Speaker 1: This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k
Speaker 1: I Am six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
Speaker 1: demand on the iHeartRadio appf I Am six forty. You
Speaker 1: have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walls Show. If you are new to my show,
Speaker 1: I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with the science of love and all
Speaker 1: our relationships. And our relationships get a little bit dicey
Speaker 1: around this time of year because the holidays are upon us.
Speaker 1: So in the show, I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about Thanksgiving and the other holidays coming up, dealing
Speaker 1: with your ex. Also, do you remember your first love?
Speaker 1: We all remember our first love, don't we. Our heart
Speaker 1: still goes pitter patter. I'm going to talk about why
Speaker 1: teenage love is not puppy love and why it's very
Speaker 1: very important. And if you have any doubt that the
Speaker 1: science of love is a bona fide quantifiable science, then
Speaker 1: you better stay close because I Am going to talk
Speaker 1: to you about some of the latest breakthroughs in the
Speaker 1: science of love because it opens up the whole game
Speaker 1: board of life for all of us. Before we get
Speaker 1: to it, I want to say hello to producer Kayla.
Speaker 1: How are you, baby? I am wonderful. Doctor Wendy, how
Speaker 1: are you? Your hair's like in a broccoli. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: call it a pineapple, doctor Wendy. Well, and one of
Speaker 1: my kids I used to call it a broccoly broccoli
Speaker 1: when they were three. I guess when you grow up,
Speaker 1: it becomes a pineapple, and if you're beautiful, you get
Speaker 1: called a fine apple. Oh, a fineapple. That's so cute
Speaker 1: and raoul. How you doing. I'm great, I'm great. Happy
Speaker 1: early Thanksgiving. I know it's coming up, it's coming up.
Speaker 1: And Brigitta, good to see you again. Great, So listen.
Speaker 1: I love your show. I'm a fan. Thank you. Feel
Speaker 1: free to pipe in if I say anything wrong, because
Speaker 1: I do say things wrong all the time. Thing wrong.
Speaker 1: I just so interesting in everything. So I've talked about
Speaker 1: this before. Thanksgiving is a thing for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: One is I think it's the biggest American holiday. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I think it's the biggest American holiday
Speaker 1: is because the only one that's a two day holiday.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know Thursday's a Thanksgiving and Friday's the
Speaker 1: shopping day. But you know, basically most people, not all.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of you essential workers in those
Speaker 1: stores for US Christmas shoppers are there on Friday, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people take the two days off and
Speaker 1: make a long weekend. So when I was growing up
Speaker 1: in Canada, the big holiday was Christmas because it was
Speaker 1: also two day holiday, Christmas and Boxing Day. Here, I
Speaker 1: was just shocked that Christmas was only one day and
Speaker 1: every other holiday for the most part, not like Presence
Speaker 1: Day and whatever, but a lot of them are religious holidays.
Speaker 1: But Thanksgiving is the one thing that every American seems
Speaker 1: to celebrate, and they get together around a table and
Speaker 1: hopefully when you sit around that table on Thursday, you
Speaker 1: will express thanks. And there is science that supports the
Speaker 1: idea that gratitude has really big benefits for both your
Speaker 1: mental and physical health. There have been studies that show
Speaker 1: that people who practice gratitude regularly just have higher levels
Speaker 1: of positivity, positive emotions. That means reduced depression and anxiety.
Speaker 1: But the big one that I love is better resilience
Speaker 1: and better stress management. You know, when I'm feeling down,
Speaker 1: you know that saying counter blessings, but it's really true
Speaker 1: when you're feeling down instead of looking up, meaning that
Speaker 1: people who seem to be happier seem to have more stuff,
Speaker 1: but instead look at people who have less and feel
Speaker 1: good and grateful for what you do have. It can
Speaker 1: make you resilient. Now, there are also some physiological benefits
Speaker 1: to gratitude. Grateful people sleep better, they have less intrusive
Speaker 1: thoughts in the night, They tend to have lower blood
Speaker 1: pressure and heart health, a stronger immune system, reduced inflammation.
Speaker 1: This is true, it's all been proven by science. So
Speaker 1: and also, when you're feeling grateful for your life, you
Speaker 1: have more healthy behaviors like exercise, and you also have
Speaker 1: better social bonds with your friends. So how do you
Speaker 1: practice gratitude? Well, I love the Thanksgiving tradition of going
Speaker 1: around the table and asking everybody instead of saying prayers.
Speaker 1: Or you can't say prayers too if you want, if
Speaker 1: that's your thing, you can literally just say what you're
Speaker 1: grateful for, and that in itself can lower your blood
Speaker 1: pressure just stopping to think about it. For the rest
Speaker 1: of us, on a regular basis, when it's not Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: we can be keeping gratitude journals. We can make it
Speaker 1: a point to express appreciation and gratitude to others for
Speaker 1: no reason. I try to. I know this sounds funny,
Speaker 1: but I don't. Maybe just says I can't stop myself,
Speaker 1: and I just have no verbal editing, no break on me.
Speaker 1: When I'm out in public and I see somebody wearing something,
Speaker 1: or their hair a certain way, or their shoes whatever,
Speaker 1: I compliment them all the time, strangers in public. And
Speaker 1: you would not believe how people's faces just brighten up.
Speaker 1: They just totally love to be a compliment. You can
Speaker 1: talk to anybody in public. Okay, anyway, I hope you
Speaker 1: have a wonderful Thanksgiving. But I know there's going to
Speaker 1: be one thing that's going to come up, not just
Speaker 1: gratitude at the table, talk of politics. We know it's
Speaker 1: going to come up. We know that every family in
Speaker 1: America has people on one side of the table or another.
Speaker 1: This is very similar to the entire history of America.
Speaker 1: Whenever I hear people say, oh my god, We've never
Speaker 1: been so polarized as before the Civil War. I recently,
Speaker 1: Julio and I my darling new husband, Julio and I
Speaker 1: watched Hamilton. You know, I had not seen Hamilton live.
Speaker 1: I'd only seen it streaming over COVID when we were
Speaker 1: at home, and I didn't know how to turn on
Speaker 1: the subtitles back then, and they were talking so fast
Speaker 1: and singing. And I've never taken an American history course.
Speaker 1: You know. I became an American in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and at that time, my daughter, who was a fourth grader,
Speaker 1: trained me for the test. She gave me all the
Speaker 1: test questions to take the citizenship test. But I've never
Speaker 1: taken an American history course. And for those of you
Speaker 1: who say that's terrible, I will ask you, did you
Speaker 1: ever study about the big Battle on the Plains of
Speaker 1: Abraham between Montcalm and Wolf. It's the final battle in
Speaker 1: the Seven Years War between Britain and France that shaped Canada,
Speaker 1: Just saying do you know about that?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: So I watched it with him with subtitles, and now
Speaker 1: I understand so much about American history. But also during
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's tide, well, I mean he got shot by
Speaker 1: the vice president. It's wild. There was a lot of division.
Speaker 1: So here's what I want to tell you about how
Speaker 1: you should handle it. You have a choice. You could
Speaker 1: make a deal ahead of time and say, guys, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a wonderful family Thanksgiving. There will be no
Speaker 1: talk of politics. Let's just put it aside. You can
Speaker 1: do that, or you can do the other more civil thing,
Speaker 1: which is allow somebody to express themselves and simply nod
Speaker 1: and smile or say thank you for sharing that, and
Speaker 1: then you can add your side. You don't have to
Speaker 1: suck it up and say nothing. But then once that's done,
Speaker 1: everybody said they're piece. Just shut up. Okay, just don't
Speaker 1: heart because if you're trying to, it's a little too
Speaker 1: late to try to convince somebody because their vote's already gone.
Speaker 1: And if you start hammering them but but the issues
Speaker 1: are and you're not it, then it becomes a fight,
Speaker 1: and then you're being a bully at your Thanksgiving table.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you to either keep politics
Speaker 1: off the table or simply allow everybody to state their
Speaker 1: thing once you state yours, and then say pass the potatoes. Right,
Speaker 1: that's how you're supposed to do it. We're supposed to
Speaker 1: love each other as family and friends who come together
Speaker 1: to break bread in gratitude for our relatively wonderful lives.
Speaker 1: It's easy to look around the globe and find people
Speaker 1: not doing so well.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Another movie we watched this week. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: Kayla called The Blitz? No? Okay, so you know the
Speaker 1: guy who did Twelve Years a Slave, He was a
Speaker 1: writer director. Did you just see that movie? No? I cried, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't watch movies like that. It was really distressing. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Well he did another one and it was it's called
Speaker 1: The Blitz, and it's about the Blitz of London. Blitz
Speaker 1: when they were bombing the Germans were bombing London and
Speaker 1: they send a little you know, they send all their
Speaker 1: kids away on trains to the countryside to be taken
Speaker 1: care of. And this one sweet little boy he jumps
Speaker 1: off the train and tries to go back to London
Speaker 1: to find his mother and all the bad people's hands
Speaker 1: he ends up in and some good people and what
Speaker 1: he learns about race and racism because he happens to
Speaker 1: be bi racial. It's based on a true story. They
Speaker 1: have a picture of the real boy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I won't tell you the ending, but honestly, I jumped
Speaker 1: off the couch and screamed a number of times. It's
Speaker 1: streaming somewhere I don't remember where. It was apple or whatever,
Speaker 1: but I jumped off, so you should see the blitz. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you look at lives like that. You look at times
Speaker 1: in history, you look at families separated, and then look
Speaker 1: at your life here in La You're complaining about the
Speaker 1: cost of your latte and what the freeway traffic is like. No,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to dismiss those who have real problems.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying we can all find something to be
Speaker 1: grateful for, all right. The other thing that happens around
Speaker 1: this time of year for many many people is they're
Speaker 1: about to enter a holiday season where they have to
Speaker 1: deal with their X because they have kids. Together, let's
Speaker 1: talk about ways to survive the holidays with your ex.
Speaker 1: When we come back. You are listening to the Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty, you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
Speaker 1: This is the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. So you know
Speaker 1: it's the season. The season for KFI Pastathon is happening.
Speaker 1: You know, you guys say postathon. But I lived in
Speaker 1: Italy once upon a time, and every time I ordered pasta,
Speaker 1: they said, you mean pasta. That's how they say it
Speaker 1: in Italy. Well, the fourteenth annual KFI Pastathon is here.
Speaker 1: Chef Bruno's charity, Katerina's Club, provides more than twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand meals every week to kids in need in Southern California,
Speaker 1: and it all happens because of your generosity. Now you
Speaker 1: got three ways you can help. You can just go
Speaker 1: right now to KFI AM six forty dot com slash
Speaker 1: Pastathon and donate money. Or you can shop at any
Speaker 1: Smart and Final store and donate any amount of checkout.
Speaker 1: Or go to any Wendy's restaurant. I don't own them, Okay,
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, you know what the
Speaker 1: picture the saying they put underneath my high school picture,
Speaker 1: what Wendy's Hot and juicy, because that's what the ads said.
Speaker 1: I do not on the rest Anyway, you can head
Speaker 1: into any Wendy's restaurant in Southern California and donate five
Speaker 1: dollars or more and get a cupon book for Wendy's goodies.
Speaker 1: And remember we do an all day KFI Live broadcast
Speaker 1: from the Anaheim White House restaurant. That's going to be
Speaker 1: on Giving Tuesday, that's December third, So come on out
Speaker 1: and see us from five am to ten pm. You
Speaker 1: can donate on site. You can bring pasta and sauce,
Speaker 1: drop it off and as always, one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: your donation goes to Katerina's Club. We love our chef Bruno.
Speaker 1: He's a great guy, alrighty, But your ex may not
Speaker 1: be a great guy or a great gal. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about surviving the holidays with your ex. Now. I want
Speaker 1: to be clear about one thing. There's only one reason
Speaker 1: to be anywhere near your ex for the holidays, and
Speaker 1: that is your young children's happiness. Did you notice how
Speaker 1: I qualified that your young children's happiness. Many couples, after
Speaker 1: they separate or divorce, choose to come back together for holidays, birthdays,
Speaker 1: religious holidays, et cetera, for their young children's happiness. By
Speaker 1: the time kids hit about teenage life, you can split
Speaker 1: them up. It's okay, you don't have to. So Rule
Speaker 1: number one. These are doctor Wendy's. I made up these rules.
Speaker 1: They mean nothing rules here. They are doctor Wendy's. Rule
Speaker 1: Number one. Co parenting doesn't mean that you have to
Speaker 1: be together for all the holiday events. Who thought that up?
Speaker 1: Are you going to be this fake family from time
Speaker 1: to time? Now? What you should consider, of course, is
Speaker 1: the age of the children. If they are under the
Speaker 1: age of twelve, you might consider doing some family things together.
Speaker 1: When my girls were little, so we split up when
Speaker 1: my kids were two and seven, and Daddy used to
Speaker 1: come on Christmas morning sometimes, but he would only stay
Speaker 1: like an hour, bring a couple gifts. He would show
Speaker 1: up with a black trash bag with presents and say,
Speaker 1: I'm bad, Zenna. I'm bad, Senna. I didn't get that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, also can sit extended family members. Let's say
Speaker 1: you have had a fairly long relationship and let's say
Speaker 1: your mother in law is aging and you love her,
Speaker 1: and she's still ex mother in law whatever, you didn't
Speaker 1: divorce her, right. There might be other reasons that there
Speaker 1: are other family members that you care about that you
Speaker 1: want to show appreciation for. You know, I commend my
Speaker 1: brother my brother every Christmas. In kid's birthdays, there would
Speaker 1: be the kid's grandparents. Now, the kid's grandparents were the
Speaker 1: parents of his ex wife, but they were still always
Speaker 1: welcome at any kid's event. And I will say, near
Speaker 1: the end of their lives, when they weren't doing so well,
Speaker 1: who was there taking care of them? My brother? I'm ranting,
Speaker 1: but no, the daughter lived further away, he was closer,
Speaker 1: So there you go. It worked also things to consider
Speaker 1: the cost of airfare and hotels. Look, if it's completely
Speaker 1: impractical for you to fly the kids halfway across the
Speaker 1: country or all the way across the country, just so
Speaker 1: you can do this united, you know what, take a breather, alternate,
Speaker 1: do it different years. Kids will understand whatever you explain
Speaker 1: to them, right, So remember that rule number one. Co
Speaker 1: parenting doesn't mean you have to all be together at
Speaker 1: all these holiday events. Rule number two, Please consider the
Speaker 1: feelings of your current partner. You love your husband, your wife,
Speaker 1: your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whoever's on the scene now. So
Speaker 1: talking to them about how they feel about this is
Speaker 1: important because they are your future and they have an
Speaker 1: opinion in all of this. Right, we had a discussion
Speaker 1: we were trying to figure out and we've got older
Speaker 1: kids so it doesn't really matter that much, but we
Speaker 1: were kind of thinking, well, maybe he could spend Christmas
Speaker 1: with his kids and I would spend Christmas with my kids,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, dude, we're a married couple. Now
Speaker 1: we're gonna have Christmas wherever. We're gonna have Christmas. If
Speaker 1: any of those adults want to show up, they're not kids.
Speaker 1: Any of those adults want to show up, We'll tell
Speaker 1: them where Christmas is right and they can show up
Speaker 1: for it. So consider the feelings of your current partner.
Speaker 1: In this case, it was me, all right. Rule number three,
Speaker 1: The word holidays is plural. Okay, get this through your noggin.
Speaker 1: There are many days to celebrate. There's Thanksgiving, there's the
Speaker 1: day after Thanksgiving. There's Hankah. There's eight days of Hanukah.
Speaker 1: There's Christmas Eve, there's Christmas Day, there's Boxing Day. There's
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve, there's New Year's Day. There are so
Speaker 1: many there's quantza. I don't know. There's so many holidays
Speaker 1: around the holidays. That's why we call them the holidays.
Speaker 1: The producer, Kayla, did you notice this giant tree in
Speaker 1: our Yeah, it's already here.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: OK. So many days. It could be November and there's
Speaker 1: Christmas right here in the right job. See many many days.
Speaker 1: So that means there are many meals on those many days.
Speaker 1: Is it okay to have Christmas breakfast with one Christmas
Speaker 1: dinner with another? Sure, but make a plan. Start talking
Speaker 1: about the schedule early. You might late already this year,
Speaker 1: so why don't you start talking about next year? Now?
Speaker 1: This is the time to sort it all out. Do
Speaker 1: you think I'm crazy, Kayla? I think no. I don't
Speaker 1: want it's wrong, which is making a plan. I think
Speaker 1: that that makes a lot of sense. But people are
Speaker 1: afraid to set boundaries. I think with their exes, you know,
Speaker 1: because they think, oh, you know, they leave the guilt
Speaker 1: about the kids. And then a lot of times sometimes
Speaker 1: you're not dealing with somebody rational. It's hard to rationalize
Speaker 1: with irrational people. There's a reason why you're not together.
Speaker 1: There you go, you know that, right? Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I want everyone to have happy, wonderful holidays together, whether
Speaker 1: it's together or with their ex or with the kids.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, if the kids are trying
Speaker 1: to guilt you out, and they're young adults, just turn
Speaker 1: your back, close your ears. It doesn't matter, okay, because
Speaker 1: it's true. They all become twelve years old. Remember Chris
Speaker 1: Merrill was saying that they have all their exes and steps.
Speaker 1: Speaking of young adults, even younger than adults, teenagers, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, can we talk about teen love? It is
Speaker 1: more than puppy love. When we come back, you are
Speaker 1: listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know,
Speaker 1: I was reading this article recently about teenage love. We
Speaker 1: like to think of teenage love as puppy love, like
Speaker 1: somehow it doesn't matter. But let me tell you my
Speaker 1: first love that began in high school, ended by the
Speaker 1: end of high school, still stays in my heart forever.
Speaker 1: You hear that, Carl, Do you hear that, Carl? Always?
Speaker 1: It stays with us. I wonder, because you know, is
Speaker 1: it that it's the first time our brain gets all
Speaker 1: those neurohormones of love, but it really does stay with us.
Speaker 1: You know, recently I watched a movie that was kind
Speaker 1: of about a first love and the pain that can
Speaker 1: come with it. I don't know if you saw this movie.
Speaker 1: It's called My Old Ass. Yeah, I can say it
Speaker 1: because that's the name of the movie. My Old Ass
Speaker 1: came out this past summer. It actually premiered at the
Speaker 1: Sundance Film Festival in January, and the movie starts off
Speaker 1: when an eighteen year old girl, just before she's leaving
Speaker 1: high school heading to go to college, gets with a
Speaker 1: group of girlfriends and tries magic mushrooms for the first time,
Speaker 1: and then she hallucinates and she meets a version of
Speaker 1: herself who's thirty nine years old played by Aubrey Plaza
Speaker 1: that's not going to be happier at forty you are
Speaker 1: happy and I'm not forty people, you don't look happy.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're having a midlife crisis. Well, I
Speaker 1: feel like you're high on mushroom. Okay. So throughout the movie,
Speaker 1: Plaza comes back as this thirty nine year old older
Speaker 1: person and the young girls trying to find out about
Speaker 1: her future, of course, but the one thing she tells
Speaker 1: her is do not date anyone named Chad. Stay away
Speaker 1: from Chad.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Of course, within days, she meets Chad and Chad becomes
Speaker 1: her teenage love.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I am not going to give away the ending to
Speaker 1: my old ass, but I will tell you that Aubrey Plaza,
Speaker 1: who plays the thirty nine year old version of this girl,
Speaker 1: the Young Girls played by Maizie Stella, Aubrey Plaza had
Speaker 1: some history with that dude, and there's a reason why
Speaker 1: she said don't date him. But it's not the reason
Speaker 1: you're thinking. And I'm not giving away the ending. Listen.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to say is first love's matter. One
Speaker 1: study asked adults aged twenty through ninety four to recall
Speaker 1: when in life they had felt the strongest feelings of
Speaker 1: love or strongest emotions now. If the people doing the
Speaker 1: study were in their twenties, they said that it was
Speaker 1: right now. They were most in love right now. But
Speaker 1: for every other age group, they said the peak of
Speaker 1: their emotions was age fifteen Teenaged relationships are often the
Speaker 1: most emotionally intense relationships of our lives. It's really important
Speaker 1: to understand the gravity of these relationships. You see, adolescence
Speaker 1: is a critical period of identity formation. I teach developmental psychology,
Speaker 1: and I love this section of the teaching where we're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who we are separate from our
Speaker 1: family of origin, and the famous developmental psychologist Eric Erickson
Speaker 1: basically said that teenage life is an attempt to arrive
Speaker 1: at the definition of our own identity by projecting our
Speaker 1: self image on another and seeing it refines selected back
Speaker 1: to us and eventually clarified. So that's all well and good.
Speaker 1: If your first teenage love is something that is bittersweet
Speaker 1: because it always ends, I'm not always some of you
Speaker 1: have been married to your teenage love great, but for
Speaker 1: the most part it ends bittersweet, but something that helps
Speaker 1: you form an intimate bond with somebody. Now, I should
Speaker 1: also say teenage love is also the first viable evidence
Speaker 1: of attachment insecurity. I talk about attachment a lot, right,
Speaker 1: So our early life experiences, often below the age of three,
Speaker 1: often when we're nonverbal, often when we can't store it
Speaker 1: as memories, become feelings in our bones, and we form
Speaker 1: a kind of model for love. We have this idea
Speaker 1: like love is should feel this way, And if those
Speaker 1: first three years were filled with care and attention and
Speaker 1: loving times, then we're going to go out and choose
Speaker 1: partners like that. But if it was harm, if it
Speaker 1: was neglect, then we're going to choose those kinds of partners.
Speaker 1: And people think, oh, it was that teenaged relationship that
Speaker 1: screwed them up for the rest of their love life. No,
Speaker 1: it was actually the parent child relationship earlier, right. And
Speaker 1: we are starting to see nowadays, because teens have a
Speaker 1: hard time managing their feelings, that teen dating violence is
Speaker 1: actually on the rise because teens have so much trouble
Speaker 1: understanding and coping with the big emotions that come with love.
Speaker 1: When someone is a stalker, even if they're stalking online,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where that person is, that is
Speaker 1: an example of an attachment insecurity, right. An anxious attachment
Speaker 1: style violence is often an attempt to coerce and keep
Speaker 1: the partner close. Right. They don't hate the partner, they
Speaker 1: just don't want the partner to leave them, right. And
Speaker 1: we do know that teenage relationships don't last forever, and
Speaker 1: they're vital to the formation of our sense of self.
Speaker 1: They're often an opportunity for sexual exploration. Sometimes they're fun,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately they're usually not long lived, and the breakup
Speaker 1: is so painful for teenagers. I wish I could just
Speaker 1: go hug all the teenagers going through a breakup because
Speaker 1: it is a really, really big thing. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: hope that what I've been talking about will make you
Speaker 1: think back to your first love and if you happen
Speaker 1: to have a teenager in your house, that you will
Speaker 1: have greater understanding to the enormity of what they're experiencing
Speaker 1: and the lessons they're learning, and that if you see
Speaker 1: red flags now like God forbid dating violence or controlling behavior,
Speaker 1: that you're going to intervene and get some therapy for
Speaker 1: your teenager. Really very important. All right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to my social media and answer some of your
Speaker 1: relationship questions. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls
Speaker 1: Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty Welcome back to.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on i AM six forty
Speaker 1: Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Okay, let me go
Speaker 1: to my social media. If you've got a question, please
Speaker 1: send it in the DMS. I will always keep your
Speaker 1: identity private. It is a joy for me to weigh
Speaker 1: in on your love lives as a wise old Auntie
Speaker 1: and professor. I'm not a therapist, but I got opinions.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. Here's the first one. Hey,
Speaker 1: doctor Wendy, is it true that if you date multiple
Speaker 1: people until someone offers you exclusivity, you are pushing your
Speaker 1: future partner away. It's an interesting question. Until someone offers
Speaker 1: you exclusivity. This is what I don't like, offers you exclusivity.
Speaker 1: I actually can't tell by the handle on this person
Speaker 1: whether they're male or female. Not that it hugely matters.
Speaker 1: Exclusivity isn't something you wait to get an offer on.
Speaker 1: It is something you demand, insist on, and negotiate and
Speaker 1: hopefully before you have sex for the first time. Now,
Speaker 1: please understand that this keeps you from getting stuck in situationships, right,
Speaker 1: these undefined relationships where you're having sex and dating, but
Speaker 1: nobody's a boyfriend or a girlfriend. So when I say
Speaker 1: you negotiate exclusivity, you basically don't have to say, Look,
Speaker 1: you know, I want you to be my boyfriend. I
Speaker 1: want you to be my girlfriend. I don't want you
Speaker 1: to see anybody else. No, no, no. The conversation should go
Speaker 1: like this, Assuming you've had a number of dates, Assuming
Speaker 1: you're looking for a long term relationship and exclusivity, So
Speaker 1: this leaves all the people looking for short term fun aside.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking to you right now, assuming that you're
Speaker 1: looking for that. You simply say, hey, I have really
Speaker 1: been enjoying getting to know you, and I'm ready to
Speaker 1: take our relationship physical for the next step. And while
Speaker 1: we're getting to know each other, i'd like to know
Speaker 1: that I'm the only person you're sleeping with. That's all
Speaker 1: you say. Now, I know some of you are going
Speaker 1: to but that lie. Well, then why are you having
Speaker 1: sex with someone you don't trust? Wait until you have
Speaker 1: deep trust with that person. So again, you don't wait
Speaker 1: for someone to offer you exclusivity. You are the one
Speaker 1: who should insist on it. Now, you've also said, is
Speaker 1: it true that if you date multiple people you're pushing
Speaker 1: your future partner away. I'm not sure what you mean
Speaker 1: by that part of the question, except that I will
Speaker 1: say this, When I dated a bunch of different people
Speaker 1: at the same time time, I satisfied myself emotionally, physically.
Speaker 1: Whatever a with pieces of people that add it up
Speaker 1: to a hole. So therefore I didn't have that longing
Speaker 1: for one partner that was a good match for me.
Speaker 1: So I think you have to be sick of being
Speaker 1: single and you have to be a little bit lonely.
Speaker 1: But if you have filled your dance card with all
Speaker 1: kinds of people, yeah, are you even going to notice
Speaker 1: your future partner when they walk in because you're going
Speaker 1: to be busy with the three others you're dating. Just
Speaker 1: saying you have to have a hole to fill, I
Speaker 1: don't mean it that way, Kayla. I saw the look
Speaker 1: on your face. I do not mean it that way.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying you have a hole in your heart
Speaker 1: that needs to be filled. All right, let me move
Speaker 1: on to the next question. Uh, dear doctor Wendy, if
Speaker 1: a woman doesn't even have my number saved in her phone,
Speaker 1: is this a clear sign she isn't into me? Oh?
Speaker 1: I have so many questions around this one. First of all,
Speaker 1: how do you know your numbers not saved in her phone?
Speaker 1: How do you know that she's not? So what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking is that you texted this woman and she said,
Speaker 1: who is this? Speaking as someone who forgets to save
Speaker 1: numbers all the time, I am polite though when I
Speaker 1: say to people, excuse me, I'm sorry. I don't recognize
Speaker 1: your number, which remind me who you are as I
Speaker 1: text back. So I would say, sometimes it's an honest mistake,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean that it's a clear sign she's
Speaker 1: not into you. But if she was really, really, really
Speaker 1: into you, she would have saved your number with little
Speaker 1: hearts beside it and such, just saying, yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: sign of something we don't know what, all right, Dear
Speaker 1: doctor Wendy. If a guy takes me on a date
Speaker 1: to a restaurant but doesn't eat or order anything, does
Speaker 1: this mean he isn't doing well financially. I just don't
Speaker 1: understandstand why. Who had asked me to eat and he
Speaker 1: would not eat? WHOA? There's a lot here that did
Speaker 1: happen to me once, By the way, I literally went
Speaker 1: out to dinner with a guy who ordered nothing but
Speaker 1: water and he kept saying it wasn't hungry. He paid,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I think it was financial problems, I really do.
Speaker 1: And it all petered out soon after that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole point of going out on a
Speaker 1: date and sharing food together. It's an intimate thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very common for people to say would you like
Speaker 1: a bite of this, and actually feed the other person. Right,
Speaker 1: This is where we are imitating so many mating behaviors
Speaker 1: of different species, right, they all kind of feed each other.
Speaker 1: In certain species, it's about fattening up the woman so
Speaker 1: she gets fertile and can get pregnant easily. That's why
Speaker 1: guys are like, why did she disorder a salad? But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you could ask him flat out. He's probably
Speaker 1: not going to tell you the truth because he's embarrassed
Speaker 1: about it. I don't know I would. Yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of what happened the night that he didn't order.
Speaker 1: I think I just kept hammering him on about like,
Speaker 1: why are you eating? What's wrong? No, I'm just not hungry.
Speaker 1: I'm not hungry. And then of course the stories came
Speaker 1: out during dinner about a big job opportunity that he'd
Speaker 1: just lost. So no matter what he was feeling poor,
Speaker 1: you could be right on that one. That's what I'd say,
Speaker 1: all right, I think we have time for one mole
Speaker 1: before we go to the break. Dear doctor Wendy. I
Speaker 1: was on a date at a very nice restaurant with
Speaker 1: a bow, but he kept looking at the people in
Speaker 1: the restaurant and watching the front door. Is he uninterested
Speaker 1: in my conversation or dating multiple people? I found it
Speaker 1: quite rude. Yes, it was rude, probably all of the above.
Speaker 1: He was probably looking for his wife to walk in
Speaker 1: that door. He probably just seeing who was gonna see
Speaker 1: him with this person? You hot, whatever, I don't know,
Speaker 1: not cool, I don't know. I just don't think i'd
Speaker 1: go out with him again. I just don't think I would.
Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, I've got more questions
Speaker 1: from social media. If you'd like to send me a
Speaker 1: social media question, the handle is at d R Wendy
Speaker 1: Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh. You're listening to the Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walsh Show and KFI AM six forty live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh.
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