ever heard of this? Zip coding can also mean having a location dependent relationship.
00:12:07
Speaker 2: I think we do know people like.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: This in our lives, where you're only together when you're in the same zip code, and when you're not in the same zip code, you're a single.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:12:18
Speaker 3: I'm always amazed how that works. We have seen it, seen it work for years.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: Actually, that's exactly what I was thinking of.
00:12:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, it wouldn't work for me, and I marvel at the fact. But when I read this, I immediately thought of some folks we know, and I just thought, wow, I guess it.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: Is a thing.
00:12:38
Speaker 3: And when you said I immediately thought of ludacrous. Do you remember that song area codes? You said, zip codes? We has a song, whole song I got holes in different area codes. That's the first thing I thought about.
00:12:49
Speaker 1: How all right, so this is an age old practice apparently, all right, zip.
00:12:54
Speaker 3: Codes though not area codes. Zip codes on this zip codes.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: All right, here's the last dating trend monkey barring. Can you guess what it is?
00:13:02
Speaker 3: It's don't please to tell me. This is not for parents who hook up when they take their kids to the playground, guest.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: No, So this is basically laying the groundwork for a new relationship before you end your current one. So they describe it as dangling between two monkey bars, gripping one hand on your current partner while reaching out for someone new at the same time.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, you're the only one's going to laugh at this, But that immediately made me think of a line for Mission Impossible to The bad guy said about Thandy Newton, who was between the two guys at the time, said, you know, women like monkeys. They are never let go over one branch before they get a hold of the next.
00:13:46
Speaker 2: Again, apparently this is true.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: This is something that has been cemented in cinematic history.
00:13:53
Speaker 3: That's okay, I have a weird brain. That line immediately comes to mind.
00:13:58
Speaker 2: I knew you didn't have to this. It's funny.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: We sat down full disclosure before we did this, and I said, Babe, we're just gonna have some fun with this.
00:14:04
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about some dating trends. You'll be fine. Of course, your your memory is hilarious.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Your brain goes right in the exact perfect places that it needs to see.
00:14:13
Speaker 3: And if people haven't figured this out yet, I had no idea about any of these dating trends. See every once in a while we do these issues that he got some for you. You're gonna have a good time. So I hadn't heard of any of these, so I'm hearing them for the first time. Say the name monkey, monkey barring. Okay, do you think that is a good or bad thing, a bad practice, or oh not.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: I think it's terrible.
00:14:31
Speaker 1: I think I think you absolutely if you have done this, and plenty of us can admit that we have, you have to ask yourself, why why can't I be alone? Why can't I be in between relationships? Why can't I take time to reflect about done this? I feel like it's been no, not exactly but close enough.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: For people. You needed more time on your own, You needed to take some time.
00:14:51
Speaker 1: I do think, yeah, oh my god, to be keeping one person as an option while you're looking to see if there's a better one available. That's terrible and manipulative, not true to the spirit of what we're actually talking about, which is about finding love. And it's hard and it's messy, and it gets uncomfortable and it gets it and it goes up and down. But if you're constantly looking for that next thrill where you feel satiated all the.
00:15:13
Speaker 2: Time, you're going to have a lifelong of problems.
00:15:15
Speaker 3: It's I think about the person who is yeah, that's that's not I can't find any way to endorse, to be supportive of that, because it's awful. The person that's in a relationship with you and you're just waiting for something better to come along, Meaning you're not trying to work on this one. You're not trying to improve this one, You're not trying to make this a better relationship. You're just buying time. And this person just happens to be here. Why won't you just break up with them?
00:15:40
Speaker 1: Why won't you just you need to look inward at that point, if you are in the middle of this or have done it before, I think there needs to be some soul searching that goes on at least from that point. But when we come back, we're going to talk about the different types of partners. Do you want a golden retriever boyfriend or girlfriend or do you want on a black cat?
00:16:01
Speaker 2: We'll explain when we come back. Welcome back everyone.
00:16:14
Speaker 1: We are talking about the top new hilariously labeled dating trends of twenty twenty six.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: Is that fair? That is all these are? Is this not new stuff? We just got new labels? Is that fair?
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Probably? Yes, it's just explained you know this.
00:16:29
Speaker 1: Look, there are some clever, fun moments that I think social media has given us, and this is among them where we can actually have some fun talking about things we've all experienced things that have been going on since the beginning of time.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: Every I can only.
00:16:45
Speaker 1: Imagine since man and woman were on the earth trying to figure out how to couple up and how to basically have a happy life together.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: These problems are as old as the earth. I imagine that is the unique.
00:16:59
Speaker 3: Oh, that's an interesting thing. We are not Are we seeing anything different?
00:17:03
Speaker 1: Right?
00:17:03
Speaker 3: Because we always thought people are dating differently. But what people want and how they want it and who they is that stuff necessarily evolving. And what people want, what you truly desire from a partner, is that change.
00:17:16
Speaker 1: I think it's evolved because the concept of what marriage and coupling up was like.
00:17:21
Speaker 2: It used to be a business arrangement, right, It was.
00:17:23
Speaker 1: About safety, it was about survival, It was about repopulating the earth or continuing to bring humans into this world and finding a way to create order over rules and yes, but now I think we have more options. The gender roles are all over the place, and who we love and what's okay in terms of relationship has changed.
00:17:48
Speaker 2: So maybe priorities and intentions, I don't know. I think things have.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: Dusted up a little bit. At the end of the day, Yeah, we all want to find our person. We all want to find our soulmate, don't we.
00:17:59
Speaker 3: I think so For whatever reason, I feel like it's the trend is that it's not okay to admit that. The trend is I need to be an individual. The trend is I need to make sure that the appearance that I am the strong one and this if I'm with somebody, that means it. I chose that because that enhances me in some way, not because I'm trying to be a part of another thing or a partnership. I think that thing that we have evolved in the way we view sometimes these things. But deep down, I mean, I don't know with anybody's heart, but I do. But robes in day and day out. As much as we cover news and relationships and almost any story you see, no matter what it's about, boils down to human relationship a lot of times, doesn't it? Though? And Rose I do. I think our desires are the same. We just don't know how to go about it in a scary ass world.
00:18:54
Speaker 2: That's so true. And I think with.
00:18:58
Speaker 1: I do think that the empower of women is amazing. I am I've raised to women, You've raised your daughters.
00:19:05
Speaker 3: You about to make a great point. Go ahead, I know what you're businessing, but I think it's your point.
00:19:08
Speaker 1: We've lost our way because we need to win and we can't ever be like to submit is to be weak, and that is a problem because we get that in our heads.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: I certainly had it in mind. I have to win. I have to be in charge. I have to rule the nest. I have to be the one. And that flies in the face of a lot of tradition and a lot of things that have been set up.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: And so now you've got this big powder keg of competing interest. Who's in charge, who's the house head of the household, who gets to make the decisions?
00:19:38
Speaker 2: Who has to say? Who has to go along with it?
00:19:42
Speaker 1: Yes, I think it's a big old mess right now, and we haven't figured it out. And so yes, we've got these labels and we're trying to figure out who we mesh best with.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: I think it's so individual.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: I think it's so individual based on the partnership, and so, yes, who we choose, man, does that have an impact on our happiness?
00:20:01
Speaker 2: We laugh because we know, yes we do.
00:20:04
Speaker 3: And it took us a long time in life to figure that out. And we didn't realize it at the time, or I didn't speak for myself decisions that we are making early on how there might be bad decisions because we get in our head what's supposed to be important, what's supposed to be right, how you're supposed to love, when you're supposed to get married, when you're supposed to have kids, and then after that, whoops, nope, you're not supposed to make a mistake, you're not supposed to get divorced, and all these things get there, and it gets in the way of what we all really want is just to be happy with somebody else. I want a partner, I do. I don't want to go through life alone. Obviously not, but but ros I've been told, we are all being told, if this isn't working out, it's okay.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: And find someone else who you can potentially work with, and it is.
00:20:56
Speaker 3: Okay to do that. I agree with that one hundred percent. That I do find that in the partnerships and the conversations we have with younger folks, including kids, our kids, what how they go about finding partners there, how they talk about marriage, how they talk about submitting to a certain degree, I say, submitting but robes. I find so many folks I have conversation stations with under the age of twenty five find it offensive that the suggestion they would change or compromise any bit of who they are for the sake of a relationship.
00:21:33
Speaker 1: And yet that is absolutely what is required for a relationship to be successful. And I think that is something that you said it required. That is not necessarily okay to say out loud, but it is the key. Both people have to sacrifice, both people have to compromise, and if you aren't willing.
00:21:54
Speaker 2: To do that, yeah, you probably should not be in a long term relationship.
00:21:57
Speaker 1: And that's okay if you don't want to, but you need to understand what that may lead to. So they have these labels put on the type of partner people are looking for, right, and one of them is the Golden Retriever. Boyfriend, I think it's pretty self evident what that is, what.
00:22:14
Speaker 3: You said me, Golden Retrieve, the other those black cat Yes, okay, so Golden Retriever, I don't know, you know, I don't know dogs, well, you know, I don't know dog breeds, so I don't know what the Golden Retriever is known for.
00:22:23
Speaker 1: Okay, they are loving, yes, positive, energetic, loyal. And here's the big one, uncomplicated, which I think translates to goes with the flow. Whatever you want, dear, Yes, dear, the Golden Retriever boyfriend is a yes, dear boyfriend.
00:22:40
Speaker 3: That's what it's saying. Yes, that's not a positive, then is it?
00:22:43
Speaker 2: Well? It does workforce.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: Look, if you have somebody who wants to just please, and you have somebody who just wants to be pleased, maybe that works out really.
00:22:51
Speaker 3: Well and it works and that's okay. That's the thing. We're so quick to judge somebody else's relationship that we don't understand if it works for them.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: Like you said, you might actually get I had a lot of joy in pleasing someone else. That brings you happiness, And someone else may say having someone who.
00:23:05
Speaker 2: Pleases me brings me joy. And if those two people come together and work out well, Mazeltov.
00:23:11
Speaker 3: I always learned something when we do these episodes. I had no idea how was your Golden Retriever? I learned something every time we do the see.
00:23:18
Speaker 1: The funny thing is I would describe you as the next as a black the black cat, the black Cattcist No, I didn't know where we were going here. You know, I've told you you have cat and I think we all but you do have cat like tendencies.
00:23:30
Speaker 3: Cat like tendency. That's what I want to be left alone.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: And you have to kind of earn your trust.
00:23:36
Speaker 3: No, that's not okay, go ahead, tell me what black cat thing first?
00:23:41
Speaker 1: All right, here's the black cat boyfriend. Yes, in fact, they actually distinguished this one.
00:23:45
Speaker 2: For whatever reason into boyfriend and girlfriend.
00:23:47
Speaker 3: Wait, can't ask a question. The golden retriever thing could apply to men and women.
00:23:50
Speaker 1: I guess it could, but mostly it's maybe Cosmo who put this list together with.
00:23:54
Speaker 2: Thinking more of the women.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: But they did say a black cat boyfriend, and then they did describe a black cat girlfriend.
00:24:00
Speaker 3: You're not a black hat girlfriend, though, but you think I'm a black hat boyfriend.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: I might be a black cat girlfriend. I want to hear what you think I am.
00:24:05
Speaker 1: Right, All right, here's how they describe a black cat boyfriend, mysterious, slightly moody counterpart to the golden retriever boyfriend. They are independent, intellectual, could seem cold and stand offish, but actually affectionate on his own terms and selective with his romantic attention.
00:24:23
Speaker 3: Very very true.
00:24:25
Speaker 2: That is you two eighteen?
00:24:26
Speaker 3: Oh, that's true. I think about your uh aunt Ann right, didn't wasn't she the one that saw me? We're at a funeral and she saw this first time I was meeting a lot of your family. And wasn't she the one that said, I didn't know he seems so stand off as or cold or whatever else. Wasn't she the one?
00:24:41
Speaker 1: She my aunt Leslie, and she's sorry because you were look a no one had met you yet. But yes, you're very put together. You're you're a gorgeous man. Let's just be honest. And so there might be an intimidation factor just by how put together you are and how and just they're like, oh, look there's TJ and then you have Yeah, that might be intimidating to a lot of folks.
00:25:02
Speaker 2: And so but when she came up to you, you know what you said.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: To her, I'm a hugger, yeah, and you hugger And she was surprised.
00:25:09
Speaker 3: And everything broke down after that to where what you're describing here is they may seem a certain way, but I'm actually as warm as if anytime somebody says, oh, you're from Arkansas. I thought you were from Manhattan. You like, what do you know something you don't know about me? But yes, you've said this and explain this to me plenty of times that from a distance or across the room. DJ. Yeah, you're you're intimidating, and I think I'm just the warmest arcans. I'm from Arkansas. It's like this.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: Beautiful black cats, stylish and sleek, and yet I don't know is he gonna bite me?
00:25:42
Speaker 2: Is he gonna purr? I'm not sure?
00:25:44
Speaker 1: But see that's to me, that's very attractive, that's very inviting.
00:25:47
Speaker 2: I want to find out more. I want to learn. I learned things about you every day.
00:25:51
Speaker 3: Wow, what'd you learn today? Sorry? Just push it on the spot and know how that was gonna work.
00:25:59
Speaker 1: Okay, the black Cat woman is the same as above, but they added this that the women who are black Cat girlfriends value their alone time, tend to be introverted and have a slightly aloof yet intimidating quality about them that does draw people in.
00:26:16
Speaker 3: I don't think that's draw people in.
00:26:17
Speaker 1: It does draw people in because you're like a black a woman, you know, just they said, slightly aloof, slightly intimidating and that draws people in and they do value their alone time and they are slightly introverted.
00:26:30
Speaker 2: I don't think that describes me at all.
00:26:33
Speaker 3: Introverted No, a loof, No, the.
00:26:36
Speaker 2: Other introverted aloof and value alone time.
00:26:42
Speaker 3: No, you can't stand being alone.
00:26:44
Speaker 2: I'm working on it.
00:26:45
Speaker 1: You're right, I don't, and I know that that is an issue and it is something that I have been working on.
00:26:50
Speaker 3: It scares me. Scared me like, oh my god, I better not have a business trip.
00:26:55
Speaker 2: No, I would never not want you to. And that's me.
00:26:58
Speaker 3: That's on me. Okay, I was, But yeah, you do struggle with that anytime. If I might have like forty five minutes I need to go do something, you'll go book a SPA treatment, just so you can make sure you are not sitting in a place by yourself in home for whatever reason. That feels yeah, crazy to you.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: You know what, I think.
00:27:21
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time alone in my room growing up, and I just felt like, man, when I get older, I am never going to do this. And so for me, it's interesting. Everyone's got their different reasons why. But I yes, I like to be out. I like to be about I like to be around people, and I do try to do that. But I don't know what I am.
00:27:37
Speaker 2: I'm not a golden retriever either.
00:27:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's how would you describe me as a I'm a fiance now, but as a girlfriend?
00:27:44
Speaker 2: Is there a label?
00:27:45
Speaker 3: As far as an animal goes whatever? You're like a like the zoo monkey, like the little ones that you can't quite get in. You can't quite see. He's hiding behind some of the trees and the branches, and you keep going trying to get a look, trying to get a cat, trying to look at the monkey, and the mokey seems so happy, and then you make eye contact with the monkey. Oh my god, the monkey loves me. And then there it goes off doing its own thing again. You're a I don't know what type of monkey that is.
00:28:15
Speaker 2: I'm a playful monkey.
00:28:16
Speaker 3: You're a playful monkey, is what I would discribe. Yeah, so this is a playful monkey relationship.
00:28:22
Speaker 2: A playful monkey with a black cat. Yes, do they get along?
00:28:28
Speaker 1: Do?
00:28:28
Speaker 2: I amuse you?
00:28:29
Speaker 3: Cats don't give a damn what the monkey's doing.
00:28:31
Speaker 2: And that's the sad state of our relationship. Now I'm kidding. This is fun though.
00:28:36
Speaker 1: This is fun talking about it, and really we're just talking about how we all figure things out. We can put whatever label we want on it, but I do think that at the end of the day, we're all looking to find our person, and for each person it's different. Everybody wants different things, everybody needs different things. But I do think that these all teach us the most important thing is to have the best relationship with ourselves.
00:29:01
Speaker 2: I need to do and I'm working on it.
00:29:04
Speaker 1: To be alone, to enjoy my own company, and to not need someone else, but to enjoy someone else and to give to someone else. And it's not about what you're getting from some of what you're giving to them.
00:29:15
Speaker 2: That's the goal. That's the goal, to be thinking of others.
00:29:20
Speaker 3: You say to your golden retriever, Okay, you.
00:29:23
Speaker 2: Are so not a golden retriever.
00:29:25
Speaker 1: And with that everyone, thank you for listening to us on this Sunday. I may be roboch alongside my black cat of a fiancee TJ.
00:29:33
Speaker 2: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.