All right, welcome to the Good Girls podcast where we talk
about confident men and when is it sexy, when is it toxic and
what pickup tricks would work on UK.
Probably all of them, but I can act like I'm pickier for the
sake of this exercise. And this is a genuine curiosity
1 and I want our listeners to play along.
So we're going to go back to like the original pickup artist
material from The Game by Neil Strauss.
So this is especially a lot of this content comes from his
pickup artistry teacher guru. They're called gurus.
So their primary audience that they're clearly trying to pick
up is like early 2020 somethings in a club in LA or like even
younger sometimes. So I need you, OK, to put
yourself in the shoes of you out on the town trying to meet guys
in like your earliest 20s. Early to mid 20s let's not give
me you know better credit when we're at 1022 you.
Were not at the club when you were 21 OK all right so we're
going to try some of these these tactics on you.
How do you feel like nagging would hit for you?
And apparently the way that you're supposed to do this is if
you're doing it right, you're not just like totally trashing
on the woman, but you're just supposed to make her feel like a
little bit uncertain about herself so that she's more
attracted to you. Apparently one of the tips from
the book was to compliment a woman's dress, but then say that
you think you saw somebody else at the club wearing the same
dress. Which I'd be like, cute.
We should be friends. I also saw that it's like the
equivalent of blowing your nose in the middle of a conversation
with somebody. It's not necessarily rude,
you're allowed to do it, but it would indicate to that person
that you're not trying to woo them during this time.
Yeah, I'm not supposed to be part of it, right?
So. I have different opinions for
this. I think the underlying idea of
nagging where you make the women feel like, oh, I'm going to have
to like work harder for him to see me as sexy.
That annoys me. But why I think that it might
actually work and would actually work on me is for a different
reason where I think that would tell me, oh, this guy is not
trying to hit on me. This isn't a high stakes
situation. And so I'm going to relax and
have a funny conversation with him because we're not going to
hook up. You know, he thinks that my
dress is from Target or he thinks that my nails should
have, you know, been done before this.
He blew his nose in front of me and we're going to have a good
time and. I think some of these it's like
at their court like really depends on kind of like which
way you go with them. Like I could just see it to kind
of just try to lower the stakes. And it seems like if you are
trying to be charitable about some of this pickup artist
advice, you could take it in a way that's just like, if you're
somebody who has high anxiety about social interaction, this
is just supposed to lower the stakes a little bit so that you
can be normal. So if that's where this is
entering the conversation is to just kind of try to be like, oh,
I'm going to be a little disarming.
Like maybe I'm not trying to just like find somebody to hook
up with tonight Then like that could be OK if you have
something that's like a genuinely nice personality
underneath that this allows the person to.
Get to you, right, The guys and the woman, if you're starting
not around like a man, like you look hot tonight.
I want to, you know, take you on the dance floor.
But instead you're kind of making a joke about how like
some part of the outfit is goofy.
Then as long as the woman takes it right and has high self
esteem and the guy's not too mean about it.
And I don't know, sticking more with like the blowing the nose
idea then maybe again disarms them and.
Yeah, I agree. If a man just walked up to me in
a situation and it was like, wow, you are so hot and that
dress looks really good on you and it will look even better on
my floor. I would just be like gross Next
okay, peacocking. So this is when they didn't
learn until I started reading about this stuff and I was like,
doubtful. So this is like you wear
something that is like stands out and is unusual looking so
that it draws the eye. It can like draw a comment.
You're wearing like purple metallic sunglasses and you
have, you know, women are going to come up to you and be like,
what? What are you wearing?
Unfortunately, the person that this comes from mystery.
He looks like an amateur magician.
Very peacocky. Yeah, he has.
An age-old so he's still on Instagram.
I think it's Ask mystery as his handle if you want to check him
out. So now he's also like aging and
looks like an amateur magician, so he'll.
Probably get in laid because he's mastered the tricks.
Probably. But is he happy with his life?
Actually, there is a whole thing about apparently in the book the
game, like he's kind of talking, documenting that mystery is kind
of having a breakdown in the book a little bit because he's a
bit of a sociopath and seems like he just came from an
abusive background and is doing all this like peacocking to just
fill the. Void of his soul.
Yeah, for sure. Anyway, so I am.
I'm showing Kay right now a picture of mystery in in his
prime. He is wearing like a fur what I
would say you would wear for a pimp hat costume in 2001 and.
You can look at you can Google. Like a Fred Durst soul patch
situation and some earrings, soul patch eyeliner, a
heart-shaped Locket, I think a feather boa.
All right, Kay, this man walks up to you in the club and has
the smoothest pick up line. Your reaction.
So if that person as dressed the little soul patch would just
make it that the two of us were not probably meant for each
other, but both ways, you know, like he probably wasn't going to
approach me and I wasn't going to go home with him.
I'm trying to remember because I think I was attracted to some
ugly facial hair in the in the early knots, but I'm, I don't
even know like soul. Patches.
It goes together with like string instruments.
Excuse me, I did not say I like soul patches, I'm just saying I
had more questionable thoughts due to Backstreet Boys on facial
hair. OK, that's fair that this is
around Backstreet Boys when they definitely did have soul
patches. Now, how I was seeing it was I
kind of already switched it through a guy who I would be
attracted to. And I saw it more as like,
you're going to a baseball game and the person has like the
Hawaiian shirt version of what the team's logo is.
Just something that's enough to remark on.
And that's how I interpreted peacocking that yes, there's
like the extreme version of guys who are in really nice pattern
suits. I would say Travis, Kelsey, Joe
Burrow tend to wear some more extravagant cloth clothing items
than ones that you would see on, you know, guys who are trying to
dress in ways just to blend in with other guys.
Probably. That's probably just not my
style, and there's nothing against either of them.
I'm not their style either, so. It's true.
I think it is a marker of confidence.
So if we're talking about confidence on this episode,
yeah, the the more modern example is like going to a work
Christmas party and there's always the guy that has like the
tipsy elves suit on that's like this, you know, candy cane print
suit while everybody else is still wearing normal party
clothes. So I'm like, that's a marker of
confidence. But to me, that's also like a
particular like social marker of like you're a frat boy and you
haven't learned how to like go to a tailor and get like,
because you can stand out by being well dressed without
wearing a tips yellow Santa Claus suit.
And so for me, I want a guy who stands out by having like a very
well tailored suit that maybe has like a color that's a little
bit more bold, but without going full.
I'm a frat boy who doesn't know how to go to a tailor.
I do not put that much energy into how I dress.
I wish I put more energy into it.
I think that being with a guy who put more energy and thought
into like very extravagant fashion choices would disarm me.
And I don't know, it would be something to get used to.
I think that having one piece that sticks out a bit, whether
it's like a funny tie or a funny hat, which is a way to Peacock,
would, you know, help again, lighten the mood and be a
conversation starter. I do try to help my husband with
this. He works in very Gray suits kind
of line of work. I have gotten him some like
whimsical socks because when you sit down you can see the socks
and it's just enough to like start a little conversation.
It shows a little bit about your hobbies and interests of like
what kinds of things are on your socks.
And it's really about as intense of peacocking as you can do in
professional industry. Also, I guess he's not trying to
get anybody to have sex with him, but I think like.
How do you know? Yeah.
I guess I maybe, but I do think that this is some of what I was
realizing as I was reading content for this week's episode
is a lot of it is just like we're all seeking genuine human
connection. And I feel like sometimes we're
men are kind of losing this or when we hear about the male
loneliness epidemic is because they're putting so much single
minded interest on that connection being like a, a
partnered relationship, whether that's like a one night stand or
like marriage or anything in between that that's like much
more of a single minded focus of men and that they put much more
on that. Whereas women are like they're
they're even if they are seeking or have a romantic relationship,
it's not their source of everything.
Yeah. And actually the follow up, and
I know I don't know much about Neil Strauss.
I don't have a opinion on him as a person, but I do know that the
follow up to the Game was actually Rules of the Game and
it really was much more about men building their
self-confidence in approaching people and starting
conversations. There were things in it like,
you know, every single day make a habit to start up a
conversation with somebody new. And it wasn't saying, you know,
exclusively woman, it was saying men, women, anybody at your
office just to get into the habit that when you approach
somebody and start a conversation, you know, 99% of
the time people are probably going to be receptive and smile
back at you. And whatever you said, they
found a way to respond off of. Yeah, I'm much more.
I'm much more here for that kind of advice from Neil Strauss than
like a description of the threesome that he had using the
mysteries tactics for getting with borderline underage women.
OK, how about time pressure? So give the idea that like the
woman has to prove herself and you only have a short amount of
time to attract. The Miller to making I thought
that this would make me more relaxed because I wouldn't feel
like, oh, I actually was just on my way to the bathroom or I was
just grabbing a drink for my friend and I really want to get
back there. And now I'm stuck in this
conversation with a guy who, you know, might be cute, but I
really had in a certain agenda in mind that if he said I only
have one minute, but I wanted to ask you this, I'd be like, Oh,
well, if he only has a minute. I feel like if he only if he
says he only has a minute and then he wants to do something to
like demonstrate that he is attractive, instead of like, I
have only one minute to demonstrate to me why you're
attractive. I'd be like fine.
Like I agree, like I'd be like, OK, fine.
To give the the the tip credit, I don't think that they were
saying they were going to directly tell the woman you have
one minute to prove your worthiness.
I'm Simon Cowell. You're going to, you know, ask a
question where you then had a chance to have your.
Personality as somebody who in like small talk kind of
scenarios is very bad at like extricating myself from like a
conversation I no longer want to be in and then like until.
Would make you feel relaxed. Yeah, I do appreciate that.
They're like, OK, this is like going to end shortly, I guess,
if you actually stuck to it. Because I feel like if you tried
to disarm a woman by saying you only have a minute, but then
you're like, oh, this conversation is going well and
then you like keep going forever then.
You have the option, you know, actually I have to get back to
my friends now because I told him I'd be back.
But you know, do you mind if I stop by later on?
I don't know. All the situations seem to
happen around bars, but we can make them anywhere, you know,
they can be bowling, they can be the knitting club.
You know, Gen. Z doesn't drink anymore and I
feel like that's probably there's less dating, but there's
probably also it seemed like a lot of the stuff in this like
pick up artist thing was vaguely dependent on women being like
somewhat or very intoxicated. So I'm also kind of happy for
this generation that is making fewer poor life choices because
there's less alcohol involved, that maybe they're dating less,
but they're probably also wasting less time on like
situations that I feel like all of us had in like, college
where, you know, it wasn't full on anything, but you were just
kind of like, you felt icky about it the next day.
And you're like, I wouldn't have given that guy the time of day
if I had been sober. Lots of mornings spent feeling
icky about the previous nights and then the person texting to
follow up and being like oh. Yeah, I'm like, I feel like
taking alcohol out of the situation a bit more might
actually be helpful. All right, this was 1 I had
never heard of, but I was reading a guy's blog about,
like, he was summarizing things that he had gotten from
different pickup artists. So I'm not sure if this one's in
the game or he's gotten it from later writers.
It just seems, again, sometimes this is just like breaking down
very basic stuff for people who might be socially a little bit
anxious or maybe inept. But it's called keno escalation.
Have you heard of this one before, Kay?
I saw that it's like how you can slowly increase your touches and
start off. And like start with a light
touch, like just a like non invasive a tap on the arm and
like professionally acceptable kind of stuff maybe and into
like gradually escalating it like touching her more.
This. Seems not a touching person, so
I don't. Do you feel like, and maybe this
is just because I have had like some people that don't seem to
like understand where the boundaries are.
And if if you are somebody who is socially awkward and you had
to have this explained to you, then you may not be the type of
person who's going to pick up on like.
What's the? Appropriate way, yeah.
I had like a male supervisor once that had this habit of like
touching women more and it was in a totally non sexual way.
Like he he read very like a sexually.
I don't know what he was like at all, but I think that in some
like white men's management seminar somewhere he had been
told that like, oh, women are more like emotional and connect
more through touch. So like if you're connecting
with a female colleague, then like give her a little pat on
the shoulder or something. It totally read as creepy
though, of course. And I like talk to somebody at
HR who like kind of had this conversation with him on my
behalf since he was senior to me.
But we were like, if this is just a real easy one for you
men, cuz you can just like not touch women at all.
Like if you're like, what is the appropriate amount to touch a
woman? That they don't know it makes us
feel great. Yeah, the the zero is always a
good answer. So I don't know.
Yeah, this one reads to me as a little bit creepy, Especially if
you're not, if you're somebody who's going to pick up artists.
For writing things on it you. Don't have good instincts, so
you should probably not try this.
So my partner told me that something that he had read once
and anybody who's outside of United States would laugh at
this because they'd be like, well, yes, this is just what we
do. But he's like when you're
introduced to a girl who you find attractive, you kiss him on
the cheek. It's like 1.
You introduces your touch to them and then they can decide if
they like it or not. But then there were also kind of
caught off guard. And then you do it again when
you say goodbye to them. And I don't know that again just
made me think like, oh, but I would probably already be in the
mindset of like, am I doing this wrong?
Am I now supposed to kiss them on the cheek bag?
I do. Agree, I think that it would
just throw me off but not in a good way.
I would just be like wait, is this guy European?
Like if the guy was European or South American or whatever, like
I wouldn't think anything of it, but like if it was just like a
regular American dude, I'd be like, what am I missing here?
I think I'd be confused by it, but I would just be like this is
odd. It made me farther laugh because
I round back and I remembered my first date with my partner where
he went to try to kiss me but I didn't know what was going on
and we were in the back of an Uber.
So I like tried to turn away and it ended up with him kissing my
forehead and I'm all like he was probably trying to kiss my
cheeks. I've got some situations like
that too. Or even just like one of you
goes in for a hug and one of you goes in for a handshake and then
you like awkwardly bump into each other and you're like, I do
like that about European culture, like a lot of other
countries besides the US where there's very like define like.
And then you even have this like if you're, you know, traveling
there for the first time that they're like O2 women always
greet each other with a kiss. Like a woman and a man always
greet each other with a kiss like men, men, you know, that
there's just like predefined things.
And in the US, it's just like, do we do a handshake?
Like then you have the people who just be like, I'm a hugger
and then they just go for it. But I do appreciate them
specifying that they're about to go in for a hug, even if I am
not a hugger. I also feel like this keno
escalation one kind of sounds like advice that they give you
about like taming a horse. Some other kind of like spirited
animals. Offer like a little lump of
sugar in your hand and approach slowly.
Okay, last one is push and pull. So you like you're positive and
you compliment them and then you like you're kind of like you go
hot cold. So you're like oh, don't get too
cocky like I'm not that. And and like you, keep the other
person uncertain of where they stand with you.
I don't know if any woman would be able to follow like a guy
intentionally trying to push and pull them.
Like, I don't think people would probably be like, I probably
just didn't hear him right? Like I don't think that
somebody's like, oh, I'm like in France right now.
Like they're keeping me guessing.
I think they're probably just be like, oh, they probably said
something nice because they're polite.
And now they said something kind of annoying.
And so maybe that's who they are, or they said something
really nice. So they're nice.
And when they said something that came off as mean, they
probably didn't realize that. I don't think that anybody's
like, oh, what is this push, pull?
So intrigued. Yeah, I feel like mostly that
would come across to me as a red flag.
A guy doing this is like that you're emotionally unstable or
emotionally unavailable. I'm not like, oh, I'm like
intrigued because I don't know where I stand with him and I, I
have to try to pull him in and I'm like, maybe especially if
you are like as doing it as like expertly and seamlessly as
mystery himself. And I'm just wondering, like, if
you give some guy who feels awkward approaching woman just
any sort of list of things to talk about with them, and that
guy feels like, OK, now I have to say something.
That's this. You're still keeping the
conversation going. I think the guy is still making
it. I don't know.
I just wonder how many, how many women out there are really like
they're receptive to being talked to by a.
Person, I think it's like not that complicated and they do
understand the need for something that is maybe just a
bit of an icebreaker that gives you something more original to
start the conversation with or to give you like a bit of like a
false sense of like a fake it till you make it.
Not like false confidence, but like we all sometimes need to
fake it till we make it a little bit.
So, you know, things that can do that without trying to come
across as an emotionally unstable asshole or make the
other person feel unstable to promote your own self in there
in there. So you don't have this one on
the list of pick up things. And so I want to ask you which
is that what my partner said who had read this book and used some
of the different strategies, some of them he said you were
not worth even. I would have loved to see him
and at the top of his pick up game picking you up.
He definitely did not have much of A dating life.
So does not, you know, bode well for the book's actual success.
But he did say that that what felt right and good when he read
it was the idea that as soon as you go into a social situation
where you're with a group of guys and they're then you should
go immediately to another group of women who seem largely, you
know, single. Like they're just there with
only their own sex. And start talking to them, not
to hit on them, not to, but almost just to like combine
groups in a way so that that way.
Dating like in high school? Like that, would the other woman
at the bar see them as more comfortable and approachable and
also potentially desirable? Like, they don't know, oh, maybe
this one guy's dating that girl, but maybe the friend single.
Yeah, we can ask the girl. She's like, he's cool, but, you
know, they're all smiling and talking to them.
It makes you, like, look more desirable and confident and like
you're someone who knows how to talk to women.
I don't know. Yeah.
He's going to have a high success rate that.
Is, I mean, I feel like also again, just if like a lot of
these pick up tactics seem like there is much for getting rid of
the man's anxiety or, you know, like giving him like a bit of
that confidence so that he can be.
And, and then I think ideally that you can be your authentic
self. And that underneath that anxiety
is somebody who's like genuinely very kind and interested in a, a
relationship with a woman of, of whatever length.
So I guess that's like what a lot of these things get to.
And is it, is it just like you're using it to try to just
dispel a little bit of your initial anxiety?
Because I think that we all need that.
I think that these things aren't written as and this will dispel
your like, you know, insecurities and anxieties about
approaching women. But I think that what they're
actually doing is that. Because when you go into a bar
and you approach women, not with the goal in your mind that you
know, I'm going to hit on one of these specific women, but I'm
just going to start a conversation, then you realize
how how easy it is and that everybody's having a good time.
They're like, humans are naturally social people.
If you walk up to start a conversation like people are
most likely going to be receptive.
Yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know,
there's just so much that's gotten heaped on this idea,
especially like men that get frustrated about this.
And then they're sort of there's so many forums for them to just
kind of like continue circulating around in an echo
chamber Reddit or some places that are even a little bit more
a little bit darker than Reddit. That you're just like
reinforcing this idea that, yeah, that that first of all,
that you're not so much like seeking authentic connections
with other humans of like whatever nature, but that like
solely you are only interacting with women to like go get as
much pussy as possible. And I do think that like, one of
the reasons that you don't see like women complaining about
this as much is because there are more women.
I mean, obviously they are also seeking romantic partners.
They're also like corny and looking for one night stands,
but they are looking for a lot of a lot of maybe diversity.
And that you don't have this idea of I see men posting on
Reddit things like, oh, you know, I just think that like, I
talked to all these women and only like a small percentage of
them find me attractive. And I think it's like most women
probably are not like in a situation where like every man
in the world finds them attractive, but it's like, you
don't need that. Yeah.
And I don't think that a woman is every single guy that she
sees being like, is he attractive enough for me to go
on a date with. I think that time and time again
it's shown by, you know, who a woman will end up going on a
second date with after meeting somebody through online, through
blind dates, is that they're actually much more like
understanding and receptive towards, you know, talking a
little bit to a guy, figuring him out and seeing if she can
find him attractive even if she didn't initially find him
attractive on first look. Yeah, Yeah.
I think that there's a lot more to it than physical
attractiveness. And the confidence piece seems
like it is just a piece of it to like get that initial
interaction, to get that first date or something along that
line of just kind of breaking the ice initially.
But beyond that, you know, I don't think that confidence is
like the top thing that most women are looking for.
One thing also that I got from I've been rereading Emily
Nagowski's Come As You Are, which I think we're going to
discuss more on a future episode.
One of her points in general about just women's sexuality is
that there's much more variation.
She kind of compares it to height where she's like, even
though on the whole men are taller than women, there's more
variation within women's heights than there is variation between
like the average woman and the average man.
And she says that that's very true about like a lot of data
about sexuality as well. So I was just listening to a
chapter where she's just like listing off all of these things
that different women who she had interviewed listed as like their
turn on, like what really gets them going.
And she's like, so and and then also like what their turn offs
were like what put your brakes on?
And at the end of the day, the main take away from it was just
that there's so much more diversity within the data set of
women. Then there is like any one thing
that you can take away or any one thing that you can say.
Men like this and women like this other thing.
Yeah, so going on with that is that there's a book Models
Attract Women through Honesty by Mark Manson, which was seen as
like a more comprehensive, actually in tune with people's
emotions book than the game. And they, they talk about the
idea of non neediness and at the concept of neediness and which
is deeply unattractive to, you know, not just woman, but really
people in general. And neediness is when a man
places a higher priority on others perceptions of him than
on his perceptions of himself. And there's a theory that like
the man's attractiveness is inversely proportional to how
needy he is. So the less needy he is, the
more attractive he will be to woman on average.
And I think that's kind of an interesting thing because yes,
you want a person to, I don't know, have a high perception of
themselves and to care about that, not bend to what other
people find. But you also want them to be
able to listen and take feedback and to adapt.
So I, I don't know, does that like there's kind of like a
balance there? Yeah.
When that gets back to the research, I think I mentioned
the last episode, that's like successful relationships are
like there's a lot of openness to being changed and like
evolving with your partner. So we think that there is a
piece of like openness and vulnerability which I can
understand is different than neediness and where I thought he
was going to go a little bit with the needing the.
Vulnerability is next and his and his list I had.
To read the book. So vulnerability as like he, as
he describes it, is the ability to be comfortable with your
emotions, your faults, and being able to express yourself without
inhibition. And that that's a big part about
building attraction. And so this isn't, you know,
unloading all your issues to somebody else.
But. Knowing, you know, oh, I'm
actually, I'm not the best at this.
So like, I do get too angry in these situations and I, you
know, I, this is like the reality of my station in life,
like. Yeah.
Of it, yeah. And just I think especially for
the male side, when men are socialized to not talk about
their emotions that much, that I think vulnerability is openness
to talking about your emotions and processing them and things
like that. I understand Maui, he's
differentiating like there's like neediness and vulnerability
because I think that that makes like a nice balance to walk of
being vulnerable without being needy or like without trauma
dumping and things like that. Because otherwise you just end
up with an emo kid. And I, I think it goes for women
too, this idea that to be ready for a relationship, we need to
have kind of a strong sense of self and be willing to go into
it knowing that we have faults and ready to talk about them.
And to, you know, maybe hear other people express that
they're having a frustrating time with some of your own
faults. Yeah.
And a lot I was reading why one reason why men might be
struggling a little bit with adapting to kind of the changing
nature of relationships between hetero men and women is just
this shifting overall power dynamic.
And that women used to just kind of need men for security and
just like, to be able to have a bank account or like own
property. They couldn't do any of this on
their own. So it used to be fairly
straightforward that, like, all that men had to offer was just
that, like, physical stability. And anything else beyond that is
kind of icing on the cake. And so now we are in this era
of, like, women can provide for their basic physical needs on
their own. And so some men are kind of
like, Oh, well, then that makes us obsolete.
And this particular writer, I wish I remember when I was
reading, but I think I've seen this point made by a few people.
Is that like, no, this is this opportunity for you to have all
this space to be a true partner to a woman.
And that they are still, you still see women out there
looking for men, but now they're looking for like a partner, you
know, someone to share experiences with, just somebody
who has a sense of humor, who brings more enjoyment to life.
And so you don't have to be, you know, stuck in these traditional
roles, either of you anymore. And that frees you up to to have
much more psychologically fulfilling relationship.
That's and I saw something the other day and it was a guy
posting on one of the social media forums that, you know,
he's so proud because he gets to retire his wife.
They had a three month old baby and the wife was now, you know,
retired by him and that this is a blessing and a privilege.
And I was thinking like, oh, the way that you phrase that, it's
kind of bothering me because it should be fully her decision and
her thing and you should need to acknowledge, you know, what
she's giving up during that. And that's not really like you
retired her. Like the status symbol that he
has that he's like, I got to like, yeah, render my wifes job
obsolete because I'm so successful.
Yeah. And if you are also giving her
like, you know, full financial freedom, all those things, she's
not going to have to go to you when she wants to go out for
coffee or anything like that for parishion, then it's not that
like, that isn't awesome. It's just like the wording
around it. Yeah.
Give me the ick. Yeah, yeah, I totally get that.
Yeah. And you know, a reason why we're
doing this episode is just to kind of clarify some at least of
our beliefs around the idea of, of confidence and, you know,
alpha males for lack of a reward and why there is some attraction
to them. But that comes with balance.
And we're not asking for somebody to take over.
Or we said attracted to confidence without necessarily
wanting an alpha male because I think we had kind of talked
about that last time that we had the X&Y axis of of with good
guys and the bad guys, but that the missing piece from that was
confidence. And so I think maybe like
talking about confidence in the in the aspect of it being
something where the underlying nature motivation of the person
is like good and like meaningful connection and not just being an
asshole. Yeah, and I saw a post that
really kind of speaks to this, which is that sometimes it feels
like the woman shouting the loudest about misogynistic men
are the same ones who want that guy from 50 Shades of Grey.
And I felt, you know, personally targeted by this post.
And I was like, whoa, okay, Christian Gray actually did ask
for consent. And yes, there was, you know,
BDSM and Dom sub, but that happened within the confines of
something very specific. But also I don't even I didn't
read 50 Shades of grey but there are other books where there is
the guys kind. Of yeah, and we've talked a lot
about how also we might be seeking that out.
And so like this persons post that says like, oh, you know,
these women who are screaming about misogynistic men are
seeking them out. And it's like, OK, hold up
Reddit, bro. Like we are seeking them out.
At least in in the examples that I'm talking about, obviously
there are women who are inherently attracted to like
abusive or violent men. But I don't think that that's
something associated with feminism.
I think sometimes some of us come from difficult past or
have, you know, things in our childhood that are attracting us
to destructive relationships. But on the whole, when we talk
about women who are feminists and are like, you know, these
men need to, you know, be more whatever that we're not then
like turning around and marrying Christian Gray.
Yeah, exactly. But I mean, that we're that
we're we are. I think at least when I look
around, I mean sure, like short term relationships and one night
stands and things like that. But when I look around at the
strong feminist women that I know and who they married, like
none of them are married to Christian Gray.
None of them are married to Mystery.
Not that you could tie mystery down with marriage.
Or like, I don't know any of these examples or like I mean
any like this romantic stuff of like werewolves that also like
tear their clothes off their body with their claws.
And I saw a review for a summary of a book written by an author
actually for that book. And she's like, I want to make
it clear that this book does not represent what a healthy
relationship is or a guy that people would actually be
attracted to in real life. You know, this book is meant to
be sexy and deserve the purposes of something you read that's
sexy. You know, the same way as when
we watch adult videos or something, we might seek certain
content, but that's not necessarily what we're looking
for in our day-to-day partnerships in life.
So. Totally.
And I did because there have been some questions about like
what is it that attracts men that attracts women to this kind
of like alpha male kind of characteristic.
There was an article by Gable at all in Evolution and they were
looking at some previous research that is kind of like,
why are women attracted? And, and like, does it have to
do with an evolutionary kind of thing of like maybe these men
are more masculine and able to reproduce?
They were studying whether women are more attracted to appetite
of aggression, which is just basically like when men are
violent without any like reason to, they're not provoked,
they're not defending anything. So.
Gosh, no. Yeah, I mean, and I guess that's
like what you see in kind of some of these like characters
that we're into in books or when they're like, oh, you're
attracted to these like misogynistic men in in this
article, they called it kind of like the warrior archetype.
So they did find that when women are in the peak of their
fertility cycle that they were more attractive.
They gave different scenarios of this soldier, his experience
returning from war and they gave you 4 different vignettes with
trauma related symptoms with high or low appetite of
aggression or no trauma related symptoms with high or low
appetite of aggression. And the women are like ranking
how much they would want to be with the soldier in this little
like story that they're given. Oh my gosh, it's like right when
they're horniest, they want to be with the people who can,
like, protect. Right when they're horniest they
do, they're more attracted to the alpha male.
But even in that case, it was an uptick in how many of them
reported they'd be interested in a short term relationship with
this aggressive alpha male warrior type than that any of
them were like, Oh yeah, this is the man that I want to like get
a mortgage with and like hosting.
Raising my kids. Do be a soccer coach for my kids
soccer team. So yeah, this is this idea that
like this is a marker for recently this like masculinity
is like a marker for reproduction, but we don't
actually see them necessarily as relationship material.
Yeah. And that's funny.
So something that Neil Strauss did write about that I thought
was kind of ridiculous because when I was actually imagining it
happening, I was like, Oh my gosh, that would be such a turn
off. But it was for guys to come
prepared with stories about how they were a leader in different
situations. And so when they were starting
the conversation with a woman, they would get into sharing
these, you know, work antidotes. I would always have them in like
the leader of the alpha position because we're evolutionarily
attracted to guys who are in that.
And I'm just imagining that if I were sitting there with like,
you know, some 23 year old like Deloitte associate and he's
like, I was really leading when I told this company this.
Oh my gosh, I'm actually just flashing back to like, I was at
a party and I was being hit on by some Deloitte douchebag bro,
and he was talking about something.
I was like not even talking about work because of course,
like I was 22 and like had no job that I needed to talk about
in a party situation. But he was like, oh, like, do
you have a passport? Then like you have me to thank
for it Because I, or I think I was like saying something about
how I traveled a lot for work. But he was saying to me like
worked with Deloitte on like passport control technology or
something. And he's like, it's like, thanks
to my work that like you can move like quickly through other
countries. And I was like, OK, how did this
just turned into a LinkedIn post?
Like please Get Me Out of here. Support conversation now, yeah,
so. I also wanted to ask about some
of our favorite characters while we're on this topic, who some of
our favorite characters are that come across as like very
confident and maybe that they have traditional qualities of
masculinity to like test this a bit, mainly because as you know,
Kay, I am reading the a court of.
By Sarah J. Moss We finally to read A Court
of Thorns. I am finally catching up on all
of my romanticy reading so no spoilers because I'm only into
the second book, but just from knowing general things about
this series and hearing about it from our friends and obviously
being the last person to be reading this series.
So I just finished the first book and it's all about her, her
relationship with Tamlin. And I'm like, I know they don't
end up together, right? So I'm like waiting, I'm like no
Reese and is the name of the guy that she.
So then like later in the book, I'm like, oh OK, this is who
she's going to be with. And he is just a total douchebag
when you first meet him, but there.
Are reasons for that, yeah, it's.
Like in the book, so again, it's like this guy who reads as a
total douchebag. But I feel like whenever you
have those characters, which is like pretty much always the
setup in the enemies to lovers trope, which is kind of my least
favorite trope because I feel like you have to manufacture
this like slightly unrealistic situation of like why they would
be bitter enemies and just like totally hate one another, but
then like find some reason to like totally lost after each
other later, which. Is why it works.
Yeah, exactly, which is why it only works in fantasy.
And yeah, so I'm I'm already kind of like getting into this,
but it's not just that he is this like, because she's not
attracted to him being this alpha male or like kind of an
asshole and really confident. And I'm not really to the part
of the book yet where she's into him.
But you can already see like where it's starting to set it up
that he has these reef moments of vulnerability and that's
what's actually attracting her to him.
And then meanwhile, her relationship with Tamlin is
starting to to break down a little bit.
And in that case, it is because he's very controlling.
He's not seeing her as an equal partner.
It's not because he's being a beta at all that she's less
attractive. Or in a lot of these other
books, if there's the guy that's the initial love interest or the
guy that she's supposed to be with, who's the obvious pick?
It's rarely that she's not into him because he's being a beta.
So do we think that that means that Sarah J.
Moss read the book called Models Attract Women through Honesty by
Mark Manson? So she knew that there had to be
non neediness and vulnerability. I mean, not having gotten even
through the 2nd book yet, I think that you can answer this
better than I, but it kind of seems like that's the setup
here. Yeah, it's interesting because I
think that Reese and is very alpha, but when I look back at
it, the moments where you actually become a attracted to
him are through these more vulnerable moments where he's
acknowledging his inability to do things or his.
Yeah, yeah. So I.
Think and I guess also in in the books with primarily, especially
where you have this is not the only series that you I mean, I
think this is the most famous where you have women lusting
after fairies. When you have all these men who
are like, oh, I'm an alpha, like, I have to have all these
like markers of traditional masculinity.
And yet what you see that these women are lusting after, at
least in this case of fairy romanticity, I mean, these men
have long hair in a lot of cases, I just.
Not my thing. Well, again, this is like
fantasy things that we're lusting after.
I don't also feel like you would be sexually attracted to other
kinds of hairy beasts either. So I guess those are pretty like
alpha masculine. But the theory is I, I did not
realize until reading this book that the love interest is
wearing a Mardi Gras mask that is surgically plastered to his
face for the entire first book. So like, it was very glitzy.
He's got like a lot of glamour. I feel like he is just reading
as a little bit like. You have to put on like a weird
mask for these. A little bit fancy.
Yeah. No, I mean, I have no problem
with that. I like that we're like bridging
it a little bit. And it's not just like he had a
motorcycle and a six pack. And I mean, he's not like coming
across as effeminate, but he's also not coming across as this
traditionally masculine that his biceps ripped through his
leather jacket. Also plays the fiddle, you know.
That I love a good orchestra dork.
So I hope that this is an OK time to switch over to an
important thing that also leaks back to the orgasm gap because
it is relevant in terms of romanticity.
So I was reading a book about demons this weekend.
This is the Sexy Satan book. Next to Satan, there was
Lucifer. There was, you know, an
Archangel. I mean, it really had everything
I needed. But the important part about it,
relevant to the orgasm gap and important about women writing
books about fantasy worlds, is that, according to to this
book's Canon, demon vaginas have a second clitoris that is inside
the vagina. Is this the G spot it is?
I mean, it's kind of like. It's the D spot, the big.
D spot is. It is instead the literal
hypersensitive clitoris. You know the G spot is not.
Nobody would say that any of the G spots are the same as a
clitoris for a woman. And this was literally a second
clitoris within the vagina. I love this.
I would also I think that this is you were reading some you
were a beta reader for some material for the author.
Should we credit? I was just an early reader.
The book is called Beast and it's by Georgia Lee and I
thought that it was a blast and as soon as I read that there was
a sexy Satan on the first page I was like I am.
Fulfilling your Catholic fantasies that we've already
previously discussed we. Always knew that Satan would be
a daddy in bed and unfortunately she did not get to have sex with
Satan. But Satan was actually one of
the better demon Princess, where we kind of wish that she had had
sex with Satan at the beginning and they left you no doubt that
he was going to be able to give a good time if she had gone
through with it, yes. For for a fallen woman.
But I won't get into it. But she was a furious.
My sweet spot is reading books that have like under 100 reviews
on Goodreads that aren't their first couple months.
Because it just feels like you're doing two things at once.
I'm reading a book that I genuinely want to read, but also
if I'm giving a review afterwards out of my own free
will, I feel like just putting good karma out there.
So we're going to end up with a little talk on the loneliness
epidemic. Yeah.
I think to summarize this, it seems like confidence is
attractive when it is an indicator that you are somebody
who is generally open to relationships.
And I like the model book, that idea of being vulnerable without
being needy or just that you're somebody who is genuinely
seeking human connection. So I was just listening to an
NPR piece on the male loneliness epidemic, and they actually
pointed out that if you just look at the Pew Research on
people reporting that they're lonely, I think they said that
like 30% of people overall feel. In the most recent Pew Research,
30% of people overall feel lonely once a week or more.
But then it was about 16% of people overall said that they
are lonely most or all of the time.
But there was actually only about 1%.
I know I'd like first of all nine.
Percent. Join us in the comments and you
can come be our friend. But they said that.
So I think there was just like a 1% difference between.
So I think it was like 16% for women rounded and 17% for men.
So the the journalists who are commenting on this were like,
there isn't actually a big difference if you just talk
about being lonely. That's just more of an overall
cultural trend when we live in a world where I think post
pandemic, you can name a number of reasons for that that we've
had to break down in some of our traditional communities.
And many of us live in a town that's like different than the
one we grew up in. So we don't have these long
standing communities. So they were kind of talking
about like, what are the other differences for men?
And one of them that they said is that there's this conflation
that was mostly just among men of loneliness and like not
having a partner relationship that they were not like
separating the 2. And so women are thinking like,
on the whole, we're more seeking both friendships and a
relationship, either or and or both.
And but that like men are conflating this idea of like
having connection in your life as like you, the best and
highest form of that is to have this relationship.
And one way that they saw that play out is that they asked
people like, how likely are you to go to these different
relationships or these different people in your life when you
need something or you need support or advice?
And men were as likely to go to their spouse as women are to go
to their spouse for like help or advice.
But men are less likely to go to like every other type of
relationship in their life. So women would go to their
spouse, but they would also. Go.
Their parents, their siblings, their friends, you know, their
their their work wife, whatever. And men were pretty much like,
if you have a spouse, you would go to her, you would go to them
for advice and support. And then other than.
That comment towards us burying most of the load there, but
that. Was a huge discussion piece for
it and the amount of pressure that this is on women again,
that men have such singular focus on these partners
relationships in that they're expecting to get so much more
out of it because they have like fewer friendships to fall back
on or the friendships they they are used less in that way.
So men, you know, maybe use these game tactics on other men.
You know, maybe when you walk up, I think you put three boys
and you see another three boys in the bar.
Just go talk straight to them, you know?
OK, honestly, I feel like a lot of these tactics are like the
nagging stuff like this would work equally well on male
potential friends because I do think that men a little bit more
than women enjoy like a good little nagging or something like
that. And and there's so I don't know
if you ever see. Talking gives the men something
to respond to and the other guy. Yeah, exactly.
I think that they're the same way that they say women are
actually dressing mostly for other women.
I think these men who are wearing these like sort of
outlandish clothing are probably mostly doing it to like.
Make other guys laugh. Status symbol amongst your Bros.
You know, as we said, this idea that like as society does become
more equitable that women don't need men for these like basic
needs anymore. And do you ever hear that French
guy on social media that he's always like or she doesn't need
you anymore bro like she doesn't have to be bothered with it just
for your like weak ass relationship.
I don't know. He does like all these funny
things that just do. I will send you some videos from
him, but he's like, she doesn't need you.
She's got her shit taken care of.
Unless you can give her something that really is going
to be amazing for her, then she doesn't need to be bothered.
He says she's single and deliciously undisturbed is one
of the last videos that I wanted watched.
And he says dating in 2025 is like applying for a job that
doesn't pay well. So there's like a lot of videos
and content out there of basically like, hey, women are
doing well. Like we've got great friend
groups. We have, you know, jobs and
health insurance now and we can have credit cards on her own.
So like men, you have to offer us something.
Yeah, and there's a lot of different ways that you can meet
friends and people and the relationships might naturally
come from there. But things like, you know,
kickball leagues and running groups and all.
That well, this is this is something else that I noticed
when we were talking about our Nice Guys episode.
Is that the friend zone complaint?
Have you ever heard a woman say like, oh, I got put in the
friend zone by this guy, even though like maybe we have all, I
mean, I know I have. We have all had a situation
where you were like, oh, I was attracted to this guy, but he
didn't really like see me as more than a friend.
But we don't have this like we'd never.
Be like oh I'm friend zone. We would just be like, oh be.
Like, oh, that's disappointing when you had different like
thoughts on where this relationship was going.
And then you can decide if you want to like be friends with
somebody that you kind of wish you had something more or that
that's too painful. So I think that that's just such
a particularly male thing, this idea that all relationships that
aren't, you know, going to end in some kind of like sex or
boyfriend girlfriend thing are just not worth having.
And so that like friend zoned is negative or just like connecting
with a bunch of people. Yeah, like, again, maybe that
trick at the bar where you go and you talk immediately to a
group of girls, it works because you're just having a good time
and people want to be with people who are having a good
time instead of being focused on, you know, who you're going
to bring. Home and that seems like that's
really a reliever for your anxiety is instead of setting up
a fake situation where you pretend that or that it's not
going to turn into something more maybe just like genuinely
go in with that expectation. Well, following up on things
from previous episodes, we always like to wrap by following
up. I know that we owe our Gilmore
Girlies an official apology because we were talking about
Rory's different love interests in a previous episode and
mistakenly referred to Jess as Jesse.
One of our intrepid listeners pointed this out.
I am going to take all the fault for this one cake.
I know. You're not watching.
Gilmore, but. Why was?
His reaction was, why is there a man named Jess?
So I would encourage you, Kay, to deconstruct a little bit your
desire for traditional masculinity and look into the
fact that he is actually the most emotionally vulnerable of
all of her love interests. I'll try, I will try Gilmore
Girls maybe sometime if I have to spend 3 months in a hospital.
That is the only scenario that you consider.
Can't read? Yeah, neither audiobooks or
normal reading books are available to me.
Then I'll watch Gilmore Girls. While I am continuing to move
through the Court of Thorn and Roses at a fast clip, so.
And Speaking of just female friendships being peak and men
need to aspire to have their friendships be more like women,
I would just like to shout out to Kay and our other Court of
Thorn and Roses bestie who is the like #1 fangirl that got me
into reading this series. I've been live texting my
commentary on this series as I go through for the.
It's just so hard to not respond with spoilers because it's like
oh I know exactly what chapter it's going to get good but you
all. Are doing a very good job of
that, but I just feel like pig female friendship is when you
were like, oh, OK, yeah. Like you're about to get to like
the part of the book where it gets really hot and then both of
the two of you like 10:00 at night.
You were both like, I'm going to flip to that scene in my Kindle
and we're all going to be reading it together.
In the same time, because like the scene was is literally that
she meets the guy who we both love.
And so the scenes literally just hello, I've been looking for
you. And so Sarah and I separately
texted him. We're like, SJ is going to be
pretty unhappy with what that scene actually is.
Yeah, I was, but I just really appreciated that you are now,
like, reading our, like, smutty book together with me in
solidarity. And we're like, all in our beds
late at night, like reading sexy fairy fiction.
I say. Like the reason that they think
maybe a lot of men are struggling to have the same
level of friendships as women are is because of all of the
homophobia that they're conditioned with and that
they're like, oh, you can't like do anything that would be like
too emotional or gay with your bro.
So you have to just like, talk about sports and like nag each
other, you know, on sexually. Imagine if like our partners
were all texting each other like hey I just watched a really
great adult video. Yeah, they're like, OK, guys,
They're like totally getting to this part where they're like,
there's this really amazing blowjob.
Like let's all watch it together at the same time and then text
each other about it. I would love that for them.
Well, have a great day everybody.
Thanks so much for listening. Appreciate a five star review
and a follow. No nagging in the comments
needed though. You know only.
Appreciate nagging one-on-one in the club in 2004.