Diana Mandell Dating & Relationship Expert

Good morning, guys.

This is one more episode of Cat on the Loose, and I am so, so, so excited because today I have here with me live via Zoom, Diana Mandel.

She's an international dating coach, relationship expert, author, and public speaker, specializing in helping men, women, and couples find and keep healthy and sustainable relationships.

It sounds amazing.

And when I told you guys that that she was going to be here, I've been bombarded with questions.

So we're kind of laughing because we know we don't have enough time to answer all of them, but I'm going to say hi to her and let's jump right into it.

Hi, Diana.

Hi, thank you for having me.

Thank you so much for doing this.

Needless to say, I think relationships and dating are a subject that everybody has something to say about.

Do you agree?

1,000%.

That is very true.

So I don't even know where to start, but I guess because of everything that's been happening with COVID and this craziness, do you think things are more, people are in general more interested in the subject?

Because it goes either way, right?

Either couples love each other even more because now they're stuck at home for so long or they hate each other and they're going to get divorced and kill each other.

Do you think this COVID has affected the way

we basically relate with each other in general?

100%.

And I say that because for singles, being trapped in your place and not being able to see friends and go out and be social, that's a really big problem.

So it's definitely more in singles' minds to potentially be in a relationship with someone.

And then if you're in a relationship, kind of like you said, there's definitely issues there where if there were some minor issues, let's say before,

and now you're in completely very close quarters, and oftentimes you're in small apartments you know that are a thousand square feet there's not really anywhere to kind of escape to and you're both working and it's stressful financially you might have kids like there's just a lot of stuff thrown on i know and if your parents let's say are ill you know you have to take care of them during this time like there's just so many added stressors and there's already a ton of stress in life So if there's any issues, it's just going to get exacerbated during this time.

And I think so.

I'm actually working with a lot more couples now because of that and i think for us singles like single people like me it just seems and i don't know if you agree um or if you have a lot of people that that try to find help with you because of that it just seems everything is even more difficult it's more difficult to be single and i don't know i have a lot of girlfriends that say the same thing to me it's like everybody's going crazy out there Men are going crazy.

It's just hard dating in general.

Do you hear that a lot lately?

Yeah, I've also gotten a lot more single clients as well for this fact because dating is difficult as it is.

And so when you add on, you know, the virus, and this isn't even something that we really have any experience with, you know, and so it sort of adds on another layer of like, well, what do I do now?

It was hard enough.

And now you take out the idea of approaching people and meeting face to face just organically.

pretty much out besides say the grocery store you know maybe just a couple places that you're going and so it makes online dating which is you know good and bad um right there's some good results and some mediocre results on there um

but it makes that so much more weighted now the good thing is because we're being really negative so the good thing is that you know there is definitely more of an emotional connection that can potentially come because you can't see each other physically i mean generally speaking it's getting a little bit better now people are it is a little scary yeah

yeah but it's actually getting better, and so because of that, you're sort of forced to kind of like slow down, really meet people, get to know them, ask more important questions, and it kind of puts a lot in perspective in terms of life too and what's important to us.

True.

So, now the first question here now is my question.

Is there a simple answer as to why men behave badly towards women that they supposedly like?

I don't know if you read some of my past episodes, and it's like this crazy chaos of like getting involved, tangled up with this man, and then all of a sudden they become crazy.

Is there like a simple answer or no?

It's too complicated.

You know, listen, there's several things.

It's almost kind of like the little kid in the sandbox that kind of throws sand at the girl that he likes, right?

So part of it is, you know, just kind of like the way that guys

flirt.

I think for some men, it's fear in terms of them not necessarily feeling good enough in a relationship.

So they're going to sabotage it.

For other guys, they think that women want jerks.

And even though we want guys that are confident, I think a lot of men will sort of confuse cockiness with confidence.

And so, you know, some guys will come across that way, but maybe they're not actually that way.

They just feel like they need to be that way, you know, just for like ego purposes and so forth.

That explains a lot.

Right?

Makes sense, right?

And some men just really don't appreciate the women they have in front of them at the time until maybe later.

And it's like, oh, damn, Tat was really great.

And I let her get away.

That is so true.

Sometimes, you know, it can be relating to that.

Yeah.

And for some men, they lack confidence,

just like women can.

And they end up doing things that are sort of out of their nature because they don't feel good about themselves.

And, you know, it's tough.

You know, we don't learn what relationships are like.

We model them at our parents at times, which is sometimes scary.

Very.

Sometimes scary, sometimes not.

But there's no rule book.

You know, we don't learn this in school.

We don't learn this in school.

No,

no.

So everyone's kind of fending for themselves and creating their own like sort of rules and boundaries and expectations.

Yeah.

And it's creating a lot of, you know, problems and confusion.

Yeah.

And people are taking it upon themselves.

And that's basically why I have a job.

And what would I do?

I sort of wish I wasn't needed.

You are very needed, apparently, you are very, very needed.

Not by just by me, but you're very needed by a lot of people because I've been getting like over 100 questions, if you can believe that.

In a period since we started promoting that you were going to be on the podcast, like last Friday, I have stopped counting when I counted like 112, 114 questions.

And my girlfriend's like, Oh, my heart cute.

Exactly, we're gonna need part two, part three, part four.

But your answer brings me to the next question: it It is a problem that I face as a woman in the past, and a lot of my girlfriends, and maybe you.

Do you think most men, not all men, but most men or a lot of men are intimidated by successful, powerful women?

Because many times, when men see like my pictures and you know, social media, they're like, oh, she's so cute, and all she does is take pictures, da, da, da.

Then, when they talk to me and they see, wow, she actually has a college degree and she actually does other things, they get like completely aggressive and they change the way they treat me.

Do you think it's just

something wrong in my mind?

Or a lot of men are intimidated by

intelligent women, successful women?

So it's a bit of both.

I wouldn't say most men.

I don't know if that's fair, but I will

definitely say some.

Right.

Definitely would say some.

And what ends up happening is men that are not high quality, that, you know, do not have confidence, will feel threatened by a woman that has her stuff together, that's powerful, that doesn't need a man, but wants a man.

And those are two different things.

That's such a

right.

At times, when a guy feels like he kind of can't be that hero to swoop in and almost to have that control in a sense, whether, you know, it's financially, whatever the case may be, you know, it's like, wow, like this woman really doesn't need anything

guys.

Our connection broke up a little bit.

Oh, did we freeze?

Yeah, we did.

I'm like right near my modem, so hopefully we're not going to have this problem again.

Sorry, guys.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Now, let's talk about toxic relationships.

Do you think I've asked that question to life coaches, psychologists, psychiatrists, but I want to know from an expert like you, do you think we attract, there's like a reason within ourselves that we attract toxic people?

And is there a way, is there anything we can do to stop attracting toxic people?

So there's several reasons.

I think a lot of people think that attraction is out of our control and to some degree it is, but we attract people for a specific reason.

It's not not just sort of willy-nilly and whatever happens, happens, there's a reason why.

And without going sort of too in depth, it can be from our childhood in terms of modeling our parents and what kind of relationship they had and generally either being towards or away from a particular parent that was either good to us or not good to us.

At times it's uh really like healing, needing to heal your own wounds from trauma, from past breakup, not trusting yourself, not trusting other people, and having this sort of belief around love, whether it's not safe or all men are this or that, right?

Like fill in the blank here.

And a lot of it is a lack of confidence that you have in yourself.

So you look for your partner to kind of do the work for you.

And we can end up sort of repeating certain patterns, whether it's from past relationships, how we feel about ourselves, our parents, and kind of acting out certain, you know, relationships there.

So for example, let's say, thank god I didn't, but let's just say I had a you know, really nasty father.

So, oftentimes, we end up looking for a man who's nasty as well, and not necessarily because that's what we're used to, though there that plays a role, but it's because you're trying to recreate the pattern and actually be chosen by your father and have your father really see you for the person that you wanted to be seen for, but never could.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, it explains a lot.

But is there a way that we can actually stop the pattern like in my case all of a sudden i attracted just a bunch of really bad bad men toxic behavior abusive behavior and boom boom boom boom boom and now i'm trying to figure out okay is there anything we can do as women to change that

yeah so i think a lot of times we think that we have complete you know lack of control in this but you actually have complete control because there's a reason that it's happening and my job for example is to get into the weeds and kind of pick out exactly what's happening but it is something that's happening with you internally and it's your energy it's your vibe it can be you know self-love type of thing a self-care type of thing you know there's something going on again it could be a pattern from your past you know that needs to be looked at in terms of childhood how you were treated how you were raised how your parents relationship was possibly so there's something going on internally it's not a mistake you know that it's like wow it's the same guy over and over that's you know how you know strange is that it's not something is going on that needs to be sort of tweaked you know or looked at a little bit it's not that you know you don't deserve love or that love will never happen for you or that all guys are jerks or anything else it just means there's some internal work that needs to be done maybe a little fix here or there that will help cause you to have a different result and have a guy who really respects you

i think now it's super important that we say that i always say to myself and i say it on on all my work, there is no reason in the world any woman, any girl should accept bad behavior by men, correct?

There is no reason.

Nothing justifies that, right?

Nothing.

But when you don't feel great about yourself, you give people discounts.

Exactly.

And that's the problem.

And we make excuses and we overlook certain things.

We see red flags.

We know what people are.

Generally, people show you who they are, but we see what we want to see.

We don't see what's actually there.

That is

a problem.

Now,

one of my friends that sent me this question said, please ask that question.

Dating apps, a lot of us are using dating apps, even before COVID.

Now, with COVID, because like you said, we're home, we don't want to go out.

Do you think most men use dating apps because they just want quick sex, or you think people out there actually want a relationship out of these dating apps?

So, this is a question I get a lot, and it's a good one.

It's going to be both.

And the reason I say that is some men are going to have really good intentions where they want a relationship, they want commitment, they're a really good person, they want to actually genuinely meet someone.

And other guys are going to just want sex, a sort of quick, easy way to find someone.

But if you really think about it, dating apps get a lot of, you know, bad reputation and just sort of, you know, a bad kind of view of what it is.

But if you really think about it, it's just a piece of the population that you would meet anywhere, whether it's a bar, a wedding, an event, right?

You were set up by a friend.

I mean, it just, I mean, these are people that live in the world, right?

Yeah.

Just like you'd meet anywhere else.

It's just more kind of populated, but you're going to find both.

And there's no like real way per se to avoid them, but you can pick up on certain cues that guys will give you.

Because if guys want sex, they're not generally going to be coy about that and shy about it.

They're pretty open about it.

And if we're not giving them sex, then they're not going to get it.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, exactly.

You made such a good point.

It's always, it's all, it's up to us, I think, right?

Like you said, to figure out, hear the cues, listen to it.

Maybe sometimes, like when we're needy, like you said, we excuse behavior or we get passed by things because we just want to go out with somebody.

And then we end up going out to the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

And it becomes like a snowball, right?

exactly and you don't want to lead with sex because sometimes women think that they're not great internally so physically they'll lead with sex and then men get that and the emotional connection isn't there and then he's gone yeah that's amazing do you think that's the this question is linked to what you just said to me and i think to most women Having a mental connection is super important.

I don't want to just go and have sex to have sex.

And I think a lot of girls are like me.

But do you think it's different for men?

Men, in general, they're just like, oh, I just want to have sex.

Or do you think

a lot of women think that men don't want commitment?

They do.

They just don't want to commit to the wrong woman.

And sometimes guys become afraid of that because after they have committed and they're sort of in it, they feel stuck and afraid to get out.

So men need emotional connection, actually, to be in a relationship with someone.

And it's not easy to find where sex, generally speaking, is a lot easier and more available.

Whereas a deep connection with someone, you can't just have that with anyone where you can have at least decent sex with a lot of people.

Right.

So men really do want an emotional connection.

That's what's going to keep him in, you know, sort of like in the loop, wanting to see you again, being excited about you and feeling really attached to you.

Men want that commitment.

They want the acceptance.

They want the emotional safety just as much as we do.

So in other words, if it's the right person for us, they're going to want the same thing that we do.

And if the guy just wants sex, you might as well let them go because you know they're not the right person for you, right?

Exactly.

There's no forcing

connection, not the physical.

Yeah, that's super, super interesting.

Amazing.

Do you think

technology has changed the way people date in general?

Was it easier before when people actually had to meet face to face or is it easier now?

What do you think?

You know, it's kind of both and I'll tell you why.

The positive part of it is that you're meeting people that you never would have met ordinarily, whether they live in a different town or whether, you know, maybe they were sort of, you know, out of your age bracket a little bit that you would have considered.

So you definitely more of an open mind and many more choices.

And it's so easy, which is convenience.

Obviously, I could hop on at 2 p.m., 2 a.m., right and respond to messages so it's really convenient and really easy especially for busy lifestyle type of people which a lot of us are the downside is that we're almost seen as not human beings anymore which is why like the ghosting is happening the swiping is happening you know we almost like excuse bad behavior and feeling like we can sort of compare people and know that we can have another date tomorrow night in five minutes if we wanted to

and so we're not really treating people like humans they're just kind of like little like widgets almost.

You know what I mean?

Where it's just, you know, just sort of like a face, a little square on my screen, but like you're a human and you have a heart and you have feelings.

And so that's kind of the downside.

So the upside is having access to so many different people.

The downside is that you have access to so many people, right?

Like the same exact thing.

The other night, a friend of mine told me, do you think dating these days is almost like winning the lottery or like digging for gold?

You have to go through 10 million bad tickets until you find the right one do you think it's kind of like that but that's not i don't think that's i don't think that's always true um i do think it's kind of a numbers game but i don't think a numbers game the way most people think it's more to me that you know you talk to and speak to communicate with a lot of people but you don't go out with as many it's almost like a funnel where at the top it gets like you know really large and it starts you know to taper in so you talk to a lot of people and interact with a lot of people, but you go and date to very few.

You talk to people with their life to see if you'd want to be stuck on a date with them for an hour or two.

Yeah, so you don't want to, you know, just kind of shoot, you know, in the dark and kind of kiss a ton of frogs, like they say, until you find your prince.

Like, you really want to be more strategic than that.

That's kind of where I come into play to make the whole dating sort of environment and landscape a lot easier.

Yeah.

You know, to navigate because it can be really overwhelming and it can feel kind of like you said, you know, where it's just sort of like, let's just throw a bunch of shit at a wall and see what sticks you know you do want some you know sort of like technique in a sense you know some sort of vision and way that you're actually dating and not where it's just kind of a free-for-all so that you're really saving your time and energy yeah but you you know you are gonna have to see what's out there and be open-minded and it takes effort and time it is you know i'm not gonna say it's this super easy thing but it shouldn't be as difficult as a lot of people sort of think it is or say it is well after talking to you i feel a little better maybe i'll try again

i've been i've been feeling so gun-shy about dating i'm like okay i'm retired i can't do this anymore i'm gonna stay home by myself forever but after talking to you i feel a little feel a little better my god time goes by so fast we're almost at the end but diana already was nice enough to say that she will do like a second

episode because we still have like more than a hundred questions but let me ask one more before I let you go.

That's another question that a lot of people send me the same question.

More than 10 girls send me the same question.

Is there a way that we can get past relationship traumas and trust people again?

So this is actually a really interesting answer that I have.

It's not necessarily about trusting other people so much, though I do think that you should heal your heart before you put yourself out there again and you really work on yourself, learn the lessons you know decide what you really want almost like the traits behind the traits so while we say we want someone who's nice and funny and interesting and you know it's like well mine nice funny and interesting could be very different from yours so it's really learning what you want but ultimately at the end of the day it's trusting yourself you don't need to trust other people right i mean we don't we don't know people and so when you're on a first second or third date you're kind of taking what people say with a grain of salt and you're kind of taking it for what they say at face value but if you trust yourself with your instincts and you know kind of taking some logic to it some you know intuition some of your heart your gut feeling and you're really present and acting in a really confident way not being needy not being you know fearful but really being you and being in tune you trust you that's all i care about i don't care about them you know and trusting them you need to trust your own self and your own judgment and take it slow and see people show you who they are.

So make sure you're taking it slow rather than faster.

And trust your gut and see what happens.

You know, people show you who they are.

You don't need to jump into something.

And a minimal person is not for you.

Yeah, no, and it's fantastic that you said that because somebody else told me the same thing the other day.

It's not just because somebody hurt us in the past, that somebody in the future is going to do the same thing.

So it's not fair to blame one person for somebody else's behavior, right?

Absolutely.

and that's a really big point because a lot of people think you know if one or two people did then you know the whole world must be like that yeah and it doesn't work like that you can't label everyone not all men are a-holes just a few right

exactly and just like not all women are crazy right men think women are crazy that's certainly not true either So we can tend to overgeneralize and kind of make these grandiose big statements to kind of protect ourselves, but we're actually kind of shooting ourselves in the foot because then what happens?

You stop dating.

So true, well which is my case but maybe i'll jump in the dating pool so we'll see i'll let you guys know diana mandel you're fantastic how do people find you if they want help extra help sure so dianamandel.com is my website you can book a call with me and learn more about me on there as well sounds amazing and and your instagram is your name right diana mandel she does amazing posts you write these little inspirational notes that i absolutely love so i think you you guys should most definitely follow her work.

She's incredible.

Thank you so, so much.

And we're going to schedule a new episode soon, whenever you can, because people are like super excited and interested about this topic.

And apparently, a lot of people need help, not just me.

Thank you so much.

You're the best.

Thanks for having me.

I really appreciate it.