Esin Pinarli, a psychotherapist with 18 years of experience, joins Ali to talk about people-pleasing, attachment, and what she calls modern codependency. Esin breaks down the unspoken childhood contracts we sign without realizing it, and how codependency shows up today in high-achieving, self-sufficient women who would never picture themselves as the "lost yourself in a relationship" type. The conversation also includes a refresher on the four attachment styles and the wheel of attachment, the anxious-avoidant dance, deactivating strategies, and how you actually earn your security over time through small, repeated choices.

In Updates, Ali survives a brutal New York heat wave and starts a new running list with Skyline: bars that have way better food than they deserve to have, kicking things off with Abe's Pagoda in Bushwick.

This week's Media Mention is creator Sam Showalter (@thesam_show on TikTok), whose series on decentering her husband tied in perfectly to the conversation about modern codependency.

Sam’s video Ali mentions

Where to find Esin: On Instagram @esinpinarli_lcsw and at www.eternalwellnesscounseling.com.

Timestamps: Esin joins us at around minute 17.

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Alex Wolf, the founder behind the original Boss Babe movement turned tech philosopher, joins Ali to explore what the attention economy is quietly doing to our ability to connect with each other, including romantically. The conversation covers why "just delete the app" misses the point entirely, why the speed of technology adoption is the real problem, and how dating apps have the same design problem as social media: they weren't built to facilitate actual connection. The two also chat about dead internet theory, what cobras have to do with your match count, and why it seems increasingly impossible to go back to anything analogue.

This week's Media Mention is "What Is the Dead Internet Theory?" from Built In, exploring how bots and AI-generated content now make up the majority of internet activity and what that means for the way we connect with each other online, including on dating apps.

Dead Internet Theory link

Where to find Alex: On Instagram @alexwolf, on TikTok @alexwolftiktok, and on Substack at www.alexwolf.substack.com .

Timestamps: Alex joins us at around minute 15.

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Ali answers five listener questions that all share a common thread: the gap between wanting something and being able to follow through. A first-time manager grappling with imposter syndrome, a single mom navigating kid disclosure on the apps, someone processing timeline anxiety after leaving a relationship, a dater hitting a wall with the performance exhaustion of first dates, and someone three weeks deep in a texting situation who can't figure out how to suggest meeting up.

Patreon episode on being a good manager

In Updates, Ali shares a recent impromptu date night that encapsulated what she loves about NYC - and then got reinforced at a Jimmy Eat World with an epic city background. Plus, a girls weekend is in full effect and ring shopping has come to a close!

This week's Media Mention is: "Survey Data Show We're Now in a Dating Recession" from Psychology Today, by Dr. Theresa DiDonato, which found that most young adults want relationships but aren't dating, citing low confidence, app disillusionment, and fear of rejection as the biggest barriers.

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This week, Ali is joined by Sarah, a listener who reached out to share her journey with desire and intimacy. Sarah opens up about how her health anxiety quietly muted her desire for sex until she sought out a specialized sex therapist, and how that work helped her reframe arousal, communicate with her husband, and rebuild a sex life that works for both of them. They also touch on practical tools that helped Sarah in her work, including the book “Women on Top” by Nancy Friday and try the Unbound Intimacy Deck for cards like Sarah describes.

This week's Media Mentions are two podcast episodes. The first is from The Sexology Lab, where Dr. Laurie Mintz and Dr. Suzette Johnson discuss how SSRIs and SNRIs can impact arousal, desire, and orgasm. The second is from Doing It Together, hosted by Janna Denton-Howes, where she and her husband talk through how anxiety shows up differently for each of them in their sex life.

In Updates, Ali talks about a solo dinner out, the Knicks' playoff run, a 100-degree park-hopping day that ended at a concert aimed at her teenage heart, and a quiet weekend ahead with Skyline at Bonnaroo.

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TW: This episode contains a brief discussion of cancer and loss. If you want to skip it, the guest segment begins at approximately minute 13.

Brooke Janousek, founder of Someone You Should Meet, joins Ali to make the case for letting the people who know you best do the talking. Brooke and Ali dig into why apps fail to capture who people actually are, the courage gap between professional and personal life, and what inspired Brooke to start hosting in-person dating events (hint: it was attending a lackluster one herself). The two also chat about what it’s like to finally walk away from a situationship that isn’t working, and how that comes back to the frustrations of dating overall.

But first, Ali shares how a personal health scare had her reflecting on how losing her dad to cancer impacts her relationship with her health today (particularly as it was happening on his birthday). This week's Media Mention is: "The Terror of Survivorship" from Laura Behnke's Substack, which dives into that very theme.

Where to find Brooke: On Instagram @someoneyoushouldmeet, on TikTok @sysmofficial, at www.someoneyoushouldmeet.com.

Timestamps: Brooke joins us at around minute 13.

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You're being interviewed, but you're also doing the interviewing. Most people forget the second part. Ali shares two episodes from the Finding Mr. Height Patreon in this special re-air, covering the interview process from both sides of the table. Part one is a practical guide to vetting a company before you accept an offer: how to use Glassdoor beyond the surface level, what LinkedIn can tell you about turnover patterns, how to interview your interviewer, and more. Part two covers your side of the table: how to tell a coherent, compelling story about your career, how to answer questions with real specificity instead of canned talking points, and why the questions you ask can say just as much about you as the answers you give.

Part three of this series is available now on the Patreon at patreon.com/findingmrheight, along with AMAs, monthly live episodes, the Discord community, and more bonus content every week. This week's Media Mention is: "What's Your Interviewing Style?" from HBR IdeaCast (Harvard Business Review), featuring author and former corporate recruiter Anna Papalia.

Media Mention link: Harvard Business Review What's Your Interviewing Style?

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This week, Ali sits down with Sarah Vacchiano, author of Soft Launch, who got married at 21, divorced at 27, and moved to New York City to start over from scratch. Sarah shares what it felt like to leave a marriage that looked fine on the outside, how she navigated a world she’d skipped the entry points to, and what it took to finally build an identity that was genuinely hers. She remarried at 37, and the conversation gets into what was fundamentally different about love on the other side of all that work.

This week’s Media Mention is Bumble’s announcement that they are scrapping the swipe and dropping the women-message-first rule. CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd calls what’s coming “revolutionary” but has yet to say exactly what it is (though Ali has a guess).

Where to find Sarah: On Instagram @sarahmvacchiano and at www.sarahvacchiano.com.

Grab Sarah's Book "Soft Launch" here: https://www.sarahvacchiano.com/

Timestamps: Sarah joins us at around minute 13.

Ask questions, make a Storytime submission, or give feedback here: https://tinyurl.com/fmhpodqs

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TW: This episode includes discussion of grief, miscarriage and emotional abuse.

This week, Ali is joined by a listener who shares her story of leaving a marriage rooted in cultural pressure, low self-worth, and years of emotional abuse. The conversation covers the internal voice she ignored while engaged, the compounding grief that finally pushed her out the door, and what it's looked like to rebuild on the other side.

This week's Media Mention is a video by @zkiaba on TikTok, where she pushes back on the idea that men are in a social crisis, arguing that what we're seeing is the first generation of men experiencing life without systematic advantage.

In Updates, Ali is recording live from Greece on her ninth group girls trip with FMH Travel.

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Ali and Skyline are celebrating two years together! Together from Italy, they go deep on what two years actually looks like, covering how they handle disagreements, how intentional they've been about the relationship and whether that was by design or just who they are, what they've each learned about themselves through the relationship, and what surprised them most about each other along the way. Plus, listeners ask about their couple identity, the little habits that make each other smile, where things are headed next, and which annoying habits irk each other the most. But first, the two recap highlights and a few hiccups from their trip to Italy, sadly coming to an end!

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Danielle McGeough joins Ali to talk about what happens after you hit the goal you've been chasing your whole career and realize it doesn't feel the way you thought it would (and how this relates to dating!). Danielle, a professor and creator of the RISE Ritual Method, unpacks the difference between burnout and demoralization, why habits alone won't get you out of a hollow season, and how to design rituals that actually move you from where you are to where you want to be.

In Updates, Ali and Skyline are officially in Europe, one night into a trip to Italy where they'll also be recording their two-year anniversary episode. Listener questions for that episode are still open!

This week’s Media Mention is: Something Different DC, an Instagram account running creative events in Washington, D.C. It’s a great reminder that meeting people off the apps is possible in unusual places!

Where to find Danielle: On Instagram @plangoalplan and at www.plangoalplan.com.

Take Danielle's "Stuck" assessment here: https://www.plangoalplan.com/stuck

Timestamps: Danielle joins us at around minute 9.

Ask questions, make a Storytime submission, or give feedback here: https://tinyurl.com/fmhpodqs

If you'd like to hear Ali’s personal updates before everyone else as well as exclusive episodes every week, ad-free listening, monthly lives, and more…join FMH on Patreon: www.patreon.com/findingmrheight .

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