Transcription
There was a viral Vogue article, um, that was really asking the question as to whether having a boyfriend in this day and age was, quote, embarrassing. So, I believe the argument being made, having a quick read of it, was that there's a cultural shift in how relationships are displayed, with there being a trend towards ambivalence now, um, as opposed to a boyfriend, I suppose, no longer being seen as the cultural prize it once was. Uh, did you see this article, and what was your initial reaction to it, if you did see it?
I did, and in fact, so many people brought it to my attention that I have recorded an episode on the topic. It's called "Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing?" Because the article is, "Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing?" Now, it might be out by the time this conversation is released, but it hasn't been released at the time that we're having this conversation. But I read the article. It was a very short read, seven minutes long. And there are a few points that I could agree with the author about. Namely, the fundamental argument that women don't need to have relationships in order to feel fulfilled as human beings. I think that that's true. I think it's also true for men. I don't think that it's probably a good idea for any human being to primarily define their identity relative to any kind of relationship they have, as that's a connection with some sort of external circumstance that isn't actually intrinsic to the individual. So, I can agree with her on that point.
But I do think that the author then goes far beyond that argument. Um, to kind of summarize my take, I do think that the idea that being single is a flex is more of a cope than true. Because you can do nothing and be single. If being single was a flex, then we couldn't differentiate between the unattractive women who never leave their house and make no effort to be the type of person who could command the attraction and commitment of another human being, versus the woman who can do those things but chooses not to, which is probably the easiest discrimination to make between two categories of human beings. So, unfortunately, the way economics works is the alternative that requires no effort or less effort will never be valued as much as the alternative that requires more effort. This is basic, like, economics. I could sell the raw materials for a smoothie for less than I could if I actually blend them together and sell you a finished product, because I've applied my creativity and effort to those raw materials. So, that's kind of how it is. Being single can't possibly be more of a status symbol than being in a relationship. Because, among other things, being in a relationship means that you're a decent enough and attractive enough human being that at least one other person said, "You are my best option, and I'm willing to commit to this." Mhm.
And I suppose a part of the article as well, it featured an interview with, I think, another member of the Vogue team who shared their experience in that they found that even if they did have a boyfriend, that posting about them online, what they would consider cringey. There's a cultural shift now where it's become a cringey thing to do. Do you, do you agree that that cultural shift exists and that that is a real, real thing that's going on?
It's certainly possible. I mean, women do play status games with other women. Women have long said that they don't dress for men, which I don't think is entirely true. Like, to say that we can simply ignore half of the human race and say that none of my behavior has anything to do with the perception and attractiveness of that desired sex, I think is sociopathic and ignorant. It's just wrong. But I think it's probably correct to say that women don't dress entirely for men. And they certainly signal things to other women that men don't even notice. Um, and the more you talk to women, the more you realize that a lot of the things that they do are doing it to kind of keep up with the Joneses. The Joneses just being their female intersexual competition. But what's their intra-sexual competition for? Their competition for male attention and attraction and relationships. That's ultimately why the intersexual competition exists. There aren't many fully female status hierarchies that exist in the world. Like, most status hierarchies are masculine and they're male-dominated. Certainly, they were male-originated. [snorts] Men are much more hierarchical in nature. Women are much more communal in nature. Um, sometimes the idea of competition or hierarchy unsettles women. That's why we've kind of entered into the participation trophy era of, uh, education, for instance. We don't like there to be losers. We don't like there to be winners, because winners means that there has to be losers, and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Um, that said, I disagreed with her cope, uh, not with her cope, with the author's take on this subject. I do think she says something that these women are trying to straddle two worlds: one, to have the benefits associated with being perceived as having a relationship, and one that's kind of speaking to this world of women. Again, that might be true, but I don't think that those are the two main worlds that are being straddled in this case. I think that the reason underneath why it's cringe to post about your boyfriend, because if you don't, the two worlds that you can straddle are one, the benefits of having a relationship, and two, the benefits of being single, or at least being perceived as being single.
The author goes on to indicate that she knew many female content creators who, when they did start posting about their relationships, lost a lot of followers. I believe that to be true. She seems to think that most of the followers that were lost were women, such as herself, who thought that behavior was cringe. Uh-uh. I guarantee the vast majority of the followers that were lost were men who entered into a parasocial relationship with that female content creator and didn't like to see her hanging off some other guy. Just like most men don't watch pornography hoping that the director will focus more on the male experience, you know. So, they want to focus on that woman. And the woman, let's be honest, gets a lot of real-world benefits for the attraction and validation that come from seeming unattached. So, she can kind of like be a chameleon. She can, when it's necessary, show off her relationship and get her parents off her back, or get some pesky men to leave her alone. "Hey, I have a boyfriend." And she can also be the star of her show, which is, "I am center stage. I'm the protagonist. And it's not about a man. It's about this right here." So, it's about being selective and having optionality, which is a form of power.
Yeah. And I, I think that the article went so viral that she wrote a follow-up article commenting on why it went viral and and she...
Oh, I haven't read that one.
So she's, I think what she was suggesting was that the reason it went viral and all the pushback she was getting was almost a commentary on heterosexual relationships in itself, in that she was experiencing, uh, pushback from men who saw the article, the original article, as an attack on traditional relationship dynamics and the sort of power dynamics.
It was. I mean, that's another thing I talk about in my episode is that she goes too far. It. What starts as a short piece about, "Is posting your boyfriend on social media cringeworthy?" ends up with an attack on heterosexuality as a sexual orientation. And the idea here, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, is that it's kind of 2019 to be straight. You know, it's passé. If you're so... that there has to be some sort of sexual queering going on for women to say that I'm kind of over this patriarchal, historically oppressive institution of heterosexuality. And she basically ends the piece with an attack on heterosexuality, which she claims has never benefited women anyway, which is such a laughable idea that it doesn't even bear a rebuttal. The idea that women have never benefited from their sexual relationships with men is insane. But that's, I think, the ideological agenda here is that we're not really talking about posting about boyfriends. It's that, why are you attracted to men? And is your attraction participating in the historical oppression of women? That's, if you read between the lines, what's going on in this article.
Mhm. I read a couple of different commentaries as well from people sort of siding with the original article and having this idea that treating a relationship with ambivalence creates the space for choice rather than a default expectation. Do you see any sort of merit in that?
Can you ask the question in a slightly different way?
Yeah. So I assume by by people were suggesting that by being sort of coy about it, by, um, uh, the relationship, I mean, so not by posting incessantly, like, or what they call "hard launching" a relationship, right? So by being coy about the relationship, by being ambivalent about it, it creates this space in which they feel that they have, uh, choice in how that relationship plays out, rather than feeling like they need to sort of conform to the default expectation that a relationship sort of would take if you followed the, um, traditional norms of a relationship that you see played out on social media.
Well, there were a couple of points that I could agree with her on the article, which is that some, she states that some women don't feel comfortable posting about their relationships because of envy.
I, I think that envy is a real thing, and envy is a malicious, destructive force. If you actually have something good in your life, you don't want to tell other people about it. That's what makes social media so ironic. The ones who are truly living well do not make that public. The way I think about it is, it's like your favorite little Italian restaurant. Maybe you have a place that you really love. It's kind of this hole in the wall. There's only three tables. The food is excellent. It's affordable. The chef comes out and greets all the customers like their family. You might want all the best for this establishment, but you're not going to [ __ ] tell anybody about it because that's going to ruin the experience. That restaurant is not going to get better when 100,000 people know about it. I guarantee it. The prices are going to go up. It's going to be impossible to get a reservation. There's going to be a line around the block. The little Italian restaurant that you knew and loved would be gone. So, attention does not make most good things better. Okay. So, envy is a real thing that people contend with. Also, I think people do need to be cautious about posting on social media. I've certainly posted girlfriends in the past and then I've had to delete those pictures, and it's like, uh, it's, it's rough to have to like go back and, is are we like erasing our past, or is this just sort of like curating and housekeeping a living, evolving space? It's, I, I can see it both ways. I think it's most likely the latter. Uh, a woman who still had pictures of her previous exes on her social media would certainly be sending a very strange message to any men that she might be dating in the present moment now and in the future. So, uh, yeah. And I, as a therapist, I've talked to many men and women over the years who have gotten into all kinds of arguments about social media posting. And it's not always the women who are hiding. Sometimes it's the men who are hiding. And but there's also a form, is it hiding or is it being discreet? And I think that there is some nuance that goes into this conversation. Um, I can certainly understand not wanting to post a relationship that isn't serious or that could attract a lot of negative attention.
What about the people listening now who, you know, may be thinking, "Well, I post about my partner all the time, and it's out of love. It's that I want to celebrate the relationship. I want to show it off." What would you say to those people who don't necessarily agree with the idea that by, you know, posting something that that might indicate that there there may be something underlying going on there?
Well, I mean, the same behavior can have many, many different interpretations and motivations, right? So, it's very difficult to just say that this behavior is good and virtuous, and this behavior is is bad and wrong. So, I think you have to examine why people do the things that they do. It's certainly the case that people can post all kinds of things on social media, including their relationships, just out of a sense of innocent joy and wanting to share that, um, that aspect of their lives with others. I think one of the big differentiations between whether this posting is, let's say, more performative versus more personal is, is the profile public-facing?
So, if a, if a woman, in this case, that's what we're talking about, has a private profile, and she's only followed by 100, 200 people that she actually knows in real life, her friends and family, co-workers, then this kind of posting feels very natural. It's like announcing to your friends and family that you've had a baby. Of course, they're going to want to know about that, and they're going to want to share in that experience. Um, going out of your way to inform a stranger that you've had a baby feels a little strange. Like, you wouldn't do that in real life. You wouldn't like go knock on your neighbor's door three streets down and say, "Hey, just so you know, here's a picture of my baby." And be like, "Who the [ __ ] are you?" So, it's like we would never do that in reality. But a public-facing profile does that. And now we have to understand, we have to think, well, it can't entirely be at that point from a pure innocent joy to share, because we would never do that.
Why would you even be talking to a stranger about your child? That seems irresponsible and potentially dangerous. You know what I'm saying? So, um, sometimes people do play with fire on social media, for sure. There's a quote I love, um, on social media from Daniel Kahneman, which is that, "The Instagram generation experiences the present as an anticipated memory." And when I think about that, I think in terms of relationships. Examples of when I see my friends online who've been, who've proposed to their girlfriends, right? It feels like the proposal was just curated and designed for the perfect Instagram post, as opposed to creating a special moment between two people. So, with that in mind, with that Kahneman quote in mind, how, how do you think that social media sort of changed the landscape of how we act in relationships as we sort of play them out on a digital stage, almost?
Yeah, it's a great quote. I think it's very perceptive and probably true.
Uh, I do think that there could be potentially a, a less, I don't even think that's very cynical, but we can certainly interpret that in a cynical, in a cynical way. Um, yes, I do think that the current generation is experiencing the present moment as an anticipated memory, which we could argue takes them out of the present moment and on some level alienates them from their current lived experience. Easy to make that argument. Another thing, another way of interpreting this though, is now people have a reason to live their lives. Like every moment of their lives. When people are making a recording, they want certain people to see it. Even before social media, it's like, I want my husband to see this, or I want my mother to see this. Like, we now have a reason to be engaging with this present moment besides just our own undirected emotional experience. It's goal-directed. It now feels like I have a purpose to engage with the everyday moments of my life, which I think could potentially give people more of a reason to be present, because now they're, they're seeing life through a goal-directed lens, which might shade and make certain aspects of that experience invisible or harder to see. But it also will bring other parts of that experience more clearly into focus. And when they record, they're thinking, "I am witnessing this for a reason." As opposed to, let's say, what's the existential experience is that I've been dropped here. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. I don't know what the meaning of my life is. And I'm just supposed to experience this incomprehensible panoply of, like, existence. Why? And on some level, social media answers that question of why: "So that other people can see it." It kind of kicks the can down the road. It's sort of like, "Why'd you get a PhD in medieval literature?" "So I could teach other people about the wonders of medieval literature," etc. Or, "Why'd you have a kid?" "I don't know. So they could have kids." Um, so a lot of what human meaning and purpose is based on is actually kind of this house of cards. Um, but this is one that's immediately accessible to the vast majority of human beings. It gives them a reason to kind of like get up in the morning, potentially. And they're seeing now everything almost through the lens of an observer. We could say that they're detached and alienated from their experience. But this is also something that meditative traditions have long, um, promulgated, which is, you know, to find the seat inside of yourself that you are not the content of your consciousness. You're not the clouds. You're the sky itself. You're the field. And you are the observer observing the experience, right? And maybe that's one way to navigate life is as the observer. And phones actually facilitate that happening.
Yeah. And I, I suppose as well, social media sort of changed the way in which we achieve the gratification of something. So like when many years ago, um, my friend and I, we, um, did the Everest Base Camp trek. And at the start of the trek, um, we all sort of went around the table and the Sherpa was saying, "You know, tell me why you're here, tell me why you're doing this." And someone, um, very tongue-in-cheek at the time, said, "I'm here for the Instagram picture." And very, as the trek went on, I started to believe them. And it very much was to see the stress they went through after we finished. And I felt on cloud nine, knowing that it was over. And then I watched this person just cycle through so many pictures and stress over which was the best shot. And the sort of sense of sort of relief and and gratification when he finally clicked post. It was almost like that was the point in which he got the gratification, not in doing the task, but actually posting about it. And I see the same. I run a lot of, uh, marathons, half marathons, and the sort of pride people take in the run actually comes when they're posting their race day pictures or their picture of their medal, as opposed to finishing the race in the first place.
Well, I don't think that's anything new. I don't think that social media has exacerbated that. Many people spend most of their lives doing things that they wish they *had* done. Not because, not that they want to do, they want to *have done* them. They want to have achieved those things. That could be going to grad school and getting a doctorate. That could be getting married or having children. That could be buying a house. It's like, I want to say that I've had this experience. I want to say that I've had this accomplishment. But most people, if you allowed them, would take shortcuts to get to that achievement because they don't actually enjoy the process of achieving those things. And the Instagram provides at least a little trophy. It's like saying, confirming that I actually have had, I have had this experience. I have done this thing. And that is nothing new. People have accumulated titles and experiences and all kinds of material possessions to put around them to make them a cipher for their own personality. "You want to know who I am? I'm the guy who went to Base Camp in Everest. I'm the guy who has 50,000 followers. I'm the guy who has a yacht in Miami." It's like, you interact with me through the things I put around myself. Ernest Becker talks about this in *The Denial of Death* very persuasively, is that a lot of people, against the existential issue, they don't know who they are. They don't know where they came from. They don't know what they're here to do. And so they cover themselves with all kinds of personality substitutes. Maybe it's that I'm a father. Maybe it's that I'm a CEO. Maybe it's that I'm a doctor. Maybe it's that I'm a podcaster with this type of following. Maybe it's that I'm 36, 24, 36, and I've won these swimsuit competitions. Maybe it's because I have the richest husband or the hottest wife. Maybe it's because I have the fastest car or the biggest house. It's like, I don't know who I am, but I've noticed that if I surround myself with these things, you treat me the way I'd prefer to be treated.
Okay. Mhm.
So these things, of course, only have power because of what they elicit in other people. If people, if everybody else didn't care about bikini models and fast cars and Instagram, then this would just be a strange and autistic corner of the world.
Staying on the theme of social media then, um, when I mentioned you were coming on the show, a lot of people hit us with questions regarding dating apps. Um, and so I think for many people, they assume that going on a dating app is going to make dating a much easier process, but you've suggested quite the opposite. And I've heard you describe it as a sort of a, a big fish in a small pond, and that there are no small ponds anymore with the world of dating apps and social media.
Well, certainly because the biggest and best dating app in the world is not a dating app at all. It's Instagram. And other forms of social media. But among the various social media platforms, Instagram is probably the best one for that reason. And the entire world is on Instagram. It's not like, you know, different, there are competitions for dating apps and different dating apps are more popular in certain markets. Instagram is popular everywhere. Maybe not in mainland China, maybe it's forbidden there, but anywhere outside of that has Instagram, right? So, we now know that most of marriages today, the couple met on a dating app, like over 50%. And I think 10 years ago, it was like 15%. So, that's an enormous increase over a decade. But we also know that over that same time period, fewer people than ever have gotten married. Fewer people are entering into even casual sexual relationships. So, the number of total transacted relationships have plummeted as the proportion of those relationships have been transacted through technologies like dating apps. Like, those are just facts. They're irrefutable. And there's a number of reasons for that, but here are some of them. One of them is that dating apps create the illusion of infinite optionality, coupled with the illusion of having no intersexual competition. So, think about it. If I am a man on a dating app, I don't see any other men. It's just me and an infinite supply of women. So, like, it's a buyer's market. Let's put it that way. This is like the attitude of an employer in globalism. It's a race to the bottom. You don't want to work for $15 an hour? Well, I know I can find somebody else who would be happy to do it for 15. And so we see that, um, a lot, once, once NAFTA and globalism started to happen in the '90s, we lost a lot of American industries. We had some other ones in the technology and do spaces, um, because that's what we're good at. We're good at innovation. But, uh, like, no one was going to pay a unionized worker, American worker with a pension, when you can get an immigrant to do it for a fraction of the cost with no benefits. It's just like, it's a really tough sell for the employer, right? By the same token, a woman sees no intersexual competition either. It's just her and a bevy of men. So, from her perspective, it's a seller's market. She's the only rodeo in town. So, they have to deal with me. And so, she feels comfortable asking for the [ __ ] moon because she's also getting all kinds of messages and DMs and offers from men. A lot of women don't understand that a man's recruitment budget isn't the same as his maintenance budget. Men will do all kinds of things to secure access that they won't continue to do after that. And then when it works and the man gets access to the woman sexually, but then refuses to give her the commitment or the relationship that she desires or expects, she then says that he's a narcissist and that he love-bombed her, etc., etc. It's like, "Well, sweetie, he did it because it worked. It worked on you." So, like, maybe if things are too good to be true, they are. But it's difficult for, that's a, that's a hard selling point for a lot of women. Anyway, so that's that's one problem is that there's this huge asymmetry, uh, between perceived number of buyers and perceived number of sellers. There's also this infinite supply, which suggests logically that there is always a better option. There's always a prettier girl who's willing to do more for less. There's always a richer, taller dude who's ready to buy her flowers. Somewhere out there in the mass pool of humanity. That is correct. The question is, how likely are you to find that person and on what timeline? Because we're, we're operating within limited windows, certainly with respect to time and energy. So, would you spend the next five years trying to find someone who was 2% better than what you found? Probably not. You know what I'm saying? But people don't think about that in a rational way.
And and and with dating apps, I viewed you describe describe them as tools. Yes. But saying that you need to adopt and and adapt your strategy, meaning that if you use them casually, it likely won't end well. So, so what do you mean by a strategy when it comes to a dating app? and and how may low effort backfire?
Well, strategies are going to be very different on dating apps depending on whether you're a man or a woman. So, I can't say universally this is what people should do on a dating app because it's so asymmetrical between the male and female experiences on them. One thing that we know from women's behavior, so actual perceived attraction, not not what they say with their mouths or what they report on surveys, their revealed attraction, the revealed behavior is that women basically find 85% of men unattractive. This is data that comes from hundreds of thousands of data points from, uh, Tinder and the OKCupid laboratories, which are again limited by the fact that dating apps are not the real world, granted, but most real-world relationships are now transacted on dating apps. So, this is very important information. Men tend to have more or less an objective sense of female attractiveness in the sense that men rate a whole bunch of women along a functionally a normalized curve. That there's some real bad smoke shows out there. There's some real hideous ladies, but most women are kind of like average, which is probably close to the truth. It's just like height. It's just like intelligence. It's just like anything else that has a strong genetic or physiological component to it. It tends to be normally distributed. Women's perception of male attractiveness doesn't look like a normalized curve at all. It's, it's like this. And where, like, the vast majority of men are just like zeros. They're just like, "Never, not with a 10-foot pole." And then there's like a tail that stretches out as the man gets more and more attractive. But whereas a man would think, you know, "I'm not the most attractive guy in the world. I'm probably like a six, you know, but this girl's probably, this girl, I think, is a six. So, she should be kind of happy. Maybe she's even a 5.5. She should be grateful that she's getting with me, a six." Nuh-uh. That's not how women think. Women also really find that kind of rating system typically uncomfortable. Um, they find it objectifying, but I think that's, they find other ways of doing the same to men that are a little bit more indirect. Like when their girlfriends say, "You could do better," they're basically saying that this man isn't good enough. They're, they're just not assigning a value. They're talking about it in terms of quantity, an abstract quantity as opposed to a numeric value. So, it's like tomato, tomato, in my opinion. [snorts] Um, so women do this too. Um, and they make decisions based on who they date and who they spend their time based on who is good enough. And their criteria is, of course, going to be unique to the individual woman. But there's going to be, let's say, general differences between the sexes. Men are going to value certain things more and less than women are, right? So, most women find most men to just be, uh-uh, no. So, I think according to Scott Galloway, I don't know where he's getting his data, but it sounds right to me, that the average guy has to swipe like 200 times to get five matches. And he has to get five matches to get one date. And he's probably ghosted an hour before, you know. And that's the male experience on a dating app. So, with, if we just accept that as true, then the only way that you can get anywhere on a dating app as a man is to take massive action. If you have a success rate of maybe half a percent, one in 200 to use Scott's numbers, you're basically a telemarketer. That's probably the same kind of number that you get from just picking up the phone and cold calling people who don't want to talk to you to try to sell them something. Can you imagine being a successful telemarketer if you made like three phone calls? You just, you would be broke. You would not have a job. This would not be the job for you. Unfortunately, this is what the job calls for. If you want to be a telemarketer, you have to pick up that phone. And you have to pick up that phone hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. And you have to get used to people hanging up. You have to get used to people being upset with you because you called them at dinner, etc., etc. That's just the nature of that job. And if you don't like it, find another job. If you don't like to do it this way, then don't use dating apps. But you can't expect to use dating apps in a different way and see success, just like you can't expect to make two phone calls and be a successful telemarketer. So, you have to take massive action as a guy. And fortunately, this is a technology that allows for massive action. Like, if you're in a major city center, you can functionally swipe forever and not run out of women.
So the main thing that men should do is they need to swipe more. [snorts] And that typically means that they have to make less of an effort early on. This could mean making like canned responses in the initial back and forth of a text exchange with a match. Women hate that. They want to be like treated like this is a, they're a special Disney princess. Fun fact about Disney princesses. So, I think there's like 11 or 12 official ones, like Ariel and Jasmine, etc. And they're huge for Disney marketing. I mean, they make millions and millions of dollars in merchandising every year. Whenever they're depicted though, in a as a group, they're never looking at each other. Did you know that?
No, I didn't know that. Why is that?
Well, if they were looking at each other, then they would be in each other's world. And then who's the princess of that shared world? Every Disney princess is the princess of her world. The other princesses don't exist. She's alone amidst them. And we have to maintain that, or else who's going to be the queen among the princesses? You know what I'm saying? And it's like, "Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty." So that's kind of what women want is they want to believe that they are the only Disney princess that exists in the world, and they want a man to make that kind of creative, unique effort, which if a woman had to do that, she would abandon within a day at these rates of success. Like, the guy is just going to get burnt out because making that kind of unique, creative effort won't significantly change his success rate. Women will think that it does. It's not. What's going to change his success rate is if he grew six inches. This way, you know, maybe in other ways too, but like, um, that would change. And if he got more, uh, better pictures. Like, that's the other thing that men really can do very easily. One thing that can be instructive for guys who use dating apps is to actually make a, make a burner account and say that you're a woman looking for men. And so you can see what your intersexual competition is. See how other men are presenting themselves to women. And if you're swiping through, you'll probably be like, "Oh, I bet this guy gets a lot of matches." I bet you're right. Cuz he's got a [ __ ] six-pack and he's 6'3", and it's like, yeah, that guy is cleaning up on Hinge. I guarantee it. He's probably not going to get married anytime soon because he's just swimming in female optionality. But like, 80% of guys are there like wearing t-shirts that don't fit them, holding a fish that they just caught. So, it's like, that's not going to be attractive. The easiest things that you can do is get better pictures. What does that mean? They need to be taken on a professional camera, like an SLR camera with professional grade lighting. [ __ ] hire a professional if you need to. Like, one of the easiest ways that you can do this is to go on Airbnb Experiences. Do you know about Airbnb Experiences, Louis?
So, everyone knows Airbnb for the short-term housing rentals, but there's a tab on the site. There's rentals and there's also experiences. And they launched this a few years ago, but I don't think it's taken off nearly as much as the rentals. And this was a way when people are traveling, they don't want to just go to all the tourist trap locations. And so there are locals in the area who are advertising experiences and excursions. Maybe it's like, "Learn to cook Thai food with a real Thai chef in Bangkok," or "I'm going to take you on a real locals pub tour of Dublin," or something like that. Pretty cool. About half of these experiences are photographic experiences because people travel for the Instagram photos. So, these are professional photographers. They will take you to really beautiful places at the right time of day with their professional cameras. They'll bring diffusers. Sometimes they even bring you outfits that you can try on. They'll pose you. They'll choose the best three pictures. And it costs like a hundred bucks.
Worth it.
Totally worth it. Because you need six good pictures on Hinge, right? And, uh, so that's $600. If, if you're not willing to invest $600 in increasing your odds of attracting women, then this isn't that big of a problem for you.
And so I don't have a lot of sympathy for your lack of success.
Yeah. So there's really two, two components then to that massive action: is the, the level of output, the level of swiping, and the way you're selling yourself. Now, I had a, a friend in university who was the king of persistence with dating apps. I mean, if Tinder issued gold cards, he probably would have had one. His tactic was just to swipe right on everyone, and he said, "And I'll just deal with the matches later."
I think that was a strategy back in the day. I don't think that that's a good idea in today's day and age because developers have figured that out, right? And so there's actually a very complicated, I, again, I'm not privy to this, this is all very proprietary. But I've, for example, had discussions with Logan Ure, she's the author of *How Not to Die Alone*. She's the head relationship scientist at Hinge. Yeah. Very smart, very interesting woman. And, uh, some things that I've gleaned from just careful observation is if you swipe yes on everyone, you are going to seem less attractive in the eyes of that dating algorithm.
Okay?
So, it's like artificial intelligence. The algorithm doesn't know how attractive you are. It figures out how attractive you are based on how attractive the other people are that match with you. Okay? And that, and how attractive are the ones that you, uh, swipe on. So, if you're swiping on everything, you're basically saying, "I'll take a one." Like, all because I'm a zero, basically. Like, as long as she's breathing, she's got a pulse and two legs, as the old saying goes. I'm okay with that. Like, that means that you must be one of the most unattractive men on the planet, according to the algorithm. Um, and I doubt that most women are going to get, are going to be responding to that. And the most attractive ones aren't. Um, and once the algorithm pegs you at a certain level of attraction, it's very hard to change that. At that point, if you, if you feel like you've made some mistakes training the algorithm on your profile as a man, it might be a better idea to just abandon that profile and open up a new one with new pictures and start over. You also get hit with the most attractive options when you open up a new account. And this is part of, um, trying to get you hooked on the product.
Yeah, that makes sense. So I suppose then the balance would be having the output of swiping, but meeting that with a real selection criterion, being selective within that volume of swiping then.
Yes. So it's like, it is important to take massive action, but you do, I mean, my criteria that I suggest to men is like, if you want to really spin this up, you have to make a commitment to swipe on at least 500 profiles a day, at least. Oh, and that could be a huge pain if you're going through all the whole profile and reading the responses and thinking it's like, you can't do that. So, if you are going to take massive action, you need a system in place that supports that massive action. So, you do want to have various layers of filter. And at this first stage of swiping, one thing that I suggest to men is that the filter is, you're just going to look at the first picture. That's it. You're not going to scroll up. You're not all the pictures because you have to get through 500 in this, in this session. And [snorts] if you're doing that one a second, it's already going to take, what, like 10 minutes, eight or nine minutes, right? And that's if you just take one second and you're just doing it like a machine, which is very, very difficult to do. But we do want to just look at this one picture, and you're going to make a snap decision. And the decision is, would I ever see myself putting my mouth on this woman or not? That's it. And that might sound, "Well, why is that all that matters?" It's like, 'cause we're, they're looking for a sexual relationship. And if there's, if I don't even think I could kiss this person, it's a non-starter. Even if this person is the most kind and intelligent and funny person in the world, we can be friends, but we're not going to be sexual partners. Okay? So, I think this is actually being an adult about what we're here to do, which is, I'm exploring entering into a sexual relationship with another consenting adult. So, obviously, this should be the primary criteria. Otherwise, get colleagues, get friends, go to church, get a dog. It's like, there's lots of other ways to get those needs met. So, I think this is a fairly low threshold, but it will eliminate a lot of women, and that's good. That's good for a number of reasons. So, I think that I, optimally, a man should be swiping on around 15%. So, again, uh, if he swipes on 500 profiles, but he swipes yes on 15%, 15, 30, 45, 60, that's 75 yeses a day. If he's, if he takes care of his profile, gets those pictures, etc., etc., then out of those 75, he might get 15 matches. That's stretching it.
Of those 15 matches, half of them won't respond to an initial text, which is why you don't want to be creative anyway. So maybe you get five who respond. Now, we also know from the research that the most common reason why a woman is on a dating app is because of boredom. The most common, like between 40 and 50%. So, almost half of women are on dating apps with no real intention of ever dating the men on the app. They're using it because maybe they're on the toilet, they want something to do to pass the time. They want to hit a validation, to be able to look at all of the men in my area who want to meet me and take me out for drinks, which potentially allows them to feel more powerful within they could even be in a relationship at the same time. Who knows? So, there's lots of reasons. Uh, so even the ones who are going to respond to you, actually, half the time don't have any intention of meeting up with you. So, now we're seven will respond, and maybe, you know, you'll get one date out of it who actually shows up. And that's when you start to begin to treat her like an individual. Mhm.
I know that sounds weird to say, but until then, men kind of have to believe that they're pixels on a screen. If he were to care emotionally about every profile that he sees, or every woman that he matches with, or every woman that he texts with, the man is going to be so jaded and resentful and burnt out by online dating in like a week. And he's going to say, "Fuck this." And then that's not good for the women out there because there are women who are using these technologies in good faith and do want to meet good men to have relationships with. And if the good men are getting burnt out just because of the sheer numbers and the way the technology more or less forces them to behave, that's not going to be good for anybody. So, you, you kind of have to treat them as pictures on the screen until you actually meet them in real life.
If we were to say, um, sort of fast forward then, so this, this say that there's someone's had success on this day, now they're in a relationship. Now, as we move to this next topic, because I know a couple of our audience really wanted this me to speak to you about this topic, um, I want to get there now before we wrap up, but it's on the idea of of giving your partner more of what they want or need. And I guess the question is, is how do you sort of know even know what that is without being too explicit about it?
It's difficult. It's difficult to do, which is part of the reason why apparently it's very hard to stay together in the long term. There's many things that go into that. But to what you're getting at, it's this is sort of like this often falls along gendered lines between men and women. Think about this, um, this very stereotypical argument of like, "Where do you want to have, where do you want to go to eat for dinner tonight?" And the man asks the woman, "Where do you want to go to dinner?" She's like, "Well, I don't know. You decide." The guy's like, "Just tell me what you want so I can give you what you want and then you can be happy because you've gotten what you want." That's a very masculine way of thinking about it. And it does make a kind of sense. However, asking for what you want and being provided with it is not nearly as satisfying as
someone who gives you what you want without asking for it. It's like the difference between someone just going down your Christmas wish list and writing a check versus knowing you so well that they can put the effort and the thought into choosing the perfect gift for you because I know you so well and I've anticipated your needs. That's next level love and service. So, the women are right there. It's that it's very difficult to do that. It takes time. It takes energy. Some guys just aren't that perceptive. Um, it's not so much that guys typically don't want to do it. They're just like, "Tell me what to do." And the and the woman's like, "Well, I can't tell you because that would if I told you I couldn't then get what I wanted, which is that you would show me that you know me so well that you can give me what I wanted without asking." It's like that song, I want you to want me.
>> Yeah. If you're just wanting me because I want it, that's not as satisfying as if you're wanting me because you want to do it. So that's why she'll say, "Wherever you want to go," hoping of course that where he wants to go is where she wants to go.
>> Yeah, [snorts] >> that would be the most satisfying outcome from the woman's perspective. So, um, that's one of the reasons why it can be difficult to navigate long-term relationships. On some level it should be easier because you now have access to that person intimately. So you now appar you should at that point know them very well so that you can know ah she's not going to like this movie she would really like this one and I think she liked these experiences and you can begin to custom tailor your uh your offerings to your partner with your privileged knowledge of of that person. So that's one benefit.
The one issue, however, in long-term relationships that people's wants and needs change. What you want and need today is probably not what you wanted and needed 10 years ago. And sometimes people can get into routines or ruts or just cognitive habits with respect to I already know you. Like the first couple years of the relationship was very exciting. It was the honeymoon period. I was trying to figure out your childhood, where you went to school, your hopes, your dreams. Okay, I now know you. I've got you figured out. And so, I haven't really checked in with you for years potentially. And we've been coasting on this relationship that worked and was developed from people that we no longer are. And so every seven or eight years, you functionally become a different version of yourself. And what's really frustrating is that not only do you not know who your partner will be seven or eight years from now, you don't know who you will be seven or eight years from now. And you don't always know how you've changed. You just know that you have changed. You're different than how you used to be. But it's not like you get a memo that gets sent to your conscious mind that's downloaded in your sleep that lists out in bullet points all the ways that you're different, all the things that you no longer like, all the the new acquired tastes that you're interested in going to. You kind of have to figure that out through exploration, experimentation, and paying attention to your emotions, which is a lot of [ __ ] work. Like on some level, people would just sort of like you're here, this is what the relationship is. We're here to do our jobs and everything functions as long as everything stays the same. because right now things are working. Um, but that's not possible. Human beings are organic evolving machines and that's probably for the best, right? And so what can happen is people can outgrow the relationship structures that they developed when they first met. Sometimes they break apart because they've grown too different. They they just want two different things. And they might still love and care for each other, which case the separation is bittersweet. But it's in recognition that hopefully in gratitude for what the the times they've had and what they've been able to share and they can move on to the next chapter of their lives. Or most commonly uh one or both people repress, suppress, deny those changes in themselves. Maybe they they try to fit themselves in the crustian bed of the relationship they developed and they do that often. The men, they work a lot. The women get really involved in the kids. That's a form of triangulation against the primary partnership. Or they get really involved in smoking meets or Pilates or alcohol or drugs or watching Netflix. And there's there's many different ways that human beings can avoid confronting reality. Some of them are more constructive than others, but ultimately their function is to avoid. Because if you were to confront how you've changed and how the relationship no longer potentially serves those new individuals, you might have to face some emotionally difficult realities. You might have to make an effort to adjust things. It might feel uncomfortable. You might not have the bandwidth for that. There's 2-year-old kid, you know, there's a stressful time at work. Now is not the time to really be adjusting this relationship. But that's what that's what we're required. Just like we have to buy new clothes, we are we have to continue to readjust our relationships. And frankly, sometimes it is better to go get a new relationship. Like the idea that all relationships are so sacred in that that no matter how different people become and no matter how divergent their values or their goals, they should make the effort. I don't think that that's true. M now that said I don't think that you should throw away a valued relationship the at the first minor inconvenience that you experience but like let's be let's be nuanced there's a lot of ground between those two extremes.
>> Yeah. And I suppose lastly, I've viewed you take this um ideas, you know, to the example of as long as as someone was having their their needs and wants met that you could imagine a scenario in where uh a couple who didn't even speak the same language could have a quite content relationship. Uh they can and they have I mean this has been a necessity throughout human evolution. Most of the time that we have lived as a species has been in small tribes of 100 to 200 people max Dumbar's number right now. If we never reproduced outside of that tribe there would be a number eventually it would get too inbred and there all kinds of genetic issues would result. Now back in the day for no one had a real knowledge of genes or how this worked. They just knew that it was taboo or unlucky or bad spirits, you know, that this was the folk interpretation. If it was functionally uh an observation about genetic reality, which is actually very it's very astute. And so what would they have to do? Well, the vast majority sometimes they would peaceibly trade, but often there would be wife raiding parties. Like throughout most of human history, wars were fought not for the acquisition of land or territory, for the acquisition of women. This is talked about in the evolution of desire among other places, is that we're going to take a bunch of guys, we're going to go into another tribe, and we're going to take back the best looking women so that we can refresh our gene pool, basically so that we can survive as a tribe. And those women might not speak the same language. They might not understand the cultures. And trust me, in 2025, if you're at a nightclub in Aitha, you don't have to speak the same language either. Like attraction doesn't use verbal cues. It can, but it certainly doesn't primarily, and it doesn't have to. Now the other the thing about this is like well sometimes people say that that's very objectifying or wrong but it's like can people have satisfying relationships with with children with babies?
>> Yes.
>> Because an attuned parent will start to read the child's emotions and the parent also knows there's only a few things the kid needs. Is it wet? Is it hungry? Is it need to be burped? Is it tired? It's like there's not an infinite number of needs that a child has and by attending to the emotional cues you can satisfy those needs and the baby is happy. In fact, you have to be able to do that or the baby doesn't survive, right? There's so there's only so many things that you need in a sexual relationship. There's I mean a girlfriend it's like is she hungry? Does she need to eat? Is she horny? Does she want to have sex? Is she like does she need to cuddle? Does she just need like physical touch? Does she need to like yap about her day? Does she It's like there's not there's not an infinite number of things.
>> And once you kind of get the hang of that, you don't actually need words to be able to satisfy the needs of your girlfriend or your wife. And in fact, that's how war brides have happened. Whether it's from tribes 100,000 years ago or it's gis that stayed over in Vietnam, is it's like women kind of learn what men need and want. And an American man isn't all that different in their sexual needs from a Vietnamese man or their relational needs. And men more or less know what what women want. And you don't have to talk. In fact, as I say, talking is overrated. Talking is not the same as communication. You need communication in a relationship, but you don't necessarily need to talk. And this is what's really important for women to understand. Women talk a [ __ ] ton more than men do. The average woman talks 6,000 words per day. The average man talks 2,000. So, the average woman talks three times as much as a man. Women are overwhelming men with words. There's just too many words. Too many words. And this is a problem because ultimately women are treating their husbands and boyfriends like their girlfriends. You don't you want you don't want your husband and your boyfriend to be a girlfriend. If you need someone to talk and yap to, go to your girlfriends. By the same token, men should not treat their wives like they're drinking buddies.
>> You know what I'm saying?
>> Yeah.
>> You have guy friends for that. So, it's like men and women have to understand that you have to choose the right tool for the job on some level. And men are good at certain things and not others. And women are good at certain things and not others. And if you choose the right tool for the job, then you're not going to try to fit the square peg in the round hole, if I'm not mixing my metaphors too much.
>> Amazing. Well, Orion, this this this hour has flown by. Um, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for for bringing your insight to our audience today. I really appreciate it. for everyone who's listening, watching right now who's not already familiar with your work. Where's the the best place we can send them to connect with you on social media? And I know you have a new book coming out pretty soon, right?
>> Sure. Yeah, Louis, this was great, man. You had really good questions, some of which I'd never been asked before in an interview, so I really appreciate you taking the effort to uh do your research and to to make this an interesting and enjoyable experience for both of us. I I had a great time. Appreciate it. Uh, the best place for people to learn more about me is probably on my YouTube channel, Orion Teraban, formerly known as Psychax. You can also search for Psychax if that will come up. And everything sort of spins from YouTube. So, in the description of every episode, there's links to my website where people can book consultations. There's links to my private member community where I host bimonthly group calls. There's links to my book, my newsletter, and yes, my new book, my first novel, Star Night, is coming out very soon. I'm very excited about it. I think it turned out quite well. It's about the final days of painter Vincent Van Gogh and the circumstances that led up to his suicide. And I think it's a pretty interesting and powerful little novella.
>> Amazing. Yeah, I was reading the description actually before we came on. I thought it does sound so so interesting. I'll be checking one out for sure. I will make sure for everyone listening watching all those links you mentioned there the YouTube um I'll make sure all that's linked below. So just click down on the description and you'll go straight to Orion's channel. But um yeah once again Orion thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure and I hope we get to do this again someday in the not too distant future.
>> Sounds good man. Anytime. I fun.