Emotionally Fit with Dr. Emily Anhalt

TABOO TUESDAY: Should You Talk About Mental Health on a First Date? with Director of Relationship Science at Hinge, Logan Ury

June 14, 2022

Bestselling author and Director of Relationship Science for dating app, Hinge, Logan Ury joins the show to explore talking about mental health and therapy on a first date. Logan also discusses vulnerability, pandemic dating trends, and her book How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love. Listen now to find out why opening up about your mental health might just be what gets you a second date!

Shownotes

Bestselling author and Director of Relationship Science for dating app, Hinge, Logan Ury joins the show to explore talking about mental health and therapy on a first date. Logan also discusses vulnerability, pandemic dating trends, and her book How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love. Listen now to find out why opening up about your mental health might just be what gets you a second date!

Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why the Emotionally Fit podcast with psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Monday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health, and surprising, funny, and shocking conversations on Taboo Tuesdays - because the things we’re most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal. Join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Follow Logan Ury on Twitter and Instagram

Read Logan’s book: How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love

Learn more about Logan’s Date Smarter workshop

Thank you for listening! Follow Dr. Emily on Twitter, and don’t forget to follow, rate, review and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! #EmotionallyFit

Jump Straight Into:

(2:11) - How Logan’s work shows up in her personal life - “My husband and I have this sweet/cheesy thing that we do where sometimes I'll lean over to him in bed at night and put my hand out and be like ‘Are we connected?’ and what that means is like ‘Are we on the same page right now?’”

(07:31) - On pandemic dating trends - “What we actually found in our research was people were like ‘I'm afraid of a dance floor makeout. I want a relationship and somebody to hold me while I cry about all the stuff that I lost, or literally people that I lost.’”

(13:36) - Logan’s advice on how and when people should disclose details about their mental health journey in romantic relationships - “It's really about saying ‘This is something in my life that will impact you potentially, but I am not asking you to take care of me. I am asking for you to be curious, ask questions and really explore this with me as you get to know me.’”

(16:52) - Self perception theory and the realities about ghosting - “Nobody wants to be ghosted, but then when you say, ‘Have you ghosted someone?’ most people say, ‘Yes.’”

(20:29) - Logan’s final advice to improve your dating life - “So often the thing that we think makes us ineligible for dating is actually the thing that makes us approachable, relatable, lovable, special.”

Transcripts

Logan Ury (:00:00)

88% of people would rather date someone who prioritizes their mental health and who talks about therapy or mental health on a first date, but only 7% of global Hinge users said that they would start talking about this on a first date, and so I think there's really an opportunity there to destigmatize this and say, "When you talk about this, you are being vulnerable. You are creating a handle for someone to grab onto and connect with you."

Dr. Emily Anhalt (:00:30)

Welcome to Taboo Tuesday on the Emotionally Fit podcast. I'm Dr. Emily Anhalt, and I've always loved talking about taboo subjects, sex, money, drugs, death, because being a therapist has taught me that the feelings we're most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal, so join me as we flex our feels by diving into things you might not say out loud, but you're definitely not the only one thinking. Quick disclaimer, that nothing in this podcast should be taken as professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment, because while I am a therapist, I'm not your therapist and I'm not my guest's therapist, so this is intended only to spark interesting conversation. Thanks for tuning in. Hey there, Fit fans. I am so excited for today's Taboo Tuesday, which will be with behavioral scientist turned dating coach, Logan Ury, who is the author of the bestselling book, How to Not Die Alone.

Dr. Emily Anhalt (:01:31)

As the Director of Relationship Science at the dating app Hinge, Logan conducts research to understand and help people find love. After studying psychology at Harvard, she ran Google's behavioral science team, the Irrational Lab, and Logan now lives in the Bay Area with her husband, Scott. Logan, thank you so much for being here today.

Logan Ury (:01:50)

Yay. So happy to be with you, Emily. I think you're my number one favorite person to follow on Twitter, and we've become friendly over the last few years and you did help me out with my book as well, so very happy to be your guest here.

Dr. Emily Anhalt (:02:02)

Oh, the feeling is so mutual and it's my honor. I'm so excited to dig into this very interesting crossover of taboo topics. We sort of have the sex angle, the therapy angle, so what we'll be talking about today is what it means to talk about mental health and therapy on dates, especially early dates and what the research shows about it, but before we get there, Logan, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself in this role of Director of Relationship Science at Hinge.

Logan Ury (:02:28)

I feel like looking back on my career, I'm like, "Did I know where I was going? Did I know what I was doing?," and I would say, "I really knew the domain. I knew that I loved dating and relationships, and that was really important to me," and then when I quit my job at Airbnb about five years ago and I was trying to figure out what's my place in this field, I sort of just went one step at a time, and so for me, it was working with this relationship scientist named Eli Finkel and figuring out, "Okay, I'm super interested in this. I see that Eli is amazing in the academic world, but how could I bring that to the average person, and maybe my role is being a translator, and then work as a dating coach and really get those stories and do my own research, and test my theories if someone's having this problem, and I give them this advice, what happens to them?," and really honing my advice about dating like a scientist, things like that. Then, I got a book deal with Simon & Schuster and wrote my book, How to Not Die Alone, and through that, which gave me a lot of credibility and helped me develop my philosophies, I was able to get this great job at Hinge, and so I've been working there for about two and a half years, and it's just so fun.

Logan Ury (:03:34)

Every day, I get to think about dating, think about trends in dating. If I have a hunch, I get to test what's going on in dating, and so it's really a dream job to be able to basically run experiments and do research on a topic that I never get sick of thinking about.

Closing Thoughts

What a profound piece of information that we have so much more agency to make change for ourselves and for the people we're connecting with than I think we give ourselves credit for. Any last piece of advice or thoughts or anything that's on your mind right now as you think about people who are, their gears are turning about how to apply this in their own dating life?
This is definitely in line with Brené Brown and all the amazing work she does on vulnerability, but so often, the thing that we think makes us ineligible for dating is actually the thing that makes us approachable, relatable, lovable, special.