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Amari Ice: Dating Coach Interview Part 1 - Good Matches & Why You're Single
3 Plays4 minutes ago
Amari Ice has been a dating coach for the past 15 years. He's the first black gay dating coach and matchmaker in America and he has great advice for everyone, of every orientation. He's smart, likeable, and his success speaks for itself. Many of Amari's former clients are married because of the skills he taught them.
We discuss red and green flags, what to look for, attachment styles, picking a partner who has the right capacity for you, how he met his husband and so much more. You're gonna love this episode. Part 2 drops next week. Enjoy.
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Transcript
Introduction of Amari Ice, the Matchmaker
00:00:00
Speaker
Okay, today we have Amari Ice, the amazing, the brilliant, and the likable matchmaker and dating coach for gay men. The proof is in the pudding, y'all. He is ah married.
00:00:15
Speaker
So I am just so excited to talk to him because there's so much to unpack when it comes to modern dating, gay dating, matchmaking, All of it. We can always learn how to improve in these areas.
00:00:30
Speaker
So I want to get to and know you a little bit, Amari, um because what you teach is just truly brilliant. um Anyways, hi, Amari. Welcome to the worship. Let me introduce you a little bit because I'm so excited before I dive into questions.
Excitement Around Dating Topics with Amari
00:00:44
Speaker
Welcome, Amari.
00:00:45
Speaker
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here and talk with you and get into all the things.
Red Flags in Dating
00:00:51
Speaker
but So my next question is, what are some red flags that you think should be universal? And what are some green flags that you think should be universal? Oh, yeah. Like I said, I think it's kind of hard. I will say as far as the red flags, like i do not deal with a bad temper.
00:01:14
Speaker
um It's just not for me. Once I see it I'm turned off and that's it's a wrap. I just I don't I don't care for a bad temper. And then with me being a woman who dates men, i I don't care for it for my safety and just for my mental health and just so that I won't be stressed out.
00:01:36
Speaker
And green flags. for me too, something is I, of course, I want someone who has a full life as I think everybody does. And so I want someone who has friends because there are definitely men who do not have friends or there are men who have one friend So I want someone who has a social life, but I also do not want someone who has to go out every single night um or most nights of the week. So I want someone who just understands like you should not be partying all of the time.
00:02:11
Speaker
But you all and you also shouldn't be relying on me to be your source of entertainment and your source of friendship and your lover and just all things in one without you having other interests, other people in your life, other things to do.
00:02:27
Speaker
um And then I definitely back to the red flags. I 100 percent will use someone's relationship history against them. So it's like if someone was just on just being a fuck boy, if someone is doing all the dumping, if someone just like seems to have had a reckless pattern, I don't see myself as the person who will change them, even though maybe perhaps the person who will turn things around.
Patterns in Negative Relationship Histories
00:02:52
Speaker
I'm just not interested in someone who just like has a history of being pretty awful to people. And it's funny because sometimes I've dated people and I've looked back in hindsight and they laid it out on the table. They let me know that they ain't shit as far as how they treated people.
00:03:10
Speaker
And, but I kind of like put it aside. i didn't like what they said, but I just chose not to focus on it. And then you realize that no this is who this person is. And they told you, they let you know from the jump, like I am going to be trash, but you just gave them the benefit of the doubt. So yeah, I just, those are some of mine. And like I said, it's a hard question. So I don't know.
00:03:36
Speaker
it's great. I'll start with the number one red flag and the number one green flag that I think should be universal. And then others will probably come up too. But That way it'll also be easy to remember and use.
00:03:51
Speaker
But I think the number one red flag is emotional unavailability. And I think this should be everybody's number one thing on the list because emotional availability isn't a bonus. It's a fundamental requirement for any relationship to be healthy rather than toxic.
00:04:09
Speaker
If someone's not emotionally yet available to you, they can't have the emotional generosity that we talked about earlier. They can't validate your feelings when you're going through things. They can't be present with you because they don't have the space in their hearts to do so. So emotional availability has to be required. That's the number one risk lag if they're not available.
00:04:31
Speaker
Something I want to add to that, though, is a lot of people love bomb and someone love bombing does not mean that they are emotionally available. There are benefits.
00:04:41
Speaker
There are benefits to love bombing. It allows you to. um Or when somebody is love bombed, you're kind of swept away by it and swept in it and you feel secure in how they feel about you because they're love bombing you. But that does not mean they are emotionally available. They have an ulterior motive. That's why they're love bombing.
00:05:00
Speaker
And it's just very manipulative. At the end of the day, you're getting, you're hearing all these great things. You're thinking someone is into you when they truly are not fully invested. Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:11
Speaker
And love bombing is interesting too, because
00:05:16
Speaker
Although it is a real phenomenon, I think sometimes we can confuse what counts as love bombing versus what counts as genuine excitement for someone who hasn't had an experience like this for a while and then also realizes, oh, this isn't what I thought it was. Like, that is also true, right? They're both love bombing, but it's...
00:05:37
Speaker
the manipulation is the thing that you really have to look for. Why are they doing this? Are they trying to control my actions? Are they trying to get things for me? Versus the person just wants to spend time with me. You know what mean? Like they're complimenting me, they're buying things, they're sending flowers or whatever, but they're actually following through with their behaviors.
00:05:57
Speaker
um Yeah. So you you really have to look at both the energy, but also the the intentions behind it and what is, I'll put it this way.
00:06:09
Speaker
people's patterns tell you what is sustainable for them. And so the thing about love bombing is if you're not really versed on the signs that someone is manipulating manipulating, you have to give it time, right?
00:06:21
Speaker
But for those of us who are very clear, you already know what to do in these situations. But the time will tell you what someone's normal pattern is because some people are genuinely excitable people. And that is something that you will see several months down the road if it's you know a person's authentic self versus if it's not. Love bombing is this is not authentic for you.
00:06:41
Speaker
This is out of your norm. And I'll be able to see that when I see other things that are stable in your life, your job, meet your friends, your family, whatever. But if I'm being love bombed and I'm never being included in the rest of a person's life, that is tales. That's tea. That's tea. We got the coach, y'all. We got the coach. Okay. So yes.
00:07:05
Speaker
And then you said you
Impact of Coaching on Amari's Romantic Life
00:07:06
Speaker
wanted to give your number one goal. Yeah, the number one trait to look for in a partner is the degree to which they are kind to themselves. Because our capacity for self-compassion predicts emotional stability, it predicts conflict resolution.
00:07:26
Speaker
It predicts our ability to be resilient in the face of challenges, right? And so our negative self-talk, we tend to project onto other people. So if we don't like ourselves, and I don't mean like you have to be perfect and not have any insecurities at all, but if you have really, really bad self-talk,
00:07:44
Speaker
and you see yourself, for example, as a piece of shit and you judge other people, that is your judgments of other people are really reflections of the way that you talk to yourself. And so it is hard to be at peace in a relationship with someone who is constantly, ah finding problems, finding things to criticize you about, finding ways to threaten your self-esteem.
00:08:07
Speaker
And that's a reflection of the way that they treat themselves. So if you see how someone treats themselves and hear how they talk to themselves, that is often a great indicator of how they're going able to talk to you. Okay. I love it. So how has yeah ah how is being a dating coach impacted your romantic prospects?
00:08:25
Speaker
You are married, happily married, newly married. So, so exciting. But how has being a dating coach impacted you when you were dating? And would you tell men up front about your profession?
00:08:39
Speaker
Were they intimidated or put off by it? what How did it change things for you when you were dating? Oh my God. So many ways. So when I started my company, I was in a long-term relationship, but then the realities of entrepreneurship or would actually strain that connection. So we're actually still good friends, but my capacity to be in a relationship diminished when I started the business because I was so busy all the time. right So one of the things that I learned really early on was that capacity piece that... brought up. We're talking about match, right? Like we talk a lot about the vibes and
Valuable Dating Lessons: Saying No & Opportunities
00:09:16
Speaker
the attraction and compatibility and all that stuff.
00:09:19
Speaker
But like, if you don't have time to date, it doesn't matter how emotionally available you are. doesn't matter how great your dating skills are. You don't have time for a relationship. So the relationship isn't going to prosper. Right? So that was a big realization.
00:09:32
Speaker
And then so many other things too. Like I had always been a very accommodating person, right? Like very um open and affirming and live and let live and really accepting people for who they are.
00:09:49
Speaker
So one of the things I also had to learn was to say no, because i'm I can get along with anybody. And because of that, sometimes, especially at first in those those earlier days, like we're saying 10-ish years ago,
00:10:01
Speaker
I was spending way too much time on people that weren't a fit because of the need to be nice, the need to be kind, right?
00:10:11
Speaker
Versus having the ability to say, no, this isn't a fit. So I'm not going to, I was also like, am I 20s? So learning, learning curves. But yeah, now in in the more recent era of my life as a dating coach and when I was single,
00:10:28
Speaker
being able to spend a lot less time because it's a lot easier to tell when someone's a good fit or not a lot sooner when you actually know what you're looking for. And that's one thing that will say for people who are dating. A lot of people, when you ask them what their type is or what kind of person they are looking for, they'll say, I'll know it when I see it.
00:10:47
Speaker
But the problem with that is you can't recognize what you haven't cognized in the first place. Meaning you won't know something If you haven't already defined what that something is, it's the reason we tend to miss tons of opportunities. We don't know what the opportunities look like.
00:11:02
Speaker
And a lot of times when something is out of our comfort zone, opportunity looks like discomfort, right? It looks like inconvenience if we're not trained to see it. So being a dating coach helped me to see opportunities, helped me to say no to the wrong opportunities.
00:11:19
Speaker
helped me to make sure I had the time, the space, the capacity, the emotional availability to be ready for a relationship. It ultimately made me a better dater. Because again, the number one thing that we're doing with clients as dating coaches is helping them to be better daters, helping them to swim so that the dating pool doesn't drown them.
00:11:37
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, were you telling men front
Family Support & Early Life Experiences
00:11:40
Speaker
what your profession was? Yeah, I was. And sometimes people did get intimidated by that. Like some people were like, oh, yeah, that might be a little too advanced for me. Right. And if somebody tells you that you're out of their V, believe them. If someone tells you you're too good for them, believe them. Like people know themselves better than you know them. So don't try to make excuses for, you know, people's inability to see their own ah resonance with you. Were you nervous about pursuing this professionally? What did your friends and family say to you when you told them, I want to be a dating coach, a matchmaker?
00:12:19
Speaker
What do they have to say to you? like and Because I'm just so curious because I think people are so opinionated about this stuff. Yeah. Funnily enough, I was not nervous at all. Like even as a kid, my family always called me the family therapist or the family psychologist. Right.
00:12:36
Speaker
So I just always had this temperament. um And then even as a young person, like i I matched friends. Like there are friends that I have that are married and still together now that I put together as a kid.
00:12:48
Speaker
And my, my talent isn't just matchmaking from a romantic perspective. Like even as a kid, if I had like a party, I knew who to sit next to each other. I can tell when people will be really good friends.
00:13:01
Speaker
If there's a job opportunity, I'm really good at spotting people's talents and abilities. and matching them to opportunities, right? So my real ah superpower is people patterns. And that can be applied to all kinds of things.
00:13:14
Speaker
So thought I wanted to be a therapist at first, but then I realized while studying psychology in undergrad that I didn't really want to have someone on my couch for 25 years. I wanted to help people get...
00:13:25
Speaker
a lot faster results, right? Like the way my attention span is set up, I need to see immediate results of the things that we're doing. And so I knew as a sophomore in college that I wanted to be a coach rather than a therapist.
00:13:37
Speaker
So it was kind of early for me to have the realization that this type of work was right for me. And then i ended up getting a job before I graduated that was like in the lgb LGBT empowerment field.
00:13:50
Speaker
And so I coached as a part of my job, right? I got trained to do that too. So it was a cool like opportunity that fell into my lap. And the thing about working with LGBTQ people is the core of what makes us who we are is our relationships, right?
00:14:07
Speaker
And so I was already coaching people through relationships even without calling myself a relationship coach. And then I got that more formalized training and education experience and Yeah, now I do it professionally. And I started my company in 2017. So I've been doing it for about nine years under company heading, but I've been coaching professionally since 2011. So about 15 plus years. Wow. Wow. So it seems like your family was supportive because they knew that they that you had this in you.
00:14:35
Speaker
Okay. So, I mean, I've been doing a little research about your method and I hate to ask you this question that you've been asked several times, but I think it's so genius. So can you please describe what the MATCH
MATCH Acronym for Compatibility
00:14:49
Speaker
acronym stands for when someone is dating and seeking partnership?
00:14:53
Speaker
And what data led you to creating this acronym? Yeah, yeah. I think I'll start with the why and then go into the acronym because it'll it'll build really nicely. So first things first, according to the Global Love Institute, I am both the first Black gay matchmaker who's certified in the world and also the first certified Black gay science-based dating coach in the world as well.
00:15:16
Speaker
And so I've had a lot of experience working with over a thousand people gay professionals and executives who are looking for love and trying to level up their love lives. And so a lot of the tools and things that I use are both from my training as a coaching matchmaker, but also my experience working with so many people.
00:15:34
Speaker
And so the science is really specifically applied to gay singles who are looking for love. And so when we think about what makes someone a good match for us,
00:15:46
Speaker
A lot of people know what they want, but not necessarily what they need. And so I have a really easy to remember model for assessing whether or not someone is a good match for you. and match is that acronym. So i'll go through each of the letters in turn. And it's it's really easy, really brief, but really impactful. So first we have n which is your mythos.
00:16:05
Speaker
And you can think of this as your romantic mythology, which is like the way love fits into your overall life story or your mindset about relationships. So the stories that you weave and believe about relationships are going to dictate how you operate within them.
00:16:17
Speaker
And if a person's archetypes or virtues or values, their presence in your life even doesn't make sense in your know life story, then they're not really a good fit for you. Okay. Then we have a which is attachment style.
00:16:31
Speaker
And this is the romantic pattern that you consistently use to emotionally connect with others. It's developed primarily from your childhood relationship with your parents. And it's measured based on two different scales of relationship anxiety. So the first scale is the degree to which you fear abandonment.
00:16:48
Speaker
And then the second is the degree which you fear intimacy. And basically with attachment styles, we're either secure or we have an insecure style. And the more secure we are, the easier it is for us to get into relationships, for us to navigate them, for us to deal with you know emotional ups and downs. We're pretty even and calm.
00:17:07
Speaker
And then if we have an insecure style, we tend to be more anxious about the realities of partnerships. So whether our partners are going to leave us or whether we're getting too close,
00:17:17
Speaker
And so that can really drive us to choose partners who reinforce the patterns that we experience with our parents. And so if you ever wonder like, why do I keep choosing the same type of person over and over and it never works? It's often the attachment style responsible for that.
00:17:31
Speaker
And if you're single and looking for love, the number one thing that you can do is choose a partner who has a secure style. And if you have an insecure style, it's to develop those emotional regulation skills to help you also navigate your own emotions, your own anxieties while you're dating.
00:17:47
Speaker
So that's A. T is temperament. Yeah. And feel free to hop in with questions as we go through this if you have them. um T is temperament. So this is going to include all of the inherited traits of your personality.
00:17:59
Speaker
And the two traits that are most linked to long long-term relationship satisfaction are going to be emotional stability, which is how steady and calm you are under stress, and then emotional generosity, which which is how much grace you would stand during conflict. Yeah. And so stability matters most, but if either partner isn't naturally emotionally stable, then again, those emotional regulation skills are essential to compensate.
00:18:22
Speaker
So that's temperament. C is capacity. And this includes the skills and the resources that your partner must have in order to meet your realistic expectations long-term. So when we think about potential versus capacity, potential is a function of your fantasy of what they're capable of or what they will do, whereas capacity is a function of their trajectory.
00:18:42
Speaker
So if they don't have a capacity now, they might never develop it in the future. They might never develop that potential that you see in them because potential is the icing, whereas capacity is the cake.
00:18:53
Speaker
And then finally, we have hazard-free. Hazards are going to include anything that crosses your boundaries, as well as toxic patterns that threaten the health, the safety, and the longevity of a relationship.
00:19:04
Speaker
And hazard-free means you respect each other's boundaries and neither of you have any of the other's deal-breakers. So those are the five things at a glance. Mythos, attachment style, temperament, capacity, and hazard-free, which means no deal-breakers.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I know you also had mentioned values too. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's a part of the mythos. It really frames the way we view the world, what we see as important. And it's kind of the the core of your mindset as it relates to relationships.
00:19:35
Speaker
It's really fascinating. How did you create this acronym? Like how long did it take you to come up with it? Like, because I guess you were obviously seeing these patterns or you recognize what people should be prioritizing. So how long did it take you to put that together?
Science-Based Approach to Dating
00:19:54
Speaker
ah The fun answer to your question is this consistently evolves. So because I'm a science-based dating coach, I'm always looking at what the data is saying, right?
00:20:06
Speaker
And so there's so many different things that people say affect our relationships. And I have systematically gone through all those different things and put them to the test, right? So personality psychology is one of my biggest areas of expertise. And there are so many different tests we can take and see if it comes up. whether we're talking about astrology or the Myers-Briggs or whatever.
00:20:28
Speaker
And so what we do is we look at what the assessment measures, how that impacts relationships, and then we test it. Is this the thing that led to the result or not? And so my favorite thing to do is to look at what are the essentials? So while all these different things could be helpful or useful, what are the things that are going to give us the most impact in terms of the relationship goals and results that we're looking for?
00:20:54
Speaker
And so when you look at these five, that mythos, your mindset is everything. What you believe about relationships is going to dictate how you operate within them. So that's like key. Like it doesn't matter what your attachment style, your temperament, what skills you have, what deal breakers you have.
00:21:08
Speaker
If you don't believe that relationships are important, if you don't value them, you're not going to apply your skills or temperament, right? Any of that toward relationships. So that's really central to everything that relationships.
00:21:20
Speaker
You can think of the mythos as like your narrative identity and your identity is the template for everything you manifest. So if you don't believe something is for you, you're not going to take the action and get it, right? so that's clear. With attachment style, there's so much research from like a...
00:21:36
Speaker
a long-term perspective because we found out about attachment styles with kids, right? Like way back in the day, I don't remember the exact year, but it's been like decades and decades of research on attachment styles and then how they still affect us as adults. And so that is one of the core things. But ultimately, it's the testing it out, look at what the data says, look at how it impacts the results that my clients get.
00:21:59
Speaker
And then as we keep going and get more data, we get clearer and clearer on why things work or why they don't. And whether or not they work. So these are the core things that from that big picture macro compatibility perspective, these are the things that are essential to make sure that someone's a good fit on paper.
00:22:17
Speaker
But then you still have like the experiential compatibility. Like when I'm with you on a date, how do we, yeah, if we've already determined that this person is a good fit on paper,
00:22:28
Speaker
How do we then make sure and confirm that in practice? Because none of the the compatibility qualities are going to tell us whether or not we'll be attracted to someone, right?
00:22:39
Speaker
And so you can think of it this way, like compatibility really tells us about the terrain that we're going to experience in a relationship. Like your temperament, if you're more emotionally stable, you're gonna you're not going make a lot of waves. right You're going to be pretty calm.
00:22:52
Speaker
If you're not as stable, you'll be a bit more insecure. Things might come up more often. right like You tend to be more aware of threats and more responsive to them.
00:23:02
Speaker
But that's just the terrain. Whereas our skills tell us how we navigate that terrain. So it doesn't matter what your personality is. If you don't have the skills to navigate the reality of the relationship, it's not going to work. Because the number one reason anybody single is because they're trying to have a level 25 relationship with level three dating skills. So those skills are paramount regardless of the terrain. But yeah, so this match part tells us whether someone's fit on paper.
00:23:27
Speaker
Once we're actually dating, that's where our skills become really important. And that's where our ability to focus on what actually matters from that experiential perspective is present in the partner or a potential partner. So I'm going to dip back into your personal life a little bit.
Meeting Husband & Long-Distance Dynamics
00:23:46
Speaker
How did you meet your husband? Yeah, through a mutual friend named Mark Zuckerberg, also known as We Met Through Facebook. Well, how long have you been together? Because I feel like Facebook isn't really popping anymore. So now I'm just like, wait, wait, what? ah Facebook dating. Oh, okay. Because, okay, Facebook dating is definitely still...
00:24:10
Speaker
It's still popular. Okay. Cause you did Mark Zuckerberg. So I was thinking more like, you know, old school Facebook. Yeah. Like you left a comment. Okay. I, I think Facebook dating is great. So this is good promo for Facebook dating.
00:24:23
Speaker
Um, I've used a few times and yes, I do think it's great. So you met on Facebook dating and then how long were you together before you got married? Well, we dated a year, just about a year before you got married.
00:24:37
Speaker
That's great. and That's perfect. I love it. um And he was obviously in your in your hometown, which I just thought of right now. like Do you think that people should have a time limit on long-distance relationships?
00:24:50
Speaker
Oh, he wasn't in my hometown. So we... Yeah, we... I think you might have saw the post. We bought a house in my hometown. Okay. she I'll circle back it a bit.
00:25:01
Speaker
But yeah, we were living in the same city. I just moved... to the city and was it going on different dates and things. And yeah, so we were in the same city, but your question about long distance relationships. So I've also dated people and it was long distance. thing about distance is you have to have the capacity to make the distance a non-issue, meaning can you travel frequently? Is there an end date to the distance that you've already agreed upon? Because if the distance is just going to be, um you know,
00:25:32
Speaker
open-ended, we don't know when we're going to be together and we don't have the finances or the resources to be together regardless of the distance, that's when it creates that shaky territory that can really be challenging for the longevity of a relationship. But yeah, for us, we were living in the same city when we met.
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, this is really personal. You don't have to answer it at all. But did you so I imagine that it's nerve wracking to be a dating coach and a matchmaker who is single.
00:26:02
Speaker
Did you feel pressure to find a long term partner and get married? Because I feel like we always judge matchmakers by their and dating coaches. by their own romantic relationships. And I feel that it's unfair because I feel that if someone has good advice, we shouldn't hold them to a standard that they're typically held by.
00:26:23
Speaker
i always think about Patty Stanger. Yeah. You know, that was one of my mentors, by the way. Oh, incredible. I always think about her and people are always coming for her because she isn't married.
00:26:34
Speaker
And it just made me sad, like how people would really, really lash out in the comment sections. um sometimes with Patty Stanger, but I just feel that there has to be a natural pressure that you felt.
00:26:48
Speaker
And I don't know if you want to say it,