New Narratives: Cori Shearer
Alexandra Ballensweig, the founder of humhum, and Cori Shearer, humhum’s Head of Product, sat down for a deep conversation about dating with intention and moving through dating with new eyes.
Just some of the wisdom shared:
Dating can feel like a scorecard of how you performed, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Center your own experience for empowerment, and prioritize reflection for clarity and self-honesty. Focus on yourself, rather than on how the other person is seeing you. How did you feel in their presence? Did you enjoy the connection? Would you like to connect again?
Consider turning to your community for insight and accountability in dating, rather than keeping those worlds separate. Dating in community helps us stay accountable to what we say we want, and catches us in our patterning when our actions and intentions don’t align.
Dating with discernment and intention can mean going on fewer dates, and that’s okay. Releasing the expectation of dating as a numbers game and approaching it from a scarcity mindset can help us preserve our authenticity, positivity, and openness to connection.
By looking at a date as the opportunity to make a connection, to get to know another person, and to make the world just a little smaller, it can take the pressure off dating. This opens us up to being honest with ourselves about whether or not we’re saying “yes” enthusiastically, or staying hung up on a “maybe” despite what our inner selves are really saying.
Read on to learn more about and from Cori, and let us know what you think by sending us an email to hello@humhum.space or by booking a discovery call with our team.
The Conversation
Alexandra:
Cori Shearer is our Head of Product for humhum and also a product manager at Headspace. She has an amazing blog and I'd love if you can just kick us off by sharing a little bit more about yourself before we dive in.
Cori:
I’m happy to be here and excited to get to have this conversation with you. I know offline we talk a lot about narratives that we've inherited and how we just date differently and how we connect as humans. So I always love getting to have the opportunity to talk about these things a little bit more. About me. I am originally from the East Coast and I am now not a transplant. I don't like using that word. I consider myself a rooted resident in San Francisco. I'm very committed and care deeply about my community and I think there's a difference. I always like to call that out, but yeah, I've been here for, I guess almost a decade now and by day I work in tech.
But what I'm really passionate about is community building, working especially with marginalized folks and building their dreams, whether that's small businesses or startups like humhum. Just really helping to leverage everything that I've learned over the last decade of my career in tech and living in the heart of the tech scene in San Francisco. I want to leverage that to help us create and build a different future that centers our experiences, our needs, our hopes, our dreams. And outside of that, I have a lot of hobbies; I just am a very passionate person. So I bee-keep, I'm into sustainability and thinking about how we care for creation. I'm really passionate about music and you can find me DJing around the city. I'm also a huge board game nerd. It's how I relieve and reduce stress and also build community.
So that's a little bit about me. But trying to fit that into 30 to 60 seconds is always hard as a human because we're all very multifaceted and there's so many parts and pieces to us. But hopefully that helps people understand about me and my perspective. I use she/her pronouns, and identify as a multiracial human.
Alexandra:
Beautiful. Thank you. And one of the things that I appreciate about you is just how you live such a full and rich life that's oriented around human connection. Everything from the different nonprofits that you're involved in to your local government and startup advising. I really see this as a rich way to be involved in your own life. And I think a lot of people have the idea that life doesn't start until you have a partner or in order to do the things you want to do, you have to wait until you're in a partnership. And I feel like you're such a good example of someone who just lives really fully, and in alignment with the things you're interested in and care about. Do you want to share more about that?
Cori:
I definitely think it's definitely part nature versus nurture. For me, I grew up the only child of a single parent who was the only child of a single parent. And so I didn't have a lot of examples of what healthy partnership looked like. So a lot of my experience or context from which I grew up was seeing women doing things themselves. And so I think for me that really was formative in how I thought about living my life and realizing that I could do a lot on my own. Not that I necessarily want to or have to, which I think has been the flip side of the coin is reminding myself that I don't always have to be hyper independent, but also appreciating that I can be.
And that as a result of that, I can do all these incredible things and live a very full life on my own. And that if I meet a partner, if I make a connection, that's really special and I honor that, but it's also not the end all, be all. And so, yeah, I think for me, it's a lot of how I grew up. And I think I also just growing up in some of the more traditional or conservative perspectives, like when you meet someone, you're two halves coming together and making a whole, which I think is, again, one of those narratives that many of us have inherited. And I think for me and spending a lot of my adult life being single, or what I prefer to call “unpartnered,” is that I have learned to reject that narrative.
Because in dating and connecting with other people, the richest connections I found are people who also are out living full lives that they can bring me into and I can learn and grow from their experiences and vice versa. And so for me, it's really important that I not only for myself live a very full and rich life, but also for a potential future partner that I feel like I'm a full human that is doing the work, knowing that the work is never done. I'm also figuring out who I am through these different experiences and just shaping my own perspective through travel and connection with other humans. I'd say it's like in part who I am as a person, just naturally being very curious and wanting to experience more of the world, but also how I was nurtured and how I was raised.
Both kind of being raised by women who are single parents, but also some of the narratives that I inherited in some of those more conservative or more traditional kind of mindsets of how partners and people come together.
Alexandra:
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And as you know, humhum really holds this idea of dating as an ongoing practice and I think you really embody that. And I'm curious if you could talk about how the way you're dating right now as a practice? What are the things you're practicing with that are maybe growth edges or curiosities that you have that look different from how you thought your dating life would look? Or different from inherited ideas about how your dating pathway would look? How are you dating now, in a way that is maybe surprising you? And talk a little bit about the practice element of that?
I realized at some point that I never asked myself, well, how did I feel? How did they make me feel? Are they even someone that I want to connect with again?
Cori:
Good question! I think one of the first things that comes to mind is really shifting the emphasis on the other to myself when in connection with others. I think looking at myself in my early twenties, I was so focused during the date, and even after a date, on how did that person think about me? Did they find me attractive? Did they like me? Are they going to want to date me again? Are they going to see me again? And I realized at some point that I never asked myself, well, how did I feel? How did they make me feel? Are they even someone that I want to connect with again? And so there was just so much emphasis on the other but no emphasis on myself or how I was feeling.
And so now I feel like I am really trying to center myself and I don't mean that in a selfish way, but I think no one is going to care for you the way that you care for yourself. And as I think about myself wanting to be a fully formed human on my own, how do I really care for myself and show up for myself in those situations? And so I make it a practice of trying to go in being really intentional about knowing what the data is that I need to collect in order to answer those set of questions for myself; to figure out how I feel, and how I showed up in that situation? And so going in with those questions in mind I think is really important and also making sure that those questions aren't a laundry list. Like it's not an interview. You want to really center connection with that other person but also be really intentional in how you use that time and connection.
And then setting up time for myself to do a retrospective, or a post date reflection to answer those questions, and be really honest with myself about how I feel. Because I think it can be confusing when you like someone or are attracted to someone, but you can also still feel like the connection was complete, that maybe there isn't more to explore or maybe they're just not the right fit for who you are and where you are in your personhood today.
And then I think the other piece is having more accountability. I'm much more open and try to date in the open within my community versus in the past. Not that I did so in secret, but I feel like I didn't really want to let people in or give them all the details. But I found that having that accountability and having friends kind of be in this connection experience together with me, they can kind of call up the things that I'm not seeing. They can make sure that I'm staying true to my values and what I said that I'm looking for and maybe even help me see my growth edges, like the things that I might still be working on or need some extra support on.
Alexandra:
I love that. Dating in community, and having a self orientation of how am I feeling? How am I doing? Versus the other person from the outside in assessing how they're seeing you. Staying within the things you have control over, like your agency versus outsourcing that to somebody else. I think that's really skillful.
What has shaped the way you're approaching dating now? Whether it's people, bodies of work practices, communities that have actually helped you inform the way you're holding dating now?
Cori:
Going back to what I said earlier, I do think a lot of how I grew up and how I was nurtured in my family unit was very informative. Growing up as this only child of a single parent, I was raised by my grandparents who were for better or worse, I guess, unhappily partnered and my mom dated and seeing the interactions and how they connected with one another. I think for me it was like, “wow, I don't want that. I don't know what I want, but I know I don't want that.” Which I think sometimes we're like, well, we don't have healthy examples, but sometimes the unhealthy examples can also be formative too.
So that was one thing that really shaped how I date. I think another way was as I got older and started to again experience more of the world, meet more people, starting to see from and prioritize having relationships with partnered people I think is really important one because I think we need to not live our lives in silo. So being able to have shared experiences with folks who are in different stages of their life journeys, being able to witness and be able to see examples of relationships I imagine might work for me and what wouldn't has been really helpful. But also I think just a lot of trial and error.
My junior year of college, I think, was when the peak of Tinder was happening. It had just been out for a couple of years, and I actually worked at MTV at the time, and I was on their Insights and Innovation Team. And one of the summer projects I was tasked with was to go download Tinder, go experience it, come back and tell us what, if anything, we should be doing content-wise around this. What are the important cultural moments or things that we need to be thinking about. And MTV, while maybe not in its heyday as it had been years ago, I think they've always been really great about understanding the zeitgeist or the cultural norms or phenomenons of the time in order to get ahead of that, to create meaningful content around it that spoke to that generation.
And so I went out, I dated a lot in New York City, and I just learned a lot. It shaped how I thought about connecting with humans. It shaped how I thought about relationships and dating, and it also shaped a lot about how I felt about myself. Which, I think, again goes back to why I had such an emphasis and focus on the other person. Because I think in a lot of those cases, it was synonymous to some of the experiences that I think many of us feel so now, where we feel so dehumanized on the other side of the screen. Because I think in a lot of ways, Tinder and these other apps have really changed how sometimes disconnected we can feel, even though we're more connected than ever through apps and things of this nature.
Another thing that was informative on how I date is this book called The Defining Decade. It was written by Dr. Meg Jay, and it was the first time I had actually read a book around dating. It was about a therapist who was talking to people in their thirties and forties, and it wasn't specific to dating. Dating was like a big part or section of it. But she talked a lot about how people who were unhappy in their thirties and forties, whether that was related to love and relationships, their career, or even their personal life, how when she talked to them, a lot of them talked about how they used or spent their twenties and how, in short, in their twenties, they basically weren't setting themselves up for success in their thirties and forties. And that's why it's called The Defining Decade. Your twenties are your moment to set yourself up for success in the future. And as I was reading these stories and hearing about other folks who were struggling to date later in life, it really changed my perspective to start to be really intentional with how I dated early, which is really hard when you're 23 and you're like, I'm going to be really intentional about my dating. And everyone else is like, let's just hook up and do so in a way that doesn't feel like it's centering the human in that experience. Casual is okay, but I think there also has to be safety and agreements in that as well.
And that's not a lot of what I experienced. But that book made me pause and think, “okay, I can have these experiences now in my twenties, but how are these experiences going to inform who I become and how I feel later in my life?” So I think that book, looking back, definitely had a huge impact on how I moved and how I navigated. But I still had a lot of work to do to actually, I think, to connect all of those dots.
Alexandra:
That's really powerful that at that age, you were already moving towards a place of introspection and intentionality with the questions of how am I holding this process of dating? And what am I doing here? Versus just kind of going about it. And to your point, it's like in our modern culture, nobody really teaches us how to date. It's just kind of a free-for-all with college hookup culture. And then at some point, you're like, wait a minute, what am I doing? What do I want? So I'm curious, in retrospect, as you hold those years and where you are today, how do you feel like the way you were learning and growing has informed what you're wanting now versus maybe what you thought you wanted at a different point?
I'm more interested in quality over quantity and being really thoughtful and intentional about who I date, which sometimes mean I date a lot less than I had dated.
Cori:
It's interesting because I've kind of gone full circle on what I want and what I'm seeking. When I was younger, I had no interest in romantic partnership or even having a family. And I think that changed at some point for me in my later 20s when I realized I did desire that. I think, again, kind of going back to how I was raised, I think I just fully rejected the kind of narratives that I had inherited and had seen around what partnership and parenting had looked like and had met a lot of people along the way and kind of had rewritten my own narrative about partnership with therapists and even about friends and dating, and understand that, hey, it can look different for me. I don't have to inherit or recreate the dynamics that I was raised with.
And that was both really freeing, but also scary because dating for me at the time was very much a numbers game, both from the perspective of I have to date a lot of people to find the right person, but I also have to date a lot to figure out what I want. And I'm very much now in a place of I know what I want and I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to date a lot in my twenties. But now in my thirties, I'm more interested in quality over quantity and being really thoughtful and intentional about who I date, which sometimes mean I date a lot less than I had dated.
And that can feel not-so-great because I think there's an idea tied up in the culture of dating where if I'm not dating, then maybe I'm undesirable or maybe I am not going to ever find anyone, which is definitely a false dichotomy and not inherently true. I think it's just being able to hang my own ego and knowing that I am only going to date if I feel like there is possibility and I feel deeply connected or I feel like there's something I'm curious about in the other person, and not feeling pressured to date someone just to date someone to see if I can make it work or I'll find something there that I can connect to. It definitely has changed how I've dated.
It looks a lot slower and I would say I’m dating a lot less, and the expectations are a lot lower, meaning for me that I date without expectations of outcomes. There's always hope or possibilities, but not feeling attached to the outcome I think has made a huge world of difference, both for my own mental health, but also in being able to have more fun and more play when I am connecting with others.
Alexandra:
I think you're talking to an important point that I hear a lot from the humhum community, which is that there is this fear of like what if I'm not dating? What does it mean to not be dating? And I think you and I have talked about this, that your dating experience can look really different depending on where you are and what you need. And for some people, part of dating could be you're actually just journaling and reflecting on what it is you do want or what it is you don't want and how you've been learning and how you're growing. And that actually counts because now you have that framework of discernment so that as you do meet people and you are curious like you're describing, then you can show up in a more aligned way.
And I think people have a really narrow view about what a date is or what dating actually is. And I think as we do get more clear about ourselves and more aligned in our lives, one hand, yes, maybe the volume does decrease, but the quality of the various connections also seem to increase. At least that's been my experience. And I'm curious about you. How are you even defining dating these days? And then what are you noticing about the connections you're making now in life?
Cori:
I think there are certain connotations that come up when people hear the word dating. And I think that's also been something that unofficially, as my own kind of anthropological study, I have really questioned people as they've dated or met people because I found that a lot of people love talking about dating whether they're partnered or not. And I think there is a very formal connotation when you say oh, I'm dating someone or I'm going on a date. And so when I still use that language because it's like the most colloquial known, I do tend to see my dates more as connections.
And I think that also kind of tampers expectations both with myself and also kind of takes some of the pressure off, where a date to me is really just an opportunity to make a connection, to make the world feel a little bit smaller. There's now another human in this world that I know. I now know a little bit more about their experience. Their experience is going to impact me in some way and I'm getting to know if their experiences or their stories or their values align with mine. And to me that's how I define a date. It's nothing more than that. But I think for a lot of people it feels very high stakes, very high pressure and you have to know if there's possibility before you go on the date. You have to know kind of where this is going.
But I think that can hinder our ability to navigate that and to show up really intentionally or even as our authentic selves. It's really interesting, because then it becomes a vicious cycle where we show up with these expectations that we hold on to and we maybe miss out on an opportunity to connect with a human in another way. I've gone on dates with people where I knew they were not a match for me, but I felt like I enjoyed their partnership in a more platonic way and now I have a lot of friends who have come as a result of just again being more open to different types of possibilities.
I've also gone on dates with people who I now, in my thirties, am willing to close the connection because I don't feel this pressure to perform — or have to, just for the sake of there not being a lot of other options, continue to date. Because again, I think as we date less it can kind of be this fear or scarcity mindset where there's only so many people, the clock is ticking, and I'm getting older. But like you said, dating can encompass a lot of things. It's also why I say I'm “unpartnered” and not “single,” because I think “single” has a different connotation that I don't really subscribe to. I feel like I'm very much in deep community and connected to other human beings around me.
For me, I don't have a romantic partner currently, but I take myself on dates. I love going to the movies, I love taking myself to a restaurant. I love traveling all around the world by myself. So I think anytime we're connecting with ourselves or others, that's a part of dating. You're doing the work, in my opinion.
Alexandra:
Absolutely. And I think too, you're bringing up the other point that you can form really nourishing intimate connections and relationships that are platonic, that don't have to be romantic, and can still be satisfying. You’re allowing your cup to be filled in these other ways; if there's an organic opportunity for a romantic connection, then great. But it's not like you're sitting around putting your life on hold until that comes in. You're still finding satisfaction. With that, what would you say is your aliveness right now as it pertains to romance or relationship? What is your energy feeling moved towards, or what are you ready to leave behind and be done with that’s not working for you anymore?
Cori:
For me it's leaving behind the pressure to have to date. I probably haven't formally dated someone in months, or even felt the pressure to go on dating apps. I think going back to what is “doing the work" or what is encompassed when you say that you're actively dating. And for me, I no longer feel the pressure to have to constantly be on the app, constantly swiping, checking in with people. It’s a release of what that looks like, desiring more in-real-life connecting and community building, and figuring out what I like to do — and doing those things and setting out the intention that I will meet the right person or the right person will connect me with a person who could be a romantic possibility in the future. But just really focusing on myself and making sure that I'm building out a life that I'm proud of regardless of if I ever come into partnership or not. Or, when I do come into partnership, that person also gets to enjoy the richness of my life and hopefully vice versa.
And another big one is not focusing so much on the potential of the person, but who the person is today. I'm definitely very much a Virgo in that I see the possibility and potential in everyone. I see them at their best self, but also realizing and releasing this desire or need to fix anyone or hope that things will change. Just appreciating, whether near or afar, that the person is who they are and where they are in their journey. And that might not be a good fit, even if they're a great person.
Alexandra:
Yeah, I love that. Not dating someone's potential, but dating them actually. Are you content now in the bond versus some hypothetical idea? I think that's a really big one and I think unfortunately, it's a really common one where we date potential because we want something to be a certain way. That's actually come up a lot in various discussion groups we've run for humhum. I appreciate you naming that, and I also really appreciate you naming not needing to be hustling for dates, basically.
If you have one piece of wisdom — and you've been sharing wisdom throughout, so this is low pressure — one piece of wisdom that you would love to share with either your younger self or others on their dating journeys today.
…you can't do or say the wrong thing to the right person.
Cori:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think something that's really been on my heart recently, that I've been reminding myself, and that friends have shared what's going on in their connection journeys, is that you can't do or say the wrong thing to the right person. And I think there's so much pressure to show up in a certain way, sometimes we hinder our own ability to show up as our authentic selves. Just release any desire to do or say the right thing because, ultimately, it's going to be exhausting if you have to maintain that facade.
Also, when people that are not the right connection for us, allow them to release themselves and opt out. I want an enthusiastic “yes.” We're all about consent, and that also comes with partnership, too. I want the people that don't feel aligned to opt out early. I want a strong “no” so that that there's space for the people who are an enthusiastic “yes” to come in and to connect with me.
Alexandra:
I love that. It actually reminds me of how you approach product, where you're like, we're not going for the gray. We need to push extremes. Like, I want strong yeses and strong nos.
Cori:
I think it's so true. How many times have you felt like, “maybe?” But on the flip side, how would you feel if someone was like “maybe,” to you, right? We never want to be someone's maybe. To me, a maybe is a no. Like, think about your parents, too, when you ask, “can I go to this thing,” and they say maybe — and they really mean no. I think we always want a strong enthusiastic yes or a hard no. Close the door so another thing can open and present itself.
Alexandra:
Yeah. And I love that you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. I think that's what relationship is. It's stick-with-itness. If you're in the thing, it's not going to be perfect, it's going to be messy, there's going to be stuff to work out. We even navigate this within our working relationships. Romantic relationships are the same thing. When you are invested in a relationship and in a human being, it's not about getting it right, it's about continuing to show up when it's not right and when it goes wrong and when it goes awry and having the trust and the courage to work through things.
Cori:
And I think your chance to test that is early on because people show us who they are really early on — but I don't think we always listen. If you say something that pushes someone's boundary or triggers them in some way, seeing how they react or respond to that is going to tell you a lot about how they'll show up in relationship. Like you said, when things are not always going right, is that acceptable for you? Because again, you get to evaluate. I think that's the really cool part that I didn't realize early on: you get to evaluate if that works for you or not. And if it doesn't, then maybe it's not the right connection, and it's okay to release that connection and to wish them well.
Alexandra:
Yeah, exactly. All strong and secure relationships require that rupture and repair cycle. Things will go awry, and what really matters is how we come back together when they do. Love it.
Well, thank you so much for your time Cori. I'm really grateful to get to share you with our broader community and get your voice in here. You've been working with us for over a year now, and I feel like you've been hiding behind the curtains. I've been trying to get you on for a while because you have so much rich experience and wisdom to share. So thank you for sharing your heart with us. And is there anything else you want to say before we wrap?
Cori:
No, I am just super excited to be a part of this community. I started as a member of the community myself. I went on a few one-on-one dates and I felt so transformed in my experiences through humhum that I just decided that I had to be involved. And so I'm so glad that when we connected, we felt like there was shared alignment. I’m so excited to really get to help facilitate and change the narratives around how we date, and to hopefully date differently, because I think we can and we have to. Just excited and honored to get to be a part of this process.
Alexandra:
Well, we're really grateful to have you. That is Cori Shearer, everyone. Thank you so much for your time.