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July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:22:17
Internet Dating Tips
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Hello?
Can you hear me?
Hello?
Hey, can you hear me?
Yeah.
OK, great.
Great.
All right.
Well, good.
We'll record this as a video as well, just in case there are a few people on the internet who are having some challenges with dating and meeting women.
And of course, the first thing to say is that, what is this bald, ancient, internet geezer bastard doing talking about dating?
Well.
I have, I guess I could say some minor expertise in that area.
I sort of went out with dozens of women before I met the love of my life and got very happily married, which I remain now for going into the sixth year.
Every year it gets better.
So, a little bit.
A little bit of expertise and hopefully something that will be of use to you.
I believe it will be.
I mean, we're sort of in the same generational age bracket so that that right which for most people on the internet is I think Pally is that like is that right Jurassic probably closer not quite Jurassic but close right it's right okay well so your status at the moment is that you were what's your what's your approach at the moment
my approach to you mean to meeting the ladies Yeah.
My approach is, um... Yeah.
My approach.
Um... Yeah, I guess I don't have one.
Okay, well, that would be, um... possibly the first place to start.
Um... I have been, um...
I have been somewhat critical of internet dating in the past.
I tried it myself when I was single, and I met some nice people, some nice women, although it's a very unbalanced kind of community, and certainly nobody was chasing me anywhere around the block.
But I did meet some nice girls, went on a date or two, and, you know, had civil times.
They weren't complete lunatics or anything.
just not people that I would consider going forward with.
But again, we're not sort of looking for, let's aim straight at the altar.
We're looking at, you know, let's aim at being comfortable with the dating process, which is not the easiest, or sometimes it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
And it isn't.
I mean, we are in a situation where human beings as a whole, and men in particular, didn't develop dating skills because it really wasn't necessary in a tribal environment I mean, I don't want to get all Dian Fossey on you, but, I mean, clearly, throughout most of human history, this was all arranged for us.
We would be given a choice of a couple of people in the tribe or in the village, and pretty much we would look forward to a couple of years of marriage and procreation before dying of tooth decay.
So, it really wasn't something that we had a lot of Experience with developing this hunter-gatherer stuff in the realm of romance and dating so difficulties in this area insecurities in this area It's perfectly to me.
It's perfectly natural and perfectly healthy and actually serves quite a positive Quite quite a positive role and I think the first thing is of course as always becoming friends with your fear and recognizing that your fear is not actually trying to kill you or render you functionally sterile, but because the
Because particularly now, if you want to get married and have kids, or even if you just want to get married, or even if you just want to get into a long-term relationship, the danger of making a mistake in this area is very high.
Because if you get married to the wrong woman, or if you have children with the wrong woman, I mean, it can seriously ruin your life, right?
I mean, it can seriously ruin your life, right?
I don't want to sort of make you paranoid, but just rather to say that your paranoia has foundation in reality.
I don't want to sort of make you paranoid, but just rather to say that your paranoia has foundation in reality.
I don't know if you've ever known anyone who's gone through the process of divorce and the acid mitosis and all that that goes along with that, but it's massively expensive.
It rips your life in two.
You get to only have half your kids.
And generally what it does is it renders the man a kind of financial and resource eunuch devoted to a broken up family that he's responsible for for the next 10 or 20 years, which usually renders him incapable of having another family.
So it is a massive catastrophe to have a divorce family.
And, you know, maybe I'm not going to judge or say whether it's better or worse than having kids or not.
I would say, of course, most people would say that it is.
But compared to staying together and having a loving marriage, it is a complete catastrophe.
So I think that paranoia in this area is entirely healthy, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, and I think that actually just to sort of I don't know.
Just what you were saying.
I think it's a catastrophe either way.
You mean either a loving or happy marriage and getting divorced?
No, no, no.
Because that might not be the exact right mindset, so to speak.
No, right.
Yeah.
No, what I mean is, Because the whole point is marrying the wrong person, right?
You're recording this, by the way.
I'm sorry, I just wanted to check.
I'm trying a new kind of recording where the video is merged with the audio automatically, but just wanted to check that you're recording.
Okay, sorry, go ahead.
No problem, no problem at all.
But I mean, if I just, I mean, if I look at my own parents' marriage, they never divorced, but kind of life they led.
Well, you'd probably give up a limb to...
You would probably have given up at least one limb, if not two, to avoid that kind of life, right?
Certainly.
Absolutely.
And with my parents, it was the same way.
I mean, it was a completely disastrous marriage that ended before I certainly achieved any kind of conscious memory.
So I was very, very young.
Six to twelve months, I think.
And it was a complete disaster.
And they never achieved happiness afterwards.
And I'm not saying that's impossible or anything, but I just wanted to point out that you can come from a broken home and still have a very happy marriage.
This is all possible.
It just requires a little bit of You can come from a history of people with heart problems and still be a great athlete.
You just have to be a little more careful, right?
Right, right.
It just takes more effort.
Right, right.
Okay, so as far as meeting girls goes, I think that the Internet is actually quite a positive thing in terms of simply being able to get to meet someone.
Because when you're out of school, and if you're not in a work environment that is conducive to that, and I would imagine that a lot of people on the Internet are not in those work environments.
They're either in computer science or physics or math or engineering or some male-dominated field, which tends to be the case.
Or they're in a, I don't know, like an arts program, which is female-dominated but crazy-dominated on both genders.
So I think that the internet is a really good way to simply cut through the chaff and meet someone and avoid the cold call.
The cold call is, and I've only done it a couple of times in my life, but the cold call is you meet, you see someone that you're interested in and you go and talk to them.
And I've done it, I guess, on two particular occasions I took this approach One was at a coffee shop, and the other was when I was eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant alone.
And a woman came in who seemed to have kind of a sparkly kind of air to her, and little wings and a wand.
It's my type.
You know, we all have a type.
I'm into that.
Inkerbell's kind of my... Well, anyway, this is not about me and my freak.
So I went over and said something stupid like, I'm eating alone, you're eating alone, how about if we eat alone together?
I'm not known for my pickup lines, so I just have to hope that they have a fetish for giant thumbs.
So the cold call is a really high hurdle.
The cold approach is a really high hurdle to try and get over.
And I guess I did it sometimes younger, when I was younger, sort of at a club, asking girls to dance or whatever, and then apologizing for my dancing.
Oh, I think they got that from the accent.
So the cold call is a really, really challenging place to start, and the Internet is a lot easier to find that kind of situation to begin with.
And to me, I think that the first goal would be to simply get Even on an email exchange, or an IM exchange, or, you know, maybe even, you know, a brief coffee, uh, or something where you're, like, in the presence of somebody where there is romantic, uh, where there's a romantic Adam in the room, if that makes sense.
I mean, you don't want to layer it on and, like, hi, you know, want a procreate now, or I can give you five minutes if you want to get to know me first.
Um, I mean, that's okay if she's had a couple of cappuccinos, but usually that's the start before the caffeine kicks in.
So, it's just to get into a situation where there is romantic intent, if that makes any sense.
And that all sounds kind of sinister, you know, but it's very different from just chatting with a woman like on the Free Domain radio board or in the chat room or in IM to actually know that there is a romantic thought floating around in the interaction.
That's, I think, the first place to go to to get that kind of practice because that is kind of unsettling, right?
Yeah, yeah, very much so.
The approach I was trying for a while was, I don't know if you've ever heard of meetup.com?
No, I don't.
Is that like hookup.com?
dot com well it's like this website where you can form groups based on special interests like astronomy or atheism whatever and and they have some groups that are dedicated to singles So they're not specifically dating, but they're kind of geared toward that.
Right.
And you've gone on a couple of those, is that right?
That was the hype you'd mentioned on the board?
Yeah, yeah.
And the problem I ran into there was, I guess, Because they're more regional in nature than the Internet itself, which is like anyone, anywhere.
where the collection of people is heavily colored by the local culture.
And here in the upper edges of the South, it's extremely difficult to find anybody who's more it's extremely difficult to find anybody who's more on the open-minded end of the spectrum, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, but of course what you can do is start off with the let's spawn for Jesus approach, and that's going to catch people's interest for sure, one way or another.
Right.
And that is trouble.
I also would say that if you're not particularly comfortable with the dating scenario and you're trying to ease into it, I would specifically avoid situations of competition.
Competition?
Well, when you go to one of these particular areas and there's a bunch of single men and there's a bunch of single women, you're in a competitive situation already, right?
Oh.
Wow.
So I would specifically and, yeah, I would specifically and like the plague avoid Because you don't want to be learning to swim at a swim meet, right?
Where there's a lot of intense competition around.
Yeah, that hadn't even occurred to me, but you're right.
That's exactly correct.
Right.
So I would stay away from those, and that, of course, is one of the pluses of the Internet, right?
That you're obviously in competition with other people who are out there, but you never see them, you don't know about them, and if you flex your wit and charm, you can at least get into a one-on-one conversation, whether it's email or IM, right up front, if that makes sense?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that does.
So I don't know much about it.
I guess Lava Life was the place I think that I went to.
And I met a girl.
She was quite nice.
Six foot two.
Quite exciting.
And I didn't even wear my heels.
And she was a very nice girl.
The only reason I ended up not going out with her for a longer period, I don't have any particular problem with the height thing, but it was just that she Told me that she'd been in a relationship for a year and a half and the guy simply moved away from the town and she had no idea why he moved and stopped returning her calls and that just seemed a little alarming to me.
To not have a clue and to have a guy just, after a year and a half, move away without telling you why or where he's going, that just seems like not good judgment overall.
But again, that's just me.
There's lots of... But I was still happy to be on the date and to go and to sort of... And dates are fun, whether they turn into a relationship or not.
Dates can be fun.
I know that may seem a little foreign right now, but dates can be an enjoyable situation as long as you view them I mean, there's a couple of things that I would approach with dates, because the key thing is to lower the tension.
It's the same thing with job interviews or any other situation where there's quasi-competition and high stakes.
And in a sense, there's nothing with a higher stake than a date if, of course, it can go to a relationship.
And of course, it is a competitive situation, because The goal is not to have just one job in your life, but the goal is to have one lifelong partner, so there's a lot of, I guess, hoops to go through to make sure that that works out well.
So it is a highly competitive situation, and it is a high-risk situation, but if you approach it that way, it never works, if that makes any sense.
Well, right, because then every move you make becomes do or die, right?
Right.
The self-consciousness is the opposite of intimacy, right?
So if I'm interacting with someone with the idea of appearing a certain way, you know, it's like if you've ever met those people who are really kind of paralyzed and they seem to be like tiny people in their brains working these levers of, quote, normality.
You know, like, don't be crazy.
Don't say anything bad.
You can almost see that scrolling across their eyeballs, right?
How would a human being interact in this situation?
Humor!
That kind of stuff.
And that kind of self-consciousness is only going to drive relaxed people away and attract exactly the wrong kind of people who are going to view your self-consciousness as big levers that they can manipulate for their own nefarious purposes.
So self-consciousness is really tough.
And the idea that we can become or pretend to be someone that someone else is going to find attractive is a great myth.
You can't ever be someone that someone else is going to find attractive.
You have to be yourself and see if they're going to.
You know, that's like lying up in a job interview, right?
And saying, I can speak Spanish.
And then being hired for a Spanish job where you have to speak Spanish.
And if you can't speak Spanish, what was the point, right?
You're just going to go through this whole mess for no reason.
So you don't want to pretend to be something that you're not or to pretend to be someone other than who you are.
Either the person's not going to like you for the fake act, which is really kind of pointless, right?
Because they might have liked you if you were real.
Or, even worse, they are going to like you for the fake act, in which case you've only got another 50 years to keep pulling it off, right?
Which is... nuts.
You know, it's not going to work, right?
Yeah, that's... definitely not, um... Yeah, I'm definitely not at all interested in that at all.
Right, okay.
So, but, sorry, but that having been said, There are sort of layers or standards of appropriateness to a date.
Right?
So, I mean, if an old friend comes over, you might be in your gym shorts and a t-shirt with your feet up when they come in, but that's not how you would approach a date.
I mean, so it's a combination of appropriate standards or levels of behavior combined with sort of, this is who I am.
But this is who I am with my best foot forward kind of thing.
It's like a job interview.
Yeah, I guess that makes some sense.
Well, let me try and put it another way.
If I am unhappy about something, I can go and complain about it to my wife, and she can pretend to listen, right?
So that's the approach that you take after you've been in a relationship for a while.
So, sorry, what I mean is that if I have a problem, I go talk about it with my wife, we can sort of hash it out and so on.
But I would not bring that problem to a first date, even if it had just occurred, if that makes sense?
Oh!
Right, yeah.
I mean, there's a difference between being genuine and honest and being, there's a difference between being genuine and honest and being, like, unnecessarily forthcoming. - and Unnecessarily forthcoming?
Yeah, I mean, it's all around context and establishing credibility because recognizing and understanding the first impression situation, if I sit down with a date and start complaining about my job, then she's going to think that I think that's appropriate and that's going to put into question my judgment as a whole.
And because she doesn't have any context of my personality as a whole to recognize that maybe I only spend 5% of the time complaining.
And this happens to be that 5% is our first five dates.
But for the next 95 dates, I won't complain.
But she won't know that.
And if I don't know that her perception of me is going to be based on whatever context I bring to the interactions, then I'm missing out on some kind of empathy or some kind of understanding of appropriateness.
So I just want to say it's complicated in that you want to be authentic.
But at the same time, you have to be sensitive to the impressions that you're creating based on the behavior that you exhibit early on in your dates.
Right, right, right.
So I mean, and it's good that it's complicated, because if it wasn't complicated, you'd feel really stupid, right?
Yeah.
No, complicated is still good.
Right?
Complicated is really, really good, because you're a smart fellow, and if it was just, oh, well, you say this, and then you scratch your ear with the wrong hand, and then you do the Macarena, and you've got a relationship, then you'd be like, oh, man, I can't believe it.
I went this long without taking that approach.
Right?
It is complicated.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
No, and to add to what you were saying, I kind of understand that.
Like, for someone you first Come in contact with you don't want to spend the entire evening complaining about everything that you hate.
Right?
Right.
Right.
I mean, you know, like if you're in a long term relationship, the woman may say, Oh, my God, I'm so bloated from PMS and my boobs are killing me.
And that is perfectly appropriate in a in a relationship.
But of course, in a long term relationship, men end up feeling the same way, which is not pretty.
But you don't necessarily want to say, if you're a woman and you're going to meet a guy, you don't necessarily want to say, hi, please excuse my appearance, I'm incredibly bloated and my boobs are killing me because of PMS.
Right?
I mean, so the kind of relaxed honesty that occurs later on in a relationship, you don't necessarily want to kind of let it all hang out at the very beginning, because what you want to do is you want to build up credibility.
Yeah, I get that.
There was a story recently, this is sort of just by the by, but I think it's an interesting, and I'll drop this point after this because I know you've got it, but I was just reading about this kid just out of school, like 22, and just out of college, went to go and work at this big company, and on her second week sent a broadcast email to everyone in the company about exactly what was wrong with the company and how it should be fixed.
Which produces, of course, enormous eye-rolling on the part of everyone else in the company, right?
Because, right, this is kind of like, oh, right, after a week and a half at this company, you know how it goes.
So that's just a matter, and if she had worked at that company for 10 years and risen to a senior management position, then she would have earned the credibility to send that letter out.
So it's just a matter, so even if she'd been right after, sorry, go ahead.
It works in reverse, too, right?
Because now, In a sense, she has an excuse to hate her job, right?
I sent an email out telling them how to fix their company and they don't care, right?
Well, they just can't hurt, right?
And it would be hard not to in that situation because Because obviously she's completely unaware that she's calling everyone else in the company retarded and or corrupt, right?
Because it's like, well, if I figured it out in a week and a half and you guys have been here for 10 years, then clearly I'm vastly superior to you in intelligence or integrity or whatever, right?
And if she doesn't know how that's going to land, then she doesn't have any concept of empathy or, you know, she's kind of narcissistic or entitled or whatever, right?
Because if she's right, then what she should most want to do is to build up credibility, not just fire.
So it just shows such poor judgment that, I mean, the company didn't want to keep her around and she didn't even make it through probation, which I can sort of understand.
How are you going to put that person in front of a customer, or how are they ever going to manage people if they don't understand how they land on the other side of the email or the table also?
So it's just something to think about, that we want to be sensitive to how it is that we're coming across in a date, but we don't want to be manipulative or fake.
And that is a challenging balance, right?
Yeah, yeah it is.
Particularly for libertarians, anarchists, philosophers, defu fanatics, you know, it's complicated even more.
Yeah, that's exactly the problem, right?
You don't want to be unnecessarily forthcoming.
But then, what exactly does that mean, right?
Do you wait to spring the You know, and if you're waiting to spring this stuff on people, then what is it really... What are you saying about what you think of it, right?
I mean... Right, right.
Well, there's nothing... Like, why are you hiding this from me, right?
Well, there's nothing wrong with deferring conversations.
So, for instance, if I was on a date, and it was the very first date, and some of the girls said, tell me a little bit about your family, I would say, well, things with my family are complicated, if that makes any sense, and I have no problem talking about it, but I'd like to get to know you a little bit better first, if that's all right with you.
I mean, it's nothing weird or scary.
It's, you know, it's just complicated, like a lot of people's family situations.
So, you know, tell me a little bit about yours, if you like, or we can talk about... There's nothing wrong with saying, this is not a good situation to talk about right up front.
And if the girl says, what are your political beliefs?
Then you can say something like, well, my political-- No, my political beliefs are a little off the mainstream.
They're not weird.
And actually, they're kind of classical in a way.
They're just not particularly modern.
But we can get into that another time.
I don't want to bring up my political beliefs, which will take us in a whole different direction.
But let's just say that I support freedom and equal rights for all, but I take an approach that's a little bit out of the mainstream, which is fine.
But tell me a little bit about, you know, humina humina.
I mean, you can bring these things up in a way that is appropriate and shows that you're not mad.
Because, of course, being able to not talk about something is very important.
Because a lot of people will complain, if they're in libertarian or anarchist circles, that every time they talk to anyone it turns into a diatribe against the state.
And that's not good, right?
Because what that indicates to people is that you have become a specialized and windbaggy know-it-all in order to avoid actually talking to people and listening to them.
Right, right.
I'm totally with you there.
I've met plenty of those libertarians myself.
Right, you know, the people who, you know, like on a first date, they're talking about the mainstream media shutout of the Internet Constitution, Jesus, Ron Paul.
And, you know, even if they're right, they're not right in saying it up front.
You might be right that space aliens are trying to steal your sperm, and that's why you wear tinfoil pants, but you probably want to establish a little credibility first so that you can put it in context.
I mean, when Christina, my wife, asked me about my family, it was only on our third or fourth date, and I was up front.
You know, I said that there's Significant problems with mental health in my family, and I've, you know, I've gone through therapy for years.
I have worked through a lot of issues.
I've been very upfront with them about my needs, but I was not able to have my needs met within my family, so I'm on a sort of semi-permanent sabbatical from the family so that I can make sure that I bring better people into my life.
And, you know, it's something that I worked out very hard to make work.
I'm very sad about it, but that's where things stand.
That is something that people, I think, can respect and understand, because a lot of it has to do with how you feel about stuff, right?
So, if I was really ashamed of not seeing my family of origin, then I would be kind of odd and evasive about it, or I'd be unable to just confront it, or I'd be weirdly aggressive about it, or defensive, or whatever.
I'd go into long explanations which would justify why it is that I broke with them, and all of that would be kind of off-putting for the other person, if that makes sense.
She waited until the third or fourth date to ask you about your family.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it was the... Yeah, I think it was the third date.
Although the first date, we just sat in a restaurant and chatted after we met at a volleyball game, as you know.
We were playing volleyball.
We just sat in a restaurant.
It wasn't really a date.
Then we had another date with some friends, and then on the third date, she asked me about my family.
I see.
Okay, so it was just circumstantial that it worked out that way.
Yeah, we just, our second date was with some friends, so, um... But yeah, I mean, it was, uh... But I mean, if she'd asked me earlier, then it would've... It all has to do with my comfort level with this kind of stuff, right?
If I feel like I need to justify it to someone, they're gonna immediately get that it's not justified.
If that makes sense.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I totally get that.
And so as far as that stuff goes, as far as bringing that stuff up goes, for you it's a challenge.
People say, what do you do?
It's like, well, I'm into philosophy and I'm eating my own toenails until I can find a way to make it all work together.
Well, the important thing is to talk about the joy, not the challenges.
What are your hobbies or what are you interested in?
I love philosophy.
I love the exploration of truth and virtue and bringing the challenges of honesty to relationships.
For instance, did you know that your eyebrows are uneven?
You know, those kinds of things.
You can just bring that kind of joyful truth-telling to your relationships.
One of my nuts is bigger than the other.
Anyway, so you can talk about that which gives you joy.
And if people get that it gives you joy, then there'll be a lot more latitude for what it is that gives you joy, if that makes sense.
That's not clear, right?
Yeah, that last part of that.
What did that mean?
One of the consequences of a love of truth is a recognition that most of the world runs on lies, right?
Yeah.
And, you know, pious, hypocritical, moral, and sometimes quite enraging false propaganda and so on.
And so, you can either talk about the cause of some of your hostility to the world, which is your love of the truth, or you can say, the world pisses me off.
Oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
I got that part, but then the business about giving you more latitude, I...
It's all about, I mean, to me it's about the cause and effect.
So if you say, I hate the world because I love the truth, or I hate the world comes up first, then people will assume, just unconsciously or consciously, that your hatred of the world is the first cause, and your intellectual defense is the, quote, pursuit of truth.
Right.
Whereas if you talk about your love of truth, and then as an unfortunate consequence comes problems with certain aspects of the world you live in, then people will see that as more of a consequence and not as a defense, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I think I see what you're saying.
You know, like if I say, well, I wanted to become a surgeon because I like to heal people, and I don't particularly like the cutting open part, then that's one thing.
But if you say, I really like to cut people open, so I figured the best way to do that and not end up in jail was to become a surgeon.
I mean, those are two kind of different causes and effects, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that's pretty scary.
Right, so a lot of libertarians will start off talking about the problems with the world, the negatives of the state, the war, the deficit, the welfare state, the Fed, the this or that.
And it just sounds like a massive bitchy slagfest against the planet and reality as a whole, and then tucked away back in there is, well, yeah, it'd be nice to be free and I don't like violence.
You know, that kind of stuff.
Whereas if you talk about that which you love and gives you passion first, it's much more vulnerable, it's much more vulnerable to talk about that which gives you joy than it is to complain about things, which is What most people do because they don't want to experience the vulnerability of putting out that much you love into the world, right?
Yeah, that makes good sense.
I mean, it works for you, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's not easy, but it's a lot easier than the alternative, if that makes sense.
So, as far as more practical things go, and this is going to sound desperately terrible, but this was an approach that I took.
Aim low.
And this is the approach that I took.
And it did actually have me meet some people who were more in line with the way that I think and work with the world.
So one of the problems with online dating is that there are pictures, there are way tight descriptions and so on.
And as a philosopher, certainly, well, I wasn't particularly philosophical when I first started internet dating.
So you just, you angle in for the hottest, hottest things that you can find, hottest women that you can find.
And then you attempt to woo them with your wit and intelligence, if not your looks.
And that obviously didn't work, right?
So what I then began moving towards were, I focused less on appearance and more on things like education and career, if that makes sense?
Yeah.
Yeah, and frankly, I mean, I'm already pretty, I'm kind of on the same wavelength with you as far as that goes.
In the, especially in like the internet arena, the folks who are up there are kind of banking on their photo, right?
Right.
And there, as you and I well know, because we run, or we're involved in a philosophical scientific conversation at Freedom Aid Radio where we don't often see pictures of people, that there are lots of fantastic people out there who don't look like the Pitts or the Jolies or whatever, right?
Right.
That's exactly right.
And as I've argued with some contention or with some controversy before, the people who have had to work harder to be who they are tend to have a little bit more depth and a little bit more resilience than other people.
Like people who inherit money don't tend to be very good business people, but people who've made a lot of money do, right?
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
And I'm totally on board with that.
Right.
And looks is just like inheriting a lot of money.
I mean, it's a lot easier.
People will always be bringing you goodies and so on.
And this is particularly the case, even more so with women than with men.
It's not an absolute rule, but at the same time, that doesn't make it an excuse to avoid the bald fact that most highly attractive that doesn't make it an excuse to avoid the bald fact that most highly attractive people are heavily invested in the
Right, and it makes perfect sense for them to be that way, but it doesn't tend to be something that is productive in terms of a long-term relationship.
I mean, somebody's looks aren't going to help you squat when someone has to get up for 2 a.m. feeding with a baby, right?
Right, right, that's exactly right.
Amen.
So, as far as AIM logo is, it doesn't mean avoid people who are conventionally attractive, but what it does mean is to put your search... Again, I started with search like, no photo, high education.
And the great thing about the Internet is that if you don't worry about the photo thing, although obviously age does matter if you want a family, But you can get to know somebody without the distraction of the physical, and as I've said before, I mean, my wife and I weren't attracted to each other when we first met, but I mean, now I think she's the sexiest, most gorgeous woman on the planet.
So that kind of stuff is just... People always say, well, what about the chemistry?
You've got to have the sizzle, you've got to have the jazz hands, the zazz, but that's not true.
That's not true, and I think that that is a distraction for the kind of cheap attachment of lust as opposed to the mature attachment of intellectual and moral compatibility.
I think I agree with that.
So, it really, the mission is to get a date, and the way to get a date is to look for people who would be outside the norm in terms of physical attractiveness, or at least who are unknown, right?
Because it could also be that somebody who is very good-looking may in fact put no photo up for obvious reasons, right?
If they have some wisdom and maturity that they don't want to be flocked for their silhouette, right?
Right.
Or swarmed.
So I would go, you know, no photos, reasonable level of education, look for interests that are compatible.
and you know just keep sending messages and you know hi and introduce yourself and so on and just see what comes back yeah in order to do that you have to actually subscribe to these places so Yes, I'm sorry, what's the barrier there?
I don't know, but with Lava Life, it was dirt cheap, right?
20 bucks, you could send five messages or whatever.
Yeah, that's true.
I guess that's not... Yeah, I mean, you don't have to sign up for 2,500 bucks a year or something, but I would go with one that is going to allow you to be charged on a per-message basis or whatever, if that makes sense.
Oh, right, right, right.
Yeah, pretty much all of them now are monthly subscription fees.
Right, so you can give it a shot because you, and you can do some research.
There obviously, as has been mentioned on the board, there are different kinds of sites.
There are sites for, you know, hookups with people who like hamsters and duct tape versus people who want more long-term relationships versus people who want affairs from their, within their existing relationships and so on.
So, of course, you want to aim towards those where longer-term relationships are possible.
And recognize, too, that you're in a highly prized demographic.
I know it may not feel that way sometimes, but because When men are young, we are not in a highly prized demographic unless we are one of the hottie guys.
Now that you're just 40 or so and you have no first marriage, you have no kids to support, you have a good history of career success, you're actually in a pretty prized demographic.
I know that that also became the case for me when I got into my mid to late 30s.
I had some professional success and I didn't have the baggage of existing financial and familial relations based on an earlier marriage and I didn't also have that kind of I don't know, slump-shouldered stare at the sidewalks, mumble imprecations about your ex, bitterness that seems to infect a lot of people who've gone through a divorce.
So I actually became more and more prized as my 30s went along, which was odd to say the least.
But because you have a professional success as well as no baggage, that is a pretty significant thing for women in their sort of early to mid-30s who are looking to settle down relatively rapidly and have kids because their expiry date is creeping up.
They are actually looking for that kind of stuff because a lot of guys who are in their sort of late 30s, if they've had a busted-up marriage, they've got kids who are pretty young, right, under 10 usually.
And so they've got another 10 years of massive financial and familial obligations and aren't really that available for a woman who wants to settle down and have kids, right?
So you're in a pretty prized demographic as far as that goes.
Yeah, that's an excellent point.
And actually, that brought up another question that was kind of bothering me, too.
I'm sorry, just to mention that you can wear the T-shirt that says, will fertilize for food.
That can get the message across relatively efficiently, if that makes sense.
But that was another question I had, too, was around the age gap.
What are the laws of your state?
Sorry, just kidding.
Right.
Well, this is the South stuff, so.
Strangers have the best candy.
Right.
Well, you have a practical age gap which you're going to have to work with, which is that you probably don't want a woman who is in her late 30s, if you want a family.
Again, this is just the brutal biological reality, which is that Let's say you meet a woman who's 38 and you want to date for a year or two and then get married, and you don't necessarily want to start having kids immediately because you kind of want to work out some of the marriage stuff, because I would certainly suggest not living together before you get married.
That tends to not work out very well.
So once you start to get into the late 30s, you're looking at challenging procreation situations, right?
Fertility declines, the possibility of birth defects increases, and so on, and that's just an additional stressor.
And you have that kind of big ticking clock coming down on you, which tends to influence a lot of decisions that you'll make.
So I would certainly look for mid-30s.
And I think in that way, you're probably not looking at too much of an experience gap in that sense.
Well, yeah, in my own case, that's probably true.
But, um... I guess I just... um... I guess I just...
I, um... Just from the, um...
Experiences of some others I've...
I've met, um... The, um... The, um...
Sorry to be annoying, but if you could cut back on the gaps a bit, the video's really hard to edit.
Audio's easier, but spit it out, man.
All right, yeah, I'll just say it straight up.
You know, the whole problem of Going for younger women because they're more manipulable, right?
Right.
I don't think that you're particularly manipulative in any way, though, so I don't think that would be a particular issue.
I mean, I think that the basic reality is that if you were to go out with a 25 year old, no matter how intelligent and wise she was in Ailey, 15 years is just, you know, that's quite a bit, right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
In terms of interests and... Experience, and you know, I mean, the perspective that you get as you get older, I mean, the wisdom that you gain as you get older is the compensation for all of the joint pains and forgetfulness.
But the reality is that you just, I mean, you imagine a sort of full-tenured professor trying to have an intelligent discussion about physics with somebody in high school, right?
It's just not going to, it's just not going to, there's always going to be a misalignment in terms of authority and experience.
So, again, maybe it can work.
I'm certainly, you know, coming up with any hard and fast rules in relationships is a very perilous game to, in any way, shape, or form.
I think that it's pretty hard to make the case that that's going to work out well, easily, if that makes sense.
Because whether you like it or not, when you start to get over 10 or 15 years, there just becomes an authority situation that's hard to escape.
Yeah.
That's sort of what I was driving at, was, you know, given that, there's kind of an ideal age range, I would think. there's kind of an ideal age range, I would think.
Well, I don't know about ideal, but I think there's non-ideal.
I mean, ideal is a tough, because that indicates that there's a point or a singularity.
You know, like, I'm looking for a woman who's exactly 243 days younger than I am.
I mean, there's no ideal, but there is definitely a situation of declining Yeah, and again, I mean, you cast your net wide and see who's compatible, because it's not like everyone you go out on a date with, you're going to end up marrying, right?
Unless you're a Mormon, that could happen, but then you don't date.
So then the question is, we're going to spend the last few minutes just on the significant problem of small talk, right, when you first meet someone?
Right.
Well, my situation in this is small talk is highly overrated in life.
You know, there are times where small talk can be helpful and can be useful.
You know, when you're sitting down to a business meeting, you're meeting people for the first time, commenting a little bit about your flies, and you know, if you have a little funny story, that's fine.
But for the most part, small talk is highly overrated as a goal.
Now, people always say, well, you know, I'm no good at small talk.
How do I make small talk?
And so on.
It's a good skill to have because, you know, it's just good to have more options in your social repertoire.
But I would not particularly start with a lot of small talk.
And people waste a lot of time on dates.
I mean, people will walk away from the first date knowing virtually nothing about the person they've been talking to that is sort of factual or biographical or whatever.
And certainly on our second date, Christina turned to me and said, look, I'm interested in settling down and having a family.
This doesn't mean it has to be immediate, but if that's not your goal, I'd like to know up front so I can make a reasonable decision, right?
Right.
And that's pretty much the furthest thing from small talk, but that was very, very helpful in terms of clarifying what she wanted.
Now, if she'd avoided that subject, we could have been going out for months, and then she could have found out that I just don't ever want to get married and have kids, and then she's flushed away a couple of more months of her life on something that doesn't get her what she wants, right?
Right, right.
That makes perfect sense.
So, you know, if somebody says, what's your goal in a relationship, say, well, I want to get married and settle down and have kids, right?
I mean, or whatever your goal is, just say, I want to go to Tibet and join a monastery and, you know, have a flesh pile of monkey robes things.
So, I mean, whatever it is that your goal is, I think it's important to be upfront about that.
And people say, "Well, what are your values?" Or if that comes up, I think that's important to say that truth and honesty and integrity and the truth at all costs, even though it can be difficult to me, that's my thing.
It has been for some time and it's really working out well for me and so on.
So I think that it's okay to ask people about their families.
What happened with your relationships?
Have you been in relationships before?
If not, what do you think were the primary reasons they didn't work?
I think those are all perfectly fair and reasonable questions.
When you go for a job interview, they don't just make small talk.
They may make a little bit of small talk to find out if you can do it, but they actually want to find out your credentials for the position.
I think that is a perfectly reasonable approach to take with dating.
Right, but it all doesn't happen at once.
What do you mean?
Well, like you said, it can happen over the span of several dates.
Well, I wouldn't say necessarily.
So, for instance, because you only have to ask one or two core questions in order to find out if there will be more dates.
Right.
Right, so if you say to somebody, uh, what has your history been of prior relationships?
And they say, well, I, uh, I was married four times and my husband's old died mysteriously from the same poison.
That may be a situation where a second date might be, unless you're a total thrill seeker, not top of your list.
So, right.
No, but I mean, sorry, to be more serious, if they say, well, you know, I, uh, I live with my aging and horribly abusive mother because I believe that Christ tells you to love your enemies.
Then that might be a situation where you say, I'll be right back.
I'm just going to the washroom at home.
So you can ask those kinds of questions, and depending on the responses you get, it goes on or doesn't, right?
I mean, if I go for a job as an engineer and they say, are you an engineer?
And I say, no, I don't get to the second interview, right?
Right, right.
That's absolutely correct.
But it's not like you have to keep piling on those questions, right?
Because you can have a civilized end to a... I remember a woman, sorry to be coarse, but I remember a woman, actually I'll drop the coarse button, but I remember going on a date with a woman.
We went skating and then we went to have something to eat and she was telling me about her ex-husband who was a heavy pot smoker who set up Dungeons and Dragons games downstairs, which he played with his deadbeat friends week after week.
And she couldn't even go down.
There was so much pot and pot smoke and so on, right?
And, you know, so I asked why did that relation...
I didn't ask why that relationship ended.
I asked why that relationship even began.
I mean, didn't you notice this aspect of his personality for want of a better word before you got married?
And she's like, oh no, there was like no evidence whatsoever.
It just mysteriously appeared after we got married.
And it's like, okay.
Yeah, people say that a lot.
Well, they do, and of course they know it's not true, but what they're actually telling you is, I don't take any responsibility for my decisions, and you just don't want to give your heart to someone like that, right?
Right.
Right, because you have... But we finished out the day, didn't I just ask for other stuff, and you know, we finished out the day.
It's not like, you know, even if you know it's not going to work out, it's still okay to have a chat with somebody who's got a different perspective, even if you never want to see them again.
Right.
Right.
That makes sense.
But I wasn't going to sit there and say, well, you know, you really should take more responsibility for your decisions.
You chose this guy.
We know everything about people very early on, blah, blah, blah.
Because then I would actually be contradicting myself, because I know a lot about her very early on, which was that she wasn't going to take responsibility for her actions, so why would I lecture her about it, right?
Right.
Right.
That's true.
So the other thing that was sort of concerning me was how to approach the question of just the fact that I actually, when this inevitably will come up, you know,
just the fact that I've never just the fact that I've never done this before.
Oh, yeah, I would just say I've been in prison since I was a teenager.
So I'm good at duct-taping my ass and meeting new friends.
But, well, I would say that, I mean, there's just no way to avoid being up front with it.
Just say, well, for many, many years, I just didn't, you know, I didn't have any interest in dating.
I just, like, saw relationships that weren't working.
I saw my own parents' marriage that wasn't working.
But now I'm in this cult which commands me to breed.
So, your shoelace is untied, if you'd just like to bend over and... No, but I would just say, I mean, the honest fact, as far as I understand it with you, is that you just... I mean, it looks like fun, but why would you do it, right?
I mean, climbing Everest, I'm sure, has fun elements, but that doesn't mean you want to go and do it, right?
So, you just didn't see... I mean, the net positive versus the net negative was so unbalanced that Although there may be fun aspects in a romantic relationship, it just was not something that you were willing to or wanted to explore, right?
I mean, you went through periods of pretty dark depression, you had some nihilism, you were cynical about the world and through philosophy that started to turn around for you to the point where you feel that you can approach a relationship and actually have some effect on it being a good thing, right?
So, I mean, that's what I would say.
I wouldn't necessarily go into the depression and the cynicism, but I just say, well, look, I mean, I saw a whole bunch of relationships not work.
I saw a whole bunch of relationships kind of ruin people's lives.
I didn't really see a counter evidence.
And that obviously had something to do with the crowd that I was in and so on.
You know, it's a really risky proposition, and a lot of people seem to get into it without looking at the cost-benefits, and I'm just so constituted that cost-benefits are kind of inescapable to me, and I just couldn't find a way to believe in the cost-benefit of relationships.
But I've changed my mind about that now, and I know that it is something that I want to pursue, but I just didn't ever think that it could be worth the risk before.
Right, right.
And that Everest metaphor is a perfect example because...
You know, how many hundreds of people go over there every year and do that and end up dead on the side of the mountain, all because... I don't think it's hundreds, but yeah, I mean, getting to the top of Everest is great, but yeah, there's a lot of frozen deoxygenated bodies along the way, so, you know, it's a lot of time and expense and you've got to train yourself up and I like all my toes and yeah, so I mean, but now that there's a catapult
To the top of Everest.
Strap me in, baby.
I'm going up.
Right.
Right.
And then what you do is you bring out your designs for the catapult at the base camp that's going to say, this is how I'm going to make all the money for our children.
Just kidding.
Right.
What is it?
A trebuchet?
What's that big, big honking medieval catapult that they used to put the flaming brands over the cities in Lord of the Rings?
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
But yeah, so I mean, you can use those metaphors, but I think that's just the reality.
It's not like you hate women or anything.
It's just that...
It just didn't seem worth it, given the level of risk and the universal disasters of the relationships that you saw.
But now you've seen better relationships, and you feel that you have a strong understanding of how to... And you have spent a lot of time working on yourself over the past few years, right?
You've gone to therapy, you've spent a lot of time in this conversation, you've read real-time relationships, and you have a lot better tools and approaches to have an effect on a relationship, to make it great for both parties.
Yeah, and that's actually another thing that weirds people out, too.
You tell them that you're in therapy, and they're like, whoa, wait, what?
You know?
Well, but that's what you don't... I mean, you don't want somebody who's like that.
Because that means that they're averse to introspection.
And you do not want to have a marriage with somebody who's averse to introspection.
It will absolutely not work.
Right.
Because they'll just project everything.
All the problems that arise, they'll just project them to other people.
And it will be an incredibly frustrating and exhausting experience.
Yeah, I totally get that.
Well, that's exactly what my parents were like.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
I mean, my mom was the same way.
Psychobabble and they just want to take your money and give you bad advice.
It's all that kind of stuff.
There's nothing wrong with me.
I don't need that.
Right, right.
The idea that we go to therapy because we're broken, the same way we... but we would never say that an athlete gets a coach because he's in a wheelchair.
Right.
Right.
Right, that's right.
It's just a tool for, uh... helping you get what you want.
Not a...
Oh, it's not a crutch, by God.
I mean, therapy is the last thing that is a crutch.
I mean, it's what actually knocks the crutches away.
So it's the complete opposite of a crutch.
Projection is a crutch.
Compulsive dating, drinking is a crutch.
Compulsive sexuality, drug use is a crutch.
Materialism is a crutch.
Patriotism is a crutch.
Therapy is not.
But, of course, a lot of people don't understand that.
Right.
So that just anyone who would balk at that is... Well, but then, you know... They balk at everything else, too, right?
The atheism, the anarchism... Well, they balk at thought.
I mean, they won't balk so much.
They may balk at the conclusions, but what they're really balking at is That's a good question, too.
Because the thought is threatening to the false self, right, which is all about manipulation.
So, yeah, they're balking at thought, which means they're balking at human identity, which means that they're balking at intimacy and the possibility of love and attachment, which means, you know, check the place, right?
Exactly.
And that's a good question, too.
I mean, would you ever not finish a date?
I would try to make sure, or at least I did try to make sure, that the compatibility was such that the date would never be torture.
Right?
So because you get a chance to talk to people before you decide to meet them for a coffee or whatever.
Yeah, I mean, I had actually, I should say, my very first one, I met a girl for coffee, who spent about 20 minutes talking about how she was still trying to pay off the debt from the credit card bills that her ex boyfriend ran up.
Oh, man.
Yeah, but I mean, again, to me, that's just fascinating information to gather about human beings.
It was a relatively short conversation, but it's still, I mean, to me, that's not like 20 minutes that I view as a complete disaster in my life.
It's just like, I learned from there that it's important to get some sense of compatibility beforehand.
And what did you put in your profile?
Yeah.
Were you completely forward with your atheism and that sort of thing?
Yes, I did talk about atheism.
You know what, I think I put agnosticism.
And the reason that I did that was that there are some militant atheists out there.
Right.
And I think I started with atheism when I got in contact with people who were who'd been abused by people in the church and so on.
And I just like, OK, well, let's tone that back a bit so that I tweak it a bit.
Right.
And, you know, that's that's fine.
It was up front about My height and weight and hair color, pink?
Yeah, I mean, of course, of course.
If somebody's going to say, well, I don't want to date a guy who's bald, then it's like, OK, well, then go find a hairy guy, right?
That's like me saying, look, I'm not going to date you unless you have big tits.
It's like, OK, well, then that's where I'm going to put my happiness and my heart is in the cleavage, as opposed to in a part of someone's hair.
I mean, just don't want somebody like that, right?
I mean, that's just ridiculous.
Right, right, right.
I mean, that's a child, that's an infant who's trying to approach the question of love and compatibility and family as saying there's a physical set of characteristics that somebody needs to match.
I mean, that's just retarded fundamentally, right?
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I think I agree with that for sure.
And plus, you know, I mean, again, it's like saying I speak Spanish when I don't.
I mean, what's the point?
If I don't say that I'm bald and then they meet me, it's like, what am I going to do?
Put a fern up there?
I mean, what's that going to do, right?
Right.
Right.
Get a tattoo of stubble and say, well, I've just shaved it, and then hope they never want me to regrow.
I mean, it's just the reality, right?
And if somebody's going to be like, well, I don't want to date a bald guy, it's like, OK, I don't want to date a shallow person, so it looks like we're perfectly compatible in our incompatibility.
Right, right.
Now, in another recent podcast, the question of presentation came up.
Right, right.
I found that interesting because I was wondering how far does that go, right?
I've had someone actually suggest that I should purchase furniture and that struck me as, you That's a long way to go for... Yeah, I don't think that's necessary.
I mean, I was a bachelor with a futon and old wooden table and mismatched chairs.
If the attraction is there and it's real based on values, you know, an Ottoman isn't going to swing the boat, right?
That's a good point.
I mean, Christina was going to say, wow, we have this amazing intellectual and emotional connection, but, you know, the fact that you don't have a coffee table is a total deal breaker to me.
I mean, that's just not going to, that's not how it goes.
I mean, that's just not how any kind of real love or attraction goes.
That having been said, I mean, if I'd shown up in, you know, gym shorts and a wife beater for a formal dinner, then she would not be criticizing my appearance in her mind, but my judgment, right?
And you want to be, particularly if you have non-mainstream beliefs, you want to present yourself as someone who has good judgment.
And that way you gain credibility over the long run, right?
Right, right, right.
That makes perfect sense.
That makes perfect sense.
So there's also a kind of ideal range for that as well, then?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, somewhere between, you know, it's important to shave, but you don't need plastic surgery, I think would be the balance that I would try and strike.
Well, some of you folks need to shave.
That's true.
I'm married now, so it's optional.
Just in life having some place to strike a match.
or buffer heels right and uh...
the mechanics of the whole thing first dates you meet in neutral territory you do not go and pick her up on a first date Well, because, right?
I mean, if it doesn't work out, you've got to drop her off.
Right.
That's no good.
You don't want that right, right?
So no, you meet for a place.
You don't meet for dinner, because that's an implicit time commitment.
You meet for a coffee or someplace, and you have... I don't think it's... I mean, obviously, you don't do a drive-by and then go or not go, depending on what she looks like.
I was actually...
I mean, that's just beyond rude, right?
I actually did get set up with a girl who was about 350 pounds, but she was fun to talk to.
Obviously, the issue there was to some degree the weight, but more so because I'm pretty active and it wasn't going to fit.
I saw the date out.
She was very funny, as people who have physical handicaps in terms of attractiveness have that sometimes as a personality trait.
But you see the date out, right?
And that to me is just a basic kind of human decency thing.
So yeah, but always meet in a neutral place where you can leave whether or not And you don't have any kind of awkward thing that's going on.
If the girl says, you know, are you going to call me or whatever, you can just say, well, after all of these things, I sort of go back and mull it over and see how I feel and so on.
And but I will.
And generally what I did was if I wasn't going to call the girl, I would at least send an email to say, you know, I don't think that we have enough compatibility.
Best of luck with your search.
I mean, to me, that's just kind of polite.
But I would also do that with people I didn't hire when I would be interviewing.
I would send them a note saying, you know, thanks for coming in.
But because I just think it's kind of rude to not.
I mean, if you've had enough compatibility to meet, I would say it's just a nice thing to do to send an email saying thanks, but no thanks, and I think that gives someone a little bit of closure and so on.
Right, don't just blow them off.
Well, you know, just the I'll never call kind of thing.
You should have at least eliminated the incompatibility that would be scary, but before you go to meet the girl, and if you meet the girl, and for some reason there's no particular something's missing or something's there that you don't want, I think it's reasonable.
I mean, what does it take?
Thirty seconds to write a thank you email and so on.
And, you know, the best of luck stuff.
And I mean, I always try to be polite around that kind of stuff.
And that's just, I think, good manners.
But, you know, it could be a British thing.
I don't know.
Right, right, right.
No, that makes good sense.
And if you do, sorry, if you do like the girl, then The important thing I would say is on the exit to give the positive feedback and say, I really enjoyed this.
I really enjoyed chatting with you, and I hope that we can do this again.
And don't ask her out at the moment that you're parting.
Just express a desire to do it again, but say, mull it over, and we'll get in touch, and you can let me know what you think, because you don't know exactly what her impression has been You want to not put her in an awkward position of having to say yes or no on the spot to your face, which is not always easy.
But, yes, you know, express that it was positive and enjoyable for you.
You'd really like to do it again.
And, you know, we can get in touch over the next couple of days and see how we feel.
All right.
Yeah, and I'm asking these because, not because I'm looking for, like, a rulebook to follow.
or script, but just because I need a...
Like, because this stuff will evolve over time, I imagine, as you, you know, find things that work and don't work and whatnot.
But I just need a starting point, right?
Oh, sure.
And you're going to go out and you're going to make mistakes like every human being on the planet does in terms of dating.
And that's perfectly fine, right?
I mean, it's perfectly fine to go out there, be completely tongue-tied and, you know, accidentally snort some irregular out of your nervous, right?
All of these things are perfectly understandable and perfectly natural in the dating world.
And I think that...
There's nothing wrong with that.
That's inevitable, right?
I mean, if we aim for perfection in dating, we live in a paranoid hell that never works, right?
So, go out and be perfectly comfortable as best as you can, making mistakes, meeting the wrong person, being trapped in a corner by somebody spilling out their life story about the intestinal disorders of their cat, whatever it is.
Oh, and also, I would go with the three-cat rule, but that's obviously a given.
Yeah.
No houses of squalor.
Yes, yes, yes.
Now, the last thing to mention is that if they ask you what you do for a living, I just say, you know, I'm taking a break from an IT career to pursue something that I love, but, you know, I'm aiming to get back into it, and I certainly have the skills and history to make it work, but I've been taking a little bit of time off because I've just been so fascinated by this philosophy stuff that I've taken a short break from my career.
I mean, I think all of that's reasonable.
I said the same thing.
Right.
to Christina, because I was not working and hadn't been for some time when we met, because I was working on books, right?
So I just said, oh, pursuing this dream for a while, I don't think it's going to turn out into something permanent, but it certainly is.
And she was actually quite interested in that and quite fascinated, and that was a good thing.
Right.
Now, there's the question of also, like, like, how, like, how, well, physical intimacy, how, how, how,
how, how, how, Oh yeah, like how does that work?
Well, it doesn't work.
Fundamentally, it doesn't.
At least I've never found a way to make it work.
There is no seamless, you know, what Eric Young used to call the zipless screw, which wasn't quite the word she used.
But this idea, you know, you see in movies, the music swells, someone's up against the wall and everybody's banging like there's a, you know, a gong and everyone's late for dinner, right?
It never works like that.
I mean, there is the reach around, so to speak, right?
I mean, you go to a movie, at some point, you just got to make your arm go around her shoulder or something like that, or take her hand in yours or whatever, and it's a horrible moment.
And it's either going to work or it's not.
But that's just the Rubicon you have to cross as a guy, because I mean, it's the way the world works, particularly girls who are over 30 or women who are over 30.
So what I would say, obviously, you know, I mean, you can just go for the hand-holding or whatever, right?
You can give a kiss goodnight.
You can give a light kiss on the lips and see how she reacts.
Pepper spray, maybe not so positive.
Dog attacks, definitely negative.
But, you know, groping in tongue, good.
But I would certainly say that before you got physically intimate with a woman sexually, I would say, look, I mean, this is to some degree the road less traveled for me.
And I would just sort of be upfront about it.
I think you kind of have to.
I mean, I certainly wouldn't try and fake anything that you're not comfortable with.
Right.
Right.
No, absolutely.
And what a wide variety of Eastern German porn, which we can flip through and see what gets our mojo working.
Right.
And I mean, I wasn't even going all the way to like what you were suggesting.
But just even in terms of like first meeting and that sort of thing is.
Oh, yeah.
No, I think I think for me, at least, you know, first meeting is like a kiss on the cheek, like kiss on the cheek.
You know, I did.
That's that's all I could ever say.
And I think that's all that's appropriate.
Just a, you know, it's not, it's not, you're not meeting your aunt, right?
So, you know, you're not meeting a friend and, you know, no matter how European they are.
And so, yeah, light kiss on the cheek and so on.
And then I would say second or third date, you know, kiss on the lips, light kiss on the lips, goodnight, and more of a hug.
And, you know, then just see where it goes from there.
But yeah, I would, I definitely, you know, I don't think, you know, you don't want to be the cold handshake guy, but you also don't want to be the 12 hands guy, right?
Right.
So handshakes are out then.
Oh yeah, no handshakes.
I mean, because the woman is then going to feel like, well, I guess he was meeting his entourage.
That's not what you want her to feel.
I mean, what you want the woman to feel, in my opinion, is you want the woman to feel that you're attracted to her, but you're a gentleman.
That is the most attractive thing I think that women can experience.
That you are attracted to her, but you are a complete gentleman.
I think that is very sexy.
Right.
That makes sense.
Assuming, of course, you're attracted to her.
Yes, that would be the assumption.
But even if you're not attracted to her, a kiss on the cheek and a light hug, I think, is perfectly fine.
I mean, even if you're not attracted to her, I think that the cold handshake, you know, there's no need to be kind of cruel, if that makes sense.
Because, I mean, that's just, like, that's gonna make a woman lay awake for three nights, right?
Right.
I hadn't actually thought of it that way, but... Well, it would be like if she went to the washroom and never came back.
You'd be kind of paranoid, right?
And a woman is going to want to feel that, I mean, if you give her the cold handshake or the wave, that's just going to be, she's going to feel that she's repulsive in some way.
And you just don't want anyone to feel that way.
That's just not, I mean, I'm not saying that you would ever want to, but that would be the inevitable fallout.
That she's going to, you know, what was my armpit doing?
You know, do I have four strands of asparagus coming out of one nostril and three teeth?
Right?
So you don't want the woman, even if you're not attracted to her, you do not want to make her feel gross.
Right.
No, that's fair.
But what if you're just upfront about it?
Upfront about what?
Just make sure that it's not...
That she knows it's not because you think she's gross.
How would you do that?
I'd just say I'm more comfortable with handshakes.
Yeah, she's not going to believe that.
Because you're not.
You would rather have a kiss on the cheek and a light hug, right?
If the woman was attractive.
To you.
So you're saying exactly the same thing as you're not attractive.
I mean, I know that you may prefer a handshake, but that's just not where this is gonna go, right?
Yeah, that's a good point.
Right.
So if you say, I prefer handshakes on dates, you're basically just saying, I think you're not attractive.
What is a light kiss and a light hug going to cost you?
Absolutely nothing.
And why would you want to make somebody feel bad about themselves if the cost of that not happening was that small?
Right.
Right.
That's fair.
I mean, I think there's just a certain amount of care that we need to take human being to human being, right?
I mean, unless she's, you know, actively leprous or currently spontaneously combusting, the price of that is just so low.
Why would you want to withhold that and have the woman feel bad about herself?
Even if she's not attractive to you at all in any way, shape or form, she could very easily be attractive to someone else.
And there's just, I don't think there's any need to leave her with that negative impression about herself.
Right.
I didn't even mean it in terms of attractiveness or anything like that.
Well, attractiveness is above the level of a handshake, right?
You give me a handshake, right?
So you have to have something that differentiates that from other interactions, right?
That's the difference between the romantic thing and, you know, like, you'll, again, I prefer, I'm sort of old fashioned this way, you know, open the car door for her, or I guess the first time you meet, open the door for her and so on, right?
I mean, you wouldn't do that with a guy, but it's a small gesture of chivalry that you Right.
do with the girl.
I think that if you're getting together for coffee, I think that you should offer to pay.
If you're the guy, she may say no, but you wouldn't necessarily do that with a male friend.
These are just the little gestures of chivalry that make a woman feel that little bit more special.
They're virtually cost-free, so it would just seem to be a positive thing to do, regardless of where the date goes.
Right.
Right.
That's an interesting question, though, because at what point does that become me plus money, right? - Okay.
Well, I don't think it happens that way with a coffee.
I don't think you plus money is above 50.
Well, but what you're doing is you're finding things out about the woman, right?
So if you offer to pay for the coffee and she accepts but doesn't offer to pay, that's just a piece of information that you have.
If you like her enough and you go out again, and maybe you go for dessert, Then you offer to pay and she doesn't offer anything in return or doesn't say, well, you got the last one, let me get this one.
And if you like her enough and you go for dinner, at some point you're going to go, okay, so she doesn't like paying.
Right.
And that's an important fact to know about her because you want a person who at least is going to make the offer in return.
Right.
That just tells you something about entitlement and reciprocity, right?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So, you know, if you feel that the relationship has potential, but this is the issue, then you talk about, you know, what's your experience been like with dates and all that.
I mean, how does it work for you, right?
And you can have that RTR conversation with her about finances and, you know, if it's the fourth or fifth date and you really like the girl except for this money thing, then you can talk about that.
If you're like, okay, well, she's just kind of annoying.
She's just a taker.
And that shows up in much more than who pays.
That shows up in who talks and who listens as well.
Oh yeah, that's a good point.
Right, so I mean, you'll get, I mean, if she talks and listens equally but doesn't pay, then it means it's not systemic to the personality and maybe it's something that you can talk about and she's had some prior experience where people have ripped her off and she's overcompensated.
We all have those kinds of hiccups, right?
But if she hogs the conversation, doesn't pay, wanders off without saying goodnight, I mean, that's just all you need to know, right?
Well, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
But you'd notice that in the IM conversation or the email conversations, and you'd never get that far anyway.
Well, it would just come out in other ways, right?
Right.
Now, because we're at two hours, no, sorry, we're at an hour and twenty, I'm going to stop just because if this goes on as a video too much longer, it's going to be like one frame a day.
So, we can pick this up another time, maybe for a part two if you want, which would probably be better after you've gone on a date or at least had an email exchange with someone.
That would be good.
I think so, and I certainly do appreciate you putting yourself under this.
I think this is a common problem, because I grew up without a father.
I had to be taught some of this kind of stuff.
So, I mean, it is useful, I think, to pass along, and it is something that is generally under-talked about, I think, in the world.
So, I'm glad that we're having this chat.
Yeah, it's definitely been helpful, for sure.
Great, great.
OK, well, keep me posted about what happens, and I'm sure there will be thousands of people watching your adventures with fascination.
Bring reporters to your updates.
All right, I'll talk to you soon, man.
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