Dating, Solved: Why Finding the Right Person Feels So Hard

Most people aren’t bad at dating, they’re just trying to solve the wrong problem. We treat dating like a personality test (“Am I attractive enough? Confident enough?”) when it’s actually a multi-stage process, and each stage punishes completely different mistakes. That one misunderstanding explains why dating feels so confusing, why men and women keep blaming each other, why dating apps feel brutal, and why so much dating advice makes things worse instead of better. In this episode of Solved, Drew and I break down why modern dating feels so broken, and why it actually isn’t. We dig into the evolutionary psychology behind attraction, why men and women are optimizing for different things, how modern culture and dating apps amplify the worst parts of the system, and the three stages of dating that almost nobody understands. We also talk about confidence, rejection, status, attraction, and why avoiding rejection is often the very thing sabotaging your dating life. If you’ve felt stuck, burned out, or quietly wondering “what the hell is wrong with dating?” — this episode is for you. Get your free PDF guide: https://solvedpodcast.com/dating CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:12 Why Is Dating So Complicated? 00:11:03 The different challenges men and women face 00:17:18 Facts 00:29:51 What Women Find Attractive 00:38:16 What Men Find Attractive 00:51:27 A Brief History of Courtship & Dating 01:06:10 Modern Dating 01:11:41 A Glimmer of Hope: The emerging offline renaissance 01:21:37 Men's and Women's Dating Advice Ecosystems 01:31:13 Inside the Male Advice Ecosystem 01:44:52 Inside the Female Advice Ecosystem 02:02:07 The Collision: Feedback Loops That Break the Market 02:21:27 The Pre-Dating Phase 02:36:22 Building Confidence 02:37:59 Halo Effect 02:53:20 Conclusion Pre Dating 02:57:48 Meeting People and Getting Dates 03:11:17 Flirting 03:23:15 Reading People 03:29:51 Going on Dates 03:38:39 Trustworthiness 03:47:09 Conversational Skills 03:56:12 Emotional Regulation 04:03:03 Boundaries 04:09:07 F**k yes or no 04:14:44 The 80/20 ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: https://go.markmanson.net/cdi1xzha ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at https://go.markmanson.net/217i5ys5 FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mark Manson?

  Welcome back everybody to Solved. I'm Mark Manson and today I have a question for you. Is your dating life starting to look like a Wendy's dumpster fire? Why Wendy's? Why did you?

• 0:14Mark Manson?

  What's wrong with Wendy's dumpsters? Is it that bad?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  It's actually a subtle, "It's always sunny" reference, but yeah.

• 0:20Mark Manson?

  Okay, anyway. Is your dating life looking like a Wendy's dumpster fire that's smoldering for months on end? Not fully ablaze, but just hot enough to sting? You really went for it on this one, didn't you?

• 0:32Speaker 01

  I didn't think you were gonna keep this.

• 0:34Mark Manson?

  And yet, there you are, sitting on your couch, swiping your Tuesday night away on another dating app. Well, if so, I have some good news and some bad news. So the good news is that the problem isn't that you're fundamentally unlovable or doomed to die with a cat that doesn't respect you. Let's be real, no cat respects any of us.

• 0:55Mark Manson?

  The bad news, though, is you're probably bad at dating. You're just not bad in the way that you think. Most people are not bad at dating because of who they are. They're bad at dating because they're trying to solve the wrong problem. They're treating dating like a personality test. Am I attractive enough? Am I confident enough? Am I interesting enough? Do I have good enough jokes? Do I have good enough podcast intros? When dating is actually a process with many stages. And each stage punishes different types of mistakes. See, the truth is, is that each stage of the dating process, you need different skillsets and they don't necessarily apply across stages. So in this episode of Solved, we are going deep on dating.

• 1:38Mark Manson?

  We're gonna talk about why men and women are trained inside different dating universes and why they blame each other for problems that they didn't create. We're gonna get into the three ways that people sabotage their own attractiveness before a date even starts. We're gonna talk about the biggest mistake that gets you filtered out of the dating pool before anyone even knows who you are. We're gonna talk about the invisible signals that strangers use to decide no in less than a second. We're gonna get into what everyone gets wrong about confidence and how your understanding of it can instantly make you more attractive. We'll get into why you should actually be getting rejected more in your dating life and how protecting yourself from those rejections is actually the thing that is ruining your chances.

• 2:23Mark Manson?

  And of course, we're going to get into each of the three stages of dating and all of the psychological problems that we face within each one and much, much more. Because what if your dating life isn't a Wendy's dumpster fire? What if it's a Jack in the Box dumpster fire?

• 2:40Mark Manson?

  What if it's a Subway dumpster fire or a 7-Eleven dumpster fire? We'll get into all the dumpster fires in this episode because we're solved and that's what we do. We go deep on a problem and the goal of every episode is to solve this problem permanently in each of your lives. I am New York Times bestselling author Mark Manson. This is my co-host, producer, lead researcher, and the second runner up to 1993's Time Magazine's Sexiest Man of the Year.

• 3:11Mark Manson?

  And this is solved. A very serious podcast about very serious problems. It is the most comprehensive podcast in the world. Like I said, every episode, we aim to permanently solve this issue in each one of your lives. We have a big one here, Drew. A lot of people dissatisfied with dating in the world. A lot of single people wondering what the fuck is going on out there? And I think we're going to solve it for them here. I was nine years old in 1993.

• 3:42Mark Manson?

  I was the sexiest man alive when I was nine years old. You know, morals change, standards change. Yeah. Anyway.

• 3:52Mark Manson?

  Yes, yes.

• 3:55Mark Manson?

  As always, everybody, we have a free PDF guide with all of our research and show notes, full summary of the episode, and all of the practical takeaways, recommended reading, and exercises that you can implement into your own life. You can go to solve podcast.com/dating to download that for free. And as always, if you love the show, please subscribe, follow, leave a review. It's the best way to get the word out to everybody else to solve the dating crisis once and for all. Drew, I predict that in 25 years, we're going to look back and people are going to notice the fertility crisis, the depopulation of the earth reversed itself in the winter of 2026.

• 4:41Mark Manson?

  And it will have begun here.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  This is ground zero.

• 4:44Mark Manson?

  This is ground zero. Get ready, everybody. Hundreds of millions of babies are about to be made. Am I promising too much?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  If people are conceiving children to this podcast, something has gone very, very wrong.

• 4:59Mark Manson?

  Guys, get a playlist, please. For the love of God, get a playlist.

• 5:12Mark Manson?

  All right, to set expectations with this episode, which, hint, hint, setting expectations is going to be a very important thing later on. We are going to start with some of the evolutionary science. Dating is fascinating in that so much of it is really linked to biology. And it is one of the few areas of psychology that you do see very marked differences between men and women, how they approach it and how they think about it. So we're going to spend most of the first hour, hour and a half, really exploring what those differences are, what those evolutionary forces are, and essentially like, why, why there seems to be a battle of the sexes? Why, why men and women are constantly frustrated with each other, constantly stereotyping each

• 5:55Mark Manson?

  other and just throwing their arms up in the air and being like, I don't get women, or I don't understand men. So we're going to clear the air on all of that in the first hour or two. We're going to lay all the scientific groundwork, get all the evolutionary theory out, because that's what's going to make the back half of the episode make sense. Once we get into the 10 skills and the three stages of dating, all of what we talk about is going to make sense based on the science that is learned at the front of the episode. So people definitely listen to the first half of the episode, because that's going to give you a deep understanding of why the advice that we give in the back half of the episode is effective, is important, and why it works.

• 6:35Mark Manson?

  So obviously, humans have been dating and mating and copulating for as long as they've existed. But really, our story starts in the 19th century with Darwin, because Darwin was really the first person to put forth a comprehensive theory of... Why we go through the trouble in the first place? Like, why is it so hard to attract a mate? Like, you got the texting, and then you gotta buy the gift, and then you gotta like, figure out where you're gonna take them on the date, and it's like, do we get ice cream or go to a movie? It's like, oh no, she didn't like the movie. Like, why is it so fucking complicated? When you look across the animal kingdom, and pretty much every other species is just like, wham bam, thank you ma'am, good luck, goodbye. Right.

• 7:20Mark Manson?

  And they move on with their lives. Why is it so hard with humans? Well, it's actually a very interesting story and an interesting theory. So Darwin really broached this subject in his 1871 book, The Descent of Man. It's not The Origin of Species, this one came later, where he really got into the conundrum of the peacock. So in The Origin of Species, Darwin posited his theory of natural selection, which is basically survival of the fittest, that all of us, every creature, every animal, evolves traits and behaviors that promote survival. But then you start seeing all these exceptions out there. And the exception that he honed in on was the peacock.

• 8:02Mark Manson?

  Why does the peacock have these gigantic, bright feathers? And it can't even fucking fly? What's going on here? And he pointed out that the peacock has bright, giant feathers, because it attracts mates. So in The Descent of Man, he pointed out that there is a second natural force on all of us, determining which genes propagate and which ones don't, which is sexual selection. So not only do you have to survive in the world long enough for your genes to replicate, but you need to attract a mate. You need to find somebody who's willing to, you know, put a baby in you or receive your baby. Receive your baby. Deposit. Okay. Is if that's what we're going with. All right.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Very sophisticated terms here.

• 8:49Mark Manson?

  These are very scientific. Yes. Basically, survival is not the only game that evolution plays. Sex, sexual selection is the other game that it plays, and it's running simultaneously. And so there is this layer of sexual signaling that is happening on the surface. With the peacock, it's happening with its feathers, with other monkeys, you know, rams, male rams ram their horns together and displays of dominance. A bunch of other species do things to signal different status or reproductive status. And obviously, humans, we have our own reproductive signals and sexual selection signals as well. Now Darwin pointed to two distinct processes that happen within sexual selection.

• 9:33Mark Manson?

  The first one is intra-sexual selection, which is essentially competition between people of the same gender, right? So if you and I are single and we go into a bar and there's only one female there, and we both want to get with her, there's going to be some degree of competition between us to see who can get her attention, who can impress her more, who can be more attractive to her, and so on. The second process is inter-sexual selection, which is basically being desirable or wanted by members of the opposite sex. So men compete with men to exhibit signals of sexual status. Women also compete with women to exhibit signals of sexual status. And then men and women choose each other based on their preferences.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  They choose traits of one another.

• 10:18Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Those choices kind of form this pressure.

• 10:21Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  This evolutionary pressure and select for certain traits of the opposite sex, right?

• 10:25Mark Manson?

  Correct, correct. And there's both an evolutionary pressure, and I would say there's also a psychological or social pressure.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 10:32Mark Manson?

  Right, to conform to a lot of these expected behaviors and whatnot as well. So whether it's a peacock's tail, or rams butting horns against each other, or a man showing off his new car on a Friday night, or a woman dressing up in her best outfit to go to a party. These are all different forms of creatures engaging in sexual selection, trying to maximize their mate selection, their chances of reproduction, and the probability that their genes will propagate and live on in the gene pool. Now, this raises the next question, which is, why do men and women exhibit completely different sexual strategies? And this is something that Darwin never really figured out, because Darwin was a total beta nerd and

• 11:19Mark Manson?

  clearly never got laid.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  I've never heard that one before. Okay.

• 11:23Mark Manson?

  You could quote me on that.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  He got laid. He had a family. He was, oh yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Darwin smashed. Darwin smashed. Yeah.

• 11:34Mark Manson?

  Actually, funny enough, Darwin was a very sentimental and emotional guy, strangely.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he was a romantic.

• 11:39Mark Manson?

  He was a romantic guy, but he did have a... So he did get laid. He just wasn't an alpha.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  He was a long-term strategist.

• 11:45Mark Manson?

  He was a long-term sexual strategist, which we're gonna talk about that in a second. So why do men and women exhibit different strategies? Darwin didn't figure this out. It actually wasn't until the 1970s, there was a biologist by the name of Robert Trivers, who published a paper, revolutionized our whole understanding of sexual selection and the reproduction process. And it's just one of those papers that comes out sometimes in science that like, after you read it, you're like, that's so obvious. How did nobody ever spot this before? But up until that point, nobody had ever like really put a name on it or explicitly described like what the...

• 12:21Speaker 01

  That's only 50 years ago, a little over 50 years ago.

• 12:22Mark Manson?

  I know. It actually shocked me it took this long. But so Trivers' theory was called parental investment theory. And it's really simple. It's basically, if you look at any species on Earth, whichever sex has to give up more resources to have a child, they are going to be far more selective in who they mate with.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  The choosier sex.

• 12:45Mark Manson?

  They're the choosy sex. And then whichever sex has to give up least... They're just gonna try to sleep with anything that moves essentially. So this creates a an asymmetry and what Trivers called a minimum obligatory investment. And for humans, that minimum obligatory investment is quite asymmetrical. So if you think about for a woman, right, like, what is the minimum amount of investment that she has to commit if she gets pregnant? And it's quite a lot, right? Right? So it's it's nine months of pregnancy. That's nine months where she's completely vulnerable. She's not feeling complete 100% physically healthy. She's moving around more slowly.

• 13:30Mark Manson?

  She's more dependent on the people around her. There's intense metabolic costs of pregnancy. There's the physical and mortal risk of childbirth, which in the modern day, we don't appreciate anymore because very few people die die giving childbirth. But throughout most of human history, a lot of women died giving childbirth. A lot of women had massive health complications giving childbirth. And then even when the child is born, there is an extended period of lactation and early childcare, not to mention that just raising a little human is like really fucking hard, takes a long time. Little assholes, yeah. So it is an absolutely massive investment, massive investment.

• 14:10Mark Manson?

  And for men, the minimum investment for a pregnancy is kind of just rolling over and making himself a sandwich.

• 14:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 14:30Mark Manson?

  And on top of all that, women are only have fertility for anywhere from a third of their life to half of their life, whereas men are fertile throughout pretty much their entire adult life. So there's also a scarcity component to the pregnancy. Like, there's an opportunity cost component, right? So if you're a woman and you get pregnant by a guy who's like not really a good guy, like, not only do you now have to invest so much biological and psychological and emotional energy into the pregnancy, but that is that is time that you're losing from a limited window that you could have been investing that time and energy in with a guy that. Was gonna stick around or was a good

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Higher quality partner.

• 15:12Mark Manson?

  A higher quality partner, right? So there is massive downside for women and very, very little downside for men. Some fun facts here. Do you know who the most prolific mother in recorded history is and how many children she had?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Uh, no, who was that?

• 15:28Mark Manson?

  Funny enough, they don't know her name. They know her husband's name. How fucked up is that?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 15:35Mark Manson?

  How fucked up is that? So there was a Russian peasant by the name of Fyodor Vassiliyev in the 19th or 18th century. Guess how many children in one woman?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Like 30 probably.

• 15:48Mark Manson?

  69 children.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Holy shit.

• 15:50Mark Manson?

  69 across 27 pregnancies.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  69 children?

• 15:53Mark Manson?

  In 27 pregnancies.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Okay. 27 pregnancies. Okay, so lots of, lots of twins and triplets and.

• 15:59Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:00Mark Manson?

  To give that woman.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 16:02Mark Manson?

  A Nobel Prize.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  27 pregnant, so that means she was probably pregnant, like she was basically pregnant for 20 some years of her life.

• 16:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 16:09Mark Manson?

  I mean, probably starting when she was a teenager up until her 40s.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:12Mark Manson?

  Like nonstop.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 16:14Mark Manson?

  Now, do you want to guess which man in history has the most documented children?

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Um, okay, documented. I was gonna say Genghis Khan, but nobody really knows.

• 16:22Mark Manson?

  Supposedly, so there's a theory that like something like 8% of the human genome.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  It's Genghis Khan.

• 16:28Mark Manson?

  Possesses Genghis Khan's genes, but uh.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  That's, yeah, okay, so documented though.

• 16:32Mark Manson?

  Documented.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Who is it?

• 16:33Mark Manson?

  It was the Sultan of Morocco, Ismail ibn Sharif, often known as Ismail the Bloodthirsty.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Bloodthirsty, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:41Mark Manson?

  Um, he sired over 800 children.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 16:46Mark Manson?

  That's a lot of sandwiches.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Only took him 400 seconds to.

• 16:52Mark Manson?

  Probably, probably, yeah, it took him, it took him a less than 1% of what that poor Russian woman had to go through.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  So, so in documented history, the, a man.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Has ten, has sired ten times more children.

• 17:06Mark Manson?

  More than ten, like twelve or thirteen times more than the, the woman who sired the most or who birthed the most children.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:12Mark Manson?

  And she literally gave up probably.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Half her life.

• 17:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah, half her life.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  If not more, yeah.

• 17:18Mark Manson?

  If not more, and he probably just had a harem of hundreds of.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:22Mark Manson?

  Concubines, yeah.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 17:23Mark Manson?

  And was just enjoying, enjoying his Friday nights.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Right, right. That illustrates the asymmetry you're talking about.

• 17:29Mark Manson?

  Massive asymmetry, massive, and this is worth stating because, and we're gonna state this a lot in this episode, but dating and sex is one of the few areas that male and female psychology is significantly different.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 17:42Mark Manson?

  Significantly different, and this is why, right? Cause just there are fundamental biological differences that drive different evolutionary incentives, different social incentives, uh, different biological incentives, like it is, it is a massive pressure on each sex to behave or pursue certain strategies that the other, the other sex does not.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Right, and that's not to say that like, culture doesn't influence that, it usually exaggerates these differences, this is what happens, but that's kind of the base layer we're working with.

• 18:10Mark Manson?

  That's, that's the base layer, for sure, and this is most of human, so I mean, even the fact that, I mean, we'll get into modern dating in a little bit here, but, um, you know, it's, keep in mind that this is 99% of human history that we're talking about, like, we didn't have, we didn't have dating apps, we didn't have birth control, we didn't have equal rights, we didn't have.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:30Mark Manson?

  Tons of stuff.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  As we'll see, a lot of that is very, very new, so yeah.

• 18:33Mark Manson?

  It's very new and in many ways, very disruptive.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:36Mark Manson?

  So, the consequences of this asymmetry is basically, in female psychology, we see that because there are so many costs in a poor mating choice, women evolved to be extremely choosy, skeptical, and to really demand and have expectation of a certain amount of investment from the man before giving him sexual access. And then male psychology is, what we see is that because fertile females are largely a limited resource in society, um, there are always more fertile men in society than fertile women, which is, I think, a detail that probably gets overlooked quite a bit.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:15Mark Manson?

  Uh, male psychology is very much defined by competition, right? So it's, it's for every fertile woman in society, there's probably two, three, four fertile men. So that means that your access is limited. That means that you need to show up and prove yourself and take action and assert yourself and make sure that she sees you and knows that you're a badass and wants to spend time with you.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's also, there's some exceptions that prove this rule too. This brings me back to my, the animal behavior days. This is one of my favorite classes in university was animal behavior. It talks about the evolution of animal behaviors. So you're talking about this asymmetry. Typically, it's the females of most species that devote more resources and energy towards parental rearing or rearing their young and all of that, right? And typically, it's the males that don't invest a whole lot. But there's really interesting exceptions in nature that kind of prove this rule. Maybe you've heard about this before, but like seahorses. It's really interesting. So seahorses, males and females will mate and then the female will like deposit her eggs into this

• 20:22Speaker 01

  pouch, the specialized pouch that the male has. Okay. So the male is actually the one that keeps the brood of these eggs. Interesting. So they'll be swimming around for however long the gestation period is. I don't know how long it is. The females, though, just kind of then go and fuck off. It's pretty wild. And so it's kind of reversed there. So what happens is the males are much choosier in that situation because they're the ones who

• 20:45Mark Manson?

  Because they're having to essentially deal with the pregnancy.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  They have to deal with the pregnancy in that case. Okay.

• 20:49Mark Manson?

  Fascinating.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Pretty fascinating that way. There's a lot of species of fish do this too. So there's some species of fish that the males will choose and defend a territory. And then the females will come around, they'll check out their territories. Like, oh, you got this good territory. I like it. She'll lay her eggs and hell fertilize them. But then he has to stay and defend that territory. And he ends up being the more choosy one as well in that situation. Another very interesting one that I found was fallow ropes. It's a bird species. Actually, one of them is like the red necked fallow rope. And the females in this species are actually the brightly colored ones. This is very rare in the bird world, anyway. Most of the time, the males are ornately ornamented. You know, they have these bright colors and long feathers like the peacock tail and all of

• 21:32Speaker 01

  that. This is an opposite example of that, where this bird species, the females actually end up courting the males. They lay the eggs and then the males will Will protect the nest and sit on them and incubate them while the females just go off. So it's just kind of interesting that it's the, the rule is whoever's investing more is the choosier sex. Again, right? Just to reiterate that. And it's not always the male and female.

• 21:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  The like stereotypical thing we think of just because that's what humans do.

• 22:00Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  There's exceptions to this that prove this rule in, in the animal kingdom. It's really interesting.

• 22:04Mark Manson?

  Is it black widow spiders where the female like literally murders the male?

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why they call it black widow. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of spiders do that. A lot of spider species do that.

• 22:12Mark Manson?

  I wonder how choosy the male is.

• 22:17Mark Manson?

  Like, I'm not gonna let any woman kill me. Only, only the most seductive, attractive woman.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  You got one shot. You got one shot. Yeah. I'm not sure about that.

• 22:27Mark Manson?

  Where, where's the equal rights movement for, for the spiders? That's pretty, talk about a matriarchy.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Well, yes. Again, it's, it's rare in, in nature, but there are exceptions that have, again, they proved the rule of that.

• 22:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it does. Yeah. I mean, the parental investment, it totally makes sense. I do want to note that it's, it is not as simple as women are super choosy and demand investment. Men are just man whores and want to stick it in whoever lets them. It is.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  That's a caricature of.

• 22:59Mark Manson?

  It's much more complicated than that. So humans are what are known as biparental care, biparental care species. And in biparental care species, what you see is that there is a mixture of investment of these two types. One of the things that we'll talk about in a little bit is that there kind of are two sexual reproduction strategies. And, and there's like a short-term commitment strategy, which is basically like just casual sex, casual hookups. Just try to get in while you can. And then like, you know, peace out, never call each other again. Then there's the long-term commitment sexual strategy. And what's interesting is that humans, most humans or a lot of humans, uh, pursue both of those strategies simultaneously.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:42Mark Manson?

  And so you see this both in single people, right? So single people will, uh, look for a long-term partner. But if they can find a, a short-term hottie on the side, like they're not going to say no to it. Or at least a lot of people won't. Um, and then even some people with, after they have a long-term partner, they will cheat on their partner if they're given short-term opportunities. So those two strategies are kind of always coexisting. Obviously, men are more predisposed towards the short-term strategy, or maybe they pursue it more often. But women also pursue it, and women, many women pursue it a lot. And similarly, women are more predisposed towards the long-term commitment strategy,

• 24:25Mark Manson?

  but that doesn't mean they're exclusively pursuing it. There's plenty of men who pursue it. And we'll actually get into a little bit of, there's some interesting research about which men and women pursue which strategy and under which context.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Also, yet another reason why dating is just messy and weird and confusing.

• 24:41Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  It's because all of us have, we're pursuing different strategies at different times, or sometimes at the same time, and it just causes a lot of confusion.

• 24:48Mark Manson?

  Later, we're going to talk a lot about attraction and like, what makes men and women attractive? And what's interesting is that there are certain traits or behaviors that are very attractive for a short-term mating strategy, but not attractive for a long-term mating. So if you just think about, you know, somebody who's extremely adventurous and fun and exciting, right? That, that can be an extremely attractive trait for a short-term mating strategy, but it's generally not something you probably look for in a long-term partner.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Right. Another point to make about that, too, is like, when men are engaging in more long-term strategies, they become almost as choosy as females at that point.

• 25:26Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Not just they're looking for like, somebody good-looking, that, like, intelligence becomes very important at that point.

• 25:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  The kindness, caring, all of those things become more important.

• 25:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's the biggest difference you tend to see, and a lot of this is just summarizing a lot of the research of Buss and Schmidt. So David Buss is kind of the titan of this.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Evolutionary psych around.

• 25:46Mark Manson?

  Around mating and sexual attraction. He's been doing it for 50 years, 40 years, 50 years, and he's just done some of the like, largest cross-cultural samples and research on this. It should be noted for everybody listening to this, because I just already see people in the comments. Okay, so I'm just gonna like, I'm just gonna cut off two objections before they start showing up in the comments. The first one is, yes, we know it's not all men and not all women. These are averages across populations, these are tendencies.

• 26:19Mark Manson?

  Yes, there are many, many exceptions. There are many men that behave completely differently than the norm, and there are many women that behave completely differently than than the norm. The same way, there are plenty of individual women who are taller than individual men does not negate the fact that men are taller than women. It's it's the same that just because some women pursue more short term sexual strategies than than some men does not mean that it's untrue that men in general pursue more short term sexual strategies. So keep that in mind. There's going to be a lot of talk about men are like this, women are like this, men tend to do this, women tend to do that.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  There's lots of individual variation.

• 26:53Mark Manson?

  There's a lot of individual variation, and it's okay, it's great, you know, and there's also, as you said, there's a lot of cultural influence on this as well. The second thing I want to cut off, nip in the bud is, yes, culture matters a lot. And it is, it does affect a lot of dating norms and practices, and it even affects a lot of the signaling that we're going to talk about later. But by and large, at least at this level that we're currently discussing, and for example, like, most of the research that that David Buss has done, it is cross cultural. Like, they have a lot of the stuff that we're talking about, they have gone to dozens and dozens of countries, they have

• 27:35Mark Manson?

  interviewed tens of thousands of people, and they've gone all over the world, and they, they, what we are reporting on are things that consistently show up across the globe, across cultures, in every different country, and in every different society around the world.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:53Mark Manson?

  With all of those caveats, what do women want?

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Freud asked, I think Darwin asked it too. I mean, Aristotle probably did too.

• 28:03Mark Manson?

  Apparently, it's impossible to know what women want, because if if it was knowable, then Aristotle would have written about it. So, okay, so these are the generalized preferences of women. They are generally demonstrated more often than men. Number one.

• 28:19Mark Manson?

  Resource acquisition ability. So the thing that's super interesting about this, I remember back when I used to to coach guys. So for people listening who are not aware, I actually started my career as a as a dating coach, primarily coaching men. And I would say the two biggest insecurities that show up with men who are single and trying to trying to get a date, one is height and two is money. And the money one was always easy because it's just like, if you actually look at the research on female attraction, it has to do with a man's potential for resource acquisition, not his bank account. Right? And so a guy early in his career who

• 29:03Mark Manson?

  shows a lot of ambition, a lot of industriousness, a lot of intelligence, he's highly motivated.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Conscientious.

• 29:10Mark Manson?

  He's conscientious, he believes in himself. This is going to be more attractive than a guy who is a trust fund kid, has a bunch of money, but is just like fucking around and not doing anything with himself. You have to realize that money is a very recent invention. Things like fancy cars and Rolex watches and expensive champagne bottles at the nightclub, like these are all extremely modern inventions. They are merely, they're signals of different hereditary traits. For most of human history, all a woman could judge you by was your behavior and your attitude. And so therefore, the root of female attraction is very much behaviorally driven,

• 29:54Mark Manson?

  and it's very much psychologically driven, as we'll see. So all the men out there who are constantly fretting over like, oh, women just want guys with money and all this stuff. It's no, no, no. They want a guy who shows the potential for a lot of money.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Maybe not even a lot of money. I mean, that is an easy proxy, but just like

• 30:13Mark Manson?

  Resourcefulness.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Resourcefulness.

• 30:14Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Is this guy gonna get shit done?

• 30:16Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah. If, if, yeah. Is he gonna figure out problems?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:20Mark Manson?

  Right? If, if, if, if we get in a car accident and we're stranded in the middle of the wilderness, like Do I trust this guy to figure it out? That sort of thing.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:31Mark Manson?

  Now, what's super interesting about this, and this is going to be highly relevant when we talk about how fucked up the dating market is these days, is that this preference for resourcefulness, or future potential resourcefulness, it doesn't go away as women's earning power increases.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 30:49Mark Manson?

  In fact, as women's resourcefulness increases, the bar rises with them.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:53Mark Manson?

  So generally speaking, women are primarily attracted to men who are either at the same level of potential success or above, and they are not attracted to men who seem less resourceful than themselves. This has huge implications for 2025.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:12Mark Manson?

  Which we'll talk about in a little bit.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, so the argument kind of was, for a while there, there was people making the argument that the reason women do focus on resources is because for so long they've been denied access to those resources.

• 31:26Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  And so, of course, that like, they're gonna try to get what they need just to survive, right?

• 31:30Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  But actually, what happens is when you do, when women do gain more access to resources, they get even choosier.

• 31:37Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Is what it is.

• 31:38Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  It's not that they, that just goes away, it's that they get even choosier around that.

• 31:42Mark Manson?

  Yes, correct. And this, in the literature, this phenomenon is known as hypergamy, and if you ever venture into the cesspool of what's known as the manosphere.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:54Mark Manson?

  You will see a bunch of angry nerds shaking their fist and complaining about hypergamy and how women are so awful because they're hypergamous and you can never trust her because she just wants your resources and all this and that. This is the stupidest fucking thing.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 32:09Mark Manson?

  Like, it's, it's like, it blows my mind that like, these guys don't see the double standard. Like, this is, this is essentially like, women getting upset of like, why do men like big boobs? It's so unfair. Like, men are horrible, they're like, it's, it's just the exact same thing. It's like, sorry dude, you have like, 250,000 years of evolutionary biology pushing you down, downstream, so like, you can try to swim against the tide, or you can just learn to ride it.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:34Mark Manson?

  The second factor that shows up more in what women are attracted to than men. Is the bodyguard hypothesis. This comes from Snyder at all in 2011. Basically, women show preferences for physical traits that are associated with physical protection. So height, upper body strength, physical dominance. Again, another form of resourcefulness. The problem is, is that this often creates a genuine dilemma for women. Essentially, like the more formidable, physically formidable the man is, and the more he's able to protect her from outer harm, the more capable he is of harming her. Right. And so you, you kind of get this bad boy conundrum where it's like, okay, yeah, this dude's a total badass and he could

• 33:17Mark Manson?

  probably fucking kill somebody with his bare hands. But what type of guy develops himself physically enough to that point? It's probably a guy who's, well, maybe a little bit dangerous and paranoid and that could turn on you at some point. What's interesting is that there are studies around women who find physical dominance and physical formidableness attractive. And what you see is that the more unsafe and unstable the environment, the more women are attracted to this physical dominance. And the more stable and safe the environment, the more women are attracted to things like warmth, kindness, deference, and just being like a good person. So this is another thing that

• 34:02Mark Manson?

  used to pop up in men's dating advice all the time. You see it pop up in the manosphere all the time. It's like douchebags like Andrew Tate talk about it that like, you need to be a fucking scary dude or else women are not going to respect you. And it's like, well, yeah, it, women who live in a scary world are going to respect you if you're a scary dude because you are well adapted for that environment that she's stuck in. But if you're like a scary, mean, angry dude and you want to go

• 34:30Mark Manson?

  meet a woman at like a swanky cocktail bar in Manhattan and talk to a, a, a woman, like a gorgeous woman who's like a partner at a law firm, like they're, they're just going to look at you and be like, wow, you're an asshole. Right.

• 34:44Mark Manson?

  Yeah. And this kind of gets this, I mean, we'll talk about assortment theory later in the episode, but this kind of gets at the point that like, generally speaking, we tend to attract what we are. And, and you have to really keep that in mind, both in terms of like, A, if you're really dissatisfied with your dating options, like you, you might need to take a hard look in the mirror. But B, when you think about how you want to develop yourself for your dating life, you need to ask yourself, what kind of partner do I want to attract? Because that's the kind of person I need to become.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, really interesting thing I learned about a long time ago. It's, it comes up a lot. Women, actually, there's a wider preference. They show a wider preference for, for diverse set of attributes in men, whereas men tend to cluster around a smaller group of attributes that they find attractive in women. And so you get this, this is sexual selection and action, really. You get this wider range of male variability than you do with, with females for the most part. So like, for example, with intelligence, like men, there's a lot of men who are very, very low in intelligence and a few men who are very, there's a few men who are very, very low in intelligence, a few who are very, very high, a lot of them in the middle. You got that bell curve, right?

• 35:58Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Gregariousness, or whatever.

• 36:00Mark Manson?

  Risk taking.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Risk taking. Men tend to exhibit a wider range of variability.

• 36:05Mark Manson?

  The center of the bell curve is the same.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Right. Yes.

• 36:08Mark Manson?

  But it's the male bell curve is wider.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:11Mark Manson?

  And lower.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:13Mark Manson?

  And women's is taller, but thinner.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah, that's an important thing for people to remember as well. So those are the largest differences in what women tend to find attractive. Let's talk about what men tend to find attractive. The first and probably biggest one is usefulness and fertility cues. This is both obvious, but there's, it's funny because there was a detail about this that like blew my mind a little bit. I think everybody just knows that men are a little bit more shallow and much more visually driven in terms of like what they're attracted to. And it's just like, looks affect us a lot more than, than, and seem more important to us than, than they do for women. And obviously, like, I always knew, like, okay, yeah, that's attached to fertility,

• 36:56Mark Manson?

  right? Like, everything, whether it's clear skin, or long hair, or, you know, a certain hip to waist ratio, like, all of these things are indicators, or signals of fertility, and a signal that, like, you know, yes, if you sleep with this woman, there's a good chance that she's gonna get pregnant with your child, and your genes are gonna get propagated. So, I always understood that. The thing that blew my mind, that when I was reading about this, and I never seen before, I never thought of before, was that age is a recent invention, right? Like, think about it, we didn't have calendars until a few thousand years ago.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you didn't have that number attached to you.

• 37:36Mark Manson?

  So, like, for most of human history, people had no fucking clue how old they were.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:42Mark Manson?

  Right? Like, if you met a new woman, you're like, is she 25? Is she 35? Is she 45? Like, you have no idea, like, there's no, there's no documented way, they didn't count, they didn't know, there was no, like, they didn't track anything, right? So, all you had to go from was your, the visual cues

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:01Mark Manson?

  of their youthfulness and their fertility. Like, that makes sense, then, why men are so, why men's sexual attraction is so reliant on, like, physical proportions.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Highly tuned to that.

• 38:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's like, just absolutely locked into it, because that's the only thing you have to go on, is, is her physical appearance.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  And again, like you said, a woman, like, her fertile years are like, maybe a third of her life at the most, right? And so, you have to know when she's in that window.

• 38:25Mark Manson?

  So, if you miss the window,

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:26Mark Manson?

  then you're shit out of luck, right? So, yeah, totally, totally fascinating. The other big thing that men tend to prioritize, much more than women, is sexual fidelity. So, you see this, men tend to get more jealous, they tend to be more insecure around their partner's behavior, they tend to value things like loyalty, care, trustworthiness, more than women do. And it actually makes sense, like, it's, if you think about it, a woman never has any ambiguity or, or questions around whether their child is their child or not.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:03Mark Manson?

  It's like, she was

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Whose baby is this?

• 39:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah, whose baby? Where did this baby come from? Did I make this? No woman has ever asked that in the history of the world. Plenty of men have.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:13Mark Manson?

  Plenty of men have. If you're a man, You never know with a hundred percent certitude that your child is yours, at least pre DNA tests. You never knew. So again, men look for and prioritize behavioral signals that show loyalty, trustworthiness, and just basically things that suggest fidelity.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some, there's some actually really interesting research around that. So men tend to, they'll devote more resources to children if they look more like them. Like they've shown this, like they, they pay more for them. They're, you know, they, they put up more resources basically for children if they resemble them more.

• 39:51Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  And then there's some really fascinating research around. So mothers and like the mother's family are much, are more likely to tell the father, oh, this kid looks like you.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Especially when he's around. When he, when he's in their presence, he's like, oh, this kid looks like the father.

• 40:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  When they're not around, that actually decreases to some extent.

• 40:16Mark Manson?

  It's really funny.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  So there's like this evolutionary, probably kind of chess game going on where the, the maternal side, the mother and the, the whole maternal side is like, oh, don't worry, this is your kid.

• 40:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  This is your child. This is definitely your child. So you should, you should put resources in.

• 40:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah, stick around.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Really fascinating.

• 40:33Mark Manson?

  Don't run off.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah, that's funny.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also remember in, when I was in college, we were, as a biology class, we were gonna do, we're taking, we're talking about blood types and all this kind of stuff. And they used to, at the university I went to, they used to have your blood type and then you have you go home and ask your parents what your blood type was. They stopped doing that because it's like 10% of people found out that it's like, oh, my dad isn't my dad. You know, so that was.

• 40:57Mark Manson?

  I remember, I remember that study where it was, yeah, they found like 10% of people, like there were basically paternity mismatches. People were like raised, raising somebody else's kid.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:07Mark Manson?

  It's funny because I remember that, that study has been called in the question a lot. Like there've been some other studies that have been run that have shown up. It's been much lower percentages, like 3%, 5%, something like that.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  I'm sure that goes up and down all throughout history.

• 41:17Mark Manson?

  But still, like, I mean, if you imagine, if you imagine you're in a room with 50 people, like the chances are there's probably one or two people in that room that were raised by somebody who's not their father.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:29Mark Manson?

  And they don't know it.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Right. And you're talking, you've been talking 3% to 5%, even if that was just the baseline all throughout history, over a long enough period of time, that's huge.

• 41:37Mark Manson?

  That is huge.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  It's huge. Yeah.

• 41:39Mark Manson?

  That's actually, it's funny, I remember reading an article a number of years ago, you know, so when 23andMe came out, and I think it's genealogy.com or something, or ancestry.com that came out, they actually started having a problem because people were taking the DNA test and they, like, families were taking the DNA test and like, children and siblings and cousins and stuff were like finding out that, like, "Oh, I'm not actually related to you." Or, or like, "Wait a second, like, you're not my, my father," or "Your uncle isn't your father," you know, like, all these like, crazy skeletons started coming out of the closet with people and it, like, it introduced a lot of moral conundrums into people's lives.

• 42:21Mark Manson?

  So, one fascinating tidbit with the, uh, the fertility piece is that waist-to-hip ratio. So, a study in 1993 went all over the world, asking people, asking men, what waist-to-hip ratio they found most attractive in women, and also just what absolute measurements they found most attractive in women. And the fascinating thing is that men in different parts of the world found different sizes of women more, more or less attractive, but the hip-to-waist ratio was constant everywhere. Yeah. So, the kind of the magic ratio is a .7, basically the waist measurement is 70% of the hip measurement. Uh, this seems to like, represent, I guess, optimal fertility

• 43:04Mark Manson?

  in the woman, but what's interesting is that in certain parts of the world, places like Africa or India, uh, men had a greater preference for larger women. And the theory is, is that the more scarce the resources in that environment, the more men will prefer women who are larger because they're more adaptable to an environment with very few resources, right? Whereas generally in environments with plenty of resources, um, men are more attracted to women who are very skinny and small. Yeah. Just fascinating. There's a concept in all this research that's known as a costly signaling theory.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 43:39Mark Manson?

  Which is basically the principle is that a sexual signal is not, or a status signal is not really trustworthy unless it's costly, unless it kind of doesn't make sense, right? Like, if you think about living in a place like the United States, like a wealthy part of the United States, it is, the default is to just kind of get fat. And, you know, you can have as much food as you want, you have access to as much entertainment as you want, you can kind of do whatever you want. And so there's nothing costly about being large, right? That's, that's the default, that's the easy, the easy route. Being skinny is actually costly, because it means you have to forego all of these options that you

• 44:22Mark Manson?

  have in your day to day life. You have to turn down foods, you have to pass up on certain indulgences, you have to get out and exercise and put yourself through like intense physical strain. So it is costly to remain skinny in a highly abundant environment. And so that costliness is what makes that signal valuable. It signals that like, okay, there's something unique and different about this person. They have more self-control, they have more discipline, they are able to like turn down things that don't align with their values. And like, all those things are considered sexually attractive. Whereas if you think about an environment with, without any resources, then it's, you know, being large is, is a costly signal, right?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:03Mark Manson?

  It means that like, you go to town on whatever resources and food you have around.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Able to get those resources.

• 45:10Mark Manson?

  And you're able to get them, you're able to get them in you, and you're, you're able to like fucking own it, right? And it's, it's, like, that signals to people around you of like, of like, okay, this person is, they have some sort of access, or they have like some sort of, you know, they know something that other people don't, or whatnot.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:28Mark Manson?

  So, the last thing I want to leave with to, before we kind of transition into the next section. Is that we can see from all of this that evolution has kind of left us with two contradictory mating strategies that by and large, um, men are attempting to gain sexual access while investing the fewest resources possible, the least amount of time, energy, money, and whatever that they, that they can. Meanwhile, women are trying to limit sexual access, uh, until they've been granted as much investment as possible. So this is where you get a little bit of the battle of the sexes, right? Of, of the

• 46:10Mark Manson?

  playing the game, so to speak, of like, she's holding out as long as possible, he's putting in as much effort as, as, as possible. And, uh, and then kind of seeing where you end up. And I think most of the hostility between men and women is just a direct result of these contradictory evolutionary strategies. Like, it's not, it's not that men are horrible people. It's not that women are horrible people. You know, it's not that men are selfish pigs and women are, uh, you know, demanding, like, a hypergamous whatever.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Gold diggers, yeah.

• 46:47Mark Manson?

  Gold diggers. Like, there are different evolutionary incentives on each one. There are, as a result, there, men and women have evolved different psychological baselines and set points for what they find attractive and what they find interesting in a partner. And because these things in many ways are indirect conflict with one another, it does create a lot of strife and frustration between the sexes. And I also think it creates a lot of misunderstanding. You know, we often start our episodes with a, a, a deep evolutionary explanation of whatever we're going to talk about. This one, we have spent quite a bit longer than usual. And I think it's just so important because everything else that

• 47:31Mark Manson?

  comes in this episode is rooted in these evolutionary factors. And so much of the frustrations that the men listening to this episode feel and the women who are listening to this episode feel are also rooted in these evolutionary factors. That it is, it is not, there's not something wrong with the culture. There's no, like, society isn't broken.

• 47:56Mark Manson?

  Morals have not fallen apart like it is this, a lot of this is as old as time.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:02Mark Manson?

  It has been around forever. And as we move through the rest of the episode and we start talking about dating strategies, different ways to become more attractive, both as a man and as a woman, ways to retain a partner, to meet a partner. All of these things are going to be very much based on these, these competing sexual strategies and the sexual selection that goes on between everybody. So yeah, don't hate the player, hate the game. Or don't even hate the game. I don't know. It's just like these, this is just the cards were dealt. So you might as well learn how to play them as well as possible.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a messy, confusing system, I guess, that we have. And not because of anyone's fault. This is mother nature produced it this way. They're like, there's no intention behind mother nature doing this, but it's, it's an intentionally messy, confusing process because it almost has to be.

• 48:58Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Right? It needs to be hard. There needs to be some friction points. There needs to be checks along the way to make sure, hey, is this the right thing to do? Is this the right thing to do?

• 49:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Mother nature kind of designed it that way for us. Okay?

• 49:08Mark Manson?

  Cause if it's messy and confusing, like, again, that's, that's a signal of trustworthiness, right? It's like if somebody sticks with you through the ambiguity and the uncertainty. They give, yeah, they give the time investment. It's like, okay, well, this person actually seems to really like me.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Costly signal, an honest costly signal.

• 49:25Mark Manson?

  An honest costly signal.

• 49:30Mark Manson?

  So before we do an analysis on modern dating and current dating norms, I do think it is quite useful to go through the history of dating and marriage throughout the last 5,000 years of human civilization, just because it sets a lot of context and it will show us how a lot of what we take for granted as normal today is actually quite unique across, across the human experience.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're figuring it out on the fly.

• 49:55Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  As we'll see.

• 49:57Mark Manson?

  So the most important thing to understand is that for a very large part of human history, marriage was not about romance at all. In fact, romance is a pretty modern invention, as we're gonna see. Basically, marriage as an institution, the person that you couple with, the person that you mate with, the person that you start a family with, this was very much seen as an economic decision. This was, it was much more based on economic prospects and political alliances and uniting two different families or reinforcing your

• 50:38Mark Manson?

  current family than it was about like finding the love of your life or your soulmate or anything like that. And you can see, this was true all the way across the world, from ancient China to Mesopotamia to ancient Egypt to the Americas. Marriage was an economic decision. It was primarily driven by the parents. Most courtship practices were designed and delegated by the parents. They were overseen and your mating partners were either given the thumbs up or thumbs down by your parents and you kinda had to follow that. On top of that, a huge part of being a parent in the ancient world was collecting a dowry

• 51:22Mark Manson?

  or saving up to for a bridal fee to, you kinda had to, in the ancient world, it's like if you had a son and you wanted to marry him to this daughter, but the daughter's family is higher status than you, then you kinda had to go and make a sales pitch and be like, you know, I got some farmland out east and if you let her marry my son, I'll give, I'll give them some of that farmland and I'll pitch in a, you know, an extra. Thousand shekels to make it worth your time. And it was.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  An ox or two.

• 51:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I'll give you an ox and, and, you know, he's good with horses. And it's like, it was, it was a negotiation. It really was.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  That was the courtship.

• 52:07Mark Manson?

  It was, that was, that was, that was courtship. You really don't see the emergence of romance come until the Middle Ages. And what's interesting too, is that for most of the ancient world and even into the Middle Ages, romance was seen with a lot of suspicion. It was seen as something that resulted in tragedy most often that fucked up people's lives, that created more problems than it solved. If you look at a lot of the classic plays and playwrights,

• 52:41Mark Manson?

  they wrote about romance as, as almost this like sickness that overtook people. Plato wrote about it disparagingly, you know, Plato famously saw the, the highest human relationship as friendship, as a platonic friendship. He had a pretty low perception of romantic love and so did a lot of people. You know, even up until the 14th and 15th century, it was looked at suspiciously. You know, there were, there's documents of, of books in the Middle Ages urging parents to protect their children from their romantic whims, to prevent them from running off with the, the neighbor and, and ruining their lives and messing up their future.

• 53:21Mark Manson?

  That you need to keep your child in, in the house and only expose them to, to marriage worthy partners. Even Romeo and Juliet, which it's really funny because today it's seen as like a paragon of a romantic story. But if you go back at the time, it was very much written as a cautionary tale. Like people, people in the 16th century would have watched Romeo and Juliet and seen it as a warning of like, this is what happens when you let your wily teenagers get up to whatever they want to get up to. So as parents, you really need to take care of things and lock that shit down.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there was a lot of wisdom in that, right? I mean, if you look at just how destabilizing that whole force can be, right? Just like with Romeo and Juliet, they do, you do stupid things.

• 54:12Mark Manson?

  I mean, how many, how many bad decisions have you made because you were in love with some girl?

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, all of them. Yeah. Any of them you can think of, I've done it. I've made a fool out of myself. I've done stupid things. I've probably cost myself a lot of money. Yes.

• 54:26Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, no, I don't want to go back to that. Don't get me wrong.

• 54:31Mark Manson?

  Me too.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  But like, you can see why there was all these social pressures and it's really a survival mechanism. Like, look, we got to get along with people.

• 54:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  And this thing is a destabilizing force.

• 54:41Mark Manson?

  It is.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  In that.

• 54:42Mark Manson?

  It is, and it, and it causes people to make bad decisions.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Very, very bad decisions.

• 54:45Mark Manson?

  Right. It is by its very, and it's funny because we're going to do an episode in a couple of weeks about love. We're going to talk about this quite a bit, but like, one of the primary features of romantic love is it makes you very irrational. You, you like, you stop seeing the world correctly. And that is both a good and bad thing, depending on what you're trying to do. But for most of human history, life was very precarious. Things were dangerous. There were wars and famines and people were starving all the time. And so like, you needed your neighbors to like you. You needed your kids to have stable families. You needed economic security more than anything else.

• 55:24Mark Manson?

  And so, yeah, if you let little Timmy or little Suzie run off with, you know, the, the local milkmaid or the shoe shine boy, like, she can hit the fan, like people can die as a result. So it was, it really was a life or death question. Something interesting does start to happen though, during the Middle Ages. And that is you start to get this idealization of romance. And this really happens around kind of chivalric narratives. Right? Your knight in shining armor who is saving the princess, but he is full of moral virtue. And so he's, he's going to resist any urge to defile her with his, with his desires. And he will go back home and be a good celibate boy and, I don't know, never.

• 56:09Mark Manson?

  Never, never spread his progeny ever again. You do see this start to emerge in a lot of poetry at the time. There's a lot of, um, there's a lot of, you know, beautiful stories and, and, uh, very like dramatic tellings of romance in a positive way, but it was still framed as something to be resisted. Right? So these old stories of the chivalric knights, they are admirable because they resist the temptations of romance, not because they indulge them. And that was supposed to be the point. Whereas I think now we read those stories and we're like, dude, just like, go for it, bro. Like, come on, she's right there, dude. Go, go get it.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Right. Even when I was looking through this too, even what I found was that the, even though they were idealizing, this is kind of where that started. They're idealizing romance and not fearing it so much that there was an idealization of it. It was still separate from marriage.

• 57:05Mark Manson?

  It was.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  It wasn't like, this is what you should base your marriage on. It was just like, oh, this is a thing over here. This is an experience that humans can have and it's fine.

• 57:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Right? But that was the extent of it.

• 57:15Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:16Mark Manson?

  So we, we move up a couple of hundred years. We get into the scientific revolution, the enlightenment, the industrial era. And you start to get a lot of these ideas about human rights and agency and, um, freedom of choice. Also on top of that, you get more economic security, more consistent, uh, financial options. And I guess just larger populations and more mobility between places. And so what you see emerge is, um, you start to see choice emerge essentially, uh, especially with women, like women start to, to be able to have a lot more say in, in who they end up marrying. They did have say in, in the past in some civilizations and some societies during some

• 57:58Mark Manson?

  periods, but it was like generally pretty limited. But once you get to the industrial revolution, you start to see it emerge like pretty more, more consistently. The other idea you get during this period is the optimization of happiness. So we talked back in the happiness episode, we talked about utilitarianism, this idea that it's our, the moral good comes from human flourishing and maximizing happiness for the most, most amount of people. And of course, part of this happiness, or at least this perceived happiness, is an ability to live out your desires, indulge your emotions, pursue your fantasies, and basically have, be with the person that you want to be.

• 58:41Mark Manson?

  And so it's no surprise that immediately following a lot of these enlightenment ideas around happiness in the 18th century, in the 19th century, you get the Romantic movement, which is all about like, hey, why are we depriving ourselves? Why are we like locking ourselves in a box and preventing ourselves from having the things that are going to make us happy for the rest of our lives? Like, why not just pursue those things? And at the time, this was a revolutionary idea. Like, the whole idea that like you marry for love is, was groundbreaking 200 years ago. And it's funny, because I remember like, I remember in high school and college, remember,

• 59:22Mark Manson?

  reading like Jane Eyre and Jane Austen and Madame Bovary, and just like, kind of being like, I don't get it. Like, what's the big deal? And then it wasn't until maybe 10 years ago, when I did a bunch of research on the history of marriage and courtship, that I realized, like, oh, this was a huge fucking deal. Like, the idea that you have like a middle-class French woman, who is like, you know, my husband doesn't make me happy. Maybe I should be with somebody else. Like, that was so transgressive at the time, like unimaginable to those people when it was written, or something like Anna Karenina. Like, it's the same thing, just like completely revolutionary for the time.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  And yet, we're talking like 150 years ago.

• 1:00:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah, this is not long ago.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Not that long ago, right? Yeah. We just take it so for granted now.

• 1:00:13Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Mark Manson?

  And so then you get into the 20th century, and I think our standards for dating and finding partnership today.

• 1:00:24Mark Manson?

  I think there's an argument, and I'm going to continue to make this argument in this episode, that I think we, our expectations are probably too high around a lot of dating. Because this whole notion that you're supposed to find a partner out there who is not only your life partner, your best friend, but they are also economically viable, financially stable, they have shared interests and values as you, shared worldviews, have similar life story or life trajectory, and you're in love with them.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  And they want to watch the same movie that you want to watch.

• 1:01:03Mark Manson?

  And they want to watch the same Netflix shows you want to watch. And, and they meet your emotional needs, right? And you're supposed to stay with them for the rest of your life. Like, all of you, like, this is so much to ask for in a single person. And I think a lot, like, what's gotten mixed up is that there's kind of these ancient notions of marriage, which is till death do us part, and it's, it's like a non-negotiable lifelong commitment. A lot of that was because it was primarily economic and financial in nature. A lot of that was also because people lived until they were fucking 35.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:40Mark Manson?

  Right? Like, it's, it's, and also because emotions had nothing to do with it. And nobody cared if you were happy or not. Whereas you take these more modern concerns around maximizing happiness and emotional support, and like maximizing, you know, freedom of opportunity, and letting people self-actualize, and you combine that with these ancient standards and expectations of marriage. I just feel like there's, you can't have everything all the time. Like, something's going to give, and I think people are just so allergic to the idea of settling that.

• 1:02:15Mark Manson?

  They don't want to think about that.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  The emphasis we put on dating is it's weird. It's just a weird like historically, it's just a strange thing. The way we approach the whole institution of dating and marriage now is just strange and it's weird. And so, yes, there's another reason why it's so confusing and difficult and messy today is because we're just figuring this stuff out as we go. This is, there's no blueprint for us. And for the longest time, yeah, it sucks. Somebody else chose it for you, but like there was a clear path, at least what went on. Now, don't get me wrong. Again, I don't want to go back to that necessarily, but there were rules and there were like this whole, there was this whole structure, this whole social structure.

• 1:02:53Mark Manson?

  And once it was decided, it was over.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Mark Manson?

  Like you're just

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:02:57Mark Manson?

  Where it's like today, it's like you can date three people over eight years and you're like, I don't know. What am I doing?

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Right. So, yeah, the ancient problem was you didn't have a choice. Now maybe you have a little too much choice and that gets into the whole paradox of choice. And you said, you don't want to settle, all of that kind of stuff. Sure.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  Also, just, you know, like you were saying with the, the whole life expectancy thing. Really interesting thing I heard recently. So for the vast majority, like hundreds of thousands of years from the dawn of humanity, up until really the last, the first few hundred thousand years, like life expectancy was around 30 years old. Okay. By 1840, do you know what life expectancy wasn't 1840 even?

• 1:03:37Mark Manson?

  Forty, forty five?

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Thirty five.

• 1:03:38Mark Manson?

  Thirty five.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Thirty five.

• 1:03:40Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  We got, we got five years.

• 1:03:42Mark Manson?

  Holy shit.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Then the industrial revolution hits, science kind of takes over. Now it's longer on. Most of that also is due to

• 1:03:49Mark Manson?

  Infant mortality.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Infant mortality and childhood mortality, people under five, right? But that does like, that changes the whole dating scene too, right? This is a whole new thing. We're just figuring out over the last 150, 200 years. Again, we're just trying to figure it out.

• 1:04:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Um, as we go, and this is a whole new system. It's weird. We don't know what to do with it. And that is where a lot of the conflict and friction comes from too. Yeah, for sure. That does, it does get us up though into the state of modern dating. Is there anyone to get into now, Mark?

• 1:04:19Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  I'm sure a lot of people listening to this have heard all of these. If you're listening to this, you're probably, yes, I know a lot of like dating sucks, this and that. But let me just hit you with a few things that even, I, I've looked at some of this stuff before and it still shocks me every single time. Forty-two percent of US adults today are unpartnered. That is an all-time high, which that is insane. There's, they're, they're calling it like a romantic recession, right? And it's not, it's singlehood, it's sexlessness, there's emotional burnout too is a big component of that, which we'll get to here in a second. But there's just crazy stats around this now, but the, the, the thing is, is that I think a lot of people think it is, oh, like we've already mentioned, it's men who are like this, or women who are like this, or whatever it is.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  But it's actually, there's larger kind of structural, there's economic, there's technological forces, a lot of these we've already touched on. Right? But there really is, there seems to be this whole kind of cohort shift. It's not just kind of like a, a temporary cultural phase we're going through because, interestingly, men under forty right now are significantly more likely to be unpartnered than women. But then, once you hit forty, that flips. So women over forty are more likely to be unpartnered, where men are more likely to have a partner.

• 1:05:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  And twenty-five percent, this is an all-time high too. Twenty-five percent of Americans hit age forty today and, and have never been married. I'm, I'm part of that group right now. That's an all-time high, that's up five percent in just the last, like, less than ten years, actually. So this is, this has changed quite a bit. A lot of these are leveling off and, and kind of finding those maximums that they've found anyway so far. But, um, another scary thing too, I don't know how scary it is, but sexual activity like across the board.

• 1:06:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  I thought it was just young people, but it's actually across the board.

• 1:06:08Mark Manson?

  Everybody.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Like, everybody's having less sex right now. In nineteen ninety, uh, weekly sexual activity among adults was around fifty-five percent, fifty-five percent said, yeah, I've had sex in the last week. That's dropped to thirty-seven percent as of twenty twenty-four, which is insane. It's really, it's, it's, it's pretty bad for, uh, young men too, especially. About thirty-one percent, this was in the, I think in twenty twenty-four, about thirty-one percent of men age eighteen to twenty-four report zero sexual activity in the past year. Uh, that's doubled since the early two thousands. So about fifteen, sixteen percent of, of men had no sexual activity within the last year in the early two thousands. Now it's like they're over thirty percent.

• 1:06:43Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Um, women, uh, young women have seen a slight increase too, about four or five percent increase, but not nearly the same as, as, as, uh, young men. Now, of course, we've talked about some of this, the reasons for this before too, and just kind of recap some of these, but if you go back to the friendship episode, we talked about some of this and it carries over into relationships as well. Erosion of third places, right? Everything's kind of going online. We don't have these physical spaces to hang out.

• 1:07:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Dating apps, everybody knows dating apps suck. Sure.

• 1:07:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  They're designed to keep you trapped.

• 1:07:13Mark Manson?

  We're gonna get, we're gonna get to that.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  We'll get into those. Um, there's more just like, um, just, uh, rejection in the culture has changed as well. So now there's like, now there's ghosting, there's breadcrumbing too, which this is a new one for me, like breadcrumbing, uh, it's kind of like you're, you check in with people just kind of intermittently, not very consistent, just kind of keep them in your sphere type of thing.

• 1:07:35Mark Manson?

  Keep them on the line.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Keep them online.

• 1:07:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Orbiting is the same, like common to similar is like when you do break something off, you're still, maybe you're still following them on social media.

• 1:07:45Mark Manson?

  You're still around, you still hang out with them.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, work, whatever it is. There's also like these economic barriers, right? Uh, the average date now, uh, the surveys have shown, the average date is a hundred and sixty-eight bucks.

• 1:07:57Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Which is insane.

• 1:07:59Mark Manson?

  Dude, I used to take girls.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Mark Manson?

  To get ice cream.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Twenty bucks. Yeah.

• 1:08:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:05Mark Manson?

  Maybe we're just cheapskates.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  There could have been too. Yeah, yeah. Uh, Gen Z is, is spending even more money than that, even though they have the least amount of money, they're close to like two hundred bucks.

• 1:08:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Um, and so that causes just a lot of economic strain on people when there's, you know, that, that average annual dating is, if you're dating, you're spending like over two thousand dollars just on dating. There's some people who even just forego dating altogether, um, imagining that they're gonna, uh, save about four thousand bucks a year. They're just like, ah, screw this, I'm just gonna take the money instead. And then of course, there's the ideological chasm too. We've mentioned this before. Politics has become like this kind of sorting mechanism, but it's like on steroids. This was crazy. I found this, okay? Forty-seven percent of Republicans say they would reject a Clinton or Biden voter, just based solely on that. They wouldn't even consider a date with them.

• 1:08:51Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  That's pretty crazy. Seventy-one percent of, uh, Democrats though, said they would reject a Trump supporter.

• 1:08:58Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  So it's even more on that side. So it's. There's all these things going on.

• 1:09:03Mark Manson?

  It's the new racism.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, yeah. This has led to things like the, like in South Korea, there's the, the four B movement. Have you heard of this one? It's basically women just foregoing dating and relationships altogether. They call the four B movement because in Korean, it's the B sound for each one of these. But translated, it's no marriage, no childbirth, no dating and no sex. Just like none of that. In the West, it's kind of been adapted as boys over. So there's a lot of, of women who are just like, I'm just not doing this.

• 1:09:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  A lot of men too, who are just like.

• 1:09:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah, there's a, there's a movement called men go their own way.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Men go their own way.

• 1:09:37Mark Manson?

  Which is men who have decided that there's like zero upside to having, having a romantic partner. And so they've just decided to be single perpetually.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Now, okay, so, all right, we're all aware of the problem. Fine. There are some glimmers of hope though.

• 1:09:51Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  A few things that I think.

• 1:09:52Mark Manson?

  Save us, Drew.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  Well, they're at least, they're pointing in the right direction. I think we're actually coming around to figuring this out. We've figured out that dating apps suck.

• 1:10:00Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  That being perpetually online is not helping anyone.

• 1:10:04Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  That there may be the battle of the sexes isn't so much of a battle as we think, right? I think we're figuring that out. Some of those pieces of evidence that make me think of that, there is a return to third spaces at this point. Activity based dating is becoming more and more of a thing in recent last year or two, right? Run clubs as like dating markets basically have popped up. Huge explosive growth in 24, 2024 and 2025. And they just come right out and say, this is run club for single people. Show up if you're interested in meeting people. And that's kind of what it is. And they go off and they run and it's showing some success. Some companies are doing these new singles events too. They're more curated, they're age gated, maybe based on interest.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  So these, the companies are coming along that are like, okay, we're actually trying to figure this out now. Not just, let's make an app that's super addictive and people never find.

• 1:10:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  You know, love on them. A couple of other things, the pear ring, have you ever heard of the pear ring?

• 1:11:01Mark Manson?

  No.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  I just heard about this. It's a, it's a turquoise silicon ring that you can wear that signals that you are single. So instead of like a wedding band, it's the opposite. It's like, no, I'm, I'm single and ready to mingle, right? I don't think that one's gonna work. They sold a lot when it first came out and then it kind of tapered off because I think people are like, unless everybody's doing this, then yeah.

• 1:11:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  They're trying though. Okay, they're trying. That's a good, I'm, I'm for it.

• 1:11:24Mark Manson?

  Can't you just ask somebody if they're single?

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, okay. Okay, that might be a little bit of a problem though too.

• 1:11:29Mark Manson?

  Am I getting old?

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Well, okay, so there is.

• 1:11:31Mark Manson?

  Is it that hard?

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Well, okay, there, there is.

• 1:11:35Mark Manson?

  Kids these days.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  Oh, kids these days, there is a, there's a reticence to approach people in public.

• 1:11:41Mark Manson?

  Guys, just ask her if she's single.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Just ask, just ask, and then if she is, just move on.

• 1:11:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and if she's, and if she's not, just say, it's great meeting you.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and just move on. But there is, there's like, a lot of Gen Z find it rude if you walk up to somebody and try to start a conversation with them.

• 1:11:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah, fuck them.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  So like, get over that for sure.

• 1:11:59Mark Manson?

  Gen Z, get your shit together.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Another one.

• 1:12:03Mark Manson?

  This is why you're single, Gen Z. This is why you're single. You have to let people talk to you.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Okay, and then another, one other promising avenue that I've seen to, there's this, have you heard of the Thursday app?

• 1:12:18Mark Manson?

  No.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  I just heard of this one, too. It's a, it's a new dating app. It's called Thursday because it's, they only let you message and match on Thursdays.

• 1:12:25Mark Manson?

  Huh.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  And then it's shut off. Like, you're supposed to set up, you're supposed to match message people just on Thursday, then it shuts off. You're supposed to set up your dates for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, whenever. And then it shuts off. You don't have access to messaging. You can't sit there and be in this perpetual message fest with the other person. And yeah, so they're trying, people, we're trying things out, okay, that, it's giving me some glimmer of hope, like I said, that we might actually figure this out.

• 1:12:50Mark Manson?

  The Thursday app is.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  It's interesting.

• 1:12:52Mark Manson?

  That's what's gonna save us.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  I thought that was interesting. If you think about it, like, since Tinder came out, there's a, like, every app has tried some variation of it. Bumble tried, okay, only the women, for hetero people, only the women can initiate the messaging, and so we're getting there, maybe. There's glimmers of hope. There's glimmers of hope, okay?

• 1:13:11Mark Manson?

  I'm not convinced, Drew. I'm not convinced.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  I'm not either, but I'm just saying, at least we're trying some different things, some.

• 1:13:16Mark Manson?

  I like your optimism.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  We're, we're getting in the right direction.

• 1:13:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  I, it's just, yes, dating's a mess. It's because this is very, very weird. Okay, think about all of the things that we've talked to up to this point.

• 1:13:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah, like I would say, I would say the defining characteristics of, say, the 21st century dating and why it's so hard. I'd say number one, paradoxical choice is

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:38Mark Manson?

  by far the biggest thing. And it's not just more access to all the single people.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:42Mark Manson?

  But it is also the pool of single people is much larger. People are waiting longer to get married. They're waiting longer to commit to relationships or move in together. So it's, it used to be, you know, back in the day, it was, single people were aged 18 to 25. Now, single people are aged 18 to 45.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:14:00Mark Manson?

  Right? So you, the, the pool of single people just doubled and you have access to exponentially more of them at any given time.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  And we 40 year olds are getting hot, too.

• 1:14:11Mark Manson?

  We could talk about that in a little bit. I, I will say too, the other thing that I think is disruptive is the, uh, it's just how well women are doing. Like it's, yeah, pretty much if you look at all of the data for people under the age of 40, women are ahead by almost every metric in almost every developed country. When they're graduating high school, they're graduating college more, they're going to grad school more, they're making more money in their initial jobs more, they are advancing in their careers faster, like they're, they're more financially secure sooner. Women are doing up into like their mid 30s, women are doing better than men by and large. And what we talked about earlier, like when women are doing better, when women are, or have more resources, they get

• 1:14:56Mark Manson?

  choosier.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Right. Their bar raises.

• 1:14:58Mark Manson?

  Their bar raises. So their, their, their perception of what's an acceptable partner narrows and that it can throw the entire dating market out of whack. So you end up in a situation where women are like, wow, I have access to literally thousands of men and none of them seem acceptable to me. And meanwhile, if you're a man, you're like, wow, thousands of dudes are all messaging the same chick. This sucks.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Right. Like it's demoralizing.

• 1:15:26Mark Manson?

  Like, why, why do I even bother?

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Part of me is like, dude, it's time for you to step up. But then part of me, like, I sympathize too. Like, that's a difficult position to be in.

• 1:15:35Mark Manson?

  Let's get on my, my dating app soapbox here. I think dating apps sort in the most superficial way.

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:41Mark Manson?

  Right? So if you are, and, and it's just human nature, right? Like if you're on a dating app, you're, you're reading the, Bullet point summary of an entire human's life. And so you were, you were getting a rude caricature of who they actually are. And the signals that you're receiving, the sexual selection signals that you're receiving are extremely simplified. And boiled down to just like the most plainly obvious signals. So that's not very efficient for finding a partner. Like all of the, the research on dating and attraction. It finds that it's even if you do have an algorithm that has a lot of accurate information about people. It still struggles to find, match people who are going to actually be attracted to each other.

• 1:16:26Mark Manson?

  And then if you have an algorithm that just like is based on very superficial measures. It's going to do a terrible job. We're not very consciously aware of the things that we're attracted to. So if you think about all of the times, I don't know about when you were younger, but like when I was younger, like there were many women that the first time I met them, like they weren't really my type. They were totally women that like I would not have swiped right on. Okay. Absolutely not. Okay. But you see him a couple of times, you talk to him, you're like, oh, she's actually kind of cute. And you know, and then you hit it off and like, you realize there's some chemistry there. And then you're like, wow, she's actually kind of hot and like, and next thing you know, you ask her on a date and you go on the date and it goes amazing. And you're like, wow, I'm really into this chick. Like my, my girlfriend in college was, was a girl like that. Like when I met, I never would have swiped right on her.

• 1:17:10Mark Manson?

  And we spent like three years together, had a great relationship, great time. So like stuff like that happens all the time. There's so many stories of people like that, stuff like that happening. So like, most of what you're attracted to is only revealed over time. And, and like you, I think the best filtration system for finding those people is actually going out in the real world and living your life, like doing the things you enjoy and you care about. Cause just by, by the pure act of doing the things that you enjoy and care about. You are going to naturally filter for people with similar personalities, similar values, similar worldviews, similar goals, desires, ambitions.

• 1:17:51Mark Manson?

  And then you're gonna get face to face with them and it's like, yeah, okay, sure. Maybe she, you're like a couple inches shorter than she would, would have wanted on Tinder. And yeah, maybe you make a little bit of less money than her, but like you got great chemistry. She really respects, you know, how smart you are or your hobbies or like you're really, you're into some like interesting nerdy things that she's also into. And suddenly she's like, wow, I really like this guy. Okay, sure. On paper, he's not what I was looking for, but like, it's great. I really like him. I feel great around him. Like that's, that's what's gotta happen essentially.

• 1:18:30Mark Manson?

  As long as you're on the app, you're, you're just looking at like a very, very superficial version of every person and you're filtering them based on things that are like not accurately going to predict how happy or how attracted you are going to be them, to them in the long run. So the, the TLDR is just that the apps are terrible filtration mechanisms and, and there are a lot of reasons for that. And so if you are a guy who's feeling frustrated, I would say like, A, develop yourself, develop some skills, some knowledge, really work on your lifestyle. And then two, like meet women in the real world and meet, meet them doing the things that you already like doing and doing things that you're good at doing. And like, that's probably going to overrule a lot of this stuff.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not, not all women have to like you either. That's another one. I think a lot of guys.

• 1:19:17Mark Manson?

  Mind blowing. I know. Mind blowing.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Like I talked about, women have a very wide range of what they, they find attractive and maybe find your niche. You know what I mean? Like I, I'm not going to attract women who like, like big meathead gym rat, you know, kinda alpha. I'm not gonna do that. And I'm okay with that. Like I had to become okay with that.

• 1:19:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  So don't, don't try to be something you're not.

• 1:19:43Mark Manson?

  What's next, Drew? Tell me what's next.

• 1:19:45Speaker 01

  Well, I wanted to dig in a little bit into. The different dating advice ecosystems for men and women.

• 1:19:54Mark Manson?

  Hmm, they are quite different.

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  They are, and I don't think a lot of people realize this. I think this this section is actually going to be fairly eye opening for people. It was for me, definitely. I know you've dug into this more kind of in the past when you were doing more dating advice. You looked at a lot of more women's advice than I ever have.

• 1:20:10Mark Manson?

  I researched, I researched the enemy.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  Right, right. Went behind enemy lines.

• 1:20:15Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  I think this is something that people don't really think about a lot. It's like just the divergence there is. Or if they do, it's a very strange, weird world.

• 1:20:25Mark Manson?

  Or I think they, I think a lot of people think that it's arbitrary, right? Because, you know, like, I think they look at, men look at women's dating advice and they're like, that's so fucking weird. Like, why are women, why did women decide to agree upon this?

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:39Mark Manson?

  Or women look at men's dating advice and they're like, wow, that's so creepy and scummy. Like, why did men decide to be this way? And it's, but as we've covered in the evolution section, there are reasons.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Right, right. It wasn't a conspiracy, like, all the men didn't get together and all the women didn't get together. And they're like, okay, here we go.

• 1:20:55Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  We're digging in.

• 1:20:56Mark Manson?

  Wahahaha.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Here's the battle line.

• 1:20:57Mark Manson?

  We shall pull their pigtails.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's, that's how people, like, it comes off, right? That's how it comes off.

• 1:21:03Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  And so I think it is very, I think it's just, like I said, it'll be eye opening for a lot of people. It's important to know kind of like, why, why, why men are getting a certain set of advice.

• 1:21:15Mark Manson?

  Whether good or bad.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  Good or bad, and same thing for women.

• 1:21:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  As we've kind of already set up, you know, the dilemma really is like, like we've said, like, what do women want, right? That's like the male complaint. What do women want? They're impossible to read. On the other hand, women often complain, well, men get to be pushy or they're avoidant or like, I get this negative attention that I don't really like. Like, why is that? Okay, that's kind of a big setup and we've went through all the reasons why that happens. They're not just getting different advice, it's that they're occupying these separate psychological realities. Like, we've already pointed out, okay? So the male ecosystem really is, the scaffolding is really around initiation burden that men have. Because like we said, the problem is access for men, right? Like, the, the, the problem for men is that, oh, we're going to be seen as invisible, right? We don't want to be invisible to women. And so we have to find a way to like, stand out, to initiate.

• 1:22:04Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  To, to get things started, right?

• 1:22:07Mark Manson?

  To remind the audience, women are choosier.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:11Mark Manson?

  And for every. Fertile woman, there is three to five fertile men.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:16Mark Manson?

  So, right there, it's intense competition pressure on men. And so they have to assert themselves.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. See, on the other side, the female ecosystem is really more about discernment, right? Which is filtering good suitors from, from poor ones. Is he gonna stick around? Is he a good person? Is he trustworthy? That's the female problem, and that's what the ecosystem tries to address.

• 1:22:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  Right, okay. So there, right there, you just have these two completely different problems that men and women are trying to solve. And so the ecosystems reflect that, right? There's also, kind of like, if you think about this, a lot of the behavior in this domain is kind of motivated by some fear.

• 1:22:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Right? There's, there's, there's fear on both sides. So for men, the fear is being rejected. It's being invisible, like I said, being humiliated. A big one in the modern world too is being labeled creepy.

• 1:23:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Like, that's a huge fear that men have.

• 1:23:12Mark Manson?

  Being canceled.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Being canceled. So that's, like, if women are like, oh, why doesn't he talk to me? It's like, usually it's because we don't wanna, like, come off as creepy.

• 1:23:18Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  Right? We don't wanna come off as, like, a bad dude that you just wanna stay away from, and you develop that reputation, and...

• 1:23:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and in this day and age, it's like, there are very real social repercussions to that. You could lose your job, you could lose friends, you could lose, get kicked out of school, like, all sorts of things.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Right, right. The female fear profile, if you will, is more, it's obviously around, like, physical harm is actually a real fear that women have to have. And I think, like, men need to be more cognizant of that sometimes. Like, female, that is a real, a real danger for some women, okay? Not, that's not to say that, like, all men are dangerous or anything like that.

• 1:23:55Mark Manson?

  Right, but it's, even if 1% are dangerous.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:23:58Mark Manson?

  If a woman's getting approached by 100 guys a year, like, she needs to figure out who the one dangerous guy is.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Huge asymmetrical risk there.

• 1:24:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  But there's also a fear of like being emotionally manipulated.

• 1:24:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  So again, like they're trying to figure out if this guy is going to stay or stick around. Is he just bullshitting me so he can get laid, right?

• 1:24:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  And then just wasted time, like we've talked about, you know, giving up fertile years of your life to somebody who's not like a good, a good partner. Right? So there's an asymmetry there. If you, if you look at that too, like, yeah, man, it's, you're afraid of being humiliated. Sure. That's more short term, more of that short term, whereas the female ones, they had, there's a greater danger for them. So again, that plays out and like we talked about in the evolutionary side where women will be choosier. And the men will seek to gain more access more quickly. Okay.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  This really does though, it results in, well, in psychology, what they call it is error management theory.

• 1:24:56Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  And I think we've maybe kind of mentioned this already, but men are biased towards like assuming that women are more attracted to them than they actually are.

• 1:25:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  And it's the opposite for women. Women are biased towards like not like thinking, oh, he's not interested. He's just being nice.

• 1:25:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  Right. And you see this every, you see this like all over the place. Like you go to a restaurant or bar and you'll see like there's a bartender, a female bartender. She's just being nice to the guy. And the guy's like, oh, she's into me.

• 1:25:21Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Like this happens all the time. Right? And I totally, I've done this many, many times.

• 1:25:27Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Well, it's, it's funny because we were just, Jess just told us a story yesterday about her wife in the gym. And a guy approached her and was complimenting her and, and how her wife had like, was like, well, he's just being really friendly. And it's like, no.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  He's hitting on you.

• 1:25:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Like no guy just randomly walks up to a pretty girl in a gym and just.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  Starts being nice.

• 1:25:51Mark Manson?

  Exactly.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  That's not to say that every situation is like that.

• 1:25:53Mark Manson?

  Yeah, but it, but it's, it's like, that's the default. And it is funny too, because you know, when I think about me hanging around, like if you think about a group of guys hanging around together, especially when you're young and you're single. It's like when I remember me and my friends going out to bars, the amount of delusion that we had, like how every guy thought every single girl was so into him and, and, and, and it was genuine. It was like, no, dude, like, did you see the way she smiled? It's like, bro, you're drunk. Like, what are you talking about?

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  This is where, yeah, men get to like, reading every little signal, like, oh, she's totally into me. She looked at me. She smiled at me. She, whatever it was. Yeah.

• 1:26:30Mark Manson?

  But, but it makes sense, right? Cause it's kind of mother nature's nudge on men to, you know, you'd rather, you'd rather err on the side of, of being overconfident.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:40Mark Manson?

  Because that helps solve the, the male's problem. And then with women, you'd rather err on the side being underconfident and unsure, because that also protects you from investing too early or, or moving forward with a guy who's bad for you.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, but really though, at the end of the day, like both sides, they're not acting maliciously. Okay. This is the whole point of this whole segment is to show you, it's like, no, there's like, these are the incentives for both men and women. This is why this shakes out this way. They're not acting maliciously. It's really more defensively or like they're optimizing their own, uh, or they're around their constraints that they have. Okay. So just as we go forward, just keep that in mind as well. Okay.

• 1:27:20Mark Manson?

  I, I'd like to make a point here too, because you know, when I think back, one of the things I noticed back when I was a dating coach is that generally a lot of the animosity that men and women have towards each other, I think it's specifically because the thing that they struggle with, the other sex does not. So what do I mean by that? Right? So when I used to work with young men, they used to get really frustrated and even angry. They're like, it's so unfair. Like a girl, all she has to do is just dress up nicely and look good and she'll get approached by 10 guys at night or, or all she has to do is put like, find one good photo and she's going to get a hundred messages. It's so unfair that I have to do all this work and she doesn't have to do any

• 1:28:04Mark Manson?

  work. And yes, that's not fair. That's, that is the male's problem, right? But what they don't see is that the woman of those hundred messages that she's getting 99 are from guys that she doesn't want to talk to.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:17Mark Manson?

  Like, yes, she gets approached more often, but she doesn't get to choose who approaches her.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:22Mark Manson?

  Every single guy that approaches her, it's like, now it's the stress on her system of like, okay. Is he nice? Do I like him? Is he being honest? Uh, like, is, is this okay? Am I being too slutty? Am I being too cold? Like, i- it's just all of this constant like self-evaluation that happens in her mind, which men don't really ever have to deal with.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. And the double standard too, like, oh yeah, a woman could go out to a bar or whatever and get laid whenever she wants. Well, then she's going to be labeled a slut.

• 1:28:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  Right? Like, it's.

• 1:28:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah. And I've talked to, I've talked to plenty of single women too, that it's funny because they're like, it's so unfair. Guys can just meet whoever they want.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  There you go. There's the other side of it.

• 1:29:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. So a- again, nobody's acting maliciously. It's just they're working within their constraints.

• 1:29:09Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  And, and this is how it shakes out. So I think just like an acceptance of reality here is probably, that's your baseline.

• 1:29:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:29:16Mark Manson?

  These are the cards we've all been dealt.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  That's right. So let's dig in just a little bit more into the specifics of like men and women and their, their dating advice industries, uh, respective industries.

• 1:29:27Mark Manson?

  This will be fun.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  This should be fun. Right? Okay. Um, okay. So while you're the expert here, I'll, I'll walk us through the male advice, uh, kind of industry first.

• 1:29:37Mark Manson?

  Here, here we go. Back down memory lane.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Right? So, um, again, it's really centered around kind of like access, right? Like, uh, the, the core curriculum of, of the, the advice industry for men is about, initially anyway, it's about approaching and initiating. And despite the anxious feelings you might feel around that.

• 1:29:57Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  There's a lot of, of men's content around like, oh, how do you just even walk up to her or message her or whatever it is?

• 1:30:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  So much of like, I don't know, probably half of the advice.

• 1:30:07Mark Manson?

  I was just gonna say, I would say probably 80% of men's dating advice is like the first five minutes. And then 20% is everything else.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  That's okay. That's wow. All right. Um, another like big area is like the competence and status signaling, um, as, as kind of the proxy for your mate value. Like to show her that you're, you know, a worthy suitor.

• 1:30:27Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Yes. Right. You're the knight in shining armor. Uh, and then things around like escalation, um, being decisive, um, showing leadership. Those sorts of things are like, those are key core components of the male dating advice ecosystem.

• 1:30:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah. There's like a, there's a momentum to initiative that. Needs to continue, right? So it's you're not just approaching her, meeting her. You're the one asking her out. You're probably the one who's deciding where to go. Once you're going, you're probably deciding how the night's going. If things are going well, you're probably the first one to initiate like touching her or hugging her. You're definitely almost every situation, you're going to be the one who initiates kissing her. Right? So it's, it's as a man, you are just always expected to take the next step. And with every single one of those next steps, there's a risk of rejection.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:18Mark Manson?

  And there's a risk of being creepy and there's a risk of making a fool of yourself and humiliating yourself. So it is, it is very daunting. The thing that I'll say too, is like, and maybe I'm getting ahead, maybe you're about to get to this, but like, I would really, I think both men's and women's dating advice, like you could kind of branch them off into, I would just call them healthy and unhealthy.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:43Mark Manson?

  So well, let's define healthy as kind of authentic, honest, high integrity dating. You know, like actually, you're actually optimizing for happiness and finding a good partner. Whereas I would describe unhealthy dating advice as more tactical, manipulative. And you're, you're optimizing for some certain outcome or result. Without really caring who that, that person is that gives you the result. So on the men's side, the, the toxic unhealthy dating advice is, is like a lot of the pick up artist stuff, which is extremely tactical, manipulative, and it's, it's really just like, this is going to get you laid.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:32:21Mark Manson?

  It doesn't, there's no discussion of like, who you're getting laid with, whether you actually like them or not, whether you're actually attracted to them or not, whether it's a pleasant experience or not. And from working with around that industry and with a lot of guys in that industry, I can tell you that there are tons of guys who went down that road. Sure, they got laid a few times, but they're like, honestly, that kinda sucks.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:32:47Mark Manson?

  Like, that wasn't satisfying. I didn't like her. I feel like slimy and gross and it was a lot of work.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Mark Manson?

  So like, why, what, why am I doing this in the first place?

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  And that's definitely like one of the landmines we go over is like over emphasis on the tactics, which ends up being inauthentic. You don't get that real connection, definitely.

• 1:33:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, another thing though, too, another part of the male advice kind of industry is this whole idea of self-improvement as a prerequisite to dating. So kind of the logic is become desirable first, then go out and date.

• 1:33:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  And I think there's, there's some merit to that. I think there's, some of that advice is definitely good. But it kinda gets to like, okay, relationships are your reward at the end of this

• 1:33:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  journey that you're going on. And it can motivate you for self-improvement. Absolutely. I think that's a very valid motivation for men. We would be uncivilized swine if we, if it weren't, I mean, if it weren't for, you know, some chance to get with women and have relationships with them. But it can also, the other side of that, there's like this demoralizing aspect to it. Because if you don't live up to all those things, especially now, what I've seen online anyway is like, oh, you have to be super ripped. You have to have a super awesome job. You have all of this stuff. That can be very, very demoralizing for men. If you can't achieve all of those things, check every single box.

• 1:34:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I, I would say the, the self-improvement before dating is like, it really depends on kinda where you are in terms of like where your life is. So that, it's a curve that the shape is not a straight line, right? So I think it's extremely valuable. If you're a guy who basically has nothing going for you, then it's probably the most important piece of advice, right? So let's say you have no job, you live, you still live with your parents, you're just a slob, have no interesting hobbies, no friends, whatever. Yeah, you probably shouldn't be dating. You should, you should get your life together.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:48Mark Manson?

  You should just get the basics and fundamentals handled. Once you're kinda independent and self-sufficient, you know, you've got a job, got your own place, you've got some friends, you've got a couple of hobbies or whatever. I think it's, the self-improvement should continue in the background, but it's like, I don't think it's, it's no longer the most important or urgent thing. And, and then the trap that I see that a lot of people fall into is that, is what you just described is that they get this false sense of like, oh, I have to be amazing to even have a chance, which is just, that's, A, it's completely unrealistic and B, it's probably a message that's been force-fed to you by somebody marketing shit to you.

• 1:35:28Mark Manson?

  So it, and I've seen this in guys too. Like I've seen, like, I, I knew a guy who, like, really successful guy, good-looking guy. And he, he told me he worked in finance and he was like, you know, I don't really want to date too much right now. Because, um, and I definitely don't want to settle down, you know, because I think in my 40s, I'm going to be really rich. And so I'm just gonna like, wait until then. And I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, because you know, then my girl problems are just going to be solved. And I was like, no, they're not, my friend. Because you're going to be 45 and yeah, you're going to have a lot of money and sure, you can probably find ways to use that money to get some attention.

• 1:36:11Mark Manson?

  But you're gonna have zero skills. You're not going to know how to talk to them. You're not going to know how to relate to them. You're not going to know how to, how to have any sort of emotional intimacy with them. You're not going to know how to deal with conflict. Like, you're going to be a mess. You're going to be a rich man child and it's not going to end well for you.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And not only that, you're optimizing, the way you're optimizing your life in that situation is you're going to attract women who just want you for the money.

• 1:36:34Mark Manson?

  Gold diggers.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:35Mark Manson?

  Yes, that's who you're going to attract.

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  You should work on these other skills. If that's what you're going to do.

• 1:36:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and totally agree. And by the way, you should find her before you get rich because then you know that she'll, that she loves you for you. Like, anyway. Get off my soapbox now.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. So, okay, so to wrap up the, the men's ecosystem section here, some of the common landmines, one of them you already, already mentioned was focusing way too much like on the tactics and the manipulation side, rather than like actually developing some emotional intelligence.

• 1:37:06Mark Manson?

  Some skills.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  It becomes performative at that point, right? Or performative masculinity too, I think is a big thing. Like, you know, men who aren't necessarily super assertive or super aggressive or anything like that, like trying to be aggressive and alpha and all of these things. And God, that just like you can smell that.

• 1:37:24Mark Manson?

  It's gross.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  It's, yeah.

• 1:37:26Mark Manson?

  Overcompensation is always unattractive.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:29Mark Manson?

  No matter what form it takes.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Um, the other one too, kind of alluded to this, but treating women as algorithms. I remember this, like this, you see this a lot too. It's like, okay, you gotta like, you know, touch her arm here, say this word, look her this at the, in the eyes for this amount of time, or, you know, wait three days, the caller, all of those things where it's like, here's the formulas for it. Gets way, way too bad. And this is because a lot of smart nerdy guys have trouble with women. I think there's just like, oh, there's all this advice out here. You can overanalyze this and get way too tactical.

• 1:37:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I think, I think you're, you're definitely on to something there. Like generally, men who struggle the most with dating tend to be men who over intellectualize a lot of stuff and think too hard about stuff. And I think those types of men are very attracted to algorithms, formulas, frameworks, you know, step by step. We were laughing when we were prepping for this episode, we were laughing because, um, I hadn't thought about it in like 12 years, but there used to be a thing called mystery method. It was like, it was like the, the main pickup artist framework for like, for like eight years. It was like the main thing that was taught in men's dating advice.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  Had a show on MTV.

• 1:38:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it was. And I was just remembering because it was like, I was trying to really hard to remember like what, what it was.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:42Mark Manson?

  And I was remembering parts of it. I, I just like, I was cra- we were cracking up, dude. Like it was so ridiculous. It was, it was a nine step framework. And I remember too, that there were even like recommended minute lengths for each step. Like, it's like, it's like, oh, when you, when you build rapport, you shouldn't do it for more than three to four minutes. Cause then you, she'll start seeing you as a friend. And then once you're making her comfortable, the optimal length is five minutes because, you know, and I'm just like, oh my God, man. Are you serious?

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:14Mark Manson?

  Like, can you imagine like being in a party with like a stopwatch and being like, oh, wait, wait, wait, stop, hold, hold that thought.

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  Whistle out.

• 1:39:22Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Hold that thought. I'm supposed to make a joke now.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:39:28Mark Manson?

  So attractive, so attractive.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  And yes, a trap that a lot, a lot of men fall into. And it's easy to fall into because there is so much information out there.

• 1:39:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  That it's just like, you know, here's all this information and it's easy to get bogged down in this. Like you've always said, a smart person's favorite way to procrastinate is learning more.

• 1:39:47Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  And that's, that's what happens.

• 1:39:48Mark Manson?

  Yes, that happens quite a bit. The other thing I will say about men who struggle in this area of their life. And I think this is, this is something that is a bit more unique to men than women. I just found, when I think back to a lot of my clients. I just found a shocking lack of exposure to women. Like, I think a lot of guys just, they've never had a female friend. They've, they've never had a sister or a female cousin or like, they just didn't grow up around women. They didn't spend time around women. They never hung out with women just socially. And so they developed these like very bizarre ideas of like,

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  like you can't be friends with women even or something weird like that.

• 1:40:30Mark Manson?

  Well, yeah, like, or that they're like, they function, that they're not human. Like they, they function completely, completely different ways and they want completely, and it's like, no, no, dude. They're like, they're like 99% the same.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:40:44Mark Manson?

  It's just this one area that they're a little bit different. Like it's, they're still people and, and if you just talk to them, it's like, I mean, it's crazy.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  You have to say that out loud?

• 1:40:53Mark Manson?

  It's crazy to say this, but like, I literally remember talking to guys and I'm like, you realize she's just a person, right? Like you could just talk to her like a person and probably get further.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Somewhat related to that too, the last landmine I'll go over for the men's industry is under emphasizing compatibility. You already said this, like,

• 1:41:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Do you, are you actually, like, the whole goal is just get with a hot girl. It doesn't matter anything else about her, right?

• 1:41:23Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  And there's, there's just a lot of that. Like compatibility long-term is going to be one of the most, the best predictors of like happiness in your relationships and everything like that. And if you're just optimizing for all these superficial things early on, men tend to do this.

• 1:41:37Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Uh, especially when they get really into the dating advice.

• 1:41:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and I, I, I think most men have an experience at some point in their life where they. Do something very, very stupid because of how hot a girl is.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:41:50Mark Manson?

  And put up with a lot of stuff they shouldn't put up with.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:56Mark Manson?

  Because of how hot a girl is. I just, speaking from experience, but it just also like, yeah, it's, it's funny too, because it's not just that men over index on it. Like, I honestly do think that men, I mean, there's the old joke, you know, you're thinking with the wrong head, right? You know, you stop thinking with your dick.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:12Mark Manson?

  Men say that to each other all the time. Like, stop thinking with your dick, dude. Like, it's just, there's something about, like, beauty and feminine sexiness that, like,

• 1:42:24Mark Manson?

  men's brains kind of stop, like, I bet if you could measure a man's IQ, you know, when, like, what a gorgeous woman's put in front of him, like, it probably drops, like, 20 points on average, because it's just.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  I didn't look that up. I should, we should.

• 1:42:39Mark Manson?

  We should look that up. Like, there's probably research around that.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  That would be fascinating. Yeah. 100%. That's, that's, like, optimizing for compatibility early on and looking for those is going to take you a lot further. And then it's just going to be a lot easier. It's going to be a lot less stressful.

• 1:42:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  And, yeah, keep you out of a lot of stupid situations. Okay. Okay. So, um, let's get into the female, uh, advice industry a little bit more here. Okay. Um, so the core curriculum for, for women really revolves around more things like boundaries, the red flags. That's like a, you know, a big thing. Uh, self-protection in all sorts of different ways, not just like physical safety, but just like emotional safety, all of that. Screening for consistency, alignment, intention. Get into some of these. Attachment awareness, uh, and kind of being in a strategic non-initiation. Let me go through some of these. Okay. So, uh, like the boundaries and the red flags, you know, you hear this a lot. Don't ignore the red flags. Don't overextend yourself. Value your time. You

• 1:43:39Speaker 01

  know, make sure he's worth it before you even go on the date. Um, and this is a defense mechanism for women. It's the.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  It makes a whole lot of sense to me because women either find out or are taught very early on that their penchant for empathy can be weaponized against them very easily. And I think that's like men need to understand that. Women are supposed to be, you're supposed to be nice, you're supposed to smile, you're supposed to be empathetic, you're supposed to be attuned to the people around you. And when you're not, you're seen as cold and brash and a bitch, you know, or whatever. So there's a certain area of the advice industry that's like very protective around that for women, and that's what they get sold over and over and over again, right? Screening for consistency, alignment and intention. So this is solves the problem for them of like, is this guy going to stick around? Is he worth my time? Like, is he not, is he bullshitting me?

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  Is he being deceptive? Is he being manipulative? So they look for consistency, they look for clear communication, is he being vague or is he communicating with you directly? What's his relationship history like too? You know, this is, this is a big one. And alignment too, is he, is he doing the things that he says he's going to do, right? Attachment awareness and therapeutic language. I want to dig in with this a little bit with you because this is a lot more common on the female side, on the female industry.

• 1:45:04Mark Manson?

  These days it's very.

• 1:45:05Speaker 01

  Very, very common. So every, every woman, it seems these days who's of a certain age knows all about attachment theory, what her attachment style is, they're taught to avoid avoidant men, which I take issue with, not just because I'm an avoidant, but because I think it's just bad advice in general.

• 1:45:23Mark Manson?

  Speaking as two avoidant men in long-term relationships, maybe you shouldn't avoid avoidant men.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there's, there's, there is this like heavy reliance on kind of the therapeutic vernacular, therapeutic language in, in the female advice industry, and we'll get into some of the downsides of that. Like, women are really taught to, okay, recognize signs of like avoidant men or the avoidant anxious trap that you might get sucked into too, that's, you know, a shitstorm to be in, I'm sure. And then there's like really big emphasis on healing your own attachment wounds, you know, either before getting into a relationship or in the early stages, you know. So. That some of the downsides to that definitely can be this like you start to just like we see in

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  the larger culture too, you start to pathologize normal variation in behavior.

• 1:46:17Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  Right? Like men, um, men who are super busy or they're not super responsive to you. Well, he's avoidant.

• 1:46:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  Um, uh, and so just stay away from him when maybe he's just got a lot going on.

• 1:46:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  Or like, oh, he's a narcissist, like, you know, avoidant and narcissists get thrown around a lot.

• 1:46:33Mark Manson?

  Overused for sure.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Definitely overused.

• 1:46:36Mark Manson?

  You know, you do one selfish thing. It's like, oh, you're so such a narcissist.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  He's a narcissist. Leave him. So there's like a huge emphasis on these red flags. That probably gets blown out of proportion to some degree. Um, then the strategic non-initiation too. Uh, this is, uh, what in the women's advice is called receiving mode. Right? Um, it instructs women to like, let the man pursue.

• 1:47:00Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  Right? Let him lead, stay receptive, don't chase him. Okay. Cause you're the chase him away or you're giving away all your quote unquote power. In this, in this realm, right? There's kind of this logic behind it that if a woman initiates, then you never really know if the man was actually into you or not, or if he's just like, yeah, sure. Why not?

• 1:47:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  And, um, by, by kind of leaning back, she forces him to show whether he's actually invested or not. Again, solving that investment problem that she faces. Okay. I don't know the merits of that. Like we can, we can debate that if we want, but that's definitely a big part of the, the female dating advice.

• 1:47:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I, I feel like the, and maybe, maybe this is just because I'm less familiar with the, the female side of, of the dating advice market, but I do feel like the, the line between healthy and unhealthy women's dating advice is a little bit blurrier because I, I feel like a lot of stuff like this is it's based, it has the right intention.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:57Mark Manson?

  It's just like over, over applied.

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:01Mark Manson?

  Or it's, or it's applied with like a sledgehammer instead of, you know, a small hammer. And

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  A little teeny tiny.

• 1:48:08Mark Manson?

  A little, a little, little baby hammer, a little baby hammer, but it's, you know, the stuff like, don't chase and avoidant, don't, uh, get caught up in a, you know, don't become codependent with a narcissist. Like, yes, this is all very important stuff. And if you have a history of doing this, then yes, you should be extremely aware of it, but. And in the same way, it's like, yes, you should wait for trustworthy signs of his interest and investment before committing too much of yourself or getting too emotionally invested. Like, these are all like, good principles. I just feel like they get misapplied quite frequently. I think probably one of the most highest leverage things that women can do

• 1:48:49Mark Manson?

  is really kind of sort men into two buckets. And I actually kind of do this myself when I decide if I'm gonna be friends with a man, is like, there are some men who are very self reflective and relatively self-aware. Yeah. Right? They have some sort of sense of their own emotional inner workings, their own patterns and proclivities, their own desires, and their Their flaws. Their flaws, and they're able to talk about them. I mean, maybe, maybe it's not easy to talk about them, but like, they're aware of them, and they'll talk about them, or they'll at least try to talk about them. And then there are, there's another class of men that like, they just don't go there. Yeah. Like, it's just, it's just a brick wall, and you're not gonna open it up. I feel

• 1:49:34Mark Manson?

  like, if, if you're a woman, like, those two men needs to be approached differently. The men who are a brick wall, like, maybe it's even, I mean, it depends on the woman, but like, you have to kind of decide what you're gonna do with that. And I could see a man who's like, doesn't have that self-awareness, and isn't able to kind of share his inner workings and inner desires, then like, yeah, maybe you do need to test his behavior over an extended period of time, and maybe you do have to kind of implement some of these tactics in a certain way, just to like, get, develop certainty and trust in yourself. Like, I'm a little bit more amenable and understandable to that. I think if the man shows any sort

• 1:50:13Mark Manson?

  of self-awareness, and any sort of honesty or integrity around like, you know, yeah, this is kind of what I'm looking for, and this is what I'm into, and this is how my last relationship went. You should just fucking ask him what he wants.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:29Mark Manson?

  Yeah, like you should just have the conversation and the trust will either emerge or not emerge as a natural byproduct of that conversation.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:50:37Mark Manson?

  Right. And it's, so I think if, if you're dealing with a man who is, does have some self-awareness around this stuff, then like, the best thing you can do is just like, have that conversation. And then, this is the hard part, and this is the hard part for both men and women, is that if you don't hear what you want to hear, be willing to let go. Because like, what happens a lot is, you know, let's say a woman is seeing a guy, she does have, have this conversation with him, he is self-aware, like, let's say she really wants to settle down and wants something very serious, and he's very self-aware, and he's like, look, I just got out of like, a really long, rough, long relationship and a rough breakup, and I'm, I'm like, not really looking to like, settle down anytime soon, but I really like you.

• 1:51:21Mark Manson?

  If that's, if you hear that, and that's not what you want, then you have to walk away. You can't just be like, well, maybe I can change him, maybe, maybe, like, let me give him a chance, maybe I can change, like, maybe he'll change his mind after he sees like, how awesome I am. Like, it's just, you have to, you have to be able to let it go. The same way, it's like, if a guy approaches a woman, and he hits on her, and she doesn't reciprocate, you gotta walk away, dude.

• 1:51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, let it go. She's not playing hard to get.

• 1:51:45Mark Manson?

  Like, you just, like, don't, don't try to convince her to like something she doesn't like, or want something she doesn't want. It's just, there's fucking four billion women in the world, like, go find the next one.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Right, right. Yeah, um, okay, so, so some of the, the quote-unquote landmines, let's go over some of those that, that women run into, we've mentioned a couple already. One of them, though, I think this is a big one actually, is like cynicism that masquerades as discernment, right? All the red flag stuff, that gets, that gets pushed to women, like, this is a red flag, this is a red flag, you know, every little thing. This gets, this gets, like, this is somehow, like, oh, you're being super, you're protecting yourself, and you're, you're, you know your value.

• 1:52:32Mark Manson?

  It's a, it's a trap, because you feel like you're discerning, but you're actually kind of just indulging, and there's probably a little bit of a moral righteousness that comes with it too, of like, God, all these men are such shitheads, like, all, all these like, insecure men who are avoidant, and like, don't know how to deal with their issues, and like, why can't I find a good one? And it's like, There's probably some sort of like satisfying, like deep, like very subtle satisfaction that comes with that, like consistent disappointment that nobody's good enough.

• 1:53:01Speaker 01

  Right, right. It can get down to even more superficial things than that, like, oh, his shoes, right? Like, ah, he was a great guy, but his shoes. I didn't like his shoes, so I'm done with it. Right? You get into that even too. You get down to that level and it's like, okay, come on.

• 1:53:13Mark Manson?

  So my wife has a number of friends who are still single in their 30s and are explicitly looking for a husband and like want to settle down. And my wife has had a couple hard conversations with them about, why'd you stop dating that guy? And it's shit like that. And she's like, you're 38 and he's really nice. Like, what are you doing?

• 1:53:35Speaker 01

  And your wife is like, look at what I put up with. Like, this is, I'm sorry, but this is what you gotta do.

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:44Mark Manson?

  Yeah. So yeah. Funny story about that. She actually does say that.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  I know. I know. She's said it to me before, so I know.

• 1:53:54Mark Manson?

  Cause like, I, I was, when I met my wife, I was a fucking barbarian. Like, I, I lived day and night in old gym shorts and like sleeveless t-shirts. I ate everything with my hands. I burped and farted constantly. I forgot the shower every other day. Like, she like really tamed the beast. And she like tells her friends, she's like, when I met Mark, I was like, wow, this guy's so smart. He has so much potential. Oh my God, why is he wearing those shorts?

• 1:54:31Mark Manson?

  It's like, we can work with this. We can work with this. But it's like, I just, you know, yeah, she cleaned me up. Let's just put it that way.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  My point, though, my point is not that, you know, oh yes, you have to settle for all this bad behavior. That's not what I'm saying. Like, give people a little bit of leeway here.

• 1:54:48Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  We're all imperfect in some way, obviously, right? Like, maybe we chose a bad outfit one time or said something stupid. Like, okay, that's maybe a little bit of a, a yellow flag or red flag even, but is that really a deal breaker?

• 1:55:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  Like, there's a difference between. Uh, cynicism and discernment.

• 1:55:06Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:55:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I feel like, uh, having standards or not settling has kind of been like, there's like a fetish around it these days. And I noticed it with both my, my chronically single male friends and my chronically single female friends.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:55:19Mark Manson?

  That there's just this like, kind of absurd expectation of who they're going to settle down with. And I actually, I, I had a conversation with a, with a guy friend of mine who was also frustrated. Also in his forties, also wanted, wants to settle down, but you know, after dating probably two dozen women at this point over the last 10 years, none of them were good enough. None of them work out. I remember sitting down with him and I was like, look, man, why don't you do this? Why don't you write down everything you want in a partner? And he did that. And I was like, okay, now put it in order from most important to least important. Like put the things that you just are non-negotiable at the top. Like you have to have those things. And then by the bottom, they're just like, they're nice to have.

• 1:56:03Mark Manson?

  So it's like, oh, it'd be great if she was like this, but it's okay if she's not. And he did that and I was like, awesome. Now cross out everything except for the top three.

• 1:56:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I was just like, be willing to give them up, right? Cause it's like, if you find somebody who, who you're, who has your, your values, shares similar, a similar lifestyle, is attractive and is nice to you, like who cares what music they're into? Who, who cares what sort of like T-shirts they wear? You know, like it's just, who cares like how they eat their soup? It doesn't, none of this matters. None of it's going to matter.

• 1:56:39Speaker 01

  Right? No, exactly. Yeah. And, um, it, another one I wanted to bring up was idealizing perfection. Just like you just said, and that's definitely like the knowing your value, raise your standards to an extent. Yes. Uh, again, like you said, that's good advice to an extent.

• 1:56:54Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:56:54Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:56:55Mark Manson?

  It's a similar curve where it's like, if you have no standards, then yes, that's probably the best advice you can receive.

• 1:57:00Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:57:00Mark Manson?

  But if you already have a lot of standards, it's actually probably hurting.

• 1:57:03Speaker 01

  Right. There's a diminishing return at a certain point.

• 1:57:05Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  Right, right. I think, was it you that said like one point of like, if you can get somebody who's like 80% of your whatever list.

• 1:57:11Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Recommend making a list or whatever, like that's your.

• 1:57:15Mark Manson?

  You're crushing it.

• 1:57:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:57:16Mark Manson?

  You're crushing, that's probably, that's probably a 50 year marriage.

• 1:57:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:20Mark Manson?

  Right there. If you can get 80% of your list, or especially if you can get the, if you can get the top three items plus 80% of everything else, like. That's probably a 50 year marriage.

• 1:57:30Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Some other ones. Uh, we talked about the over pathologizing of normal male male behavior. You know, maybe he's not avoidant. Maybe he's just busy. You know, that kind of thing.

• 1:57:41Mark Manson?

  Or maybe I hate to, I hate to do this, but maybe he's not that into you.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  Yes. There's the other ones too. Like, uh, like just because he's not into you doesn't mean like he's.

• 1:57:48Mark Manson?

  He's avoidant. Yeah.

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  Or, or, you know, mentally ill in any way. Right. Like, yeah. And then the, the passive vetting, um,

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  suppressing your, your like signaling healthy interest in somebody else too. That's another one too. Like this whole, uh, the whole thing I brought up about receiving mode and strategic, uh, non-initiation. While yes, that probably is, like you said, there's probably some merit to that, um, and to some extent. But at the same time too, you do need to be able to show some interest to, because we're men and we're dumb and like,

• 1:58:23Mark Manson?

  we are dumb.

• 1:58:24Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, but we overestimate too. So like just a little bit. And it's like, if it's, even if it's seems obvious to you.

• 1:58:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, you joke about it, but it's funny because it, it is super interesting. Like in, in, in all the psychological literature, there are, uh, there are a hand, like men and women are basically the same on most measurements. There are some measurements where they're slightly different. There's like a small discrepancy. You know, men are slightly more this way. Women are slightly more that way. And then generally like anything that you get into that there is a massive difference. It has something to do with sex and dating and, and relationships.

• 1:59:01Mark Manson?

  But it's funny because what you said is like, men are dumb, right? We, we don't discern it's men are, are worse at discerning social cues. And women are, that's just like a very consistently replicated measurement. That men don't pick up on social cues as quickly or as consistently as women do. So in a lot of cases, it's like, if you're, if in your head, you're signaling to them like, hey, I really like you. Let's keep this going. And he's missing the cue. Yeah, he might just be clueless. He might just be dumb.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:30Mark Manson?

  You might just need to like flash a neon sign in front of his face. Uh, and uh, cause it's, yeah, we don't pick up on subtlety sometimes.

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  Right, right. Or even if we do, if we do have that bias where, uh, you know, we're thinking, oh, the, she's definitely into me. We still might not act on it because we're anxious about it or fear or whatever.

• 1:59:47Mark Manson?

  Because we don't think she, she is.

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, clear, clear signs.

• 1:59:50Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to, I think most, and this kind of gets back to how like the 5% of shitty men kind of ruin it for everybody.

• 1:59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:00Mark Manson?

  Um, I think the majority of men, they're not, they're gonna wait until there's a clear signal. If they're a good guy and they're waiting around for a long time, then it's like, it's probably just not clear enough to them. Or they're just really insecure and nervous.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Um, okay. I think that's it for the two ecosystems.

• 2:00:21Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  Let's talk just a little bit about, now that we've went over that, how do these systems kind of collide and cause some of this conflict we talk about, right? Just real quick here, like, so for, for, there's this, I'm gonna call it the volume versus filter loop.

• 2:00:34Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 2:00:34Speaker 01

  Okay. So if, if men's problem is that access and initiation, then a, a pretty logical strategy is just to increase the volume of access and initiation that you have, right? Like try to go out there and take as many at bats as you can, right? It's the opposite for women. They're like, no, no, no, tighten it down, like increase your filters here.

• 2:00:54Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 2:00:54Speaker 01

  And obviously what that does is it kind of just produces this burnout. Uh, like burnout for women, they're just like getting tighter and tighter filters and oh.

• 2:01:02Mark Manson?

  Getting bombarded.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  Getting bombarded and they're like, all, all men are like this, whatever. Men get demoralized in that situation too, because there's like, I'm trying all this and nothing's, nothing's working out.

• 2:01:11Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 2:01:12Speaker 01

  I don't know what the fix is necessarily for that, other than just being aware of it. But that's, that's one way that that conflict comes up.

• 2:01:19Mark Manson?

  I think that, that cycle is definitely happening in the culture today. And I think, I think the reason it's getting so bad is just that it's, we have really, really bad matching systems. Like I think, I just think the apps are absolutely atrocious at matching people who are actually going to like each other.

• 2:01:38Mark Manson?

  Again, I think in person, there's so much signal and information that is lost from not being in person with people. If you're a guy and you're in a room, you're at a, let's say you're at a party or something, and there's 10 women, you talk to 10 women that night, there's so much unspoken, nonverbal information that's being conveyed. There's body language, there's facial expressions, there's vocal tonality, there's laughter, there's all sorts of things. The way they're dressed, the where they decide, you know, if you go outside and three minutes later, they suddenly show up outside.

• 2:02:19Mark Manson?

  Like, there's all sorts of like little cues that happen in the mix that are just lost online and you have no, and because they're lost online, people kind of default to like the most superficial and shallow assumptions that they have. I think if you're in person, that that volume filtration advice, it functions properly. I think it's when you remove people from a natural environment that you, they potentially become problematic.

• 2:02:49Speaker 01

  Okay, another kind of conflict area that comes out of all of this is, I'm calling it the stoic versus anxious trapper, really the stoic trap, I think is what it is. Men's advice, they kind of tell you to be a little more quote unquote stoic.

• 2:03:02Mark Manson?

  Reserved, yeah.

• 2:03:03Speaker 01

  Reserved, like, don't show too much interest too early on, all of that. And then the women's advice side says, avoid the avoidance, right? Which is like, they're flagging that as avoidant. And so you get this withdrawal on both sides. And you see that a lot, too. I think that's just, that's going to naturally happen if you go too far into either one of those kind of modes, right? Last one, the nice guy paradox. Let me get your take on this a little bit, too. So. You know, you have nice, the nice guy thing, right? Like, nice guys finish last, right? Or like, or a lot of nice guys will think, I'm a nice guy. Why doesn't she like me?

• 2:03:39Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  There's, that's, this is as old as time, too, right? Like, there is this kind of like weird thing that men see, they think they see anyways. Like, oh, women say they want a nice guy, but then they go after bad boys or whatever it is, right? What's your take on the whole nice guy thing?

• 2:03:54Mark Manson?

  I think it's, it's actually a quite nuanced thing.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  Definitely, yeah.

• 2:03:58Mark Manson?

  I think a lot of it is contextual. I think a lot of it has to do with who the nice, quote unquote, nice guy is and what his intentions are. What, what I see, so the first thing I'll say is, is what I often see is that most nice guys are not actually nice, they're needy. They, they will agree with everything the woman says, they will compliment her all the time, tell her she's amazing, and, and basically just kind of like grovel at her feet. And if you go back to what women are attracted to, it is a man who shows the potential for resourcefulness. And if a guy is just like fucking licking your feet everywhere you go, like, that's not a very resourceful guy. That's actually kind of a pathetic guy who's like desperate for attention and validation all the time. So of course it's completely unattractive.

• 2:04:43Speaker 01

  Right. You're gonna be a resource drain. It's obvious. You're gonna be a resource drain, right?

• 2:04:47Mark Manson?

  Exactly. So, but, but nice guys are like, I'm so nice to her. I like, I bought her flowers and I did-

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  I do everything for her.

• 2:04:54Mark Manson?

  I wrote her poetry. Like, what's the problem? It's like, yeah, dude, it's, it's, like, it's not that simple. Like, if it was as simple as just being nice to somebody, it was like, what got you, like, I don't know. It just-

• 2:05:06Speaker 01

  It's cheap, yeah.

• 2:05:07Mark Manson?

  It's, yeah, it just seems very ridiculous. And also, it's like, why are you, why are you being nice? Right? You're being nice because you think she's hot, right? So it's, it's a very, it's actually a very conditional niceness.

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  Right. And it goes back to, to, we were talking about the evolutionary stuff and you, you brought this up about how, you know, this, the protector aspect of it. It's like, women have to walk that fine line, right? Between somebody who is assertive and even aggressive in certain situations, but is also very generous and kind to them. And that's, that's a very difficult line for women to, to tread, to walk.

• 2:05:43Mark Manson?

  Right. It's like if we're shipwrecked in the Pacific, is this guy gonna like, get me out of there? Right. And if you're groveling at her feet, then clearly you're not.

• 2:05:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:05:52Mark Manson?

  So- There's that aspect to it. That said, so in the nice guy's defense, I think a lot of women, particularly insecure women or young women, which are usually insecure women, they, they mistake excitement for romance. They, they will look at the quote unquote, the bad boy, right? They see he's a challenge. They see he's uninfluenced by her opinion or her objections to what he's doing. They see his confidence and they find that really sexy and attractive. It's like, it's same, same thing as young men with hot girls.

• 2:06:35Mark Manson?

  Like every man has to go through a phase where like, he learns that, okay, just because she's hot, doesn't mean I should date her. Right. Right? And I think every young woman goes through a phase where it's like, okay, just because he's hot, doesn't mean I should date him, right? Because in, in this case, a lot of hot men are very unstable, like unreliable, chaotic. And in, in some cases, like actually dangerous. So I think a lot of women have to learn that lesson too. But it's just that when you're young, you, you don't have any context or understanding of like, what long-term attractive traits are, right? You're like, you're a 20-year-old girl. You've dated like one guy in your life.

• 2:07:13Mark Manson?

  You have no idea like what, what are the actual personality traits to filter for? And like, what, what sort of values you should be paying attention to? No, you're just like, wow, this guy's super hot and he's really confident and he like, he's giving me a lot of attention. Like, that's probably as far as your mind goes. And I think a lot of, I think a lot of nice, risk averse men, when they're young, they, they see that, they get overlooked a lot by the women they're attracted to. And so they get very bitter and resentful. And, and you kind of, they develop this assumption of like, well, I'm such a nice guy. That's why I got overlooked. That's why, you know, she's like, didn't even look my way. Right.

• 2:07:54Mark Manson?

  What you find though, is that as people get older, so two things happen. One is, as people get older, nice guys start winning more. Because older women have enough experience and knowledge and understanding to like, realize like, okay, there's, there's some deeper, longer-term traits that I should be looking out for and paying attention to. On top of that,

• 2:08:21Mark Manson?

  I think just the the nature of of attractiveness and sexiness kind of changes as you age. You're less impressed by like flashy, hot stuff and you're more interested in like, okay, who is this person really? The second thing that's very interesting is that the more affluent the environment, the more nice guys win. We talked about this a little bit earlier, but generally speaking, like high achieving women who are well educated and have lots of options and resources. They don't really see why they should put up with an asshole. Right, yeah. At least most of the time. Right. Right? And and it's again, this is on average, but like they're gonna be actually be more drawn to a guy who is who's who's actually kind and nice.

• 2:09:06Mark Manson?

  The other aspect of this is that as a man, the higher status or higher amount of resources you have, the more being a nice guy wins. So it's one thing if you're kind of a broke loser and you're nice, like that's not gonna do anything for you. But if you're like a badass and you've got an incredible life and you're nice, like, okay, now that's really, really attractive. Because you don't have to be nice anymore. It comes back to that costly signaling. Like when you're a loser, you have to be nice because you don't have any options. So being nice is not costly. So there's like not really any value in the signal.

• 2:09:44Mark Manson?

  But when you're rich and successful and like have a yacht in south of France and you're nice, it's like, okay, that guy does not have to be nice. So that actually means something. Okay. It's funny, I remember I was talking to to Randy Blythe, the the lead singer of Lamb of God and and they toured, they did a big world tour, they opened for Metallica. And I asked him, I was like, how are the Metallica guys? And he was like, he was like, you know what, dude? They were so fucking nice. And what's incredible is they didn't have to be. Right, yeah. Like, they could have been the biggest dicks and we would have just taken it. Because they're Metallica.

• 2:10:26Mark Manson?

  There is a weird status. There's like a weird interplay between niceness and status. You know, so like the higher status you are, the more important, the further niceness gets you.

• 2:10:37Speaker 01

  Survey show around the world, like warmth and generosity are two of the most attractive things that all people find.

• 2:10:44Mark Manson?

  Yes, men and women.

• 2:10:45Speaker 01

  Men and women. Yes. So it's, yeah, I think you do have to exhibit some level of competence first though. Right. Like, like you said, then otherwise it's not a very costly signal.

• 2:10:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:57Speaker 01

  So yeah, it is that fine line. There's, there's.

• 2:10:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah. And one of the things I wrote in models, my, my dating book is that, is that the most of what's attractive or unattractive in communication is intent. So you can say, you can have the clever, most clever joke in the world. But if you're like a really needy dude who's like desperate for attention and validation, it's going to be very unattractive. Whereas if you say it in a way that like, you just think it's funny. You're just sharing it like clearly you, there's like nothing at stake. Then it becomes attractive, right? So most of what, and this is the thing that the pickup artists, people got wrong, is that they saw, they saw language is very tactical. It's like, you have to say the right thing, make the right joke,

• 2:11:43Mark Manson?

  tell the right story. And I think my book undermined most of that by saying, no, no, no, it's about your intent. Why are you saying the joke? Why are you telling the story? What, for what reason are you pointing something out?

• 2:11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:11:57Mark Manson?

  If I may wade into a pool that I may quickly regret wading into.

• 2:12:03Speaker 01

  I'll allow it.

• 2:12:04Mark Manson?

  I do think, and Jess, please interject if, if I step out of line here. But I do, I do think we'd be remiss without at least mentioning how some of, some of these dynamics would potentially play out and with like LGBT people. Obviously I don't have firsthand experience with this, but I have heard from and talked to a lot of LGBT people who have read my content and given me feedback and asked me questions over the years. And there's also a lot of very interesting research on. LGBT dating and how it differs from hetero dating, of which I've read some. The two things that are really interesting and distinct, so we come back to the two different

• 2:12:48Mark Manson?

  kind of approaches to sexual selection, the two different strategies, you know, men, it's primarily about initiation. Also, men have a much higher sex drive on average than women do. And so when you think about gay relationships, like two men, if you if you look and analyze like how they play out, it's pretty much how you would expect. Yeah, right. They are just banging the shit out of each other all the time. Right, right. I remember, I remember years ago, I forget, I think his name was Donald Simon. He did a, he did a large survey about sexual behavior in the late seventies. And I believe he was the first one who like really studied and surveyed a lot of LGBT people.

• 2:13:29Mark Manson?

  And it was funny, it was absolutely hilarious because he basically, he asked people how many sexual partners they'd had in their life. And I think it was lesbians had the least amount, I think on average it was like two or three partners. Hetero women had on average like four or five or something. Hetero men had like seven and then gay men had like 39. Like it was, it was five, 10 times more, which if you're a dude, you kind of know why. And it's if you've ever hung around a lot of dudes, you just implicitly know why. I imagine that that environment is just rife with initiation. It is rife with being very forward.

• 2:14:11Mark Manson?

  I don't know how much you've been hit on by gay men, but I've been hit on in gay men. I've spent some time in gay bars and it's like, yeah, they don't hold back. They're just like, they just throw it right out there and they're, you know, they're, to me, they've always been very polite about it, but. Yeah, accept the consequences. They're very good about it, yeah. Yeah, that's just, that seems to be kind of the culture and the environment and that's how it goes. So I imagine. My guess here is that probably a lot of gay specific advice is probably more on the, on the actual, more similar to actual the female advice, which is raising standards, creating better filters, setting more boundaries.

• 2:14:56Mark Manson?

  Because it's just, there's probably opportunity everywhere, all the time. That would be my guess, at least. And part of this too, is just over the years, I have, as someone who primarily wrote dating advice for men, I have primarily heard from lesbians, who have emailed me and told me that it's very applicable to their worlds.

• 2:15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:14Mark Manson?

  And, and this is where you should correct me if I'm wrong, Jess, but my sense is that in lesbian dating, it's, it's probably more about learning how to assert yourself. Take, initiate, take the first action. I mean, I don't know, is that like?

• 2:15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, what do you think, Jess?

• 2:15:31Mark Manson?

  Does that, does that register? Cause like, I don't know, I imagine a lesbian bar and I just kind of imagine like a bunch of girls standing around waiting for somebody to talk to each other. That's my experience.

• 2:15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's part of the reason why, like, your blogs, it was really helpful for me as I was, you know, trying to figure out how to approach women too, because there weren't a lot of advice around that as a gay woman.

• 2:15:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:53Speaker 02

  Like, I kinda, if I wanted to get laid, or if I wanted to date women, I had to kinda take on that role of being more assertive, being the one to like, talk to them and make first contact, because if I didn't, nothing would happen.

• 2:16:06Mark Manson?

  Nothing happens, yeah.

• 2:16:07Speaker 02

  My sexual and lesbian women have expressed that complaint.

• 2:16:10Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 2:16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:11Mark Manson?

  Cool.

• 2:16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I remember too, you know, when I first started working with you, one of my many jobs was sorting through your email.

• 2:16:17Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:16:18Speaker 01

  And there, I think, it was probably a ratio of something like two to one, when an email did come through the LGBTQ community, it was usually a lesbian.

• 2:16:27Mark Manson?

  Usually lesbians.

• 2:16:28Speaker 01

  And they said, read your book models, it works great.

• 2:16:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:31Speaker 01

  Loved it.

• 2:16:32Mark Manson?

  It's interesting, and, and just kind of anecdotally as well, my experience is mostly like, when I hear from lesbians, they're like, this was directly applicable.

• 2:16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:42Mark Manson?

  Like, basically like Jess just said. Whereas when I've heard from gay men, typically they're like, this was great. But I feel like there's some caveats here.

• 2:16:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:16:51Mark Manson?

  That are probably specific to my experience or a gay man's experience and like, what would you say about, and then they have a bunch of questions. They're like, what would you say about this or that? It is interesting. One of the most common questions, I mentioned this on the Q and A podcast at the end of last year, but one of the most common requests over the years has been from women who have read Models, my men's dating book, and said, this is actually more useful than any woman's dating book I've read.

• 2:17:17Speaker 01

  Wow, okay, yeah.

• 2:17:18Mark Manson?

  And, and then they've asked me, like, can you do a version for women? And because it's for people who, who, listening who have not read Models, it is, the, the subtitles attract women through honesty and like, the core argument throughout the book is to date with integrity, because when you date with integrity and honesty, these natural filtration systems are allowed to work their magic.

• 2:17:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:17:40Mark Manson?

  And, and generally what that looks like in terms of experience is that you, you'll experience more rejection. Like, basically, it's like, the more open and honest you are in the dating process, you will have more rejection, but the few people who don't reject you are gonna be like, really, really compatible with you, and it's gonna be a very good experience. Whereas, if, the more you hide yourself, maybe the less rejection you experience, but the thing, the people who don't reject you, there's just gonna be a lot of ambiguity, there's gonna be a lot of confusion, there's gonna be a lot of like, I'm not really sure how much I like this person, do I really wanna keep doing this? And, and it, the decision making is gonna be very, very difficult. So, I think that has been incredibly effective for men, and, and a lot of women have asked for like, kind of, what's the female version

• 2:18:25Mark Manson?

  of that? One day, uh, maybe when I have time again, which at this rate will probably be like, 2046.

• 2:18:33Speaker 01

  Good luck, yeah.

• 2:18:35Mark Manson?

  Um, I will write a, a female version of, of Models, but until then, um, this is what we've got.

• 2:18:42Speaker 01

  Okay, cool. Well, I think, um, as we get into the latter half here of the episode, we'll bring up some more of the things from Models, but, uh, yeah.

• 2:18:49Mark Manson?

  That kind of wraps that up. If you are, though, that, a, a young man, or even women

• 2:18:54Speaker 01

  too, go get Models.

• 2:18:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:55Speaker 01

  Like, uh, yeah.

• 2:18:56Mark Manson?

  Still, it holds up.

• 2:18:58Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it does.

• 2:18:59Mark Manson?

  Holds up.

• 2:19:00Speaker 01

  It does, and there's not, you know, it was before dating apps and everything like that, your first editions were, anyway, and I still think it holds up.

• 2:19:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's, still sells really well. I still hear from readers all the time. I still hear, I've hear from, now, now it's Gen Z guys are reading it, by and large, and, um, And it's still, it's still, it's still probably, I mean, at this point, it's one of the, probably one of the best bestselling men's dating books ever. So yeah, check it out and or just listen to the rest of this podcast. You're going to get a lot, a big dose of Mark Manson dating philosophy.

• 2:19:36Mark Manson?

  All right, we're in the back half of the episode, Drew. Just a reminder to listeners that we do have a free downloadable PDF with everything in this episode, full summary, all the research, all the notes, all the advice and takeaways. You can get that at solve podcast.com slash dating. Moving into the back half of the episode, we're going to start talking about the skills that are necessary to do well in dating, to have an abundant, satisfying dating life, to find good partners, and then ultimately to find that one special person that you want to spend a lot of time with. So we're going to break this up in the three phases. The first phase is the pre-dating phase. This

• 2:20:17Mark Manson?

  is just like stuff that you should kind of get figured out and get in order before you even enter the dating market because it's going to pay dividends in the dating market and everything else you do. There is the meeting people phase. So how well are you finding the right people? Are you meeting them well? Are you filtering for the right people? Do you know how to approach people? Do you know how to get things going, set up meetups, all that sort of thing? And then the third stage is the actual dating itself, right? So if you meet a person and you like them, are you able to keep things going with them? Are you able to keep in contact with them? Are you able to move the ball forward? Keep things escalating, getting closer to them, getting to know them better. So those

• 2:21:00Mark Manson?

  are the three phases, pre-dating, meeting, and then dating, I guess. Anything you'd like to add, senior Bernie?

• 2:21:08Speaker 01

  Well, I think just the, the way I want to approach this too, is that each of these phases kind of has an associated psychological problem, right? That we have to address. And the skills we're going to go through hopefully help you kind of solve those psychological problems, but it's, it's good to be aware of like each of these phases has a different psychological problem. And then sometimes where the confusion comes is you're trying to solve one of these problems later or earlier than you should and. Not to get too over analytical about it, but I think you'll see that there is like clear division between these stages where your psychology shifts a little bit.

• 2:21:43Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 2:21:43Speaker 01

  We're going to address that as we go to.

• 2:21:44Mark Manson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:21:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:21:45Mark Manson?

  So, starting in the pre dating phase, what are the, what are the most important skills? What's the first skill that you want to talk about?

• 2:21:51Speaker 01

  Well, the problem we're solving here, right, is would a stranger even consider me? Right? Right?

• 2:21:58Mark Manson?

  Am I, am I desirable?

• 2:22:00Speaker 01

  Are you desirable? Right?

• 2:22:02Mark Manson?

  Will anybody ever love me?

• 2:22:04Speaker 01

  This is the, this is the problem. This is where we start to fret about those kinds of things.

• 2:22:08Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:22:09Speaker 01

  And so like, is this, the, the, the question, the issue you're solving is, is this a plausible romantic option for me? Is this other person, are we, you know, would I even sit down with them?

• 2:22:23Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 2:22:23Speaker 01

  That's what we're trying to get at, right? Okay, so the skills we're going to review here can be appearance, confidence and status signaling.

• 2:22:30Mark Manson?

  Okay. Okay.

• 2:22:31Speaker 01

  And we can talk about the merits of these. We'll go over some of the research. We'll get your take as a professional dating coach.

• 2:22:37Mark Manson?

  Oh.

• 2:22:37Speaker 01

  Former professional dating coach. And yeah, we'll have some fun with it here.

• 2:22:41Mark Manson?

  Okay. Okay. Where, where do you want to go for? I feel like appearance is kind of like.

• 2:22:45Speaker 01

  Let's start with appearance. Yeah. Cause you know, that's, um, maybe it gets, well, I don't know. Do you think it's properly?

• 2:22:52Mark Manson?

  Rated, overrated, underrated?

• 2:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, it's very context. This is what I'm talking about is that each of these phases kind of has a different problem set. And then some things matter more early, some matter more later. Appearance is one of those though, that the research anyway says, yeah, it matters.

• 2:23:08Mark Manson?

  It matters a lot. Well, it matter, it matters a lot. But I, I think it matters in ways that like people assume it, don't assume that it does.

• 2:23:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:23:16Mark Manson?

  Or I think most people assume that appearance is like a very superficial thing, right? And it's like, ah, okay. Are you hot? Are you not like, you know, are you, if you're a guy, it's like, are you tall enough? Are you, do you have a six pack? You know, if you're a woman, it's like, you know, are you skinny? Do you have big boobs? I think that's just like one slice of the pie. Like appearance is a very large pie and there's a lot of signal. Coming back to this idea of signaling theory in terms of sexual selection. There's a lot of signaling that happens in your appearance that goes far beyond just your physical proportions or actual dimensions. So like everything in this category, this skill, like we are putting everything together.

• 2:23:58Mark Manson?

  So it's not just your genetic phenotypical appearance. We're talking about the clothes you're wearing, your hygiene, your grooming, your body language.

• 2:24:10Speaker 01

  Fitness.

• 2:24:10Mark Manson?

  Fitness, yeah, like how you take care of yourself, your mood, your responsiveness. And you know, it's just like a lot of things go into how you come across the people or how you show up in a room that have nothing to do with like how chiseled your jawline is or like what your body fat percentage is.

• 2:24:29Speaker 01

  Right. The research, like I said, it does show that like initially this matters a lot. Again, we're using these, it's kind of heuristics and shortcuts early on because we're in these complex environments that have a lot of uncertainty in them. We have to kind of go on something, right? And yes, initial appearance cues, all those that you just mentioned, they do matter to some extent. I think maybe this was you said at one point, it's like, it's more of like you're removing barriers at this point, right? Like if you, if you are sloppily dressed or have bad grooming or whatever it is, those are barriers to you meeting people, right? It's not necessarily that they're going to help you a ton. They could, they might help you with opportunities, sure. But it's more like you're removing barriers at this point, right?

• 2:25:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I would say that they open doors, but they don't necessarily get people to walk through them, right? So if you're a very physically attractive person, yes, you will have more opportunities, point blank.

• 2:25:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:25:26Mark Manson?

  That doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to go well or that you're going to actually capitalize on them. I think too, this is another one of those situations where the curve here is like. People mistake, like it's very diminishing returns.

• 2:25:40Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah.

• 2:25:41Mark Manson?

  It's, I would say it's far more important to get the basics in order than it is to, you know, looks max as, as the, the TikTokers call, TikTokers.

• 2:25:52Speaker 01

  What is this all about?

• 2:25:53Mark Manson?

  Okay, I didn't. The looks maxing?

• 2:25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, the looks maxing, I came across this and I don't quite under, well, I mean, I understand it, but.

• 2:25:59Mark Manson?

  It's, it's particularly, it's Gen Z men who are like maximizing their physical appearance.

• 2:26:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:26:03Mark Manson?

  Right, so they're in there like obsessive about hair and jawline and, uh, you know, their physique and, you know, all sorts of stuff, their grooming. I mean, I have to give them credit, like a lot of the looks maxers, they are, they've made themselves very, very good looking. And yeah, it matters, like there's, there is a lot of social benefits, romantic benefits that come from, from looking really, really good.

• 2:26:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:26:26Mark Manson?

  But that being said, it's the, most of the advantage just goes from being a slob to like a normal, well-kept person. And it goes from being a normal, well-kept person to like, super fit or super hot.

• 2:26:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:26:41Mark Manson?

  I think people vastly overestimate how much extra that's going to get you. There's also, uh, some interesting differences between men and women when it comes to this. So men are typically more attracted to or interested in physical characteristics, right? So, um, the, the dimensions of her face and the size of her body and, um, the proportion with hip to waist ratio and all these proportions, that, that it's, it's much less about the ornamentation, how is she dressed, how is she groomed? Men put much less emphasis on that, whereas women, it's the other way around. Women are much more forgiving about physical proportions.

• 2:27:23Mark Manson?

  They're much less forgiving about how well you're groomed, how well you're dressed, how well you present yourself. It's almost like women are looking for. I used to tell this to male clients. I'm like, women just want to know that you like, give a shit.

• 2:27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:39Mark Manson?

  They just want to know that you, you know, you put effort in.

• 2:27:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:27:42Mark Manson?

  And you're, and you're trying and that you care, right? Like, that's actually 80% of it.

• 2:27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And depending on your social circles or where you live and stuff like that, sometimes the bar's pretty low for that.

• 2:27:52Mark Manson?

  It can be.

• 2:27:53Speaker 01

  I live in a small city in Colorado and hey, if you wear anything but a flannel shirt, you're, hey, you're, you're, you're getting somewhere.

• 2:27:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:59Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:28:00Mark Manson?

  The other really interesting difference, I think, between men and women is that women, I think there's almost like a certain point where they get turned off by a guy. Like if a guy is,

• 2:28:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:28:11Mark Manson?

  is like absolutely impeccable, like just massive, spends three hours a day in the gym, is absolutely impeccable, like massive muscles, like grooming is perfect. You know, has better skin than she does. I think actually a lot of women get turned off by that because they see that and they're like, wow, he's really into himself.

• 2:28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:31Mark Manson?

  He's really high maintenance. Whereas I think men, like there's not really ever a falloff there. Like there's pretty much the hotter she is, the better.

• 2:28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I saw one interesting study and I, I don't know if, how replicable this will be necessarily, but they've, they've shown, um, like they'll show pictures of an attractive woman and a different dress style. So it's, it could be she has a dress on, you know, like more formal, all the way up to like business attire. And basically men just, that she's hot.

• 2:29:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:03Speaker 01

  But like you just said, though, women rating men dressed in different ways, the more like if he's got business attire or, you know, some sort of status signaling of some kind, they usually generally will rate them as more attractive.

• 2:29:15Mark Manson?

  There, there've been a couple viral polls on, uh, on, on Twitter.

• 2:29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:19Mark Manson?

  The last couple of years. One was, I remember it was a guy who,

• 2:29:24Mark Manson?

  He showed up, it was a before and after picture of his like body transformation. And in the before picture, he was already like pretty fit. Yeah. You know, he had a little bit of a belly, but it like, you know, he wasn't overweight or anything like he was in decent shape. He was fit, but he was like just a very much a normal guy. And then in the after picture, he was shredded. He had a six pack. He had like was super muscular, was very tan. And it was funny because the, the, the poll asked, you know, are you male, female? And then which one do you find more attractive? And it was the men by and large judged the after picture is more attractive. And the women overwhelmingly said the before picture was, was more attractive. And of course, all the fitness bros lost their fucking mind. They're like, women are liars. This is not true. This can't be true.

• 2:30:07Mark Manson?

  And it's so funny because I just, I like, I've seen this among my own friends and, and my female friends. It's pretty consistent, like women. It was, it was very interesting watching that thread because a lot of the women were saying that the reason they found the after picture less attractive is they're like, he seems like he's not fun to be around. Like, I'm gonna have to worry about what I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna have to worry about like, is he gonna wanna leave the party at nine o'clock? You know, like, whereas like the before picture, like he looks like a fun guy. Right. And that I can have a really good time with. It's just so interesting because like in a photo, that never crosses a guy's mind. And there was a similar one that was equally as controversial. It was a woman. It was a two different photos of the same woman.

• 2:30:50Mark Manson?

  One, she was basically no makeup, very simple outfit, like kind of a Sunday morning going to brunch type vibe. And then the after picture or the, the second picture was like her dialed up to the nines, super exotic dress, tons of makeup, hair done, clearly going out to like some very fancy event. And the men overwhelmingly said that the, the Sunday morning brunch vibe was like way more attractive to them. She was a beautiful girl in both photos, but the men found, found the, the, the early morning brunch vibe like way more attractive. And of course, women were losing their mind. They're like, you guys are all lying. This is impossible. Like, do you know how much work it takes to look like that?

• 2:31:35Mark Manson?

  And I think this comes back to this idea of intra-sexual competition.

• 2:31:40Speaker 01

  Ah, right.

• 2:31:41Mark Manson?

  Because I think the, the, the super jacked, chiseled dude, it's, it's really, it's not so much a signal to the women. It's signaled to other men of dominance. Similarly, I think the woman who's like super dressed up and dolled up, it's not a signal to men. It's a signal to other women. So.

• 2:32:01Speaker 01

  I think that checks out too, just because anecdotally, what I see is that, yeah, men will pile on in the comments on, online anyway.

• 2:32:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:11Speaker 01

  Of a guy who's, you know, maybe posted selfie or something like that. And same thing, women will pile on women for like any sort of like, if they're trying to show off a little bit or something like that online. I anecdotally, I don't know if that's actually true or not, but I think, I think there's something to that.

• 2:32:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Anecdotally as well, from all my time as a dating coach, I would say that you do not have to go live inside a gym for a year to be hot. The 80/20 here is that if you get good clothes, good grooming, good body language, that's, that gets you most of the way there. Like you can completely transform a person if you put them in a really good outfit, give them a really good haircut, clean up their skin a little bit. You know, and, and fix their body language and, and make them a little bit more presentable.

• 2:33:00Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. No, definitely. Yeah. And just some of the real quick, some of the like research-backed ways to improve your appearance in the dating world. Grooming fundamentals, like you talked about, like cleanliness and it just demonstrates kind of like internal order too. Like you kind of have your shit together. Clothing fit and coherence is more about the fit than anything really than like extravagant clothing. If you just wear clothes that fit you well, the health signaling, like we talked about, if you do have some sort of fitness regimen. A healthy diet too is a longer term one, I think, but that will definitely show up in your appearance as well. Uh, one I found too was interesting was context matching, like dressing for the occasion.

• 2:33:38Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:33:39Speaker 01

  It, it, it's not really an appearance thing. Well, it is an appearance thing, but it communicates to your social intelligence.

• 2:33:45Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:33:45Speaker 01

  In a way, right?

• 2:33:46Mark Manson?

  Like you're aware.

• 2:33:47Speaker 01

  You show up to a first date at a, you know, a bar and you're wearing a three-piece suit as a guy. You're like, okay, dude. You read a book on peacocking or something, I'm sure. But you're also a little bit socially awkward here. Okay. Uh, and then just, uh, like maintenance habits that just how well you keep all of that up. Those are kind of the research-backed ways anyway, to improve your appearance.

• 2:34:07Mark Manson?

  The other thing I'll add to this is that, cause we're, we're gonna talk about confidence next.

• 2:34:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:12Mark Manson?

  And confidence is also universally attractive.

• 2:34:15Speaker 01

  Very related, yeah.

• 2:34:16Mark Manson?

  When you look good, you feel more confident.

• 2:34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:34:18Mark Manson?

  Like, everybody knows that.

• 2:34:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:34:20Mark Manson?

  When you're dressed well, when you're feeling fit, when you're, you know, you, you like how you look, like you're just gonna have more confidence in every room you go into. And that, that matters.

• 2:34:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:34:30Mark Manson?

  That comes across.

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  Right. All right. So Mark, like, what are some ways that people can use to actually build real confidence in, in this area of their lives?

• 2:34:38Mark Manson?

  I mean, look, fake it till you make it. I think it works in the short run.

• 2:34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:43Mark Manson?

  Like, if you just, if you just need to get through one night. Or one date, like, okay, maybe it can work for a little while, but it's not a long-term strategy. And it's not something you should be consistently relying on. Nobody likes to hear this answer, but the only consistent way to build confidence is by building evidence. And you build evidence by getting out there and making things happen. Nobody likes hearing that. Nobody, like, everybody's just like, no, tell me how to be successful, then I'll be confident. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You, you go fail a bunch of times, you realize the world's not ending. You learn a bunch of stuff from it, and then that's what makes you confident, and then that's what makes you successful. So it's, there's, there's no shortcut there.

• 2:35:25Mark Manson?

  And, uh, yeah, that's just, that's the very unpleasant truth, uh, but I think we all have to live with it.

• 2:35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. Yeah, one little thing I'll tack on there too.

• 2:35:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:35Speaker 01

  One little interesting tidbit I found as well.

• 2:35:38Speaker 01

  Do you know, one of the best ways to increase your confidence too, besides like the evidence stuff, is having values clarity.

• 2:35:45Mark Manson?

  Oh.

• 2:35:46Speaker 01

  All goes back to values, right?

• 2:35:48Mark Manson?

  Right?

• 2:35:48Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:35:48Mark Manson?

  How you work that in there?

• 2:35:49Speaker 01

  Knowing what you want.

• 2:35:51Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 2:35:51Speaker 01

  Like knowing what you value, that just reduces approval seeking.

• 2:35:54Mark Manson?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:35:55Speaker 01

  Right? Which is the opposite of confidence.

• 2:35:57Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 2:35:57Speaker 01

  Essentially. So especially in dating, it's like, I know what I want. I know what I value. Does this other person value it? No? Okay, great. I'm gone. Or yes? Okay, great. I'm around.

• 2:36:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:05Speaker 01

  That's very confident and very attractive.

• 2:36:07Mark Manson?

  It's true.

• 2:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:08Mark Manson?

  That is true.

• 2:36:08Speaker 01

  A bit I found.

• 2:36:09Mark Manson?

  Uh, the last thing I want to talk about is the, there's this concept in psychology called halo effect, and it's very interesting.

• 2:36:17Mark Manson?

  Been observed many, many times, uh, that basically the more good looking you are, man or woman, the more other people assume positive things about you. So generally speaking, uh, more attractive people are perceived to be smarter, more intelligent, more trustworthy, um, more compassionate, more reliable, all these different things, even if they're not.

• 2:36:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:36:39Mark Manson?

  It's just our snap judgment biological assumption is like, oh, that person's really good looking. They're probably a great person.

• 2:36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I wonder if there's any like truth to that though, actually too. You know, like if it's a heuristic we use, I don't know. Anyway, we, well, let's not get into

• 2:36:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, it's, look, if you take really good care of yourself, like.

• 2:37:00Speaker 01

  That's kind of what I mean.

• 2:37:01Mark Manson?

  That sub communicates certain traits and.

• 2:37:04Speaker 01

  Some level of competence.

• 2:37:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah, sure. Certain traits and behaviors. But yeah, there are a lot of scumbag looking people.

• 2:37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And maybe that's another reason too, like women are suspicious of that too. Again, they're more biased to be suspicious of like, oh, what's going on here?

• 2:37:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Why are you working so hard?

• 2:37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, why you working so hard?

• 2:37:20Mark Manson?

  Why you work out so much, bro?

• 2:37:22Speaker 01

  Are you avoiding something?

• 2:37:23Mark Manson?

  What are you compensating for? Yeah. Or, or like, or like the, you know, the small penis cars, like it's, it's.

• 2:37:31Speaker 01

  It's like.

• 2:37:32Mark Manson?

  Maybe explain what you mean there, Mark. I know what you mean, but. It's like the guy who conspicuously just buys a ridiculous car. Either like some like hot rod sports car out of nowhere, or like a gigantic truck that is super loud and like annoys the shit out of everybody. Like there's just, at a certain point, you're like, what are you compensating for?

• 2:37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 2:37:55Mark Manson?

  Like, what is, there's something inside you that you're clearly trying to paper over.

• 2:38:00Speaker 01

  It's not communicating confidence, which is our next one.

• 2:38:03Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:38:03Speaker 01

  Okay, so competence in this arena.

• 2:38:08Speaker 01

  Well, there's a fine line, right, between confidence and kind of the overcompensation.

• 2:38:12Mark Manson?

  Narcissism.

• 2:38:12Speaker 01

  Narcissism as well. However, you know, people tend to interpret that like a calm confidence grounded behavior. This is kind of a proxy. This is another one of those shortcuts that we use. We see them as more psychologically stable. They're more predictable and there's less interpersonal risk with a calm, confident person.

• 2:38:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:35Speaker 01

  So of course they're going to be more attractive. You're going to want to spend more time around them, right?

• 2:38:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:39Speaker 01

  It shows that even people who appear confident, this is maybe one of the little nuances you have to get into. People who appear confident, even if they're actually not all that competent.

• 2:38:47Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:47Speaker 01

  Are still more attractive than others. And I think this is where like, especially in men's dating advice, you're like.

• 2:38:51Mark Manson?

  Fake it till you make it.

• 2:38:52Speaker 01

  Fake it till you make it. And sometimes you just fake it until you fake it. Keep faking it. So you kind of, you got to watch out for that. Importantly, though, overconfidence does backfire.

• 2:39:01Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:39:02Speaker 01

  Like people, people can sniff out arrogance too and narcissism. So, you know, you don't want to take it too far. This is an early stage attraction signal more than anything. It does matter throughout the whole dating phase for sure. But it does, you know, communicate a lot of like social value if you're, if you're confident and competent in this. Follow through, things like asking escalating, you know, if you're confident in that, that's obviously going to benefit you a lot more, but.

• 2:39:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I feel like there's kind of two aspects of this. One is the external perception of you and your behavior, right? Like if you are bold, taking risks, making loud proclamations, seem very self-assured. There's some aspect of that that is just inherently attractive. It gets a lot of attention and it signals a lot of potentially positive traits. The problem is, is that that is easily faked, right? So it's, confidence is the sort of thing that if it's not legitimate, it like.

• 2:40:04Mark Manson?

  You're gonna turn into a pumpkin at some point. So, so if you're faking it, like you, it, you. Yeah. If, if you're faking it, you, you can make it for maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe even a year. But at some point, the truth is gonna show up and you have to be prepared for that. Again, this comes back to why it's just better to be honest about who you are. Not only because it prevents you becoming a pumpkin, but also ironically, the more honest you are about who you are, the more vulnerable you are about your insecurities, the more confident you become. Because confidence is not about expecting success. It's actually about being comfortable with failure. The second aspect of this, which is actually, I think psychologically a different thing, but

• 2:40:49Mark Manson?

  we'll just lump it in the confidence because they're just, they're so interrelated, is your perception of your own self-worth. And we talked about this a little bit in the evolutionary section, but generally speaking, your self-perception is gonna have a very large impact on who you pursue, what you find attractive, what you feel like you deserve from the dating market. Generally speaking, people have, who have a very low perception of themselves, a very low self-worth, they don't expect much and they are kind of desperate and needy and they put up with a lot of bad behavior. And in many ways, that, that self-perception is, is, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?

• 2:41:33Mark Manson?

  Like you believe like, oh, nobody, nobody who's very great is gonna love me. So I should just take whatever I can get. So you end up taking whatever you can get and you never like actually push into higher quality partners. But there's also a very like deep instinctual side of this as well. Again, if you kind of go back to the caveman days, back when we were hunter-gatherer tribes, you didn't have a whole lot of social status signals. You didn't.

• 2:42:02Mark Manson?

  You know, we didn't have fancy cars and Gucci suits and, you know, Rolex watches and all this stuff. Like, we didn't have friend counts on Instagram. It, you really, one of the only ways that you could accurately perceive somebody's status is how comfortable and calm they were around others, right? Because if you're a high-status person in the tribe, then you probably don't have a lot to worry about, because you don't, other people's opinions don't matter a whole bunch to what's your fate, essentially. Whereas if you're low-status, other people's opinions of you matter a lot. You need to keep people happy all the time. And that becomes a very subtle social cue, right? It's a very subtle cue of your potential

• 2:42:47Mark Manson?

  for resourcefulness. Do other people like you? Are you constantly worried if somebody disagrees with you? Are you looking over your shoulder all the time? Like, that is, that has, that has consequences. And so I think we've evolved a way of unconsciously gauging that when we interact with somebody. In my book, I called it non-neediness, which is essentially being prioritizing your self-perception over the perception of you that other people have. For men, I define it as kind of the root of all attractive behavior, but I also think it's incredibly important for women as well. Neediness, I think men are probably a little bit more forgiving of neediness than women are. But, I mean, let's put it this way. I think women are just allergic to neediness. Like, it's just, it's just- It's visceral.

• 2:43:32Mark Manson?

  It's an absolute ick factor. Whereas men, like, don't immediately throw up if a woman is really needy. Like, it becomes more of like, okay, well, this sucks, but am I willing to tolerate this? Because, I don't know, she's hot, or she takes good care of me, or she's really nice, or whatever. So really, I think confidence itself, or like, the concept of confidence, evolved as a proxy for judging status, when there are no other material proxies to judge it by. Which brings us-

• 2:44:05Mark Manson?

  To our third factor, our third, our third skill that matters before dating is understanding your social status, right? We are humans. We are a status driven species. We, it's not even, we do it consciously, but we also do it unconsciously. We kind of quietly put ourselves in pecking orders and tiers.

• 2:44:26Mark Manson?

  There's kind of an understanding that in certain environments, I'm very high status and other environments, I'm very low status. Right? Like if I go to a, a conference about personal growth and development, I'm going to be a very high status person there. If I'm at a auto body car shop and talking to guys about fixing engines, I'm incredibly fucking low status. Cause I know absolutely nothing about cars. So it's just, we all need to have an awareness of kind of like our relative stature in certain contexts and environments, but status is also attractive. It's also a big driver of what we find appealing in other people.

• 2:45:07Mark Manson?

  And I think one of the most important and most practical pieces of dating advice is look for partners where you are high status.

• 2:45:16Speaker 01

  Like you're saying, knowing your place kind of a little bit and that, that

• 2:45:19Mark Manson?

  Know your strengths.

• 2:45:20Speaker 01

  Shallow or anything like that, but yeah, know your strengths, know where you do fit in and where you do have status.

• 2:45:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:26Speaker 01

  And then like, that's the, your, that's kind of your, the box you play in.

• 2:45:30Mark Manson?

  I used to run into this all the time with, with guys, like I would have clients, you know, like,

• 2:45:36Mark Manson?

  like I had like a nerdy academic guy, you know, like a professor, you know, who was a client and, and he was like trying to chat girls up in bar. He was like a professor of like English literature, right? And I'm like, I'm like, dude, don't you go to academic conferences or something? And I'm like, and he's like, yeah. I'm like, aren't, isn't it like 80% women at those conferences? You know, he's like, well, yeah, but like, uh, you know, it's just like, it's a work thing. And I'm like, I'm like, don't you think you're going to meet somebody who's going to make you happy there? And oh, by the way, don't you think you are a lot more impressive at an academic conference as a professor at this prestigious university? Then you are in like a fucking dive bar while like the Patriots game is playing. Just like pick your lane, man.

• 2:46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, to that point, I guess, too, like I learned very quickly, I was not a club guy. I can tell you that, like, you know, I'm, I'm a short dude, you know, I didn't dress flashy or anything like that. And I was like, okay, this is not my scene. I don't have any status here for sure. And I'm okay with that. And yeah, for me, anyway, it was much more like the, the, the areas I found status were much slower, low key, took a lot more time to develop. And I think people need to be a little bit more amenable to that, for sure.

• 2:46:50Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Some, the research does show too, that, you know, status, it's actually, it's an early attraction cue for sure, but it's usually evaluated in a more of a long-term context. You know, so people, they're judging your status very early on. It's, it's very much a cue. It's very salient, but they're translating it into how good of a long-term partner might this be.

• 2:47:12Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 2:47:13Speaker 01

  And so, I don't know, I just thought that was kind of interesting, you know, along with the confidence thing, too, like, somebody being competent.

• 2:47:22Speaker 01

  You know, you can build confidence from that and status from that as well. And that seems to be also a kind of a longer-term predictor of whether or not somebody sticks around.

• 2:47:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:31Speaker 01

  Too. But yeah, the, the biggest impact really is on, on the longer-term context, even though it's a very early signal.

• 2:47:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I, this is one area that I do think the pick-up artist advice, I don't want to say it was good, but like, I do think it was accurate.

• 2:47:46Speaker 01

  Directionally accurate.

• 2:47:47Mark Manson?

  It was directionally accurate because it, the pick-up artists, like, they, they had a very good understanding of stat, like, everything was kind of optimized for, for status, or at least perceived status. But one of the things that they would talk about is like, if you're with a big group of friends, that signals something.

• 2:48:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:48:03Mark Manson?

  That signals that like.

• 2:48:03Speaker 01

  I want to bring this up, too. Yeah.

• 2:48:04Mark Manson?

  You have a big social group, you have a lot of friends, you're a popular person, right? Especially if you have other women around you. Like, that's also a signal of like, okay, well, she seems comfortable with them, and she seems comfortable with them. You know, so, okay, he's probably a good guy. There's also, I would say, too, that, coming back to body language, sub-communication, there's an aspect of this that just noticing, even if you're, like, let's say you're a young person, you don't have a whole lot of status in anything, because you're fucking young, you haven't done anything yet. There's a lot that's subcommunicated. I would say actually, most status is just subcommunicated in the room. It's like, do people listen to you? Do your friends stop and ask for your opinion on things? When you make a suggestion, do people take it?

• 2:48:49Mark Manson?

  Right? Like, there's a lot of just like very subtle cues that happen in normal conversation or normal social environments that can tip people off to like, okay, is this a high-status person? Like, it comes back to signaling the competence. Like, is this somebody that other people listen to? Oh, they seem to all listen to her. She's probably smart. She probably knows what she's doing.

• 2:49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was gonna bring up the the social proof thing too, because it does show some social competence, like you're talking about. I always tell people, you know, when they come to me for dating advice, which not, you know, I'm not necessarily, everybody comes to me for it, but I would say, go, you know, expand your social network, expand your social group. Because, yes, I mean, that is a status signal. Yes, it shows your social competence and all of that, but it also like, it just gets you into contact with more people and probably more people who, again, you're going to, like, you share some sort of overlap in the, your interests or whatever it is, and you have some status within that world.

• 2:49:47Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 2:49:48Speaker 01

  Okay. So, that, that's one of the, that's one of the, I think, the fastest ways, or one of the healthiest ways, I would say, to increase your status.

• 2:49:57Mark Manson?

  Well, I do believe in terms of like, when you look at where successful couples met, I think, meeting through friends has the highest hit rate. I would argue that that, you know, we were kind of talking about this like filtration system, like, what is the, what is the filtration system for matching people? I think friend groups is the most efficient human filtration system for matching people who are probably compatible with each other for dating. And it makes sense. It's part of it is, it's, you know, if you meet through friends, there's already a certain type of vetting that has happened for, for things like values, worldview, interests, also for status. There is a social proof component, right? It's like, you meet, you meet a girl, you know that, like, all your friends think she's

• 2:50:42Mark Manson?

  great, so like, you don't have to sit there and try to figure it out yourself.

• 2:50:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:50:47Mark Manson?

  So, just, it unloads, you kind of outsource a lot of the mental burden that happens when you meet somebody new. I think it's, it's great, and it's, it's- Probably underutilized these days.

• 2:50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I've, I've had women tell me they're like, one of the hottest things about you is your friends. You know, and like that you have a friend group and that you are like.

• 2:51:08Mark Manson?

  That you have friends.

• 2:51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that you have friends.

• 2:51:10Mark Manson?

  The bar is so low.

• 2:51:13Speaker 01

  It kinda is, you know, it kinda is for a lot of people. And it's just on the one hand sad, but on the other hand, like, yeah, that's a really good, I think, like I said, it's just a healthy way to get some confidence for one. You have a good group around you, some, the resilience that comes with it, and then the status as well.

• 2:51:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:30Speaker 01

  Okay. So that's the early dating phase. What do you think some of the pitfalls a lot of people fall into in this, in this phase of dating, Mark? Two big ones I can see is like, you're, you are preparing too little before you go out and preparing too much.

• 2:51:44Mark Manson?

  I was just gonna say that. I was just gonna say that. Like, no, no, no, but you're a hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, right.

• 2:51:52Mark Manson?

  But you're a hundred percent correct. I think there, there are some people who don't think about any of this, right? And so they, they,

• 2:52:00Mark Manson?

  they're, they're a mess, their life's a mess. And then they get out there and they're like, I can't meet anybody. Like, nobody likes me. Like, women are horrible, or men are horrible.

• 2:52:07Speaker 01

  They're looking for somebody to fix all of that mess.

• 2:52:09Mark Manson?

  Yes, exactly. So that, that's, that happens for sure. And then, and then there, I think there are like the over-optimizers, the people who, like you said, they, they over-prepare or are, um, you know, neurotic about it. And I think, what I, from what I observe in, in men's case, it tends to be kind of this over-obsession over,

• 2:52:33Mark Manson?

  money, looks, uh, social status, like, oh, I need to have the car first. I need to have a house first. I need to have a, a higher paying job first, then I can go meet, try to find the woman I want to spend my life with. And I think on the women's side, it's, it's more kind of emotional based. It's like, oh, well, I need to fix myself. I need to figure my stuff out. I need to get better at boundaries. I need to get better at this. I think what both men and women miss is that a lot of this is improved in the relationships, right? Like, like, my girlfriends have taught me a lot about how to be more attractive. Cause, cause they just show up and they're like, hey dude, uh, I got you a pair of shoes.

• 2:53:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53:12Mark Manson?

  You should probably start wearing them. I'm like, all right, I can take a hint. I, I get it. I get it.

• 2:53:17Speaker 01

  And I started the shower for you, Mark.

• 2:53:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:21Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Dude, my wife has got stories. And then like on, but on the other, on the other side too, it's, it's like a lot of the ways you become more confident is through your relationships. A lot of the ways that you do develop competence and knowledge and social proof is through relationships. So I think, don't, don't wait too long to start, but also if, if all three of these areas are kind of a mess, then you should probably get them in order first. Yeah. Which one would you work on first?

• 2:53:55Mark Manson?

  Hmm.

• 2:53:58Mark Manson?

  Honestly, I would work on appearance first. Like if we're lumping in, so if I can just lump in lifestyle with appearance. Okay. Yeah. I would work on that first. So that's not just, you know, clothes, grooming, fitness, all that stuff. It's, I'd also include there like, you know, have a job, have something going on in your life, a hobby, have a couple of friends. I think in models, I like, I put all this in one chapter and I call it the fundamentals. Right. And basically what I say is if you don't have the fundamentals, nothing's going to work. And if you have the fundamentals, like then you can at least get into the game. Right. And everything else is like a nice to have.

• 2:54:40Mark Manson?

  The craziest thing about this too, Drew, is like, this is the easiest stuff to handle. Right. And like people gripe. It's very actionable. Yeah. People gripe about it so much and they're like, oh, men are so superficial or like women are just, you know, they're money, they're, they're greedy money, gold diggers or whatever. Like, just like get your shit together. Yeah. Like it is, it's really, this is the simplest stuff to handle. Right. Like, go, go take care of yourself, build, build up your life. And even if like, and even if it doesn't get you more dates, like your life will be better. Like everything else in your life will be better for working on these things. Yeah. People at work will respect you more, your friends will.

• 2:55:22Mark Manson?

  Look up to you more like it. You'll feel more confident everywhere else like it just it. It helps in every part of life, not just dating.

• 2:55:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, I think that confidence is the most important one, but I think where you should start is with appearance because that like is downstream.

• 2:55:36Mark Manson?

  It it it creates some momentum.

• 2:55:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:55:39Mark Manson?

  It builds that first confidence.

• 2:55:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:55:41Mark Manson?

  Of like, okay, I can do this. I can improve myself. I I do have something going for me.

• 2:55:46Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're ready to start meeting people.

• 2:55:52Mark Manson?

  Speak for yourself.

• 2:55:59Mark Manson?

  All right. So we got the the pre dating skills. Let's talk about actually meeting somebody. How do you? How do you go about meeting the right person?

• 2:56:08Speaker 01

  Right. So the problem we're solving here, who do I actually encounter? Right. Who do I? Who am I around? And how do I get them to go out with me, basically? Right. Meeting and getting dates.

• 2:56:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:18Speaker 01

  That's where we're at. Okay.

• 2:56:19Mark Manson?

  And I feel like I feel like this problem is it's kind of double sided, right? And on the one side, it's simple initiative and effort. And then on the other side, it's it's a filtering problem. And I think men mostly experience the initiation and effort problem. But they also have a filtering problem. Uh, and women mostly experience the filtering problem, but they also have an initiation and effort problem as well.

• 2:56:43Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. So really like who you're actually encountering, how often you're doing that, under what circumstances? All of this is kind of encapsulated in this. Again, models, I think you called it demographics too. Wasn't that part of it? Wasn't that part of this?

• 2:56:54Mark Manson?

  So demographics is

• 2:56:55Speaker 01

  Kind of filtering.

• 2:56:56Mark Manson?

  Is the filtering part.

• 2:56:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:56:57Mark Manson?

  Which I think men underestimate because they don't think about it a whole lot. This perfect example is the one I gave about the the professor who's like trying to chat up girls in a dive bar. It's like you're dude, you're in the wrong, you're searching in the wrong demographics. You know, it's like trying to go sell ice to an Eskimo. Like they're just not buying, my man. So go find the market where you're gonna have the highest

• 2:57:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:57:22Mark Manson?

  Value.

• 2:57:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's kind of what we're gonna get into with these skills that we're gonna talk about here. Now, we're gonna be looking at like the digital dating skills is what they're calling them, which encapsulate this a lot. Yeah, I know, I know.

• 2:57:32Mark Manson?

  Sorry, I just

• 2:57:34Speaker 01

  Nah, there's actually

• 2:57:35Mark Manson?

  Puked in my mouth a little bit.

• 2:57:36Speaker 01

  No, there's some interesting stuff with that, too. I think we can kind of dig into the more of the nuances with that.

• 2:57:40Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 2:57:41Speaker 01

  We're also gonna talk about flirting. Hmm, that's fun.

• 2:57:43Mark Manson?

  It's fun.

• 2:57:44Speaker 01

  Reading people, too.

• 2:57:45Mark Manson?

  That's important.

• 2:57:46Speaker 01

  All right. Um, let's start with the digital stuff. Okay, let's get that out of the way. How about? Because this is how a lot of people are meeting people today.

• 2:57:53Mark Manson?

  And this is, this is gonna have to, you're gonna have to kind of carry the section, section, Drew, because I'm an old man, I'm a boomer, and I've known my wife for an eternity. So, um, I honestly like the, the, the only online dating experiences I had was a website, little old website called Plenty of Fish.

• 2:58:10Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Yeah, hey, it's still around.

• 2:58:11Mark Manson?

  Is it?

• 2:58:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:58:13Mark Manson?

  How about that?

• 2:58:13Speaker 01

  I haven't used dating apps in a while either, but maybe the good news is that they're kind of, they're kind of on their way out. I don't know if they're on their way out, but they're changing a lot.

• 2:58:22Mark Manson?

  They're struggling and they're changing. They're trying to, they're definitely trying to pivot, it seems.

• 2:58:26Speaker 01

  Right, right. Yeah, like I mentioned in an earlier section, there is a glimmer of hope that some of these dating sites are and apps are finally like getting the hint that people fucking hate them. You know, like

• 2:58:37Mark Manson?

  They're not working?

• 2:58:37Speaker 01

  Right, right. So that's good. I don't know, you know, when I have used dating apps, the thing that I think most people need to understand about them is like, look, this is the way to meet people and like, that's it. Okay, you need to go from connecting and meeting people to seeing them in real life as quickly as possible. That was my whole strategy anyway. I even got to the point where if I had matched with somebody, I would just mesh them and be like, hey, I'm not gonna pen pal you. Yeah. Do you wanna meet?

• 2:59:05Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 2:59:05Speaker 01

  And that was it. And that actually like sped things up.

• 2:59:08Mark Manson?

  Throwing the hammer down.

• 2:59:09Speaker 01

  Just do it. Just do it, right? That said, you know, some of the, some of the research around it, obviously photos play a huge role in this, an outsized role, I would say, blown out of proportion.

• 2:59:21Speaker 01

  You know, online, it's efficient and it can scale well, but it's pretty low resolution.

• 2:59:27Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:59:28Speaker 01

  Too, at the same time.

• 2:59:29Mark Manson?

  It's low quality information.

• 2:59:30Speaker 01

  Low quality information is a good way to put it, yeah. Another thing too, is that I think the margin for error is kind of a little bit. You get punished on these platforms if there's even like a little bit of an inconsistency or, you know, the classic case is, oh, you don't look at anything like your picture when you show up, or you lie on your profile or something.

• 2:59:50Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:50Speaker 01

  You get punished doubly so in that market for that.

• 2:59:53Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 2:59:53Speaker 01

  Honest signaling, I think is obviously just a baseline should be anyway, but you know, we gotta say it.

• 2:59:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:00Speaker 01

  I don't want to just talk about dating apps though too, because like I said, this is changing. This information will change, the platforms will change, the culture around it changes very quickly. AI, I think too, is having some, like a pretty big effect. On this, your AI photos, like touching up photos with AI or writing your profiles.

• 3:00:19Mark Manson?

  There are services now as well that will, AI will do your text messaging for you.

• 3:00:24Speaker 01

  Right, so I think more and more people are going to distrust these platforms more and more. So, but I do want to talk about more of like texting.

• 3:00:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:32Speaker 01

  Social media as well, that kind of stuff that we can get into.

• 3:00:35Mark Manson?

  Before we get into that, I do want to make one point. So, we've talked, I mean, I talk about it all the time in my work, we've talked about it on the podcast many times, but there's a concept known as the paradox of choice, which is that essentially the more options you have, the less satisfied you are with whatever you pick. This is true not just with dating, this is true with everything. You could, you know, basically studies show that if you offer somebody, say, two types of hamburger and they pick one, they'll be pretty satisfied with it, but if you offer them like 10 or 15 types, then they're gonna have a much harder, A, they're gonna have a much harder time making a decision. And then B, when they make the decision, they're much more likely to have buyer's remorse and question if they picked the right one,

• 3:01:19Mark Manson?

  if they could have done better, if maybe there's a better one and, you know, whatever. So, if you think about that in the context of dating. It's a huge problem and I used to see this all the time with people in New York City when I lived there. Just everybody's like, they've got six more people lined up. So like you said, coming back to, oh, I don't like his shoes and then disqualifying them. Right, yeah. Part of that is enabled by the fact that there is a perception of endless options and abundance, right? So it's like, if you feel like you have endless options or potentially endless options, why tolerate any, anything wrong with the person? Why, why settle for any of your criteria?

• 3:02:00Mark Manson?

  And so people end up in like, kind of almost trapped by their own brain a little bit, by like a little, the perceptual biases that are caused. Like the, the appearance, the appearance of abundance. What they're not realizing is that that, that perceived abundance is unfiltered, right? When you go out in the real world, when you go out to a party with your friends or a concert or, you know, a, a book club or whatever, there's a filtering system that is, that is already kind of sorting the people who are more likely to be good for you. And sure, you meet fewer people in the real world, but that's because they're on the other side of the filtration, the social filtration system. Online, there's no filtration system. So you're just barraged by endless low quality options.

• 3:02:46Mark Manson?

  Right. The second thing I want to say, and this will dovetail into the texting stuff, which you were about to get into. You know, we talked earlier about how so much signal is lost online, right? So things like vocal tonality, facial expressions, body language, attitude, right?

• 3:03:06Mark Manson?

  There's also signal that exists online that doesn't exist offline, which, and I think this trips a lot of people up. This is where you see a lot of confusion and people kind of agonize over what to do, right? So time to response, like how long does it take somebody to reply to you, right? Okay. That's a signal. Length of response, emojis, right? Did they get your sarcasm or not? Like there's all these little things that you don't really think about as being part of the communication, but they are part of the communication.

• 3:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:43Speaker 01

  No, it's and also what it is to like online, they they highlight different information. This is kind of what you're getting at here.

• 3:03:50Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:03:51Speaker 01

  Highlights, different information emphasizes information. Typically, it's more superficial to online. It compresses that information, exaggerates kind of the the ranking and the comparison as well.

• 3:04:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:01Speaker 01

  Because all of that information is right in front of you. It's super easy to rank and compare. And so you're going to rank and compare more readily in that situation. Whereas you're right, when in offline situations, you have richer social cues. It's just fewer opportunities.

• 3:04:16Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:04:16Speaker 01

  Right, which me personally, I just think that's the better environment to be in.

• 3:04:20Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:04:21Speaker 01

  My, my, a lot of my friends who would like get burned out on dating apps. I'm like, just get off of them for a little while, slow down. I think that should be your point is to slow down. Like you want that that higher resolution, slower pace.

• 3:04:33Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 3:04:34Speaker 01

  To and introduce those frictions that are gonna actually maybe spark something. Like we said, maybe not right away, but maybe down the road.

• 3:04:41Mark Manson?

  And honestly, having a little bit of scarcity is probably a good thing.

• 3:04:45Speaker 01

  Like limit yourself. It's put a box around.

• 3:04:47Mark Manson?

  It's really funny because back when I was a dating coach, like the the thing that everybody in the industry used to hammer into people's brains was like abundance, abundance, abundance. Like there's always more fish in the sea. Don't get hung up on one person like don't, don't agonize and freak out if if like one, one thing doesn't work out. These days, I I think some people need to hear the opposite.

• 3:05:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:05:06Mark Manson?

  Of like, uh, no, you should actually have a little bit of scarcity because then you're invested. Then it's like, then you actually care if it goes well or not.

• 3:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but okay, all of that said, I don't want to trash dating apps too much because there are a lot of people do meet on them. I have friends who've gotten married.

• 3:05:22Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:23Speaker 01

  They met on dating apps.

• 3:05:24Mark Manson?

  I think it's a third of marriages.

• 3:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so I'm not like, in the past, I've really shit on them a lot. But like, I I think the thing to take away really is that they they amplify kind of what's already there. They amplify your systems that you already have a lot. And sometimes in very negative ways and just to be aware of that. And if we go back to, you know, kind of the lifestyle stuff we were talking about earlier. One of the things I think you can do is just build a better friend network and that can kind of be your dating app. Right, like that's, that's how I've approached it anyway. And not everybody's like that.

• 3:05:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:54Speaker 01

  But that's kind of like where where I land on it.

• 3:05:59Speaker 01

  But they're like the other avenues that uh digital avenues that we use to communicate to now, you know, texting is pretty much everybody does it now. You probably do need to have a little bit of like awareness around texting, like you said, but using emojis and using lingo or whatever it is. Again, though, I I always see these as like, this is how you get from like asking for the date to bringing this real world.

• 3:06:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:06:24Speaker 01

  That's the avenue to use it. That's what it is. It's a tool for that and that's it.

• 3:06:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:06:28Speaker 01

  Don't try to get so cutesy with it. Don't try to overthink it too much.

• 3:06:32Mark Manson?

  I I I think people see the skill of digital communication as something to be mastered the same way you would master, I don't know, storytelling in person or public speaking. And and I, yeah, I agree with you. That's the wrong way to look at it. It's a means to an end, right? Like you're texting, your text game or whatever. It should be optimized to simply move the interaction forward. And there's, there's not really anything else to optimize for.

• 3:07:02Speaker 01

  It's just, it was, it's just the worst. Like, um, you haven't experienced this because you've never been on, but you go on a dating app and you get into like a two or three day long text conversation asynchronous, you know, between two people you've never met. And then you meet them and you're just like, ah, there's nothing there.

• 3:07:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:18Speaker 01

  The worst. It's just, it's almost demoralizing. So again, that's why I go back to like, just move as quickly as you can, get offline and

• 3:07:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:25Speaker 01

  meet them somewhere like.

• 3:07:26Mark Manson?

  It's funny because I've, I've, I've read about, I think we talked about this, uh, you know, with one of the, the dating experts that we interviewed on the old podcast, but um, there are a lot of people now that they actually prolong the text conversations and avoid dating because of what you just said. They're like, wow, we're having such a great text conversation.

• 3:07:44Speaker 01

  I don't want to ruin this.

• 3:07:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I don't want to ruin this. And and also it's like texting, it kind of allows you to like fantasize and idealize the other person. You get to fill in all the gaps yourself with like what you want them to be. As soon as you meet them in person, it's going to just obliterate all, all of that idealization.

• 3:08:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's research around that too. That's, and that's what they find, that's what they suggest is like, the longer these happen, the more idealization that happens.

• 3:08:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:08Speaker 01

  Uh, with both parties and, and yeah, usually doesn't end well.

• 3:08:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah. So in terms of building the skill, I would say, tell me if you agree, but I, I would say it's. The goal here is to remove ambiguity, right? So don't, don't try to get too cute. Don't try to like be extra snarky or funny or subtle. Anything that can just be construed as in the wrong way is probably going to be self defeating in the long run. Like this, what I used to always tell, you know, cause even though I never did dating apps, texting was like a huge part of, of, of dating when I was coaching. This is what I always used to tell guys. I was like texting, it's, it's mostly about just not messing up. It's not about like, you're never going to convince somebody who's not into you to suddenly be into you because you texted them something funny.

• 3:08:56Speaker 01

  Perfect text.

• 3:08:57Mark Manson?

  Right. It's like amazing meme or something. It never happens like the, there's only, when you're texting somebody that you just met or who's somebody who's just like very newly interested in you, there's almost only downside and very little upside. So as you said, it's just like be as, as blunt, communicate as clearly as possible. Be consistent, right? Don't make them wait around for three days and, or like, and then suddenly blast them with like a wall of text out of nowhere and get them offline as soon as possible.

• 3:09:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Uh, next one, we're going to talk about flirting a little bit, Mark. Flirting gets a little bit of a bad rap sometimes because it's kind of misunderstood as like maybe being a little too aggressive or even performative. But I think, I think what you're going to say anyway, is that it's really just a, it's a way to communicate interest. You could be clearly, it should be clearly, I think. Um, it's a way to communicate interest in like a safe way.

• 3:09:58Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 3:09:59Speaker 01

  That's how I, a healthy form of flirting.

• 3:10:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:01Speaker 01

  Should go, right? Um, I, well, I don't know. What's your definition of flirting? I'm not a super great flirter, I wouldn't say.

• 3:10:09Mark Manson?

  Really?

• 3:10:09Speaker 01

  It's not my, not my strong suit, but you know.

• 3:10:12Mark Manson?

  It's funny because I, I feel like if you are, flirting is the type of thing that you can actually overdo.

• 3:10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10:17Mark Manson?

  Very easily. And, um, and I find that like people, particularly people who are like very witty and clever can overdo it.

• 3:10:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:10:23Mark Manson?

  They can just spend the whole time trying to make the other person laugh and, and, uh, you know, dropping all of these like really clever subtle cues.

• 3:10:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:10:31Mark Manson?

  And then that, that actually never really moves things anywhere.

• 3:10:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:10:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Um, I would say flirting is less about what's being communicated. It's all about what's being sub communicated. So it's about. Having kind of a fun jovial playful interaction with somebody with the clear intent of subcommunicating to them that you're interested.

• 3:10:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:10:55Mark Manson?

  And there's a lot of different playful ways to do that. And it's obviously a lot of it involves humor. A lot of it is involves like misdirection.

• 3:11:07Mark Manson?

  Sometimes there's kind of a playful teasing aspect to it. I think in Anglo cultures teasing is a huge part of flirting. What's fascinating that I learned the hard way is that teasing is not seen as cute and flirty in many cultures.

• 3:11:19Speaker 01

  Oh, like where?

• 3:11:21Mark Manson?

  Well, Latin America, for instance.

• 3:11:22Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 3:11:22Mark Manson?

  Yeah, if you go down to Latin America and you start teasing a girl, like she just gets really sad and she's like, why are you so mean to me?

• 3:11:29Mark Manson?

  And I'm like, because I like you.

• 3:11:32Mark Manson?

  So, you know, you learn that the hard way. It's similar, I think, in a lot of Asian cultures. It's very similar.

• 3:11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11:38Mark Manson?

  So flirting, the teasing aspect of it is quite cultural, but like there is, I would say the thing that's cross-cultural is that there's a playfulness. There it's definitely like intense positive vibes. And I would say that there is kind of a playful misdirection that's happening. So it's, it's you are creating ambiguity or uncertainty in a way that is intentionally supposed to kind of get the other person thinking about you romantically.

• 3:12:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:12:11Mark Manson?

  One way to do that is through kind of teasing. So if you're kind of like playfully teasing with somebody, you kind of make fun of them for something, but it's in it, it's in a really cute, funny way. It creates that mixture of emotion of like, oh, he's kind of being mean to me, but he's also making me laugh. And so that that mixture of emotion. Kind of creates like a, I guess, a heightened experience. Okay. And it also is a social signal of like, I'm singling you out. Like, I'm giving you special treatment in some, some way or shape. I think you can kind of do it with like playing with your intentions, right? Like joking around, like telling her like, oh my God, you're so funny. I, I like you so much.

• 3:12:54Mark Manson?

  And then like 30 seconds later saying like, oh my God, you're unbearable. I can't be around you anymore. And then like, you know, it, it's just this constant kind of misdirection and like, Push-pull. Yeah, push-pull is a big part of it. It's almost like you're initiating a game or they are, the person who's interested in you is, is initiating a game. And you have the option to play with them. And if you play with them, you are signaling, I'm interested. Okay. I like this. And, and if you don't play with them, then you shut it down. You just don't go along with it. And then the sub-communication is like, okay, I'm not interested. The problem is, is that communication's hard enough already. Yeah, I was just gonna say.

• 3:13:36Mark Manson?

  Sub-communication is like very, very subtle and difficult for a lot of people. Like this is, I would say, good flirting is a high level social skill. Okay. So if you are, if you don't have great social skills to begin with, flirting's gonna be a big struggle. And this was the biggest thing that I ran into when I was a dating coach is that you would get a lot of people who didn't have great social skills to begin with. And they are, all the dating advice is telling them to be playful and be ironic and, uh, you know, kind of play games with people and joke with people and, and, uh, point out like funny things about them. And these, and these people, like, they can barely get through a conversation normally, right? And then suddenly they're trying to do all these like high levels of sub-communication.

• 3:14:21Mark Manson?

  So it was just a disaster. It was like an absolutely utter disaster.

• 3:14:26Mark Manson?

  So in that sense, I think flirting is a little bit overrated. What I personally found, both with myself and with a lot of clients back in the day, is that you can accomplish the same thing as flirting with kind of a piercing honesty. Okay. And vulnerability. Yeah. And it's, and it also has the side effect of not introducing ambiguity into the interaction. Like, I think flirting is fine if both people are charismatic enough to like, play the game and understand that they're playing the game and not be too invested in the game as they play. Like, kind of see the, the, the smoke signals that are happening between them.

• 3:15:09Mark Manson?

  But a lot of people are not sophisticated enough to understand that. I used to find quite a bit that, uh, well, first of all, there were a lot of people who were just bad at flirting. But also, there are a lot of people that just kind of compulsively flirt, like, they don't know how to stop flirting. Yes, if you are a flirt. Right. And, and, and so like you, things just kind of never go anywhere because it's just this constant repartee of like, battle of wits going on. And it's like, well, no, no, I'm trying to ask you on a date. And they're like, haha, you're so funny. Oh, and like making all these references to old jokes. And I'm like, no, no, but I'm asking you. Like, this is not a joke anymore. I'm like, actually trying to ask you on a date. So it's like, I think it can get overdone in a lot of contexts.

• 3:15:51Mark Manson?

  This is the other thing that's just different with a lot of other, other cultures is, um, you know, again, I think flirting tends to be a, a more of a Western. Yeah. Particularly Anglo or Northern European habit. A lot of other cultures, they're just direct. They're just, the man tells the woman, you're beautiful. Oh my God, you're my dream girl. I want to be with you. Like, that's their version of flirting. Or like buying her a gift or, uh, doing something really cute and romantic for her. Like, that's. Flirting, I think that the whole existence of flirting is the attempt to show interest without overtly showing interest.

• 3:16:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:16:30Mark Manson?

  And I think it's, it's very much born out of a culture that generally like represses emotions.

• 3:16:36Speaker 01

  Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I, like I said, I'm not super great at that style of flirting. What I really liked about your work early on, like when I came across it all those years ago and models and all of that was the like, yeah, you don't have to engage in that. If you're just upfront, honest, it accomplishes much of the same thing. It can build a lot of tension. And you know, you, you put your cards out there and that's what like, that was, that rang out very, very true to me. And I think it does for a lot of people. They're like, oh, okay, great. I don't gotta like be this like expert conversationalist.

• 3:17:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:07Speaker 01

  It's like slip this joke in here and touch your arm there. And that was, oh God, that was so clarifying.

• 3:17:12Mark Manson?

  Sometimes in, I mean, sometimes you just start feeling like a clown. Like you feel like you're, you feel like you're just performing.

• 3:17:20Speaker 01

  That's why I was saying at the top, I was like, well, but like a lot of people think of it as performance.

• 3:17:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:24Speaker 01

  And that's what gets you into trouble.

• 3:17:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:25Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, you can just cut all that bullshit out. There's a form of flirting where it's just like, hey, I like you.

• 3:17:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:30Speaker 01

  Hey, what's your name? You're cute.

• 3:17:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:32Speaker 01

  Right?

• 3:17:32Mark Manson?

  Like totally.

• 3:17:33Speaker 01

  And that's flirting.

• 3:17:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:34Speaker 01

  You know, it's not sophisticated by any means, but it's effective.

• 3:17:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

• 3:17:38Mark Manson?

  I also think, last thing I'll say too is I think flirting is, it's definitely an 80 20 thing. Like a little bit of flirting goes a long way.

• 3:17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17:47Mark Manson?

  A lot of flirting is probably not doing a whole lot of extra for you.

• 3:17:50Speaker 01

  No, for sure. Yeah. And yeah, what I figured out too is like, when I finally figured out like the kind of women who were interested in me and the signals they would give, like, once I figured that out, I was like, oh, okay. Then I could engage in that behavior without

• 3:18:04Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 3:18:04Speaker 01

  doing all the performative stuff.

• 3:18:06Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:06Speaker 01

  So there's, there's some subtleties to it. It's not very much. And then you're good.

• 3:18:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I think the importance of flirting is simply that you either sub-communicate or directly communicate your interest.

• 3:18:16Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah.

• 3:18:16Mark Manson?

  Like as long as they know that you're interested and then, then they find out in a way that like, isn't creepy or freaks them out.

• 3:18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18:23Mark Manson?

  You did your job.

• 3:18:24Speaker 01

  Right. And for that exact reason, I didn't find a whole lot of like really good advice on how to get better at flirting because it's kind of one of those things that it's a personality thing. Sure. You could probably get better at it with some practice, but it's, there's probably a diminishing return to it rather than just

• 3:18:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah. The old advice around that back in the day was comedy classes and improv classes.

• 3:18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Right.

• 3:18:46Mark Manson?

  And it's I mean, sure, like if you really wanna be like the funny guy.

• 3:18:51Speaker 01

  Take time to go like sign up for.

• 3:18:53Mark Manson?

  A lot of guys did.

• 3:18:54Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 3:18:55Mark Manson?

  A lot of guys did.

• 3:18:56Speaker 01

  Get a life, guys.

• 3:18:59Mark Manson?

  In their defense, I do think improv comedy.

• 3:19:02Speaker 01

  It's a great skill. Don't get me wrong.

• 3:19:04Mark Manson?

  There's a lot of great social and verbal skills that come with it.

• 3:19:07Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 3:19:08Mark Manson?

  But yeah, that being said, I just think it's, this is, it's another example of like how a lot of the pickup artists have just over indexed on, on something that's really fundamentally tactical.

• 3:19:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:19:21Mark Manson?

  And on the women's side too, you know, the flirtation is generally taught as like being hard to get. Right. It's like, okay, you like, give him a little bit of interest and then back off. And then you give him a little bit more and then you back off again and you kind of keep him like coming towards you. And it's just like this game or this dance that you play with him. And like, yeah, sure, that does build sexual tension and sure, like if a guy is insecure and really, really desperate for your, your interest and affection, yeah, he's gonna keep jumping through those hoops, but.

• 3:19:59Speaker 01

  Is that what you want?

• 3:19:59Mark Manson?

  Is that really what you want? Is that the relationship you want? Is a, is like a guy that you constantly have to test and he constantly has to prove himself to you? Like that's just, that sounds like an awful relationship. It's just so much cleaner and easier to, to just state what you feel.

• 3:20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just realizing as you're talking about this, though, too, the whole Anglo thing and this culture thing, like when, when I did find like your work in this area and stuff. And I was like, a big revelation for me. It didn't have to be, you know, it was, it's just, it's so simple, but it's so effective. And I, it was just, I don't know why, you don't have to complicate this area so much. That's what I'm saying.

• 3:20:38Mark Manson?

  You really don't.

• 3:20:38Speaker 01

  Dancing around it.

• 3:20:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah. Dating, dating can actually be extremely simple and it's honesty, not only on the male side, when you initiate, but also on the female side of just like how you're feeling. Like it just, I think, I think women worry a lot about, you know, is he gonna be sad? Is he gonna be upset? And again, I understand because there's, you know, a minority of guys are just, they're not gonna handle it and they're, they're gonna be awful and shitty and.

• 3:21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:04Mark Manson?

  But by and large, like you need to state how you feel. Like if you're into it.

• 3:21:12Mark Manson?

  Just say it. If you're not into it, say it. And, um, and yeah, a lot of people will be kind of taken aback at first, but ultimately, like, the secure, confident, good people, uh, will respond positively.

• 3:21:28Speaker 01

  Uh, that gets us into this last skill of this, uh, section then too, which is reading people. Now, in the, in the psychological research, it's called interpersonal attunement, but you said, don't call it that, Drew.

• 3:21:39Mark Manson?

  I was like, no, everybody will stop listening if you call it that.

• 3:21:43Speaker 01

  So we're going to reading people. Okay. Um, this is just, you know, basically just your ability, like, can you take a fucking hint, more or less, for men especially, right? Where the research shows we're actually really, really bad. Uh, both men and women are pretty bad at actually, um, being able to gauge, uh, romantic interest from the opposite sex, right? We're, we're pretty bad about it unless it gets to a certain point, you know, if, like, once you state your intent, obviously you're there, but just like the, all the other signals that come around this, we're pretty bad at this, actually. I, I actually, I don't think that, like, reading people as a skill, like, you're like, oh, I'm gonna like get inside their mind or anything like

• 3:22:25Speaker 01

  that. That's not what I mean by this. It's more just like picking up on a few signals. Um, honestly too, more than, more than anything, and you talk about this a lot too, is like getting the hint when she's not interested and just moving on. It's like, assume she's not playing hard to get, right? Or, um, and women probably just like assume he's just, what he's saying is what he's saying to, to some degree. Um, I think though, that, uh, the other thing i- is like not, not, not putting yourself in the position where you need to be read, like that clear communication. And more than anything, like this whole, like interpersonal attunement is more of a communication, uh, like a call for, uh, more direct communication. So you don't have to read

• 3:23:08Speaker 01

  people. That said, like, yeah, you need to pick up on some social cues. Not obsessing over it, not like getting really super deep into body language or anything like that, but you do need to have some basic social skill around this.

• 3:23:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I said earlier that, in my opinion, when it comes to dating and romantic relationships, intention is more important than what's actually said in most cases. And I think this, this is about reading intentions, is like understanding, okay. Uh, he said this to me, why is he saying this? Is he saying it because he's mad, because he's insecure, because he's desperate, because he's horny? Like, what's going on in this person's head? And yeah, you're, you're gonna have, there's gonna be a pretty high error rate to this, but I do think it's, it's an important skill of just like properly gauging when things are going well, when they're not going well.

• 3:24:02Mark Manson?

  This kind of comes back to just fundamental social skills, but unlike flirting, I think this is a social skill that benefits you in every area of your life. Like being able to read your coworker's intentions or get a sense of like when your mom is angry or not. Like it is, a lot of it is just pattern matching behavior or body language context and words.

• 3:24:26Mark Manson?

  And so I, to me, like, the best way to get good at this is just to simply get as much social exposure as possible.

• 3:24:31Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 3:24:32Mark Manson?

  And it's funny because I look back, you know, I went through, so I was a dating coach for about five years. And before those five years, I mean, I went out, I just partied all the time. I was going out, meeting girls, dating, partying four or five nights a week for another four or five years. So I, I had like a full decade of just being socializing almost compulsively. And I look back at that period and on the one hand, it's like, I wasted a lot of time. There's a lot of wasted time and energy. It probably

• 3:25:07Speaker 01

  Too many agribombs.

• 3:25:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah, definitely drank too much on many occasions. But when I look back at that period, I feel like this is the skill that I took away from it. The, like, one of the most important, like, these days, I feel like I can walk into a room and pretty quickly have an intuition of like,

• 3:25:25Speaker 01

  And do you feel like you weren't good at that before? Or you just feel like you got better with it? This is, this is like, I'm not really sure if there's, you know, like, some people are just really good at it naturally.

• 3:25:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:36Speaker 01

  There is like a personality component to this.

• 3:25:38Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:25:39Speaker 01

  That the way to get better, I agree, is by just socializing more. And you're gonna have to go through some awkward conversations and awkward situations. And yes, but like, uh, yeah, I don't know. Do you feel like you weren't real good at this before? I feel like I've always been fairly, fairly sufficient at this.

• 3:25:52Mark Manson?

  I think I was decent at it.

• 3:25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:53Mark Manson?

  I don't, I don't think I was ever bad.

• 3:25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:56Mark Manson?

  But I do think I went, I probably went from like, okay, to very good at it.

• 3:26:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:26:00Mark Manson?

  Like, I do feel like now I'm like, better than the vast majority of people, like, just reading a situation or reading people's intentions and kind of understanding what's going on with them. Uh, and I do think a lot of that came just from all of this experience. But yeah, some of it, what's interesting too, is I actually have never looked if there's research on this, but I've like, read it in many places. And I've talked to a number of children of abusive parents. Typically, people who come from like, a very dysfunctional home, with alcoholic parents, drug addicted parents, physically abusive parents. They are often excellent at this. They're like masters at it.

• 3:26:42Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 3:26:42Mark Manson?

  They just have this unbelievably uncanny gut intuition of like, they can look at a person and immediately know what they're feeling and, and thinking. And it's develops as like a survival mechanism. And, uh, I've come across it in like, you know, various,

• 3:27:01Mark Manson?

  kind of like, family systems books and books around addiction and stuff. But I've also just talked to people, like, I remember, this was one of the things that, that Will Smith said, you know, his father was an abusive alcoholic. And he said that he really thought that his ability to empathize and intuit. People and emotions like really came from that because he could, he said that he could tell by the way his father closed the door and put down his keys, he could tell whether he was happy, sad, drunk, sober, you know, gonna be nice, gonna be an asshole.

• 3:27:32Speaker 01

  Just by putting down his keys.

• 3:27:33Mark Manson?

  Just by, just by closing the door and putting down his keys, he already knew. He was like, okay, this is gonna be a long night.

• 3:27:38Speaker 01

  Wow. Again, like the, what I said before, one of the best dating pieces advice that I have is just getting a good social life and this is like, here's another benefit.

• 3:27:50Mark Manson?

  Another example, yeah, you get really good at understanding people.

• 3:27:53Speaker 01

  He is socially attuned. Again, like if you're not a super social person, that might be painful upfront, but it's, it's gonna be worth it in the long run.

• 3:28:04Speaker 01

  Okay, so we've went through those three skills. What about Mark, the part where like asking for the date? Getting the date. Okay, so this is like, you're meeting the people, you're talking to them, you're reading them, you're flirting with them.

• 3:28:15Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 3:28:15Speaker 01

  Getting the date. What do you do?

• 3:28:18Mark Manson?

  You say, do you wanna go on a date with me?

• 3:28:22Speaker 01

  Do you know how long it took me to figure this out? Oh, hey, you wanna get dinner? You wanna get coffee?

• 3:28:27Mark Manson?

  Oh my God, it's not hard.

• 3:28:29Speaker 01

  I know, right? We don't work out that too, don't we?

• 3:28:31Mark Manson?

  It's simple, but difficult. It's, that's actually different. It's, it's not complicated, but it is hard.

• 3:28:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:28:38Mark Manson?

  Because it's emotionally hard. But because it's emotionally hard, people wanna make it complicated. It's the same with like guys, you know, approaching a girl, like introducing themselves to a girl. I remember, I used to have clients actually get angry with me because, you know, they, I'd take them out. We'd go to a bar or a cafe or something and there'd be a cute girl and I'd be like, okay, cool. Like go talk to her and he'd be like, but, but, but what do I say? And I'm like, say, hi, my name's David. They're like, I can't say that. What are you talking about? Like what else are you gonna, he's like, well, I've gotta have a line, like, you know, like, you're, you're a coach, you're supposed to give me a line. And I'm like, yeah, your line is hello, my name is David.

• 3:29:21Mark Manson?

  And so anyway, I'd have this argument with them and then they'd walk over and they'd say, hello, my name's David. How are you doing today? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It'd go great. They'd get the girl's number. And then they'd come back and they would be furious. They'd be fucking pissed off. So pissed.

• 3:29:36Speaker 01

  I brought this guy in for this shit.

• 3:29:38Mark Manson?

  And they're like, they're like, it was this easy this whole time?

• 3:29:43Mark Manson?

  They're like, I could have been doing this this whole time.

• 3:29:48Speaker 01

  That's yeah, we overcomplicate that part of it. Definitely. What? Okay. One little thing, though, that's helped me, I think. The last, so my current girlfriend, the way I asked her out, okay. We actually, we met through other friends and we kind of spent, had a few different times where we hung out. And then I, I finally asked her out. Well, I caught, I chickened out a little bit. I was gonna ask her out and then she left. And then I called her and we were on the same text change. So I had her number already. I called her up and I said, hey, do you want to go get dinner sometime? And she's like, wait, what? And I was like, I'm asking you out. Do you want to go get dinner?

• 3:30:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:30:19Speaker 01

  And she's like, yeah, I, she's, she was driving. I was like, I gotta, I need to, uh, check my schedule and this and that. She was busy over the next couple of weeks. I was like, yeah, no, no problem. Cool. I didn't hear back from her for like an hour or two. And I was like, oh, you know.

• 3:30:35Speaker 01

  So I texted her, I said, hey, look, like, I would really like to take you out to dinner. If you don't want to, that's totally.

• 3:30:40Mark Manson?

  Totally fine.

• 3:30:41Speaker 01

  And I'm not gonna be weird about it. Right? So that like just communicated to her like, hey, this guy's probably cool. He's not gonna be weird about it. It's not gonna be weird if I say no. She was just like, she had a lot going on. And so she texted back, she said, no, I totally want to go. Let's do that. What I found though, in lots of situations, and even since I remember in our early, when we, uh, early phases of dating, I would always like, I'm like, hey, you want to go hang out? Go to this, go out to dinner, whatever. I'd always give her that little out. Be like, if you don't want to, you're busy or whatever. Totally cool.

• 3:31:08Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 3:31:08Speaker 01

  And I meant it.

• 3:31:09Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:31:09Speaker 01

  And one of the things was, is that it gave me kind of like a little bit of like, it set it up like she might say no, and that's okay.

• 3:31:15Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:31:16Speaker 01

  Right? And so if you're, if you're guy or girl, you know, in that situation, I think just letting, like, giving somebody that out is like, it relieves pressure on both sides.

• 3:31:25Mark Manson?

  It's a great.

• 3:31:26Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 3:31:26Mark Manson?

  Tactical point.

• 3:31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:31:28Mark Manson?

  And I, I think especially coming from a man to a woman.

• 3:31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:31:31Mark Manson?

  Cause we talked about how like, women, they, there's always that kind of question of safety hanging over their head.

• 3:31:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:31:39Mark Manson?

  If I tell this guy no, is he gonna flip out? Is he gonna get angry? And is he gonna start stalking me and following me everywhere? You know, when you, when you give her that out, it, it signals so many things. One, it signals like, I'm safe.

• 3:31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:31:53Mark Manson?

  I'm not, I'm not gonna ruin your life. Two, it signals like. I'm okay with myself. I'm confident. Like, I don't need this. I like you, but I don't need this, uh, which is by itself sexy and attractive, right? And then, yeah, it like, it gives yourself clarity because if she doesn't say yes, or it's not a fuck yes, like, it immediately resolves the situation for you. Like, you're like, I gave her the chance to say a clear yes. She didn't say a clear yes. So like, cool. There's no, there's no decision here. There's no ambiguity. Don't get butthurt about it. Like, just move on to the next thing.

• 3:32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And it, I mean, it really does. Even if you don't, even if you are a little anxious about it, just putting that out there, I don't, for whatever reason, for me, it just, it did, like, make me okay with it.

• 3:32:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:32:41Speaker 01

  But for whatever it was, I don't know, it's some communicate to myself that I was okay with it, you know?

• 3:32:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:32:45Speaker 01

  Just saying it out loud, like, oh, yeah, this is, there's a possibility this might not work. And that's okay. So.

• 3:32:50Mark Manson?

  It's, it's funny, because it's

• 3:32:54Mark Manson?

  the, this kind of comes back to the confidence and the status piece, but it also comes back to the reading piece. So the way I met my wife, you know this story.

• 3:33:03Speaker 01

  I was gonna, I was gonna ask you to bring this up.

• 3:33:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah, the, the way I met my wife, she shot me down.

• 3:33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:33:08Mark Manson?

  The first time I met her. So I was in a nightclub in Brazil.

• 3:33:13Mark Manson?

  She walked in, I, I was, it's hilarious, because in Brazil, the party started like 1:30 in the morning.

• 3:33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:33:19Mark Manson?

  Me being a dumb gringo, I showed up at, uh, 11:45 and was the only person in the club, so.

• 3:33:26Speaker 01

  Are you serious? Oh, my God.

• 3:33:29Mark Manson?

  So, yeah.

• 3:33:29Speaker 01

  Sounds exhausting.

• 3:33:30Mark Manson?

  It was me and my British friend just standing at the bar for like 45 minutes by ourselves. And, uh, but then she was, she was like the first woman to walk in. And as soon as she walked in, we like locked eye contact. She looked stunning. And I was like, oh, sweet. Definitely gonna go talk to her. So maybe like 10 or 15 minutes later, uh, I approached her on the dance floor and introduced myself, started talking to her. And she was polite, but it was one of those like classic.

• 3:34:00Mark Manson?

  She's being polite, but she's like, doesn't want to be in this conversation type situations. Like lots of one word answers, um, not making eye contact, looking around the room as she was talking to me, getting distracted frequently. Again, reading people, right?

• 3:34:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:34:17Mark Manson?

  What are the signals? What are the sub-communication? She's like barely engaged in the conversation. She's adding absolutely nothing to it. And I think a lot of men in that situation, they like, they start getting anxious and they're like, I need to win her over. I need to like prove to her how fucking alpha I am. And I just, years before that, I had decided, like, I realized that that's just so pointless.

• 3:34:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:34:41Mark Manson?

  Like, why are you trying to convince somebody who's not interested or excited to, to be interested and excited? Like, there's just like such an awful mindset to have. So after three or four minutes, uh, I was like, okay, this is going nowhere. So I told her, I said, hey, um, you know, it was great meeting you. I hope you have fun with your friends tonight. And she kind of looked at me, she was like, kind of startled and, uh, I was like, have a good night and I walked away. And it's funny because she later said, she was like, wow, no guy does that.

• 3:35:11Speaker 01

  Right. Sit there and pester you.

• 3:35:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah, she was like,

• 3:35:14Speaker 01

  Less and less attractive.

• 3:35:14Mark Manson?

  She was like, I didn't have to say anything. I didn't have to like drop a hint. I didn't have to make up an excuse. I didn't have to pretend to go to the bat. Like you just, he just noticed and then was like, have a great night and walked off. And, and I honestly thought I was never, because this is the other funny thing is like often in the past, when I would tell this story, guys would be like, oh, that, oh, that's a great tactic. You got, you gotta like walk away because then that's going to make her want you more. Or like, okay, awesome. Like what's step two, Mark? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. That's no, that's totally beside the point. I walked away genuinely believing I was never going to see her again. And then sure enough, like, I think maybe three or four hours later, literally bumped into her on the dance floor.

• 3:35:58Mark Manson?

  You know, bumped into somebody behind me. The club got a lot more crowded and bumped into somebody behind me, turned around. It was her. She was super friendly. She's like, how's your night going? I'm like, oh, now she wants to talk.

• 3:36:12Speaker 01

  Well, was she like three caperinas in or whatever, though?

• 3:36:14Mark Manson?

  She had not had a single drink?

• 3:36:16Speaker 01

  Okay, alright, alright.

• 3:36:16Mark Manson?

  What had happened, though, is that she had been hit on by a really creepy man for like the last hour.

• 3:36:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:36:24Mark Manson?

  And so suddenly, yeah, and so suddenly she was like, wow, he was really cute. I should have talked to him instead. And so she and I hit it off from there and then like.

• 3:36:35Speaker 01

  And now today, she's putting up with all your bullshit.

• 3:36:37Mark Manson?

  She's still around, still giving one-word answers and looking at the ceiling when I talk to her.

• 3:36:45Speaker 01

  Yep, yep. And that's the goal, everybody.

• 3:36:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:36:52Mark Manson?

  Speaking of which, speaking of which, this actually segues pretty perfectly into the actual skills of dating. So let's talk about like, you've met somebody, you really like each other. How do you keep it going? Like, how do you keep somebody, once you've met them and you've hit it off and it's gone well? And the first skill is trustworthiness.

• 3:37:14Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 3:37:15Mark Manson?

  Trustworthiness is, it's huge for both sexes, but I think it's, it's huge in slightly different ways. But first, I think it's probably worth taking a moment to just kind of explain, like, what is trust? Like, why, why, what is trust? What does it mean? And why does it seem so important? So basically, like, when you're dealing with anybody, forget romance for a second, when you're dealing with any other human being, you have no idea what's going through their head. You know, like, they could go crazy, they could run off to Tahiti, they could steal all your money, they, everything's on the table at all times.

• 3:37:47Speaker 01

  Huge amounts of uncertainty.

• 3:37:48Mark Manson?

  Yes, there's always uncertainty. So generally speaking, what you look for, what we're wired to look for, is consistency and reliability.

• 3:37:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:37:57Mark Manson?

  Right? Does this person actually do the things that they say they do? Have they actually done the things that they say they've done? Do they actually feel the things that they say they feel? Are they going to do the thing that they told me they're gonna do in the future, right? It's just like, making sure your words and actions and emotions line up consistently over and over and over and over again. And part of this, you know, we've been talking on and off about costly signaling throughout, throughout this episode, right? The signals are what signal your status and your attractiveness to the other sex. The costliness of that signal determines how trustworthy it is, right? So the fact that.

• 3:38:40Mark Manson?

  One way you could look at me meeting my wife is the fact that I willingly, first of all, I read her social cue correctly, and then I willingly walked away, and I did it politely and respectfully. All of those things are cues about my character, my personality, my intelligence. But the fact that I'm also losing the thing I want, which is to get to know her, that I'm paying a price, it is a cost, like, all of these are costly signals that I am volunteering to her, also signals to her that, it's like, okay, this guy's not bullshitting, like, he's not faking, he's not pretending, to be honest, like, otherwise,

• 3:39:22Mark Manson?

  he wouldn't have walked away. The more skin in the game you have, when you are consistent, the more potential downside there is to your consistency and reliability, the more meaningful it is, and the more people respect it and depend upon it. So that's what trust is. And if you build that consistency and reliability over a long period of time, you build trust, you know, people start believing, like, if you say you feel a certain way, they trust that you feel that way. If you say you're gonna do a thing, they trust that you're gonna do that thing. The interesting thing about trust, it's like, there's a famous quote from Warren Buffett, where he said that, uh, he said that, uh, it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. And it's, it's exactly the same

• 3:40:04Mark Manson?

  with trust. You, you spend years and years and years building trust in somebody, and then it, all it takes is just one big fuck up, and it's all gone. Right? Like, you're back at square one. So you have to be very, very careful with trust. I would argue, you know, this, this episode's not about relationships, period, like, it's, we're focusing on dating and courtship. But if this was a relationship episode, trust is number one. If you don't have trust, nothing else really works. Everything is just, like, struggling. Because people don't know if it's true, right? If I don't trust you, and, and you say you respect me, then, like, you saying that means nothing, has no value, doesn't add anything to the

• 3:40:47Mark Manson?

  relationship. So trustworthiness is a, it's a signal of potential long-term value, right? So if you are trustworthy,

• 3:40:57Mark Manson?

  It signals to the other person of like, hey, this is somebody I can go a long way with. That it's like, I can depend on them. I know that they're gonna have my back. I'm not gonna have to like guess of what they're feeling or thinking. I'm not gonna have to like play games with them. It's things are gonna be straightforward, they're gonna be simple, and they're gonna be dependable. I think in terms of how men and women kind of worry about trust.

• 3:41:24Mark Manson?

  I think in the case of men, I think a lot of it has to do with fidelity and loyalty.

• 3:41:31Speaker 01

  Right, yes.

• 3:41:33Mark Manson?

  And I think with women, it has more to do with safety and stability. Right, so it's I think it's, and again, that's just a generalization, obviously, like both men and women worry about fidelity and both men and women worry about safety and stability, but by and large, that's probably the trend skews a little bit in both of those directions, so you know, if you're early in a relationship, let's say you're dating your like first month of a relationship. The thing that the man is probably going to be more sensitive to are things like flirting with other men, hanging out with other men.

• 3:42:11Mark Manson?

  Being touchy feely with other men. Like they're gonna have very low tolerance for that sort of thing. Whereas I think women are probably gonna have much lower tolerance for things like lying, instability, changing your mind all the time about things. Being super inconsistent, unreliable, not showing up for things, being like an hour and a half late for stuff. You know, it's just my guess is that those are probably huge, huge turn offs.

• 3:42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and the research backs almost all of that up too. I mean, really that trustworthiness isn't necessarily like a big predictor of initial attraction, like you were saying.

• 3:42:48Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 3:42:48Speaker 01

  But it does determine whether or not that attraction survives.

• 3:42:52Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:42:53Speaker 01

  Right, going down the, like you said. The interesting thing too is very similar to the Warren Buffett quote, like if, if signs of untrustworthiness are there early, it's that you're done. But if, as long as you have just one or two of those, you can build off of that. It just takes a lot longer. So it's not like a, oh, this guy's trustworthy. That's super fucking hot. But there, there's definitely, this is a red flag issue where it's like, this can hurt you if you don't have it.

• 3:43:19Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:43:19Speaker 01

  Early on.

• 3:43:20Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's what we find with that.

• 3:43:22Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it, it can break things. It does, doesn't necessarily build anything, but it breaks things if it's not there. So the way to be more trustworthy is be more consistent, reliable, dependable.

• 3:43:34Speaker 01

  Be more trustworthy.

• 3:43:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah, like do the things you say you're gonna do. I mean, it's essentially, it's just integrity. I do think there is a component here that's very interesting though, which is there's a component of self-discipline. And again, this kind of comes back to the improving yourself point, right? You know, we do a lot of content around self-discipline. There's a lot of self-discipline content in this space in general. There's a lot of productivity content. There's a lot of content about habits and goals and all this stuff. I think an aspect of it that people don't consider very often is this, right? Is like, sure, building self-discipline, it helps you get in shape. It helps you do better at work. Helps you build good habits, break bad habits. But it also gives you more capacity for

• 3:44:20Mark Manson?

  trustworthiness in your relationships, right? Like if you are, if you develop, if you build that discipline muscle in your head where you're able to do hard things consistently, even when you don't feel like doing them, that signals to your partner and to other people you care about in your life, that you're dependable, that you're gonna be there for them, that you're gonna be reliable, that you're not gonna just pick up and disappear and ghost them. So it's, I think a lot of the quote unquote, like personal work that people maybe obsess over when they, before wanting to get into their relationship.

• 3:44:55Mark Manson?

  It's really just like finding that stability and that consistency within themselves.

• 3:44:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:45:00Mark Manson?

  Like, okay, I'm now, I know I'm capable of waking up and doing all the things I need to do every single day. Awesome. Now, now I can have a partner who can depend on me because they can, they'll see that I'm able to just do all the things I need to do each day.

• 3:45:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to trust yourself before anybody's gonna trust you. And self-discipline as a way to develop that self-trust that you have to.

• 3:45:21Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally agree with that.

• 3:45:23Mark Manson?

  So, next skill for keeping a hottie who's into you. Conversation skills, communication skills. This is super important. This is another one that it's like if we were doing a relationship episode, this would be a huge, huge chapter in that episode. But it's also important in dating, right? Like, how well you communicate with the person, how well you express yourself, how well you set expectations and so on.

• 3:45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think also like a big component of this too is, you know, in this friendship episode, we talked about reciprocal disclosure.

• 3:45:53Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 3:45:53Speaker 01

  That happens here as well. And there's an amount of like, kind of graduated vulnerability, I think, or some degree of sharing that you need to get comfortable with, especially like in those initial dates that you go on and all of that and being able to talk openly about yourself and express it without like going over the top.

• 3:46:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:46:11Speaker 01

  I think a lot of people mis-calibrate this, especially people who've held back for a long time. They're gonna figure out, oh, vulnerability, great, I can just dump all my shit on this person and they'll like me. It's like, no, that's probably actually the wrong.

• 3:46:20Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:46:20Speaker 01

  Wrong way to go about this. So, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about like calibrating vulnerability in here too, or?

• 3:46:26Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's funny, this, so vulnerability, it's, it's actually quite funny because it's been so many years and I'm like so removed from that industry now. But the big controversial topic that I was associated with when I was in the dating advice industry was I was the first person who really pushed vulnerability in a dating context of like, hey.

• 3:46:48Speaker 01

  Especially for men.

• 3:46:49Mark Manson?

  Especially for men.

• 3:46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46:50Mark Manson?

  Like, hey, you should be going into dates sharing yourself. You should be expressing insecurities or uncertainties.

• 3:46:59Mark Manson?

  Even as early as the first date, you should be openly talking about some of your past failures and failed relationships, even in the first few weeks. Like, these are not, these are not taboo, they're not scary topics. If you can learn how to talk about them in a way that's confident and you can own them, that in itself is actually incredibly attractive to the other person. And again, that's also what builds that confidence, is you build that evidence of like, I can talk about hard things, I can share my vulnerabilities, the world doesn't end, I can own, you know, all my, all my bullshit. The catch with this, though, is that generally if you're going from a life of repressing

• 3:47:44Mark Manson?

  and holding stuff in to experimenting with vulnerability, there's, there's kind of a pain period that most people go through. And I think if you kind of imagine it as like, there's all this pent up emotion and mess that's been inside your brain festering for years. And as soon as you like uncork it, it just kind of goes spewing everywhere. You just like emotionally vomit on the people. And I definitely experienced this when I was, when I was young and I started sharing some things, you know, to women I was dating pretty early. Like, stuff would, I would start talking about something and then like 20 minutes would go by and I'd just be like ranting about my ex-girlfriend. And I'd be like, oh, I think I overshared.

• 3:48:29Mark Manson?

  I actually remember I was on a date with a girl where like, I kind of went on one of those rants and she just kind of looked at me and she was like, I think maybe you didn't need to tell me all of that.

• 3:48:39Speaker 01

  Right, right. Well, that's, that's a problem, especially I think for men too, because they do hear that and they're like, oh, good, okay, I can be open and share and this and that. And not even if they're like, yeah, some men are like, this is attacking, but not even that, it's just men who are just like, oh, great, I get to, I get to, I get to share this.

• 3:48:54Mark Manson?

  I can dump my shit all over.

• 3:48:55Speaker 01

  I can dump this. And it's like, well, no, that's not what women mean when they want you to like, open up about your emotions necessarily, right?

• 3:49:01Mark Manson?

  It's tricky. I think this is an area where as a man, you, you get judged much harsher than women do. Like, women, I think it's, I think women also need to be vulnerable and, and open up quite a bit. But I think it's, there's more, it's socially acceptable for women to open up and be vulnerable. It's Socially acceptable for them to kind of probe into insecurities and stuff. And I think in many cases, men like it. Like, I know I like women who are very open and vulnerable, just because it's like I have trouble being open and vulnerable myself. So when I'm, when in the past, when I've dated women who are very good at it, it's just like a relief. I'm like, oh, good. She's like, she can, she can get the ball rolling and we can start talking about some stuff.

• 3:49:46Mark Manson?

  But yeah, men, it's a fine line because I think, and this, this was something that I used to run into a lot in my work, is kind of convincing men that like, you can open up about this stuff without being wishy washy and whiny and like, you know, being a puddle on the floor that she has to step over. You can open up about it and own it and like, own it, like, express it in confidence. Express it in a way that, that doesn't display weakness, it actually displays strength. But it is a skill. And I think it's a skill that men are generally not excited to learn, but there are huge benefits to learning how to do it. I mean, even Brene Brown herself, who's kind of like the queen of vulnerability

• 3:50:31Mark Manson?

  in this space, you know, she, she wrote a, there's a whole section, I think, in Daring Greatly about how men are harshly judged and, and especially harshly judged by women if they open up too much about their feelings too soon, or if they open up in a way that's like very out of control, maybe like they, they kind of like, you know, my story when I like ranted for too long about my ex, like, the problem wasn't that I talked about my ex. And the problem wasn't that I was angry about my ex. The problem was I lost control. Right? So if you, if you, I think the key is that if you lose control while you're expressing the emotion, that's where there's a problem.

• 3:51:09Speaker 01

  I was gonna say. I think that makes more sense because I was gonna say it's it's when you present it in a way it's like, here, can you fix this for me? But that's also a form of I don't have any control over this, so you need to fix it for me.

• 3:51:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:51:20Speaker 01

  So I think that, yeah, a more fundamental layer is the the control. Okay.

• 3:51:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, yeah, I I I realize this about myself. I realize this is a flaw or something I did or some some issue I have. But I'm working on it.

• 3:51:34Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:51:34Speaker 01

  Right? Like, and I have some sort of handle on it.

• 3:51:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51:39Mark Manson?

  I would include in communication skills, I mean, part of it's just being a good conversationalist.

• 3:51:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51:44Mark Manson?

  Right? You know, good pacing, um, good storytelling.

• 3:51:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Humor comes in here too, again, like we talked about with flirting. And this too, there's some, there's interesting research around the humor side where um, women find the production of humor to be uh, you know, attractive. Where men find when women laugh at their jokes, attractive, which doesn't surprise me at all. And that is totally one way, like, but I found this out later, but my girlfriend, she laughs at at all of my jokes. I found this out later. She laughs at everybody's jokes.

• 3:52:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:52:13Speaker 01

  I was just like, oh, okay.

• 3:52:17Mark Manson?

  I think women are definitely better at this than men.

• 3:52:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:52:21Mark Manson?

  And there's, there's a lot of evidence for that. Like, that's not, that's not a, and that's not just social socialization, although there is a lot of socialization of of communication and conversation with women, but um, you know, women develop verbally sooner in life.

• 3:52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:52:36Mark Manson?

  Little girls are actually generally about one grade ahead of little boys in terms of uh, verbal skills and language skills for, I think, up until puberty.

• 3:52:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I see this with my friends' kids right now, like they're at an age right now. It's wild.

• 3:52:50Mark Manson?

  Girls have, little girls have, like, I forget what the number is. It's like four times as many conversations or three times as many conversations as little boys do. So i- it is, I think women are naturally better at a lot of these skills. Men are definitely, you know, sometimes dragging their knuckles and um, you know, grunting uh, to try to figure out what's going on. But I, for that reason, I do feel like this is probably a higher levered skill for men.

• 3:53:17Speaker 01

  I think so too.

• 3:53:17Mark Manson?

  Especially given how many men out there are like fucking terrible at at communicating and sharing what they're feeling or thinking. If you are a man who can figure these things out and you can share these things and you can be open about them, um, I think. To high quality women, to really smart women, emotionally aware women. It's gonna be very, very attractive.

• 3:53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 3:53:41Mark Manson?

  In terms of how to get good at that vulnerability disclosure, I mean, the conversation skill stuff, like a lot of that comes back to the social, social interaction, right? The vulnerability piece, I would actually say the best, if you're a man and you just like really struggle to open up and share what you feel and, and are generally closed off around people and you, and you recognize that it's harming your life, the best thing you can do is therapy.

• 3:54:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:54:06Mark Manson?

  It's, it's, if anything, just because it is going to allow you to work that muscle of talking about yourself.

• 3:54:15Speaker 01

  In a safe environment.

• 3:54:16Mark Manson?

  Talking about what you feel and, and then if there's any emotional vomit that comes up,

• 3:54:22Mark Manson?

  you can get it out in a safe environment where you're not going to be judged for it.

• 3:54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hundred percent agree with that.

• 3:54:27Mark Manson?

  Speaking of emotional vomit, that brings us to our next skill. Emotional regulation. It's the ability to manage internal emotional states so that your behavior is stable, clear, and your intentions are clear as well.

• 3:54:41Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 3:54:42Mark Manson?

  We did a whole four and a half hour episode on emotional regulation and the importance of it, and how to build it and how to improve at it. Let's just say that this kind of, I think this kind of goes hand in hand with the trust piece in terms of, you know, the, the worse you are at emotional regulation, the more unstable and unpredictable your behavior is going to be and your reactions to things are going to be. So it's like the more you can kind of get, get a handle on your own emotions and again, maintain control, the better things are probably going to go for you.

• 3:55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, but lacking emotional control is very unattractive.

• 3:55:19Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:55:20Speaker 01

  Obviously, like if you're erratic, if you're prone to anger, if you're prone to outbursts, or if you're prone to like really like your anxiety ramps up very, very quickly, obviously that's going to be very unattractive. So being able to handle uncertainty.

• 3:55:35Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:55:35Speaker 01

  You know, and which dating scenarios have a lot of uncertain situations in them. When you meet somebody new, you don't know them, there's a lot of uncertainty. So being able to. Kind of just regulate your emotions.

• 3:55:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:55:46Speaker 01

  Right. And being able to, uh, to, to keep a lid on them, uh, in certain situations. Now, that doesn't mean suppression.

• 3:55:52Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:55:53Speaker 01

  Right. Because that's like, that's going too far the other way. But the research does show that, you know, um, people who can tolerate that uncertainty under escalating anxiety even to, they're seen as just warmer, uh, safer interaction partners and just more attractive.

• 3:56:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:56:07Speaker 01

  Like that's, the research just shows that, like, they've done all sorts of different, like, watch, have people watch videos, have them interact with people. Uh, a confederate who's acting very erratically versus very calm, all that.

• 3:56:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:56:18Speaker 01

  10 times out of 10, they find just the more emotionally regulated person is more attractive.

• 3:56:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:56:24Mark Manson?

  It's interesting, like, looking at this list of skills that we're going through.

• 3:56:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 3:56:27Mark Manson?

  I feel like there, there are certain skills that tend to find their own level with, between people, and then there are certain skills that I think are kind of maybe compensating for each other, but like, for instance, I think generally people of similar levels of self-worth and emotional maturity tend to find each other. Like, generally speaking, you, you don't see somebody who has extremely low self-esteem and poor emotional regulation with somebody who has a lot of self-esteem and high emotional regulation. They generally find each other with, with maybe just different behavioral patterns.

• 3:57:02Mark Manson?

  Similarly, people of similar status, and there's a lot of data behind this, but people of similar socioeconomic status and, and social status tend to pair up more often than not, and people of similar, uh, physical attractiveness also tend to pair up together. What's interesting is that some of these, I feel like, you know, often what you'll see is, is in, in, in successful couples is there'll be like one person with really good social skills and one person with not so great social skills.

• 3:57:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 3:57:29Mark Manson?

  Um, you'll often sometimes see like these sorts of skills compensating for each other, like maybe, uh,

• 3:57:37Mark Manson?

  He's got great social skills and she doesn't have great social skills, but she's super emotionally regulated. He's like not emotionally regulated at all. So they kind of like are able to balance each other. I generally find that people who end up working well together over the long run, they are either the same or total opposite at everything.

• 3:57:58Speaker 01

  Okay. So like they're, they're, they're complimenting each other and

• 3:58:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:58:03Speaker 01

  or like forming one hole or something.

• 3:58:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah. They're like either reinforcing each other or they are compensating for each other's flaws.

• 3:58:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:58:11Mark Manson?

  Right? So you, you tend to see very extroverted people matched up with people who are kind of shy and introverted. You often will see like very clean and organized people with people who are like very unorganized. You'll often see very extremely calm people with people who are like very anxious and uptight. And I think a lot of that is just, it's kind of therapeutic to like spend most of your time with somebody who is compensating for maybe like one of the more extreme aspects.

• 3:58:38Speaker 01

  Helping to regulate your own nervous system. Yeah.

• 3:58:41Mark Manson?

  But I think when it, when it comes to actual attractiveness itself, so status.

• 3:58:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:58:47Mark Manson?

  Confidence in a, in a track, uh, physical attractiveness, people tend to find

• 3:58:54Mark Manson?

  match with people at their own level.

• 3:58:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:58:55Mark Manson?

  If one person is way more attractive or way more confident than the other, then it like, it's probably going to be an unstable relationship.

• 3:59:02Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay. Well, okay. So some of the ways you can work on your emotional regulation as it pertains to like dating and attraction and specifically, so we have the whole episode on emotions. Go back if like, if you have an issue with that.

• 3:59:13Mark Manson?

  In case you haven't heard enough of Drew and I's bullshit.

• 3:59:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:59:16Mark Manson?

  There's another five hours of it.

• 3:59:18Speaker 01

  I really liked that one. I don't know.

• 3:59:22Speaker 01

  As, as it goes though, for, for like dating, we, and we talked about this in the emotional episode too, but cognitive reappraisal is like, you know, CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. This is like one of the key tools within that framework. Being able to reframe whatever situation you're in, especially in dating, because there's all these ambiguous, uncertain situations that pop up.

• 3:59:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:59:44Speaker 01

  And just being able to reframe it in a way that isn't so catastrophic will help a lot. It will go a long ways. Somebody didn't call you back. Reframe that as they're busy or they got something going on and it, either way, it's okay. Right? Like, that's just some simple reframing you can do around that. Getting good at distress tolerance too, just go back to the resilience episode. If you still haven't heard enough of us at this point, right?

• 4:00:05Mark Manson?

  Another, another three and a half hours.

• 4:00:08Speaker 01

  But just, again, there's all that uncertainty and just letting that exist without getting too attached to the outcome with it.

• 4:00:14Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:00:14Speaker 01

  That practicing that distress tolerance. Another thing, we haven't talked, I mean, we've mentioned it a bunch, but attachment based stuff.

• 4:00:22Speaker 01

  That I think that's obviously underlies a lot of the emotional reactions you have. If you are somebody who's like having very strong emotions or emotional swings around your dating life, therapy is a good one for that and look into some of the, the attachment stuff, but those are kind of some of the more, I would say robustly researched back ways to, to up your emotional regulation, which it's an incredibly, incredibly important skill. I think it's going to be one of the more important ones we, we've covered.

• 4:00:50Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I feel like some, some of these skills are just life skills and some of them are very specific to dating, but like some of them just have like extremely massively positive outcomes all across your life. And emotional regulation is one of those. I mean, we, we've covered that in depth on that episode and it's come up in other episodes. It is just like, if you can manage your emotions well, then you're, you're really ahead of the game in a lot of different dimensions. All right. The last skill.

• 4:01:20Speaker 01

  Last skill here.

• 4:01:21Mark Manson?

  Uh, boundaries. So we also, we also did a four hour episode on boundaries last month. I will say in this context, you know, let's say you've met somebody, you're dating, you're, you've been on two, three dates. What I would, I would almost describe this less as boundaries and more just as, as setting expectations.

• 4:01:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:01:43Mark Manson?

  This used to be a big talking point I had back when I was a coach is I used to just tell guys, I was like, just set expectations. Like it doesn't matter what you want. It doesn't matter where you are in life. It doesn't matter what you're looking for. As long as you just set expectations, honestly.

• 4:02:02Mark Manson?

  She'll decide, like, a lot of women will come along with it. Like, they'll, they'll decide for themselves, obviously. But like, just be open about what you're looking for and what you're willing to accept in a relationship and what you're not, right? So if you're looking for something very serious and committed, be honest about that. Tell, tell the person that's what you want, because you'd rather find out that they're not looking for that in the first minute rather than month two or three, right? If you are very religious and you really only want to date somebody of the same religion, like, be very explicit and upfront about that. Like, don't, don't wait to the fourth date to bring that up. Like, it's gonna cause a lot of fucking problems. So it's just, it's like, being very clear, like, what are your non?

• 4:02:46Mark Manson?

  We talked earlier about, like, that list of criteria and, like, what are the non-negotiables? Be explicit about what your non-negotiables are. And also just be explicit about where you are in life and what you're looking for. Like, did you just come out of a long relationship and you're really not looking to settle down anytime soon? Be explicit about that. And yes, some people are gonna hear that and they're gonna be like, mm, not for me. But that's okay. It's better for them to leave now than to, like, have all this drama a month or two from now, because they thought that you were gonna be serious and you were actually not gonna be serious all along. So, so the side effect of this, and doing this early, is that it shows you very, very

• 4:03:27Mark Manson?

  early on, who's gonna respect your boundaries and expectations and who's not, right? So if you say, like, hey, this is the sort of thing I'm looking for, and this is what I'm interested in, and then they lie to you, that's a huge signal, right? That make, that, that makes everything crystal clear of, like, okay, I, I should not be with this person. Or if they, you know, they pretend to go along with it, but then they try, kinda try to talk you out of it, and then they try to change you. Like, again, that's clear behavior. Now you know who you're dealing with, what type of person you're dealing with, and, and, you know, to- Even go the other way. I think women struggle with this more than men.

• 4:04:11Mark Manson?

  And I think it makes sense, you know, if we come back to kind of the two competing sexual strategies. You know, with with men, you're playing the volume game. Right? So if you set boundaries and she she fails to adhere to one of them, like, I kind of don't care. Like, it's not it's not a huge loss. It's like, OK, well, whatever. She she sucked. I'll just go meet somebody else. Whereas like with women, the primary problem is discernment. And so if you kind of get down like a few weeks down the road with a guy. And you try to set a boundary with him and he's kind of ignoring it. You're like, my God, like, this is the best guy I've found in months. I really like him. Like, how long am I going to have to wait for the next one to show up?

• 4:04:52Speaker 01

  Maybe let this one slide.

• 4:04:53Mark Manson?

  Yeah, like, maybe we let it slide this time. Maybe we see see how it goes. Maybe he'll change his mind, you know? And then you get another month in and it's like the bad behavior is just getting worse. And you're like, well, maybe I didn't really want what I thought I wanted. And like, it's it's you start getting in this sunk cost fallacy that it's like, OK, well, I I've already spent two months with him. Like, I don't want to waste that two months. So like, let's let's try to figure this out. Let's try to fix it. Whereas I think I think with men, it's just kind of like, hey, this is what I want. Take it or leave it.

• 4:05:26Speaker 01

  Right, right. I guess that kind of gets into what we talked about in the boundaries episode two, which was like the porous versus rigid boundaries. That applies here a little bit, too. I think actually, a lot of times what what people are calling in early dating stages, especially what people are calling boundaries are really the rules. Like, we talked about difference between boundaries and rules.

• 4:05:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:05:43Speaker 01

  And well, I don't know, like, what do you think about some of the? Some of the rules, like, you know, don't call her for three days or like all the rules, like, don't act too eager. Don't whatever it is, I don't know. Don't sleep with him until the fourth, the third day, fourth day, whatever it is.

• 4:05:57Speaker 01

  You know, those are rules, right? And we weren't, like we said in the boundaries episode, we're not a real big fan of rules.

• 4:06:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:06:03Speaker 01

  Because it doesn't give the other person agency, for one.

• 4:06:07Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 4:06:07Speaker 01

  You're just saying, this is how it is. And then not, not only that, but like, you know, the three day rule. I don't even know if that's still a thing.

• 4:06:14Mark Manson?

  I don't know if that's still a thing either, but, but I mean, there was a huge book for women called The Rules. And I think, first of all, I think rules are stupid because they don't account for just the individuality of each person that you meet.

• 4:06:26Speaker 01

  Yes, the insane variation and uncertainty.

• 4:06:29Mark Manson?

  I do think principles are good, like there are very important principles. For instance, trustworthiness and setting expectations and, um, you know, putting your, like, taking care of yourself first. Like, these are all very valuable principles to follow. But I think rules like, oh, he, he only texted me twice and I texted him six times. Like, I'm not going to talk to him. Like, it's just, it's stupid. It's really stupid. As you know, I play a lot of poker and there's a saying in poker, which is you don't play the cards, you play the player. And it's, I think it's true in dating too. It's, it's, every situation is unique. Everybody comes from a different context and a background. Everybody, like, the circumstances in which you meet them is different each time.

• 4:07:13Mark Manson?

  Like, you can't just apply these rules broadly across every single situation. But that said, you can apply principles. Actually, I can't believe we've gotten this far into this episode without talking about the principle I'm most known for.

• 4:07:31Mark Manson?

  Which is the principle of fuck yes or no.

• 4:07:33Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 4:07:36Speaker 01

  No, it's a good time to bring it up.

• 4:07:37Mark Manson?

  It is a good time to bring it up, especially around boundaries. So I wrote, uh, I wrote a piece back in 2013. And it, it actually, it was inspired by my friend Derek Sivers. So my, my friend Derek Sivers wrote a, a small blog post about an idea he called, uh, hell yeah or no. And he wrote it in the context of business, right? So it's like, if you have an investment opportunity or a work opportunity, um, or like a big career change or, or a big decision around that. If it's not a hell yes, then you shouldn't do it at all. Just because it's, the enthusiasm is such an important component of like, what's going to sustain you through all the stress and the hard work and all that. Great concept.

• 4:08:22Mark Manson?

  I loved it and I was like, that kind of applies to dating too, right? Like it's so many, at the time, so many of the people that I was talking to, both men and women, were like, their biggest pain point was like, well, he kinda likes me, but he like, kinda, he's like, not really available, but then he like, when he shows up, he's so wonderful and we have such a good time, but then I don't hear from him for like, three weeks and what do I do? Like so many questions like this. And I was like, wow. Hell yeah or no, it's like, it perfectly applies for all this. And so I wrote an article called Fuck Yes or No. And basically, the principle was, is that if it's not a fuck yes, if you're dating somebody and after a certain amount of time, like you feel like you've gotten to know them and, and you're, both of your intentions are clear.

• 4:09:06Mark Manson?

  If it's not a fuck yes, then it should just be a no, because you're just wasting each other's time. There's, you're just adding ambiguity and it, you're, you're gonna cause more pain and struggle and problems than you're probably gonna solve. Similarly, it's important that if you're dating somebody and they don't feel fuck yes about you, then it should also be a no, right? Because this comes back to that principle of like, why would you try to convince somebody who's not excited about you? To be excited about you, like you shouldn't have to convince somebody to be excited to be with you. They should just be excited to be with you. And it's, so yeah, if, if he disappears for three weeks and he doesn't return texts and like, it doesn't, I don't care how sweet he is and nice he is when he shows up.

• 4:09:51Mark Manson?

  It's clearly not a fuck yes, you're not a priority. He's got other things going on, maybe other women going on, so like, just move on. It's similar with guys too, they're like, like, oh, I've been like, texting with this girl for a month and like, she still hasn't met up with me and like, how do I get her out on a date? I'm like, you don't, like, don't, she doesn't want to, obviously, she doesn't fucking want to. She just wants to have a guy to text with, like, otherwise she would have come out by now. So like, stop texting her. That's the side of the law of fuck yes or no that like people don't like to hear because it's just very, they don't like, nobody likes to add more rejection into their life. Everybody's trying to like minimize rejection in their life.

• 4:10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so to bring it on yourself is just doubly, yeah.

• 4:10:31Mark Manson?

  And this is just, this is the counterintuitive component of the school of Mark Manson is that more rejection is good. And in this case, fuck yes or no, it adds another layer of rejection to your life, but that layer of rejection adds a great amount of clarity. And, and it, it is another one of those filtering mechanisms to make sure that the people who come into your life and that you spend your time with are, are the people that you're excited about, that you, that you love spending time with, that you have really good compatibility and chemistry with. One of the proudest things in my career, by the way, you probably remember this because you, you were, we were working together by this point. Because I, I think I wrote that article the year, about a year before you started.

• 4:11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:11:15Mark Manson?

  And, and I think it was like a couple of years later or something. But I remember there was like one day, we were looking at our, our Google Analytics of the website and there was all of this traffic from OkCupid.

• 4:11:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, I do remember this.

• 4:11:29Mark Manson?

  Like thousands and thousands of people coming from OkCupid. And we were like, that's so weird. I remember we went to the OkCupid website and we were like, looking, because OkCupid actually had a great blog at the time. And I remember we were going through their blog posts and we're like, this is so strange. Like, where are people coming from? And eventually Philip, who's our, our tech guru, eventually he figured it out, that it was actually coming from people's profiles. People, primarily women, but people started posting the fuck yes or no article in their profiles and telling people, before you message me, read this article.

• 4:12:08Speaker 01

  I got you. I got a ton of when I started working with you, I had a ton of street cred because a lot of my friends were like, oh, he's that guy that wrote that one.

• 4:12:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, that one, it's still one of my favorites.

• 4:12:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:12:18Speaker 01

  We use it around the office still too. The fuck yes or no?

• 4:12:20Mark Manson?

  We do.

• 4:12:20Speaker 01

  Is this a fuck yes or fuck no?

• 4:12:21Mark Manson?

  We do. Like a lot of our media, business meetings, it's like, hey, man, it's not a fuck yes. Let's not, let's don't do it.

• 4:12:26Speaker 01

  But yeah, no, it does. It kind of clarifies that question I was asking about, like the rules, right? The rules go out the window when it's, you know, when you're clear about it.

• 4:12:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:12:35Speaker 01

  Is it fuck yes or fuck no?

• 4:12:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:12:36Speaker 01

  If I'm a fuck yes about somebody and I'm pretty sure they're a fuck yes about me, I'm not waiting three days to text them. I'm gonna text them right now. I'm gonna call them and be like, you want to come over right now?

• 4:12:43Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 4:12:44Speaker 01

  And it's gonna be fine. It's not, I'm not gonna scare them off or anything like that. So, yeah, it cuts through all of that bullshit, gets around all the like, is this, is this a rule I'm violating? Or should I be doing this or not? It doesn't matter then.

• 4:12:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:13:00Mark Manson?

  All right. We've been through a lot, Drew. You and I, we've been through a lot together.

• 4:13:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, we have.

• 4:13:06Mark Manson?

  You, you weren't supposed to say it like that.

• 4:13:11Mark Manson?

  So we've gone through all of the science, the evolution, the different incentives, sexual selection, why men and women approach dating differently, what some of the cultural ramifications are, some of the social pressures are. And then, of course, we got into the three stages of dating, the 10 skills. I think it might be useful, you know, usually we do an 80/20 at the end of the episode to, to talk through, you know, what's the 20% of the advice in this, in this episode that is going to get you 80% of the result? Maybe the best way to do it this time is to go stage by stage and just pick what you think is the most important.

• 4:13:45Speaker 01

  Pick the top skill.

• 4:13:46Mark Manson?

  Pick the top skill. Like if you could only develop one of the three or four skills, what should you focus on?

• 4:13:52Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, yeah, let's do that.

• 4:13:54Mark Manson?

  So, in the pre-dating phase, we have appearance, confidence, and social status. If you had to pick one of those three, which one would you pick?

• 4:14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think that of those three, the most important is confidence. But like we said, I think I'd start with appearance.

• 4:14:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:14:10Speaker 01

  So this is a little bit of a, I'm gonna cop out a little bit on this one. But I do think that ultimately confidence is going to like lay the groundwork for all of this. And that's where, like, you're gonna get the most leverage eventually. But the way that you start with that, I think, is probably working on your appearance in all the ways that we talked about.

• 4:14:28Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 4:14:28Speaker 01

  Right?

• 4:14:29Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Not just fitness, but clothing, hygiene, grooming, style.

• 4:14:35Mark Manson?

  Context, right?

• 4:14:36Speaker 01

  You said, you said the umbrella term really is lifestyle.

• 4:14:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:14:39Speaker 01

  I think that's, that's kind of where to focus first.

• 4:14:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I would agree with you. I, I think confidence is probably the long-term most impactful skill of the, of the three. I do think appearance, lifestyle is the high, it's like the low hanging fruit. It's, it's the sort of thing that

• 4:14:55Speaker 01

  True.

• 4:14:56Mark Manson?

  You can take somebody and you can improve their dating prospects pretty dramatically, like within a day or two.

• 4:15:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:15:03Mark Manson?

  If, if you know what you're doing.

• 4:15:05Speaker 01

  Right. And in the short run, that's probably the 80 24 confidence is like,

• 4:15:08Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 4:15:08Speaker 01

  Like a little bit of a lifestyle overhaul.

• 4:15:10Mark Manson?

  You look a little bit better. You get a little bit more attention. You go on a couple more dates and you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. I'm starting to feel good about myself.

• 4:15:16Speaker 01

  Right. Right. Both of us agree though, that status is, you know, that's probably, that, that comes, that's further down. It's important. Don't get me wrong.

• 4:15:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:15:24Speaker 01

  I think more though, that like the, the prestige is, is more, that comes with the other things. That's a more of a package thing and you're not gonna

• 4:15:35Mark Manson?

  You can't, you shouldn't fake it.

• 4:15:36Speaker 01

  You shouldn't fake it. That's not something

• 4:15:37Mark Manson?

  Status should be a natural byproduct of just becoming an awesome person.

• 4:15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 4:15:44Mark Manson?

  Right? If you, if you handle all the other stuff, if you like build yourself into a really cool person, status just will naturally happen as a side effect. Whereas if you try to fake status, then that actually just makes you look very low status.

• 4:15:57Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that will not get you 80% of the way there.

• 4:16:01Mark Manson?

  No. What about meeting people?

• 4:16:03Speaker 01

  Who, on this one, um, this is, this is a tougher one, I think, because I think flirting is overrated.

• 4:16:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:16:11Speaker 01

  Uh, to some extent, or I think it's overcomplicated at least, like we talked about, right?

• 4:16:14Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:16:14Speaker 01

  Like you just stated, state your intent. You can do it directly. That's flirting.

• 4:16:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:16:19Speaker 01

  Right? Um, that actually might be, if, if, if that's what you're talking about, to me, that actually might be the highest leverage one. It was like clear communication of your interest and intent.

• 4:16:29Mark Manson?

  Right. Right.

• 4:16:30Speaker 01

  I think when you're, yeah, meeting people and asking for dates, that's probably it.

• 4:16:34Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 4:16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. What do you think?

• 4:16:36Mark Manson?

  I definitely agree. And it's funny because it's this like little cop out redefinition is, is actually exactly what I did in models because it's When I wrote my book, I was like, look, the conventional flirting is like very inefficient.

• 4:16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:16:48Mark Manson?

  Right? The whole point of flirting is to subcommunicate interest in a way that it like kind of protects yourself or prevents you from being vulnerable. Whereas if you're just willing to be vulnerable, then it's so much more efficient and it subcommunicates or it signals so much more confidence and status. If you are able to just clearly state your interest to somebody and ask them out. So if we are redefining flirting in that way, I a hundred percent agree. You know, the, the digital communication stuff, it's fine. I, I, I'm personally, I think you feel the same way. I just think just get off the apps. Like get off, get on, get out in the world, go touch grass, dude. Like go fucking meet somebody face to face in person. You're, you're probably, yes, it's going to be harder to meet a quantity of people,

• 4:17:32Mark Manson?

  but your hit rate is going to be so much higher.

• 4:17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:17:35Mark Manson?

  And then reading people, I think that's more of a maintenance skill. You know, that's a, that's a skill that it makes everything else a little bit easier. But if it's not present, it's like, it's not necessarily going to undermine you or screw you over. Whereas like, if you really aren't able to demonstrate interest in somebody, if you're not able to communicate that you're attracted to somebody or signal to them that like you have interest in them, whether it's overtly or subtly, um, yeah, you're just never going to get a date.

• 4:18:03Speaker 01

  You're not going anywhere.

• 4:18:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:18:04Mark Manson?

  You're never going to get a date. So yeah, I, I agree with you on that one.

• 4:18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like clear communication, clear communication of your intent and interests is a very big pillar of models too.

• 4:18:15Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 4:18:15Speaker 01

  So in terms of going on dates, we have trustworthiness, conversational skills, emotional regulation and boundaries. Which one would you pick?

• 4:18:22Mark Manson?

  I'm, oh man, this is actually a hard one.

• 4:18:26Speaker 01

  Really?

• 4:18:27Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I think they're all very valuable, but in like very different ways.

• 4:18:34Mark Manson?

  I think I'm going to go with boundaries.

• 4:18:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:18:37Mark Manson?

  Because, and, and part of this is just an assumption, but I kind of assume that like, if you are able to explicitly set expectations and follow through on those expectations and hold the other person accountable to those expectations, that in and of itself makes you trustworthy.

• 4:18:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:18:55Mark Manson?

  So I'm kind of stealing a two for one here.

• 4:18:57Speaker 01

  All right. All right.

• 4:18:58Mark Manson?

  Cause I just feel like if, if you are able to do boundaries well, that kind of a prerequisite of doing boundaries is that you are trustworthy or consistent in some way. It is, yeah, I, I.

• 4:19:10Speaker 01

  Well, okay, is it between that and trustworthiness? Is that what you're saying? Between, between boundaries and trustworthiness?

• 4:19:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Well, why? What do you have?

• 4:19:16Speaker 01

  I would go with emotional regulation.

• 4:19:18Mark Manson?

  Really?

• 4:19:18Speaker 01

  I would say, like, in a dating context.

• 4:19:20Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 4:19:21Speaker 01

  Being able to navigate all that uncertainty. And the ambiguity that is just inherent in early dating especially. I think that is a skill. Boundaries are a close second for me.

• 4:19:34Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 4:19:35Speaker 01

  And I, trustworthiness is obviously important, but like I said, it's really more important for longer term.

• 4:19:41Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 4:19:41Speaker 01

  It doesn't really spark the attraction early on. It just keeps it going. Important, don't get me wrong. And to be untrustworthy, that's a deal breaker. I get that.

• 4:19:51Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 4:19:51Speaker 01

  So are the other ones though, too. So, but emotional regulation, like if you can't, if you can't show that you are, you have some internal order.

• 4:19:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:20:00Speaker 01

  Going on, I just don't think you get any further either.

• 4:20:02Mark Manson?

  It's funny, cause I, to me, emotional regulation is, first of all, there are a lot of crazy people that have plenty of dates.

• 4:20:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:20:12Mark Manson?

  To me, it's like emotional reg-

• 4:20:14Speaker 01

  I think they go on a lot of dates because they don't get a lot of second dates.

• 4:20:17Mark Manson?

  Well, there are also a lot of crazy people in relationships.

• 4:20:19Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 4:20:20Mark Manson?

  I would agree with you, if we're optimizing for happiness. Like if we're, let's say we're optimizing for a pleasant dating experience.

• 4:20:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:20:30Mark Manson?

  Right, like a dating, a dating life that you don't hate.

• 4:20:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:20:33Mark Manson?

  I would, I would agree with you that I would upgrade emotional regulation quite a bit. If we're asking ourselves, like, just what is most effective?

• 4:20:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:20:41Mark Manson?

  I feel, and again, I'm like, I'm struggling with trust and, and boundaries. Cause I feel like trust, it's, it's more of like, it's more important that it's just there. Like, it's not gonna solve anything for you, but like, if it's not there, then nothing else is gonna matter. Whereas with boundaries, I just feel like it sets you up for success. It sets you up for, boundaries is the filtration mechanism that makes sure that like- If you find somebody you like and you're aligned, it's gonna last. Without setting those expectations and setting those boundaries, then like, it's gonna invite a lot of ambiguity and conflict and miscommunication and all that stuff, so.

• 4:21:15Speaker 01

  That's true. I guess too, being good at boundaries means you're good at emotional regulation too, and there's maybe a little

• 4:21:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 4:21:21Speaker 01

  back and forth there, two-way correlation there, but.

• 4:21:24Mark Manson?

  They are

• 4:21:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:21:25Mark Manson?

  all interrelated.

• 4:21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:21:26Mark Manson?

  Maybe, maybe we just agree to disagree on this.

• 4:21:28Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 4:21:30Mark Manson?

  Finally, takeaways.

• 4:21:32Speaker 01

  Mine was really when I got into like the differences between the male and female dating advice ecosystems, that was pretty eye-opening.

• 4:21:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:21:41Speaker 01

  I knew some of that already, definitely, and, and had kind of poked my head in both, both camps at one point, but like that for me, just it gives me a lot more empathy, I think, for where women are coming from and men too. Like I got into that, I'm like, oh, this is what men are being taught and this is why, and this is where it goes off the rails.

• 4:22:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:22:01Speaker 01

  It just, it, it gives you a lens to look at what's going on right now and kind of make sense of the absolute fucking insanity that we're seeing. You're like, oh, it's because this is, this is kind of the starting point for both men and women, and then we just took it and ran in opposite directions.

• 4:22:16Mark Manson?

  Right, right.

• 4:22:17Speaker 01

  And so to me, I, I hope that people take that away from this episode. I really do. Because I think that gives you a new, a new way to approach dating and you're a little more empathetic. You're gonna, you're gonna let people kind of screw up a little bit more, I think. You're gonna be a little more forgiving of people and understand that, oh, this is, they're acting this way because either this is kind of what society has told them, or they are, you know, hearing this online or whatever it is. That was a really, it was reinforcing and a little bit eye-opening.

• 4:22:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, and I hope people can take that away.

• 4:22:47Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I think for me, the, the biggest takeaway, and this is, it's a thought I've had before, but prepping for this episode, I think it, it really solidified it for me, which is, which is just this idea that like, I think. People might be expecting too much from their relationships these days.

• 4:23:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 4:23:04Mark Manson?

  And reviewing a lot of the research and history of marriage and courtship and and dating and romance throughout history, and especially understanding more modern history, especially these last few generations, and just all the expectations that are tied up in dating and relationships, and combine that with just how disrupted the dating markets become from technology, people marrying later, from women's empowerment, like, there's just a lot of things changing very quickly. And then you're adding just a whole new layer of expectation and hope to people's relationships on top of that.

• 4:23:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:23:46Mark Manson?

  It just seems like a recipe for disaster. Like, something's gotta give, right? And I, just studying and prepping for this episode, like, drove that home for me big time. It also kind of made me think, like, I remember when I was dating my wife, and, you know, she was kind of dropping hints that she wanted to get married, and I actually struggled with it for a few months. And part of it really was kind of what I was ripping on people for, which was like, 80% of her is amazing, but there's like 10, 20% that I'm like, eh, I could kind of do without. And that, there was a period, you know, when we'd been together for a couple of years, like, that, it bugged me. It was like, well, what if I could do better?

• 4:24:31Mark Manson?

  Like, what if there's somebody else out there? But then I'd return to the fact, I'm like, well, yeah, but are you happy? And I'm like, yeah, I'm really happy. Like, do you love her? I'm like, yeah, I really love her. Do you wanna, do you see yourselves, do you see yourself not being happy anytime soon? I'm like, no, not really at all. So I'm like, what the fuck is the problem? You know? And I just, I remember going in that loop for months. And then finally, I bit the bullet and proposed to her. But it's like, these days, I think now that I'm on the other side of it, I look at it, and I'm like, yeah, there's 20, 10% of her that I'm like, yeah, don't, not my favorite.

• 4:25:07Mark Manson?

  Behavioral trait in her and I, and I know she has things that I do that, that she's not

• 4:25:12Speaker 01

  Like 40%.

• 4:25:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah, probably like she's not a huge fan of it, but it's, that's fucking normal. It's like totally normal. And, and I, I do think there is something to be said. You know, I wrote, I wrote a social media post a while back that got shared a lot and it was, it was something like, I'm probably going to butcher this, but it was, uh, love is the result of commitment, not the cause. You commit to the person and then through that commitment, the feelings of love arise as a byproduct. And I have largely found that to be true. I mean, obviously you don't just want to commit blind to somebody without knowing who they are, or like having some sort of chemistry or attraction. But I, I

• 4:25:56Mark Manson?

  do think that there, there's a bit of a passive mindset out there of people just kind of like waiting light for lightning to strike or waiting for Prince Charming to come sweep them off their feet or like waiting for the bombshell perfect ten to walk through the door. And it's just like, it doesn't work that way. Everybody's messy. Everybody's got issues. Everybody's got, everybody's going to have at least 10, 20% of them that like you could do without. And I think just being very realistic and honest about that and, and committing to people despite it is probably an under, underdeveloped skill in the world.

• 4:26:33Speaker 01

  I like that because it teases an episode we got coming up soon on love.

• 4:26:38Mark Manson?

  On love.

• 4:26:39Speaker 01

  Stay tuned more for that.

• 4:26:40Mark Manson?

  Yes, yes, yes. Drew and I are going to get into it.

• 4:26:43Speaker 01

  We are.

• 4:26:44Mark Manson?

  About love. Uh, we're actually going to argue about it, which I'm excited about. This will be very interesting.

• 4:26:51Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, yeah.

• 4:26:53Mark Manson?

  We're, we're going to take two opposite sides of a philosophical argument about love and, uh, we will let the audience decide, um, who got the better of the other. All right. Anything else you want to add before we, uh, set all the single people free?

• 4:27:08Speaker 01

  I think that's it. We've, uh, we've done the pod and I think we've given people, I think those are some pretty good tools.

• 4:27:14Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, the thing about dating advice too, is, is that there are tons of resources out there. So it's like, if you want to get better at flirting, like there's plenty of places you can go get better at flirting. If you want to become a better communicator or work on your body language or. You know, work on your, if you want to looks max, like there's just so many resources out there to improve these specific things, but hopefully this episode gives you a roadmap of what's actually worth improving and focusing on and what's not. Also, hopefully it gives you a rubric to look at yourself and kind of ask yourself like, okay, what, what am I doing well at and what am I struggling with? And then acting accordingly or improving accordingly.

• 4:27:56Mark Manson?

  So that's it for this episode of solved. As always, thank you for sticking with us. We will be back in two weeks with that episode about love. Until then, be sure to download the free PDF guide. It's at solve podcast.com slash dating. And of course, my dating book, models attract women through honesty. Check it out. It is, it's almost, it's gonna be 15 years old. Oh, my God. In July. Oh, my God. 15 years old, still holds up, still sells like hotcakes. So check it out. It's available pretty much everywhere. That's it. Thank you, everybody. We will see you soon. Bye.