All Episodes
Previous Next
May 10, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:31:21
How to Fall - and Stay in Love! Keith Knight Interviews Stefan Molyneux - Part 1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to Keith Knight Don't Tread on Anyone and the Libertarian Institute.
Today I'm joined by Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain.com and the author of Real-Time Relationships, The Logic of Love.
Mr. Molyneux, where is the best place for people to get a copy of this book?
Well, it's available on my website and thanks for having me back on.
Nice to chat again.
It's available on my website at Freedomain.com slash books.
Sounds good.
Links to that will be in the description below.
On page 270, you say, the reason I call it the RTR, real-time relationship, is because it is all about telling other people in the moment how you feel.
Why is this a productive approach to relationships?
Yeah, it's interesting.
When I grew up in England, I lived in this apartment building, sort of a low-rise apartment building with sort of paper-thin walls.
I suppose it was not the most elevated circles in society as a whole, and I just remember hearing couples fighting and yelling and not getting along and escalating and all that, and I just remember thinking very clearly at the time, like, what's so tough about just being nice and getting along?
What's the big barrier?
Why would people fight?
Why would they yell at each other when they claim to love each other?
Why would they have all of these?
And of course, my mother was a single mother.
She went through these relationships, and there were conflicts and problems, and I just saw a lot of fighting.
And it was kind of hard to comprehend, like, why people would get involved in these negative relationships, why they would claim to love each other, but yell at each other and call each other names.
And then, of course, I had my share of relationships in my teens and 20s, and then I got married in my...
Early 30s, and I've been, you know, very happily married for now over 23 years, and we've never raised our voices at each other, we've never called each other names, and we maybe have a conflict that's not particularly major once a year, and we actually end up closer because of that, because every successfully resolved conflict gets you closer.
Like if you're in a business relationship and every time you successfully negotiate, you end up closer and there's more trust.
Like trust is not the avoidance of conflict, but the resolution of conflict.
So, uh, So, in the general approach that I've had in life, it's not particularly mine.
This comes out of Socrates or it comes out of Freud, which is sort of the two things that you need in life to be happy is happy or positive or good or moral relationships and a productive, meaningful occupation of some kind.
Now, those are the two things.
I won't guarantee you, but it's...
Pretty close to the best shot that you have.
Now, of course, libertarianism focuses on political freedom and economics and some philosophical foundations to the non-aggression principle, but it's not common for there to be a lot of libertarian focus on relationships.
In other words, libertarianism focuses on, sorry, this is a long sideways answer, but libertarianism focuses on political freedom, economic freedom, economic productivity, which is great.
But that's the work side or the labor side aspect, meaningful occupation side aspect to life.
And that's important and it's good and it's important to focus on.
However, we spend a lot of our time not working.
We spend a lot of our time trying to love and be loved.
And of course, when we retire, like I never used to think about this, I'm kind of in my late 50s now.
So not that I'm on the verge of retiring, but you think about those, you know, 65 to...
80 or 85, there's 15 or 20 years that it's really going to be about your relationships, not so much your heavy productive labor side of things.
And so there's a lot of time that we spend loving or trying to love or trying to be loved, and how can we make that as happy and productive as possible as well?
What's the other half of life as a whole?
And, of course, the other thing is that I wanted to write this book because We have, well, we have very little control over our political freedoms.
You know, we can go out and march, we can sign petitions, we can make cases, we can vote, we can do all of these things.
And on the voluntarist or anarcho-capitalist side, Those are not always considered the most productive uses of our time.
We have more control over our occupation, but then again, our occupation, we may have government licenses or requirements which could change, and we saw over the course of the pandemic how licensing boards could be used to suppress dissent.
So even in our productive arenas, the laws can change, the licensing can change, the taxes can change.
I mean, think of all the people who poured all their energies into creating We have less control over our productive labor, and we have very little control over our political freedoms.
But what we do and say in our relationships is 100% under our control.
And I've always been kind of drawn to working on philosophical problems where you have more control rather than less control.
Because otherwise your will is just kind of like, it's like this sea that's going up against this pier that you just can't take down.
You just keep slamming yourself into things that you really can't affect.
And so philosophically speaking, I've always been drawn to where you can bring the most free will and choice into your moral decisions, into your You control what comes out of your mouth.
You control who you date.
You control who you make your boyfriend or girlfriend or who you get engaged to, who you marry.
You control who you have children with.
These are all things under your control and they have, I mean, arguably the most.
You know, jobs come and go.
Careers come and go.
Friendships come and go.
Your parents age out and die when you're in middle age, usually.
But your romantic relationship should last your whole life.
And so why not bring philosophy to bear on that?
So the question of when you feel something...
This is why I call it real-time relationships.
So this comes out of sort of instrumentation or computer software where real-time is when you get feedback on what's happening in the moment, right?
You hit the gas on your car, your speedometer goes up, you hit the brakes, it goes down.
that's real time, uh, feedback as opposed to, you know, at the end of every month, you may, if you, I don't know, have some sort of internet income, And the more honest we can be about what we're actually feeling and thinking.
The better our relationships tend to be.
Honesty is the most foundational virtue in life as a whole.
If you can't be honest, you really can't be much of anything because the only alternative to honesty is manipulation.
So if you're in a conflict with someone, let's just say husband and wife, and you're the husband and your wife says something cutting, you have a choice.
You can say, that actually upsets me, that hurts me, I'm not saying you're...
Right or wrong, I'm just saying my direct experience of that is kind of negative.
It hurts me, it upsets me, it makes me a little angry.
Without jumping to conclusions, like just a statement, an honest statement of what you feel in the moment.
That's key.
Because most times people avoid the vulnerability of saying what they feel in the moment because what they do is...
They become morally judgmental.
They counterattack.
That was incredibly rude and disrespectful, and how dare you?
And they kind of escalate that way.
And where do you really take those kinds of relationships?
The real honest thing, if somebody says something that cuts you, is to say, ooh, that did kind of hurt, without jumping to a conclusion that there's a moral dimension to it.
And that level, it's funny because me as a moral philosopher saying, Don't bring the moral judgment into your personal relationships.
You have to be honest going back and forth first and give people real-time feedback on how their actions are affecting you without going to the sort of hard-shelled, granite-hearted defense of You know, you're bad, you're selfish, you're wrong, you're mean, you're disrespectful.
I mean, all of these things are like hurling thunderbolts from a high tower.
It doesn't actually get you to connect with the other person and their effects on you.
Is there a potential downside in telling people how you feel in the moment?
For example, if I'm upset with someone and I tell them how I feel in the moment, I might not have the perspective that I would have after 24 hours, but then again, bringing it up a day later is...
kind of difficult.
It's like, oh, you've been thinking about this.
That was a small deal for me.
And then that could also be difficult.
to deal with.
Could you list the costs and benefits of dealing with things in the moment as opposed to postponing them and coming up with, hey, here are the 10 things that pissed me off in the last week.
Let's sit down and go over these.
Yes.
So we are generally not raised or trained to talk about our feelings.
I mean, there's lots of exceptions to this.
I'm not trying to paint with too broad a brush, but we are generally not raised to talk about our genuine, honest feelings in the moment.
And so when we try to move to that approach where we're trying to talk about our genuine, deep experiences or feelings in the moment, it's going to take some practice.
It's like learning a new language.
In general, it is better to try and solve conflicts with honest vulnerability in the moment rather than pile things up later because what we feel is quite complicated.
So if you had a very aggressive mother, say you're a guy, you had a very aggressive mother growing up, then when a woman, like say a girlfriend or a female friend, if a woman gets angry at you, That's going to have echoes from the past, right?
You're going to feel like you're sort of back with your mom, sort of finger-wagging and getting mad at you and so on, which is unfair, right?
So the people who maybe harmed us in the past should not dominate our interactions in the present, because if you had a mean mom or a mom with a mean streak, bringing that to your girlfriend is...
Unfair, because then you're saying to your girlfriend, you're kind of like my mom, and that is taking the past and projecting it onto the present, or taking someone who did you wrong, where you had an involuntary relationship, but we don't choose who we get born to, we don't choose our parents, and you're taking an involuntary relationship and moving it into a voluntary relationship, and you're taking someone who did you harm perhaps for years, and taking it to someone who...
It's just angry at you in the moment for some reason.
And then what people do is they get triggered, right?
So if you had a mean mom and then you've got a girlfriend who's angry at you, then you often are quite desperate to shut your girlfriend's anger down because it's kind of triggering you, right?
But the honest statement is not, well, you're being irrationally angry at me and that's wrong and unfair and bad and you're mean, right?
Just because you want to shut her down because she's kind of reminding you of maybe your mean mom.
The honest statement is to say, I'm upset at you being angry with me.
That's the honest statement.
I'm upset with you being angry with me.
It's very hard to sit in that statement.
It's very hard.
It's easy once you get the hang of it.
But it's very hard to sit in that and say, I'm upset because you're angry at me without coming to some kind of conclusion.
Right?
Most people can't sip at the honesty of their genuine experience.
They have to come, or they desperately want to come, to some kind of conclusion, which is, I'm upset because you're mad at me, therefore, what?
Therefore, You should stop being angry at me.
Therefore, you're being unjust.
Therefore, you're just like my mother.
We want to come to a conclusion which gives us control over the other person rather than just giving the statement, which is the most honest statement, which is, I'm upset because you're mad at me.
That doesn't mean you have to change.
That doesn't mean you have to alter anything.
That doesn't mean that you're being unfair or unjust or wrong or disrespectful or rude.
I'm upset.
I feel this.
I feel unease.
Nervous, I feel tense because you're angry at me without coming to a conclusion.
Because a conclusion is the end of exploration and tends to shut down the conversation.
And so saying the minimum that is valid, right?
The minimum that is true and valid.
The conclusions are very rarely valid, especially when we're triggered, right?
And so...
Saying the bare minimum of what you know to be true, right?
You got angry at me, you're angry at me, I'm upset about that.
Staying with what is the most true gives you a chance to explore.
And it's usually worth saying, and I don't know whether it's fair or right or good or bad, I'm just telling you my experience.
Then you have a place where you can explore things, like what's the causality and so on, right?
But the moment you come to a conclusion, and the conclusion is usually a morally judgmental conclusion, how dare you raise your voice at me?
How dare you be angry at me?
How dare you be upset with me?
Well, that's a counterattack, so to speak, and that tends to escalate.
And I think in relationships, especially with someone you really care about, what you want to do is explore and say, I wonder what the causality is, right?
So, I'm upset that you're mad at me.
I don't know why.
I don't know if it's fair or not.
I'm just telling you my experience.
That's a place that tends to de-escalate, and that's a place that tends to have people be able to explore what's going on, which is usually quite complicated at the roots, and get to the heart of the matter.
But the moment we kind of slam this portcullis down of moral judgment, it's almost like a guillotine.
It ends the interaction and generally tends to escalate.
I love that this is very productive.
Advice because I have known, you know, not only have I done it myself, I've spoken with a lot of people who've said, oh, this person does these things that upset me.
Oh, how long has this been going on?
Well, I've known them for probably six years and that's just who they are.
So a lot of times in relationships, we don't tell people how we feel in the moment.
I have not exactly embraced this just because I came across the book recently, but I think that'll be very interesting to see how people respond to how I feel in the moment.
On page 144, you said relationships are fundamentally defined by reciprocity.
Now, this is different from what I have heard previously, which is always be a good person.
Always be nice.
And even when people are bad to you, it's only because they don't have the information.
They don't have the opportunities you've had.
So just be some version of just be yourself.
Always be the person that you'd like to brag about being.
You say relationships are fundamentally defined by reciprocity.
Why is that?
Because we don't like exploitation.
And why would...
Personal relationships be carved out of every other relationship that we have.
So I went for lunch with my wife yesterday.
We had a lovely lunch out.
And at the restaurant, it was a reciprocal relationship between us and the restaurant, right?
The restaurant brought us food and we paid for the food.
So that's to, you know, we enjoyed the lunch more than the money we spent on the lunch and the restaurant.
Preferred our money to the food, right?
Because they were willing to do that sort of voluntary trade.
So that's voluntary trade to mutual benefit.
This is the conversation that you and I are having.
We are voluntarily interacting in this kind of way.
And we both expect to gain something out of the conversation.
It's win-win.
And of course, hopefully the conversation helps other people and we do all of that kind of goodness.
When you go to your work, You know, trading your hours for a handful of dimes, as Jim Morrison famously snarled.
But when you go to your work, you say, I prefer, you know, say you make 50 bucks an hour, 20 bucks an hour, I prefer the money to the time, and the employer prefers the time to the money, because it's a voluntary exchange to mutual benefit.
So, we have all of this in our, we have this with our friendships, you go to see a movie, and they want your money more than they, They want your money and you want the movie, so it's a voluntary trade for mutual benefit.
So, relationships, I'm a big one for universality, which is don't carve out opposite exceptions to general principles as much as we humanly can.
I love science, I love physics, and so on, and physics doesn't have...
Opposite land, right?
Or at least when it did, it wasn't really physics.
It was more like mysticism.
So physics didn't say, yeah, yeah, yeah, everything falls.
Well, clouds, dust, birds, bees, helium balloons.
It didn't just carve out these magical exceptions.
It sought to understand the general principles that explained.
Both the things that fall to the ground, which is the majority of things, and the things that float or go upwards, which is a minority of things.
So air displacement lighter than air and so on.
So all the work that birds use to keep themselves up in the air despite the presence of gravity.
So I like general principles.
And if we're going to say all of our adult relationships are based upon trade to mutual advantage, except carve out...
Right?
Carve out this little hole in the space-time fabric of trade for love.
And I don't see that.
I mean, can you imagine?
Can you imagine if you were dating some girl and she said, yeah, I don't like being here.
I don't like you.
You smell funny.
Your nose hairs are constantly poking my eyeballs when you kiss my nose.
I find you boring.
But I've decided that...
Without me, you'd just be an incel.
You'd be lonely.
So I'm just sacrificing my happiness and pleasure and just babysitting you so that you don't get lonely.
I mean, would anybody want that?
Who wasn't, you know, I don't know, just some bizarre psycho.
Would anyone want a woman or a man?
To be with you against their own happiness and self-interest.
No, I want my wife, I want my daughter, I want my friends to be better off because I'm in their life.
I want them to be happier.
I want them to be looking forward to seeing me, to having productive conversations.
And they want the same from me.
So, yes, relationships are transactional.
And I'm a better person because my wife is in my life.
I think she's a better person because I'm in her life.
Why would that not be under the general umbrella of adult relationships that are trade for mutual advantage?
Now, what you're trading in those relationships is really important.
Like, that's the key.
So, yes, there's trade to mutual advantage and so on, but, you know, you could argue that, I mean, though it would be immoral and illegal, you know, hiring a hitman would be trade for mutual advantage, but it's not particularly, I mean, that would be evil, right, to hire someone, to kill someone.
So, what you're trading in relationships is really important.
Obviously, with a restaurant, it's food for money and we get all of that.
But in a romantic relationship, what we're trading is moral admiration.
I think that's the real key to it because I've got this definition of love, which is in the book and in my shows as a whole, which is love is our involuntary response to virtue, if we're virtuous.
Like, if we are virtuous and we're...
We have virtue as an ideal and we're striving to achieve it.
And the people who are manifesting the virtues that we aim for, we will admire them.
And the values that we manifest that they're aiming for, they will admire us for that.
And then the trade is mutual moral admiration, and that is a beautiful thing.
So, love is an involuntary response to virtue, if we're virtuous, right?
If we're evil, then we have a negative response to virtue, because I hate it, loathe it, want it to tear it down.
If we are neutral, we might have an ambivalent relationship, but if we are moral, and I mean, I know that's a pretty expensive word that's not really being defined at the moment, but, you know, courage, integrity, virtue as a whole.
So, if we are moral and striving for greater morality, then being in a relationship with someone who mirrors those virtues and encourages those virtues, and we are further encouraged by their achievement of those virtues, they're further encouraged by our achievement of those virtues, we have an involuntary response.
I don't like the idea that love can just be wills.
You know, you just will, just grit your teeth, and I'm going to make myself love this person.
I think that's really easy.
to exploit.
And real-time relationships really is about trying to, I mean, be honest in relationships, but it's one of the best protectors against being exploited.
So if you're vulnerable and you say to someone, that hurts me or that upsets me, then that doesn't mean that they can't do it or mustn't do it or anything.
You have a conversation about that.
But if they can find a way to correct you or have a way that is going to guide you in a better direction without Triggering or aggression or being like your meanie mom, then they'll work around that and they'll generally try to find a way to correct you that is not going to be difficult, unpleasant, painful or harmful.
However, if you say to someone, you know, when you yell at me, I really do get quite nervous and upset and they say, hmm, so I can get that person to do what I want if I just yell.
That's a different matter.
So vulnerability feels, you know, scary and dangerous sometimes in the moment.
But if you are vulnerable and you say, this is really upsetting to me when you do it, and then the person says, well, listen, I still need to be able to correct you from time to time just as you need to be able to correct me, but I don't want to do it in a way that is really difficult and harmful and painful for you.
So let me find a way that we can either get to the root so you're less triggered or I can find a way to be less aggressive in my sort of corrections and so on so we can have a gentle conversation, an encouraging conversation.
So somebody who's willing to work with your emotional makeup so that they are not silenced, but also they still can have a way to correct you without triggering you, that's a positive thing.
However, if you are vulnerable and you say to someone, hey man, when you yell, it really does feel this real strong urge to conform or comply based upon my own history and so on.
And they basically say, well, that's great.
So now I know how to get you to do what I want.
Well, that's important information to have.
When you're vulnerable, do people try and work with your vulnerabilities or do they double down and use your vulnerabilities in order to try and control you or bully you in a way?
Vulnerability is short-term pain but long-term gain in that the other person can work around it and you can deal with the source of your discomfort.
And if the person doubles down and tries to use your discomfort in order to control you, then You gain really important information about their capacity for empathy or their desire to bully and that may not be the most productive situation to stay in in the long run.
Obviously, you try and work with it and so on, but if they just keep doubling down, vulnerability is really powerful that way because it really does reveal who has your good interests at heart.
On page 85, you said, It could be said that the entire point of this book is to convince you that you need to feel pain.
Pain is healthy.
Pain is good.
Pain is essential to the healthy functioning of mind and body.
Why is pain something healthy that we should acknowledge as opposed to something that hurts and we should avoid?
Hmm.
I mean, that sounds close to masochism.
I didn't quite mean it that way.
So, if you look at...
This is a little bit more on the left, right?
The left has this utopianism of a pain-free existence.
And I don't want to get all political here, although that is a little bit of my gravity.
Well, I hit that way sometimes.
But the left has this utopian view that life should be without suffering.
And the problem, of course, with that is that there is always going to be suffering involved in life.
And if you aim for...
No suffering as your ideal.
You're just going to be constantly upset and frustrated by the suffering that does occur in life.
So there are some people who don't save for their retirement, and they're broke when they get old, and that's suffering.
And the left is like, well, we've got to give them old-age pensions.
They can't be broke when they're old.
It's like, okay, but then we...
All we've done is change the suffering to unfunded liabilities and national debts and things which can't be sustained and so on.
And we've discouraged people from saving anyway because the money is taken by the government and then spend just really nothing for their retirement anyway.
Or we can say, well, single mothers are broke and sad and upset and so on.
And we can say, well, then they need...
All this government money, and food stamps, and subsidized housing, and free daycare, and all of that.
So reduce the suffering, reduce the suffering, and it just changes the suffering to, well, now it becomes somewhat profitable to have kids outside of wedlock, and so you end up with more suffering, particularly for the children.
So we could do endless examples of this.
And the left, in general, It gets very frustrated and angry if people ask them for sacrifices.
It comes out of the boomer thing, like the boomer thing is, well, you guys voted for all these massive national debts and you guys voted for all these unfunded liabilities and it's unfair for you, who were the richest generation in human history, to then demand that the next generation or two pay for your retirement because there's no money in the retirement plan.
You can't ask the boomers for sacrifice because the boomers grew up in a...
There should be no suffering in the world.
And if there are poor people, let's just print money and hurl money at them.
And if there are single mothers, let's just throw resources at them.
And if there are people who are sick, we'll just give them free healthcare because no one should suffer.
And this is one of the reasons why they tend to be quite censorious because we all have to learn how to manage and deal with suffering in this life.
Everyone we love is going to die on us or we're going to die on them unless there's some mutual fiery flame out in some 18-wheeler.
Our parents, who we love and care about, are going to age and die.
Our children may get ill.
We will certainly get ill as we age in one way or another, and there's just a certain amount of suffering in life.
If you have a utopianism that life should be without suffering, then you tend to throw all of your morals away in the pursuit of the hedonism of no suffering.
So, there shouldn't be poor people, right?
Poor people throughout human history was pretty much everyone.
But of course, in particular, in the 1950s and the 1960s, when the poverty rates were being reduced by 1% every year, then the relatively few poor people who remained were like this giant thumb-in-the-eye eyesore for society.
And it's like, wow, we've got to get rid of those remaining poor people.
Because we can't handle the discomfort of seeing the poor people, The personal work of going in and actually trying to help the poor people.
I mean, one of the great cures for the welfare state is to spend time among actually poor people trying to help them.
And some you can't help, but a lot of them you can't, sort of like drug addicts.
So because there was an avoidance of suffering and suffering was fundamentally offensive and this utopianism of no suffering, it means that, well, there are poor people, so we just have to...
Redistribute.
Well, redistribution is the wrong phrase because money wasn't distributed like a poker hand in cards or anything like that.
It generally is earned and created in a free market.
But they threw away property rights because they couldn't stand to see suffering.
And they threw away the value of currency, right?
because they wanted to be able to print money and hand it out to the poor so they could feel better.
So they could, so this, this, and this is the focus on pathological altruism or the appearance of good rather than actually being good, which is, well, I want to give money to the poor because that makes me feel good.
Does it actually help the poor?
Does it actually improve things for them?
And is it a sustainable economic model?
And is it moral?
Well, all of that was thrown aside because of this, this hedonism of Now, on the right, though, because it comes out of Christianity to a large degree, well, there's a lot of suffering in life.
It's a veil of tears, right?
We are separated from God.
We are separated from Jesus.
We are separated in virtue.
We may have original sin.
And so, suffering is the natural part of Human.
Life.
And so, on the left, if someone is upset, right, you've seen that sort of, the triggered feminist face, you know, if somebody's upset, well, that's really bad, because you shouldn't upset people.
And the sort of hate speech argument, which is generally just speech the left hates, they call hate speech, because people shouldn't be upset.
And if you upset someone, then you're wrong.
Because people shouldn't be upset.
And therefore, you need to be prevented from upsetting people, which, you know, hello, welcome to Mighty Platforming, right?
So, you need to not upset people because the ideal is to not be upset.
However, all progress, all progress, and it's funny because they call themselves progressive, which means they want progress, but all progress is upsetting.
I mean, it wasn't like the people who ran the horse and buggy...
Some companies were real thrilled about the arrival of the car, right?
Or, you know, the people who made rotary dial telephones, I guess you can ask your parents about that, they weren't happy when the cordless or the cell phone or whatever came along.
And so all progress is upsetting to some people, you know, if there was a cure.
For cancer tomorrow, there'd be a bunch of cancer treatment centers that would have to find a whole new business model and would be used to a whole bunch of money that wasn't coming their way anymore.
That would be upsetting for them.
So all progress is going to upset people.
And so the fact that there's this sort of don't upset people and if you do upset people, you're a bad person.
Well, the person who's upset should be honest and say, well, what you're saying is upsetting to me.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't say it.
Right?
But that moral conclusion, I'm upset, therefore, you should not be allowed to say what you're saying.
That's a moral judgment that comes out of a genuine emotional experience.
So we do have to embrace the fact that we're going to get upset in life.
Life can, you know, it has smooth sailing times, it has rough storm times, it has times where things...
Everything's going your way, and then it has times when nothing's going your way.
There are times when you're well.
There are times when you're sick.
There are times when you're happy.
There are times when you're down.
And that's a whole spectrum.
That's a 360 of human experience.
But demanding that other people make sure that you're not upset and you have no power to control your own emotions is the perspective of a baby.
I mean, that's how babies are.
If you spend time around babies, they get upset.
They cry.
And they can't fix their own emotions because they need food, they need cuddles, they need shelter, they need a temperature change, they need their diaper change, something, right?
And they can't do it themselves.
So the idea that my suffering is an absolute demand upon other people to fix it is a very...
I wouldn't say it's immature because babies aren't immature, they're just babies, but it's a very early perspective.
The mature perspective is...
I'm responsible for my own emotions.
If other people upset me, maybe they're mean and maybe I shouldn't spend much time with them or any, or maybe I'm triggered and me being triggered is not the fault of the other person.
That's my issue to deal with.
That's my suffering to work through so that I am less triggered because I've integrated those parts of myself and I'm not just mad and upset because someone said something that...
It was upsetting to me.
So accepting that there's suffering means that you can actually have moral principles rather than just, well, if I'm upset, somebody's wrong and needs to be stopped.
And that's not good for society as a whole.
This totally gets into the reciprocity aspect of things.
I can't tell you how many people have said to me that it's really important that I walk on eggshells around other people to make sure that I don't evoke a feeling of pain or inferiority or insult other people.
Meanwhile...
This very person saying these words to me offends me all the time.
I want to give you three examples of things that have offended me recently.
Wait, not just in this show, but as a whole.
I'll work harder.
And I want you to help me analyze either what I could say to this person.
You could just pick one of these three.
I've seen a number of people constantly having double standards.
For people based on race.
Almost every race can embrace pride, but whites should be ashamed, and the only time they're generalized is in a negative light.
Other races can be positively generalized, and a lot of people are celebrating the fact that whites are becoming a minority by 20-something, 2060 or something.
That one...
The other one, whenever someone justifies a war that involved military conscription, what I see is them celebrating the potential for me to be conscripted to start taking orders from politicians and potentially get my limbs blown off for what is most likely either a lie or a war that they provoked.
The third example was I was on a date with a woman.
And I have worked so hard to save up money to buy this house.
It's just been ridiculous.
And as I was telling her about it, I thought it was surprising.
Someone my age owned their own house.
And I told her about it.
She goes, how big is it?
I walked her through the square footage and everything.
And she goes, that's small.
And I literally froze.
And I said, it sounded like she said, that's small.
What?
And she said, "That's small." And I just completely avoided the pain that I felt in that moment.
So bashing whites, conscripting me and laughing about it and telling me the house that I've worked so hard for is small.
Which of those could we analyze so you could help me more productively walk through that pain I experienced?
Much though I embrace and enjoy the volatility of the other two topics, let's go Okay.
Okay.
You say with great pride about the house that you've got, and she says, what is the square footage?
I just want to know if it's like 5,000 square foot, and she says that's small as opposed to 250 square foot.
1,600.
That's good.
1,600.
That's good.
That's good.
That's twice the size of the condo my wife and I first lived in, so that's a good-sized house.
All right.
How many bedrooms?
Three.
Three.
Okay.
Okay.
And how old was the woman on the date?
She was 32. I'm 29. Okay.
Well, congratulations on the house.
That's very impressive.
And certainly, you got house ownership before I did in life.
So, good for you.
Congratulations.
Okay.
So, she says that's a small house.
And your emotional experience of that was what?
Literally, all I pictured was me getting up at 3.50 a.m., walking to the Walmart because I didn't have a car, and working in zero-degree weather.
The freezer is between zero and negative 10 degrees.
I just literally got that image in my mind, and I go, wow, this cannot last.
And literally, it was one of those...
It wasn't like, oh, I really like her, but now I have to fight this urge.
I literally just had no attraction to her just after that.
So this was a classic example of that hurts.
Forget about it.
This is over.
It really didn't even occur to me to bring it up to her in the moment.
And this was like three months ago.
I should have been old enough to say how I felt in the moment or at least give a little...
Pushback, but I'm trying to gain emotional maturity.
That's why I read your books.
Right, right.
Okay, so let me ask you this.
What attracted you to her to the point where you were on a date?
She was extremely good-looking.
I called her and we got along.
She seemed pretty impressed that I had gotten two books published.
And she had seen that I have a channel with a great number of videos on pretty complex topics, so that was a little flattering.
But the first time I met her, this was our second date where she mentions the house thing.
Immediately when I saw her, she seemed so open, so personable, so optimistic, so energetic, that she was just very inspiring to be around.
So that's why this was a bit of a curveball.
And what was her level?
We don't have to get into details because, of course, she's not part of the convo, but in general, Keith, what was her level of success or achievement compared to yours?
Not anything out of the ordinary.
I'd been to her place, nothing to write home about, significantly smaller than mine, of course, and it looked like Hurricane Katrina just went through the place, but that...
That should have been a bigger red flag for me.
I don't want to pursue it.
And again, without getting into a lot of details, do you know anything about her childhood and her upbringing?
Yeah.
From what she said, it was a very controlling environment.
Stopped talking to her parents for a while and a lot of spanking.
Which, in retrospect, the parents have apologized for.
So, it didn't seem like it was, you know, exactly the Brady Bunch.
Okay, so you were signaling your competence and fitness as a partner.
I mean, I'm not saying that this is all you've been doing.
I mean, you're genuinely proud of the house, and of course you should be.
But you are, or you were, to some degree, signaling your fitness as a partner.
You're showing off your desk that maybe if she becomes your wife, the mother of your children, and so on, that she would be...
Here's my cave, so to speak.
Look, it's warm and dry, and I've ridded of orcs, or something like that, right?
So, her response of it's small...
Probably came from, just the theorizing here, right?
But it probably came from her feeling that she could not measure up to what you were offering.
And therefore, she needed to diminish what you were offering in order to feel that there was some kind of equality.
Or compatibility, if that makes sense.
In other words, if you're saying, look, I've got this channel, I've got this job, I've got this house, I'm not even 30 yet, and I'm very successful, and so on, then if she is, that's why I asked if she was successful or not, if she's not successful, then she has the choice.
She can either just say, well, you know, I'm here and you're here, like you're further up than I am, and...
We're not really compatible that way.
Or she has to bring you down.
It's called leveling, right?
She may have to bring you down to her level because she feels less secure relative to your success.
I mean, let me ask you this.
I'm sure you have.
I mean, we all have.
But have you been on dates with women where their success is significantly greater than yours or not?
That's a little less common at your age, but have you been on those dates?
Yes.
Okay, and how did they go?
I thought they went pretty well.
I did have a feeling of inferiority during it, though, that it was definitely something hard to get over.
Wonder, hey, am I really bringing enough to the table?
This woman was very successful because her dad started a business.
She was an administrative assistant.
I had seen where their family lives, and it's just this mansion in Arizona.
So that was a little difficult.
She seemed very nice and down to earth.
It wasn't like she got tons of money and was looking for someone with even higher income.
It was like, money's not an issue for me.
I want a nice guy.
That's what she was saying.
That's what she was signaling.
And I think I have every reason to believe her.
Her and I got along very well.
But it didn't emerge into a relationship, is that right?
Yeah, no, that didn't work.
And why do you think that didn't happen?
She was not confident on whether or not she wanted to have kids.
She was like, maybe, probably, eventually.
And I go, that's not true.
That's just not something I'm interested in now.
Yeah, because then you get involved, you get enmeshed, and you don't even know if you want the kids' stuff.
That's very essential.
So it wasn't so much that she herself had earned her success, but she got a little bit silver platter to her from daddy, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So it's kind of like if there's a business partnership.
So let's say you and I decided to go into business, and you had a million dollars to invest, and I had...
$10,000 to invest.
I mean, that would not be an equal partnership, right?
You'd obviously have to have like 99% of the company, right?
So, if I wanted half the company, I'd have to find some way in which I could contribute as much as you're contributing.
And there's two ways to equalize contributions, right?
You can either up your contribution or you can downgrade the other person's contribution.
So, if I were able to convince you that we didn't need a million dollars, that did you keep your million dollars?
We'll just each put in five grand and it'll be fine.
So, in a sense, I'm diminishing the value of your million dollars relative to the investment.
So, I'm taking your value down so that we can be more equal.
Because I don't have a million dollars.
I have my five grand.
You have your million dollars.
And so, in order for me to...
End up in an equal share of the company.
I either have to come up with a million dollars, which I'm not going to be able to do, or maybe I can put in massive amounts of sweat equity or something like that.
Or, you know, you only have to work 10 hours a week.
I'll work 80 hours a week.
You know, whatever.
We could come up with something where I'm making up for my lack of capital.
Or I can just say, we don't need your million dollars.
All we need is five grand apiece and we're good to go.
And then we can get 50. I can get 50% of the company.
Does this sort of make sense?
Yes.
I get that disparity in the compensation attempt.
So, with this woman, my guess is...
Did she want to have kids?
The woman who said your house was small?
Yes.
Okay.
But she was a slob.
Gosh, it was unreal.
And as I'm walking around her house, I'm waiting for the explanation.
Oh, sorry, I didn't clean up.
Or, hey, I'm moving.
This is really terrible.
I didn't even get an explanation and attempt to, you know, explain it away.
It was just like, yeah, this is how I live.
Right.
So, if she were to become your wife and the mother of your children, that's a household you'd live in.
Unfortunately.
Well, I mean...
So she's not a good homemaker, right?
So you know how it works in generally in male-female relationships, or at least how it traditionally used to work, which is the man goes out and provides the income, and what does the woman provide in return?
Keeps the house clean.
Raises the kids.
Runs the household.
Raises the kids.
Does the charity.
Keeps the community going.
Keeps the relationships going.
Remembers who has a baptism.
Remember who has a birthday.
You know, all of that kind of stuff, which men are like, I don't know, is it right in front of me?
Does it flash lights?
Does it make beeping sounds?
Then I'm interested, right?
So, the man provides the income, the woman provides the home, the child raising, and the community to a large degree.
Now, She could not provide the running of the household.
She had not a great childhood herself, and it doesn't sound like she'd done a lot of work to, you know, therapy or whatever it is to deal with that kind of stuff, so she may not be the ideal.
For your children, if she's got a lot of unresolved issues, she also, if she has fractious relationships with her own parents, then she can't provide the grandparents.
And the grandparents, of course, if they're reasonably healthy and productive and affectionate and so on, then grandparents are a very big benefit for...
Your family as a whole, right?
They come in with a lot of experience.
They may have some monetary resources.
I hate to say babysit because it's like it's family, but they can take the pressure off your wife.
If you have a bunch of kids under the age of five or six and you have grandparents next door, that's a huge benefit because otherwise she's kind of isolated with the kids and then kind of comes onto you full needy adult tentacles.
I'm not complaining about that.
I've been a stay-at-home dad for...
Almost 17 years.
And, you know, when my daughter was little and my wife was away or working or something, you know, like you need a little bit of adult time after that.
So there's sort of a variety of reasons.
And she's older, right?
So she was 32, right?
So she's older, which means that she's got a much shorter runway.
Let's say you want to have three kids.
Well, 35 is geriatric pregnancy already.
And the risk factors go up from there.
You know, I'm sure you remember my famous Taylor.
Taylor Swift tweet, you know, honorably voted the worst tweet in history, pointing out the basic biological facts that by the time a woman is 30-90% of her eggs are gone.
So, you know, facts.
See, facts are offensive.
I need to stop.
Stop at the facts.
So, of course, people make bad decisions because they avoid facts, and then the facts make them feel bad about their bad decisions, so the facts have to be further avoided, and that's how the cycle of depopulation continues, at least.
So, my guess is that in looking at your level of success and your youth, I mean, not only are you younger, but you're a male, so you have a longer runway for having kids anyway.
She's 32. Let's say you start dating.
Let's say you date for a year.
Maybe you get engaged for a year.
You get married.
She's already 34. When you start having kids, if you want three or more kids, she's going to be in her late 30s, which is starting to get real dicey.
So, she probably was feeling.
That she did not have much to bring to the table relative to you.
And so, how does she level up?
How does she not feel that?
How does she not say to you, listen, I mean, you're a young guy.
You've got it really going on.
You've seen my place.
I live like I'm...
I have 12 poltergeists in my living room.
And, you know, I just...
I don't feel that...
I can match your level of drive and success, and I just, I don't think it's, I don't think it's right.
I mean, that would be a pretty mature person, and a pretty mature person would probably already be married, because the other question is, you know, early 30s, and you say very, very good looking, why, why single?
I mean, don't get me, my wife and I married in our early 30s, so I'm not saying it's a hard and fast rule, but, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of a, It's a reasonable rule of thumb, though not an absolute statement, of course, in any way.
So, if you said...
Okay, so let's try this.
You play the date, and I'll play you in the real-time relationships thing, right?
So, you said you don't have a roommate, and you own the house.
How big is the house?
It's 1,600 square feet, three bedrooms.
That's small.
Huh.
Small.
That's interesting.
It's interesting that we have such a different experience of my house.
I'm proud of what I've gotten a hold of.
And it's not a mansion, but I don't really want a mansion.
I'm just a guy.
And, you know, so I, when you say it's small, it kind of like, oh.
I mean, obviously, I want to impress you.
I want to be cool for you.
I want to, you know, razzle-dazzle and wow you because I think you're very, very cool and obviously very attractive and all of that.
So when you say it's small, I have this...
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with what you said, but I have this, like, ugh, this kind of lurch down in my heart.
Like, suddenly, is it small?
But no, it's not quite that.
It's not quite that.
No, because I can't really believe that it's just small.
But if you think that it's small...
That's like a negative experience for me.
And I'm not criticizing you.
I'm not saying you did anything wrong.
I just, that's like, oof.
Do you know what I mean?
I'm sorry.
I just, I dream really big.
Well, you have nothing to apologize for, honestly.
I mean, I want you to be honest.
You have nothing to apologize for.
I mean, the fact that I'm...
A little hurt and upset by the small comment.
I mean, couldn't you just talk about my penis instead?
That'd be different because then I could just say it's cold out or something like that.
I mean, so, no, you have nothing to apologize for.
Okay, so tell me what you mean when you say you dream big.
What does that mean relative to the house that I have?
I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.
And I appreciate the conversation.
I'm really curious about that.
I dream big.
Big house, big family, lots of travel, lots of properties, ownership in different companies.
And when you have a house that represents who you are, that's where you live, that's the primary asset which I can associate with you in my mind.
When I see that that's, I mean, that's small, that you and I aren't compatible, you're kind of a small dreamer, and I'm a big dreamer.
I appreciate what you're saying there.
And I'll tell you my sort of response.
Maybe this is defensive.
I don't know.
But it's kind of like it's the dream versus the reality distinction.
Oh, totally.
Right?
So you dream big, but I have a house.
So in your dream, who provides...
Tell me what is your...
What size...
Sorry, what size of house would I have had to say for you to say, that's big or that's a good size?
Three-story house, 3,400 square feet.
Okay, three-story house, 3,400 square feet.
Okay.
Have you ever dated a guy with a house like that who's in his 20s?
20s, no.
I usually go for older guys, but you're an exception.
Okay.
So...
In your scenario of the dream, and listen, I have no problem with dreaming big, I have no problem with daydreams, but in your scenario of the dream, who provides the house?
The man.
The man.
So, you want to date a man?
Who has a big house, and I assume not that he's paying some giant mortgage and has to hitchhike everywhere because he can't afford a car.
So what's the sort of rough income of the man that you want to date who has a 3,400 square foot house?
I'm sure most people think about this from time to time.
So what income would you be looking for?
We had this discussion on, trying to remember.
Well, because of the gender pay gap, men get paid more than women.
The average male income is like $150,000 a year.
So, I'd like a guy who earns like $300,000.
I'm barely exaggerating when I say that.
That was almost verbatim.
So, your perception is that the average salary for a man...
Is $150,000 a year?
Well, yeah, because I've met so many guys and that's what they tell me.
So, that's the average, more or less.
I mean, it's not.
Just, you know, statistically, the average male income is like $40,000, $50,000 a year.
So, you're off by a factor of three.
Now, again, I'm just telling you sort of the basic facts.
You know, I personally wouldn't ascribe it to a gender pay gap.
For a variety of reasons, we can talk about that perhaps another time.
It's not just men are mean and just want to underpay women.
Okay, so you want a man who's going to bring $300,000 a year to the table, right?
Yes.
Okay, and what does he get for that?
Like, he has to bring himself, let's say me, right?
So, he has to bring himself...
And $300,000 a year, which is like the top 3% or 4% of male earners, right?
So he has to bring that.
And what does he get for that?
What do you bring for that?
All right, so we could pause the roleplay.
Here.
Basically, what you're trying to get at is ask her specifics about how she came to the concept of how does she differentiate Big House from Small House?
What is the guy getting in exchange?
Is she involved in a reciprocity of relationships?
How much thought has she put into this?
Or is this just a knee-jerk reaction?
She saw the great Gatsby and wanted it herself.
Those are good bullet points for...
Asking specifics, how did you come to that conclusion?
Checking reciprocity and seeing how much thought they put into it.
Any other bullet points you could add if someone mentioned something that evokes a feeling of insecurity in you?
Well, I mean, you need to find out if she's evoking insecurity in you because she herself is feeling insecure and is trying to level, right?
Yeah.
So, and the reason why the question of what does the man get for his $300,000 is you're probing for narcissism.
You're probing for vanity.
Right?
So, if the man has to be the man plus $300,000 and she can just be herself, then she's saying that a man relative to her is minus $300,000 a year.
Right?
I mean...
Because he has, like, so they're both bringing themselves, their identity and so on, their personalities, their habits.
They're both bringing those to the table.
But the man also has to bring $300,000 a year.
Now, this is not to talk about this woman, right?
Because I don't know her from Adam.
This is just to talk about the general principles of this.
You are scanning for exploitation.
You're scanning for predation.
Right, so, if the woman says, the man needs to bring $300,000 a year, I just need to bring myself, then she's saying, the man has to pay to be with me.
Now, if she says, look, I mean, he brings this amount of money to the table, I mean...
I'll cook, I'll clean, I'll raise his children, I'll run his whole household, I'll make his life perfect, I'll, you know, work morning, noon, and night to make his life a joyride of infinite blah, blah, blah.
Okay, well then, she's working for that, and that's a mutually beneficial arrangement, right?
But if she's just like, well, he brings 300,000, I just bring me, you know, then that's a different matter.
That is more vanity and potential.
Narcissism.
I've just used this, of course, in an amateur fashion, but you are looking for realism.
You are looking for negotiation, right?
Because she's negotiating saying, you've got to bring 300 grand a year, and then somebody who's bringing 300 grand a year has every right to say, I mean, I didn't get the 300 grand a year, the guy would say, by being bad at negotiating, right?
And so...
It's funny because women want men who are very successful and good at negotiating, and then they don't want the man to negotiate with them.
And it's like, that's not the type of man that you're going to get.
So you're looking for reciprocity, right?
And through saying, that's upsetting to me, tell me what you mean, then you get to the thoughts behind the statement.
What you definitely want to avoid is a woman who believes she has value just by existing.
And again, I'm not talking about this woman in particular, but what it fundamentally comes down to is if you were to say, can you imagine having a male friend who would pay all your bills?
And she would say, well...
No.
I mean, a male friend wouldn't pay all of my bills.
That would be kind of weird, right?
It's like, okay, so it has to be a romantic relationship for the man to pay the bills.
Well, what differentiates a romantic relationship from a friendship?
Sex.
That's all it is.
I'm not saying that the only thing that's in a romantic relationship is sex, but it's founded on sex because that's the one thing you can't do with other people.
That's the one foundational differentiator, right?
I mean...
If you're in a relationship, you're a man, you can have female acquaintances, you can have female friends, you can go for lunch with a colleague who's a female, you can do all, I'm not sure many people are doing that these days, but you can do all of those things, but the one thing you can't do is have sex with someone else.
So if the woman says, basically what she's saying is, you bring X amount of money to the table and I'll have sex with you, that's not good.
That's like no woman with any, I think, foundational self-esteem would contemplate engaging in that kind of transaction.
And so that's when you cut out, right?
So, sorry, I'm not being very clear.
When you, Keith, shut down in that date and you're just like, I lost all interest.
It all completely evaporated, right?
It's worth keeping going.
Exactly.
It's because you need to find out what her nature is.
You need to find out what her compassion is.
You need to find, like, you know, when she was saying, and again, I know it's a role play, so we can't ascribe it to her in particular, but when she's saying, like, well, I guess I just dream big, and it's like, you know, that's like somebody saying, well, I have a really great girlfriend, although she's inflatable.
And it's like, no, if she's inflatable, she's not a great girlfriend.
So, It's dreaming.
Yeah, fine.
Dream away, right?
But if it doesn't manifest in reality, that's what they call a fantasy, right?
That's like me saying, you know, I'm going to be a ballet dancer, Keith.
That's my next step in life, is to be a ballet dancer.
I mean, I've never been able to touch my toes.
I have the flexibility of your average slab of sidewalk, and I'm 58 years old.
But, man, let me tell you, right coming down the pipe is me being a ballet dancer.
That's not a dream.
That's a fantasy.
That's not going to happen.
That's not going to come real.
And especially when you have daydreams or fantasies that other people have to work like hell to provide, that's predatory.
And it is the dangling of sexual access in return for money.
And that's different from running the household, raising the kids, because then both people are working very, very hard.
But by shutting it down and just closing off your heart, You are not getting to the root of what she's saying.
And, you know, of course, if you get to the root of what she's saying and that's unappealing, which I'm sure it would be, then the reason why it's valuable to do that is then you need to go back in time and say, okay, if this is who she is, how is it evident from the beginning?
Right?
What were the red flags?
What was going on?
And I think, I could be wrong, of course, but I would guess, if I had to guess, that it's the old sin called lust.
She was pretty, and she was sexy, and you wanted to sleep with her, and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's why we're all here in the first place.
But, but, but, you need to test for virtue before going down this road.
And the reason for that is, I mean, it's...
Better for you, better for your heart, better for your trust, and also, you know, when you're pushing 30, you don't have as much time as you think, right?
Because the good women tend to be be snapped up and stay snapped up, right?
So, like, sort of good, moral, loyal women willing to work hard and support you, and you support them in their endeavors and so on.
Those women, it's sort of like the used car market, like everything that's on the used car market is kind of a lemon.
Because if the car is kind of, if it's been used a lot, but it's still a great car and is bulletproof and doesn't break down, it doesn't get sold, right?
So, sorry, this is true for men as women, so this is comparing both sexes to a used car, but in general, you have to be efficient, as efficient as possible in trying to find the love of your life, because you're pushing 30 and the good women are being, Beamed up into marriages, you know, real quick.
Real quick.
So, how long did you know this woman before this deadly date?
Um, ten days.
Second date.
I bet I knew her for ten days.
Okay.
Okay.
But yes, lust was the most likely explanation that I also ended up with.
Well, it's the same lust that gets you the house, right?
So I'm not criticizing it.
I'm not saying this.
But in terms of efficiency, right?
In terms of efficiency, you need to start really testing for a virtue before you go down this road where you end up with this woman who's kind of putting you down for having a house when she has a mere apartment.
That she rents, it looks like a homeless encampment, right?
So that's also a little tough to, you know, it's one thing if, I don't know, if Peter Thiel says you're not particularly wealthy, it's one thing, but if the homeless guy says you're broke, that's a whole other thing.
So, yeah, looking for the lust.
Lust is fine, and it's great.
There's nothing wrong with lust.
It's a beautiful part of a healthy marriage, but testing for virtue is really important.
And again, 10 days is not the end of the world.
But it's really, really important to learn those lessons and go back.
And if, you know, the real question is, why was the place such a mess?
What's she saying there?
I don't know.
I'm not exactly sure.
It doesn't have standards for herself, has standards for others.
Didn't expect someone coming over or wanted to show the worst aspect of her to see if someone would stay?
No, she's saying that she skates on looks.
She doesn't have to have a tidy place because she's too pretty.
So guys will just date her for her looks they don't care about, the state of her place.
And that's the dream big kind of stuff.
I assume that's a certain amount of vanity.
Another likely explanation.
I'm wondering what would be a good litmus test that you think would be to test someone's virtue early on.
I'm thinking of this quote from page 147.
Intimacy is driven by a delight in gaining knowledge.
Intimacy is the natural process and result of pleasurable curiosity.
I'm wondering if curiosity, invoking intimacy, leading to virtue, it would be your answer.
What is a good way to test virtue early on?
Hmm.
So, I think a good way to test virtue early on is, does the woman want to make your life better and easier from the beginning?
I mean, I mentioned this story on my show, I'll just...
Touch on it briefly here.
When I was first getting to know the woman who became my wife, I said, oh, I have to, I was writing books at the time, and I said, oh, I have to interrupt my writing.
I've got to head downtown to pick up some sandals I got repaired, right?
Because when you grow up poor, you just get everything repaired.
You never buy anything new.
It's just a fact.
It's just a fact.
So, and she said, Oh, I'm going to be downtown this afternoon.
I'll pick him up for you.
I gotta tell you, man, I mean, modern women as a whole, how do I put this honestly?
Not overly dedicated, necessarily, to making a man's life easier and better.
And...
So, I mean, and just the fact that she was like, oh, go write.
You know, your writing is great.
Go do your writing.
It's like 10 minutes out of my way.
I'm happy to pick them up for you, right?
Now, I guess I was in my early 30s at that point.
I'm not sure that I'd met a woman before who would have said that.
Because, you know, women have been so toxicified with this wage gap exploitive.
Toxic masculinity patriarchy stuff that they have become profoundly unhelpful and ungenerous because they're sort of trained in viewing men as the enemies or the exploiters and all of that.
And therefore, you know, you get your own sandals, right?
I'm not going to be exploited by you patriarchs.
And so the fact that she, you know, oh, listen, man, I mean, because this is the kind of thing that I would do if she had to pick up some sandals and I was going downtown anyway.
Pick up your sandals for you.
So, just this idea that she's helpful, and it doesn't have to be, obviously, it doesn't have to be picking up sandals, it can be any number of things.
Say, where do you want to go for dinner?
And say, what works best for you?
I mean, what do you like to eat?
And sort of, is it relatively close to you?
And all of that.
Like, is there a consideration for you?
Early on, and particularly if you're the guy who pays for the date, right?
If you're the guy who pays for the date, does she choose a really expensive restaurant?
And does she order an expensive thing?
It's like, oh, that's not great.
That's not great because it's not having consideration for your finances, right?
Like, I remember many years ago, I dated this woman.
She was quite wealthy, and we went to the...
She wanted to eat at the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, which is this rotating restaurant.
And I was like, okay.
And I think I had a salad and a glass of water because she ordered lobster with a side of golden calf meat or something like that.
It was just mental.
I didn't even have enough money to pay for it, so I had to leave my wallet and come back later to pay for it.
And, you know, I mean, she just was very wealthy and didn't really think about costs and all of that.
But that's, you know, not necessarily the kindest and most thoughtful thing.
So, yeah, is the woman thoughtful?
Does she consider your side of things?
Does she want things to be easier for you in the dating scenario as a whole?
Is there anything that she could do that makes your life easier or better?
So one of the typical things is you take the woman out for dinner and let's say she doesn't have a lot of money or whatever, it's fine.
So you take the woman out for dinner and then she may offer to make you dinner.
Right?
She may offer to, you know, here's a home-cooked meal and come on over and that kind of stuff, right?
And that is sort of reciprocity.
Well, you paid for this meal and I will cook a meal or maybe the next meal she insists on paying and then, you know, you don't order anything too expensive.
Just those little marks of sort of empathy and consideration is really important to...
Or is she kind of like the queen on her throne, where you just have to sort of show obsequence and pay for things and arrange things and all of that?
In other words, if you have to be in endless wooing mode, but she doesn't have to do anything in particular in return, that's probably not going to go too well.
So those little things where she's thinking about what's best for you, she's thinking about what works for you, she's thinking about how she can make your life a little bit easier.
Especially in the early dating when you're probably the one asking and paying.
Those little things, they mean a lot, right?
And it's the kind of thing where, you know, maybe you're on your second or third date and you mention something that you like and she just picks it up and brings it.
You know, oh, I really like this Ethiopian coffee or whatever, and maybe there's a coffee place near her and she drops by and she gets you half a pound of Ethiopian coffee, right?
Just those little thoughtful things where she's like, okay, how can I make this person's life a little bit better?
How can I make them a little bit happier?
Do I note little things that they want and have those sort of thoughtful considerations and so on?
Those kinds of things are really the foundation of somebody who's willing to think about what's best for you.
As well as you thinking about what's best for them.
That is really an unbeatable combo, but you have to be looking for that pretty early.
The other thing, of course, is curiosity about your life, right?
So you ask the woman a lot of questions.
Does she ask you a lot of questions?
Is she genuinely curious and open-minded and thoughtful about what you say?
Does she remember things from one date to the next?
And so on.
Does she have any particular thoughts about your life that might be helpful to you or anything like that?
Just looking for somebody who is going to provide value to you based upon their own desire to make someone who's in a relationship with them happier and better.
And it doesn't sound like the, your house is too small, a woman was particularly focused on that.
Is this more or less the same advice you would give to women who are looking for a virtuous man?
Yeah, I think so.
I think for women, to look for a virtuous man means that, you know, women want to look good, and I love the fact that women look good.
But with looking good, I was sort of trying to explain this to someone the other day, so this is my second round at it.
So imagine if you as a man could never hide your wealth.
Let's say that you were worth $5 million or something like that.
And it was mandated, through some gypsy curse or something, it was mandated that you had to show up in a Lamborghini.
Like, full-on Andrew Tate Bugatti style, right?
You had to wear, like, three Rolexes.
You had to wear, like, crazy expensive clothing.
And you had to take a woman to dinner where it was, like, 500 bucks for dinner, right?
And, you know, bottle service or whatever it is, right?
So, if you, as a man, could not hide your wealth, That would have a pretty distortionary effect on your dating, right?
Because you'd probably end up with some women who might be there, you know, for sort of resources and gold digger kind of stuff, right?
So, for women, the problem is attractive women can't really hide that they're attractive.
You know, this sort of fantasy of like, well, she takes off her glasses and she lets her down and she goes from a 4 to a 10. It's like, that's not really...
That's not really a thing.
Now, of course, women can dress up to be more attractive or less attractive and so on, right?
I mean, in terms of like putting their TNA on a shelf or on display.
But in general, a woman who's attractive can't hide it.
A man who's wealthy can hide it.
He can just dress in old clothes.
He can show up in a beater.
He can take you to McDonald's.
He can hide the fact that he's wealthy and therefore can eliminate the...
Potential for gold diggers to some degree.
But a woman who's attractive has a tough time eliminating the men who are there for reasons of lust.
And so how do you do that?
Well, I mean, not dressing, you know, the sort of videos that this semi-creepy guy takes of the Manchester nightlife, you know, the women who are just like boobs on a shelf and ass half hanging out there.
They're shorts and so on.
So if a woman, of course, is dressing considerably for sex appeal, that's like the man showing up in the Bugatti and complaining about the gold diggers.
So a woman who dresses to bring lust to a man, and I'm not talking anything like you've got to be in a burka, I'm not talking anything like that, but don't dress to massively accentuate your attractive features as a woman.
Of course, you want to stay healthy and relatively slender and exercise and all of that.
And so she can do that.
I think a woman who challenges a man in a fairly decent and good-humored way, because we all have our little piccadillos and vanities and all of that, and a woman who is challenging a man, but not in a hostile way, can find out whether he can be contradicted, can find out whether he can grow through being challenged.
That's a very good sign as a whole, so don't...
Don't be too agreeable.
But again, don't be hostile or anything like that.
But making jokes at the other person or something like that can see if the person has a sense of humor about themselves, which can be quite important in life.
And just look for the general signs of integrity in the man, which is, I mean, all men and women with integrity have enemies.
So you can ask about conflicts and so on.
Look for individual thought.
And the most important thing I think that women can look for and need to look for, this is true for men as well, going the other way, is it's impossible to be virtuous without reference to an external standard that is universal and objective.
Right?
So, I mean, that could come from religion.
I think ideally, of course, it comes from moral philosophy, but does the man have external standards of virtue that are universal, that He feels very strongly that he has to aim for.
I mean, however much we reach them is somewhat variable, but too to aim for it.
So if he says, so for instance, you know, like, I want to tell the truth.
Like, I really want to tell the truth.
And sometimes that's tough, right?
So then when we can say, well, tell me about some times that have been tough for you.
Tell the truth or whatever it is.
And it's like, well, you know, maybe over COVID I had some skepticism about the vaccines and I tried to bring this up with friends and family and I got, you know, kind of dumped on and called a, you know, an anti-vaxxer who wants old women on ventilators or something like that, right?
Or, you know, at work there was an issue where I thought that the salespeople were being a bit sketchy in what they were selling to the clients and I tried bringing it up with them and, you know, got into trouble.
That way or, you know, so somebody who's willing to make some sacrifices for the sake of some kind of moral ideal is good because if the person doesn't have an external standard of virtue that they want to conform to, they're going to just kind of be hedonists.
They're going to just do what feels good in the moment.
They're going to get along to go along and you won't have a particular person to love, right?
So we love the virtuous.
But the virtuous is not generated by each other.
It's sort of like you like being healthy, but your health is not just generated by you.
It is your healthy relative to some external standard of diet and exercise and whatever it is that you're doing.
And there has to be some external standard by which you're judged to be healthy.
You know, if you're face down in a hospital bed being operated on for nine hours, you're probably not in your peak level of health.
So it's the same thing if You know, as we were kids and you're in the playground and you're choosing everyone for the baseball team, well, you have some judgment about how good they are at baseball relative to some objective standard.
Can they actually hit the ball?
Can they catch?
Can they throw?
Do they understand the rules?
And so on, right?
So, in order to be good at a sport, you have to have some objective measure by which, by this sort of moneyball argument, has to be some objective measure by which you're good at the sport.
And so, If you're choosing someone for a sport, you want them to have some objective measure by which you can test or know whether they're good at the sport.
And since virtue is really at the heart of love, if you want to love someone or be loved by someone, there has to be some objective standard by which you can tell whether they're virtuous or not.
And it can't be, well, I just do what CNN tells me and hate Trump.
That's not being virtuous, even if it's the other way around.
But you want somebody who is going to have a standard of virtue that is independent of their own preferences and subjective feelings that they are willing to make sacrifices for.
Then you can grow together in virtue.
And of course, you want to be one of those kinds of people as well.
And so testing for what are their standards?
What are their virtues?
And there's nothing wrong with asking this early on, right?
You want to look for evidence of these things for sure, but there's nothing wrong with You know, what virtues do you pursue?
I'll tell you about the virtues that I pursue and, you know, with varying degrees of success, but what virtues do you pursue?
And how do you know their virtues and what do you judge them by and what does it cost you?
I mean, there's nothing wrong with those questions because, you know, life is short, particularly the fertility window for men and women is short, right?
Women got like 20 to 35 or 20 to 40 minus a couple of years of dating and Getting to know people before you have kids with them.
So it's a pretty short window.
And especially now, women are graduating with degrees in their early, mid-20s.
They've got a bunch of debt, which they then have to pay off, which further delays things and so on.
So the window for choosing a woman is not particularly long.
And you kind of have to be efficient, right?
I mean, if you want somebody who's got experience with a particular computer system, you'll put that in the job requirements.
And you won't interview people who don't have that experience, and it's the same thing with pursuing women who, or men, who want to manifest virtue.
You put that in the job requirement, you know, and you don't even have to ask them.
You can just say, you know, here are the virtues that I'm following.
Here's the pluses I've got out of these virtues.
There have been some real minuses, too, and these are them, and, you know, I think it's worth it, but, you know, sometimes it can be a real challenge, and maybe she's got something similar that she wants to talk about and then I think you're a way to the races, but I talk about this in the book.
Trust is based upon consistency, and consistency is based on adherence to universal principles.
Anyone can hit a hole in one in golf.
You just play long enough, right?
But you don't bring someone on your golf team or your baseball team.
Anyone can hit a home run.
Even a blind guy could hit a home run once in 20 years or whatever.
But it's the consistency that matters.
And you can't have consistency without reference to external standards.
Otherwise, it's just sort of blind luck or chance.
And so, testing people to see whether they have any kind of universal standard that they are trying to hold themselves to is their only chance for consistent virtue and therefore people you can trust.
People you can give your heart to, and they will take care of it, rather than figure out how to work its levers to get resources from you to the tune of $300,000 a year!
Anyway, sorry.
Just a little circle back there.
Final question.
Page 149.
You said, love is a statement I want.
Please clarify what you mean by this.
Yeah, I mean, love is the ultimate preference.
Love is the ultimate preference.
Love is, I mean, romantic love in particular, is saying, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
We're going to sleep next to each other.
We're going to make love.
We're going to have great conversations or even tough conversations.
We are going to grow old together.
We are going to nurse each other through various ailments and illnesses.
And it is a statement of ultimate preference.
So what are you preferring?
What is it that you want?
It can't just be lust, because lust will burn out.
And lust involves lying.
Always.
Right?
So lust always involves lying.
So for instance, if you had said to this woman, well, I don't really know about the quality of your character, and your place is a real pigsty, but damn, you're hot.
I'm really just here for the flesh.
I don't really get much of a sense of the quality of your character, but you look so good on my arm that everyone thinks I'm your security guard.
So, lust always involves lying because you actually just want to sleep with the woman, but you don't tell her that, right?
So, and lust burns out, right?
Because you have to lie in order to exercise lust, and you both have to lie, she has to pretend that she's worth all that, even though she's basically just offering sexual access, and you have to pretend that she's a quality person, even though you mostly just want to have sex.
So, because it's founded on lying, So,
moral admiration is something that is going to grow over the course of your life, right?
In a monogamous relationship that lasts for 50, 60, 70 years, it has to be based on something to grow because everything else falls apart, right?
If you're just based on less, well, we all get old and wrinkled and junky and ugly and whatever, I mean, relative to our youth, right?
So that can't be what lasts.
You can't base it on just materialism because there's diminishing returns for materialism, right?
$100,000 is a big deal.
You know, going from $10 million to $10.1 million is not as big of a deal, right?
So it is diminishing returns.
So it can't be that.
So it has to be based on something that is going to grow over the course of your life so that you end up even more in love when you're 80 than you were when you were 25. And that has to be wisdom, moral virtue, moral courage, because that's the one thing that will grow.
If successfully maintained over the course of your life.
It can't be just health because health is going to diminish to some degree over time.
Even if you stay relatively healthy, you still can't do at 80 what you could do at 25, right?
So, love is our ultimate preference and desire.
For what?
It has to be something that grows.
It can't be just fertility because then, you know, you do the second wife's club and you just trade in your wife when she gets too old to have kids, right?
And you just go for round two.
It can't be for money because maybe then the woman finds some richer guy and then she just monkey branches to him.
It has to be for something that is personal and that grows over the course of your life and that has to be adherence and growth in moral wisdom and virtue.
That is the ultimate preference and you both end up as better people because of it and your love will grow throughout the course of your life just as your wisdom and virtue does.
Thank you to everyone for watching Keith Knight, Don't Tread on Anyone and the Libertarian Institute.
The book is Real-Time Relationships, The Logic of Love by Stefan Molyneux.
Mr. Molyneux, thank you so much for your time.
My absolute pleasure.
▲
Export Selection