In this episode of The Wrong Ones, we talk about the quiet, internal moment when your relationship worldview widens—not because you've suddenly changed who you are, but because you've finally grown into someone who can hold more nuance. From matching with a trans man on a dating app to noticing how your thirties shift your sense of "never" and "always," we explore what happens when the lens you've used to understand love moves from portrait mode to landscape.

Through personal storytelling and psychology-backed insight, we unpack how evolving relationship structures, therapy culture, technology, and simple lived experience stretch the edges of what feels possible. We talk about why curiosity doesn't threaten your identity, how exposure softens rigidity, and what it means to move from inherited scripts to consciously chosen beliefs. Plus, a little life update on launching Substack and returning to writing as another space to process all of this in real time.

In this episode, we cover:

• The "soft clicks": tiny, ordinary moments that reveal big internal shifts

• How your thirties change your brain, your identity, and your tolerance for nuance

• Matching with a trans man on a dating app and what that pause of curiosity actually meant

• The difference between expanding your worldview and changing your orientation or desires

• Moving from black-and-white thinking to "Does this feel aligned for me?"

• Differentiation: becoming your own person outside of family, culture, and inherited rules

• How therapy language (attachment, boundaries, nervous system) reshapes relationship expectations

• The role of dating apps in norm-shifting and repeated exposure to diverse identities and structures

• Why monogamy isn't disappearing—just becoming a conscious choice instead of a default

• Psychological flexibility: holding more options in mind without feeling destabilized

• The emotional exhaustion of performing timelines that were never really yours

• Designing relationships that fit your nervous system, not just your résumé

• Curiosity vs. participation: understanding something without needing to live it

• How growing older is less about certainty and more about internal spaciousness

Reflection Question of the Week:

Where in your life are you being invited to loosen an old belief—not to change who you are, but to see who you've become?

Resources Mentioned:

• Differentiation and Family Systems Theory (Bowen; self vs. system)

• Post-Formal Thought & Integrative Complexity (adult cognitive development and nuance)

• Schema Theory & Accommodation (Piaget; updating internal narratives)

• Psychological Flexibility (Hayes; Acceptance & Commitment Therapy)

• Mere Exposure Effect & Norm-Shifting Through Contact (Zajonc; familiarity reducing threat)

• Attachment Theory (Bowlby & Ainsworth; internal working models in relationships)

• Polyvagal-Informed Ideas of Safety & Regulation (Porges; nervous system and connection)

• Therapy Culture & Relational Self-Awareness (contemporary psychology and modern love)

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