Why are dating and relationships harder as a hardworking high-achiever?

Dating is hard. Especially when we’re 30+. Most people are coupled up, weddings are everywhere. It feels like everyone is having babies, and moving on with their lives. There are few choices but to try and get out there. And yet, singles events feel desperate and the dating app world often feels hollow. Everyone seems jaded, disillusioned, and resigned.

Dating is even harder as a hardworking, high-achieving person. 

You work long hours and have a hectic calendar. Trying to find time for a date is tricky from the outset and you really don’t have time to spend weeks online chatting to someone that might have serious potential. Trying to explain to someone that you have a busy schedule can send the wrong signal. Are you playing games? Are you too busy for love? Trying to be hard to get? Putting undue pressure on them? Either way, it’s a tough pill to swallow for most folks on the receiving end. I remember the volume of tantrums, passive aggression, and snide remarks I’d get from men who were hell bent on locking down my time before I was available. Then there was suspicion from men when I was open to meeting sooner. It really felt like I couldn’t win.

Then there’s the question of whether you do actually have time for a relationship. You know you do because you'd prioritise it, but you need someone who gets that your work is a priority. It’s something you actually enjoy. Your drive and ambition is a non-negotiable. Not everyone gets that. And often when they say they do, further down the line, once you’ve invested three months or more into them, they start to get irritated and complain. Not great. I’d lost count of the amount of men who I seemingly emasculated or would tell me in a quasi-concerned-slightly-passive-aggressive tone that they were worried I’d burn out.

You also have high standards. You didn’t work this hard to get to where you are without them. You do NOT want to date down. You have your income, your career, your high quality items, and lifestyle. You have your hobbies that you enjoy and things that you value. You don’t want to start compromising on dates, where you go, what you do. Sure, there might be short term sacrifices in between jobs or during fundraising, but generally speaking you want to keep going up, climbing that ladder of ambition, achieving your greatest potential. You have no interest in conceding this. But how often do you find a match that is your equal career-wise? Statistically, it’s much harder. 

You also want an intellectual equal. You’re educated, have a good degree, work in an interesting field, and pride yourself on your accomplishments. You don’t need an Oxford PhD in a partner, but you do need good conversation, someone you respect. That can be hard to find out there. Being a well educated individual places you in a certain social category where, logically, you date within that category – but unfortunately once you hit your 30s, that pool gets smaller and smaller. You eye couples that met and stayed together at university with not-so-subtle envy and worry whether you’ll find someone like…you.

It’s hard. 

No one has ever taught us how to date. No one ever sat us down to give us the formula, the method, the system to think through what it is that we need, what our non-negotiables are, and what genuine, fulfilling, authentic compatibility looks like. I had to come to this through endless years of investment, practice, trial and error, and training – but this is my profession and calling. We don’t all have this luxury. Not when we’re building startups, running corporations, being change-makers. 

Without proper education and a system, we default to utterly archaic dating practices. We lead with chemistry being the greatest factor for compatibility. 

"Is there chemistry?”

“Is there a spark?”

“Are they ‘the one’?”

This is a recipe for disaster. Trust me. 

Endless psychological studies have been written about how chemistry is just the brain being flooded with chemicals at often very unhealthy markers of compatibility: childhood trauma bonding, ego projection, idealisation, and so on. Chemistry is NOT the end all be all. 

Compatibility is way more than that. It starts with the heart, yes, but it is guided and shaped by the head. It is a full-bodied, somatic experience. It comes down to how you ‘feel’ with that person – and the feeling isn’t crazy in love chemistry, but a solid, stable, consistent, gut feeling of love and safety. 

When we’re hardworking high achievers, it comes down to a pretty rational and systematic way of evaluating a mate’s potential and discerning to what extent they are a good match for us long term. It integrates the heart and the gut just as much as it integrates reason and intellect.

It’s about creating a contract with our (prospective) partner that here are the areas we are compatible on, and here is where we fit together for a future long term partnership. 

This can be a beautiful and enriching, heart-forward experience just as much as it is an intellectually engaging and exciting.  

I’ve created a science-based 12 week program aimed at helping hardworking high achievers pave the path forward to meet their partner. Over three  months, you will get clear action steps, outcomes, and deliverables to help you move forward and create the conditions you need to meet your person. And it won’t be just based on ‘chemistry’. ;) 

I’d love to tell you more about it. Email me to learn more.