Transcription
I just found out that my boyfriend made a pros and cons list of dating me. And the cons were I had a traumatic childhood and I don't have a family because he wanted me to have a sister or mother that could help take care of our children one day.
I mean, that would be better, right? Like, I get it. It sounds bad because she didn't choose her family. And so, that makes him a jerk because he can't judge somebody based on something outside of her control. But then also as women, it's completely fine to judge men based on his jawline, his height, his boldness, his dick size, his IQ. I mean, these are also things that he can't control. But I guess that's not her being judgmental. That's empowering. That's her having standards.
I think it would be interesting if instead of just saying what happened with a sort of smug smile, as though it's self-evident why what he did was wrong, it would be interesting if she actually explained in detail what was inappropriate about what he did. You'd probably get the oh, it's just outrageous. Like, I can't even begin. Like, don't even get me started. I think it would be interesting to be like, no, I'd like you to get started. like please explain, articulate for me specifically what he did wrong. In fact, be very detailed. I want to hear the moral value system that you're operating under that says that what he did was unethical because I guarantee whatever infraction she imagines that he has committed here, the overwhelming majority of women, including likely herself, commit that same infraction every single day.
Why don't we all just be grown-ups about this and just admit that love is not blind? Healthy love has both eyes wide open. Love is highly discerning. Healthy relationships are always transactional and relationships only work if both people are getting a good deal. If they're both benefiting. Nobody dates another person as an act of charity. You only commit to somebody if it benefits you selfishly. The choice of who to partner with may be the most intrinsically selfish choice that you're going to make in your life. And that's okay. Of course, you should be acting out of self-interest. You don't owe anything to somebody else. You have to make the decision that's right for you. And that's the nuance in that I can understand at an emotional level why she feels triggered, why she feels judged. But the painful truth is that she's taking something personally that isn't. It's quite clear in the explanation that he gave that his caution in this regard is not a judgment about her. It's a personal aspiration for himself for his own life. From the woman's perspective, it feels as though he is judging her. But in reality, what he's doing is judging whether or not this relationship is right for him. And that's okay. Everybody's doing that. And you should not let anybody shame you into dropping your standards and accepting things in a partner that you don't want.
What's one thing y'all like to guys about?
Uh my body count.
Um
body count.
Yeah, I guess body count. Yeah.
Is your body count high?
No.
[laughter]
Yeah, I lie about my body count. Is your body count high? No. So good.
I've seen this question in my comment section before, but Alexander, why should I even date? Why should I be with a woman at all? Why should I make a commitment? Why should I get married? Well, the answer is you shouldn't. No one's forcing you to do anything. If you want to get married, do it. If you don't want to, don't. There's no preset rule that you're under any obligation to follow. Like maybe you had really traditional religious parents and they've pressured you for the longest time that you should get married. Or maybe on the opposite side of the coin, you're one of those men who's gone their own way and as a kind of protest, you've decided that you're never going to commit to a woman. But I would strongly advise against taking an absolute stance in either direction. Every choice, every condition should be conditional. And the condition is pretty simple. The rule is stay single and only commit to a woman if she is contributing a net positive to your life. If she makes your life worse, break up with her. if she makes it better, stay in the relationship. It kind of is that simple.
I think that too many men, they kind of follow the script that's been played out for them that says, "You absolutely have to get married." And so, they have that as a kind of obligation that they have internalized. And they plow towards commitment even though they don't really want to or the relationship doesn't make them happy because of this vague sense that this is what they should be doing. But you should question that. Marrying a woman who makes you miserable makes zero sense. You should only commit to her if she's going to improve your life. But that can be a difficult thing to determine. So the question becomes, well, what signs do you look for that tell you whether or not she's going to be a positive or negative influence on your life? I think that this is going to be my nerdiest video yet because I want to break this all down like a maths equation. I'm going to assign a percentage waiting to all of the positive things that a woman can bring to your life. And then I'm going to subtract all of the negative things and then do all of the calculations and find out if it's over 50%.
This video was actually inspired by a project that's been in the works for a long time now. A while back, I was brought in as a consultant in the developing of an app that gives you a full audit of the state of your relationship. And I'm excited because it's finally launched. This product is perfect for every man who would benefit from a clear diagnosis of how healthy his relationship is. It uses a combination of questionnaires, AI conversations, and other diagnostic tools to paint a map of your relationship right down to the specific areas of tension and conflict and the unique way that they manifest. From there, it creates tailored exercises for you to do to increase your awareness, to set boundaries, and develop other relationship and communication skills. It also provides printable diagnostic reports and conversation guides to bring to your wife or partner. These are so useful. They provide a road map and a guide to help you both through your issues into a healthier dynamic. It's been a long road and a lot of work to get here, but I'm so proud of the product. For any men who have tension in their relationship and they're not sure what's causing it or how to improve things, this is specifically designed for you. And as one of the creators of the app, I'm in a good position to make sure that my audience gets a good deal. So, if you use the code Alexander 20, you'll get 20% off at checkout. You can access it now by clicking the link in the description box below.
Okay, let's return to the video and see if the equation is balanced and the maths works out. I have a list of nine things that I want from a partner, and I'm going to assign each of them a percentage waiting based on my personal preferences. You're not going to agree with my hierarchy or my waiting, but that's the point. It's about each individual man. If you do this exercise, you'll need to create your own categories and weight them according to your preferences.
Now, for me, in my value system, there are two things that are non-negotiable. The first is children. If she doesn't want kids, then the rest doesn't matter. So, I'm putting that in a special category, and I'm giving it a weight of 20%. Because it's extremely important that she's a good mother. The other non-negotiable is sex. She could be a lovely person, a great woman, but if we don't have a sexual relationship, we're just like good friends, then that's a non-starter. But I'm only going to give that a percentage waiting of 10% because while it's absolutely essential, like it's non-negotiable that a sex life exists. The quality of that sex life is not personally as important to me as some of the other stuff on this list.
For example, femininity is very important to me. I'm a man. Sometimes I want a holiday from masculinity. I want to see the world through her feminine eyes. I want her feminine energy to inspire me. That's really important. I want that feminine presence, that feminine comfort. And so, I gave that a waiting of 15%. I also gave 15% to her practical contribution. If we have two brains and two sets of hands, both working towards a common goal, a happy home, happy family, happy life, then everything's just going to be so much easier. And that's what I want for me. Having a competent and ambitious teammate is really important. And I also gave 15% to nervous system regulation. I want my partner's energy to be calming. I want her to feel like home, like in her presence is a place that I can rest and relax. If I'm ever stressed or anxious, I want to be able to seek refuge in her company just to reenter myself and get my nervous system regulated again.
These, to me, are the big ones. There are a few other ones, but they're less essential. I gave intellectual stimulation 10%, because while I can rely on friends and books and media to satiate my intellectual curiosity, it is so nice just on a day-to-day level to have a partner who's smart and who can keep up with you mentally. Emotional intelligence is also important to me. But while I think that some men might rely a lot on their partner to kind of ground them in the emotional side of life, for me, I'm pretty sensitive. I'm pretty self-aware when it comes to my own emotions. And so, I'm not going to rely on my partner so much. I'm pretty sure I can rely on myself mostly. So, I just gave that 5%. Companionship I also put quite low, just 5%. Because while companionship is nice, I think mostly it's just important for me to have my partner there during the really intense times like the big highs and the big lows. When it comes to just day-to-day stuff, I'm pretty content in my own company. I don't know if I want somebody with me all the time. So yeah, it's nice having a companion and it's on the list. It's just not one of the most important ones. But that's just me. Like just as a reminder, if you're doing this exercise, you will create your own categories and you will weight them according to your preferences. And lastly, I have support at 5%. Because while it's nice to have somebody in your corner, you know, your own like personal cheerleader, somebody who wants you to succeed, that's nice and it is helpful and I have that in my relationship and I like it. But also personally, I'm pretty self-reliant. I enjoy her support, but I'm not dependent upon it. So, I just put it at 5%.
And all of these together, they make up 100%. So if you had identical categories and waiting as me, if you meet a woman who maxes out in all of these areas, lock her down. Like, you're golden. You're good. Congratulations. You found one of the good ones. And in that instance, it's obviously rational to commit to her because she's going to make your life so much better. A good woman can really benefit your life.
What's wifey material to you?
Her. Everything that she is.
Oh,
that's really cute.
Do you think your wife material
for Luka? Yeah.
Do anything for him?
Yeah, I would do anything.
How long have you two been together?
Like a year and 2 months.
Do you guys want to split 50/50 or do you prefer to be a stay at home mom?
In terms of income, it's complicated cuz I want to be a surgeon. That makes a lot of money.
It's pretty much in the middle, I'd say. I know that like at a certain point I want to go to Harvard Law and like I'm going to have to support her and like help her for a little bit, but she's also going to be a neurosurgeon, so like that's going to help out a lot.
You're going to be the bread winner at first?
Yeah, at first and then later on
and then you might end up surpassing him.
Oh, like by a lot.
Yeah. No, big time. She's super smart.
When you do finally surpass him in income, do you think that would change the relationship at all or
money is like not at all a factor? And like
No, no, no.
What about some of the household stuff? Who does more chores?
I'm better at cooking. I would clean more, much more. I cannot cook for anything.
I feel 50/50.
I didn't grow up making food. I don't know. I cooked for myself, but I would eat anything. He's like a great chef. I'll do anything he wants and he can cook and it'll be even.
It seems like you guys have a really healthy relationship. I like that.
Very nice.
Thanks.
I love that clip. I mean, their ideal relationship, it probably looks different to how your relationship is going to look in like a perfect world, but no two relationships are going to be the same because nobody wants identical things. And yeah, like [laughter] it kind of sucks that she can't cook, but she said like I'll do everything else. It will be an equal contribution. And I also just loved the body language of this couple when they're speaking. Like his posture is so straight and then she's like leaning into him and just like gazing at him with like love and adoration. I think it's awesome. That's a really cool couple. And remember right now we're not measuring for perfection. We're measuring whether or not she goes over 50%. So let's say you've been dating a woman for a year and you don't know if you should make the big commitment to her. So you decide to do the maths. You score points and you see how she squares up. First of all, she wants kids and you have a sex life. So, the two essentials are covered. As a mother, she's enthusiastic and you're pretty confident she's going to do a good job, but it's not like her life calling. You know, maybe part of you wishes she was a bit more excited, but it's pretty good. So, you give her 15 out of 20. Again, just a reminder, this is a completely hypothetical woman, but I'm showing you how to score. And let's say you're mostly satisfied with your sex life, but she's in the mood less often than you are, and she doesn't share your exact kink, so just 7 out of 10. Intellectually, she's super smart. 10 out of 10. But this hypothetical woman you're dating, she's not that feminine, so she just gets 7 out of 15. The practical contribution is really high. She has a great income. She does a whole bunch of the household work. No complaints here. You're totally satisfied. 15 out of 15. But she's a stress head. She's really anxious and so in terms of nervous system regulation, she only scores five out of 15. Her companionship and support are both great, 5 out of five, but her emotional intelligence could be better. So just three out of five.
And so now let's see how she scores, how this imaginary woman that you've been dating stacks up. You combine all of the numbers together and she ends up scoring 72 out of 100. That's a pretty good partner. It's definitely higher than 50%. Now, some of you might be wondering why 50%, like surely anything better than zero is a positive. But remember, in a relationship, you also have duties and responsibilities to the other person, and that's going to drain you. There's going to be energy and effort that you need to expend to fulfill your role. And so, while 50% is a somewhat arbitrary number, you just score with that in mind. But the point is that you want to make sure that the effort that you're putting in is being met, is going to be reciprocated. And you can see at 72% she is making a pretty positive contribution. It seems like your life would be better committing to this hypothetical woman than it would be if you were single. And so that would seem to be the rational choice. Except that that is not the whole story. Because at this stage, we've only looked at the positives. We've not yet looked at the negatives. And trust me, women's capacity to negatively influence your life can be huge.
Do you know her?
I know you DON'T CARE ABOUT ME.
I FEEL EVERY [ __ ] NIGHT. WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT YOU?
SORRY ABOUT THAT.
I'M SO TIRED OF YOU. GOING TO [ __ ] HELL.
The look on that man's face just grimacing with pain. Guys, you know this. While a woman can improve your life, she can also make it hell. There's a reason why it's not just a pros list, it's a pros and cons list. Let's look at the four ways that a woman can make you miserable. You've got emotional volatility. If she's dealing with anxiety or depression or she's just really insecure and jealous, she has a lot of neediness or codependence, that's going to be really draining. You're interacting with this woman every single day. And if her emotions are unpredictable and she has very little control over them, or even worse, she's making her emotions your problem, then that's going to suck. You've got to take that into account. She could also have major character deficits, personality flaws. Maybe she's dishonest or she's mean-spirited or she refuses to take accountability. If her moral compass is not aligned with yours, then that's a major incompatibility. It's going to cause big issues. Or she could just have really poor relationship skills. Like she's okay as an individual, but the moment that she has to cooperate with somebody, she turns it into a power struggle and starts like fighting for leadership. Some women are just terrible at conflict resolution. They just don't know how to do it. If she's insulting or manipulative or disrespectful, that can absolutely ruin your inner peace. You're going to be with this woman every single day for the rest of your life. You need to take this seriously. And lastly, addictions and avoidance. Because even if these behaviors are not outright attacks on you, if she's hooked on narcotics or junk food or social media, or she just completely neglects her responsibilities, and she's messy and she's lazy, she has no financial discipline, that's going to take a big toll on you because it means that you're going to have to carry more of the burden in the relationship.
And so you see when we got to that 72% figure, we were not finished because while these are her positive contributions, we haven't yet subtracted the negatives. So let's say that there are no issues with addiction and avoidance. She's not hooked on anything. She pulls her own weight. There's no problem there. And there's also no real character deficit. You have the same values and morals. You trust her. She is an honest person. But let's say she is emotionally volatile. like she's constantly anxious and she just refuses to seek therapy. Her anxiety makes her irritable and she's quick to anger. And so in practical terms, what that means is that you end up walking on eggshells around her. You can never really relax. That's an issue. And so we've given that 15 points out of 25. And the issue compounds because when she's emotionally activated, her way of interacting with you is completely dysfunctional. She lashes out in anger. She blames you for everything that she's feeling. and she undermines every attempt that you have to deescalate. That's a problem. That's another 15 points. You can't ignore it. It's a major issue. It's really unpleasant. It's going to make your life a lot harder. So, when you've got 72 points of positives, but then you subtract 30 points of negatives, you see that this woman actually only comes in with a figure of 42%. She falls beneath the threshold and you should not commit to her.
Now, I hope that it's clear. I'm not saying never get married. I'm a pro relationship guy. I've been with Emily for 16 years. We have a daughter together. What I am saying is that it's worthwhile challenging the assumption that you might have in your mind that you must get married. Why must you? Why is that treated as an absolute? Why should you commit to anybody? Surely every decision that you make should be conditional. And it's worth thinking about, well, what are the conditions? You see, it's pretty simple. You only make that commitment if she is positively contributing something to your life. If she brings more pleasure than she brings pain. If she falls beneath 50%, then it would be foolish to marry her. But conversely, if she scores higher than 50%, then it's probably foolish to not commit to her.
Except for one important caveat, because it's not just enough that she reaches 50% and then you have some kind of moral obligation to yourself to commit to her. No. Because let's say you're dating a woman and she reaches 60%, and you think, "Okay, well, I guess I should marry her." But hold on, what if you had waited 3 months time, you get in some stupid fight, you temporarily break up. You assume that you're probably going to get back together with her at some point, but by some miracle, a new woman comes into your life, and she doesn't score 60%, she scores 90%. In that instance, thank God you didn't commit to the first girl. you would have completely blown your opportunity for a much happier life. It's not a single question of does she make me happier than she does make me miserable. The more interesting question is, does she make me happier than any other woman could potentially make me? If you settle for the bare minimum, then you've potentially blown it. If you just held out a bit longer and kept your standards high, you could have had a much happier life. But of course, there's always the danger of holding out too long. You keep turning down women who reach 70% or 80% because you think that there's a perfect 99% woman out there waiting for you only to find that you've waited too long. And suddenly you're thinking, "My god, I could have been so happy with that woman who scored 80% or even 70%, but they moved on. You know, they're married with some other guy now and I I can't seem to attract anybody. I left it too long."
I understand that this is kind of like unpleasant for, you know, the men in my audience who are kind of like romantic souls. You don't want to think about things in such a cold transactional, you know, assigning points kind of manner. And I can understand that. It might feel like it's a bit distasteful. But I did warn you that this was going to be one of my nerdiest videos. And the defense that I would offer is this is that a relationship with a woman can absolutely have moments of magic of just thoughtless, wordless bliss, love, happiness. It can have all of that. And that is what I would call almost a feminine experience. It's not logical. It doesn't need to be rationally defended. It's just a beautiful feeling of connection. Your life can be filled with that. But I promise you're going to have so many more of those moments and those experiences if it's contained within a very solid boundary of masculinity. And that masculinity is these calculations. It's being a nerd. It's doing the maths. It's writing the pros and cons list. It's making sure that on a rational and practical level, the relationship does make sense. Because if it makes sense, then it's going to be easy. You're not going to get blocked all the time. you're not going to be having fights and it's going to enable more of those spontaneous loving moments to arise organically.
Now, in case that section where I was talking about, you know, you're making a mistake if you settle down too soon, but you could also make a mistake if you don't settle down quickly enough. In case that's freaking you out, don't worry. That's what I'm going to spend the rest of the video talking about because there is a rational analytical approach that you can take to your own options and your own qualities as a man to figure out or when is the right time to cash out, when should I commit to the person that I'm seeing. A lot of men need this. They need guidance to know whether or not she's the one or if a better one is just around the corner. So, that's what I'm going to help with. So, if you're unsure whether or not you should commit to your current girlfriend because part of you thinks that there might be someone who is more compatible out there, but you're also scared to risk what you have to give that up, and you're going back and forth in your mind, then if that describes you, you're really going to benefit from watching the rest of this video. It's available on Patreon. That's where I post the full length versions of all of my videos. What you see here on YouTube, these are just the shortened abridged versions. If you would like access to the full length versions, then please come and join me on Patreon. And I'd like to remind you of the app that I helped create. An extremely useful tool to help you diagnose the health of your relationship.