The Real Problem with the ‘Girl Who’s Always in a Relationship,’ According to a Dating Coach

Last month, I spoke with Logan Ury, a behavioral scientist turned dating coach, for a story about questions to ask yourself before dating again after a breakup. Her takeaways were all great, but one thing she mentioned stuck out to me in particular: the idea of Tarzaning, or swinging from one relationship to the next (a la Tarzan) without taking the time to consider what they’ve learned from their last partner and how that should inform whom they date next. Eager to learn more about this phenomenon—that I’m willing to bet you’ve witnessed in IRL—I reached back out to Ury.

Logan Ury is the Director of Relationship Science at Hinge, the dating app that’s designed to be deleted. She is a behavioral scientist turned dating coach, and the author of How to Not Die Alone. At Hinge, she leads a research team dedicated to helping people find love, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post and more.

She tells me that people who have success in dating have taken a step back after a relationship ends to take an inventory of their dating lives, adding that one of the ways to help yourself get over a break up is to think about it as a way to make better decisions in the future. Not everyone takes this time, of course, which is when Tarzaning can occur, and Ury says it’s a mistake she sees people make often. “The point is to understand that when you swing from one relationship to the next, you’re not taking the time to reflect, learn and improve,” she tells me.

This jumping from one relationship to the next without any introspection, she says, gets you trapped in a cycle of dating the same types of people over and over again. To avoid getting stuck with another weaponized incompetent man-child, for example, she says self-reflection is crucial—as is considering what you want to do differently in future relationships. “A key part of moving on is getting clear about the choices you made in your last relationship and changes you’ll make in your next one,” she says. In a journal or with a friend, she recommends taking time to answer these questions:

• Who were you in your last relationship? (For example, the pace-setter, pulling your partner along with you? Or the caboose, being pulled? The mentor or the mentee? The one who committed easily or the person who struggled to put down roots?)
• Whom do you want to be in your next one?
• What have you learned about what truly matters in a long-term relationship?
• Moving forward, what will you look for in a partner that you didn’t prioritize this time?

Now, if you’ve put in the work, but you suspect a person you’re dating hasn’t, Ury tells me there are ways to determine if this is this the kind of person making decisions intentionally, or if they’re just jumping from one person to another. She says it can be helpful to ask what they’ve learned from past relationships. “If they have a deep, self-reflective answer, that tells you they’re trying to do better.”

Finally, Ury stresses to me that dating is a skill, and as such, it takes time and practice to get good at it. You might make mistakes along the way, but as long as you can learn from those mistakes and apply those learnings to future relationships, the crappy experiences aren’t for naught.