“Find Your Soul. Find Your Soulmate.”

Episode #30: Please Take a Shower…and other Dating Advice from my Husband.

Niki records a conversation she had with her husband Rob. Listen as they discuss relationships including behaviors of men and women who are entertaining the idea of a romantic relationship with each other.

(see transcript below podcast links)

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(transcript from the episode below)

Niki:       Okay Rob Booker.

Rob Booker:          What’s your first question?

Niki:   Okay. My first question is, what are your feelings about a woman who dates more than one man at a time? Obviously back in your single days. Go back to that mindset. But only for these questions. Then you have to come back to being married!

Rob Booker:        Okay. I have to return to marriage. How many men?

Niki:             I don’t know. Like, three.

Rob Booker: Yeah, I think I might have a unique perspective on this. So, maybe I’ll give you my answer and then I’ll give you the answer that maybe most men, I think most men who are in … Most men are insecure and it’s going to either raise their game and you’re going to know that that person’s really good. It’s going to raise the game in a person. Or, the man’s going to be mad and jealous and then you’re going to know that. And you’re not going to know that a man gets jealous unless you give him a chance to be jealous.

Niki:           It can also show you how he handles jealousy and if he’s a mature person.

Rob Booker:         Well you dated more than one. When we met you were dating other people. I mean, I didn’t care. I think I remember saying to you, “I’m not the boss of you.” So my theory on it is, if I have chosen you as the one I like the most, then it’s my job to earn my status as your number one. Like that’s my job. It’s not your job to pick me as number one and then otherwise I feel offended. And if you’re seeing other people, that’s a message to me that you’re not easy. You’re not just going to accept me for being great just because I think I’m great. You’re being honest that you don’t really know me and I’ve got to open up to you. So there’s all these things that happen. I’ve got to open up to you, I’ve got to let you know who I am. And then I have to be the best.

Niki:             Right, because we don’t owe each other anything. We just met, we just started dating each other. That’s it. We’re just trying to get to know each other. To see if there’s a connection.

Rob Booker:   I think men feel an instinctual, biological need to be the alpha male even if the man’s not an alpha male. Even if he’s not really. He biologically gets mad and sad that he wasn’t picked as the alpha male. And so, he almost doesn’t have control over that.

Niki:              Well, women want the alpha male whether they want to admit it or not. So the true alpha male, he wants to win.

Rob Booker:              I think it weeds out the … So let’s say there’s a woman that, so this has happened to me before. The women that I dated that were confident were always seeing other people until they met me. No, I’m just kidding. They were always seeing other people. And the women that lacked confidence were always choosing immediately to be latched on. And you would think a lot of men would take it as a complement, but I found it to be incredibly unattractive.

Niki:              No, I think that most men do see that as unattractive. It makes you look needy. You look like you’re coming from a place of low value. If you immediately latch onto somebody and you hardly even know them, then that just, to me, looks like you’ll just date anybody. Like, you just want someone.

Rob Booker:      Yeah, that’s not the reason though. I mean, that is true. That’s really true, but the reason is, for me anyway, was that I just needed an enormous amount of personal space. I can’t be-

Niki:                 Yeah, I think you and I are the same in that regard.

Rob Booker:      I think a lot of people don’t know that that’s what they’re feeling, but they feel crowded out. It’s hard enough to share your life with somebody else, let alone feel like the other person is now depending on you for all of their happiness. All of their activities. All of their free time. That’s too much pressure.

Niki:                 Yeah, nobody wants that kind of pressure.

Rob Booker:     So I guess in short, I don’t really care. Maybe this in controversial, but let’s say, so you say dating other people, let’s say that the best woman is having sex with multiple other people.

Niki:                     No no no. Yeah no. That’s not …

Rob Booker:      I don’t care about that either. If I can’t be the best at having sex, then …

Niki:                    I mean, she’s probably going to pick one she like the most.

Rob Booker:      And that’s what I’m saying.

Niki:                 Right, but she has options.

Rob Booker:      To me, once again, if I haven’t committed to a relationship that leads to marriage. What expectation do I really have that’s reasonable for her to not explore her options in whatever way is best for her. ‘Cause I’m not the boss of that person.

Niki:                Well, and that leads me, that was my next question. What do you think about the idea of only being exclusive when you have plans for marriage and that’s it?

Rob Booker:      Exclusivity for me was, see once again, I don’t know if this was reasonable, but exclusivity for me was different maybe than it was for other men. I just hated it. I hated it. It wasn’t a problem with commitment, it was the thing that, once you’re inside the bubble with me, I’m super protective. I’m 100% loyal. I’m like a real giver. And, I felt like at time women figured that out. And so …

Niki:                 They latched on.

Rob Booker:      I had situations where I would get to know somebody. And I thought I knew them a little bit and then we’d get a little bit closer. And then they’d be like, “Oh, my car broke down.”

Niki:                 So that’s like a red flag for you, or it should have been at the beginning. Somebody’s immediately asking you for things when you weren’t really in a relationship.

Rob Booker:      Yeah, I think it was pretty obvious that I was, I’m not great at everything, but the one area I was good at is providing. And I think that that was an attractive quality. And because I knew that that was one of my best qualities is that I’m good at that or I like to do that or whatever.

Niki:                 You like to take care of people. You are good at that.

Rob Booker:      Then I can’t let that many people in because of that

Niki:                 I mean to take care of the people you care about the most, you can’t take care of everyone.

Rob Booker:     I didn’t like to be exclusive so-

Niki:                 So that wasn’t a problem for you until you were ready.

Rob Booker:     So it wasn’t a problem because for me, being exclusive was the same thing as me wanting to marry that person. But I got myself into plenty of problems.

Niki:                So that’s the thing though, what you just said. I feel like women’s mindsets versus men’s mindset when they first start dating someone. With the woman, they’re already behaving, a lot of women are already behaving as though they’re exclusive. A lot of women will stop looking. They’ll stop dating other men once they found this one that they want to put all their effort into. Men don’t really do that. I feel like with men, unless they see you as a potential wife, like they want to marry you, they are still leaving their options open. They’re still open to the possibility of meeting someone else.

Rob Booker:     I feel like not every time. This is stereotypical, but a lot of times when I dated, a woman was already sizing me up for marriage from the very early point. Even if it wasn’t something that we talked about. She was very early on, even if there was no right for her to think that way, She was trying to figure out if I was marriage material way earlier than I was trying to figure out if she was. I think that’s really true.

Niki:                 I think that’s typical.

Rob Booker:     But I wonder sometimes, if that’s just me saying, “I don’t believe in marriage anymore.”

Niki:                Well we were both at that point. I think you were a little further along than me. ‘Cause I still believed in marriage for some people. I just thought that maybe it wasn’t for me. I really was questioning whether it was something that maybe I’m just not cut out for. Maybe that’s not what it’s going to be for me. And then you were almost like, “I don’t know if I believe in it.” And we had that conversation about it one night.

Rob Booker:     I think also I’d been exclusive with some people–you know god bless them forever and I hope they’re all happy and whatever–that turned out to be really bad experiences for me.

Niki:                 Oh me too.

Rob Booker:     And I began to wonder if it was unreasonable, but in the back of my mind without even consciously thinking it out loud. I think some men are noncommittal. Not because they’re not the type of person that can commit, but because they’ve had some experiences where they got used or some giant, terrible secret came out or … A good man will attract all types of emotionally disturbed women.

Niki:                 It’s the same for a good woman too. I mean we attract the crazies sometimes.

Rob Booker:      Yeah and after a while that man may say, “I’m not ever.”

Niki:                 Like, “I’m done.”

Rob Booker:      I think that sometimes, “I don’t believe in marriage.” That can either mean, “I’m a complete jerk.” But a lot of the time if it’s a good guy, it just means that that person has had some experiences.

Niki:                 But I think that’s what happens is you get to a point where you are just finished. And it takes somebody really standing out to you, someone really special, for you to even consider that again. And I think that’s where you should be getting to that point.

Rob Booker:      I think you should be at that point even if you haven’t been dating a lot of people, and if you feel like you don’t look your best, and you feel like you aren’t at your best. You should always approach it with that attitude because it’s more important to approach relationships with that attitude than almost anything else.

Niki:                 I think for women, we are just programmed since birth to get married and have babies. So it’s like, “Find that husband.” Got to find that husband. Got to get married. Got to have children. You know, the biological clock. Everybody has different ways that we can explain why we feel that way.

Rob Booker:      Going back to being exclusive. Okay, so let’s say that it was pretty early on in our relationship that I thought that I was doing my best to prove to you that I was your best choice.

Niki:                 You did a great job.

Rob Booker:      Thank you. If it hadn’t been obvious to me that you agreed with me about that, I would have said to you, “I don’t think I can keep doing this unless I know that you love me, and that we’re thinking about marriage.” And I would have gotten to the point. And I think a lot of times you get to that place naturally, and you don’t have to have a conversation about it. But you have to bring it up when there is a point at which you seeing other people would have disturbed me. And I would have said, “Okay. I want to be your number one now.” But here’s the problem, I think a lot of guys expect that before they’ve done the work to prove it and a lot of guys can’t handle it. I think, and this is something that I did with you consciously, and I thought about it a lot, is that I’ve got to let you lead. Like if we’re dancing, I’ve got to lead. But if we’re “relationshipping,” you have to lead. I have to follow your lead. That I have to be in tune with where you’re at, and I have to listen really closely to that. And I can’t bring up the subject of exclusivity before I know that you’re ready. It’s kind of like the old question, “Don’t ever ask a woman to marry you unless you already know the answer to the question.” And if you don’t know that she’s chosen you as your number one, you shouldn’t park the car or walk her to the door or sit on the couch late at night and say, “I don’t want you to see other people anymore.” Like if you don’t already know, then you shouldn’t bring it up.

Niki:                 So how do you know? What does a woman do to show you that she wants that without coming across as asking for it or looking too needy? I think that’s where women struggle. We’re like, “We want to make sure he knows how I feel about him.” But if we come on too strong, we can come across as low value or looking needy. And then it’s like, “Oh, now we’ve put pressure on him.” And he starts to retreat, and it’s like, “Oh crap.”

Rob Booker:      You’ll know this about me from our experience. I think you should, as long as you think you should wait to make a move, whatever the move is, it’s twice as long as what you think it is. That’s what I think the rule is. That so many people that I know, like know somebody for a day and they’re just, “That’s my soul mate.” And I know, I’ve been through that too. Where I got really super caught up in one aspect of some person, and I went too far too fast. So my answer to that question is, what I would imagine each person saying is, “I don’t want to see anybody else anymore.” Don’t put it on the other person. Say it about yourself. Say, “I think I want to just see you now. You may not be ready for that, but I’m telling you.”

Niki:                 Well, and we kind of did have that conversation when I was visiting you in Arizona, and we were separated by distance. I started having really strong feelings for you, so I did finally one night, I just said to you, “Listen. I’ve got to know if this is going anywhere.

Rob Booker:      Did you not know what I was going to say?

Niki:                 It’s like I knew, but I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t know that you were going to move to Texas and completely uproot the kids. I didn’t know if you could. I didn’t know if you would. I believed that you wanted to be with me, but how far were you willing to go was the question.

Rob Booker:      So you knew I wanted to be with you?

Niki:                 I did.

Rob Booker:      So you did know before-

Niki:                 But I did have to say at one point, “Listen. I’m feeling some strong feelings here and I need to know if this is something that’s going somewhere. And if not, then I’m going to have to pull back a little bit. And not because I’m mad at you or I’m giving you an ultimatum. I just have to be thinking of my future and my feelings and I need to protect myself so I don’t get hurt. I’ll already be upset and hurt if the answer is ‘No’, but at least, if you can be honest with me and tell me.” So we did have that conversation.

Rob Booker:      What I like about what you said though is, that you knew I wanted to be with you. And you didn’t bring this topic up until you knew I wanted to be with you, but you didn’t know how practical it was.

Niki:                 Timing. Right.

Rob Booker:      And so, however long you think you should wait, it’s longer, and I waited a long time. I waited a long time to kiss you. I waited a long time …

Niki:                 I love that story.

Rob Booker:      I think that I was following your lead. And I’m speaking of this from the guy’s perspective, that it’s really hard to go out with someone that you really like and you don’t know what they’re thinking. That’s really difficult, and we didn’t have that problem. I knew what you were thinking.

Niki:                 How did you know what I was thinking?

Rob Booker:      I believe that we were naturally good at communicating with each other.

Niki:                 I feel like I told you. I feel like we are both very good at telling each other what we need.

Rob Booker:      I think a lot of people are like, “Oh, I’m attracted to that hotness, and I gotta have some of that.” So they don’t think about the communication. And then they’ve done something physical so soon, and they don’t have the communication to back up. So that’s when you get into crazy thinking is, “I just gave up this huge part of myself, and now I have no idea what this other person is thinking.”

Niki:                 And your behavior gets a little questionable.

Rob Booker:      It sounds like such a repeated phrase that it doesn’t mean anything anymore about how important communication is. But a primary, main reason that I didn’t like to see people more than once, is that I didn’t want to have to explain what I was thinking all the time. Or, I didn’t want to have to repeat what I said five million times or reassure somebody a hundred million times .

Niki:                 I think that’s because most people don’t get you. Not you, I mean in general. People think they are meeting someone, they are dating them, “Oh. This is the person.” No, there’s so many people out there. Most likely the first person you date, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, they’re not going to get you. You’re not going have a deep connection with them.

Rob Booker:      Don’t you feel like also though, one of the reasons more people don’t get us is that we’re not really ourselves when we first meet people?

Niki:                 Oh yeah. Everybody puts on a show … Yeah, definitely.

Rob Booker:      I think you knew this about me, I didn’t have a lot of that. I was just like, “Whatever.” I was very much myself. I was pretty much the same person around you, and then not around you.

Niki:                 Oh yeah. What you see is what you get. For sure.

Rob Booker:      Once you do that, you start attracting genuine people.

Niki:                 Right. You have to be yourself. You can’t be afraid to say what’s on your mind. As long as you’re not being hurtful.

Rob Booker:      It comes down to things as easy as preferences. Like, you like to listen to a certain kind of music or watch certain movies or eat certain food or wake up at a certain time of day, and do we communicate well about that if there’s differences? There’s going to be differences. Do we communicate well about that? And we did.

Niki:                 And we did from the beginning, I think. And a lot of what you’re saying at the beginning you don’t really talk about stuff.

Rob Booker:      That’s why they say be friends with people first is because you’re not worried about ... I say this to guys all the time. If you’re have trouble meeting somebody, what you should do is hang out with people as friends. You should literally treat the best woman that you see, the highest value woman, treat her like a friend. And what will happen is, you’ll really get to know her and she’ll really get to know you. That’s more attractive than you pretending to drive a certain kind of car or having a certain amount of stuff. Which… that’s going to help.

Niki:                 It doesn’t hurt.

Rob Booker:      It doesn’t hurt. That stuff wears off.

Niki:                 We were friends. And it just naturally progressed.

Rob Booker:      I’m a goof ball and I wasn’t afraid to show you that I was. I wasn’t afraid to say things that were embarrassing to other people

Niki:                 Well that was one of my favorite things about you, “This guy doesn’t give a crap what people think. He says what he wants and he does what he wants.” And that’s something I feel like I’ve always done to an extent. So it was nice to meet somebody else who did that also.

Rob Booker:      You can have lots of different combinations of people. Like shy people or outgoing people or extroverted people or whatever, we’ve all seen it a million times. You go on a first date and you make yourself look as great as you can. Whereas, if you were just like next door neighbors to someone and they saw you all the time in your sweat pants they would know you better. And that’s why people that know each other well and are friends and that accept each other on the like basic, no make-up level. That’s why I think they last longer. And that’s why I didn’t believe in marriage is because I didn’t think there was anybody.

Niki:                 There’s no pressure up front to be this person. It’s like, “Oh, we’re just friends.” So you just talk and you’re naturally more yourself. So you naturally get to know each other instead of putting this kind of mask on in the beginning which most people do. It’s like you show up to the date, and you’re like, “I have to impress this person.” I have to show up and look good. You enter into it differently.

Rob Booker:      Isn’t it weird that  it doesn’t really work?

Niki:                 It doesn’t.

Rob Booker:      Can’t every person just see through that? I hated that. I hated it. I hate that. If you can tell that somebody is just … I want after we know each other for you to try your hardest to look great when we go out. But before, like to try to be someone you’re not, and you never did that. You never tried to be somebody you weren’t. You never tried to get me by being someone other than who you really are or by being fake.

Niki:                 Okay. I never tried to get you, so you pursued me. Well then I’d like to talk about how men pursue and women don’t. And a lot of women now are pursuing men. They’re calling them. They’re asking them out. They’re texting them.

Rob Booker:      But the good part of that is, there’s a good side to that. If, once again, once you’ve shown who you really are to somebody and once you’re kind of hanging out and you’re friends. If the woman is sitting around waiting for the man to chase her, and she’s not … When you want to go out with your friends you just say, “I want to hang out with you. Do you want to go to a movie?” You don’t say, “Well my friend has to chase me.” And I think that that’s what I’m talking about. The man has to do the chasing when it comes to the romantic stuff and the formal dates.

Niki:                 They have to lead in that regard.

Rob Booker:      They have to lead, but there can be a misinterpretation of what that means. Like the woman shouldn’t ever contribute, it’s got to be response and feedback.

Niki:                 Right, and I think that how women show that is just through appreciating it. Smiling. Saying, “Thank you”. Encouraging.

Rob Booker:      If you’re a high value women, if you have confidence, and you take care of yourself. Meaning, it doesn’t matter how much you weigh, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have nice clothes or what you think you don’t have. It matters if you hold yourself up well and you smell nice. Let’s just say-

Niki:                 Smell nice. Ladies take a shower. (LOL)

Rob Booker:      So let’s say you don’t stink and you are yourself. You’re going to meet somebody great and you’re going to meet somebody that’s a match. In that case, that man wants to hear you say, “Hey do you want to go see this movie?” You want to have somebody in your life.

Niki:                 But if he’s not doing that, and you’re constantly. I mean, think back to when you were single. And there were women who you were clearly not expressing an interest in them, but they would still text you or they would still e-mail you or they ….

Rob Booker:      And I’m like, “Could you please just not.”

Niki:                 So what were some of those behaviors? ‘Cause believe it or not, women can be completely clueless. As far as, like it may be obvious to you because you’re a guy, but just what are some of the things that they did that was pursuing you basically? And you weren’t interested in them, let’s put it that way. ‘Cause I think a lot of women mistake if you’re not hearing from the guy.

Rob Booker:      That’s it. That’s what it is.

Niki:                 Right, but then they start to come up with all the rationalizations. And so now, because it’s acceptable for women to call men and text men, it’s like yeah you can do that. I’m not saying not to do that.

Rob Booker:      I liked it though.

Niki:                 You can’t chase a guy if he’s not interested in you. You’re not going to convince him all of the sudden to be interested in you.

Rob Booker:      Okay, but you could do this. Let’s say that I met somebody and maybe they came on, as a woman, a little bit too strong or something like that. Let’s say that four days go by and I don’t even think about calling or texting that person. Because we’re not exclusive and because we’re not in a relationship and there shouldn’t be any expectation of that. And I also have an unreasonable desire to be alone. Let’s say all those things are true. And she texts me and she says, “Hey. Do you want to go to the farmers’ market?” Or, “Do you want to go see this movie I’ve been wanting to see?” I actually like that. It’s like, “Oh. Let’s give it a …” I don’t mind that, but not more than once, you don’t.

Niki:                 So say she does that and you go. Then you either what, you have a good time?

Rob Booker:      ‘Cause we’re trying to be friends at first.

Niki:                 So you either have a good time, or you don’t. So what happens if you have a good time?

Rob Booker:      Then as a smart guy, he is going to stay in touch with that person and want to do stuff again.

Niki:                 And probably ask her out.

Rob Booker:      Yeah. Right.

Niki:                 So what do you do if you don’t really? You’re not feeling it.

Rob Booker:      Even the woman who doesn’t have … I said this once and it got interpreted the wrong way, I remember I was having dinner with my two friends who were women, and it got interpreted the wrong way.

Niki:                 I can’t wait to hear.

Rob Booker:      Even someone who is viewed in our world as not TV attractive, which almost no one thinks they are. But some people, it really affects their self-esteem. So let’s say you’re listening to this and you wouldn’t put yourself in the category of being objectively attractive, and you have to work really hard, in quotation marks, to get a good picture of yourself for social, whatever it is, and you don’t have a lot of confidence. Even that person, can be and should be dating like two or three people. You have to be in prison, you could still date people in prison, so-

Niki:                 I don’t recommend that. (LOL)

Rob Booker:      You have to be so … I had a friend one time that says, “Well, there are no women.” I’m like, “Right now, tonight, you could have sex with somebody if you would just expand the group of people which you don’t want to do necessarily. If you would stop and think about it for a minute, there are lots of people out there.” So let’s say that someone isn’t writing you back, you should have two or three other people that you’re spending time with, even as just friends.

Niki:                 People put way too much emphasis on looks, and that’s why I always say, “Just stop.” Just stop. It’s so stupid.     ‘Cause I would go out on dates with what you’re calling, TV, what did you call it? TV beautiful?

Rob Booker:      TV beautiful.

Niki:                 And I couldn’t be more repulsed. I mean, they had nothing going on upstairs. They had no original thoughts. They were even rude or just dumb or whatever. And I was like so disgusted.

Rob Booker:      And there are people who are the quarterback of the football team, and they’re now like 6’4″ and totally built or Swedish flight attendant model people. There are people out there like that, and they’re nice and smart and worth. Great and good for them, and you know what, they’re all, each of them, all of them are having the same …

Niki:                 Everybody has the same issues.

Rob Booker:      They’re all having the same problems. They’re all having the version of the same problem that when they come across the right person, they can’t stop thinking about that person. They wonder if they are texting that person too much. Even at those levels they have those same-

Niki:                 Well, they say, I forget what it was, what model said, “What do you mean? I look in the mirror every day and I think …” I don’t remember who it was, but she’s like, “I still ridicule my body, and think about all the things that I need to fix.” And she was like a super model.

Rob Booker:      I think that’s why guys don’t understand, and I think that the same is true for women. I think that some women don’t understand that the best guy that they would like to spend time with is probably open to spending time with them. As long as they approach it from a place of confidence, a place of positivity and optimism, and happiness, and not weirdo clinginess. And if you’re super nervous, if you get sweaty palms and you’re super nervous around someone, then you have to learn to be confident in who you are.

Niki:                 The best way, I think, to get over that is just expose yourself. Not expose yourself, but go on a lot of dates. LOL

Rob Booker:      Yeah, go on a lot of dates.

Niki:                 And just keep putting yourself in that uncomfortable position, and you do get to a point where you get better at it. But don’t expose yourself. LOL

Rob Booker:      Twenty years into a relationship people don’t understand that the stakes are still high. But it may be even higher than they were before. That people get lazy after twenty years of a relationship, and they put less effort in. But then at the beginnings of relationships, when you don’t even know the other person, people put way too much emphasis on it. They try way too hard with someone they’ve never met and they don’t try hard enough with someone they’ve been with for a long time, and they get it all reversed. And if you think about it, there’s tons of no-risk interactions with people when you’re just dating. “Hey. You want to go out?” Is like the zero risk transaction.

Niki:                 People put so much pressure on themselves though.

Rob Booker:      Right, and then they get into a relationship. And four years later they’re with that person who they were so nervous about, and they’re like, “Would you pick your garbage up off the floor?”

Niki:                 And they just lose it.

Rob Booker:      So that’s what I’m saying. And I don’t know when it was, but I got really hurt and then something just snapped inside of me. I thought too highly of just one person. I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m just going to go hangout with lots of people, and the minute I start thinking, “Oh, this person is so special.” I’m going to stop myself from going down that road because then that person becomes too important. That person becomes the source of my happiness. When I met you it was the first time that I can remember meeting somebody who was confident, happy, and didn’t need me, and didn’t want anything from me, and was super interesting. And I thought, and still the same, there was no risk. I could just say, “Hey. Let’s go hang out. Let’s go do something together.” And I wasn’t putting all my hopes and dreams into you saying “yes”.  But then, two months in, I told Shelby who was my assistant. I said, “I’m going to lose my mind if this doesn’t work out.” That’s when you should be losing your mind if it doesn’t work out. If you’ve gone on dates. If you’ve been with each other. That’s when all the butterflies should really be there. At the beginning, oh my gosh, like that person is probably disgusting or gross. Who knows what kind of sanitary habits they have?

Niki:                 Who knows what their secrets are. Sanitary habits…

Rob Booker:      I’m just saying. I met a lot of people that looked great and then they were just disgusting.

Niki:                 And you go to their house and it was gross.

Rob Booker:      They were just disgusting people. Yeah, I’m not saying anything bad about anybody. I just mean, it’s not what you think it is, it’s never what you think it is. No matter, even with us, it’s not what you think it is.

Niki:                 A lot of times we just come up with our own little story in our head about what the other person is. Based on two things; what we want and two, some things we are picking up on. On that first date that might, like you said, probably aren’t true. Or might not even be true.

Rob Booker:      My worst time is when I was acting the dumbest was when I was lonely. Stupid, because no one should ever be lonely. There are so many people out there that share your same interests.

Niki:                 But we all go through a time of loneliness.

Rob Booker:      But I think I didn’t realize that it was a choice. Unless you live in Montana a hundred miles from anybody. There’s groups that meet up, there’s things to do, and if you just say “Hi”. I used to do this, when I lost all sense of who cared about what anybody thought, I just started going to eat breakfast at the same place every day and I got a huge circle of friends. And I would just go eat there for three, four, five weeks until somebody said, “Hey. You come in here a bunch.” I’d be like, “Oh hey, what’s going on?” I would just let it, people don’t realize how much work you have to put in. You don’t just get to say, “I really wish I was with somebody.” And then …

Niki:                 Yeah, it doesn’t work.

Rob Booker:      You have to go through a lot of people.

Niki:                 You have to go through a lot of growing pains too. You have to learn how, like you said, how to be alone. And then you have to learn how to be happy while you’re alone. And just because you’re alone doesn’t mean unhappiness, which I think, sometimes people think.

Rob Booker:      Some people are happier around other people. That’s normal. So get around people. If you look around, there’s lots of people around.

Niki:                 I know, and then I thought, “I better meet someone quick because I’m really liking this alone thing a lot.”

Rob Booker:      I loved being alone.

Niki:                 “I’m going to get stuck in a bubble by myself.”

Rob Booker:      I loved being alone. I loved it.

Niki:                 I did too.

Rob Booker:      It was the greatest ever. It was, I thought it was going to be the worst, and it was the best.

Niki:                 But I didn’t always like it. It’s, like what you said, I finally got to a point in my life where I was happier alone. And that’s when I met you. And they say it happens when you least expect it. I think that’s so true. It was for me.

Rob Booker:      I didn’t expect it.

Niki:                 I didn’t at all.

Rob Booker:      Yeah, if you’re trying, you can make a relationship happen anytime you want. You can actually go online and pick a bunch of people and click “yes” on a bunch of people. And there’s always people that will go out, that’s never the problem. It doesn’t matter who you are, there’s always tons of people. Go to church, you go out to eat, you go online. There are tons of people that will hang out.

Niki:                 You just have to make a point to get out of the house or get online or both.

Rob Booker:      See you can get into a relationship by brute force. By just dating a ton of people.

Niki:                 Brute force. That’s pretty much what I did. Not to get into a relationship, but to kind of build my roster like we talked about. I was like, “I’ve got to get a life. I’ve got to get some dates. I’ve got to practice this dating thing.” I was online, I did the dating agency, and I just practiced dating. And I just practiced meeting new people. And I was like, “I’ve got to figure out what I want. I don’t know what I want anymore.” And then it got to the point where I was like, “Okay, I’m not attracting the kind of person that I want to attract.” So that was my self-reflection time. Okay, what are the things that I need to work on to better myself so I do attract the kind of person that I want to be with. It’s hard. You have to be working on yourself and at the same time be working to meet people. And I think at some point, you finally get that sense of self and then you also get tired of being in dead end relationships. You just get to the point where you’re like, “What’s the point?” You know? What is the point of this? The whole point of being in a relationship is to be happy. Or happier. What’s the point other than that?

Rob Booker:      I just knew you were the most interesting, best person I’d ever met. And I realized that I needed to just learn how to be in a relationship. I wasn’t going to be in a relationship, but then I met you and I was like, “Okay, I’m going to be in a relationship now. I’m not going to lose this person. This is going to come along.” So it’s kind of strange, I didn’t think I was ready for a relationship and I wasn’t looking for one. I certainly wasn’t the kind of guy that would get back to someone, I ghosted people all the time. I was like, “I’m not interested, and we haven’t seen each other enough for me to even care if I get back to you about that. You should be seeing a bunch of people and I can’t imagine that you would care if I don’t text you, because I don’t care if you text me.” And then I met you and I was like, “Oh there. That’s worth working for.” That’s definitely worth me saying, “All right. How would I share my life with somebody?”

Niki:                 But you definitely kept in touch with me.

Rob Booker:      Yeah because you were amazing.

Niki:                 Aww. Thank you.

Rob Booker:      Well it’s true.

Niki:                 Well.

Rob Booker:      That’s good.

Niki:                 Yeah.

Rob Booker:      Great.

Niki:                 Thanks for chatting with me.

Rob Booker:      You’re very welcome. Hi all Niki’s listeners.

Niki:                 All right. Well I’m going to wrap it up.

Rob Booker:      Okay.

Niki:                 Okay. Love you.

Rob Booker:      Love you.

Niki:                 Thank you.

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