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Oct. 15, 2022 - The Matt Walsh Show

20:59

How To (And Not To) Date To Get Married

Get 3 Months of ExpressVPN FREE! https://www.expressvpn.com/walshyt Matt Walsh details what's wrong with the modern dating scene and how to navigate/fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	[MUSIC]
	As a married man, I look at the modern dating scene, like someone who ran out of a burning building seconds
	before it collapsed.
	Somebody on Twitter recently said that married people these days must feel like they caught the last chopper out of Nam.
	And perhaps that's the better analogy.
	Whichever image you prefer.
	The point is that I wake up every day grateful to be married, mostly because, you know, I love my wife and my family, but also because I simply could not be a single man in this environment.
	I would have already become a monk or a hermit in the woods by now.
	I don't say this to rub it in the faces of people in the audience who are single.
	I say it more as encouragement, really, for any who are married.
	Because even if you're struggling in your marriage, even if you and your spouse have hit hard times, consider that the alternative is to wander alone in this barren wasteland.
	Realize that all you have is each other.
	Out there it's dark and cold and you'll likely die shivering and alone.
	So your marriage is your shelter.
	Be grateful for it.
	Stop screwing it up.
	Do you really want to start over again in this environment?
	Would you really prefer to be out there dating during the zombie apocalypse?
	Again, I'm not trying to make single people feel bad.
	It's more that I'm commiserating with you.
	Now, many of the problems with modern dating and with modern culture in general, and dating in general, were highlighted by a recent viral phenomenon, which began on TikTok, as they often do, and then spread like herpes to other social media platforms, which is where I became aware of it.
	From what I can tell, it began when a woman used her platform to vent her frustrations about a man that she'd recently met on a dating app called Hinge, which I didn't even know existed until I heard about this.
	The man, Caleb, took her out on one date, And then never talk to her again.
	Otherwise known as ghosting, as the kids call it now.
	Other women on TikTok then chimed in with their own horror stories about the man who had quickly been dubbed West Elm Caleb, a moniker based on where he works.
	And soon his name was trending nationwide.
	He had been doxed all across the internet.
	So here's just to give you an idea of what this is.
	Here's a quick sample of one of the video testimonials.
	And there are like hundreds like this.
	But one of the video testimonials that you might find detailing the dastardly crimes of this Caleb character.
	Here it is.
	I matched with Caleb on Hinge and we started talking.
	We talked for like two, three weeks maybe, like nothing serious.
	I never met this man, like literally just texting, snapchatting, whatever.
	Same thing happened that everyone's talking about.
	He was super weird, like started getting very cryptic and concerning.
	And ghosted.
	So he ghosts me, we stop talking, I went my separate way, didn't think of this man, you know, was nothing really going on.
	And then... Okay, so I go on with my life, I'm minding my own business, until about a month ago, sometime during December, I Riveting.
	Like I told you, I'm so glad I'm not dating anymore with people like this.
	This is what you have to deal with?
	Who could it be?
	Who could it be?
	It's him on his new Instagram account, not Caleb Hunter, okay.
	Riveting.
	Like I told you, I'm so glad I'm not dating anymore with people like this.
	This is what you have to deal with.
	And I'm talking about the woman, not even the guy.
	Now she went on in that video to post screenshots of the texts from Caleb,
	where he tries to get back into her good graces after ignoring her for a year.
	She turns him down, and that's the end of it.
	So far as I can tell, all of the videos are like this.
	Caleb is guilty of being rude and tacky, and for that infraction, he apparently deserves to be doxed and publicly shamed by women who are all almost certainly at least as shallow and selfish as he is.
	So there's a lot that can be said about the lack of proportionality when the internet mob sets its sights on someone, local news stories become global concerns, and stories that wouldn't even be fit to air on the local news or to be written on a note card and tacked to a bulletin board somewhere still turn into national affairs.
	We could say plenty about that, but that's not what we're focused on today.
	Dating is the issue.
	And this story reveals its myriad pitfalls in our current climate.
	The whole scene is one big pit that so many millions fall into and never manage to escape.
	Marriage rates are plummeting rapidly and historically in this country, so that as of two years ago, as of just two years ago, less than half of the households in the U.S.
	consisted of married couples and families.
	Now, to put that in perspective, in 1950, that number was 80%.
	So it used to be 80% of the households featured a married couple.
	It was a family with a married couple.
	Now it's less than half.
	And the numbers are still trending downward.
	There are numerous reasons for this catastrophic shift, but certainly one of the most prominent reasons is that our social system for matching people up, pairing them off, and setting them on the path towards marriage, and parenthood, and real adult life is fundamentally broken.
	So for one thing, Everyone, of course, is using dating apps now, which are different even from the dating sites of ancient times.
	Back in the early 2000s, when I was single, we had the dating websites.
	And back then, you would fill out a lengthy profile and you'd be given in return a comparatively small group of potential matches to contact.
	But now those old-fashioned websites have been replaced by apps which are much easier to use and to peruse, and most people have more than one that they monitor at any given time.
	It doesn't require any effort or commitment to use the apps, and the user sort of swipes through it very quickly, casually discarding potential matches based on nothing but a cursory glance at their photograph.
	So all judgments are made visually, which already distorts the entire process, because a woman's romantic attraction is not naturally as visually based as a man's.
	And that's how a slovenly ogre like myself ends up marrying a hot woman.
	Because a woman is attracted to personality, sense of humor, intelligence.
	But little of that translates through an app.
	Which means that many quality mates are sent to the junk folder just because they're bad at taking selfies.
	Meanwhile, there are far too many choices.
	So the modern dating scene is what happens when every beggar becomes a chooser.
	Everyone is lonely and desperate for companionship, but the field is so flooded with options, there's such a surplus, that you begin to feel kind of like I feel when I'm in the condiment aisle at Walmart trying to buy mustard.
	And there are 197 different types of mustard, and though all I want is just regular mustard, the overwhelming array of options paralyzes me.
	And I'm just standing there slack-jawed, questioning whether I should be settling for just regular mustard when I could be getting gourmet, Dijon, whole grain, honey, French, yellow, spicy, brown, white, yellow, German mustard instead.
	All of modern life is plagued by this problem.
	Everything is plentiful and can be obtained effortlessly and cheaply.
	But it's too plentiful and too effortless and too cheap.
	So you can turn on your TV and watch literally any movie that's ever been made, any TV show that's ever been produced, And yet how many nights have you wasted scrolling through the infinite catalog and then settling on reruns of, you know, The Office because there's nothing else to watch?
	Well, there's plenty to watch.
	It's just that you can't settle on any one thing because your awareness that there are billions of other possibilities gives you anxiety.
	And it makes it so that you can never be sure that you're choosing the absolute best option.
	Which means that often you don't choose anything at all.
	So dating is like this.
	Whereas before you had only the eligible single people in your town to choose from, now you have the entire internet.
	You're not confined by geographic boundaries or any other boundaries.
	The result, ironically, is paralysis.
	Now, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum are arranged marriages.
	Instead of a boundless, never-ending buffet of options, a young person in a culture that practices arranged marriages will be assigned just one, and they don't even make the choice.
	Their families just pair them up and say, here you go.
	There's far less freedom and far less autonomy in a system of that sort, but it is without a doubt superior to our system.
	We would be happier.
	Every person in the dating scene right now would be happier if they were just matched up with someone against their will, actually.
	Of course, even after you settle on a match and you meet them in person, a whole new set of problem arises.
	It would be impossible to review the whole list, but one of the big problems is that if you're in the younger generations, you're meeting someone who was raised on the internet, just like you.
	Having spent their formative years staring at screens, they oftentimes will not have developed the kind of interests and hobbies and rich interior life that could form the basis for conversation and for interpersonal bonding.
	You also don't know where to go on a date or what to do because nobody wants to do anything but stare at their phones.
	And as the relationship progresses, if it does, you'll find that the internet also interferes with emotional intimacy because there's nothing private or sacred between you.
	Private life doesn't exist anymore, especially for younger people.
	People live their whole lives in public, sharing everything with the world, and leaving no parts of themselves, emotionally or very often physically, that are special or exclusive for their significant other.
	And then there's the biggest hurdle of all, one which has been standing in the way ever since the modern concept of dating was first invented decades ago, but which has only grown larger and more insurmountable as the decades have gone by, and that is there's no goal with dating.
	There's no end point.
	There's no resolution.
	There's no logical progression.
	So those women complain about getting ghosted by Caleb, but what are they really complaining about?
	Did they see him as marriage material?
	Were they even looking for a man to marry?
	I'm guessing not.
	And if not, then their relationship with Caleb was doomed to fall apart anyway, sooner than later.
	Just as all of their other relationships, before and since, have.
	What difference does it make if he disappears after one date, or if he sticks around and the whole thing dissolves after three months?
	Who cares?
	You're just hopping into one car after another, and each is going over a cliff.
	Does it really matter if it tumbles over the edge after one mile or ten?
	The whole enterprise is so fundamentally hopeless and pointless that, if anything, the Caleb's of the world do you a favor by wasting less of your time.
	So here's the reality.
	There's no reason to be dating at all unless you're specifically looking for somebody to marry.
	If you have no interest in marriage, then all of your romantic relationships are doomed before they start.
	You're building sandcastles during high tide.
	It's all going to be washed away before it can be finished.
	You're making a series of bad emotional investments, pouring yourself into one leaky container after another.
	It's no wonder that marriage rates are plummeting.
	People are exhausted by romantic relationships and jaded by the whole enterprise before they even reach 25 years old.
	Because they've been betrayed and heartbroken and dumped and humiliated enough for 50 lifetimes.
	That's what happens when you take the courtship out of dating.
	Only solution is to put it back in.
	I mean, really forget about dating completely, in fact.
	Replace dating with courting.
	Don't waste your time on people who have no goal for their relationship.
	Because marriage should always be the desired endpoint.
	Courting is the trial period, the interview process that both partners are undergoing.
	You're interviewing each other for the job.
	If you approach dating that way, it will significantly reduce your options.
	That's for sure.
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	There was a little bit of a delayed reaction, but finally yesterday, Tuesday, the usual suspects decided to be offended by my show on Monday, where we talked about, among other things, the perils of modern dating.
	And as you might recall, during the course of that conversation, I observed that one of the myriad problems with the dating scene is that there are far too many options.
	Which are arranged far too conveniently and superficially on dating apps for you to scroll through like you're shopping for a mate on Amazon or something.
	We've talked about the familiar irony of modern life where the surplus of choices tends to paralyze us.
	It breeds indecision and anxiety.
	You know, you're afraid to pick one thing because you're aware that there are a million other options.
	How can you know that this is the right one?
	Why not just hold out for the next one and the one after that and the one after that forever?
	Now, I'm far from the first person to point this out.
	As much as I'd like to take credit for the insight, I certainly can't.
	The paradox of choice is something that many cultural critics and analysts have noticed over the years.
	In fact, one of them wrote a book called The Paradox of Choice about this very problem, specifically as it relates to consumers.
	Another book that touches on these themes, which I read a few months ago, is called The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew Crawford, which I highly recommend.
	And he talks about how craftsmen will use a strategy called jigging, which intentionally limits or constrains their environment so that they can work in a more focused and efficient way.
	So again, we see the paradox.
	Limitations can be freeing in that they enable you to accomplish one particular task, achieve one particular goal, in an environment specifically and specially designed for it.
	What we find is that in a world without limitation, where everyone can do everything, nobody ends up doing anything.
	I think this is part of the story with dating.
	I also mentioned, as one brief aside, that arranged marriages, which is a system that has been in place historically in many cultures, that exists on the opposite end of this spectrum.
	They are the extreme antithesis of our current approach to dating.
	I said that even that, even arranged marriages, would be preferable to our current system.
	And not too surprisingly, that is the one single sentence in a 14-minute discussion of dating that the left has latched onto.
	So first, Media Matters published their urgent headline, Daily Wire Host Endorses Arranged Marriages.
	It is without a doubt superior to our system.
	That's quoting me.
	Then my good friend Jason Campbell over at Media Matters posted the clip to Twitter, and from there some of the left-wing blogs and YouTube channels picked it up.
	And as a consequence of all of this, my inbox this morning was full of some very interesting commentary, much of it revolving around the theme that I am a horrible, backwards, archaic caveman, and I deserve to die a painful and humiliating death.
	So really just your average Wednesday, I suppose.
	Of course, contrary to the claims made by my critics here, I didn't say that arranged marriages are the best option, just that they're better than our current system.
	Which I'll say again, because it's true.
	I also think that literally anything would be better than our current system.
	A national lottery pulling names out of a hat and pairing couples up that way would be better.
	You could have someone, in fact, I'll volunteer for this job, you could have someone just walk down the street and point to random people like you, marry her.
	You two, get married.
	And that would be better.
	Which speaks not to the wisdom of that alternative, but to the disastrous nature of our modern approach.
	Best system, the one that I actually do advocate for, is, as I said, courtship.
	You might call that dating with a purpose, goal-oriented dating, whatever label you want to put on it.
	The point is that couples begin dating with the goal of marriage in mind.
	Now, I've been criticized quite a bit for that suggestion as well, because it is, I'm told, old-fashioned, out of touch, reactionary.
	And I'll gladly embrace all those labels.
	But one of the great advantages of the courtship system is that at the moment that either member in this partnership realizes that they cannot or do not want to marry the other person, the relationship is broken off, the marital interview process is concluded, and both can now go and seek different applicants.
	They don't have to waste so much of their time.
	Because there is a determined end point, which is either marriage or not marriage.
	And once you realize you've gotten to that point, or it's going to be a marriage, or you know that there's not going to be any marriage, now you can move to the next phase, which would be marriage or just going your separate ways.
	Now, there's no guarantee that anybody who adopts this strategy will immediately find the love of their lives and live happily ever after, even if you get married, as we all know.
	That certainly is no guarantee that you'll live happily ever after.
	Because you have to live day by day and moment by moment.
	We don't live in, like, chunks, where you can just cross some kind of threshold and announce, well, I've done this, so now the next 50 years of my life will be happy and fulfilled.
	Doesn't work that way.
	If you want a happy and fulfilled life, or a happy and fulfilled marriage, you have to make that choice every day, and renew it the next day, and the next day, and the day after that, forever and ever.
	Love is an act of will.
	It's a choice.
	It's not merely an emotion.
	The emotional experience of love is, if anything, a byproduct.
	It's not the fuel that keeps your marriage running.
	The fuel is the choice you both make to serve each other, sacrifice for each other, and remain loyal and faithful.
	This is another problem, this overemphasis on emotions, where emotions, our emotional fulfillment on purely an emotional level, is the entire point for a lot of people.
	That's what they think.
	And the problem is that emotions come and go, they ebb and flow, emotions are fleeting.
	And so they go off and they get married and they're feeling the emotional rush, the honeymoon.
	We talk about the honeymoon and these days we say honeymoon and we're talking about the week-long vacation that you take to Europe or a cruise or whatever.
	But traditionally, honeymoon is a phase of marriage early on.
	And that's when your emotions are kicked into, you know, high gear and all of those things.
	And there's this infatuation.
	And when that starts to settle down a little bit, people that are guided only by their emotions, they'll say, oh, well, I guess this wasn't the right one.
	In fact, I just read an article about Pamela Anderson, who unfortunately is just divorced.
	I think it's her fifth husband.
	And for some reason I read the article and it quotes her or someone familiar with her as saying that, oh, she realized that he's not the one.
	So she's like in her 60s now and she just left her fifth guy because he's not the one.
	She's still pursuing the one.
	What do you think you're looking for?
	You're looking for someone who will give you that emotional satisfaction every second of the day forever.
	And the moment those emotions fade away for even a moment, then you say, well, this is not the one for me.
	Now, in order to even get in the door and have the chance to maintain a marriage or screw it up, you have to go into your dating quest with a sense of purpose.
	Life in America today is plagued by purposelessness.
	You've heard me talk about this many times because I think it's our central problem.
	This is related to the issue of there being too many choices.
	It makes that problem all the worse because how are you supposed to know how to navigate all the choices and select the right option if you don't know what you're looking for or why you're looking for it in the first place?
	Americans are experiencing record levels of despair and anxiety, not because there's some mysterious mental illness going around, but because many people have no sense of meaning or purpose in their lives.
	This attitude is brought into their relationships and their pursuit of relationships, and it's why the dating scene is so miserable and marriage rates are plummeting.
	I suggest that we restore our sense of meaning and purpose.

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