Why Is Modern Dating Such A Mess? - Sadia Khan - #694

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Sadia Khan. She's a relationship coach and a speaker. Dating in the modern world is more fraught than ever. Men and women are finding themselves confused and lost as they try to make sense of a mating landscape, which becomes ever more difficult to navigate. Expect to learn why Sadia's Instagram has been banned three times, why nice guys have such a hard time in relationships, whether men and women can actually be friends, whether hot women tend to be crazier, how to stop being a jealous partner, whether body count actually matters, why married couples cheat, what Love Island is doing to our view of romance, and much more. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. I've won Whoop for over four years now, since way before they were a partner on the show, and it is the only wearable I have ever stuck with, because it's the best. It is so innocuous, you do not remember that you've got it on, and yet it tracks absolutely everything 24 seven via something from your wrist. It tracks your heart rate, it tracks your sleep, your recovery, all of your workouts, your resting heart rate, your heart rate variability, how much you're breathing throughout the night. It puts all of this into an app and spits out very simple, easy to understand and fantastically usable data. It's phenomenal. I am a massive, massive fan of Whoop, and that is why it's the only wearable that I've ever stuck with. You can join for free, pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 4 strap, plus you get your first month for free, and there's a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it for free, try it for free, and if you do not like it after 29 days, they will give you your money back. Head to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sadia Khan.
Why did you get banned on Instagram?

**Sadia Khan** (2:10)
Actually, to be fair, I don't know fully, but from what I did some digging, and I found out there was a OnlyFans content creator who felt like I was pushing a narrative that goes against sex work, pornography and OnlyFans. And so she pulled some strings, managed to get it banned. I also pulled some strings, managed to get back on. But I'm sure with my big mouth, I'll get myself in trouble soon. So I'm going to make a vow, and I'm glad you're here to witness it. I'm going to try and stay out of trouble, because I don't want to lose my Instagram. It's actually a really great platform.

**Chris Williamson** (2:40)
Okay, well, we'll see how you get on after today. So one of the things I've noticed recently is this sort of widespread belief that love is toxic. Why do you think these sort of modern representations of female stories are so devoid of love? Looking at the Barbie movie, there's these previews of the Snow White movie coming up, Rachel Ziegler doesn't really look like she's pro-love. What do you think is going on?

**Sadia Khan** (3:08)
Well, I think the devise of marriage and long-term relationships, what that means is with relationships, so a bit like when you watch a movie, and the whole movie can be great, but if the ending is shit, we'll say movies are shit, that movie was awful. Similarly, if the ending is fantastic, you'll say that whole movie was great. Usually the people pushing this narrative have just come out of a negative relationship. So they define the entire course of love and the entire course of relationships by their particular ending. And if the ending was terrible, love is terrible and they label it like that. And they also like to run with the narrative that my ex is a narcissist, it's their favorite phrase on the planet at the moment. What that does is kind of devoid us of the responsibility in causing that toxicity, blame it on someone else and then blame love as a separate entity, as a cause for our pain, when really it's our behaviors. So the love isn't toxic, it's how we behave in love and how we behave when vulnerable that creates toxicity. But it's easier to just say that love is this really dangerous emotion and we should avoid it at all costs and always keep our armor up just in case love comes at us and kills us, when really it's our poor decision making or our behaviors that cause love to be toxic.

**Chris Williamson** (4:14)
Yeah, it's strange to me that it appears to be like a top-down narrative as well. It's not just individuals rejecting love, it's also in movies, it's in culture as well.