Brave enough to date? Then you’ve almost definitely run into ghosting, inconsistency, or someone who disappears then pops back like nothing happened. It hurts the most when hope runs low, and love feels like a race everyone else got a head start in.

The issue? We obsess over “Do they like me?” when the real power question is “Do they respect me?” Standards aren’t just defense—they’re offense. Delivered with warmth and a bit of humor, they spark attraction instead of shutting it down. And in this video, you’ll learn how to do just that.

Matthew Hussey: 

If you are actively looking for love. Trying to meet someone and brave enough to date. Chances are you have encountered behavior that has left you confused, anxious, or just hurt. Maybe you met someone you were attracted to and they seem to be attracted to you too. But their behavior changed at some point, and now you feel your efforts are being taken for granted.

Maybe your dating someone in the early stages whose communication is inconsistent, and it leads you constantly questioning if they like you as much as you originally thought they did. Or maybe you’re dealing with someone who disappears and then reaches out again as if nothing happened. Whatever is the case, one thing is for sure. We teach other people how to treat us.

We do this through our ability to send a strong message about our worth through our words and actions. Educating people on our needs and being unafraid to be assertive in the right ways when the situation calls for it. Now let’s start with why this is so hard to do in the first place. We want love so badly. You might relate to the feeling of being behind that feeling of all of your friends and family, pairing off that feeling of I don’t know if this is ever going to happen to me, and yet it feels like it’s the most important thing in the world.

And when we’re coming from this place, this place of scarcity about it happening, we attach hard to any hope we get from someone who likes us. And when we do that, it makes us liable to reward the wrong behavior because someone can disappear. Being consistent, treat us poorly, and the only thing we really care about is holding on to them.

That makes us a target for the wrong types of people. And as long as we prioritize finding someone over our own well-being, we run the risk of never actually learning from our mistakes. Instead of meeting someone and seeing some behaviors we don’t like or appreciate, and then saying to ourselves, oh, I’ve seen this before, I’m not going to let this happen again.

We think to ourselves, it’s another chance I have to take it. So you end up meeting the same person over and over again, just with a different name. One of the ways to solve this is to stop showing up in our love lives, obsessed with whether we can get someone or not, and how to get someone, and to start showing up in ways that make us proud.

Saying no where appropriate. Standing up for ourselves where appropriate. Taking risks. Even though we know we might get hurt. But being proud of our self for taking the risk in the first place. Because when we start making ourselves proud, we start liking ourselves more. We start having more respect for ourselves, and then we don’t even want to put ourselves around people who don’t treat as well, because we start thinking, this person doesn’t deserve to be around this person that I’m proud of.

What are some other things we can do if we want to start getting the right treatment in dating? Number one. Start recognizing the wrong behavior as the wrong behavior. I knew someone who was dating someone who out of nowhere, ghosted her. It really, really hurt her. It took for a while to get over it, and then weeks later, out of nowhere, he just showed up at her doorstep at 6 a.m. instead of looking at that and going, get off my porch.

She said, come in. And she started dating him again. And then he did it again. The problem is, she didn’t see him showing up at her door at 6 a.m. after ghosting her as a massive red flag. She chose to see it as a romantic gesture. Many of us who keep ending up with the wrong people could stand to be a little less romantic and a little more discerning.

When someone suddenly comes back to us and says, I miss you. It feels romantic, but it’s much more powerful. If someone came back and said to us, “hey, I’d love to meet up for a coffee and talk about the way I behaved.” We routinely confuse what feels romantic with what signifies a good teammate. It is not about who woos us and seduces us.

It’s about who’s there for us. Romance is often performative. It is intense. It is showy. But someone being there for us, that’s grounded. It feels safe. There is a consistency to it. So, number one, recognize the wrong behavior as the wrong behavior. Number two, remember that having standards for the way that you’re treated isn’t just a way of protecting yourself.

Standards can actually create attraction. We get so preoccupied with the idea of standards being a defensive act, a way of protecting ourselves, that we don’t realize the extent to which standards actually serve as an offensive act. Just having a standard actually can change how attracted someone is to you. It can change how hard someone tries. So this is what I mean by standards aren’t just playing defense, they’re actually playing offense.

They’re actually a tool to create more attraction. So you should be feel very empowered about being someone who has standards. We get very obsessed in life with whether someone likes us, and that’s natural. Most of us have people pleasing streak. We want to be liked. Our ego gets into the equation. But do they like me? Is often not the right question.

The better question is do they respect me? And while standards don’t create compatibility, you know you can have standards and still realize you’re not right for each other. Standards do equal respect. Now here’s the catch. When we do something that gets us respect from someone, it can initially make them like us less or at least get annoyed with us.

It can create friction. And when there’s tension, when there’s the friction of us doing something that gets us respected. It can feel like someone doesn’t like us. But if we’re willing to choose being respected over being liked, what we’ll come to realize is that respect leads to admiration. Admiration leads to someone wanting to be liked by you. It flips the script.

While we’re on this subject. It is worth saying there is no relationship on Earth where you are not going to have to speak your standards. Not once, but over and over again. Matthew AI is designed to help you know what to say and what to do in all of these situations, the right advice in the right moment can mean the difference between losing someone, getting stuck in a really toxic situation for too long and wasting your time, or finally creating the healthy, loving, committed relationship you have always wanted with someone.

And Matthew AI advice is not generic is built on 18 years of my courses, my content, my speeches. So when you get Matthew AI’s answer, you’re getting my answer. The great news is that right now we have a Black Friday offer on Matthew AI, where I am giving it to you for two weeks for free on a trial.

You can cancel your trial at any time, but this is an extraordinary time to get on board with Matthew AI. You can use it as much as you want in those two weeks. See what it does for you. Try it. AskMH.com is the link to go and get that Black Friday offer. It is only available until December the 3rd.

Back to the video. The third point I want to make about standards is that to some extent, people get away with what they can. It’s a matter of people taking their cues from us. We can either be the person who goes through life expecting the bare minimum. Training people to give us the bare minimum, or the person who goes through life expecting people’s best and training them.

Training the situation to give us their best. Don’t you have the friend that you can be a little light for and or a lot late for, and it doesn’t really matter. And then the friend who you can’t be late for. What’s the difference? The difference is the cues they give you about how much punctuality matters to them. So it is not just a matter of good people and bad people in dating.

It is a matter of how to train your dragon. Number four standards do not have to mean conflict. I often think that one of the worst side effects of my work over time is that people hear me say the word standards, and they start to become almost a more aggressive version of themselves when they stand up for themselves.

But standards don’t have to mean confronting all the time. They don’t have to mean you suddenly start taking yourself and life too seriously. I don’t want you to go into dating like picking people up on every little thing they do and saying, we need to have a conversation. Standards can be delivered with warmth. They can be delivered with kindness.

They can be delivered with a sense of humor. You know, you can say, I have a great time with you. You know, hanging out with you is the best. I just don’t get the impression that you’re that serious right now, or that you’re being that intentional in your dating life right now. Someone might be trying to take you home on the second date or the first date, and you don’t want to do that because it’s too fast for you.

You don’t have to say, you don’t really think you could take me home on the first date, do you? You can say, as gorgeous as you are. I just don’t move that fast. And this is what I call the bliss point of standards and communication. The food industry has a time called the bliss point for the optimal level of salty and sweet.

That makes you keep wanting more of something, right? Think Nutella. Think kettle corn. You can’t get enough of it. You don’t get satiated in it because of that ratio of salty to sweet. Well, there is an optimal ratio of salty and sweet that makes someone keep wanting more of you. If you know how to communicate in that way to that effect.

Standards is a language. It’s a language we need to learn, and we’re going to need it all the time in our lives. You are only one text or one day away from needing to know how to communicate your value the right way. If you want my help with that, Matthew AI can be that for you and helping you troubleshoot how to react, what to say, and how to read a situation when it comes up.

I don’t want you to get to the next one and be like, what should I do? I want you to have this tool at your fingertips. You can try it at AskMH.com. And if you get there and you love it, take me up on the Black Friday offer of two weeks for free as a trial. While it’s available for Black Friday until December the 3rd.

Thank you so much for watching this video. Leave me a comment, let me know what you thought and I will see you next time.