Should you be using LinkedIn as a dating platform?
This is Tiger Sisters episode on Dating Part 2.
We released our Valentine's Day episode last week and there were
so many follow up questions and we want to come back to you with
answers. So we're going to be talking
about how you can interrogate the person that you're dating to
make sure you guys are compatible.
And also we'll go into Gene's egg freezing journey.
And should that be something that you do?
I haven't done it and it's honestly one of my biggest
regrets. So we're going to talk through
that. This episode, and our last
dating episode, is especially important for ambitious women,
people who are really driven in their careers.
And the partners or potential partners of ambitious women.
Because this is the conversations that we're having
with each other and also with our friends, and we just feel
like this is a part of life. Like we talk about our career
and professional stuff, but who you decide to marry, should you
freeze your eggs going on dates? That's a really big part of our
lives as well. And we'll get started right
after this break. Hey guys, quick break to let you
know that we now have merch on Sisters matcha.com.
We have sweatshirts and T-shirts that we designed ourselves.
Go check it out and please rate US five stars on Spotify and
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Podcast. Thank you for your support.
Welcome back. And we're going to get started
on our first topic, which is interrogating.
I know that sounds intense, but interrogating the person that
you're dating to see if you're compatible.
And this is a continuation of our conversation from the
previous dating episode. Yes.
So the reason I wanted to follow up on this topic is because I
felt like last time Sheree's answer had a very actionable
piece of advice where she said, hey, this is my formula and this
is how I've applied the formula to actually make it useful in my
dating life. Whereas I felt like the advice
that I gave, which I said interrogate your values,
interrogate the values of the person that you're dating and
see if they coincide, see if they align, align well, I felt
like I didn't really give an actionable way to do that.
So now I'm following. Up.
This is her follow up because she's like wait a second, how
can I be more helpful to people? Yeah.
And so the the example or the method that I'm going to give is
what I learned in my couples therapy with my my ex fiance
and. There's a lot to unpack here so
if you guys are missing some context, watch the previous
dating episode where Jean talks about her ex fiance and I also
give the formula for my romantic dating happiness.
So we'll put the episode here if you guys want to check it out.
But this is a we're continuing, we're going forward.
So we're. Continuing.
So the method that we learned or kind of this exercise that we
did together that was very enlightening, I'll say is very
simple. So basically take 5 or 6
elements that are generally the five or six elements that are
most important in a person's life over the course of time.
So say career, health, your nuclear family that you had
growing up, your. Partner, I write these down.
Future children, those are. Oh, and also God, the the count,
the, the couples counselor we were seeing was sort of
religious. So she got to have a religious
bent to everything, but she included God.
So which which I think is good to include in there.
So go through the exercise of basically each person, stack
rank all those 5 or 6 things and think about what are what are
the most important things to me out of that list.
Put it all down in a list and then you basically compare it
with the other person. This is juicy.
This is fun. Yeah, wait a second.
I want to do this with the the romantic.
Like my romantic interests, your prospects, my prospects, my Oh
my God. What were you gonna say?
About Rasta, well. That's a good one.
I honestly I wish we had done this earlier and I was shocked.
Where there are big differences, yeah, in like what you guys
found most important. Yeah, really.
Huge differences. Wow, even having been together
for eight years, is that freaking unbelievable?
Yeah, it is. On one hand, I personally feel
like it's slightly embarrassing because sometimes I think to
myself, how could I have not been?
How could we have not been on the same page about that after
being together for eight years for two, you know, generally
otherwise well, socially adapted and successful people.
We were somehow not on the same page about that for the same
time and had never gone to the bottom of that.
But I mean it's. Hard because like those things
don't really come up in conversation that like
specifically or like intentionally and when you stack
rank, it's an exercise forcing you to make do with limited like
yes and I think. Also a resources or something,
the other person or the two of you actually are best friends
and you feel like you're so similar in so many ways.
It's very easy to sort of project on to the other person
and assume that like, hey, we're so similar in all these other,
all these ways and how we live our lives and, and our, our
daily, you know, priorities and everything just seems really
perfect. And so you kind of assume that
you're aligned on those priorities.
Sure. So that's an exercise I
encourage everyone to do. And the earlier on you can do
it, I think the more clarity you'll have going into that
relationship. And I will say one other thing I
was thinking about it, and I think that when you do this
exercise, you don't necessarily have to have the exact same
stack rank. You know, it doesn't have to be
that you all prioritize things in the exact same order.
It's more so that you have to be comfortable with and happy with
their stack ranking and vice versa.
Or they have to, and you have to sort of put them side by side
and be like, this works. This this aligns because one
person could have their stack ranking of, you know, children
at the very top and the other person could have their career
at the very top. And even though that's not the
same, if you are aligned that, hey, these are our priorities.
And actually that works out really well because then I'm
going to be the primary caretaker of the children and
then you're going to be the breadwinner of the the family.
You know not to put too old fashioned of a it.
Could be reversed. It could be a stay at home dad.
Yeah, I wasn't. I didn't gender it.
Yeah, but yeah. So it doesn't have to be exactly
the same, but you have to be aligned with how their SAC rink
is and vice versa. If nothing else, it forces a
conversation on yeah this topic so that you can see how similar
or dissimilar they are. Yeah, yeah, I probably have some
more gems from couples counseling.
Very intense couples. Counseling.
Was it very intense? We, we've actually, you and I
have never, never talked. About it.
Oh my gosh, it was beyond. We were.
Well, first of all, you know, I'm type A person and also I'm
like the A+ student. So for Hermione vibes, yeah, I'm
so Hermione. So me, my approach was if we're
going to do this couples counseling, we're going to do it
right. So I had us do or it was my
idea, but we both did it. We did double sessions every
week so. Like twice a week.
No, we did two hours in a row every Sunday.
Two hours, so 4 hours in total. No, each session is one hour.
Oh, I see. I.
See. So two hours total, Yeah, but
it's very intense. It's.
That's like double floor at Berry's, yes?
It really is. You did double couple sessions,
yeah. Counseling.
So every Sunday I would be pretty much emotionally
destroyed. I would be drained.
How can you really do anything else after that?
I can imagine. Yeah, you can't.
You're like, there's so much flooding of emotion.
My gosh, that yeah, we would. It would.
I couldn't do anything. I couldn't see anyone after.
I couldn't be productive because you put so much energy into that
session session and that exchange and you're really
trying to problem solve at that time, you know, so.
And I guess I feel like at that point, because of many reasons,
like stakes felt high. So there's like a lot of
pressure as well as, as opposed to like, I don't know, an
earlier relationship, earlier on relationship.
Yeah, Yeah, that was actually the second time that we had gone
to couples therapy. So we were sort of, we were
already familiar with the the construct and the system.
So we didn't need to ramp up in, in that way even.
So yeah, I feel like I need couples counseling with my
friends. And just like with my like
platonic friendship, it's just like really helpful because I
think people's natural inclination, I'll speak for
myself. My natural inclination is not to
be not to talk about these things.
It's like run away from them because they're really hard to
talk about, really hard to confront yourself and the other
person. And you know, it's not just you
as another person who's also facing internal battles of like
how to talk about these things as well.
And so I just feel like counseling or therapy or
whatever you want to call it is just so good.
I want it for like every aspect of my life.
Yeah. I mean, now that I've gone
through it, I think that it's very healthy to do.
And also, I mean, I thought it was healthy before, but I wish
that we had done it more consistently earlier because it
would have been helpful to know that we were not aligned on
these values earlier. Earlier on.
Sure. And one of my girlfriends, she
and her boyfriend are very serious.
They're planning to get engaged. They're planning to get married.
And they've been doing couples counseling, basically premarital
counseling even before they get engaged, which I think is so.
Smart. There's kind of like a stigma
around it right now. Like I feel like it when people
are talking about it, but like, the more I talk to people, I
realize people are doing it and like, not really publicizing it
because like, people are embarrassed.
Really. Yeah.
But like I see like on TikTok now more and more like people
talking about like before we get engaged, we're doing premier
counseling. Yeah, I think for me.
I would for sure do that. Yeah, my next time around.
Hopefully that exercise is useful.
I would love to hear back from you guys if you try it.
It doesn't have to be a whole big conversation.
Yeah, be a big deal. And it's also the sort of thing
where you can talk about it for 5 minutes like and then separate
and work on it and then bring it back together and then have the
conversation at another time. True, it doesn't have to all be
in one go. It can often times be healthy to
like take a breather, Yeah, and separate and also give yourself
time to think. And if you're not up to it, if
you're not ready for it, just do the exercise for yourself and
then think about what are my own values and how does my stack
ranking work? And then maybe imagine what
theirs is. And then work your way up to to
doing that exercise together. Imagine, but make it rooted in
reality. No limerance here.
No limerance. OK, before we move on to our
next topic, a fun little just piece of Goss between us.
Is that so the last episode, I was so shocked.
I was actually shooketh that Cherie on her second date with
someone received a book that was basically a couples counseling
book. But the fact that this person
you were dating gave you a book on the second date, I was very
taken aback. And then I don't know if this is
karma or whatever. I went on a first date and then
this person gave me a book. What's with men giving books out
now that they're like, yeah, professors, philosophers?
I haven't dated for eight years, so I'm just like, oh, is this
the new norm? People just start giving books
and sharing. I think it's probably the men
that we've gone on dates with are probably like a bit more
cerebral and thoughtful, don't you think that like they're one
they're reading? Did you date people who didn't
know how to read before? Not that it didn't know how to
read, but people some people enjoy reading more than others.
As someone who doesn't enjoy reading as much as you.
You don't enjoy reading? As much as you.
Oh yeah, but I'm a. Freak.
She's a freak reader. She's a yes.
But anyways, like, I think, I don't know, we're just dating
people who are into reading perhaps and like, want to share
like knowledge. And yeah, did you like it?
What was your reaction? I was sort of taken aback,
honestly, because. In a good way or bad way?
I mean a good way. I mean, I love receiving gifts.
That's one of my love languages. It's my number one love
language. Overtime and I was like, oh, I
was just kind of once again I was shooketh, but it was very
different from yours. It wasn't a.
Counseling. Book.
It wasn't a counseling book. It wasn't a self help book.
It was a book of prose poetry by Khalil Gibran.
She like, that's kind of more romantic.
Yeah, I guess so. The guy I was went on a date
with was like you need help? Here's a self help book.
Yeah. And then I don't know if this is
too much detail, maybe we'll we'll cut it out upon review.
But I forgot the book. I I left the book.
I didn't actually take it with me after the date.
And then the next day he actually texted me some pages in
the book of one of the poems that he wanted me to to start
with reading. And was it a romantic poem or
like, what's the poetry angle? It was about, it's about the
soul. Hello.
Like I said, these guys are deep.
They're readers. They're philosophers all right.
Are we meeting people who are more deep than we are?
Am I? Definitely not shallow.
You guys, You guys know how my brain works.
I get to be. Shallow.
Now compared to someone that would be kind of fun.
I see the shallow one. Yeah.
Why am I into this? So yeah, unfortunately the prose
poetry book has worked on B&C. Wow, she's such a hypocrite
because when I get a book she freaking roasts me and roast the
guy to the end of the earth that when she gets a book she's like
is all lover girl now? Yeah, Well, well.
Well, well, that was a little gossip sesh.
For you guys. OK, little gossip sesh.
Back to the programming. Back to the programming.
Should you be using LinkedIn as a dating platform?
As a former LinkedIn employee, my official answer is no, you
should not be because we have teams and organizations.
We have pillars that actually fight against this because
LinkedIn is a professional social media app.
Really. Oh my God, Yeah.
Guys have had this conversation. The trust and safety team for
sure. People getting unsolicited, like
DMS, harassment, specifically women on LinkedIn.
It's actually like just so inappropriate.
I like, let's be serious for a second.
Like it's just like so unnerving.
You're like on a social media platform.
It's all your professional stuff.
You can say that like a lot more of yourself is put out there
because you can't really have a private profile on LinkedIn for
the most part for your social, for your career.
So like getting a message that's like unsolicited advancements is
just so ick. Should I be offended that no one
has ever hit on me on LinkedIn? I didn't know that was a thing.
It is, but don't be offended. You don't want it to happen to
you. It's just horrible.
It's so like if you're someone watching this and you're like,
should I hit on them on LinkedIn?
I would say my official stance is like no, do not send them an
in mail of like inviting people on a date.
Like I don't think you should do that.
However, however, Asterisk, if you want to use LinkedIn as an
information source for you to run background checks on people
to make sure that they're who they say they are and that you
have like connections with them. Like I would say LinkedIn is
really good for first degree, second degree, third degree, you
know, network connections. Like you can see how well you
might know someone. Yeah, I think it's good for
background checks, but. Yeah, I think everyone does that
right. I don't know.
Do you guys do that? Not everyone does that.
I don't think some people like to not background check people.
But anyways, I think it's good to be safe that way.
But I would say limit the inmail sliding into inmails.
That's not a thing. I can provide a sort of devil's
advocate to that. I don't know if it's really my
opinion, but I recently spoke to a friend of mine who I hadn't
seen in a while, in many years, five years.
And she basically gave me an update on her life over the last
five years. And she gave me an update on her
last five years, which she had told me she has focused a lot on
basically her goal of wanting to get married and have children
because she said prior to that, she had focused so much of her
time and energy on her career and advancing that.
So she went full, full on. She did everything.
So she used matchmakers that she paid, which are very expensive,
by the way. She said one, the one that she
used was $6000 to set her up for three dates.
I was like, damn. But that's commitment.
She joined different clubs, she joined different organizations.
She was on all the apps. And then the one thing she told
me that she did where I was like, wow, that's commitment.
Is that she and another friend of hers who live in different
cities decided to become each other's matchmakers.
So what they would each do is they would look on LinkedIn for
people that they thought would be good romantic matches for
their friend slash client. And then they would e-mail them.
They would e-mail them. And e-mail is fine I think if
you can get their how to get their e-mail you can find it on
LinkedIn. You can.
You can find people's emails very easily.
Sure, OK. I would just say take it off
platform unless you want to be flagged.
If if it's in an unwelcome advance they might report you
and then your profile will be taken down.
There are consequences. Oh, well, OK, I don't.
I don't, I don't know about that, but she said they would
each e-mail people and say, Hey, I'm a matchmaker.
I have someone who I think would be a great fit for you.
One, are you single? Two, would you be interested?
Three, are you open to a phone call?
So they, they made an entire funnel.
They used LinkedIn literally as a dating platform, which
obviously it's not designed for. And I think they ultimately did
not actually find success there. Neither of these two people are
now with people that they sourced on LinkedIn.
But it's an interesting exercise, like that's kind of
like you are picking from a pool knowing their credentials.
But she said the biggest problem is you didn't know if the person
was single or not. So you kind of waste a lot of
time and energy sending, I guess, cold inbound emails to
people who may not be single. I mean, that's the sales funnel
baby. Like you don't know if someone's
buying what you're selling. If you're going to be in sales,
you need to be willing to send 1000 cold emails to get one
response. She said one guy emailed her
back and CC D his wife and was like thanks so much for the
inquiry. I'll have to check with my wife
on that lol. So that's slightly mortifying,
but I guess if they were just doing it for each other.
If you're doing it on behalf of yourself, that is so, yeah, so
embarrassing. That's why you needed a
girlfriend. And like, that's why you need to
team up with someone so you can do it for each other.
Yeah. OK.
But the other thing that she recommended about LinkedIn that
is more, I think tenable for people to potentially do is I
was telling her, as I've mentioned to you guys, that I,
for me personally, all of these serious relationships that I've
had in my life have always been people that I met through school
or through work and got to know first and was friends with first
before we ever had any sort of romantic relationship.
And so I was sort of lamenting to her, I was like, I'm not in
school anymore and for my company, it's just me and
Cherie, so I'm not. Sorry, I'm not bringing any hot
dudes to the office. Ever.
So there's no pool of people, it's just different from before.
So I was kind of, this was during my SAD, also my seasonal
affective. Disorder.
She gets SAD during the winter time.
Yeah, during my winter Blues funk.
And so I was just sad. And I was thinking, I was saying
to her, you know, that kind of opportunity is not available to
me anymore. And that was what I was really
comfortable with. That's what I was used to.
And that's what worked well for me.
And then she kind of turned it on its head and she said, no,
it's the opposite for you. She said actually now everyone
is your Co worker, she said. This person is so positive, like
kind of toxically so. But she said basically, she
said, even if you don't work with these person, work with
these people in day-to-day, there are lots of people that
you could potentially work with for whether it's for, you know,
sisters worldwide, for Tiger sisters for sisters Matcha
bringing people on to the podcast as guests.
So she her idea was she was saying you should be reaching
out to people and kind of like under the premise of having like
a business reason, but really you want to date them or
something. Hello, Do not use Tiger Sisters
podcast as a shell for Reedsburg.
And it's kind of like, oh, that's innovative.
That's yeah, that's very intentional.
That's very. But then again, this is this is
someone who she has had the most sort of like intentional
approach to dating, getting married and having a child that
I've ever heard of that I've ever seen.
She really took it on as the most important project.
It's a it's like a full time job.
Yeah, full time job. She made it a full on work
stream she was sending out. She had a quota for her.
And and now she's happily dating someone.
So. So the end of that story is that
she eventually actually met someone on Hinge.
Oh, God, the matchmakers didn't work The Yeah, like it just
happened. Yeah.
She met someone on a hinge, they got engaged and all within seven
months. He's giving Chloe and Lamar who
got engaged after like what, 3 weeks or something?
I don't know, Kardashian. I thought that was Kim and Kris
Humphries. I mean, I think that was also
fast as well. Yeah.
No, no, they got. Divorced within 72 hours, right?
No, I thought it was like 7 weeks or something.
Or was it 72 hours? Our.
Lore is not our Kardashian, Lore
is someone. Fact Check us.
Not Fact Check. OK, one more follow up to the
story. Maybe we'll cut this 'cause I
don't know if it's, we'll see how we feel after.
But I realized that her advice is pretty out there, and that's
being very intentional. I kind of accidentally did that.
What do you mean? Because I asked one of my
friends to introduce me to this other person who for for
business reasons basically. And we got coffee together and I
went into it purely wanting to get have a business
conversation. And then no seriously, because I
thought this person was married. So and then it turns out they're
not. And then they asked me on a date
afterwards. True.
So I accidentally did what she had suggested, but I did it
before she had suggested it. Just for just to be clear.
I think that's good because this is someone that is like a friend
of a friend, right? And like, it's already lack of a
better term, like background checks that like, you know,
like, oh, there's like social accountability there.
That's why I think you found so much success in like dating
people from school or from work is because it's like background
checked or like social checked in some way.
And I think like, I guess it makes me think one of my biggest
regrets and don't judge me for saying this is that like I
really wish I had made something work from Business School
because like a lot of people find success in being with
someone from Business School. A lot of people in my year have
and it's just nice because like it's already automatically
background checked in so many ways.
Like to get into a top Business School program, like you have to
be super career driven. You have to have excelled in
something, gone to a good school or like have really good career
experience before that. And then like when you're in
school, like you can see how people behave in certain
situations in the classroom, outside of the classroom.
It's like a really fertile ground for meeting a, a life
partner. And so it didn't end up working
out for me. I don't know.
It's just like a really interesting way to have a
background check. And the same thing for like
working at LinkedIn. Like yes, everyone is going to
be a tech employee, but like still in some ways, like if
they're like smart, they're accomplished.
They have to work well with people if they're going to
succeed at the company, all that stuff.
Well, to your, to your point, I thought I had found someone
through Business School. I mean, I ended up dating this
person from Business School for being with this person for eight
years and it didn't pan out. So that's one side of it.
And then on the other hand, I will say I know people that got
together and later married Business School people 5-6,
seven years after Business School, so.
I can't even imagine that though because GSP is so small, is so
much smaller and like I already know all of my classmates like
too well and I feel like if there were to be a romantic
prospect it would have happened. However, actually.
She's bringing out the hell. However, what I've what I've
heard is that I should not be looking in my own grade, but
above and below one year for people who maybe I have not been
in contact with that I don't know as well, but like are in
the same network. So I think that's what I should
do. Yeah, one of my best friends is
dating another HBS guy who was in an older year than us.
I don't know how she met him. But it's just like, the alumni
affiliation is just enough. So yeah, I can't even, like,
think about anyone else in my grade itself.
Like, that would just be weird for me.
But someone below or above. Yeah, I have been having a
flirtation with someone in the year below.
Oh, oh, I was unaware. And our last juicy, juicy topic
is about egg freezing, and I'm just going to kick us off here.
I, I feel like one of my biggest regrets from when I used to work
in corporate is I didn't freeze my eggs.
So a lot of just to set some contacts.
I think a lot of young women are thinking now of like how to
prioritize their career and how to push having children later
on. And so they're freezing their
eggs. They're doing this procedure
many times egg freezing is covered by your insurance plan
provided through your work. And so especially at big tech
companies, the benefits, I mean, everyone look into this if you
have, if you have this benefit, but a lot of the time it would
cost, you know, $40,000 to do the entire procedure and, you
know, cover all those expenses. Your work can provide the
coverage there and pay for it. And of course, you know, the
question is like they're incentivized to do this because
they want, you know, the employees.
I forgot about that, the young employees to stay in the work
first as long as possible and like not have children.
That's like the more like nefarious, malicious, like
whatever. We don't have to get there.
Like everyone has their own intents of why they want to do
it but. Was it covered at LinkedIn?
It was covered at LinkedIn, it's covered at Microsoft, at least
when I worked there. Like I don't know it.
Was fully covered or what? Do you know the?
Details. I'm pretty sure it was fully
covered because I talked to one of my girlfriends who worked at
Microsoft, who I think I was 26 and she was 24, which is on the
younger end to freeze your eggs. And then she's because she had
like a plan for life. She's at Wharton now.
She was APM at Microsoft. She's now at Wharton.
But she's just like, before I go to Wharton, like I'm going to
freeze my eggs. I'm going to do this whole
thing. I'm like, what the hell, You're
24, you know? So I was just like, oh, I'd
already left LinkedIn. Like, there's no way I can do
it. But I think it's really, for me.
I was just really impressed by her foresight.
I don't know if there's like a medical thing about like,
freezing your eggs at a younger age.
I just didn't want to put my body through it either.
It's pretty grueling. So I, like, had to put it off.
But Jean froze her eggs. Yeah, through work.
Before we get into that, I I do want to stop on the point that
if you are potentially looking for a new job or considering a
new company, it is worth asking and understanding what the
benefits are for egg freezing or for fertility or for any other
thing you know in that kind of area.
I remember a girlfriend of mine when she was considering an
offer from Snapchat to move her to Snapchat, she actually
reached out to me and she asked me.
She said, oh, what are the egg freezing benefits?
What are the fertility benefits? And I had no idea because I
hadn't really thought about it myself.
So I actually had to look it up and figure out what they were
and then get back to her on it because she was actually coming
from Meta and they had also quite good egg freezing
fertility benefits. So she was like, OK, I want to
make sure I'm not, you know, giving all this up And then
because it actually is quite. Expensive, yeah.
And also if you yourself don't have coverage but you have a
partner, for example, you might be covered through their plan to
freeze your to freeze your eggs. Yeah, yeah.
And then to your broader point, I don't think you need to be
regretful that you haven't done it.
I had thought about at one point encouraging you to do it.
But then I did it because the advice that I had gotten from
fertility doctors in the past or from even OBGY NS 'cause I had
brought it up even years and question asked the doctors about
it even years before I actually did it.
And their advice was, well, if you are still in your 20s or 30s
and you're in a serious relationship or if you see
yourself eventually having children in your mid 30s, then
you don't need to go out of your way to do it.
So I was actually early on, I was discouraged to to do it.
So just cause. The timing wasn't.
Right, 'cause it's, it's a lot of work on your body.
Yeah, yeah, it's expensive and it's a lot of work on your body.
And maybe now I think, you know, maybe the prevailing sentiment
around it has changed to becoming much more preventative
and people encouraging you to do it earlier.
But then also there's a lot more fertility startups around.
So I think there's also a lot more marketing around it.
Yeah, that, that was generally the the guidance and the
prevailing thinking I think maybe five years ago.
And I do think in the last five years it has shifted.
I do think so too. There's a lot more companies
focused on egg freezing, also IVF and just fertility in
general for both men and women. So yeah, I mean, it's all it's
pretty grueling on the body. Like you have to inject
yourself. You have to like put these
hormones in your body with a needle.
Ronny Chieng has a hilarious special that came out on Netflix
very recently and where he talks about like having to help his
wife inject herself for I think. I don't know if it's egg
freezing or just egg retrieval, making embryos, whatever, but
hilarious special. You guys should watch it.
But it's like, so spot on, where he's just like, you get the
package, you know, that you're with all the hormones, you have
to do it yourself at home. Like, none of us are trained
experts. We're not nurses.
We're not doctors. And you he, Ronny Chang, talks
about, like, mixing the serum yourself.
Is that what you have to do? Yeah.
He's like, he's like, I'm no scientist.
And then like, he's like, I'm pouring.
He's like, and I have to inject this weird concoction that I
made, making sure it's like at the right meniscus millimeter.
It's actually very stressful because it they're all
prescription and they actually are very expensive, so you.
Don't want to mess up. Right.
So the first time that we did it, we actually messed up the
first dose and so we had to throw it away.
How you just like measured it wrong, Yeah.
I don't know, my partner did it, my ex partner did the mixing.
Ladies, if he doesn't know how to read the meniscus on the lab
test tube or the beaker, he's got to go.
OK, so I thought it was maybe understandable.
Anyway, I do think, OK, I think I'll start at the beginning
about even thinking about it and thinking, considering doing it
and how you decide. So I had a partner at the time,
we were not yet engaged, but we were imminently about to get
engaged. So, so one factor people think
about a lot is should we freeze eggs or should we freeze
embryos? Protect yourself ladies, Freeze
your eggs. I mean, we, we see now how this
turned out. So luckily I froze eggs, but the
reason why I did it is because I had talked to a few of my
girlfriends and I had heard enough kind of horror stories
and I'll I'll share one here. So this is a friend of a friend
who ended up freezing her eggs because she got cancer.
And so she knew that after the cancer treatment, she and her
fiance wouldn't wouldn't be able to have children naturally.
So they actually went ahead and they froze embryos together and
I think they ended up getting married.
But after all that, they ended up getting divorced.
And she wanted to use her embryos that she froze to have
children 'cause that was the only way she could.
She didn't have any more eggs or embryos left that she could use.
And he said no so. That's so heartbreaking.
I know, isn't that really sad? That makes me want to cry.
I know. Sorry to make you cry, but.
So what happened? So she just can't use them.
She can't use them. I know.
That's really sad, so. So that sue him, sue him, sue
him for damages. He had it coming.
You should have been there.
If you'd have seen it, I bet you you would have done the same.
Anyway, we love show tunes. We love show tunes.
If you guys have seen Chicago, yeah.
But yeah, so that's a Horror Story.
That is a that is a horror yes story.
Someone needs to write a documentary biopic about that.
I've heard sort of other similar versions of that too, but that's
just the one that sticks out in my mind the most.
Why would you? Freeze embryos.
And like, unless the guy is like, I think women should
always protect themselves. Yeah.
And unless the guy has like a problem like I guess a cancer or
something like something like that, but can't, I don't know,
like can someone tell us why you would make embryos?
I would just. It's because actually
historically embryos are much more successful than just
freezing eggs. So that was, that's why it's a
point of consideration because over most of the time where egg
freezing was existing, the rate of success from a frozen egg to
a live birth versus frozen embryo to a live birth, I see
there was a vast difference. OK, in this case, split the
difference. Some eggs, some embryos.
So that was one big input into why I decided to freeze eggs,
the horror stories about embryos.
And then the second one is that my doctor, Doctor Mars, who's
out of the game now, he's since retired, but apparently he did
the first IVF baby in history, California or history or
something crazy like, whoa, it's on the website.
Yeah, I have to look it up. Yeah.
But the other reason is because he told me the freezing
technology has advanced so much now that the difference in
success between frozen embryos versus frozen eggs is only 4%
now versus, I think before it used to be a much wider gap that
was at 4% absolute. Is it 4% relative?
I have no idea. But that was basically all I
needed to hear. Yes, I felt so much better after
he told me that. Yeah.
So then that's how I moved forward with freezing eggs.
So for me, based on what I well, based on my lived experience,
that was definitely the right choice.
Yes. Oh my God, I can't even imagine
the alternative. It would just be really sad to
yeah, I can't like imagine if you had the embryos and they
would never get to. That's your.
Literally your. Friend.
Oh, yeah, Your friend, Your friend of my friend, The friend
of your friend who had the embryos.
Yeah, like could never even. Oh my gosh that would be so sad,
especially after going through. Cancer treatments and all that
stuff. Yeah, and then all of the the
onus of egg freezing, it's a lot.
That's my work. It's a lot emotionally because
sometimes it's not successful. There's just so many parts of it
because the other way to look to look at it is in some ways it's
almost like having a mini. Pregnancy.
Yeah. For those of you who are not
familiar, who are watching this, like you have, like we said, you
have to inject yourself and you have hormone patches.
You have to have your blood taken towards the end every day.
You. And like, a lot of the changes
in hormones in your body also, like affect your mood.
It also affects your weight. I've heard a lot of girlfriends
who've gotten the procedure done, They're like, there's a
lot of weight fluctuation, then weight gain.
I just feel horrible about my body.
But this is like a necessary step that we have to do.
On the other hand, like obviously men don't have to do
that. With the egg freezing procedure,
so yeah, a lot of the pressure is on women emotionally and
physically, yeah, so to. That point, my way of thinking
about it or the way that I experienced it, and maybe this
can be helpful for some other people, is that if you're doing
that together with a partner, it really is a sort of gauntlet
that you're going through together.
And it's a really good way to understand how each of you act
and react and go through a challenging time together and
what roles you sort of naturally take.
So for me, from my perspective, if you're in a relationship
where you purport to be 5050 and it's a true partnership, then
for me, because the woman who is taking on the actual physical
burden of doing the egg freezing for the benefit of the couple
going forward. So you can have children, right?
She's doing all the physical work.
She's taking on all of the pain. She's taking on all of the
emotional burdens that are caused by the hormones.
In that case, I think the other partner should be doing
everything that they possibly can to take all the other things
off of the woman's hands. I think that partner should be
making the appointments. I think that partner should be
figuring out picking up all of the prescriptions.
I think the partner should be doing all the paperwork.
They should be, you know, mixing the the potions.
If you trust them to not make a mistake.
In the potions and I just think. That to me would be indicative
of someone who really wants to be in it. 5050 with you.
I like how you said like seeing the natural roles that people
take too, because I think if someone is unwilling or like
unwilling to do that, OK, I'm fine.
Show me that you're unwilling to do that.
And like when we actually have a kid together, if we have a kid
together, is this what life is going to look like?
It's like a fantastic mini test instead of getting a dog
together, like eggs together. I don't know.
It's just like those are
multiple tests that you guys can run in your interrogation.
That's part of information collecting, so that you can
figure out how you feel about it.
Yeah, and I'm not saying that there's one right way or
another, right? Maybe some people are in a
relationship where they both mutually agree that doing
something like egg freezing falls under the category of
child rearing. And in a heterosexual
relationship that is squarely in the responsibility of the the
woman. Maybe I that's not how I would
live my life, but that's a valid way to go about.
But as long as you're in agreement, right, and you're
each sort of playing the roles and doing the responsibilities
that you each expect the other person to do, Yeah, I think
it's, it's just all about expectations.
It's about what you say you'll do.
And then? Actually do actually doing it,
yeah. How you portray yourself, how
you sort of advertise or market yourself to be.
If you're saying that you're a very progressive 5050 partner
male in a heterosexual relationship then.
Show me. Yeah.
Thanks for joining us for this special episode in Season 3 of
Tiger Sisters. We really put ourselves out
there for this episode, especially me.
Totally so, and we love that. Yeah, and the reason I do it is
because I'm hoping it can be helpful to you guys because I
feel like I've gained so much wisdom and information and
advice from my girlfriends that I really want to share it with
everyone because information is power.
And that's how you can. That's how you feel empowered to
go through life with confidence, not just in your career, but
also in your all the other decisions you're making in your
life day-to-day. So I would love to hear from you
guys. We would love to hear from you
guys on what resonated with you, if you have any questions, what
touched you and also please share this episode with someone
who you think you would be helpful for because we really
want to get as much information out there as possible.
Yes. Thank you guys for tuning in.
Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe if you're
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single time we put an episode out there.
This is season 3 of the Tiger Sisters podcast.
We're releasing episodes where we interview entrepreneurs,
investors, and founders. And of course, in between those,
we have these fun little bonus episodes so we can talk more.
We can get some more tea and talk more about life outside of
the professional realm. Thanks guys, Bye.
Hey everyone, quick break to share something special.
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