Sharing Jasbina’s interview with a former female physician client with the thought that perhaps some of her experiences along her dating journey may help as you navigate yours:
1. What are some of the challenges you face as a busy professional dating to find a partner.
Actually finding the time to date was the obvious challenge and it might be whether it was the right amount of time or the right time to date. For example, you might be preparing for an exam or a busy schedule up ahead next week and so the thought of dating seems so overwhelming, that would just go in the backseat.
2. I totally understand that. I think that’s really common. Any particular challenges you face as a single physician?
I come from a traditional and cultural family where marriage is considered to be the norm, so as it is, when I was not married in my 30s, I felt it was the biggest challenge, but also ironically, I felt that my field also upheld marriage as a norm and sometimes it was a token to professional success and that was probably not being married, was in it by myself at that age was a challenge. I do want to preface that I perceived this as my what my professional background required me to be in terms of normal and not being normal with that. That was like an emotional challenge.
3. Any particular challenges you faced as a single female physician?
I do believe there is a differential when it comes to how female and male physicians are treated as is, and then how females who are single physicians are treated as opposed to male single physicians, if I said it right. One of the things that I found was that when I would try to even go out for dates I felt like people needed to redeem themselves and they would try to be very boringly boastful of what their achievements were. I didn’t want to see myself as a professional dating rather than a person dating and looking for a significant other, but I thought that being a female physician kind of hindered me because it was a challenge in it by itself.
Also at work I would get side comments from my male coworkers, including male single ones like, “Oh, how comes you’re a single. How come you’re still single?” If something is a sensitive topic for you, for me, this was a sensitive topic that I was single and even though you hear it time and
time again, it comes as a surprise every time when you hear it and you don’t know how to recount an answer for that.
I think a lot of these challenges for me were more so emotional challenges and I did notice that as a single female physician, when I was out to date also male would forego the chivalry, which I considered very important to me. I wanted a man, even though women are independent and all that, I personally see that there are certain things that a woman likes and I liked it, which was being courted to not paying for the first date at least and men just felt like that’s not something they needed to do because I was a female physician.
One other challenge was that as a single physician on her way to being accomplished every year, because I went from residency to fellowship. So every year was a step up in my career. It was a boost up and I questioned like, “Hey, why am I not finding? I should be finding men easily,” and one of the answers that I got from my male counterparts, even female counterparts was that you intimidate men because you’re beautiful, you’ve brains and beauty. That did not really help me a lot because I did not know how I could actually rectify what I was doing wrong. All I got was this blanket straight statement, so it was hard to kind of live around that too. Sometimes I felt like I would have to lower my standards just to accommodate these intimidations that men could possibly have. That was my assumption.
My traditional cultural background is being Indian and I think Jasbina you can relate to that too. It’s a taboo to be in your 30s and not be married and also when people meet you, like when I would go and visit my family in India, or even my family here, the recurrent question would be like, “Oh, so when do you get married? Why are you so picky? Why aren’t you married by now?” Again, like I said, a lot of these challenges were emotional ones and how to answer people. So, nobody looks at all the accomplishments that I had made professionally, but they undermined all my professional accomplishments with my personal, so in quotation marks deficiency that they perceived and as a result I perceived.
4. What made you seek out our support in helping you overcome challenges?
I had an ideal defined for my personal life and it was pretty much coming home, not to an empty house, not to a dark home. I wanted it lit up. I know this sounds very philosophical, but it truly was like, I was tired of coming to a dark home and I wanted to come home to that pleasant noise of cooking, somebody waiting for me, kids and not having to sit on my couch after I come home and just having a non-planned routine on a day to day basis with family and kids, that was my ideal, like having weekends planned out. I didn’t want work to be my entire life. I wanted it to be part of my life, but I wanted my personal life to be fulfilled with things that I defined with a spouse, a significant other with family.
Obviously I felt like whatever I was doing on my own was not working and I tried the dating sites after being so reluctant to doing it, because I felt like everybody from work is going to be there, so they’ll mock me. I felt like I was at a loss at this point, so let me just give this a try as a last resort and see where it goes.
5. Now how did working with us help you overcome the challenges?
First thing I realized is that dating is fun when I started doing it the right way. At least that’s what I came to understand soon after working with you was that there is a science to dating and it’s not frustrating. You don’t have to put aside time, but it’s just a rhythm that mends in with your day to
day lifestyle. Talking with you for the first time itself, I felt like you got to know me and there was a reason you actually took that time to get to know me and it was not based on a questionnaire that I had to fill in, or I had to choose from a multiple choice questionnaire, but you actually took the time on the phone and we exchanged a good conversation based on the multiple series of questions that you had and you drafted and cleaned my profiles.
I wouldn’t even say clean, but you gave it such a facelift and at first I thought it was too wordy, but I soon realized that with the change in my profile, the quantity of men improved, but also the quality. The quality truly improved and men would take from the verbiage that was on my profile and they would relate to it and reach out to me and we’ll give you one example. One of the things that you highlighted was the marriage between my parents. They’ve been married for 40 years and that’s exactly what I envisioned myself to have with my spouse. I said something like that, “This is something I want in my life,” and some few people actually picked up on it and they were like, “That’s really great. That’s exactly what I’m looking for,” and that started a conversation or where you highlighted my love for traveling and somebody picked up on that and said, “Hey, that’s really great, I understand you want to go to Iceland. I’ve been to Iceland and maybe we should meet up and I can give you some tips about Iceland.”
It just improved, like I said, the quality of men, the quality of conversation. On the other side, also my taste for dressing, because your whole thing was that, let’s be realistic about this. You are looking to get married, you’re in your 30s, you haven’t had a lot of success on your own. Let’s reach out the masses, let’s change something, the way you’re demonstrating your picture needs a little bit of a facelift there and my picture quality changed. Till this day I have realized that, and I continued to take professional pictures, which are like, not that daunting, not that expensive and actually they come on really good.
So those were major things in the beginning. But later on, I noticed that every date that I went to was followed with a conversation with you and if you set up the date, it was a conversation with both parties with me and the other person and you talked about the positives and negatives on that date and how I can be better on the next date with this person or be better on the next date with another person, if this doesn’t work out. So, there was a lot of one-on-one.
6. Well, let me ask you this, for someone who is wondering, what’s coaching? What’s coaching and how can I even help me? What would you say to them? I think a lot of people in their places, it’s kind of like ambiguous, it’s like, “Well, what is this and then how can it help me?” Tell me how would you help them kind of understand what coaching is, even all about in the whole dating relationship space.
Well, if somebody is wondering, I bet they’re seeking out some type of additional help, because they’re not having a lot of success with your current dating situation. Personally, I felt like you tailored the program to me, when you talk to me, it was more tailored to me, my challenges and also challenges that I was lying sided to, and you notice and how you could correct them and this was not something that you provided, your service provided at a one time go, it was on a recurrent basis. Every date that you went to was with a new person, so that might actually bring about a new challenge that you might not even see, something that you’re doing right or wrong, you might not even see and your coach will actually highlight that for you and maybe strengthen it or tweak it if it needs some work. I don’t know if this is very nebulous, but I think if I say it this way, it applies to everybody. I think that’s where coaching will help in terms of that.
7. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Tell me if you knew then what you know now, I’m just curious, would you have sought our support earlier or not? Do you ever think that it was the right? If you knew really then which you know now any reason you would have said, “Maybe I’ll do something like this earlier.”
I would say definitely, absolutely it’s no. I started working with you in 2017, almost like towards the end of spring, beginning of fall and I met my now husband in 2018, early 2018. I do think I’m a success story, so I would have, but also timing is everything. I think he was waiting at the right time for me and I was supposed to meet him at the right time. I think timing in my case was everything, but I definitely think you did make me a better person, be it with dating and my personal life. You helped me confidently navigate things and not lower my standards because they were my standards and one of the most important things that you told me after disappointing dates was that it was not even a disappointing data.
It was after series of date and I said like, “This is really not working for me. I’m supposed to meet somebody,” and you said, “If you wanted to meet somebody, if you wanted to get married, you would have, but there’s something you’re looking for and you haven’t found that and that’s why you haven’t settled.” I’m probably paraphrasing it. I am definitely paraphrasing, but that’s support was so individual to me and it rang in me. I just took a step back after a phone conversation and I said, “Yes, you’re right.” Until today I say that to my friends when I’m trying to support them with their dating journey.
8. I love that you’re kind of paying it forward with others. That’s really amazing. I think that’s really good to hear and what did you like the most about working with us, if anything?
Can you repeat the question, Jasbina?
9. Sure. What specifically did you like the most about working with us?
Like I said again and again, I think it was the one-on-one attention from you. The sessions were molded towards me and they were not very stretched out. They were not like, “Okay, you talk and I’ll listen.” It was more like you’re to the point, you’re no nonsense to the point, which I like and it doesn’t give a lot of room for us to make errors rather than focus on what needs to be done, so I like that.
To summarize, I think like I said earlier, the one-on-one, your attention, you’re to the point, you don’t stretch things out. I just think it makes you a confident dater. You just don’t like minimize what you’re looking for and there’s success in it and you really feel good about dating. Dating becomes fun because you’re not just doing it to definitely the next date is going to be your soulmate, but to actually nurture yourself and understand what is it that you’re looking for and what is it that you want, and does this person fulfill that and that’s where the eye-opener was in terms of working with you.
10. I love that. Would you recommend to anyone not getting the results they want in their personal life work with us?
Not recommend them?
11. No. Would you recommend anyone who’s not getting the results they want in their personal life – Would you recommend that they work with us, if they’re not getting results they want?
Of course, yeah.
10. Tell me about why?
Tell you about why I would recommend it?
11. Yeah, exactly.
Quickly after working with you, I think the first few sessions itself, I realized that dating was just not very nonchalant and something you can wing it. It’s a science, there’s effort that goes into it, not like effort which is challenging and demanding, but effort that is fun. So, I would recommend people to do it because it does boost their confidence in dating and seeing dating as something that is actually good for their own soul. What was the other part of your question? I’m sorry.
12. It was just, would you recommend anyone not getting the results they want in their personal life work with us and if so, why?
For that reason, because I think it’s personally very nurturing.
13. I love that. How would you describe your personal life nowadays?
Oh, I’m very happy, I’m married to a great guy. He’s loved by me, my family, my friends. Every time I have to describe him, I just have to say, “Ryan is a great guy.” He’s a great guy that pretty much sums it and it had to do with relearning the dating model and there’s no game to it. You’re not playing mind games, you’re just enjoying and I love my personal life, everything that I envisioned and I mentioned a few things earlier, they have materialized. We have a home, I come to that sweet noise that I craved. Our weekends are spent this summer on the beaches. We have like an umbrella and a mat and we take a cooler to the beach and we went to Italy, did not plan the trip and we had so much fun and I can see myself getting old with him. It’s a very enriching personal life, but also how it has bonded his family and my family is very nice too, so love it.
14. It’s so inspiring. It’s going to be so encouraging for others. I love that. Is there anything you learned through our coaching help you in your marriage, since you’ve been happily married?
Yeah, I think so. In my mind, I do reference you for a lot of things. Again, like the confidence, not minimizing your standard, if these are your boundaries, these are your boundaries and my husband knows that and he recognizes it and respects it. So I have used that in my personal life too, and I continue to use it even in my professional life, to be honest.
15. Well, that’s what I was going to ask you, is there anything you learned through our coaching help you with your work, with your professional life?
Yeah. One of the things about you as a person, is that you’re to the point, get things done, go, go, go person and it’s admirable, so I have taken that at least tidbits, this is how, don’t beat around the bush, get to the point kind of person, so I do that in my personal and professional life. At least I try to, I strive to, I haven’t gotten to the little details, who is how you do it and how you move so fast, but I’m trying, I’m striving.
16. Tell me and you’ve mentioned so much already with respect to this, so I’m just going to ask this again, but I don’t want you to feel pressured to, you can even repeat, but what are the best things about being married? As you kind of see there, what are some of the best benefits or what are the best things that of course you’re see?
Well, I love married life. People say it’s difficult, it’s challenging, but I love. We just celebrated our one year anniversary two days ago and I’m not a very social media kind savvy person, but my whole thing, my quotation was, “I love figuring out life with you.” That’s the best part of… we don’t plan ahead. I remember one of my friends insisted upon Pre-Cana and premarital counseling, we try to, but I wasn’t too happy with it. So we didn’t really put too much effort into figuring that out again. But we have realized that we at least I did, I can’t speak for my husband, but I have realized that the best part of marriage, a good marriage is probably figuring out life together, because you do come across challenges and just being like calm, taking a step back and both of you figuring it out together, it’s really good. Seeing your family, friends all embrace us, like me being embraced into his family, him being embraced into my family is really endearing.
17. I love that. How has coaching with us paid off in your quality of life then, in just general quality of life?
Early on I said that, trying to find time the right amount of time or the right time was a big challenge to dating. I thought that this was something I had to intentionally put out a block of time to do this. Now, I realized that it is just part of life, so even in my personal life, I go to work, when I’m busy, I’m busy at work, but when I come home, I don’t bring work home and we do simple things, one or two things, because it can be challenging to do work working out and just spending time with your significant other and your family. So we just do one or two things, but that’s enough to kind of diffuse and release and enjoy life.
18. I love that. Now this is another, I’m going to throw out this question actually, before we end with this, are there anything you’d like to add, because I know that Ryan is not Indian. I love how you’re saying that your family embraces him, his family embraces you, so tell me anything you want about that in terms of any pleasant surprises or any anything you might not have expected about being married to a non-Indian? Tell me about that.
I’ll take a few steps back or a step or two back because this kind of things to you, when I came to you, I was like, “Okay, I’m a physician, so it would be easier for me to meet another physician, because if I move somewhere or if I have to move somewhere, it would be easy and it would be easy to kind of do this changes with another physician.” I was stuck into that mindset that I had to get married or meet this physician as my partner and then I was also stuck on this whole thing about like, I wanted my culture to carry on and I was scared that if I get married to a non-Indian, it would die out. It would just end with me. So, I was married to that idea.
You made me aware that it’s okay, “What is your goal?” You asked me. One of the things I may have answered was to get married and be happily married and be happy waking up to the person I’m waking up to and have the idea of getting old with this person. So you said, “Okay, then let’s
actually broaden that horizon and let’s not just focus on physicians, let’s not just focus on Indians. Let’s just see what happens and let’s cast the net a little wider,” and that’s what I did and I met this wonderful man. At first I was unsure of how I was going to fit into a man who is non-Indian not from my culture, who’s is from a completely different religion. How is this going to happen? But it’s been really good because not only him, but I talk about him coming into my family, I also think like of his family coming into my family and vice versa.
19. It’s been such a great experience like when we were actually having our wedding, even with the Indian ceremony, how his dad made the connection between Catholicism and Hinduism, “Oh, you guys throw rice because that’s good luck, we do that too.” There was that positivity of how we can connect the religions together, but this is very specific, but overall, I’ve seen how the two cultures have meshed in and I kid you not, like our wedding my whole concept was like, “We’ve come from different cultures, so there’s no point of you getting dressed up like an Indian and just doing things you’re asked to because it’s meaningless,” and my dad had just wanted something in the temple and he went along with it, because he wanted to be respectful to my dad, but I didn’t ask him.
He just did it because of the person he is and that was to me and my family that was welcome so well, like, “Oh, wow. He just did it,” because I was hesitant that he might not agree, but he agreed right off, “If it’s going to make your dad happy, I’m going to do it,” and we had an Indian ceremony, his parents came, he came and it was great. It was so beautiful. His mom and dad, and they learned so much.
That was one thing of where the cultures have united from me taking a non-Indian and bringing him and exposing him to the Indian culture. But also this past Thanksgiving where my parents went to his house, his uncle’s house, and we had like a full on Thanksgiving, the American style with Turkey and all the desserts and food and they have embraced us into their family, so it’s beautiful. It’s actually not challenging. So I am not afraid of tomorrow, if we have children, how are we going to raise them, because I feel like it’s going to be a blend of both cultures and we’ll take the positives from each one’s cultures and we’ll probably leave behind things that are negative or we didn’t agree with.
20. Love that. I got to ask you, now that you spoke to the cultural aspect, what about the whole physician thing, any thoughts on that for those Indian women or just women physicians not even Indian women physicians who are saying, “I think only a physician is going to work with me.” Any thoughts on that?
No. One of the biggest things was like, how is he going to move if I have to move forward or something like that, but now with the benefit of him working mostly remote with the whole COVID challenge, that is not even a challenge, first of all, but also because he’s not a physician it’s good that I can come home and actually be a non-physician and not about work and talk about like a human language. It’s really nice. I think it was meant to be and I’m happy this way.
21. You picked one benefit actually of being with the non-physician any other benefits that you can even think of, of being with a non-physician?. One is like not shoptalk, I guess, like right when you come home, but anything else, maybe not, but I’m just curious. I need to know.
We both don’t share a very busy schedule. We can accommodate to each other’s schedule, like when I’m rushing to work early in the morning and I cannot walk the dog, he’s able to step in and walk the dog and we share different schedules, but at the same time, we make sure that we have
at least one meal together. I think that’s the biggest benefit for us because our schedules don’t interfere with us having a good personal life together.
22. I love that. You’ve said so much, but I’m just going to still ask you, is there anything you’d like to add anything that maybe my questions didn’t get to that you think would be important, whether it’s from a perspective of single women, single men, single professionals, single Indians, anything? Anything you might want to add to help them sort of in their challenges or think of seeking support to the normalizing seeking support for their challenge, what have you?
It’s basically not a taboo to seek support. It actually gives you a better direction. It gives you more scientific way of dating. For me, whenever I saw something as a challenge or a negative, you had a way to change it into a positive and one of the things was that I picked up a job in a different location, but I actually picked it did as a part time job, because I was a little afraid of moving from the tristate area and compromising my ability to meet a guy and actually get married, because I was settled in my professional life, now I wanted to really focus on my professional and personal life and you said, “Well, it’s not a challenge. It’s actually a benefit because now, you can date people in the New York, New Jersey area, but also in the new place that you’re going to.” So it’s a win, win situation. It’s it increases your numbers of meeting people, so it’s a positive.
This is just one example, but I always saw that whenever I saw a challenge, you were able to see the bright light in there. You were able to see the positive, how can we make this challenge into an advantage.
I really liked our session today. It really opened my eyes to my language.
