In my book The Authenticity Principle, I explain the practice of “mindful listening” (which is like active listening but goes even deeper) and how it can make you a more effective and authentic leader. But mindful listening isn’t just for leaders. In any of our interactions with others — with family, lovers, friends, colleagues, bosses, customer service reps, you name it — mindful listening allows us to be more present, focused, and deliberate in our actions.

With mindful listening, you’re not only tuning in to your own needs and others’ needs — you’re also paying attention to everything that’s going on around you. This includes what the other person is saying, their body language, the energy they’re emitting, the feelings and body sensations you’re having, the thoughts in your head, and what’s happening in the environment around you. This requires a conscious shift from how most of us usually practice listening.

Ultimately, mindful listening helps us to form deeper, more authentic connections with people around us — improving our relationships overall and helping others to feel like they can be more authentic in our presence. Mindful listening will literally transform your relationships!

Different Types of Listening

Picture the following scenario: You’re out having dinner with a friend who seems to be repeating the same mistakes over and over again in her life. You feel like you’ve had the same conversation a million times before, and you’re frustrated. You’re thinking to yourself, “I can’t believe she’s doing this again. I would never do that. I would do XYZ instead. I’m going to tell her. But when will she stop talking?! Whatever. I’m going to interrupt her.”

This is an example of what I call “one-way listening” — anchoring to how we want to respond to the other person rather than taking in all of what they are communicating. It’s very self-focused, and it’s how most of us do our listening most of the time.

Another listening approach is what I call “two-way listening.” With this type of listening, you’re more focused on what the other person is saying. You’re paying attention to their words and body language, and you’re also tuned in to what you’re thinking and feeling.

In the above scenario with your friend, you’d say something to yourself like, “Hmm, she just said she agrees with me, but her body language makes me feel like she’s only saying it. I wonder if she’s saying it just to make me happy? It’s making me feel uncomfortable. Should I ask her what she really thinks? Maybe I shouldn’t. Or maybe I should? Hmm, I’m gonna leave it — we don’t have enough time to get into it.”

Some of us practice this type of listening some of the time. While it’s a better approach than one-way listening, it still doesn’t take in all of what the person is communicating, nor does it reflect how the environment around you could be impacting what’s being shared.

What Mindful Listening Looks Like

Mindful listening builds on how we usually listen (one-way or two-way listening) by using more of our senses and slowing down our thoughts to take in the situation in a more thoughtfully considered, non-judgmental way. With mindful listening, we fully absorb what’s taking place before deciding what to say or do.

In the scenario we’re considering, you would first reflect on what’s going on in the room. Is the restaurant crowded or noisy? Is the atmosphere uptight or relaxed? Is the waitstaff frequently nearby where they can overhear your conversation? How might these factors be impacting the way you and your friend are communicating?

You’d also consider how you’re feeling and how this is impacting your own communication. Are you at the end of a rough workday? Are you on edge from a fight you just had with your partner? Are you anticipating a difficult meeting the next morning? How are these feelings impacting your verbal and non-verbal communication?

Then, of course, you would fully consider how external and internal factors are impacting your friend and how she is communicating. You’d say to yourself something like this, “She seems to be off today — she’s speaking more quietly and slowly than usual and she’s hunched over in her chair. Hmm, I wonder if maybe she’s feeling really hurt by what’s going on in her life? In fact, now that I’m paying attention more, it seems that I’ve been speaking to her in kind of a preachy way when it comes to this issue, and not thinking about her emotions at all — probably because I’m stressed in my own life. It’s also really busy in here. Maybe when we’re in a more private place I’ll ask her about how she’s really feeling.”

Few of us take the time to practice this type of listening regularly, but doing so can have a profound effect on our interactions, how we connect with others, and how others connect with us.

How to Practice Mindful Listening

Here are a few strategies for listening mindfully:

• Pay attention to your breath.

  Ensure that you’re engaging in diaphragm breathing (for a description of how to do this take a look at my post on mindfulness). This technique will help you to relax both mentally and physically and allow you to better hear your thoughts, feel the sensations in your body, and be more aware of the environment you’re in.

• Tune in to how you’re feeling in the moment.

  What physical sensations are you feeling in your body and what do they mean? What thoughts are dancing in your head while the person is sharing? What’s happening in the environment that is impacting your experience? Is anything triggering you to perform? Do you feel forced to push down your Authentic Self out of fear?

• Tune in to the other person.

  Listen to their words (what are they saying?), pay attention to their body language (what non-verbal signals are they giving you?), and take notice of whether there’s a disconnect between what they’re saying and how they’re emoting or what their body language is communicating. Could anything you’re doing be triggering them to perform?

• Take in the environment with your senses.

  What’s happening in the room? Is anything happening that could be impacting how the person is sharing or how you’re receiving what the person is sharing? What might be happening that’s making it harder for you to be authentic or for the other person to be authentic?

• Take your time.

  Give the person you’re with the time and space to articulate what they want to say. Then give yourself time and space to do the same. You will offer a more genuine, authentic response to what they are expressing if you listen in this manner.

Next time you’re in a meeting, out with a friend, or even having an argument, try this listening technique and observe how it changes your experience. The difference might surprise you!

The post Want to Improve Your Relationships? Focus on Mindful Listening appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

I found myself being really snippy to people around me — particularly to people I didn’t know. I was snapping at my Uber drivers, the checkout people at the drug store, the customer service person on the phone, and more. Because I knew this was bad behavior, I’d walk away feeling crappy about how I acted and I could hear the voice in my head lashing out at myself. Basically, I was self-flogging and it sounded like, “that was a crappy thing you did there, you’re a horrible human.”

Of course, I took this to my therapist and she said to me “Ritu, you choose how you treat others — even when you’re stressed.”

What a powerful a-ha moment this was for me because, well, it’s spot on! We often know when we’re being unpleasant and we can choose to alter our behavior. We can choose to not take our frustrations out on others. We can choose to communicate effectively with others. Even if we’re in a disagreement with someone, we have the power of choice in how to lead a difficult conversation or engage in conflict. In fact, how we speak to others can help build or wither relationships! And relationships are everything for life’s happiness. Whether it’s about how to find love, how to build trust, or how to communicate better at work, know that you choose how you treat people. And all of this impacts your ability to develop stronger relationships.

After having this a-ha moment, and reflecting on what my therapist told me, there are a few things that I now do when I find myself starting to get snappy with others. If you’ve found yourself in a similar situation when you’re stressed, you might also find this helpful.

Take a Pause

You’ll have heard me talk about the importance of taking more pauses in my blogs and videos. The simple act of deliberately slowing down by pausing before you say or do something can be so helpful in changing how you treat people. It allows you to stop for a quick moment to think about how you’re feeling, what you want to say, and how you want to say it — all before you actually share. Plus, it gives you a moment to focus on becoming more embodied which is so important. Essentially, by taking a pause in my interactions with others, I’m making better choices in how I treat others.

Acknowledge Your Feelings

I’ve also started to acknowledge and share that I am in a crappy mood. I will say to myself, “You’re on edge right now. You’re feeling frazzled and that’s because you’re stressed.” By being more honest and authentic with myself about what I’m feeling, I’m now better able to shift my energy to self-care practices that will help me to feel better. And these self-care practices ultimately bring me to a place where I can make better choices in how I treat others and myself.

Explore How You Want to Treat Others

The final practice I’ve started to use in moments when I’m feeling edgy and taking it out on others is reflecting on how I want the person to feel once I leave our interaction. Wow, what an eye-opening self-reflection exercise for changing how I treat others! Here are a few questions that I ask myself in moments of stress:

• How do I want to treat this person?
• How do I want to make this person feel?
• What can I do to make this exchange feel more respectful?

When I remind myself that I don’t want to make people feel crappy, I am very kind.

As I’m writing this blog, I have a bazillion things on my plate right now and, yup, I’m feeling cranky! But because of the practices I mentioned above, I’m being extra mindful about my interactions with others. And I feel good about this: knowing that I’m being kind in how I’m choosing to treat others. It’s about the interconnectedness of being.

The next time you’re feeling frazzled, what will you do to check in with yourself to ensure that you’re being more mindful in your interactions? What strategies will you use to alter how you choose to treat others?

The post We Choose How We Treat People appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

In our society, conflict generally has a negative connotation. It’s common to think that the best way to have safe and secure relationships is to avoid all disagreements. Fewer disagreements means less fighting, equals happier relationships. Given this messaging, our bickering made me worry about the health and stability of my relationship.

As I always do, I spoke to my therapist about how I was feeling, and she told me that fighting isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Conflict is normal in any kind of relationship — it’s often the way we air our concerns, opinions, and grievances. In fact, research has shown that fighting may actually mean that we care and can be an indicator of increased intimacy, which enhances relationships.

It seems counter-intuitive, but arguments can, in fact, bring people closer together.

However, there is a big difference between a throw-down fight and a disagreement. In any conflict, miscommunications and mistakes do happen and feelings will get hurt. But there is a healthy way to argue that results in resolution, allowing you to feel closer to your partner, colleague, family member, or friend. What truly matters is not the number of arguments you have or even what they’re about — it’s how we fight that makes a difference.

So how do we deal with the tension in a healthy, constructive way? Here are three ways to manage relationship conflict the next time you find yourself in the middle of a fight.

Take a Pause

As I’ve mentioned before, when a conversation causes us stress, we typically react by wanting to jump in with the first words that come to mind (which are usually hurtful). We don’t give proper thought to what we are saying, how we are saying it, or the consequences that may follow. Taking a deliberate pause in the middle of a fight allows us to regroup, gather our thoughts, and check in with ourselves about what we really want to say and how we should say it.

(And if you’re worried that you’ve crossed a line, remember that you can always ask for a do over.)

Share Your Feelings

A lot of fights stem from our own insecurities, yet instead of sharing how we really feel, we often mask by being defensive or by showing anger, because it feels easier than showing shame or vulnerability. But it’s so important to speak our truths, not only to get to the root of the issue, but also because good relationships are about communication.

As my favorite love guru, Esther Perel, has said, when people fight, it’s really about the lack of “affection, respect, power… or some combination of [the] three.” We need the courage to share how we really feel. (If you need some tips on how to share your feelings, check out my other blog post here.)

Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

The most important thing I’ve learned about fighting well is to acknowledge that the other person’s experiences are different from ours. We all have our own lens, and it’s easy to lose sight of that in the heat of the moment and assume what the other person is feeling or thinking (especially when they’re a loved one you know well).

By making a conscious effort to put yourself in their shoes, you might see where they are coming from. And when you do, chances are you’ll realize that they’re probably not the horrible person you painted in your mind, but that they’re coming from a good-hearted — but possibly wounded — place. By recognizing the other person’s interpretation of the situation, you might find that your own perspective changes, and suddenly you’re no longer fighting.

Conflict is bound to happen in any relationship where you care deeply about the other person. These are just a few ways you can deal with tension in a more constructive way that will make your relationships stronger.

The next time you face a fight, ask yourself these questions:

• How do I want to manage this situation?
• What are some questions I can ask myself and the other person?
• How will I frame what I say and how I say it?
• How will I mindfully listen to what they have to say?

The post How to Fight Better in Relationships appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

After almost two years of lockdowns during the global pandemic, things are finally starting to open up a bit in some parts of the world. For me, this has meant getting to see many of my friends and beloveds in person again!

It can feel so good and exciting to make plans with your besties and hang out with people you really like again. But over the course of the pandemic, you may have realized there are friends in your life that have very different value systems than you and this is causing conflict and discomfort — and ultimately you’re realizing that don’t want to maintain a relationship with them anymore.

But breaking up with friends isn’t a concept that many of us have faced before. Of course you understand how to end a romantic relationship — but what about a friendship? And if you do break up with your friends, will you end up living a life of loneliness?!

As I’m sure you already know, I’m deeply committed to the importance of living authentically as much as possible, but I’m especially about it right now. As the world starts opening up and we’re re-adjusting our lives, this is the perfect opportunity to re-evaluate how we’ve been living — and that means being true to our authentic selves, even if it means breaking up with some of our friends.

In this video, I talk about what you can do if you find yourself in the tricky predicament of wanting to end friendships and why this can be so important for living authentically. And as you’ll hear me share, you won’t live a lonely life — I promise!

Watch now!

The post Should I Break Up With My Friends? appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

I remember an experience I had many years ago when I first started dating my partner. In the middle of a discussion, he said something that instantly caused me to feel really insecure. I felt my chest tighten, my heart start to race, and my stomach swirl — the familiar sensations that I experience when I’m feeling rejected and that are connected to emotions from my past relationships and my experiences with racist childhood bullying. 

He instantly knew from my energy that I was upset and asked me what was wrong. It was a scary moment of deciding between three options:

1. Do I pretend that it’s nothing? (i.e. run away from my discomfort)
   
2. Do I get mad at him about something else instead because the truth is too hard to share? (i.e. deflect my discomfort onto him/push him away)
   
3. Do I tell him the truth, that I’m feeling rejected by what he said? (i.e. authentically share my feelings)

In that vulnerable moment, I knew I needed to tell him the truth and share the real reason I was upset. Even though I’d been living in accordance with what I call the “I Don’t Give an F Plan” —  meaning I’d committed to being authentic without worrying about how I might be judged or perceived — this was different. Because I care deeply about his thoughts and reactions, I owed it to him to share my feelings.

How Sharing Connects Us as Humans

You’ll have heard me mention before that sharing connects us as humans and opens the door to receiving the love, support, and guidance we need to heal and thrive. Sharing your feelings helps to nurture the authenticity, trust, and open communication that are so important for healthy relationships.

Sharing our true feelings is often frightening because we fear how we’ll be perceived and how others might respond to our vulnerability. The fear of being judged can cause tremendous stress in our bodies. It dysregulates our nervous system and results in the manifestation of unpleasant physical symptoms — think of those uncomfortable situations that cause your muscles to tense, your heart to race, your jaw to lock, your glands to sweat, and more. (Sound familiar?) These physiologically induced reactions occur when our body senses danger, activating our fight, flight, or freeze responses.

And while in one of these states, our brain can stop us from fully communicating everything we need or want to say.

But leaving a situation without openly sharing our feelings and speaking our truth — giving in to the “flight” part of fight, flight, freeze — doesn’t serve us. In fact, it can create additional emotional, mental, and physical stress, while potentially causing tension in a relationship that matters to you.

So what did I do in the situation from before with my partner?

I repeated a few mantras in my head — “I can do this!” and “I am safe!” — to help calm the sick feeling that was flowing through my body, and I told him that his words made me feel rejected. As I started to share my feelings and express my truth, the empathy I saw on his face melted away all the tension and negativity I had been holding. I could physically feel a weight lifting from my shoulders. 

My partner was so kind and loving in that moment because he knew I was speaking from a place of hurt. His response allowed me to calm the agitation in my body, but it also filled me with the reassurance I needed. It was a powerful learning moment for me about why it’s so important to share your feelings, especially when you’re feeling vulnerable.

Making the Choice to Share Vulnerably

I know it may feel scary as hell to share vulnerably, especially if you’re dealing with a toxic relationship, but the next time you feel tempted to bury your emotions, pause for a moment. Take a deep breath and ask yourself these questions:

What am I truly feeling in this moment?

• If you could speak your mind without consequences, what would you share about how you’re feeling? What would you say that would truly reflect your authentic self?

What is holding me back from sharing?

• What are you afraid of? What is holding you back from sharing what you’re feeling?

What is the worst thing that would happen if I shared?

• Will sharing hurt you? How long will those feelings last? (I note that if you’re afraid for your physical or psychological safety, then you may want to behave as your Adapted Self here.)

What would be the benefit of sharing how I truly feel?

• How will sharing serve you? How freeing will it feel?

Once you’ve had time to think about your answers, you’ll know whether it’s safe to share. Then all you have to do is find the strength to speak.

The beautiful thing here is that it will get easier and easier the more you do it. Leaning into our vulnerable moments and sharing our true, authentic feelings does not weaken us — it makes us stronger.

The post How to Share Your Feelings appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Between demanding schedules and personal obligations, sometimes it can be easy to forget about the work we need to put into nurturing our relationships. Especially during this difficult moment, when our lives feel overwhelmed by stress related to COVID, we’re still working from home, we’re upset by all the inequities we’re observing, and more, the simple gestures or compliments we usually dish out to our loved ones can easily fall by the wayside.

But as we know, human connection is what brings meaning to our lives, and investing energy to improve our relationships will ultimately make us happier.

One of the tools that I’ve used to help me to improve my relationships — romantic and otherwise — is a tool called the 5 Love Languages. If you’re not familiar with the 5 Love Languages, you gotta check them out! Basically, there are five main ways that we speak and understand emotional love: words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, quality times, and acts of service.

Everyone’s love language is different, and everyone has a unique preference for how they want to show their love and care for others — and how they want to receive love and care back. I personally have found this knowledge to be so helpful in improving the quality of my relationships, including how I deal with conflict.

In this video, I share why I adore the 5 Love Languages and how learning your loved ones’ love language can improve your relationships.

Watch now!

The post Improve Your Relationship with the 5 Love Languages appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

She told me that love is like a flower. Flowers are beautiful, bring joy, and can instantly brighten up your day, but they are also delicate. They need water to grow, nourishment from the soil to flourish, and light from the sun to thrive. Flowers can’t just be thrown around; we must handle them with care. If we don’t give them what they need to survive, they can wilt, become bruised and damaged permanently, and they can die.

My sister summed up her thoughts by saying that, just like tending to a delicate flower, we need to care for the love we share with others in the same way.

How great is this analogy?!

Love and Relationships Take Work

In our society, there’s an entrenched belief that love should be easy — that when you build a loving relationship with someone, things should just “work out”. But this simply isn’t true!

Relationships require work in order to thrive, the same way flowers need tending to in order to flourish. Our word and actions — what we say and do — impact others, and they can bring joy, but they can also hurt. If we do not take the time to nurture a bond we have with someone, especially after it’s been hurt, it will suffer over time.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t fight or experience tension with your loved ones. Arguments and conflict are normal and healthy aspects of a relationship. As you’ll have heard me say in previous blogs, the issue isn’t that you fight because, of course, you’ll have disagreements. What matters is how you fight and address the tension you experience in relationships. (And if you’re not already doing this, you might want to carve out the time to think about what you can do to heal the hurt your actions or comments may have caused.)

And here’s what’s so interesting: sometimes it’s in the greatest of turmoil that love can become even more beautiful. When I first told my boo that my sister called love a delicate flower, he said, “Yes! It’s like a lotus flower that grows in a shitty swamp!”

How to Nurture Love and Relationships

Every meaningful relationship you have is special in its own way. Like the many species of flowers that need varying amounts of water, fertilizer, and sunlight to flourish, your relationships may need to be cared for differently in order for them to grow or heal. To help you out with your relationship “gardening” (ha, couldn’t resist!), here are a few things you can do to help nurture your bonds with others:

Know Your (and Your Loved Ones’) Love Language

Have you heard of love languages? The Five Love Languages is a book by Gary Chapman that outlines the ways we express and experience love. Simply put, our love language is how we show others that we love them and how we like to receive love from others. For example, my dominant love language is words of affirmation — I love showering my beloveds with words of admiration, appreciation, and encouragement. Knowing your loved ones’ love languages is important as you’ll uncover what means the most to them and how to heal any hurt you cause. You can do the Love Language test online for free here.

Learn to Fight Better

As I’ve already mentioned, conflict is a very normal part of relationships, and it can actually bring people closer together. The important thing to note is how you fight. For example, one of the most useful things I do whenever I feel stressed in a heated discussion is to take a pause. This simple act can stop potentially harmful words from flying out of your mouth — all you need to do is literally pause! When you slow down and check in with yourself, chances are that your response will be more thoughtful and deliberate.

Going forward, choose to work hard at nurturing your relationships through proper care and attention, so that the love you have in your life can thrive, feel beautiful, and be lasting.

Reflect on your most important relationships. Are there any that need a little TLC? What will you do going forward to nurture and cultivate that bond?

Remember that it may take time, and some relationships may require more nourishing than others. But all of this is worth the sweet smell of roses (cheesy, I know, but true)!

The post Love is Like a Flower — We Need to Nurture It appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

When I was writing my book, The Authenticity Principle, I knew that I wanted to include self-love as part of what I was teaching, because self-love is at the core of living authentically. But because I was worried that some people wouldn’t accept this “mushy” topic alongside the neuroscience, leadership, and self-development topics that I discuss in the book, I wasn’t sure to what extent I should talk about it directly.

But the further I got into the process of writing, the more I realized that I simply can’t teach people how to live better — or how to build a more empowered and inclusive world — without discussing self-love. Here are three reasons why I think you should focus on self-love on Valentine’s Day and every day.

1. Self-Love is the Key to Loving Others Better

When I talk about self-love, I’m talking about unconditional acceptance of the self. I’m talking about knowing and embracing who you truly are as much as possible, and that means, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And this can be really hard work!

Learning to accept and love yourself unconditionally requires doing deep self-reflection work to reveal the “tough stuff”, including the wounds, pain, shame, and other vulnerabilities that you’ve experienced and internalized along your life’s journey. This “tough stuff” is exactly what gets in the way of you loving others and inviting them to love you back, because when you’re hurting, you’re more likely to put up walls that prevent you from giving and receiving love. (And let’s be real — when we hurt, love is exactly what we need.)

Acknowledging and facing the “tough stuff” isn’t easy, but doing this work will enable you to work on healing these areas. So whether it’s your lover, children, family, or friends, you must start with loving yourself in order to identify and heal the hurt that’s preventing you from giving love and receiving it from others.

2. Self-Love is the Foundation of an Inclusive World

In my work as a global diversity, equity, and inclusion speaker and consultant, one of the questions I’m always asked is: How can we build a society that’s more accepting of differences?

The answer lies in self-love.

So many of us have been taught to hate and fear differences in others, which is often motivated by discomfort with our own differences. This fear often stems from the fact that we don’t love and accept ourselves for who we are. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that many of us have received repeated negative messages about who we are throughout our lives.

When we experience discomfort with someone who is not like us, what’s essentially happening is that we’re engaging in bias, whether consciously or unconsciously. We do so because we’re afraid of differences and of being hurt, and we have been taught that sameness is safer and makes us less vulnerable. But favoring sameness ultimately pushes fear, intolerance, and hate.

Cultivating self-love will lead you not only to embrace who you are (especially what makes you different), but it will also enable you to feel more comfortable with others’ differences. In short, loving yourself can have a huge impact on creating a more inclusive world as you’ll be more willing to recognize and celebrate authenticity in yourself and others.

(Also, self-love is a radical act (shout out to Audre Lorde!), but for especially people of color, for women (cisgender and trans), and for women of color. Loving ourselves is a way of disrupting the harmful messages of White male supremacy that tell us we are unworthy.)

3. Self-Love is the Secret to Living Your Best

Cultivating self-love is the starting point to having the life you want — a life where you feel empowered, confident, happy, loved, inspired, and so much more. And although it takes work — self-love is a practice where you choose to love yourself even when you’re feeling tired, weak, broken, insecure, like an impostor, and more — the end result is worth it.

Self-love is about the belief that you are worth the emotional and physical investment it takes to nurture and heal yourself. And when you make that investment in yourself, amazing things are possible!

Developing self-love and self-acceptance is a journey, and for many of us, it’s a lifelong one. Wherever you are now, the key is to start!

The post Why You Should Think About Self-Love This Valentine’s Day appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Back when I was still single, I would frequently find myself on dates wondering if there was physical chemistry between me and my date. Sometimes I knew right away but other times I just wasn’t sure!

To help me figure out how I felt — if there was an element of sexual attraction — I created a simple two-question test for myself to use as a way to gauge whether there was chemistry or not.

So many of you have reached out to share how difficult it is to navigate the COVID dating scene right now, and one thing that I keep hearing repeatedly is that it’s so hard to tell if you’re sexually attracted to someone on a video or physically distanced date. So I thought my test from my days of being single might help you!

In this I share my test for checking in on if you’re attracted to someone. I hope it helps!

Watch now!

The post Dating During COVID – Here’s How to Tell if You’re Sexually Attracted to Someone! appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

So many of us, during periods of being single, have been on one of those dates — a date when the person you’re going out with dominates the conversation with stories about themself and doesn’t ask any questions about you, your interests, or your life. (Ugh, I seriously can’t tell you how much I hate this!!)

This type of experience can be especially pronounced for women (we do live in a society dominated by patriarchy, after all) — and with COVID moving our lives online, I’ve had so many girlfriends describe situations where their virtual dates don’t ask many questions during conversations on apps and only talk about themselves during video or phone calls.

While it might be tempting to blame this on the awkwardness of dating via Zoom (hello, delayed video and extended, uncomfortable silences!), these imbalances of conversation were happening long before online dating became the norm.

So in this video, I share a few concrete approaches you can take when your date doesn’t ask questions as well as some tips on what you can do if you’re someone who has accidentally done this to someone you’ve been dating.

Watch now!

The post What to Do When Your Date Doesn’t Ask Questions appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.