Do you remember your first love? Do you remember those new feelings? Do you remember the hurt after the relationship was over?
In this episode we explore the growth and differences of a teen crush, first love, and true love. While early and still developing, those feelings are still very real and very powerful, but how you handle them is what changes as you get older.
Tune in to See Your First Love Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
What is a “teenage crush”?
What is true love?
How do you or did you handle all of the intense emotions that emerge in these close attachments?
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
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https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
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Episode #241 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] This is Through a Therapist’s Eyes on August the 17th. Got right, right. Got it. Right, exactly. We are hanging out here with Mr. John Pope. How are you this week? I
John-Nelson Pope: am doing fine.
Chris Gazdik: Fine. You’ve had a good day. That didn’t sound convincing. Ah, you know
John-Nelson Pope: it’s, you’ve been busy. I’ve
Chris Gazdik: been busy. You’ve been busy. I’ve busy.
Yeah. Ms. Victoria is back. How are you this week? I’m good. Could be better. You’ve been, you’ve been reading.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I look today, I’ve read 14 books so far since It’s ridiculous. Since the end of, are you gonna get a prize since the end of. July. She, when I got Kendall
Chris Gazdik: Unlimited, you know, she’s going for the the, what is it?
The the AR program, the accelerated rear program in the North Carolina
Victoria Pendergrass: schools. So I can get my free pizza the, at the end, end of the school year.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, you, your free, your free pizza on Fridays. All right. This is through a therapist. Besides today we are talking [00:01:00] about the Teenage Crush. Listen, I think that this is an important thing to look at.
Interestingly enough, you know, we talked about menopause recently, and boy, we’ve had great. Response from those shows. And, and I’m, I’m looking back on it, glad and happy that we did it. And I thought it would be kind of interesting to turn the other page on that and look at the teenage years and have a conversation about that.
You know, sort of menopause has been referred to the post or, you know, like the reverse teenage experience. And so so we wanna talk about Teenage crush and, and the love and affection feelings that kids go through and how, how we
work with that. So that’s, that’s a topic today. This is where you get personal insights and thoughts from a panel of therapists and knowing it’s not delivery of therapy services in any way.
Please help us out with five stars. John gets mad if we get a four star review on iTunes, right? I do. He
John-Nelson Pope: throws things, I throw
Chris Gazdik: things he gets, he doesn’t throw things. We can’t lie. He’s too, he’s too calm for, that’s gonna be believable.
Victoria Pendergrass: Wouldn’t [00:02:00] it just be crazy though if John had like this alter ego side of him where he just let loose and through things?
Chris Gazdik: Well, you hear that. You only see,
John-Nelson Pope: you only see and hear the Dr. Jekyll
Chris Gazdik: side of me. Yes. There’s no hide. Not to
John-Nelson Pope: hide. Not to hide. No hide. That’s formaldehyde to
Chris Gazdik: you. A contact at through a therapist eyes dot com’s. Good way to interact with us. Listen, this is the human emotional experience and we do endeavor to figure this out together with you.
We also have no more as of next week, games to poke and prod to let you know we have an announcement that we’re kind of excited about on sponsorship front. So that’s kind of cool. More on that, I believe next week, right? This Wednesday? Yeah. Neil, Neil shakes his head. So what is, here’s some questions for you.
What is a teenage crush really even refer to what is true love that you ask and we talk about, and [00:03:00] then do you or do, do, did you or do you, and how do you handle all these intense emotions that emerge in these close attachments? I mean, what a question that is, right? How do you, did you manage all of these and how do you manage these intense emotions?
It’s a lot there to think about. So we’re gonna start out with a mentor moment though with Yes, with Miss Victoria. Go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. So as per usual, this is something that came up in conversation with us earlier today, but I kind of wanna talk about the importance of assessments and screeners when it comes to.
Diagnosing clients, whether or not, you know, we lean heavily on them, whether or not they’re just a mere suggestion or guidance, like kind of what your thoughts are. Perfect. It’s an awesome, as far as assessments and
Chris Gazdik: screeners, it’s awesome person. I think you and I are gonna completely differ and [00:04:00] disagree on this.
Oh, definitely. We really are. We’re gonna be on polar opposites, I predict on this one. And which is a first, by the way, buddy. Right, right. Would you say that? Yeah, I would. Y’all usually do
not
Victoria Pendergrass: disagree. It’s
Chris Gazdik: crazy. We we’re lof times on lockstep. I think this one here, go ahead. You you take it. What do you say?
Well,
John-Nelson Pope: I, I take it that you’re not enamored with, with assessments necessarily, but Right. I, I, I like them. I use for the most part, I use the, the Beck Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory. I use some for P T S D, the P C L. So I mean, it’s the, the thing is you have to make sure that they are.
Valid and reliable. That’s a big factor. And there’s the, the, and there has to be a correlation. In other words the, the further away from 0.5, either negative or positive the more [00:05:00] the, the stronger they are. The and the effective that they are. And for example, with Beck or the, or the anxiety, and also for depression, just so
Chris Gazdik: you know, you listening out there, these are all different types of screening tools for specific diagnostic sets that are, and
John-Nelson Pope: the I is for anxiety and the BDIs for depression.
Right. And it’s named after Aaron Beck who developed them, who was a medical doctor that just recently passed. He was, Oh, really? Yeah. He was
nearly a hundred. I know that. Years old. Yeah. Oh, wow. Dr. Beck died. Dr. Beck died.
Chris Gazdik: Holy cow. And he was a
John-Nelson Pope: hundred, he was about a hundred. Yeah. Oh my God. It was like 99 or something of that sort.
I did not know this. Yeah. But, but the, the, the idea and I taught. Assessments.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. So, oh, okay. So no wonder that might be
Victoria Pendergrass: why. That might be
Chris Gazdik: why. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: But the, the, but there’s weaknesses because with those assessments is that they’re [00:06:00] also how would you, how would you say is if the person, person, no, no, I’m kidding.
I’m kidding. If the person. You say, well, you mean all the time or is that how I’m feeling right now? And then usually I’ll say, well, over the past two weeks, but you have to be honest. Right? And if the client is not honest, then it skews the results the data. And so I use that as a thing because then through interviewing, right?
And and doing a verbal assessment with the person, then I could say, okay, this person has a set point. So he’s going or she’s going to minimize how deeply their anxiety is or how, how deep question. You can’t
Chris Gazdik: do it without an interview. Yeah. You gotta do it within an interview. It’s a tool to use as a part of the assessment for diagnostics.
I, I think, I think my, my take on it is honestly that I, I, I see I was kind of spoiled. I. And so far, as you know, years ago I got [00:07:00] exposed to what I think is, is, is really top of the line psych testing by a, a, a partner of mine. Mm-hmm. And I’ll give him props for that. Brian did awesome. Psych testing, and that’s what we were talking about, Victoria, where, where psychological testing has, has way more rigorous and I think internal and external validity and reliability factors that, that go into it.
The, the, the, the quick and dirty screening tools are so just that quick and dirty. I feel like John, where, where, where you don’t get a lot of information and I
fear that people lean on them way too much mm-hmm. Beyond what I think is more valuable in your clinical assessment through a diagnostic interview.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The one we were talking about today was, or the one that I had brought up with you, you the Connors. What? No, was the van. The Vanderbilt. Oh, Vanderbilt.
Chris Gazdik: For a d h D.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Which, It screens for A D H D O D D conduct disorder and anxiety and
Chris Gazdik: depression. [00:08:00] Okay. And
John-Nelson Pope: what is the correlation on that, do you know?
Victoria Pendergrass: No, I mean, it uses a number, scale, uhhuh to rate, and then it, they ask you for the, some of those, and then if you, the, the scoring on it is that if you meet six or more of each section, plus a four or five from this other section, then you meet the qu certain qualifications for either A D H D combined, predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactivity.
Mm-hmm. O d d conduct. And did you use this, the Vanderbilt? Yes. I, I use it lot because it, the way it’s set up is you, I’m proud of you. The way it’s set up is you give a copy to the parents and you give a copy to a teacher or an observer. Yeah. And then you do a
Chris Gazdik: six month follow up. I wanna cut in a little bit because we don’t, I don’t think people care about Yeah.
We’re getting the weeds. Yeah. Yeah. We’re getting in the weeds a little [00:09:00] bit with this. What, what, what I’m kind of just trying to maintain, and we can certainly agree that you need the diagnostic interview mm-hmm. To, to really go at getting a good impression of this. And you have to be very, very cautious about being overreliant on a single sheet tool.
Mm-hmm. It, it, it, it’s a, it’s, it’s, it’s really unfortunate to me in my mind, when you have doctors particularly, that are spending five minutes with a client popping out of Connors for something and then shooting ritalin at somebody. Or focalin because that’s what we talked about earlier is that that’s, that’s where that’s like, come on man, we gotta do better than that.
You, you need Yeah. That’s, that’s
Victoria Pendergrass: the, so, and I think that was what we brought up, John earlier in our conversation, Chris’, and our conversation, is that he mentioned that a lot of times these assessments slash screeners are more used with medical doctors who are looking at prescribing medication or even PAs or nps.
Yeah. Right. Sure. And not, and so, but as what I hear y’all [00:10:00] saying is that as a therapist you can use an assessment as a guideline to, to data point. Yeah. To provide data for like, But that on top of your, you know, observations of your client and on top of your verbal interviews and all that stuff in mind, and I’m gonna
Chris Gazdik: say, John, they only slightly add to the data points that you get from a diagnostic interview.
Do, do I make you angry? I’m, do I look angry? You could get you, we just talked about Hyde. Come on. Where’s Hyde at? Okay. Do we just disagree? Where’s Dr. Hyde? No,
John-Nelson Pope: I, I think they’re a little more accurate than that. I think that I, I think little more to it. Little more to it. And I think that, that, that’s part of the negotiate.
I, I’m gonna say, I’m gonna use the term. Negotiation. In other words, okay, you may actually go into a conversation and you say, okay, this person is, is that they may be a little not fully forthcoming in their diag in the interview. Then you [00:11:00] have some sort of a data point that’s hard data that you could say, all right this person really.
It is seeming to be mildly depressed or moderately depressed. I, I feel it’s important to be able to have something that can that you can rely on and say, okay, I’ve, I’ve, I put down at the bottom of my assessments the assessments, which is not included in your original. There I go. All right. Not included in your original assessment.
Okay. Thing or the, the verbal assessments, right? Yeah. This is the
diagnostic
Chris Gazdik: interview assessment. The interviews,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah. Yeah. I actually include assessments and I have that as, as one of the lines.
Chris Gazdik: For the, I think it’s just interesting the way clinicians do use different tools in uhhuh in different ways to, to either, you know, rely too little on them.
I probably do or rely too, too
John-Nelson Pope: heavily. Well, I probably, the way I actually do something is I [00:12:00] basically use every week. How measuring during, yeah. Rating scales. Rating scales. I have liquored scales that I’ve developed. Mm-hmm. And, and I include that in there because I wanna see where a person is.
Usually they’re very consistent. And then over a period of time I’ve noticed that their depression decreases or their anxiety decreases or something. There may be an external
Chris Gazdik: force. Yeah. John uses these a lot. I probably don’t use ‘
Victoria Pendergrass: em enough. Well, it, and I think it also, maybe it might depend on, Where you work and who you work for.
’cause I’m thinking back when I did my internship in clinical mental health they had me in, in built into the assessment, into the ccca. Mm-hmm. Was the Cal Locust and the Locust. I don’t even remember what those. Do do what those do? I don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re assessment tools.
Okay. But they were just built into, I mean, so we were required
Chris Gazdik: [00:13:00] to do the Oh, they required you to do them in
Victoria Pendergrass: the function. And so I didn’t really have, you know, there wasn’t, you didn’t have choice. Yeah. It was, and there was another, now you, yeah. Yeah. It is kind of nice though, now that I can pick and choose mm-hmm.
Which ones I use Absolutely. And which
Chris Gazdik: ones I don’t, or let get off of this. John, you got the
John-Nelson Pope: last word. M d Q. Do you use that? Because I’ve had M D Q don’t know what that is. The mood? Yeah. It’s mood. Is it a mood One? Mood.
Chris Gazdik: Mood. One. M D Q. Never heard of it. A mood
John-Nelson Pope: disorder questionnaire. Oh, okay.
Chris Gazdik: I’ve never heard of that either.
John-Nelson Pope: And so I’ve used that quite often because I need to have some sort of, Hard data because if you do something for serious mental illness, you need to to make sure that you can prove that or to be able to back that up.
Chris Gazdik: Hmm. To whom?
Well,
John-Nelson Pope: I do this with doing some assessments for, we could
Chris Gazdik: go on a bunny trail
Victoria Pendergrass: here. Let’s say, let’s leave that as a rhetorical question, as
Chris Gazdik: a, we’ll call it a [00:14:00] rhetorical question, food for thought, because I’ll tell you what, managed care has driven some of this crap, I’ll tell you, and that gives me concern.
I kinda like, you know, like I’m all about evidence-based treatment. We all know that we need to be able to prove and demonstrate what we’re doing is effective. I understand all that. I could talk the game, but I, but I just, I worry well about some of that where, where, where it could take us as a field.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. And, and my, my theory that I, I love and, and work with is existential and or logotherapy, and yet that’s not evidence-based necessarily.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Well, and but it’s very effective. Yeah, very effective. Yeah. And, and incredibly, you know, it’s definitely not pseudoscience. Now there are some Stu pseudo stuff out there, but yeah, let’s move on.
You, you like the, you like
Victoria Pendergrass: the woo good. I like the, yes. Yeah. I feel very well you go ahead. I get both sides of where y’all are coming from. Yeah. I
Chris Gazdik: appreciate it, Victoria. That’s good stuff. So what do you think
Victoria Pendergrass: what is a teen crush? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: What, what do you guys just think about this topic? Lemme just tune in with you on, [00:15:00] and
John-Nelson Pope: they called it puppy love.
Chris Gazdik: Well, you
Victoria Pendergrass: made a comment before we started recording when we were just doing our, the YouTube live stuff. Yeah. About how you feel like this community is marginalized a lot of times and not.
Chris Gazdik: You agreed
Victoria Pendergrass: with me. I do agree with pretty quickly, didn’t you? I agree with, well, and also I think that comes from the fact that I, I worked in a school, I worked in an elementary school for three years and I worked at a middle school and a high school for about six to eight months before coming here, or actually while I was also here, I was doing both.
But yeah. That I, I think, yes. They’re margin. I mean, sometimes it’s not like, oh, it’s just
Chris Gazdik: puppy love. Mm-hmm. Well, you outed me a little bit, which is, which is fine. A little bit earlier on. Oh, I wanted to slow play. Sorry. The touch, the, sorry
I
Victoria Pendergrass: dump the gun there. No, it’s
Chris Gazdik: okay. That’s the truth though, because I, I think that I have always felt that way, Victoria, like very, from, very early on [00:16:00] in my career as a young clinician.
Mm-hmm. It, it, it almost kind of bothered me, John, where like we, we look at teenagers and yes, they’re younger and then we kind of marginalize what they’re feeling and kind of, you know, just give them a little pat on the head and pat on
the back and go along. Young lady, go along young man and, and do your little thing.
But you know, we’re not, you know, we’re not gonna take you too seriously. Just, just, just understand it’s a phase you’re going through with this girl or whatever, and it’s kind of like, look man, I mean, they’re feeling all kinds of intense emotional experiences, different, well, the hormones are different and it’s different than
Victoria Pendergrass: adults.
I, I say ’cause they’re also going through. Puberty. Puberty. Sure. Typically during this time as well.
Chris Gazdik: Often. What were you gonna say, John? No, I was, we, we
John-Nelson Pope: both said puberty. Yeah. We, we’ve, we kind of synced up on that one, didn’t we? Yeah. Right.
Chris Gazdik: So I, I think we have to be careful about that. Right. Let’s, let’s look at some of these things when we use these words just to kind of get an understanding of Right.
What we’re talking about. Teenage [00:17:00] crush refers to a strong, often transient infatuation or attraction that a teenager develops towards another person. It involves intense emotions, butterflies in the stomach, and a heightened focus of individual of interest. Teenagers experience a crush might find themselves daydreaming about the person feeling excited or nervous in their presence and seeking opportunities to interact with or get noticed by them.
It’s a common aspect of adolescent development characterized by the exploration of romantic feelings and connections. I thought it was interesting so, True love. This is the way true love was talked about. True is a deep and profound emotional connection between two individuals that goes beyond infatuation and physical attraction.
It’s characterized by mutual respect, care understanding, and a strong sense of emotional intimacy. True love involves acceptance of each other’s flaws and [00:18:00] imperfections, and a commitment to support and nurture one, one another’s growth and wellbeing. Unlike fleeting emotions, that’s a key word, right? True love endures over time and often involves sacrifice, empathy, and a genuine desire for the other person’s happiness and ful
It’s a bond that withstands challenges and evolves into a mature, enduring partnership. Where do you think this came from? I thought it was fascinating and I actually, I. Don’t read stuff on the show very often, but I it’s
John-Nelson Pope: the, it’s the officiating priest on that, that says that in the Princess Bride.
Chris Gazdik: True love? No no. Okay. No. No. Alright. This was chat
Victoria Pendergrass: G P T that I, I was gonna say that this was, I couldn’t remember the name for it. This
Chris Gazdik: was Total Chat, G P T, which I thought was interesting because as you’re listening to those descriptions, what did you hear? Did you know, did you hear a characterization in any one way or the other?[00:19:00]
Because in the first one you guys are silent, so I’m gonna speak up like, yeah. I mean, in
Victoria Pendergrass: the first one, you
Chris Gazdik: know, I hear like this, this pat on the head, young man. Mm-hmm. You know, this sort of dismissing, dismissive.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Marginalized. Not
Chris Gazdik: serious. You’re not really in true love young man. You don’t know what you’re talking about lady.
Right?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, yeah, but I’m also, when I’m seeing the, well, I’m not a young lady, but a young man, maybe the, the true crush teenage crush is some of the descriptions of what I felt when I fell in love with like 15 different other people. Right?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Right. That, to me, that’s what we do. It was painful.
Painful. What do you
John-Nelson Pope: mean? So having a crush on somebody, it’s unrequited, not given, not reciprocal.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, you get [00:20:00] crushed. I guess that’s the word word. That’s a crush. Yeah. You know, but go ahead, Victoria, now.
Victoria Pendergrass: No, I’m good. I was gonna say that, I mean, that could happen with love too. It can not be reciprocated a hundred
Chris Gazdik: percent good.
It’s a good, and,
Victoria Pendergrass: and for a, a grown adult.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. This is part of the precipice that I want to kind of throw out there to us, that are dealing with kids. Whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re a parent, whether you’re just an uncle or a friend or a neighbor. Like, you know, do, do adults really do this a whole lot better than teens.
I mean, we’re probably bad judges to ask of that given couples counseling all time. It’s, it’s
Victoria Pendergrass: like the song high school never ends. Oh, right. Because even when we’re grown, we still do the same things that we do when we’re teenagers and, and [00:21:00] whatnot. It’s just we’re, you know, 35 instead of 15. Can
Chris Gazdik: we say that?
You know, just as with menopause, right? Going through the change of life as they say, and having hormones be all up and down and wacky, okay? That doesn’t create any problems. It doesn’t create any difficulty. It just maximizes this challenges that you have in, in much the same way, brand new thought. To be honest with you, in my mind, when you’re going through.
Pubescent years in teenage changing. It doesn’t create or, or take away from what we experience. It just, it just heightens it. It does heighten it, it does make it a little bit more intense and, and difficult ’cause it moves around a little bit more. I think that’s a fair statement.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, and I’m wondering now also then the novelist of, of having, going through puberty and having these feelings, they seem to be more intense, but maybe with 20 years of experience in life, you know how to [00:22:00] modulate them or understand them and put ’em in context better.
But you still do crazy things.
Chris Gazdik: Well, well don’t we do that when we’re in midlife, when we’re 40 years old and dating our second boyfriend and getting married for the second time. I mean, you know, you get in the infatuation stage and it’s like, dude isn’t, listen, an affair is intoxicating. I mean, I, we, we do, I don’t disagree.
It’s
Victoria Pendergrass: not, I mean, I don’t have any experience,
Chris Gazdik: but it’s intoxicating. This is what we see with the people that we work with. And
John-Nelson Pope: you’re willing to take more risk. That’s, I mean, right. You’re willing to, to lose it all. You
Chris Gazdik: have a strong, often transient infatuation or attraction to that teenager develops towards another person.
It’s the crush. Mm-hmm. Well, these are emotions that we deal with in adulthood just the same. Arguably, not much better.
Victoria Pendergrass: You talk about me reading all the time. A lot of the books that I read have the same. Theme incorporated with [00:23:00] adults. They find, you know, they meet someone, they become infatuated with them, they become almost possessive over them, and it’s all they can think about.
It’s all they can breathe. Obsessed. Well,
Chris Gazdik: we just had a, a craze develop over, what was the name of that? Thing? I just got caught. Oh. Sh Gray shades of 50 Shades of gray. 50 shades of gray. Right. But this went through at least our American culture, like wildfire, man. Yeah. That was a bestselling book for quite a while, you know, and it’s, it’s all this stuff.
Wreck. What’s his name? It’s, no, it’s Dre. It’s Dre. It’s
John-Nelson Pope: just,
Chris Gazdik: it’s the pits. Oh, it’s, you’re not impressed with the, I’m not impressed with the 50, the shift. John, tell us how you really feel. So I think
those are, those are all types of the things that we’re looking at to try to, you know, figure out and, and really when it gets to some of the questions, you know, what is true love then?
And, and how do we handle all these intense emotions and all. So let’s have a [00:24:00] conversation about the the topic Soulmates. This is my soulmates. You should see Victoria on YouTube. What just happened there, Victoria? I gotta know.
Victoria Pendergrass: I dang it. Sorry I said it.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, she said, oh, we’re working on we’re working on
Victoria Pendergrass: less ums.
I believe that soulmates are not just romance to go ro ro roommate. What’s the word I’m looking for?
Chris Gazdik: Romanticized a potential
John-Nelson Pope: romantic partner. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t believe soulmates are just romantic partners or can be just romantic partners. I think you can have soulmates and friendships and whatever and other life aspects.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Let’s say you, John. Well, I’m,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m thinking that it’s okay. Soulmates, you can have deep and abiding friendships that aren’t necessarily sexual. [00:25:00] True. I think, I think the other is that it’s more, I think it’s okay to have soulmates resonate. I think that’s,
Chris Gazdik: that’s fine. My god, we’re going disagree twice in one show, but I
Victoria Pendergrass: also don’t know, I also don’t know romantically, that’s the word I was looking for romantically.
If. There is such a thing as a soulmate.
Chris Gazdik: But see, that’s my thing. I think it’s a crazy concept. I mean, yeah, John, I, you know, people can have soulmates. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing like, you know, weird mm-hmm. Creepy or anything like that. It it, you know, but I just, I just don’t know what it really is.
I don’t think it really exists. I think it’s a crazy concept because there isn’t really like this one person out there for you that you’re going to meet and greet and call.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh. If that’s what
Chris Gazdik: you’re saying, that’s what people say a soulmate is, right? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: What? No, I think you could have a hundred soulmates.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. This is, you think that soulmate, you’re saying that your definition of soulmate is that there’s one person in the world that’s destined to be with you [00:26:00] romantically, and somehow the universe will make it so that y’all find each other.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, people go kind of subscribe to this a lot. I remember having, but that, that,
John-Nelson Pope: but that’s when you say true love using chat, g p t mm-hmm.
Is true love is the idea that there’s only one person for you. And so the definition, they work together.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, no,
John-Nelson Pope: I was gonna, no, I’m, I’m saying that that true love is, is a stereotype. So, I mean, when you get this, when you talk about a, a deep and profound emotional connection between, between people, that’s not what my concept of true love is.
The way I would thought the idea of true love was this smally, you know, of everything’s gonna work out fine, kind of of
Chris Gazdik: love. Okay. Yeah. Which you don’t, obviously
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t agree. I, I believe it’s when you go through the, through the, the mire and the muck of life’s experience and you share, it’s messy. [00:27:00] It’s messy, and you share heartbreaks and loss, that’s, and you’re working together for a common goal.
That’s what makes true love.
Chris Gazdik: Right? Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, John, I, I think people sort of. Naively go in to use these words and phrases and, and, and honestly, this is a show that I wanted to do because like it’s used a lot. Like, I hear people talking about these things in my personal circles, like a lot.
I had a long conversation with a buddy of mine, love you, Joe, and I mean that with everything. I got good dude, really close buddy of mine, and we, we went around and around on this one, several, a few years ago. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, you know, so he, he bought into that concept and I’m like, dude, I don’t, I don’t get that.
And mm-hmm. I mean, he, he, I think, I think he was getting a little bit upset with me a little bit at, at one point, you know, because we talk about this, you know, in a, in a, in a Pollyannish, idealistic, A romanticized [00:28:00] way where we’re going to have this wonderful no problems. You’re my person for me, and I’m the person for you.
Things. It, it’s a
John-Nelson Pope: very ancient Greek kind of concept. The idea that it’s, it’s that everything’s perfect. That it, there’s a, it’s the music of the heavenly spears. You and everything is, it’s psych. It’s so means, ugh.
Chris Gazdik: It’s, I don’t even like the description.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s a concept of, of, of a little Cupid’s.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Oh, Cupid comes in here. Yeah. Yeah. You shot with the arrow and you just full of this oxytocin and attraction and love, and it’s like, mm-hmm. Yo, that’s not just, it’s just not real. And I think it sets people up for failure. Failure.
John-Nelson Pope: There’s a great meatloaf song called Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Have
Chris Gazdik: you heard that?
Sing it buddy. I know you want to. No, I can’t. I know you want to. You’re not going meatloaf on
John-Nelson Pope: us today. I’m not gonna make meatloaf on you. Look it up. The idea is, is that they in the [00:29:00] passion of, of, of sexual congress right before, and she says, do you love me, baby? Oh, yes. And he says, no, no. He said, let me think about it.
Lemme think about it, baby, baby. Let me think about it. Yes. Yes. And she says, and she wants him to get to say Yes. You’re right. And so they, they end up getting married and they’re miserable. Both of ’em afterwards.
Chris Gazdik: Great, great. I know the song you’re talking about now is great. It’s absolutely perfect.
And you know, if, if you don’t know what’s going on with the song, you’re kinda like, what is going on? That’s a weird song. Yeah. This doesn’t make any
John-Nelson Pope: sense. They, and they’re running the bases. Yeah. They’re listening to the, to a game at the same time.
Chris Gazdik: Great. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s classic. I love that John. Yeah, I’m totally
Victoria Pendergrass: lost.
No. Oh, you are? I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about, so just continue.
Chris Gazdik: It’s okay. Well, so the audience isn’t lost if you’re lost. To pull us all back together. And the idea is, is, you know, the song is an example of like, give [00:30:00] me what I want to hear with a Pollyannish. You love me and I love you, and we’re one, and it’s all wonderful and mm-hmm.
We’re gonna, you know, and then we can have sex,
John-Nelson Pope: baby. Let me think on Yes, baby. Yeah, it’s coming
Chris Gazdik: back to you. You did go meet Lofas. Yeah, I did. Alright, let’s move on a little bit with what, I don’t even know what I meant by this. What is
the therapy version of Soulmate? What do, do you, do? You guys hear this in Oh, I know what I meant.
I wanted to ask you with this like, I, I hear this a lot in my circles. Mm-hmm. I don’t know that I hear this in my therapy. Work with people though. What do you mean soulmate? As far
Victoria Pendergrass: as so the curiosity. So with a client or, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Clients don’t talk about this very much with me.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, you mean clients talking about, oh, this person was my soulmate.
Chris Gazdik: Right. I don’t hear it in therapy curiously enough. I don’t know why. I know this is a strong concept that people have [00:31:00] all, all across the board. Just gimme a head, head, head shake. Random. Neil in the background, do you, do you believe in soulmates or have you ever heard of this? Is this a, is a, I’m sure he is
Victoria Pendergrass: heard of a soulmate.
Chris Gazdik: Well, obviously you’ve heard of it. Yeah. Sorry. But is it, is it, is it farce or folly or, or strength, I think strength. Okay. So he goes with strength. So you buy into it a little bit? Yeah. Alright. Well, a month in review, we’ll talk about this for sure.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think I don’t, I I agree. I don’t hear, I don’t know about John.
I don’t No one ever. Really. Yeah. I think the one thing that maybe gets mentioned in place of that is, so that’s my question, quote unquote, the one that got away. Oh, okay. A therapy people talk about that. Yeah. The one that got away, the one that slipped through my fingers. That’s true. That slipped through the cracks that I, you know, so a little bit of regret.
Yeah. Right. And so maybe that could be like an alternative, a thi that could have been my soulmate, but I don’t know because they slipped through and they
Chris Gazdik: got away. Yeah, you’re right.
John-Nelson Pope: I hear that. But I think a lot of people don’t come to therapy to talk about a [00:32:00] very positive thing in terms of like, this is my soulmate, because they’re not.
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. So in other words, if it’s not a problem, they’re not gonna talk to you about it. Correct.
Chris Gazdik: So this is very true. Yeah. And this is thought of as a delight when we find it, and you’re right, John, people, well, but people don’t really talk about, Hey, I thought this was my soulmate and I was wrong.
I mean, you know.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm-hmm. I’ve only been doing private practice here for a year, but, so yeah. I mean, and you’ve done a good
John-Nelson Pope: job. Oh, thank
Victoria Pendergrass: you, John. Oh. But I don’t think that, It comes up that often. Yeah. No, I, I, I think not as much as you would maybe assume that it would come up that it could,
Chris Gazdik: because in my private life I find people do definitely talk about this more.
So, so the therapy version, you come up with Victoria as maybe the one that got away. John, is there anything that you can put your finger on talking about this that we do deal with in therapy [00:33:00] that, that is of the soulmate variety? ’cause I, I don’t know what the therapy version of it is. I’m not sure either the recalculation that they do or people that are lamenting about separation or divorce or, I, I don’t, you know, I’ve, I’ve
John-Nelson Pope: had, I’ve had people that have had multiple relationships, multiple marriages, and they’ll say, well, I should have gone back to number one or number two of my spouses, and that was my person that I resonated with.
They, they’d use a different word than
Chris Gazdik: resonates, kind of goes with what Victoria’s
Victoria Pendergrass: saying. Yeah. So I do have a lot of people say, that’s my person. Okay. Do you Instead
Chris Gazdik: of, that’s a
Victoria Pendergrass: different way of saying the same thing. Well, and that’s what I say in session. If I, when I talk about couples, I say, you know, that’s your person.
So that’s the verbiage I use, I guess. And maybe that’s in place of, so, well that’s, I don’t know.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a new term. It’s a, it’s a new, yeah. I’m not familiar yet. But I also
Victoria Pendergrass: wonder if [00:34:00] the, if there’s a generational correlation between, ’cause I do feel like more millennials and younger are slowly going towards the, the non-belief in.
Soulmate, whereas I could see that go a little further with that. Maybe, maybe the older, and this is just based off what I hear and what little knowledge I have, but that the older generations walk onto this more. You, I mean, you get people married a lot longer. They’ve been together 60 plus years. That’s their, they they use, maybe use the word soulmate.
I don’t know. I’m just throwing
Chris Gazdik: it out there. That No, I think, I think you’re, I think you’re onto something mis missing it a little bit, but onto something. And by the missing a little bit. I mean, I, I think older. Folks used that thinking, John, more in their dating time. Mm-hmm. Not in looking back on their, their life.
Right. With a committed relationship because they see the turmoil and the difficulty and the ups and downs and the mucky, messy reality of all these emotions and, [00:35:00] and living life together. Right. It’s, it’s, it’s, mm-hmm. It’s super difficult. It’s not full of roses, but, but they started out, young people don’t start out with that now.
Mm-hmm. I think you’re right, Victoria. It’s destroyed. What do you think, John? Well, no, I, I,
John-Nelson Pope: well, I’m. I was thinking in terms of a historical context, and that is that it’s a western concept. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Very definitely. Western concept and romantic love. And that started back during the times of chivalry, which was around the, the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, 14th centuries.
And the idea was it’s you could actually be married to somebody but have actually a soulmate like king Arthur and Lancelot. Right. Okay. And Guinevere because that was King Arthur’s wife, Guinevere. But they had this, this illicit love, the idea. But behind chivalry was that it’s unrequited love and somehow that was a higher
Chris Gazdik: love and [00:36:00] young folks have no idea what any of this is.
Yeah. It’s like lost. Yeah. Yeah. Like half of our audience read a book. John read a book, young man,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m reading plenty of books, but they don’t talk about that. Not you, not
Chris Gazdik: talking to you,
John-Nelson Pope: Victoria. But, but I think we’ve transitioned from that. And so even, even in World War ii the World War I, world War ii or the 19th century, even before that, there was a real strong emphasis on, on romantic love.
And I think it is less now, and I think in terms of you listen to the lyrics of music now, it’s as opposed to indeed when I was back in the dark ages with seventies music or sixties music, you actually talked about relationships, right? Or even
Chris Gazdik: actually talked about relationships and real things
John-Nelson Pope: instead of hooking up or, or
Chris Gazdik: just one night stands or
John-Nelson Pope: one night stands, whatever, that sort of
Chris Gazdik: thing.
Two imperfect cu recognize each other. We got on. [00:37:00] On Facebook Live soulmates. Well, that’s interesting. But I think that takes away from the, the, the idea that people usually think about soulmates. But but let’s move on. Nevertheless, there is we got a couple of big segments that I don’t wanna spend some time on.
E f t patterns in dating and then social media influences in the reality for teens nowadays particularly. And then how do we manage these, these whole feelings? That’s, that’s where we’re, we’re heading. I have recently been fascinated with the idea of, of dating factors in the emotion-focused therapy model.
Do you know what I mean by that? Does that make any sense? You know, of course the emotion focused therapy model. The abandonment and the engulfment. Mm-hmm. And we’ve talked on the show several times, the Four Horseman and all that stuff. Right? Right. Four Horseman is a piece of that. I Gottman Gottman’s
John-Nelson Pope: material.
Yeah, but I gottman it.
Chris Gazdik: You gottman it. I [00:38:00] got it. That is a dad joke. John. Yeah. Dad joke. That’s so bad. That was bad. That was, that was not, that was Victoria’s not impressed. Did land. That was a groner. That did not land. That was the groner. That was an ouch to the ser. So Plex, see the soul plex? Do you see how I did that?
Yeah. It’s suplex. Come on. Yeah. Alright. Solar just trying to play along. John let’s it out. Solar plexus. Yeah. Where did we just go? Emotion-focused therapy in dating. Do do you see it? Does it operate? How does it factor into how we’re attaching? I’ve been thinking a lot about that the last couple, few years.
Well unpack
John-Nelson Pope: that. That’s a good therapy term. Unpack that,
Victoria Pendergrass: that is a great
Chris Gazdik: therapy term. I just, I just got theorized. You did. So what I mean is like, you know, when we’re, when we’re in, in close attachments, we know mm-hmm. Now with Gottman’s material, the abandonment and the engulfment operate. Mm-hmm. So strongly.
An abandonment fear creates pursuing behaviors. An engulfment fear creates [00:39:00] withdrawing behaviors. Well, and we’ve done shows on this and we’ve talked more in depth about it. We’re not gonna have time to do that today. Episode 11, 1 0 1 or 2 0 1 are great places if you have any close attachment, which is all of us, by the way.
Right? So, so what happens to that whole cycle, that whole grind, where usually an engulfment person is connected and attaching with an abandonment person. Those are the, an overwhelming majority of the time. What do we do in dating where we put our best foot forward? Right. We manage our internal feelings really well.
Right? We don’t wanna let our crazy out, John, as they say. Yeah. Right? And so you don’t wanna be a stalker. We, we don’t wanna be a stalker. We don’t want to be over psycho emotional. We want to be tough, cool, patient, flexible, calm, engaged, loving, kind, expressive. Well, you know, an engulfment person [00:40:00] basically is being all engaged and close and loving and an abandonment person’s chilling out, pulling back and relaxing because we’re trying to put our best foot forward.
And I think it really, really, whether you’re a teenager or an adult, were, we’re, we’re all falling into those, those traps. And, wait, did
Victoria Pendergrass: you reverse that?
Chris Gazdik: No, I don’t think I did. What, what did I say wrong? Nevermind. Okay. Keep going. I didn’t get it. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think there’s, I I, I think there’s a lot of mysteriousness that goes into dating.
Like, dating is tough. Oh,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah. That is the, honestly, with my adults, and it’s some of my higher teenagers, older adults, older teenagers, my, the number one thing we talk about is how am I gonna meet someone after this, after they get divorced, after a breakup, right? How am I supposed to meet someone? Okay. I’m in my forties, I got no idea what to [00:41:00] do, and I, people don’t meet at the bars like they used, you know, it’s all dating apps or online stuff or whatever.
That is probably the number one conversation that comes up, especially with. People who are outta school, you know, they’re no longer,
Chris Gazdik: I think you’re right, but I wanna go back, even before we had the apps and things, I think people that got divorced in 1980 something. Yeah. Also had no idea how to go out and date and deal with this.
What do I do now? Well, I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t know how to, and it’s the same thing when you’ve been dating someone for seven years. Right. And you’re not married or anything like that. And then you break, you live together, you share finances, you do all that stuff, and then you break up. Right. What the hell am I gonna do?
Right. How am I gonna meet someone else? Right. How do, how, you know? Yeah. I’m,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m wondering, help me with this, because I’m thinking of a lot of people, That I’ve worked with or have been in long-term [00:42:00] relationships. But they’re, they don’t have the they don’t have the, the contract, the marriage contract.
Right. And I’m, I’m wondering if, if part of this is, is that they don’t have milestones that they can say, okay, this is the break. This is definitely You mean a couple
Chris Gazdik: that’s never been married? Is that what you’re saying? Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. And so there’s, ‘
Victoria Pendergrass: cause they don’t have the milestone of a, of an engagement.
Right. And then of a marriage and then of kids and then, and
John-Nelson Pope: so they don’t know how to, to it. It used to be laid out for people a bit.
Chris Gazdik: There
John-Nelson Pope: was a roadmap. A roadmap. We don’t have roadmaps anymore. Oh. And we don’t even have gps or anything.
Chris Gazdik: And, and. And we have a whole lot more choices. Mm-hmm. We have a whole lot more options and ways to go about this.
It’s just mm-hmm. You know, there’s person after person, after person, I mean, Victoria, right. Swipe and swipe
Victoria Pendergrass: and swipe. My heck. I get, I could get all Tinder right now and find [00:43:00] 20 plus guys within this, a certain mile radius that. Like would be a avail that
John-Nelson Pope: are available. Oh, I, I get the I, I get a notification if there’s a sex offender that moves into our neighborhood.
Okay.
Chris Gazdik: There’s, there’s these different things, how you’re super,
John-Nelson Pope: but no, let me, let me say this. I met my wife underneath a Banyan tree in Florida, south Florida, outside of church. I met her at church. Okay. We had a place people used to, well, I, I, I can’t meet anybody. I don’t know where any, I give people now, I don’t know where to meet people.
I don’t know where to go. Mm-hmm. And I’m thinking we’ve done a disservice as our culture is concerned. We didn’t do it intentionally. Right. But we, we’ve not given people real opportunities. I mean, if you get, we’ve changed the game. You get, if you get 50 matches, How can you make a choice? How can you even,
Chris Gazdik: it’s, it, it’s anxiety producing.
[00:44:00] Yeah. It’s,
Victoria Pendergrass: it’s absolutely anxiety producing then’s a lot worse for females than
Chris Gazdik: it is for males. So we definitely switched over into the next segment, which is good. ’cause we need to move along, but I, I don’t Into social media. Yeah. How does this affect kids? We’re talking about teenage crushes and dating and as a young adult, like, oh my gosh.
Like how the ways, and you’re starting to talk about that, John.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm-hmm. You’re, oh. ’cause you know, I work with a lot of kids, a lot of middle schoolers, a lot of high schoolers that have social media, and we don’t talk a lot about Snapchat. And we talk a lot about, yeah. Instagram and, well, they posted a snap of them with this other girl, and I don’t know who the other girl is, and we just broke up last week and he’s already moving on and, or she’s already moving on, or they’re already moving on and, or da da da da.
You know, why is he hanging out with her? Why is she with him? Da da? And now, I mean, even if. Even on Snapchat, there’s a feature where. If you have it turned on, you can see the [00:45:00] location, the exact location of other peop of friends that you’re with. We know if somebody’s
John-Nelson Pope: in a bathroom or something like that.
Right. You know where that they’re there. I had someone,
Victoria Pendergrass: I actually turned mine on one time when I was living in Hickory and some of my coworkers drove to my house and it was like two o’clock in the morning. Oh gosh. And I didn’t wake up because I was asleep, but they called me like three times and were like, come answer your door.
We’re at your door. And I was like, why? How did you find my house? They were like, you turned your thing on, on track Snapchat. And I made sure to turn it off after that. But yeah, I mean, so then you break up with someone, well, then you can freaking track ’em on Snapchat or something. Listen, it’s
Chris Gazdik: like crazy.
And, and to stay with the theme, I want to suggest to you that I’ve, I’ve got a, a, a, a older couple midlife older, not older. Older not older like John. Sorry, I I had to do it, John. I’m so sorry. That was so, did you hear the hates? Did you see the hate stare? Boy, we have a thing today, don’t we? Seriously, we’re getting it all out of our [00:46:00] system, John and I today anyway.
No, they’re a middle, they’re a midlife couple uhhuh, and they’re, they’re separating and divorcing and this location reality came on. The woman didn’t want the guy to come to a certain location, was upset that he was there for whatever reason they was there. It’s like we’re still tracking and watching and, and having, here’s here’s part of my list, access to information before we even meet.
Yeah. Or, or, or,
Victoria Pendergrass: you know, if, if you’re not Googling, like in today’s world, if you’re not Googling someone before you go on a date with them, like what are you doing with your life? Because there are, so, especially if you meet them online, heck, even if you meet ’em in person, if, if I were to date now as a 30 year old, there’s no way I am not looking someone up on Google before I go out on a date with him.
Chris Gazdik: There’s no way I would ever think to do that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, that’s also maybe a female difference because I have to make sure that I’m not gonna be safety murdered Safety. Yeah. Safety. Safety. But also, I mean, you kind of wanna know, is there anything about this guy or this girl or whoever that well then comes up and [00:47:00] what am I getting myself into
John-Nelson Pope: or, and, and people actually, and they’ve done this and I’ve had clients that have actually done a background search on the person that they’ve met.
Mm-hmm. And they find out a lot of things. And back in my day, I guess I’m just an open book. I, I. You would just
Victoria Pendergrass: tell them. I’d just tell them. They wouldn’t even have to look it up.
Chris Gazdik: And because I’m practically, but don’t you trust that way? Don’t you build intimacy, don’t you be in to build some of these miles milestones of relating, John?
Yeah. You know, you get into this process of meeting and greeting and courting and dating and, and finding out more and more about this person. I’m anxious about all your faults and failures when I’ve Googled you well and know your whole life history before we even meet. Right? You just swipe away
Victoria Pendergrass: swiped.
But, and then that’s goes into the whole pressure of picking out what pictures you post on your profile and Oh, you
Chris Gazdik: do filters on yourself and do you do filters? You make yourself because okay, all
Victoria Pendergrass: you give yourself [00:48:00] a big cut. This a bit of personal information. Big, right. John, what are we doing? Like, like my, so my husband and I, when we were dating, we broke up for about.
Three months-ish, like one summer before we got engaged and we both created Tinder profiles. Okay. During that time. And I remember just feeling like such stress and anxiety about picking out which pictures, this is the post
Chris Gazdik: way anxiety. You didn’t photo, you didn’t Photoshop. I
Victoria Pendergrass: didn’t, I didn’t use filters.
But you, you’re so, you get so stressed and then like, well what do I want? What will someone think if they see this picture of me? Or I’m trying to portray this image of myself and you have to do that in five pictures, you know, or whatever. And so, but that goes to this access of, you know, if someone finds me on Tinder, well then they can go, they can see my name.
Well, then they can go to Instagram. They can type in my name and try to [00:49:00] find me. They can go to Facebook and try. So then they’re looking at all this information. Oh my gosh. And they’ve never even met me. It’s, or they’ve never talked to me except for
Chris Gazdik: through chat. They’ve, so they’ve
John-Nelson Pope: already made opinions about you before that you’ve even met them face to face.
And I’m, I, I present to you that I think that is pernicious for making a future relationship and it’s based and predicated on distrust.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Well, and then I think, there you go, John, with the Teenage crush. That’s what I’m, that’s what I’m talking about. Like, you know, the, these, these realities in, in dating is very, very different.
And, and teenagers, I mean, at least older folks have had kind of, you know, a little bit of another way to realize before all of this. Mm-hmm. As it dramatically impacted how we relate and mate. But
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s the thing is with these teenagers, they have so much more access. To all of this stuff. I mean, you
Chris Gazdik: meet, but you know, my son is struggling with this right now.
It occurs to me. And and he and he’s not a teenager anymore. He, well, he’s, he’s [00:50:00] 21,
John-Nelson Pope: so he’s a, a late adolescent and his brain
Chris Gazdik: is still developing. He a hundred percent. And, but, but, but he’s like, but he’s not going on these. He, he was like, I’m not doing these apps. He’s not gonna do these apps things. But then like, how do you meet people?
Well, that’s what he’s struggling with, go to church with and he’s engaging it. I to
Victoria Pendergrass: synagogue. I’m go walk around target like a mo puppy and hope some girl ask me if I need help. Yes. You do something. You
Chris Gazdik: flirt Victoria, you have conversations. Victoria, you, you hit on a guy or a girl? I met one of my girlfriends in college going through a drive through as I was on the midnight shift for the crisis hotline.
Huh. That’s where I met one of my girlfriends selling me a hamburger. Yeah, right.
John-Nelson Pope: I went to Steak and Shake and Met, met somebody
Chris Gazdik: did Steak and Shake. Yes. Right. Yeah. I mean, this is, we’ve gotta be careful. She served good fries. We, we’ve, we’ve gotta be careful. Good. I’m glad to know that, John, how much get away from the, the [00:51:00] meeting and greeting and relating that, that we are beginning to, to, to miss out.
So let’s go a little bit further in this and then I wanna get to like, how do we manage these feelings and whatnot. Right. Like when I was brainstorming, you know, there is way more distance dating than used to be. I have kids all the time now, particularly kids, they’re literally dating people. John, in another state, in another country,
Victoria Pendergrass: people that they Canada have never met.
Chris Gazdik: Countries. Yeah. Like, yes, teenagers are dating teens in Japan. It’s crazy. Do
Victoria Pendergrass: you know how many conversations I’ve had about safety? Right.
Chris Gazdik: Catfishing and
Victoria Pendergrass: catfishing and the fact that they’re messaging and they’re sharing private information makes me nervous about themselves.
Nervous, all get out to some person that they haven’t met on the internet, who is supposedly a fellow 14 year old person.
Here’s a tip. They’re not, and they’re not really 14.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, there there’s a, an example [00:52:00] where I, I actually have worked with somebody that is middle aged and he has a relationship with somebody that is non-existent and basically mm-hmm. Is somebody asking for
Chris Gazdik: money and it’s one step away from like virtual reality, dating and living.
Right.
John-Nelson Pope: And he has his heart broken. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Scans of frauds. Yeah. Right. And sinned. Yeah. You guys got a lot on my list here actually. Right? What are the norms, calming effect on knowing what to expect? You, you talked about that, John, right? Pressured expectations. There’s all kinds of expectations that get created in, in these ways.
A big one. Miscommunication, you know? Mm-hmm. Texting and posting and, you know, doing these apps and locators and stuff. Like, it’s, you, you miss so much. Mm-hmm. From, from getting away from face-to-face contact, privacy versus safety issues. Yeah. And then there is cyber violence, what you’re talking about with fraud, John.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Breakups can be [00:53:00] done without even meeting. How do we break up? Right? Like is, ah, it’s, we need to help young people with this stuff. Especially
John-Nelson Pope: people text and they’ll, they’ll send off hot messages. We used to say that about emails, but if one is doing writing a letter, Yeah. And you are breaking up or you’re reconsidering or something like that.
You have time before you put it in a post.
Chris Gazdik: Here’s a thought.
Is this why millennials are not getting married, y’all? Because of what exactly the conversation that we’re having right now. I I, I ju
Victoria Pendergrass: I I wouldn’t say totally just throwing it out there. I just No, it’s okay. I had this conversation the other day with a client. I don’t necessarily think it’s, it could partially be because of that.
I believe that millennials aren’t getting married, and from what I’ve read and heard is because of the financially, [00:54:00] because of the fact that we, a lot of people don’t believe there’s a soulmate. That they believe they can have multiple partners and things like that.
Chris Gazdik: They
John-Nelson Pope: have friends with benefits. Yeah.
And they don’t have their emotional investment. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: spiritual investment. And also I thinks, yeah, I mean, I think to an extent, sometimes you go through so much heartbreak as a teenager, young adult, that you’re just like, F it, I’m done. I’m not jaded already. I’m not doing this anymore. Like, I’ll just make a deal with my best guy friend that if we’re not married by 40, we’ll get married or we’ll live together and have a kid or something.
I don’t know. But I mean, there’s a
John-Nelson Pope: lot of in cells of people that, that are involuntarily celibate. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, they,
Victoria Pendergrass: oh, there are plenty of women out there who get their tubes tied without having. You know, having a partner or anything because they know, like they don’t wanna even have a family. Well, there’s, so [00:55:00]
John-Nelson Pope: there’s, there’s something even deeper.
I think perhaps it’s a, a, a sense that they have no meaning. There’s purpose driven life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s no purpose. It’s basically you, you live, you breathe, you eat, you have sex, you die. Mm. There’s a, but you don’t necessarily procreate. You don’t go through the agony of raising kids. A agony, I mean, agony.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I
Victoria Pendergrass: did that. Oh, that’s a word. There’s a there’s a term now that goes around. Mm-hmm. For millennials, it’s called dinks or dink Wads. And it stands for double income, no kids. Mm-hmm. Oh wow. And then it stands for double income. No Kids with dogs. Dink wads. Really? With a dog. Yeah. And so I think a lot of times that’s this, the whole that dink wax.
D wads
John-Nelson Pope: and dinks, but wax with cats.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. You know what’s funny? I don’t even know if y’all are cursing or not.
Victoria Pendergrass: It stands for double income. No [00:56:00] kids. I with a dog can get the
Chris Gazdik: explanation. Victoria. Yeah. Let’s help some people. Right? What do we do with all these feelings? Teenagers and adults I think that we have identified are in a lot of the same boat.
So how do we, how do we deal with. You know this, even in the older version of ourselves versus the younger version of ourselves. I mean, you know, do we know how to handle the, the intense up and down of dating and partnering and coupling together in marriage especially? And I, I think people really struggle.
I’m gonna put a book, book plug Unfair, but I could do it. ’cause it’s a show, right? It’s your book. Yeah. I just have the book for marriage out to the editor and I’m gonna get it back and she’s gonna make me rewrite the whole thing. That’s fine, Courtney. I’ll do my best. She’s gonna make it sound so much better than it is in its current form and it’s coming out soon, you know, several months from now that publisher’s gotta get through it.
And we got a lot to do with it. But there’s information out [00:57:00] there and each chapter is going to be an individual thought, an individual goal or skill to begin looking at how do we really manage this stuff. I’m excited about that project. ’cause I think people struggle, you know, in, in having any kind of answers to, to that you know, manage the feelings with fear.
Is, is is something I I brainstormed you, you can’t have a healthy. Marriage. John, if you don’t learn how to manage your internal fear, is that a statement I can make? I think you can make that statement. You know, if you’re not managing the fear that you have internally, and well, first of all, if you feel as though you don’t have it, you are wrong.
It’s there. And, and, and if you don’t manage it well, you’re going to struggle in that
John-Nelson Pope: relationship. See, you’re capable. There’s a potential of being capable. Good point. Thank you. And that’s, and exactly. And I think there’s also the aspect of self-discipline. One can be self-discipline. [00:58:00] And you may not think you’re capable of it, but you can do it.
There’s
Chris Gazdik: a lot of hoop uhhuh maybe we need to help folks with, particularly as you say Victoria, that they’re so anxious, pro driven with all of this stuff and all of this challenge that is out there, there’s a lot of hope in it. Temper down expectations. I wanna circle back to that. Be careful about what you are expecting and how do we develop expectations is important.
Realize a lot more goes into decisions of coupling than just the way that we feel was another thing on my brainstorm. This isn’t about feelings exclusively. That’s such a small part. It’s about the realities of life that we’re engaging together. What’s that?
Victoria Pendergrass: Victoria? I was going to say something just about the expectations, how we were talking about earlier.
When you’re with this online stuff, you build expectations, right? I think. Then when you meet this person and or for whenever they end up not meeting those [00:59:00] expectations, it’s such a hard downfall, which I think can make a breakup or a crush that much more devastating if you have this whole expectation
Chris Gazdik: and we circled back to that up.
That’s cool. Here’s, here’s, here’s a real quick and dirty way I want, I’ve, I’ve long, I’ve grown to think about this. Expectations are only safely developed or had. When you have agreements between two people, that’s when you get an expectation or long-term norms. That’s the second way, and those are the only two that have really come up with that are safe ways to have expectations.
All the other expectations that you’ve developed on your own without your partner and through an agreement or a long-term norm are probably gonna lead to Victoria. What you submit there. And by a long-term norm, I just mean if we’ve had brunch together on Sundays for 72 weeks in a row here in four days, this is Thursday, right.
I can reasonably expect that we’re gonna have, you know, brunch for the [01:00:00] 74th week in a row. That’s all right. And
John-Nelson Pope: that consistency,
Chris Gazdik: I think, builds relat long-term norms and, and, and agreements. Other than that, you’re in trouble.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, long-term institutional norms too, in terms of, and I think that’s the structure.
Okay. I, I, Go
Chris Gazdik: ahead. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m looking. Okay. No, I’m, I’m, I’m thinking that, that I tend to be kind of looking at a cultural aspect of it. I think we have a responsibility to to rebuild culture a little bit. We’re, we’re able to, to, to say there are some disparities of some truths,
Chris Gazdik: rebuild culture. I love this.
Go further. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m thinking that we can rebuild some institutions and, and I. Make marriage mean something. Again, I’m, I sound like an old fuddy duddy,
Chris Gazdik: but No, I think you sound very sane.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And, and I think that even the, the dating [01:01:00] process that we do more in terms of getting to know the person and actually having a relationship with somebody as opposed to planning destination weddings and having three or four bachelor parties because all your friends are doing this and, and instead saying, okay, the engagement is a time where we really do the hard work and we get to know each other personally as we’re engaged.
Yeah. As we are engaged. And that you start to process and transition into sharing
Chris Gazdik: resources. Listen, I see this in marriage, uhhuh counseling or or counseling individual. I meant to say, lemme start over. I see this in counseling
all the time. Mm-hmm. After people get engaged between that engagement and the marriage, as you say, John, that’s when the work begins, right?
Mm-hmm. That’s when you get real. That’s
John-Nelson Pope: when you start to say, do I really need, do I really know this person? Right? And, and have I really listened to [01:02:00] this person? What am
Chris Gazdik: I about to commit to in giving in, in way of not being in, in being selfless, not being driven by my own self, but rather, yeah. It’s a lot.
There’s a lot there. Another couple things that was in my brainstorm at least sounds weird, but check, check other people’s view on the relationship. How do you manage these intense feelings? Mm-hmm. Get out of the way, get objective by getting people that know you. If people go to therapy and therapy, of course, if people know you and they’re telling you, Hey, you’re a different person.
I don’t really feel the, I don’t catching the vibe like, you know, what’s going
Victoria Pendergrass: on, or, Hey, I haven’t seen you in four months. Attention, boyfriend is
Chris Gazdik: dominating.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And neglect like, what’s the word I’m looking for? Isolating you from your family. Right. And
Chris Gazdik: friends, it’s an issue. It’s an isn’t an issue. So get feedback, be objective with people.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I [01:03:00] was, I was thinking one of the first marriage books, textbooks, it was it was called the rags of Marriage and by Jackson. I don’t know. He was the, started the M R I institute out of Palo Alto, California. But he did, so he was one of those people that did the cybernetics for Marriage and Family and Marriage Counseling.
That’s just a little history. But I got that book and I swear I, I carried it around and I read it for about a month, and I’m thinking, and, and it’s how to do premarital counseling and relationship counseling and all of that. Mm-hmm. And it occurred to me that’s not, it was, I read it as the Miracles of Marriage.
It was the Mirage, Mirage’s of Marriage, the
Chris Gazdik: Mirage.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. The Mirage of Marriage. It, it isn’t. And that was, but it was a good, it was a [01:04:00] good textbook because it, it gave a
Chris Gazdik: lot of, it made you think a
John-Nelson Pope: lot it sounds like. Yeah. And it made you think about finances and sharing assets and things like that. And we don’t do that anymore.
We have people that just move in together and they know each other for a week or two weeks and they don’t ever mix their finances or anything of this sort. Yeah. Okay. I’m looking at you’re, look, you’re laughing. Victoria went somewhere. I’m so,
Chris Gazdik: I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: so naive. No, no, you’re fine. I don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t think it’s, it’s appropriate for this.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I’m not gonna talk about it. I’m, we’re gonna leave Victoria in her head and I’m gonna say there are a couple rules I wanna throw out there to wrap up. My brainstorm is, you know, creating for kids in this new environment for sure. Right? Like, never post anything that you wouldn’t say in person. I think that’s of really song Amen Rule that you need to follow.
You never post anything that you wouldn’t say in person when you’re texting, typing or, or going up.
Victoria Pendergrass: Because the one thing that we know is once [01:05:00] something is on the internet, it never really goes away. It’s permanent. It’s forever. It is permanent. It’s forever,
Chris Gazdik: right? Kids really do not realize
Victoria Pendergrass: this. Once something is on the internet, it never goes away.
John-Nelson Pope: And, and if you think a website is dead or broken, there’s, there are tools like the way back machine can go back and find anything
Victoria Pendergrass: in everything and not, and not just that. In today’s world, people take screenshots, people do all sorts of stuff, so you may have deleted it. As soon as you posted it because you’re like, oh crap, I shouldn’t have posted that.
Who knows? This
Chris Gazdik: Snapchat doesn’t really delete, is what
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re saying. Well, yeah. I mean, just because it says it deletes after you open it, it’s still floating out there somewhere and it can be retrieved. It’s, it’s there a hundred
Chris Gazdik: percent. Yeah. Yeah. The last thing I would say is also not to argue or explore emotional issues without verbal conversation.
Mm-hmm. This is not something, and I know this [01:06:00] is getting a little bit more normal to have discussions on text for people and accuse me of being old fashioned as well moving into my fifties, but I’m gonna suggest that everything I know about mental interaction, engagement, relationships, emotions, mental health, like you need that, that our, we, our bodies are geared towards being engaged with each other.
80% of what we say is non-verbal. Lemme say that again. When you’re sitting in a room with somebody, All of the things you’re receiving and emitting that are non-verbal are 80% of what you’re communicating. Mm-hmm. 20% are the words that you use. Mm-hmm. It’s amazing if you think about that. So how effective can we do having an emotional exploration together when 80% of what we typically say is gone?
So what, what I’m hearing
John-Nelson Pope: from you say is, is that so far, so people that are having long-term relationships overseas and there’s, [01:07:00] and all that, it’s basically a form of autistic behavior. You’re basically projecting that stuff on the other person. And that’s not you, right? I mean, that’s not them.
It’s
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Yes and yes. We ran over a little bit. We need to get outta here soon. Closing thoughts, comments though? Sum us up. Anything that you’re thinking. I think it’s been a good conversation to get us really thinking about. Meeting and greeting and dating and how we’re doing this, not just as
teens, helping ourselves as adults out, as well as helping the, the teenagers and young adults.
My
Victoria Pendergrass: final thoughts are do not treat teenagers as teen. I mean, they’re human beings. Let ’em, let ’em have the crush, let ’em experience it. Don’t downplay.
Chris Gazdik: Be careful about minimum, and I
John-Nelson Pope: think it’s better than an orange crush. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I don’t know. I, I might would pick an orange crush. There you go. Yeah.
My school used to do this thing on Valentine’s Day where you could pay to have a crush [01:08:00] sent to someone anonymously. Oh wow. And then they could pay a dollar to find out who it was and then, gosh, then you could pay a dollar to block it and it was a fundraiser. But anyways. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: how play, you know what?
We’re gonna leave it right there, Victoria, because that is a play on social media and how this stuff works nowadays. Wow. Oh my. I bet they made a lot of money. Listen, guys, have faith be well. You can date, you can mate. You can greet each other and there’s a lot that hopefully you’re learning when we talk about these types of things.
So thanks for listening. Thanks for hanging out. Be well. We’ll see you next week. I fooled
John-Nelson Pope: around and fell in love.
Chris Gazdik: Have you heard that one? Thank you, John.