Hello and welcome to I accidentally pressed the theme song button on the mixer and it
played some random stuff.
But hello and welcome to the Young and Love podcast, a podcast for being young and love
has absolutely zero, absolutely nothing to do with your age and being young and love,
but it has all to do with your maturity and your growth and your experiences in love over
time here at Young and Love.
We talk about all things love those things.
Well, I guess three things love and those three things being your relation, your spiritual
love, which is your love with your faith, your love with God, love with others, which
can be your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your husband, your wife, your fiance, your family
members, your friends.
And then the one that I always say is second important after my spiritual love for me is
your self love, how you love yourself, how you show yourself love, how you show yourself
appreciation.
But welcome back to episode.
Was this the second episode?
Yeah, welcome back to the second episode of the Young and Love podcast.
Today as you can tell by the title, I actually don't know what I'm calling this episode as
of right now in my notes here I have dating in 2023.
I have dating me then dating you dating in 2023.
I don't I don't really know whatever the title is.
Welcome back to the title of this podcast.
I am probably this is probably one of my favorite topics to talk about.
I love talking about relationships.
I love looking at other people's relationships and not judging them, but analyzing them.
I love people coming to me and telling me about their relationships, the good, the bad,
ugly and everything else in between.
So I wanted to do this episode when I was just trying to figure out what in the world
I was going to talk about today because today is Tuesday.
The podcast is uploaded on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
I apologize in advance if you can hear that clicking noise because I can hear it in my
ear, but I don't know.
But anyway, I wanted to talk about this for a while, but just struggle with trying to
figure out how to properly map out an episode conversation about this.
But lately I have seen a lot of when I say lately, I mean probably like the past five
to ten years, just seen a lot of posts on social media about the struggles of dating,
the struggles of relationships.
I'm going to say in 2023, but in 2023, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17 and all in all of those
years seeing different posts about people struggling in relationships almost every single
day seeing so many TikTok trends of people like outing different relationships that they
were in and just outing the bad parts of those relationships.
And it makes me wonder where are all the good relationships?
Like what are y'all hiding?
Where y'all at?
Why is my for you page not full of those things versus being full of all the negative relationships
that I am currently starting to see?
And so in the post that I've seen or in the captions that I've seen, there really has
been a breakdown in relationships and people just not being faithful.
People presenting after like we see this often time people presenting themselves as one person
on the first couple of dates and then eventually like that, that I guess the high romance or
whatever starts to fade away and you start to see more of who people really are.
You know, they're one way at first and then they change up months later or days later,
sometimes weeks later.
And then people just being in it.
I saw a post today, somebody was somebody had screenshotted their text message exchange
that they had with somebody that they were talking to and seeing how some people are
really just there just for the sex.
And then after after y'all have sex, then they're on and off to the next person.
I've seen it all.
I've heard it all.
And I'm questioning where are the good relationships at and just questioning the climate of dating
or trying to date in 2023.
I will be honest, I have not had probably not even a slither of the experiences that
I am seeing online, but I definitely have had my fair share of bad relationships, my
fair share of trial and error, trial and error in relationships.
And if I'm honest, I think a lot of the trial and error, a lot of the bad parts that I've
seen in relationships, the bad parts that I've experienced in relationships, sometimes
they are the other person.
Sometimes they're the girls that I'm dealing with.
But as of late, I've taken a lot of time to become more accountable of my own actions
and really seeing where I messed up and where I slipped up in relationships, where I was
probably the toxic person in relationships.
And so rather than spending an episode, this will never be a podcast of me trying to degrade
women, trying to pull down one gender to lift up another.
This will never be that kind of podcast.
So throughout this episode, I want to walk through different experiences that I've had
in my life that have shaped my dating scene.
Good or bad, kind of expose the negative attributes that I've probably contributed to relationships
and then walk down to where I am now and where I am now in relationships and how I've changed.
I don't think I've ever said out loud.
Maybe I have probably on a live that I have been, I was in my longest relationship was
seven years long.
And I think it's an episode.
I think it's an episode for another day of how that relationship ended, what I learned
in that relationship and then how I would, how I move forward after that relationship.
I just want to, I just want to lay the lay the foundation.
I have my own experiences of that seven year relationship, good or bad.
They are my experiences.
They might for me, that is for me, my experiences are my truth for other people.
You know, for the girl I was in relationship with things that I might say or describe in
that relationship might not be her truth.
She is more than welcome to come on any podcast, any TikTok thing that I post and dispel anything
that I see that she feels like isn't true.
I'll never say her name.
I would never disrespect her or anybody.
But there were some things that happened in that relationship that I feel like I'm in
a place now where I can be transparent and honest and kind of share those or share that
experience with the people who are watching the podcast.
What I've mainly learned through it all through that seven year relationship and through the
relationships or the dating scene that I've experienced after that relationship is that
I am no good to you if I am no good to me first.
And so I oftentimes wonder if we are stuck in miserable relationships with people who
seem like miserable people, not because they want to do us any bad, but because they don't
do themselves any good first.
I don't think you can love me if you don't know how to love you first.
I don't think you can be kind to me if you are not kind to yourself.
I don't think you can make time for me if you don't make time for yourself.
I have been on the other end of that, of not understanding who I was, not understanding
what I wanted in relationships and then showing up in relationships and not being able to
give the girl that I was in relationship with anything because I really wasn't able to give
myself anything.
And so I think that first, in order for us to be good in relationships with other people,
we have to be good in relationships with ourselves.
And when we're good in relationships with ourselves, we're able to identify when other
people are not good to them, when other people are not good to themselves first.
And so we don't have these probably like, what was the word, these expectations that
are like justified.
I think that we have justified expectations in relationships.
I think that we have justified expectations in relationships on a general consensus, like
these things that we expect people to be loyal, to be faithful, to be committed, to be trustworthy,
to put an effort, whatever.
I think that having those expectations, that's justifiable, but who we have them for, I don't
think that that is always justified.
So before we jump too deep into this episode, we're going to play a quick icebreaker.
It is a game that we have played.
It is a very quick game.
It's a game that you probably played before in summer camp.
It is called this or that very quick.
Let me know in the comment section down below this or that.
Do you prefer a hot summer?
I was going to say a hot summer.
Do you prefer a hot summer or a cold winter?
My answer super quick.
I despise a hot summer.
I think it is easier to get warm than it is to cool off.
I feel like it'd be hard to cool yourself down in the summer and to like stay cool.
Like to drink a cool bottle of water is great, but how long does that last?
To fan yourself is great, but now your arms tired.
To be in an air conditioned place is great, but when you got to step outside, it all fades
versus in the winter time, you can put your gloves on, put your coat on, put a blanket
on in the house, put the fireplace like you'll be fine.
I feel like it's easier to stay warm when you're cold.
I feel like it's easier to create warmth than it is to create to create cool.
So winter winter all day for me.
If I had to pick a season, though, I would pick fall fall right in the middle.
Spring is also right in the middle, but spring y'all be doing a lot with this pollen.
I can't do it.
So definitely fall as a season.
But in the game of this or that, I'm picking cold winter every time.
If you pick hot summer, something wrong with you.
But moving on, let's go back to dating in two thousand and twenty three.
So I did a quick Google search and found some facts about dating in twenty twenty three
found a fact about dating in twenty twenty three.
And it's from the thriving center of psychology.
I don't know how reliable the source is.
So please excuse me.
But the thriving center of psychology says that dating in twenty twenty three is that
fifty six percent of people say that dating is harder now than in previous years.
That's literally over half of the people that they pulled or surveyed.
Fifty six percent of people say that dating is harder now.
I do think that there's a lot that goes into that.
Fifty six percent of people.
I'm not going to jump into talking or having a discussion about the different characteristic
traits because I do think that some can be genderized while others can be generalized.
But I am going to talk about my experiences in relationships, how I've been in relationships
and just what I've experienced, what I've seen, what I noticed in relationships that
I've been in that kind of make dating in twenty twenty three seem like a hard task.
All right.
So as I stated earlier, I was in a relationship for seven years.
I was 14 when that relationship started.
So I guess I was 21 when the relationship ended.
I'm 25 now.
Twenty five, four, three, two, one, three.
Two one zero.
So that relationship ended in twenty nineteen.
I don't really I don't really remember when I want to say at the top of twenty nineteen.
I know that it was on and off for a minute.
I think after somewhere in the pandemic is when it definitely it was like it fully ended.
But I think throughout that relationship, if I can think about what my top three flaws
were, my top three flaws were in that relationship, the first one would definitely be the lack
of accountability.
The second one would be the lack of vulnerability and third one would be the lack of self-appreciation.
Now I think that not just for that seven year relationship that these things apply.
I think that seven year relationship and then maybe the first couple of girls that I was
talking to.
I hadn't actually asked anybody to be my girlfriend until last year.
But before that, I think those relationships in the middle of that, I definitely lacked
accountability, vulnerability and self-appreciation.
I think I came around to accountability before I started moving on to other relationships.
But for the lack of accountability, I think that there were just different things in the
relationship that I probably should have been doing, like making time for her, catering
more to her love languages, being more willing to.
I think I was not even I think I was a person that like if she wanted to do something and
I didn't want to do it, we're not doing it.
But if I wanted to do something and she wanted to do something, if I wanted to do something
and she did not want to do it, she would still be like, all right, I want to do it.
You know, but she would go and regardless of if she thought it was fun or not, she would
still do it.
And so I think on my end of accountability for those things that I think I lacked the
self accountability of being like, bro, you know, if you love somebody, if you're in a
relationship with somebody, you know, then part of that is doing the things that you
probably don't want to now.
Not everything.
But sometimes it's a compromise of doing things that you don't want to do, but that, you know,
make the other person happy.
And so in those ways, I can definitely take accountability.
Now I can take accountability.
But then I don't think that I took much accountability and doing my part or serving my part in that
relationship when it came to vulnerability.
I definitely don't think that I was vulnerable with my emotions.
I wasn't vulnerable with my feelings in that relationship.
I wasn't vulnerable with my I don't think I was vulnerable with my expectations in that
relationship either.
And I don't even think not just a seven year.
I think until I think really until this relationship or maybe the girl that I talked to before
the relationship that I'm in now, I think that's when I started to become more vulnerable
and expressing how I felt and not quite my I think I expressed my emotions a lot more
in this relationship than I than I have in any relationship that I've ever been in.
But in the relationships prior, I definitely was not vulnerable.
And I think that we people talk oftentimes about how being vulnerable, like you have
to create an atmosphere of vulnerable of a safe place for a man to be vulnerable.
And I think that in all those relationships, like I think those spaces were available and
they were open.
I just don't know that I understood the importance of here.
Here's the problem that I had in relationships, right?
If I'm dating you, I don't think I did not think that I would have to tell you.
I did not think that I would have to tell you that you were beautiful all the time because
in my peanut sized brain, I imagined that you would think if I'm dating you, then obviously
I think you're beautiful.
And then I got older and I think I realized that it really wasn't about saying that she
was beautiful, although that was the action that came with the underlying feeling.
I think it was more of she wanted to know that I noticed her.
She wanted to know that I noticed her.
She wanted to know that I noticed the effort that she put in to look this nice on the date
that we were going out on.
She wanted to know that even after all this time that we've been together, that I still
found her just as attractive as I did when we first started.
I don't know why I made it such a big deal.
Dang, there is your you.
I'm coming to a revelation.
I was I probably would have edited, edited this part out, but I'm coming to like a mass,
a massive, a massive revelation here of like another point of accountability that like
she wasn't asking.
They're not asking women to the guys who are watching this.
If your girl is asking you to tell her that she's beautiful, she just wants to know that
you see her.
She's not asking you for a lot.
It doesn't take a lot.
I was one of the guys.
Well, I was one of those guys who never wanted to say it because you have to assume that
if I'm with you, then of course I think you're attractive.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Tell her it does not take a lot to open up your mouth and verbalize.
Yo, I think you're beautiful.
You look cute.
You're beautiful.
You're pretty.
They're not to write a random text message right now and say you are so beautiful.
That is what they want because she wants to know that you see her.
Yeah.
You know how crazy that is.
All right.
So I don't know how we got there.
I don't know how I did a slip this part, snip this part for tick tock.
I don't know how I got there.
Let me text my girlfriend right now and randomly just tell her that I think she's beautiful,
although I'd be telling her all the time that she's beautiful.
Let me tell her.
Okay.
All right.
So yeah, lack of accountability, lack of vulnerability.
I really don't know how we got to that beautiful part.
Lack of vulnerability.
And then I think the most important thing that I lacked, going back to the top of this
episode we started at, is I lacked self-appreciation.
I think that I struggled with some insecurities.
I struggled with on what loving myself looked like.
And so it was very hard.
And honestly, I do wish for the seven year relationship, I wish that maybe she would
have been more understanding of the fact that like, or just seeing the fact that I, even
though I put on a good show, that I really wasn't comfortable with myself, I really didn't
love myself.
The way that a person, really the way that a man should love a person should love themselves.
I think that if she would have saw that like, you don't really like yourself.
You don't really show yourself that you love yourself.
I think that had she seen that, then you can put two and two together of how do I expect
you to love me if you don't even love yourself.
And what loving yourself looks like, I think in action, I think verbally it looks like
the way that you speak about yourself.
If somebody calls you handsome, if somebody calls you beautiful, do you cast it down or
do you accept it?
The way you talk about, you know, I think physically the way that you take care of yourself,
do you put an effort, if you're going outside, do you put an effort to look nice?
Not 24 seven, because I don't do it all the time, but do you put an effort to look nice?
Do you keep yourself well groomed?
Those are the three things that I lacked, accountability, vulnerability and appreciation.
Although those aren't like, I wouldn't consider those to be majorly toxic traits.
I think that in our society today, I don't know, bro.
I think there's a lot of masking going on in our society.
I think that people are showing up as one person, showing up as a good person, both
male and female.
I think people are showing up as, you know, good people at first, as people who are not
just in it for the sex, people who are not just in it for the money, people who are not
just in it for the dates.
I think they're showing up as that at first.
And then I think that when the rubber hits the road and you know, you do want to move
more into a relationship with that person somehow along the way they change.
They're not as nice as they used to be.
And that is one of the things that I remind myself constantly of in my current relationship
is that I don't want to have showed up as this really nice guy.
And then randomly, and then randomly like switch up on her and be somebody else.
But I think also if my character is to be a nice person, I'm going to be a nice person
regardless, like all the time.
I think that when it's not in your character to be, and I think that that's why we kind
of have to appreciate when people, when people's representative don't last throughout the entire
time, I would much rather understand and discover who your character is and make a choice from
there than to look at who your representative was and be mad that it kind of faded away.
I'm glad it faded away because now I get to understand and learn who you're who you actually
are as a person.
But yeah, I think that people oftentimes are showing up one way and then changing up.
I think that people are more undecided.
I think that I don't know that we are just upfront with our expectations and relationships
on both ends.
I wonder if the people who are experiencing these negative, these bad relationships are
showing up and saying, I'm looking for a relationship that's going to last long.
I'm looking for a relationship that's going to turn into a marriage.
You know, because then if you're saying that to a person and they are easy and they see
the next cute girl, the next good looking guy and they're like chasing after them.
Did like how did y'all have a conversation about lasting?
You know what I mean?
How do I how do I how do I word what I'm trying to say right now?
I think that people who want to be in lasting relationships with the person that they're
in a relationship with now will see.
I see beautiful women all the time.
There's nothing in me though that sees them and is like, oh, I wish I could pursue after
a relationship with them.
So I think that when you have conversations with the person that you're with and identify
like what are you looking for?
Are you looking for a long term relationship?
Although some people now those are some people do be lying to be saying that they're looking
for a long.
I'm sure you can think about somebody right now who said that they were looking for a
long lasting relationship.
And in reality, they weren't in reality.
They weren't because when the next best thing came, they ran to that.
So I think that there is a portion of us that are part of us that we have to learn how to
be content.
Being single.
And I think that that also goes back to being able to love yourself, being able to appreciate
yourself, being able to spend alone time.
I love the relationship that I'm in right now.
However, if something happened, God forbid, I would be okay with being like, I enjoy there.
I don't think there's anything wrong with being single.
I enjoy my life as being a single man.
I enjoy my life as being a man in a relationship.
And so I think that when you don't learn how to enjoy your time alone, you'll see being
single, you'll always see being single as a bad thing.
I think that when you don't enjoy your time alone, when you don't know how to be comfortable
being alone, you will see every breakup as all bad and as no good.
I think every breakup, I think every situation, every relationship that you get out of gives
you one, a time of freedom, but also gives you a time and an opportunity to learn yourself,
to relearn yourself, to learn what worked for you in that relationship, what didn't
work for you in that relationship, how are you good in that relationship?
How are you not good in that relationship?
And then to teach you how to apply those things moving forward.
But when you're not satisfied, but when you are not happy with yourself, then you only
see the breakup as a negative thing.
I don't think, and so I don't think that being single is a terrible, I don't want to die.
I don't want to die, you know, unmarried, you know, whatever.
I don't want to die being single, but I do, I do.
Absolutely.
I enjoyed my time of singleness.
I enjoy my time of being in relationships.
What's my golden nugget?
I guess my biggest, and so I guess the biggest golden nugget from this episode or the biggest
repetitive thing from this episode is when it comes to dating, really in any year, but
when it comes to dating in 2023, although it's hard, it is confusing.
It is toxic.
It's dangerous out here.
Somebody say there's pee in the, there's pee in this pool.
There's pee in the pool.
I need to put some chlorine in the pool.
I've also heard a lady say that there's not pee in the dating pool.
It's just the pool.
It's just the pool that you decide to go to.
I don't really know how true that is.
I feel like I've experienced a lot of different pools, a lot of different dating pools, and
it seemed to be, you know, a little bit of pee in all of them.
You just got to find the good people amongst the pee, whatever.
But I think the ultimate, the ultimate like pow wow, the ultimate nugget of this episode
is to be satisfied, be not satisfied, but understand the power of being single, understand
the power of being alone and knowing how to take that time and utilize it properly, knowing
how to take that time to get to really learn and not just learn yourself.
Cause I think that we spend a lot of time learning ourselves and a little bit of time
loving ourselves.
And once you understand who you are and how you need to be loved, then it makes loving
other people a little bit easier.
It makes, it makes loving other people that you're in relationships with, especially it
makes loving other people easier.
It makes it more, it makes it easier to love them.
And it gives you the ability to really love them from a different angle.
One of the things that I'll say this and then I'm about to say, I'll say this and then we'll
close out.
That sounds like a church, a church thing to say, a churchy thing to say, but I'll say
this and then we'll close.
One of the things, one of the most important things that I learned in dating is to see
the person that you were in relationship with as a person first and then your significant
other second.
I've been in relationships and I've seen the girls that I dated as my girlfriend first
and that although loving can sometimes come with seeing them as your girlfriend, but also
seeing them as somebody who broke your heart, somebody who, you know, crossed the lines
of loyalty, somebody who, who, you know, is your home, but also somebody who was your
aggravation.
So for me, seeing my girlfriend as my girlfriend first, it always came with emotions that were
attached to those experiences versus when I saw her as a person first, I didn't have
any good or bad experience to base my emotions off of outside of the fact that I'm just kind
to people first because there are things when I see people out on the street, there are
things that people go through that I will never know.
There are experiences that people have outside of my presence.
And so when I put that mind on and I saw my girlfriend, I saw her as a person who has
issues outside of this relationship, who's had experiences that I haven't been a part
of, who has feelings that have nothing to do with me, good or bad, saw her as that first.
And then I saw her as my girlfriend, who should be able to find a home in me outside of all
the negative experiences that she's had as a person.
That I feel like has changed my, my life.
I feel like it has changed my dating life.
I feel like it has changed my perspective and how I deal with people that I'm in a relationship
with.
It has really made me.
That has really changed the person that I show up as in my relationships.
And so the encouragement to you is though dating might be hard in 2023, though dating
might be, you might've tried dating around and you know, you might've found some, some
frogs in the dating pool.
My encouragement to you is don't, I don't want to say don't give up as if it's like
a rat race to find the person that, that you're supposed to be with.
But I will say, take care of you first, learn and grow.
That is literally what I did.
Learn and grow you first.
And I think that the right person will see you learning and will see you growing and
they will come along and it'll be, it'll be the right person.
It will always be the right person at the right time.
Thank you guys for listening or for watching this podcast.
Nothing but love as I said before, and I said, I will say it time and time again.
I hope that if you are a genuine person that you can be met with, you can be found with
genuine love.
I have nothing but the greatest wishes and expectations really for everybody who like
good people just deserve good people.
That is, that is what my heart bleeds.
Good people deserve good people.
And I hope you find yours.
Thank you again for listening to the podcast.
Be sure to watch and subscribe on YouTube if you are not already, if you are not already
and be sure to like and to follow or subscribe on whatever platform you're watching.
Stay connected with me on all social media platforms.
Really?
That's just Instagram and Tik Tok at the Darius Covington.
And until until until until I don't know what the proper word is until next time I will
see you or you'll see me next week on Wednesday on the young and love podcast.
Peace out y'all.
And that is that that is episode.
We're at 43 minutes.
The thing is it really do.
It really do be 43 minutes and then it lasts for like once I edit it, you know, once I
edit it, it'll go down to like 20 or 30 minutes.
Wow.
Forty one thirty three.
All right.
Yes.
So 41 minutes.
All right.
So that's that's that's that's that.
So that's that's that's that.