Have you ever met someone who completely shattered your checklist of qualities for a 'type'? I’m Coach Ratner, and in this latest episode of the Living Clarity Podcast, I delve into the surprising ways love can defy our expectations. By sharing personal stories and those from my coaching sessions, I aim to show that an open heart might lead you to the most fulfilling connections, ones that you never anticipated.
From a friend who found love in the most unlikely place to my own journey with my wife, I discuss the notion that sometimes, our 'type' isn't who we think it is until we're face-to-face with them. This episode is packed with revelations from a woman in her 30s who found marriage through social media, to a septuagenarian embracing companionship. We unravel the common pitfalls of judging too quickly and the importance of personal growth, sometimes with the help of therapy or coaching, in molding our perspectives on love and relationships.
Wrapping up with a look at the 'first date bias' and my personal insights into building a deep connection, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone navigating the dating world or yearning to strengthen their current relationship. My upcoming book "Infinite Marriage: The Four Phases of a Loving Relationship," promises to be a guidepost for those seeking to understand the complexities of love further. Join me on this intimate and eye-opening journey as we challenge the norms and embrace the unpredictable nature of finding love.
Have you ever met someone who completely shattered your checklist of qualities for a 'type'? I’m Coach Ratner, and in this latest episode of the Living Clarity Podcast, I delve into the surprising ways love can defy our expectations. By sharing personal stories and those from my coaching sessions, I aim to show that an open heart might lead you to the most fulfilling connections, ones that you never anticipated.
From a friend who found love in the most unlikely place to my own journey with my wife, I discuss the notion that sometimes, our 'type' isn't who we think it is until we're face-to-face with them. This episode is packed with revelations from a woman in her 30s who found marriage through social media, to a septuagenarian embracing companionship. We unravel the common pitfalls of judging too quickly and the importance of personal growth, sometimes with the help of therapy or coaching, in molding our perspectives on love and relationships.
Wrapping up with a look at the 'first date bias' and my personal insights into building a deep connection, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone navigating the dating world or yearning to strengthen their current relationship. My upcoming book "Infinite Marriage: The Four Phases of a Loving Relationship," promises to be a guidepost for those seeking to understand the complexities of love further. Join me on this intimate and eye-opening journey as we challenge the norms and embrace the unpredictable nature of finding love.
This is the Living Clarity Podcast. I'm Coach Ratner, and today we're going to talk about a subject that's coming up a lot in my life and it's called you Don't Know your Type Until you Meet your Type. In fact, this has been in my mind so much that I'm actually going to write a book on it with that same title. And the reason is because I meet a lot of people who are in the 30s, 40s and even in 50s who haven't gotten married and they have a hard time when they get set up with someone. They have a hard time going out with them either to fat or skinny, don't have the right job, don't have the right look, whatever it is, and they never go out with someone because they put up a block. And I started thinking about this idea when I gave a few classes recently and I asked the audience I go, anyone here who's married and a number of people raised their hand and I said to them to the person you marry, were they your type when you started dating? And many of them said not a chance. They weren't even close to their type. And I was thinking to myself that even my wife she met me. I wasn't her type. She didn't expect to marry some five foot eight redheaded coin dealer. That wasn't her thing, that wasn't something she was interested in dating. But then when she met me, I became her type. So what happened recently?
Daniel Ratner:I know a girl. She's in her late 30s and she's a beautiful, a beautiful girl, woman I should say. She's a beautiful woman and she wants to get married Very badly, talks about it a lot every time we see her and I teach a lot of classes on dating and marriage and so sometimes a lot of people come to me for advice. Maybe they need help getting set up, maybe the one. I'm not a matchmaker, but I do that because really I gotta tell you we've helped a few couples get together. In fact tonight I'm filming this podcast there's a wedding.
Daniel Ratner:I'm not going to the guy who totally he completely gives credit to me, not trying to take credit but I helped him a lot through the dating process on what to say. In fact it was one of those situations where we were joking that he should have an earpiece in his ear and I should be in the back room of the restaurant or where his date was at the coffee shop and telling him what to say, because I went through things that he should say on the date. He's like, he's an introverted guy, he's a sweet man, but he was very nervous around women and so I helped him coach him on what to say on the dates and how to act and how to smile and how to interact with this woman. And he's getting married tonight, so thank God. It's amazing.
Daniel Ratner:So because of that, I met a guy in one of my classes who wanted to meet with me and we're going to get back to this woman in the late 30s and the second. And so this older man, probably late 70s, was divorced and he was taking his classes here at Asia Tour in Jerusalem on Jewish wisdom, personal growth, dating and marriage and he was really connecting. He had actually ended up staying for like a month or two. He came to expect to pick him for a week and so he took me to lunch. He said can I take you to lunch, coach? I'm like great free lunch, I'll do it. It doesn't take much to make me happy. So we go to lunch and I said to him I never thought about this before, but I have a lot of I'm on Facebook.
Daniel Ratner:I have a lot of Facebook friends you know 1,800 friends and I said you should be easy to set up. You're like an older guy. There's a lot of older women who are widowed or divorced and they're 60s and 70s who would like a partner or companion. And that age, in the late 70s, I mean, like you know, he wants to get married. That's up to him. I'm not going to tell him what to do, but he was looking for a partner, a companion to grow with, to spiritually grow with also, and so I put his picture up on Facebook and I got a lot of responses, because there are a lot of single women in their 60s and 70s who would like a nice man he's really nice. And so I got a call from one of my and I didn't expect one of my Facebook friends to like, say, I want to go out with this guy, because most of my Facebook friends are probably, you know, younger. You know there's some people in their 70s but, like I know that they have a lot of friends, and so, when you reach out, use the power of social media to reach out to 1800 people and they might have three or four friends who are, you know, single women, single in their 60s and 70s, and that could be thousands of thousands of people that he's going to reach they wouldn't have reached otherwise.
Daniel Ratner:So I get a call from a woman I guess she's one of my Facebook friends and she said can you vouch for this guy? I go, I can't. I don't really know him that well, I can't vouch for him. But I told her about him and you know, you know, don't go with me if this guy could be like a psychopath or something. I have no idea. I didn't seem like one, but I'm not going to vouch it. I don't know him that well, I haven't met him a few times, spent in my classes for a few weeks.
Daniel Ratner:Anyway, he got set up with this nice woman and they are now been dating for a long time and they seem to be a couple. And so when this nice young woman in her 30s who wanted to get married she kept bugging me about it, like, do you know what I'm like? You know what? Let me do the same thing with you. Let me go ahead and put you you know on my Facebook page and let's see what happens. So I put her up there Beautiful.
Daniel Ratner:I got a lot of responses and Some of the guys I mentioned to her one of them shared one out with her already. You know she didn't like the way that guy looked. And then I met a guy who was in his mid to late 40s. Nothing special looking but, like you know, fit, trim, not ugly. But the nice thing about this guy is that he had a job that he loved and I got some information from him and I went to forward this information to this woman who I was trying to set up and the only thing I told her I said I found a nice guy. He goes, she says can I get a picture? I didn't respond to that.
Daniel Ratner:I said he is a, has a master's in education and he loves his job. He's in the education technology field, he loves his job. And she said something to me that blew me away. She says not my type. Like what? What do you mean? Not your type? You haven't seen a picture of me. Nothing about him. He's in the technology field, he's got a master's in education. I'm not like, so smart, but like.
Daniel Ratner:When I see two words together, master's in education, I'm like I don't have a master's. That means the guy not only went to school for four years, probably took another three. You know, a few years of school and it's an education which means he's educated. I mean that's like half the battle. I mean, like the guy is not like you know, ugly, he's not overweight, he's got a job that he loves, which is a huge bonus. He's got a job, which is another bonus, and he's got a master's in education.
Daniel Ratner:What is going on here? And she said he's not my type. And I really I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to like what do you mean? He's not your type. You don't know anything about this guy. One thing you know master's in education loves his job. What's going on? What do you mean? How do you know what your type's gonna be? How do you know your type? Until you meet your type, how do you put up a block on this thing?
Daniel Ratner:And so I ended up meeting at this guy. Actually, funny, I met this guy. I wanted to vet him because I've you know I try to set people up and like before I said I kind of want to know them. So I met him out for coffee and the guy was like, pretty cool, I mean like he met me, he was aware, he offered to buy me a cappuccino. Could I get you a coffee? I'm sure I'll take a cappuccino at size whatever. He was aware. He was very kind. He cleaned up afterwards. He looked at me when he talked to me. He had a lot going for him and I said something's gotta be wrong. Here I go you're like a nice looking guy I mean better in person, you're in the pictures, a job you love and like what's going on. And I looked at him he needs some tweaking. Everyone needs some tweaking. I always say everyone.
Daniel Ratner:If you're in the 30s or 40s or 50s, not married, you should be seeing a therapist. I mean that was a fact. And I said and he told me that his parents got divorced from the teenager. I go have you ever seen a therapist? Have you ever got up for it? He says no. I said well, this is the problem. I go Houston, we have a problem and it's not a big problem. This could be tweaked. I said to him. I said you are tweakable. I mean like I could totally set you up and get you married. This is not a problem and you have a lot going for you. And I said you need to see somebody. I mean first of all, you gotta have a coach who can be a rabbi, a rebitson, a pre-witter, someone that's gonna guide you through life, and you need to see a therapist and I recommend it one to him. And you saw, and you saw her. I haven't got the data, I haven't found out from him how it went, but I have another girl I wanna set him up with Because I mean, I really like this guy. There's no reason he shouldn't be married Cause you don't know your type until you meet your type.
Daniel Ratner:I mean, I think about my wife. Like I didn't really know a lot about her before I met her and I'm meeting her back. We were supposed to get set up. Never happened. I just knew that she was cute and she was short. That's all I really knew. And when I met her I really liked her. But if I had like heard some things about her before I got set up, I might not have gone out with her cause I was immature or whatever. But I met her. I'm like, oh, she's my type, but I didn't know she was my type until I met her.
Daniel Ratner:And so this guy that you know I'm trying to set up, who's in his late 40s, this, I have another girl for him and he said to me recently he goes, you can send me a picture and I started thinking about it and he said you know what? Because I know, if I was my 20s or 30s, I wouldn't wanna see someone who were out with him. But you know what, if I have someone that's guiding me, if I have someone who's got you know like wisdom, someone who's not like, someone knows what they're doing and they're gonna set me up, I shouldn't need to see a picture. And the reason why I think it's a detriment to see a picture is that if I send you a picture and you don't like the picture, you're not gonna go out with her, which means you could be missing out on the love of your life. The reason why I'm writing this book. You don't know your type until you meet your type, because I want everyone to find the love of their life and I think it's possible.
Daniel Ratner:If you go into dating realizing that you don't know what your type is cause you haven't met your type, I look back at my dating scene and I remember seeing a picture of a woman. Eh, she wasn't that great, but she was the sister of a brother who I really liked. I'm like I'll go out with her. She was gorgeous, didn't work out. I mean, I liked her, she didn't like me. She was gorgeous, stunning picture, nothing.
Daniel Ratner:I Remember another time I went with a girl, I think through Jade. It was through J date, which was an app. I still think it's in this existence now. This is before a lot of these dating sites Took hold with J day was the first one in my world, in my dating world. This is probably back in the 1990s, when you had a dial up on the internet and I remember seeing her picture and she was gorgeous and I went out with her and she wasn't gorgeous. She was my type. She wasn't like the person, wanted a date anyway, no matter what she looked like. But if she was like the person, if she was like my current wife now today, there, she was not bad looking. She just was not as gorgeous as the picture showed, because there's an idea, what I call first date bias. First date bias she was nothing else to go on. When you, when you, wow someone on the first date, she was nothing else to go on except what they look like After a few minutes of getting know them which, by the way, you really don't know them very well because you're probably nervous. It's the first date that the picture doesn't do you justice, like if I show you a picture of someone is gorgeous.
Daniel Ratner:You can go into the date with high expectations and probably get disappointed. That's the way things work. It's kind of like when you hear about. I remember seeing the movie the musical One of these big musicals on Broadway and and it had great reviews and I want to see it. I was disappointed and the reason was was talked up so much and this is why if you ever go to the movies, it's best not to read the reviews. Could you read the reviews? You go with perceived expectations and You're probably not gonna be as happy with the movie then if you went in with with knowing nothing because you're surprised.
Daniel Ratner:I remember watching a movie on a plane With Madonna and Guy Ritchie. It was called shipwrecked. Maybe it wasn't cast away. That was with. Another movie was called shipwrecked and it got panned and I didn't know. I walked the movie on a plane. I laughed, I thought it was cute. It wasn't a great movie, but I enjoyed. I really enjoyed the movie. It was cute and After what you know, a few days I was reading the paper and I saw the reviews on it. It's like one of the worst movies of the year of 1999. Whenever I came out I'm like, well, it's good. I'm really review before I saw the movie because I wouldn't watch the movie.
Daniel Ratner:It's kind of like dating If you see the picture before you go on the date, you're gonna have preconceived notions what this person to be like, what they look like, what they're act like, and you probably be disappointed. If they're beautiful pictures and they have ugly pictures, you might not go out with them at all. So you're putting a block up in your dating because you don't know your type until you meet your type. No one has a rarely, I want to say it's rare for people to get married when they fit all the boxes of the person they're looking for. I Mean cuz you don't know, you don't know who you're gonna fall in love with. There's so many different kinds of personalities in this world, so many different kinds of people. Even, like you know, people say I don't go to someone who's heavy.
Daniel Ratner:I gotta tell you, you know, once you, once you've been married and you're in a passion relationship, it doesn't matter what they look like, cuz you're in love with her soul, not their body, not their looks. I Mean tell me what folks. I'm out here with you. I don't care much what you put on, I she's gonna watch looks great, but I don't care she could be five or pounds. I'm gonna love her, no matter what, because I'm. I love her soul. Not I mean I love her body too, but I love her soul. I Love what's what's about. I love the inner part of her and that's what makes a passion relationship, cuz looks only go so far. I mean Brad Pitt, good-looking guy, but he has women in Hollywood. He can't stand him. Angela Jolie beautiful woman. I mean stunning. She's one of the most beautiful woman in the world. Get their guys who want to vomit when they see her. They can't stand her. So you have to get past the looks you have to get. This is why I have an idea. It's quite called the three-day rule. Three-day rule states that you really need to give someone Three chances when you out with them. You don't know someone from one day. This is the Lydian Clarity podcast and I'm here at Faces International here in Jerusalem where they're taking orders from soldiers, the families of soldiers and displaced families here in Israel who need lots of supplies, need lots of help. Please donate today to FacesInternationalcoil and thank you so much for your support.
Daniel Ratner:I remember how I was dating, especially someone who you know. I saw a picture of her and she was gorgeous. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. And if I'm nervous on the first date, I mean like I'm sure women are nervous too. I remember taking to a restaurant and I figured out pretty quickly like, don't go to any Italian place, no pasta, no pizza, and I'd only order salad because, like I'm worried, like whatever I eat is going to spill my shirt. I'm looking like a slob, I'm not going to clean this eater. I order salad, no dressing, because I'm going to get in your collar. No avocados, get cut in your teeth. No peppers, no carrot. Basically, just give me some plain lettuce. I mean, if I'm like that at a restaurant, are you going to get to know me on the first date? No, there's no way. How do you know me after one day? I mean people.
Daniel Ratner:At times I went out with someone with one date. Like you don't know someone. That's what the first date bias takes hold. That bias is the better looking the order the first date bias states, the better looking the order, the more likely you're on the second date, because that's all you have to go on. I mean, the first date is like what are you doing? What are you doing on vacation? Oh, I like the bike. It's like it's small talk.
Daniel Ratner:You have to get to know someone's soul, because soul is an acronym. Soul stands for sharing our unlimited love. When you get in a passionate relationship, you have a book coming out called Infinite Marriage the Fourth Phase of the Love and Relationship, and it talks about getting to that fourth phase of love, not just the commitment, not just the marriage, but getting to the fourth phase, which is what I call never leaving. What I mean by that doesn't mean like you're never leaving, it's a bad relationship. I mean, it means a good point of relationship. But you know that there's someone better looking, someone can connect you more emotionally, someone is funnier, someone's a better cook, someone's got more money, someone's got bigger muscles, someone is better in bed all these different characteristics. There's always someone better than every single one there always is.
Daniel Ratner:You're never going to find the person who's perfect in every aspect of life, of your life. When you realize, when you get to the phase of never leaving, you realize that the person you married isn't perfect, but you realize they're perfect for you, because really, you know, we think about going to dating. Who do you love the most? Hopefully, yourself, hopefully you have Iself esteem and you love yourself the most, which means when you put your relationship into a merger because marriage is about we, marriage is not about me, it's about we when you make her a part of you, from my perspective, you make him part of you you love yourself the most. Therefore, if you make them part of you, you love them.
Daniel Ratner:And, like I said, it looks only goes so far. If a person doesn't have a great personality, a person doesn't connect to your soul. I mean, you might go out with them three, four times because they're good looking, but after that you're like, okay, I can't see myself marrying this person, even if they're stunning looking, great body, beautiful. I know it's hard. Like you date people and at that first that bias takes over. I know with a guy it's different. A guy will go out. You know a guy will go a long time with a woman just because she's good looking. A woman not so much. She's dating a guy. That's a hunk. She'll go out the one or two times after that If there's nothing up there. You know, we see it because women and men see things differently. Men see women outside, in. We look at the outside first and look at the inside. That's what. We can date them for weeks without having any connection to them, emotional connection to them, a soul connection. But women, they look inside first, outside second.
Daniel Ratner:Imagine you're at a bar and you're with your best friend two guys and the guy sees a woman across the bar and he says man, that woman's beautiful. And your friend says to you oh, that's my cousin, you want to meet her. You can go over and you meet her and she's gorgeous, great body, beautiful hair, stunning face, clean, nice skin. And you're like drooling and you start talking to her and you realize you know what? There is nothing there. She is not that smart. And you know. You say to yourself as a guy, because I probably did this you say you know what? She's just pretending to be stupid because she's so hot and so gorgeous that so many guys are going after her. She pretends to be stupid and she's really brilliant and I'm going to go out with her. She's going to love me and she's going to be, you know, like a genius and funny and smart and everything like. And you're like, and you go out with her a bunch of times, you finally figure out no, this is the real woman. There's no way I can have a relationship with her beyond just a few days.
Daniel Ratner:And a woman on the hand. You have two women in the bar and she's the guy across the hall and she says to her from that guy's, that guy's a hunk, you know? Oh, it's my cousin, you want to meet him? Yeah, go meet him. And you go over to the bar and start talking to the guy and the woman realizes that the porch light is on but no one's home. The guy's dumb as dirt, you know, let's say, body by nautilus, brains by Fisher Price. He's just dumb.
Daniel Ratner:As a woman, you're not going to go out with them. Not only is he not your type, he's never going to be your type. You just met him. He ain't your type. Well, you can meet a guy as a woman. You can meet a guy who's like average looking, 10 pounds overweight. You know it's got a decent job. And you start talking to him. You're like, oh my gosh, there's something about this guy that I connect to. And the more you go out with him, the better looking he gets. His looks haven't changed. It's your perception of him, cause now you see his soul, not his body, not his face. Same thing with a. You know, I remember dating women who were beautiful. No connection, no soul connection, no emotional connection, no intellectual connection. After two or three times I'm like get me out of here, I can't stand this, you know. And they're beautiful, like, and I know the next guy goes I'm going to marry them whatever. That happens sometimes, but they're not for me Cause they're not my type. I haven't met my type yet.
Daniel Ratner:You know, there's an idea, like you know, when children are little, they have these shapes, orders, either plastic or wood, usually made of wood, and you have squares and triangles and circles. You have to fit them into the holes and kids learn shapes. And that's what happens when you're dating. Your shape, sort of shape, sort of, is what you are. You're trying to find the right person to fit into your life, the person that you think is going to fit the way you live your life, the kind of person you have in your dreams. The problem is you have met everybody, so you don't know who's going to fit into your life. So we need to do is take off that lid of that shape sorter and open up the amount of people that you can fit into your life, and one way you do that is by judging to the good Understand that everyone's got different personalities, different types of they act differently, and I think one of the most important things when you're looking for someone to marry is that you need to marry someone who's emotionally healthy.
Daniel Ratner:Obviously, physically healthy is helpful too, but take me, I rather marry someone who's emotionally healthy and not physically healthy, cause they could be the best shape of the life, they can run due triathlons, but if they're not emotionally healthy, you're going to be a wreck, you're going to be a mess, and you don't want to put yourself in that position. So you meet someone. They're not your type. You want someone tall and they're short, and I know guys who are five foot seven, five foot eight. They may, you know, marry girls who are five foot eight, five foot nine. They're short. On the woman who cares? I know women who won't go out with guys unless they're taller than them. Who cares? What does it matter if you walk around with a guy who's two inches shorter than you? What does that matter? Think about that. Think about the blocks that people put up before they got out with somebody, or a guy that won't get with a woman because she's not gorgeous, she's not as tight.
Daniel Ratner:I remember having a guy came to my house one time. He was 27,. He's like 29, I think, financial, successful to real estate in New York. I remember the talk now and he said he really wants to get married and I said I have this great girl for you. She just came to my house last week and he says how old is she? I go she's 26,. I think 25, 26. He goes no, I can't go out with her. I'm like what do you mean you can't go out with her? He goes she's not my type. What are you talking about? You have no idea who this woman is. He says I only date girls who are 22 or 23. I want to like jump over the table and strangle this guy. I go you're 29. What do you mean? You only date people who are 22 and 23? He goes I don't find 26 year olds to be attractive. Again, this made me nuts. I'm like so you're gonna date a 22 year old, marry her and four years later she won't be attractive. You can go by then, I'll be attracted to her. I'm like that's just ridiculous.
Daniel Ratner:People put barriers up to getting married. Back when I was living in America there was a guy who I was learning with and he was in his late 40s and I said to him you want to get married, but single guy, never been married, financially successful, has owned business. He goes, I want to get married. And then he stated what he was looking for she has to be between 32 and 35, five foot four to five foot six. Brown hair, blue eyes, great cook funny, like all these different characteristics he was naming. I'm like does this guy ever gonna get married? No, I go. You kind of open your heart up, baby. I mean, you're putting all these blocks up to dating someone. And we kept learning together. This before I started writing on my marriage and dating books.
Daniel Ratner:If I had wisdom I don't know where it came from you know God put some thing in my head. You know I always knew this, even as a little young kid, teenager that had this ability to see into people. I had this ability to judge people. I just built a sea into people's souls. I don't know why that is, but it's helped me.
Daniel Ratner:You know, since writing the books and teaching these classes, that I can help a lot of people out with their relationships. Some of them relationships have turned out to be great and some of them unfortunately. I said you got to end this relationship. This is not a healthy relationship. So I ended up learning with this guy and he got married. Thank God he married. He was, I think, over 50 when he got married and he's now has a baby with this woman. She was divorced. She had two other kids and I can tell you right now that when he was dating, he wasn't going to date. A woman who's a redhead with kids are like. I think they were like seven and 10 or something at the time he got married, like he wasn't going to say that he was going to have said no, but I helped him open his heart to realize that you don't know your type until you meet your type.
Daniel Ratner:Anyway, we have a lot more to say on this issue, but I want you to know that if you're out in the dating world, you're looking to get married. First clarify do you really want to get married? Are you just looking for someone to look on your arm? That's the first question I have to ask. I really want to be married and if you really want to be married. You want to be married to your soul or to a body? Do you want to get married because you want someone just to clean up after you? Hire an English butler. You're a lot cheaper. Relationships take work. Marriage takes work. It's not a merger of two souls.
Daniel Ratner:So I highly recommend you get in my book Infinite Marriage, the Four Phases of Love and Relationship. It should be out in 2024. And coming soon after that, after my book on self-esteem, I'm going to have the book called you Don't Know your Type Until you Meet your Type. This is Coach Radner here at Faces International Studio. There's a link before for Faces International. They're helping out families that have been displaced here in Israel. They're helping out soldiers and the families of soldiers who need a lot of help now. Please give generously. This is Coach Radner and this is a Living in Clarity podcast. I'll see you next time.