Irini Georgi

Irini Georgi

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Tag: dating

How to navigate the avoidant dating culture

Even if you’re not avoidant yourself, the dating culture is, and that affects all of us in how we meet and relate, on an invisible but fundamental level.

The way we meet and date right now is something that has never existed before in human history. It’s not just the apps or social media, or the idea that “no one flirts anymore.” It’s an entirely new condition that requires us to limit our authenticity just to survive.

We all keep our expectations low and “don’t get our hopes up” to avoid disappointment. We try to delay developing feelings and avoid investing, in order to protect ourselves. The more emotionally detached you manage to be, the less likely you are to get hurt.

It’s natural to want to protect ourselves from rejection, frustration, and abandonment, especially in a culture where sudden ghosting, disappearing when things get difficult, non-commitment, and inconsistent, breadcrumb-type relationships are fully normalized.

So we minimize our needs, ask for less, avoid setting boundaries, and are afraid to speak up in case we’re labeled “too much,” accused of pressuring the other person, or told we have unrealistic expectations. This silence isn’t a choice. It’s adaptation.

We adapt to conditions that are not “natural,” and we forget what real, meaningful relationships actually look like. No, this shouldn’t push us toward idealizing the past or returning to traditional values. But we also can’t let this culture make us forget what we’re actually looking for.

It cannot be considered an achievement that we’ve adapted to a reality that disrupts our mental balance and affects our entire nervous system. We shouldn’t accept chronic anxiety and uncertainty as normal.

Yes, relationships involve risk and uncertainty, but only up to a point. The goal is emotional safety. That requires regular communication, consistency, alignment between words and actions, emotional presence and availability, and for most people, commitment and exclusivity.

These are not optional. They are the minimum required to begin building a relationship based on real connection and reciprocity, one that can withstand the challenges and difficulties that will arise. If you truly want to protect yourself from constant stress (which will eventually show up in your body), this is the baseline.

 

How to survive this culture:

If you’re emotionally available and looking for safety and calm in a relationship, instead of playing games about who texts last or who disappears first, you’re probably exhausted. Let’s look at how to navigate all this.

First, understand that building a deep and meaningful connection takes time, discernment, filtering, clarity, and alignment with your own perceptions and intuition. It doesn’t happen overnight just because you were texting until morning.

Even if dating feels discouraging, it’s important not to harden yourself. Healthy companionship is a fundamental human need and contributes to overall health and well-being. You have every right to seek it.

The solution is not to suppress your emotions or to give up on dating altogether. It’s to develop better assessment tools and deeper self-trust. When you stay connected to yourself, your intuition will show you who is right for you and who isn’t.

Stop choosing based solely on chemistry and start choosing based on capacity. Attraction is not a reliable indicator. Pay attention early on to consistency, follow-through, behavior after tension, and conflict management. Emotional availability requires emotional “infrastructure.”

When it comes to your needs, reframe “too much” as incompatibility or misalignment. Emotional depth only feels excessive in shallow containers. The right nervous system won’t experience your needs as pressure, but as valuable information.

Practice slow attachment, without emotionally withdrawing. Let the connection grow through observation, and give patterns time to emerge before deciding “this is it.” Set boundaries first with yourself, otherwise you abandon yourself. Boundaries mean you love without depleting yourself.

Build a life that fulfills you beyond dating. When romance is your only source of emotional fulfillment, it turns into an obsession and increases your tolerance for poor treatment. We need community, purpose, and internal safety so we don’t become desperate—and so we can actually discern what’s right for us.

Learn the “language” of avoidance and recognize distancing patterns such as hot-and-cold behavior, premature future promises, inconsistency, ambiguity, or intimacy without responsibility. This will help you not take rejection personally and will reduce your recovery time.

If you want help learning how to filter, set boundaries, recognize what’s worth your time and what isn’t, and recover quickly after disappointment, I can help you. Fill out the form and I’ll get in touch with you right away!

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The male vs female experience on dating apps and what to do about it

the male vs the female experience on dating apps

Dating apps weren’t designed to bring us closer to love. They were designed to keep us “inside” as long as possible. They’re capitalist products, built to sell subscriptions and capture our attention, not to cure our loneliness. That means the system doesn’t really work in our favour. It plays with our FOMO, competition, and an overload of choices that don’t translate into real opportunities.

But, and this is the crucial point, the fact that the platform doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it can’t work with the right use. To find quality connections in this environment, you need awareness, emotional maturity, and a clear strategy. The people who do the inner work, who know how to present themselves authentically and communicate without games, stand out immediately, precisely because most people don’t do any of that.

Within the system, men and women end up playing the same game with completely different rules, and they rarely understand the other side’s reality. These asymmetries aren’t personal. They’re structural. But they shape everything: who swipes, who matches, who messages, who gets overwhelmed and who gets ignored. Here’s what the research, and real lived experience, actually shows.

  1. Men face scarcity. Women face overwhelm.

Most men get very few matches. Most women get more attention than they can handle.
This is the core imbalance, and it’s backed by almost every study on online dating.

  • Men swipe more, initiate more, and face more silence.
  • Women receive more messages, more sexual content, and more harassment.

The result?

  • Men feel invisible.
  • Women feel unsafe.

These emotional realities drive the behaviours on both sides. Men cast a wide net because they get so little feedback. Women become selective because broad filters are a safety strategy, not an ego trip.

  1. Algorithms exaggerate inequality, not personality.

Apps don’t show all profiles equally. They promote the most “engaging” profiles and bury the average ones. Research (Bruch & Newman, Tinder’s own internal data) shows:

  • The top 10–20% of men receive most of the likes from women. (Specifically on Tinder, where the gender distribution divide is the biggest).
  • The average man barely gets seen.
  • Women get overexposed to a small minority of men, many of whom aren’t actually looking for a relationship.

This isn’t a moral failing on either gender. It’s a marketplace distortion that makes both sides miserable.

  1. Men swipe on possibility. Women swipe on probability.

Behaviour diverges sharply:

  • Men operate on the “why not?” principle. They swipe broadly and filter later.
  • Women operate on “give me one good reason.” They filter first and engage only when someone feels safe, interesting, or intentional.

This is why men often feel rejected before they even get started. The bar women use is higher, and for good reason: safety, emotional labour, and social cost all weigh heavier on them.

  1. Men take more risks, women take more precautions.

Studies on risk-taking (David & Cambre, 2016) show men are more inclined toward gambling-style behaviour. On apps this translates into:

  • rapid swiping
  • more experimentation
  • more willingness to initiate with strangers

Women, on the other hand, must navigate harassment, stalking risks, and security concerns. So their “selectiveness” isn’t entitlement — it’s survival.

  1. Men prioritise physical traits, women prioritise internal or socio-economic traits depending on ideology.

The Hanson (2021) findings still hold:

  • Men: appearance first, everything else second.
  • Conservative women: economic and status markers.
  • Liberal/progressive women: emotional intelligence, inner work, values alignment.

This is crucial: Progressive women aren’t looking for perfection, they’re looking for men who are emotionally literate, self-reflective, and not threatened by equality. That pool is smaller but not non-existent, and the men who do the work stand out dramatically.

  1. Both genders end up frustrated for opposite reasons.

This is the part almost nobody says plainly:

  • Men assume women have endless options, so they feel resentful or hopeless.
  • Women assume men are dangerous or unserious, so they feel guarded or exhausted.

These aren’t based on bad intentions, they’re based on the structure of the platforms themselves. The system creates unrealistic expectations, distorted perceptions, and a generalised distrust that has nothing to do with the individual person behind the profile.

So is it hopeless? No. But it is unrealistic to “just wing it.”

The people who thrive on dating apps today aren’t the hottest, richest, or youngest.
They’re the ones who understand:

  • how the system actually works
  • how the other gender experiences it
  • how to present themselves honestly but effectively
  • how to communicate with clarity, warmth, and intention
  • how to regulate their emotions so they don’t sabotage promising connections

Apps amplify both your strengths and your weaknesses.
If you don’t understand the dynamics, you miss out.

What I help people do:

This is where my work comes in, and it’s the part the apps can’t do for anyone. I help men and women:

  • Build a profile that communicates depth, uniqueness, warmth, and acts as a beacon to compatible people
  • Understand the psychology of attraction in a progressive, evidence-based way
  • Develop communication and emotional skills that create real connection
  • Navigate dating apps with strategy instead of desperation
  • Date in alignment with their values, not in reaction to trauma or scarcity
  • Break patterns that keep attracting the wrong people

The dating landscape is unequal, but it’s navigable. Dating app structure matters, but skills matter more and inner work matters most.

When people understand the reality of the system and develop the right habits, dating apps stop feeling like chaos and start becoming an opportunity. Want to work with me? Fill in the form below and I’ll get back to you!

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The High-Value Man myth and the real meaning of hypergamy

If you’ve ever searched for dating advice, you’ve probably run into terms like “high-value man,” “high-value woman,” and “hypergamy.” They’re everywhere in the manosphere, and almost always presented as unquestionable truth.

But here’s the reality: these concepts are not psychology, not science, and definitely not healthy dating guidance. They’re old patriarchal narratives repackaged as modern “male self-improvement.” And if you don’t understand where they come from, you’ll end up working on the wrong things and attracting the wrong relationships.

This guide breaks down the high-value man myth, explains hypergamy in the real sociological sense, and shows why these ideas still create confusion, insecurity, and loneliness for men today.

What “High-Value Man” really means (and why it’s misleading)

The manosphere uses “high-value” like it’s a personality category. But the idea didn’t come from psychology. It came from hierarchy-obsessed, alt-right-adjacent online spaces where men are taught to rank each other and women the way one would rank products.

Here’s the actual formula behind “value” in this ideology:

  • Men: money, status, dominance, success
  • Women: youth, beauty, purity, sexual selectiveness (ideally virginity)

This isn’t personal growth.
It’s gender stereotyping dressed up as self-improvement.

Some male coaches try to soften the idea by blending it with traits like integrity, honesty, responsibility, and leadership. But the core logic hasn’t changed:
it still assumes people have unequal value depending on gender roles created 100+ years ago.

Hypergamy explained without the myths

Hypergamy, in actual sociology, describes a historical pattern:

Women tended to marry men with higher socioeconomic status because for centuries they weren’t allowed to earn money, own property, or support themselves legally.

Marriage was survival. That’s it.

But the manosphere twisted this into:

“Women want only the top 10% of men.”

That’s not hypergamy.

That’s insecurity dressed as theory.

It’s based on outdated assumptions about traditional women who relied on men economically, not modern relationships where women work, earn money, and choose partners based on emotional connection, compatibility, kindness, attraction, and shared values.

What the manosphere never mentions: Men also “date up”

The original hypergamy model always had two sides.

Men consistently choose women who are:

  • more emotionally intelligent
  • more nurturing
  • more attractive (usually above their league)
  • better communicators
  • more socially connected

In traditional marriages, women carried 100% of the emotional labor while men received care, stability, sexual access, and legacy (children carrying their name).

In other words:
Both genders “married up,” just in different domains.

But the manosphere erased the second half to blame women for male loneliness.

Why hypergamic relationships still exist today

These dynamics still survive in couples who unconsciously internalize patriarchal gender roles:

  • Women give youth, beauty, sex, caregiving and emotional labor
  • Men give status, money and protection

This is not a modern relationship model.
It’s a leftover survival strategy from a world where women had no rights.

The real question today is:

Do you actually want to live in a dynamic designed for 1850?

Most men don’t, but they’ve never been shown the alternative.

The Real Problem: Assigning relative “value” to human beings

No credible therapist, psychologist, or relationship professional uses the term “high-value man.” Ever.

Why? Because human value is non-negotiable and equal.
What varies is:

  • emotional maturity
  • compatibility
  • communication skills
  • self-awareness
  • readiness for a relationship
  • shared goals and values

It’s not about who’s “higher value.”
It’s about whether your journeys align.

This framing is healthier, more accurate, and drastically more effective in real relationships.

So What Actually Makes Someone “High-Value” in Modern Relationships?

Not money.
Not youth.
Not dominance.
Not hotness.

Emotional skills.
The ones patriarchy never taught men:

  • vulnerability
  • self-regulation
  • empathy
  • communication
  • accountability
  • the ability to give and receive emotional care.

This is what makes someone a great partner today.
This is what creates long-term, fulfilling connection.

If You’re a man struggling with dating, here’s what to do instead

You don’t need to chase status. You don’t need to become an “alpha.”

You need to work on:

  • presenting yourself authentically, not performatively
  • improving your emotional communication
  • understanding your attachment patterns
  • building genuine relational confidence
  • healing insecurities (yes, everyone has them)
  • developing clarity around your values, boundaries, and dating goals.

These are the real foundations of healthy romantic connection.

If You Want Help With This Work

This is exactly the work I do with my clients. I help men (and women) break out of outdated gender scripts and build emotionally mature, healthy, equal relationships.

If you want support in:

  • understanding your patterns
  • improving your dating confidence
  • learning effective communication
  • building a compelling dating profile
  • navigating dating apps with clarity and strategy
  • and developing the emotional skills that matter in real relationships

You can inquire about working with me. No gimmicks. No “high value” games. No unethical practices. Just real relational growth that actually leads to love.

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What dating apps really have to offer

Dating apps entered our lives within the last decade. Online dating already existed through social media or dating websites (mainly in the U.S.), but apps made the whole thing far more accessible and widespread, because you literally have them in your hand all day through your phone.

What they offer us is choice. It’s like being in ten or a hundred bars every night, while sitting at home in your pajamas. That didn’t exist before. You had to seize the moment when you were out and actually make a move, otherwise you’d have to wait until next Saturday night.

Dating apps also brought what we call an intentional approach to dating, that is, the ability to date with purpose, something people have always wanted, but couldn’t easily do before on their own initiative.

You couldn’t just decide to go on a date because you felt like it; you relied on introductions through family (matchmaking), community, or church. In short, dating apps are a valuable tool, as long as you learn to use them safely, responsibly, and a little cleverly.

But it’s important to note: through apps you meet people. You don’t date them. In reality, they’re introduction apps. You meet another human being, the app simply does the introduction. “Romeo, this is Juliet. You both enjoy drinking latte and going for walks. Good luck.”

Once you’ve met the other person, whatever relationship develops between you becomes something self-standing, completely independent from the app. It’s important to understand this, because very often people find excuses for themselves and justify their behavior in app-based connections, avoiding accountability.

But really, people we meet on the apps aren’t different from people we meet elsewhere. We owe them the same level of respect we owe to anyone in “real life”.

 

Why does Gen Z seem to use dating apps less than previous generations?

First, there’s a common saying about dating apps:

“Everyone hates them but everyone’s on them.”

As for Gen Z, part of the phenomenon has to do with the world they inherited, which unfortunately isn’t the same as the one previous generations grew up in.

Repeated economic crises, the pandemic, the housing crisis, growing conservatism, the collapse of dreams and expectations, and a general sense of hopelessness about the future, all of these have contributed to what we now call the male loneliness epidemic.

These factors make this generation operate under a cloud of uncertainty, unsure whether they’ll ever live what we once called a “conventional life”, with a house, family, and children.

That can lead to a kind of resignation in the search for partners, especially among men who still identify with the traditional gender role of being the provider.

On the other hand, this generation, the dating app natives who grew up with the apps, are also in a position to reject them.

A more progressive segment doesn’t want to depend on tech giants (broligarchs), algorithms, or the AI that has now entered the dating space. They crave more authentic interactions, not mediated by technology.

(A more conservative segment, on the other hand, wants to get married at 22, with trends like “trad wife”, and some young women’s dream is to stay home baking bread and raising children),

Meanwhile, studies record “swiping fatigue”, meaning exhaustion from constant app use, from superficial connections, and from the vicious cycle of situationships that often emerge through them.

We also see a longing for something more meaningful, a nostalgia for something they never really experienced, like the “meet-cutes” of 90s romantic comedies, those magical accidental encounters in real life, that tend to disappear.

There’s a connection to social media trends like “main character energy”, seeing yourself as the protagonist of your own movie and manifesting. In a way, these are coping mechanisms for a pretty dystopian reality, where the only answer and solution seems to be magical thinking.

It all comes back to something I often tell my clients: You have to actually do something to meet new people. You can’t expect a gorgeous neighbor to knock on your door asking to borrow a cup of sugar, or to find the love of your life in your fridge. Unfortunately, life isn’t a rom-com.

If you want to learn how to use dating apps the right way, I can help you build your ideal dating profile with the right photos and a bio that represent you in the most flattering, authentic way. Fill out the form and we’ll take it from there!

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How to get out of a situationship

happy couple

I often talk to women who tell me about someone they’ve met, maybe they’re in a situationship, or he’s “not ready for a relationship,” or he’s avoidant, emotionally unavailable, “doesn’t want to complicate things,” or he breadcrumbs them, offering merely crumbs of attention, texting now and then, or they spend time together and then he disappears.

And on one hand, they know that what they’re living through is emotionally draining and that they should make the decision to end it, but on the other hand, they just can’t, because the connection with him was incredible.

I completely understand. When you can talk with someone and laugh all night, and the sex is great, it feels like you have everything. It feels insane not to be in a “real” relationship together. No one else makes you feel like this. It’s amazing when you’re together, and he says he doesn’t want to lose you or what you have. So why doesn’t he want exclusivity, or to see you more often, or make it official?

One moment you tell him you’ve had enough and it’s over, and he says he’ll miss you but he understands. Then you go back to him because he messages you or you miss what you had, or you think maybe you didn’t try hard enough to show him you’re The One, and if you just give it one more chance, he’ll finally realize it or be scared enough of losing you to commit.

You have to believe me: the right person for you is never someone who isn’t ready. Connection is wonderful but it isn’t everything. It’s not enough. It has to exist alongside with readiness, with willingness and intention to build something with you. Neither is enough on its own, you need both.

And sometimes, you may need to sacrifice the sizzling spark and the dreamy connection and settle for something that feels a bit less intense, but is sure to go further, because it has the time and space to grow and evolve.

So what else is there? If you need closure, send one final message. Say you’re stepping away and you want him to respect it, and don’t look back.

It’s the right decision, even if it hurts. (And it will). But you’ll think about it one day when you’re with someone who truly chooses you, and you’ll laugh. Or rather, you won’t think about it at all.

If your story isn’t quite over yet, and you believe there’s still a chance the relationship status could change, I can help you:

  • Analyze the facts and what’s really happened between you
  • Evaluate the signs and their meaning realistically
  • Decode his messages and see what’s hidden beneath words and actions
  • Regain control of the communication with calm and confidence, without extreme reactions or impulsive moves.

It’s crucial to know where you stand and to learn to send the right message at the right time.

We don’t pressure or manipulate people, we simply project our authenticity at our best, and invite the other person to meet us there.

If there’s real potential with this person, then with the right approach, we can greatly increase the chances of something healthy unfolding. But only if it’s truly right.

If you want to give this relationship one last chance, let’s work on it together. I don’t do magic, but it’s truly magical how much things can change with emotional maturity and clear communication. Fill in the form and we’ll talk!

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SOS Heartbreak: how to deal with a break-up

Irini Georgi

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SOS heartbreak: how to deal with a break-up

People often reach out to me asking for urgent breakup sessions. I’m always there, because I understand.

Even a breakup after only a few months can feel deeply painful and disorienting, even for the person who chose to end it. All the more so if it was a long relationship or if you were the one who got broken up with and didn’t see it coming. The shock, the disbelief, the emptiness, it can all feel unbearable. You just want something to hold on to.

There are many things we grieve in a breakup, and we often don’t realize it:

The person themselves.
It’s natural to miss the person you shared things with, emotionally and practically. You miss the emotional safety, the feeling that someone was thinking of you, waiting for you. But you also miss the practical things: shared activities, someone to do things with, the empty side of the bed, the hug waiting for you at the end of the day. Reach out to friends and ask for both emotional and practical support.

The idea you had of that person.
Especially in short relationships, we tend to build an idealized image of the other person. Even if it wasn’t real, we still mourn the fantasy we had created. “It doesn’t matter who you actually were, I need to grieve who I thought you were.”

The expectations you had for the relationship.
Relationships are dynamic, not static. They evolve whether we want them to or not. It’s impossible not to have expectations, even when we’ve been told not to. Having expectations is part of being human, even though it’s often a source of disappointment. The person who expects nothing is either a zen master or emotionally dead.

The habits, the inside jokes, the world you built together.
That’s one of the hardest parts. Every relationship is its own little universe full of secret code that only the two of you understood. For a long time, you’ll want to share things with them that come up each day, and you won’t have anyone who truly “gets” them, because they were yours alone. For a while, try saying those things out loud as if you were telling them to your ex, explaining why they’re funny, while knowing it’s wiser not to actually reopen that wound.

The person you were with them.
Each person we love brings out a slightly different version of us. The best relationships bring out our best selves. It’s natural to miss that version of yourself, especially when comparing it to your sad, post-breakup self. (On the other hand, in bad relationships, we lose ourselves, and the breakup can feel like freedom.)

The time and effort you invested.
Humans hate losing their investments. That’s why we often stay in situations longer than we should, to avoid feeling that all the time and effort we gave it went to waste. Yes, you’ll grieve the investment, but you’ll grieve more if you stay and lose even more.

The future you won’t live together.
Every action we take creates one possible future and erases countless others. That’s life and that’s why we often wonder “what would have happened if…?” It’s natural to grieve the future you imagined, especially if it felt ideal. But that’s the trap of idealization. The goal now is to make the real future as good as possible.

The feeling that you’re starting over.
I know it hurts, and it feels like you’ll be starting from zero, but that’s not true. Every relationship teaches us something and helps us grow. You are not the same person you were before this relationship, and as time passes, you’ll see how much stronger, wiser, and more self-aware you’ve become. You’ll have more to offer and more capacity to receive next time.

To heal from a breakup, we need to face these losses head-on and allow ourselves to grieve fully. We need to notice the empty gaps and slowly fill them. Gradually, we start redefining who we are outside the relationship and reclaiming our sense of self so that we can move forward.

At the same time, we need to manage the dark thoughts that make us question our worth or our chances for happiness. Those thoughts need reframing, in order to change the story we tell ourselves.

You can get through this and you will. If you need support and tools to keep your mind steady and build the framework to move forward, I’m here for you. Fill in the form, let me know you’re going through a break-up and help will be on the way.

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Romance scams and how to stay safe

A growing plague in the age of online dating and dating apps is the phenomenon known as romance scams or romantic fraud. Countless people, both men and women, fall victim to these schemes worldwide, losing not only money but also the support of their loved ones out of shame for having been deceived, and, inevitably, their faith in love itself.

What exactly is a Romance Scam?
A romance scam happens when a common crook pretends to be interested in a relationship in order to gain our trust and then exploit us financially.
Perpetrators use dating apps, social media, or other messaging platforms, creating fake profiles with stolen photos and convincing personal stories.

🎭 Scammers’ Strategy

1. Creating a Persona
• They set up fake profiles with attractive photos, often stolen from real people (e.g. soldiers, models, or influencers).
• They invent sympathetic backstories — being widowed, a single parent, or working abroad or in the military — all designed to justify why they can’t meet in person.

2. Grooming & Love Bombing
They encourage you to share your struggles, then use your vulnerable, emotional moments to create a “connection,” sometimes rushing intimacy.

3. Isolation & Escalation
• They tell you not to talk to friends or family about them, saying things like “no one will understand what we have.”
• They increase emotional intensity and pressure: “I’ve never felt like this before,” “you’re my soulmate,” “I’m your other half,” “you have to trust me.”

4. The “Ask”
Everything up to this point was a setup for the main act — asking for money or some type of financial favour, under various pretenses:
• Emergency scenario: sudden illness, accident, or “I was robbed abroad.” Sometimes they initially refuse help to appear noble and earn even more trust.
• Investment/business: a “sure deal with guaranteed profit” that requires immediate participation.
• Travel plans: requests for money to buy tickets to “finally meet in person.”
• Gifts & accounts: requests for gift cards, bank details, or crypto transfers.

5. Maintaining Control
• If you start to doubt them, they guilt-trip you: “if you loved me, you’d help me.”
• They present fake documents, receipts, or even AI-generated deepfake video calls.
• They repeat cycles of affection, rupture, and reconciliation, a pattern known as intermittent reinforcement in abusive relationships, used to keep you emotionally hooked.

🚩 Warning Signs / Red Flags
• Too good to be true: The person has a perfect profile and sends overly romantic messages too soon.
• Rushed declarations of love: “I love you” and promises about the future within days or weeks.
• Avoiding meetings: There’s always an excuse.
• Inconsistencies & secrecy: “Don’t tell anyone about us yet.”
• Money: Any request for money is a bad sign, no matter how small.
• Emotional manipulation: They make you feel guilty, rushed, or responsible for their wellbeing.

🛡️ How to Protect Yourself
• Check their photos with a reverse image search (though this is becoming less effective with AI-generated images).
• Don’t let the relationship progress too quickly.
• Talk to friends and/or family to get an outside opinion.
• Never send money or personal information to someone you haven’t met in person.
• Trust your instincts. If something feels “off,” your intuition is usually right.

 

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Not just dating coaching

If you follow dating coaches on social media or have watched Later Daters on Netflix, you might have a very specific idea of what a dating coach does. Let me stop you right there. That’s not who I am.

The whole concept might seem very life-coachy to you or you might think it’s about teaching Pick Up Artist tricks or just charlatanism. On top of that, since I openly do this from a feminist perspective, I often hear men say that because feminists don’t want to meet men, so what I must be doing is teaching women to hate and avoid them. Let me stop you again. I don’t do that either.

What I want is to destigmatize dating in general because we don’t take it seriously enough. Meanwhile, we take marriage and family very seriously, which makes me wonder, how are you supposed to meet someone to marry? Will you open the fridge and find the love of your life inside, right between the cheese and the half eaten leftovers?

We need to remove the stigma from the dating process and from any tools that make it easier, like dating apps. It’s a shame that being on dating apps is still considered embarrassing for many people. As I often say, it’s like looking for a job or to fill a position, but being too embarrassed to create a profile on LinkedIn. But my thoughts on dating apps are all on my interviews, I won’t bore you here.

It’s not just about the dating process itself. It’s about how we approach the process, what baggage we carry, and what tools we use. In dating and relationships, we bring our whole selves. Everything that we are. From social norms and stereotypes to personal beliefs, values, ideals, and even traumas and repetitive patterns that have proven to lead nowhere.

Regarding my coaching, I often talk more about the work I do with men, because otherwise, men assume it’s not relevant to them. That’s because men don’t pay much attention to what women say and, when they see women speak, they often watch with the sound off.

I coach both men and women, and the work I do depends on each person’s specific needs and the level at which I can meet them. With women, we often go into deeper issues and do what we call “deep work” because they’re more likely to have gone to therapy or to have done some work on themselves, while men might mainly be interested in advancing their communication skills. But not all men are like that, and not all women are either.

Generally, my coaching goes way beyond first approaches and texting or guidelines for first dates. We go much deeper. For example:

For a man who told me his goal was to build confidence, I sent the following:

 Confidence is crucial in dating and relationships, although people usually view it superficially. In reality, the foundation of confidence is self-esteem, that’s what it’s built upon. In our culture, we don’t talk enough about how to build solid secure self-esteem.

We can work on this together. We can identify the limiting beliefs that hold you back and create your own hero story, so you feel like the main character in your life. And of course, we’ll explore what exactly is happening in your relationships with women—what mistakes were made in the past, what needs redefining, improvement, perspective shifts and new approach strategies.

For a woman who told me she was tired of dating and felt like she always messed things up and that it was her fault, I replied:

I understand that modern dating creates a sense of frustration, and often women, in particular, wonder if they’re doing something wrong. The answer is that while we all generally have dysfunctional patterns that we project in romantic relationships, that doesn’t mean things are easy or that it’s entirely our fault. The only thing we can control, however, is our own actions.

It’s worth examining your Relationship History to deconstruct what has happened so far, understand the past and gain insights for the future so you can break out of potential vicious cycles and make wiser choices. You may need to learn to use new tools and adopt new habits and behaviours to unlock blockages and move to the next level.

 This is the work I do. I also wanted to note a question from my interview on fortuno.gr. The male journalist mentioned a line he heard from a woman:

“Sorry, I can’t go on with this. I don’t know how to behave with men who aren’t assholes.”

His question was:

“How easy is it for people to change the pattern of who they’re attracted to, even when they’re aware it’s harmful?”

 I answered that this is the million-dollar question. This is where therapy comes to play, because our choices and behaviours in relationships are rooted in our trauma. The logic is, “we marry our unfinished business,” meaning we don’t choose partners who are truly suitable for us or who are likely to bring us closer to happiness. Unfortunately, we often choose those who remind us of a familiar unhappiness.

We keep entering these relationships, trying to fix our past and change the ending. That’s why “nice guys” seem boring.

It’s not because women want “bad boys”. It’s because people who haven’t done enough self-work are programmed to seek the familiar in their relationships, even if it’s painful, in an attempt to rewrite the story and finally find resolution.

In my work, it’s extremely helpful to understand what happened in the past that led someone to behave and function the way they do now. Even if they can’t see the patterns clearly, we see them together.

It’s important to be aware that everyone is made up of dozens of coping mechanisms developed in the past for self-protection, but are now dysfunctional. Recognizing and intervening to change them is key.

Another useful aspect is that of core beliefs about oneself that have been shaped by past traumas. We can also intervene in these and start challenging them. In my coaching, we do exercises to identify them, but it helps when people have heard about all this before because hearing it once is not enough. We need to hear the same things and relate to what we hear many times, until something inside us begins to shift.

In general, the coaching I do includes trauma awareness, because while true healing is about the past, coaching is about the here and now, with clear, practical steps. My coaching also involves education, mainly for men, as well as self-exploration exercises for everyone, along with tools for relationships and communication. This way, the pieces of the puzzle come together and work in synergy.

If any of this resonates with you, if you feel the time has come and you’d like to see what we can work on and achieve together, fill out the form below, and I’ll get back to you. Let’s do this!

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The truth about incels

A modern feminist approach challenging the narrative & creating change

Incels are often seen as villains in many feminist circles. They are the enemy, just like feminism is their enemy. But there should be no war at all. In reality, the vast majority of men who identify as incels aren’t mass murderers but depressed, isolated and underprivileged men who harm themselves more so than others. Feminism ought to stand by their side, because feminism should mean empathy and solidarity.

The problem

Incels perceive themselves as having lower value as romantic or sexual partners than other men. They place excessive importance on physical attractiveness and financial prospects to attract women, and underestimate women’s preferences for intelligence, kindness and humour. Incels’ inaccurate perception of what women desire in partnerships, leads to blaming women as well as other men for their lack of romantic success.

The role of dating apps

Rejection on dating apps amplifies their beliefs, with adverse consequences on their mental health. They create a distorted self-perception with low self-esteem, develop maladaptive coping mechanisms, and avoid accountability for their actions. By projecting their insecurities onto external reality, they reinforce patriarchal values and dehumanize the women they seek to date, further reducing their chances of romantic success.

A vicious cycle

Rejection sensitivity refers to an individual’s heightened and often anxious response to the perceived possibility of rejection or social exclusion. It seems that in rejecting themselves and believing they will not be good enough for potential partners, incels believe everyone else will agree. This may contribute to self-isolation and hostile behaviour, making them more dismissive of others and resulting in an unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy.

The solution

It’s time to stop blaming incels and start blaming the society that raised them. Unlearning harmful anti-feminist ideals and seeking education on women’s lived experiences, is the start. Learning to cultivate trust in humanity, building one’s self-esteem with deep work, by seeking social and mental health support and recognizing that romantic relationships are possible for everyone, is the key to creating meaningful change.

My work is to help and guide men through the path of escaping maladaptive thinking and behaviour patterns that harm them and their possibilities of forming healthy relationships. I can help men redefine their ideas of masculinity and femininity and understand the female experience. Understanding leads to empathy and empathy leads to connection, which is marks the start of relationships. Let me be part of your journey and guide you through. It’s time for change!

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How to avoid the Friendzone

Friendzone

Irini Georgi

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Friendzone

How to avoid the Friendzone

Feminism rejects the friend zone concept and rightly so, as it’s used by men who pretend they want to be friends with women they are attracted to, in order to enter their circle, gain their trust, wait until they’re feeling vulnerable and then try to get them to have sex with them. This is lying, manipulation, betrayal and, of course, misogyny. I’m not talking about this. What I am talking about, is the accidental friend zone, when you didn’t take action and show initiative early on, and then you find the momentum is gone. That said, here’s my advice.

1. Start as you mean to go on

Yes, it’s scary and you risk rejection, but you need to communicate your romantic interest sooner rather than later. This can help avoid misunderstandings and mixed signals, and show her you’re not just looking for friendship.

 2. Be clear but not creepy

Don’t stop being friendly and smiley, many men turn creepy when they want to express interest. Build a special connection, flirt, be funny, compliment her or, even better, tease her lovingly (meaning without impacting her self-confidence, it’s called benevolent teasing). Ask her out making sure she understands it will just be the two of you.

3. State your intentions

Expressing your feelings directly is the ultimate challenge. If you want to minimize the risk, try asking “have you ever wondered what we’d be like as a couple?” or say you had a dream that you two were kissing. You’ll judge if it’s a good idea to proceed by her reaction.

4. Respect her decision

If she doesn’t feel the same way about you, you have to accept her choice and respect her boundaries. You can do this by giving her space and focusing on yourself, on your hobbies, or meeting new people.

5. Time to move on

If you have feelings for someone, it’s very hard to stay away from them, especially if they seek out your company. But remember, if you like them romantically, it’s not friendship. You’ll be torturing yourself if you try to remain friends, and it will keep getting worse. Do yourself a favour and move on.

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