[JOE SANOK]
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 647.
[JOE]
I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am so glad that you are spending time with me today. I hope that your December is going amazing. I hope you have fun plans with your family and your friends and you’re being safe. All of those things that are weird wacky world requires of us in not knowing at the time of this recording, what December’s even going to look like with the pandemic and all sorts of weirdness in the world. So hope you are doing amazing in your world. Hope your practice is going great. If you just discovered this podcast, I want to welcome you. Thanks so much for hanging out. Maybe a friend recommended it to you, maybe there is an episode, maybe you know today’s guest, who knows how you landed here. Really glad that you’re here.

If you’ve been here for a while, thanks for sticking around. We’re covering a lot of really fun things, have some great shows coming up in the future here. So I’m just so excited to have you. Today we are going to be talking with Dr. Christie Kederian. Dr. Christie is a nationally renowned relationship expert who specializes in helping clients create lives they love and find love they deserve. She has an extensive career as a professional matchmaker and relationship expert for eHarmony and match.com. She’s also been featured on ABC, NBC, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan, and many more. Dr. Christie, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[DR. CHRISTIE KEDERIAN]
Thank you so much for having me, Joe.
[JOE]
Oh my gosh. I’m so excited to have you on the show and to just hear about your career and how you got into this work. So tell us a little bit about how you got into this kind of matchmaking work that you do.
[CHRISTIE]
Yes, so happy to share. My career basically started from a pretty young age. I’d always, with my background, my cultural background, family relationships, kind of the backbone of my life growing up and into college, I was always so fascinated by love and romcoms and just love stories. As an Armenian, we have a lot of weddings in our culture. I personally have been a bridesmaid like 19 times, so I’ve always been really fascinated by love. That led me to doing research in my undergrad at USC on attachment, pursuer a distance or patterns which really led me to focus on compatibility early on.

Dr. Neil Clark Warren, the founder of eHarmony and kind of the father of online dating, I would say, at eHarmony, we had this opportunity to work there as marriage and family therapists doing relationship coaching as well as match making, kind of providing people more of a high touch approach to finding love rather than just trusting the algorithm. Then through that, I really learned about what makes people a fit before they get into our offices later on in couples therapy. He really created the eHarmony based on trying to reduce divorce rate and do that research have that scientific backing of these are the components that make two people work.

And now I’ve really dedicated my life and work to helping people, helping singles find love and especially in this ever changing time, the changing dating landscape, just really helping people navigate both soul work, the inner work and the strategy and having, you know, being an American family therapist, as well as working behind the scenes for these dating apps and these companies I really feel passionate about, have felt passionate about in my career, helping people connect the two. Instead of giving them a fish as my career in matchmaking has been just really teaching them how to fish and know themselves and know what they’re looking for and how to find it.
[JOE]
Wow. So you said pursuer a distance. I want to go back to that. So tell us more about kind of what you found in regards to compatibility when you were doing that kind of research.
[CHRISTIE]
So one of the things that’s really interesting about the earlier research I did with the family studies project at USC was noticing, I would basically listen as a researcher, to hours and hours of tapes around communication and noticing those pursuer distance or patterns specifically in couples of in lower socioeconomic statuses. What’s interesting about research about compatibility that I found working at eHarmony is that regardless of racial background, socioeconomic status, whatever it is, these patterns and what contributes to a healthy relationship as we know from various research, like the Gottman, are really known for that are those patterns are really, like they don’t discriminate, I’d like to say.

So that was one of the big things that I found and what I would like to teach people is that there is a science behind dating and what makes people work. We kind of think that it’s a vague concept but there really is research around certain things. One of the things I tell clients pretty frequently that we found in research is that that whole concept of opposites attract that we’re fed through media is really not true. When you look at the research, it’s really the more similar you are in really important ways the more compatible that you are with somebody. So these are the sorts of things that —
[JOE]
In what sort of ways would you say?
[CHRISTIE]
So one of the things that was really interesting in researching at eHarmony where things like education background, financial background, obviously your faith, but your commitment to faith, your emotional kind of maturity, your temperament, these sorts of things. It’s really important to be similar in a lot of these things to be compatible. Most people think like, oh money doesn’t matter. Love can kind of, love conquers all, but really we want to be pretty strategic about making choices from similarity to ensure that long-term compatibility.
[JOE]
So what else, I mean, the things you’re saying is relationships are more of a study or research-based rather than just, “Hey, here’s the things, we’re just going to hang out and see what happens.” What are other things that either as therapists, if we have clients that are dating, or if there’s people that are dating, that they should know about the current dating landscape and how to do it in a way that kind of lines up with whatever their personal goals are?
[CHRISTIE]
Great question. So what I say about dating is it’s that art and the science. You want the science to build up enough to get that art, that chemistry, that intangible quality there when you’re actually meeting somebody. So dating has changed significantly throughout the past year and a half. Early studies have shown that around 75% of couples that met in 2020 met through online dating. That’s a significant jump from where we were at before, which was already kind of on the up and up around 35% in 2019. So people that come to me and other therapists I talked to, there’s always been somewhat of a resistance and stigma to online dating, I would say that it was slowly getting removed the more and more the world has shifted into a digital age.

But I would say that if people are single, that they really should consider online dating as the main way, or one of the most viable ways to meet somebody because of the fact that you can get some of these criteria, some of this knowledge around compatibility and the science more quickly than you can, if you just meet someone organically out in the wild. I made a joke during the pandemic that the only thing that should you should be meeting organically is your prime delivery person bringing your organic vegetables to your door.

So if people said, oh, I just want to meet in person, that was pretty impossible. It’s been pretty impossible during the pandemic. So I think if people are really serious about meeting the right person, you want to look into online dating and you want to look into it the right way. So that’s what I really teach my clients, but I think it’s so important to consider this as a primary way that I predict we’ll be seeing you even after the pandemic as a way that people are meeting and finding love and long lasting happiness.
[JOE]
You know what I’m hearing from my single friends, on the female side is that there’s just so many guys that are flooding them and they have to like weed through just this onslaught of often inappropriate guys. And then for the guys, I know that are these quality guys, because there’s so many just random guys that are out there that it’s kind of hard for them to break through and even make a connection. So it’s interesting to talk to my friends that are females that, they want to find a good guy, but they’re just like, man, if this guy doesn’t send a inappropriate picture , if he maybe doesn’t hunt and fish and drinks a glass of wine, he’s like top tier and it’s like such a low standard. What do you say to like both sides, it’s from what I’m hearing from friends are just like, this is terrible. How do you change that dynamic?
[CHRISTIE]
So what I often say is that online dating is a tool, but you have to know how to use a tool in order to get the job done. My husband’s really handy. He’s using a certain screwdriver. He knows exactly what screw goes and what thing to make it work. If I have the same tool and I’m trying to use it, the house will probably fall apart. So it’s the same with online dating. If you’re not using it strategically, if you don’t know the algorithm, very similar to social media, then you can get outsmarted by it.

So you have to really empower yourself with that knowledge and learning it which is what I teach people in order to see those gens of those really quality people. Obviously there are some downsides, one of which, to online dating, one of which is the paradox of choice.t we know that the more options that we have, it’s harder to choose one. It’s harder to be happy with your choice. So this goes for online dating as well, especially for women. If we’re seeing all of these options. Same is true for men. I think it’s very gender inclusive. If we have all these options, it feels a lot harder to think, well, what if the grass is greener? What if I have one more swipe. Maybe that will be the person rather than really commit and do the work that we know will make a healthy relationship with the person in front of you. So we have to actively work against that. Therapists help with that work by helping people with the internal part of it.
[JOE]
Now tell us more about the algorithm and what you teach there because I think a lot of therapists, if they’re doing therapy with someone and someone’s in the dating world, that would be really valuable for them to say, here’s just some things that are kind of best practices so that you’re using these tools in a way that’s most beneficial to you and your goals. What are some of those algorithms or best practices that you would share with people?
[CHRISTIE]
Great question. So the first thing that I say is that you need to really be clear on what you are looking for in a potential partner before you even go on the online dating app. So it’s kind of the ongoing joke that we have about Target. You know, Target tells you what you need. You don’t go to Target with a list. So you want to go into a dating app with the list. You want to be very clear because you’ll get confused by the options and you’ll end up spending a lot of time and energy investing and trying to analyze someone based off of this two dimensional profile.

So therapists can really help their clients be very clear about what they’re looking for. Then from that point, you can make educate decisions on what app would be best for you. So if you have a specific faith background, there are certain apps that are going to increase your chances of meeting someone from that background. If you are a young professional, there are certain apps that really help with kind of helping young professionals meet.

So then you can be more educated and lower, make your sea a little bit smaller to find those quality fish, so to speak. Then from that point, I really teach my clients how to move through dating app process. So one of the things I do is I teach them my five messages to meet. So I give like a basic template and overview of like, this is how you want to get off of the dating app. The point of the dating app is to delete it. So I teach them how to have, spot the quality things on the profile and have those quality kind of messages so that you can really meet FaceTime, whatever it is and get to know if someone really has chemistry.

There’s only so much you can learn about someone via text messaging or sending messages back and forth, which is one of the reasons people get so discouraged with dating apps, because they’re not actually going on dates. So that’s what I’m really kind of hoping to teach people. I think therapists can really empower their clients to have those conversations and not be afraid to transition off of the app and not waste too much time and energy before we actually know the person.
[JOE]
Wow. I mean, that’s so much information for therapist to be able to use in sessions. So how would you describe the dating landscape that therapists should understand right now for their clients, especially kind of almost post pandemic, but not really, like, we’re kind of going back into some things? What’s the dating landscape like and what should therapists know?
[CHRISTIE]
So I think for a bit of time here, we were like, we’re seeing the light, we can go back to meeting and then we realized that this might be less of a season and more of an era. So I would say for therapists that have clients that really want to find love and date, I would encourage them to not wait for some end moment where all of this kind of chaos and uncertainty is over, but rather to pursue what they’re looking for in their desire, in the midst of uncertainty, and really sit with them in that anxiety. So helping to get clarity around boundaries is helpful. What do they feel comfortable with? Do they feel comfortable meeting in person? Do they not feel comfortable meeting in person? Do they still want to have a mask on? Do they not? If someone’s vaccinated, they only feel comfortable if they’re vaccinated or not.

So getting that clarity around boundaries and still moving forward, despite not knowing what’s going to happen because if we wait for that, wait for our lives to come back to normal, we will wake up to find out there is no normal. The normal we’re looking for no longer exists. So I think encouraging people to take those steps towards their goal of finding love, even despite all of these changes is really important and to embrace those changes, online dating, FaceTime dates, things that we wouldn’t have preferred. Now we need to kind of embrace rather than reject, just because we don’t like the format. We have to kind of go through those parts of the journey in order to get to our desired destinations, so to speak.
[JOE]
Wow. There’s a lot of things going on in the dating world that I just did not know.
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[JOE SANOK]
So take us through, like, when you have people that you’re working with, I know you have a group coming up next month, what do they learn? Just take us through what that process looks like for people.
[CHRISTIE]
So in my dating program, Find The One, I basically help singles that have success in many areas of their lives, translate that success into dating. So oftentimes the people that I work with, they feel like they’re pretty fulfilled in their career, their other friendships relationships, they feel like they have it all, except why can’t I get this to work in this one area of my life. What I do is I really help them go through my three-step method which is mindset, matching and meeting the right person. I walk them through what we really have to work through on that inner, the soul work level, making sure we’re really single in our mindset and not living off of past beliefs from past relationships, working through some of our beliefs from relationships, from our family of origin or other past relationships, really doing some of that self forgiveness work.

That is very important for people that feel like they’re at fall or they’re not worthy of love, or they’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past. Then I really get them to understand what their dating blueprint is. So I’ve created this dating blueprint which is basically a combination of their Enneagram, their personality type, as well as their attachment style to understand what their specific style should be around dating. Oftentimes dating is a really uncomfortable process for people because they don’t really know themselves and what they’re looking for and they’re not going into the process self-aware.

So someone is really introverted, has very anxious attachment and they’re putting themselves on a certain app that is just way too much stimulation for them. That’s why they’re getting themselves out the game because it’s not aligned. So help them approach dating it in a aligned way and then I teach them how to use app, which app to use, all the matching strategy. Then the meeting strategy is really about noticing red flags, noticing that kind of gut intuition versus the fear and really going into that like how to navigate the early stages of dating to make sure you’re not blocking yourself from love because of some negative beliefs and working through that mindset stuff. So the process is really kind of that combination, the soul work and the strategy. I think a lot of times people are just focusing on the strategy and not the inner work or some of the clients that therapists might see are just there doing the inner work, but they’re not applying a strategy and that’s why they’re not reach their goals.
[JOE]
Now you said single in our mindset. Tell me more about that.
[CHRISTIE]
So oftentimes when I’m working with someone, I notice that they’re really still in a relationship or they’re operating out of past relationship beliefs in their minds. So their ex that was very toxic told them things about themselves and are carrying that into a new relationship like, oh you’re, no one’s ever going to love me like love you like I do. Or you’re not smart enough. You’re not this enough. You’re too much of this. They’re carrying that as a potential block when they’re dating new people. What if this person believes the same thing about me? What if that’s really true? You’re looking for evidence in the dating process.

Or another thing that happens is you’re still emotionally tied up in that relationship. All your emotional energy is going to a relationship that might have ended years ago but you’re comparing that to an early stage of relationship, which just sets that new relationship up to fail. So we have to really process through those things, come out of those beliefs and be emotionally available for the right relationship. This looks different for everybody. Some people are tied up in relationships, marriages that ended 10 plus years ago. Some people are still newly out of relationship. I often say that I think people wait too long to get back out there and that’s what really solidifies this fantasy of a past relationship in our minds, rather than giving ourselves the opportunity to heal in the context of new relationships.
[JOE]
That’s interesting because oftentimes you hear people say give yourself time. So is there a formula you use, like if you were married for this period of time, you should wait this period of time or you’re just saying here’s some things to notice as to when you’re ready? Because I feel like that’s brand new to me to hear that and I want to hear like how you think through when someone should go back into the dating scene where it’s not like too early, but also that they’re able to have worked through some of that past baggage.
[CHRISTIE]
So there’s not really a formula, but I will say if it’s coming out of like a marriage or a very long-term relationship, then you probably want to get in therapy, give yourself some more time to process some of those things so you’re not straight through projecting them on a new relationship and not “rebounding.” But a lot of times people will be in a half relationship for a long period of time or really be interested in someone that’s a friend and then they’re using that as an excuse to not date and put themselves in those uncomfortable positions of imagining that something could be better and you could have a better connection than that other one that made you feel like you weren’t worthy enough. So I think that some of that is really approaching the dating process slowly and staying really aware and getting the support, but not avoiding it for 10 plus years just because of that one relationship.

So I think most of that I see really comes from a place of fear rather than a place of thinking, okay, I’m going to lean in when this is uncomfortable so that I can also grow and learn more about myself and realize that that person wasn’t the last person in the world or the person that, the deciding factor of my worthiness in a relationship. So a lot of that is attachment stuff that once that’s worked through in my program in the first stage, then people feel a lot more free to explore new love. Usually I’ll say, if people are asking, should I start dating again, then that’s you already have your answer.
[JOE]
Well, I love that you have a dating blueprint where you bring together the Enneagram and attachment styles, two things that I’m very much into. What does that look like? Maybe give us some examples of if this person has this attachment style and this Enneagram type, then here’s kind of what their basic blueprint would look like.
[CHRISTIE]
Great question. So I love that you love those things too. I usually will say that the combination is really kind of knowing yourself, which I believe Enneagram gives you a very holistic view of that, what you look like in a healthy way and what you look like when you’re not feeling as healthy emotionally. And then attachment really brings that into what that looks like in context of your relationships, family of origin and romantic partnership. So some examples of this can be, let’s say you’re a three, so you’re an achiever. You have more of an image focus and you want to look like your life is really going great. You’re very proud of your accomplishments and your achievements and let’s say you’re also avoidantly attached.

So what that might look like in the dating process is that you’re leading with all of your accolades, your achievements. You’re talking about your job on a date. You think that that’s going to impress somebody, but that’s actually disconnecting you from a true secure attachment because someone’s just seeing you for your performance rather than who you truly are. So that’s a way for you to be a little bit avoidant in the dating process, not let them really in and help them kind of see this picture of you versus the real you, because you’re afraid of that worthiness; what if they don’t think I’m worthy enough? Okay, I’m going to lead with these things. That can look like you’re leading with those things on your dating profile as well.

So you can share all the cool things you’ve done or things about you, the trips you’ve been on, whatever, rather than kind of giving someone a deeper look and insight. So that’s like one example. Another common combination that I see is someone who’s a six, the loyalist and who’s anxiously attached. So what this could look like is you’re looking for that desire to trust. Loyalists can feel pretty suspicious and kind of lean towards anxious generally. But then what could happen when you’re early in the dating stages or actually like in a relationship is that you are constantly looking for evidence that someone’s not trustworthy. You can lead towards a little bit more suspicion and you can get very anxious around communication.

They didn’t text me like they usually do at this time. You can be waiting by the phone consistently trying to see if someone is trustworthy and worth kind of that investment versus going with the unknown a little bit more, trusting your own gut. Other things sixes do often is asking all their friends what they think of a person or a situation rather than leaning into their inner knowing and that growth of, I’m not going to feel like I trust or know this person. And probably for a while, dating is kind of set up against anxious attachment in sixes nowadays, but I’m going to lean into that growth and learn how to listen to myself too. So those are just two examples of the combination and some of what I recommend are some growth areas that they can implement.
[JOE]
Oh, that’s super helpful to just see how that kind of plays out in your work. Well, the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
[CHRISTIE]
Great question. So I would say that really the core of our work is always relationships and keeping yourself grounded in that is going to help you see someone through those eyes. They’re always longing for that connection. Ultimately what we can do as therapists, as private practitioners is help someone through your relationship with them, rebuild some of those patterns, as we all know in their dating and romantic relationships, but also just throughout. So what I say in both my programs, I have coaching and I also work with therapists on building digital businesses, is that at the core, if we keep our mindset on relationships and stay very grounded in that, then we’re never going to stray from our deeper purpose and we’re really, truly going to help.
[JOE]
So helpful. Well, if people want to hear more about your program or work with you what’s the best way for people to connect with you?
[CHRISTIE]
So Instagram is where I hang out the most. You can find me at The Date Doctor Christie. I have another Instagram account for therapist, All Thriving Therapists and on my website therapyfordating.com, a few free guides you can share with your clients on free dating app or knowing which dating app is right for you. I also have a guide for therapists called Three to Thrive, just helping therapists really thrive in their work as well.
[JOE]
Thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[CHRISTIE]
Thank you for having me, Joe.
[JOE]
Well, go take some action on this podcast today. I’m sure you have people that are entering this dating world right now that has shifted so much in just the last couple years. So much great content here from Dr. Christie. It’s really amazing to just bring in professionals and people that are doing this kind of work in very niche areas.

Also we just want to thank our sponsor Therapy Notes. Therapy notes has been a long time sponsor. We have direct access to them. When the pandemic hit, we were like, we need teletherapy ASAP and they made it happen. Teletherapy is now just included with your Therapy Notes subscription, the best EHR that’s out there. It also brings together credit cards, it brings together insurance, billing and progress notes, all of that. Just use promo code [JOE] at checkout to get your free months. They’ll also help you switch over from wherever else you’re using your EHR now totally free. They’re in an amazing company and we really just love their support. So again, use promo code [JOE] so that they know that this podcast sponsorship is working.

Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day. I’ll talk to you soon.
[JOE]
Special. Thanks to the band. Silence is sexy for your intro music. We really like it. This podcast is designed for provide accurate authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.