Transcription
What we have right now is there's fewer and fewer men that are hypergamous mates for women. So if there's a much smaller pool of guys, then what you have is you have a bunch of women competing for the same men and then a bunch of guys get ignored.
But what I also see is that those top guys are having a hard time deciding. So I feel like in my coaching practice as a dating coach, I'm working with a lot of women who say, "What do I do? I've changed my profile the way you said I should. I took your class, but I still feel like there's just not enough great guys." And then I work with these CEO men who are having such a hard time choosing. And so I think we really have this exacerbated problem where so many women are competing for the same men and then a bunch of guys are getting ignored.
And then what ends up happening is where do those guys go? And they go online. That's what you see. They go to porn. They go to porn or they go to Reddit. I mean, I love Reddit, but they're really going to some of these red pill communities. And so what you're seeing now is just men really opting out of society. So when you go back to that stat, one in seven young men in the UK is neat, not an employment, education or training. They have just opted out. And as Scott says, there's nothing scarier than a single man, a young single man. And so we are just creating a lot of these angry young single men who are saying, well, this is rigged against me. And so that's why I am worried about the rise of people like Andrew Tate. And if we wonder where are the dads, where are the men? Well, men are finding these father figures, but they're finding them online. And they're not the father figures that I would choose for the majority of men. And so, I'm really worried about this because I feel like women are saying, "Guys, you need to step up because I can provide and I don't need that from you." And guys are not prepared to rise to the occasion.
What What are women looking for? He Scott talked about height. Yeah. So, I would say, you know, I work at Hinge, but I do think that apps have perpetuated this issue around height because if you can set your height filter to something, then you might set it higher. And then it's as if you have the dating app is a club and you're literally having bouncers that prevent a bunch of guys from even getting into the club. So, many women in the US set their height filters at six feet, but only 14% of men in the US are six feet or taller. So, what happens to the other 86% of men? And women are saying, "Where's my guy?" It's like, "Well, you he's not even showing up on your app." And so, a huge thing that I push women to do is to change their height filters and just say, "There is nothing that proves that you're going to have a successful long-term relationship if the guy is higher. I'm married to a short king. I love it. I feel like I really found this gem." And I think that so many women are missing out on great potential partners because of things like height.
Scott's point as well about they will date one of the men in the top 10% sleep with him potentially and then that kind of adjusts their standards and they expect all other men to meet that standard but there isn't just there isn't enough men to meet that standard is there I haven't specifically heard that I mean there is a lot of evidence around assort of mating that people sort of have an internal sense of how attractive they are and that they end up with someone similar to that but assort of mating is different than hypergamy which is really this idea as Scott said that women tend to date horizontal ally and up and men date horizontally and down. So if you have twothirds of women who are college grads and one-third of college grads who are men and some of them are going to date women without college degrees, you truly do have this dating crisis where there's just not enough men to meet this hypergamous mating. Again, you can't tell women to lower their expectations. But this is the reality. When you ask a man if you could have a woman who had 80% of everything you wanted, 75% say, "Yeah, I'm on board." When you say to a woman, "A man has 80% of what you want." 75% say, "That's that's not enough."
But if you But but but even look at the media. Right. Right. Right. What does the media tell a woman to do? He's out. But he didn't open your door. He's not nice to his parent. You walk walk right out on that man. Like it's literally every piece of media is you don't need him. You're a strong independent woman. Pull the rip cord. You're out. And it is the the the basic kind of communication around this is you are a strong, independent, powerful woman. That is wonderful. And quite frankly, you don't need the imperfect man. And uh they're just not they're just not connecting.
I read that on Tinder, a man of average attractiveness has to swipe right 200 times to get one coffee. And then four of those five coffees will ghost him. They will they will decide they don't want to meet him or they won't show up. That means a guy of average attractiveness has to swipe right a thousand times to get one coffee. Now, what does that tell that guy? Women don't value me. women make me feel rejected. And then they go online and they meet they see these misogynists telling them it's not your fault. And these men become much more prone to misogynistic content, much more prone to nationalistic content, blaming other people for the lack of economic opportunity. They start sequestering from society. I worry that we are literally evolving a new species of asexual asocial male. And if a man by the age of 30 hasn't either lived with someone or married someone, there's a one in three chance he's going to have a substance abuse problem. Wow.
In addition, it goes so much deeper than that because if they don't develop the skills, you know, the reason romantic comedies are two hours, not 15 minutes is this is hard. Like finding an attractive, intelligent woman, generally speaking, 75% of people who've been married longer than 30 years say in the beginning one was much more interested than the other. It was almost always the man. Women are women are much choosier. The basic the basis of evolution is seed trying to get everywhere. Men and women deploying a much finer filter to to select the strongest, smartest, and fastest speed. So men need an environment to demonstrate excellence. And you hear these women talk about it. He was kind. He was good at work. I like the way he smelled. He was funny. Where do men demonstrate excellence when they're not going to college? They're not going into an office because of remote work. Where do they have they're not going to church, they're not going to temple. Where does a woman have the opportunity to fall in love other than these baseline metrics? And you were talking about women say, you've seen these Tik Toks, over $100,000, that's not unreasonable, and over six feet. That's 2.2% of the male population. So where do they fall in love? Where can a man demonstrate excellence? It used to be go to temple, seven single women, seven single men, and they kind of paired off and worked it out. And online dating, similar to online e-commerce, online rentals, it's created a winner take most if not all environment. And it's it has basically been amazing for attractive guys, attractive wealthy guys, tall wealthy guys. It's been amazing for them. For all the other guys, it's been a disaster. And it's been made it mildly shittier for every woman. It it is it the digitization of mating I believe has been a disaster. It's been bad for women. It's been disastrous for men.
I want to talk about how the genders seem to be separating in a lot of important ways. We know from research around political affiliation that women are now on average 30% more liberal than men. So they are definitely experiencing political polarization. Then for the first time in history more men are attending church than women. And when I started this research, I really came at it from this point of, is it just me or there not as many eligible guys? But when I dug into this, I found that both genders really feel misunderstood. And so I asked men and women, who has more power in relationships? So equal amounts, men and women, said, "Oh, we have the same amount of power." 42% of that. But then what was so interesting is that 46% of men said women have more power and 46% of women said men have more power. So there's this huge feeling of oh the other gender has all of this power. And when I spoke to people I want to tell you about three dating paradoxes that I saw.
So the first dating paradox for men is this idea that now that women are providers and do not need a man to take care of them financially. really want guys to step up with emotional support. But here's the paradox. They were not raised and they don't know how to give that emotional support or emotional availability. So we know women, even if they have the same number of friends as guys, the women are talking to their friends much more often. Women speak to their kids even starting at a very young age, they use more emotional language with their daughters and their sons. So constantly we have this feeling where we're asking men to do something when they don't have the skills. I was talking to my friend David and he said women are in graduate school when it comes to emotional conversations and guys are in third grade. The other part of the paradox is that women are asking men to be more emotionally open but then they get shamed when they do that. So we have this great quote from Bnee Brown where she says we beg guys to open up. We beg them to let us in and then when they do we can't stomach it. And I heard that over and over in my research. There's this quote where a guy says, "A woman would rather see me die on the white horse than fall off of it." And so there's this sense that I have to be perfect. I have to be the masculine and the feminine, but I don't have the skills to do that. And women say that they want these guys to be emotional, but as soon as they show emotionality, it can freak those women out. So, one guy that I spoke to for this said, "I went on a few dates with this woman. At some point, I told her that my mom had had a suicide attempt. And the next day, she texted me and said, "I'm sorry I can't see you. I cannot process your emotional trauma for you."" And so, guys are getting a lot of mixed messages. We want you to be feminine. We want you to support us, but when you do, it freaks us out. And so, we don't want that. And digging into the research, and I want to look into this more, I think it's that a lot of women want emotional support. They want you to support them in their emotional journeys, but they're not as ready to have you open up in your emotional journey.
Can I put forth a thesis, and I want you to respond to it because I haven't done the research. In marketing, we call it consumer dissonance. What people say they want. Yeah. And then what they actually buy and what women say they want is an emotionally untouched man. And what they want is a masculine man. And that they will articulate what they want in a man. It includes being more emotionally available and then they want to have sex with a traditional masculine man. And what I hear from a lot of and this is anecdotal evidence and it's false marketing and you tell me what the data says, but there's just so many single women in my age group and there's l it feels like there's literally no men in my age group. As bad as it is for people in their 20s and 30s, try being a woman in your 50s trying to date, right? And they tell me the same thing. These are liberal, progressive, educated women. and they say, "By the way, I like a manly man." Yeah. And they say it under their breath. So, there's what supposedly is stated around, "I need more emotional availability, someone who's touched with their feelings, but what the research shows is they want a guy with facial hair who's the who's still women are still very attracted to traditional masculine attributes." Yeah.
I mean, I think we're just in such a hard moment because you have women who are saying, "I don't want to date a guy who earns less than me." And you might think, okay, well, the data hasn't caught up with the dating. If more women are in higher education and more women are earning more, then maybe you're going to be the one who earns more in your relationship. But what they feel like is projecting out, I'm going to end up doing most of the housework, most of the child care. I might as well get a guy that can contribute financially. So, they don't want to change their expectations around that. And so I think we truly are in a moment where women are being asked to do more masculine things and men are being asked to do more feminine things and I think a lot of that is progress but it also seems to be creating a lot of confusion in the dating world. Yeah.
It sort of I was just thinking I coach a lot of young men and occasionally women ask me for dating advice and you coach it sounds like a lot of both. And what I first thing I say to men is I ask them like would you want to have sex with you? All right. Are you in shape? What do you look like naked? Are you do you have a plan? You don't have to be rich now, but do you have a plan? Right? Uh have you do have you found means of being confident? Can you demonstrate kindness and excellence across anything? And the only advice I give women is second coffee. And that is maybe it wasn't great. I mean, if you don't like the guy and you're just like turned off, fine. But if it was just okay, maybe give it a second coffee. I have a chapter in my book called Make the Second Date The Default. Yeah. And it's really because I feel like I won the lottery with my husband, but he is somebody that takes longer to open up. And he's this slow burn. We met in college, we met again seven years later, then we were friends for a year. And I feel like he's this incredible partner, husband, father. But I don't know that if we'd met just randomly on the first date that I would have gone on a second date. And so I think people really do need to train themselves to look for these slowburns.
Logan Scott said something there about what he thinks women want, which is these sort of traditional masculine features. Is this what you see in the data? What's hard is I think Scott's right about what people say they want versus like so stated versus revealed preferences. So according to the research that I did, women are saying the number one thing that they're looking for is kindness and compassion. That's also what men are saying that they're looking for. So in many ways, this is great. People are looking for the same things, but I just feel like there's these huge disconnects now where people don't feel like they can get what they want. Men are saying they want kindness and compassion. That was I made them say, "What are all the things that you care about?" And then what is the number one thing that you care about? And kindness and compassion was first for both of them.
The stuff I've seen or the stuff I've read is that for women, and I've talked to men about this, number one is they have to signal resources. And we don't like to say it out loud. And by the way, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a Range Rover and a panel right now, but you have a plan, right? You you have your together. You go home at midnight when everyone's partying because you have to be up for work. You work out, which shows a level of discipline and that you can commit to something. You're in school. You've got a good job. This person is going to have resources. And I don't think that's changed a whole lot. I think a man's ability to to signal future resources has gone down. I'm not sure it's become any less of a criteria. Number two is intellect. And it's very instinctual because if you make good decisions for the tribe, your kids are more likely to survive. Someone who's smart is more likely to take care of your offspring than someone who's stupid. What's interesting, and I love this, is the fastest way to communicate intellect is humor. And I joke I joke, and this is bad, but I say this is my impression of a woman. I'm laughing. I'm laughing. I'm naked. And that is I've always thought if a guy can make a woman laugh, she will she will date him. And then the third thing, and this is where guys screw up. This is what I tell a guy's secret weapon is. It's kindness. Women want to see that you are a good person. You you treat service staff well. You're good to your parents. You have manners. You treat people well even with no reciprocal expectation because they know that a kind person if and when she's vulnerable and needs help and maybe isn't bringing as much to the table for certain periods of time that that this is a kind man. And you know, sure you want to do your best to signal resources and have a plan. Sure, maybe you're smart, maybe you aren't. There's not a lot you can do there. But the secret weapon I think for men that they don't leverage and I do think it's a practice is to demonstrate kindness and we don't talk about that enough as men. It's like well okay and it's little things have good manners be thoughtful follow up with people and I I think that anyways those are the three things that I have read women want uh in men.
Okay there's so much there. So, one one is I do think we need a new definition for modern masculinity or mature masculinity or evolved masculinity. And I think that that's why this moment feels so painful is that we don't have it. Because I agree with you, I don't think women are saying, "I want a feminine man." I think they want a modern masculine man. And so, that means somebody who is decisive and can provide, but also somebody who's able to communicate with them emotionally. And so one of the suggestions that I came here today to talk about is this idea of men's groups. So about a year ago, my friend David Clavven, who happens to be a world-class magician, came to my husband and said, "I'm going to form this men's group." And so it's about six or seven men and they meet together monthly and they have served they they have formed this council of peers. So every month that they get together, every guy sits down with post-it notes and says the two issues that are most pressing for him. So, first of all, I think that that's a great way of doing it because it's actually that time to say, "What am I struggling with?" I think many people in their lives, maybe especially men, don't sit there and saying, "What's top of mind for me?" So, guys get the quiet time to do that. Then they go around in a circle and whoever has the most pressing issue, they get to take their time. And some men might say, you know, these are top of mind for me, but it's not a priority. I'll give the time to someone else. And each month, they talk about what's going on for them. They hold each other accountable. So month three, they might say, "Hey, David, you've been talking about that for the last three months. Are you going to actually do anything about it?" And I love that these men have a masculine space to actually go through what's going on for them because maybe they have wives and girlfriends they can go to, maybe they don't. But I think it's a different type of advice that you get from a council of trusted peers. And I really do think that men's groups could change a lot of these issues because I can sit here and say everybody should be in therapy. Guess what? Therapy is really expensive and many insurance companies will not provide it or there's a huge waiting list. And so if we just sit around for all these guys to go to therapy, that's not going to happen. But men's groups are a way that men can lead each other, they can provide this tribe of peers. And I have just seen so many changes in this group. So David told me his story where he had a lot of anger about his mom's debilitating illness and he wasn't really experiencing it and it was coming out as anger at his mom but he wasn't conscious of that. But by getting the anger out in a safe place with men, the only place where he felt like he could truly be angry, he was able to get over it and to actually treat his mom with a lot more empathy. or my husband has gone to the group and talked about ego stuff at work or how hard the transition to becoming a parent has been. And I feel like the men in this group have grown so much over the 12 months that it's been happening that I just paid for my brother-in-law to be in a men's group. And I want there to be tons of men's groups because I really feel like this isn't an issue that a therapist or a mom or I can really solve. I think men need to be solving this problem within themselves.
what you said is really powerful because if you walk down the hallway at Stern, there's Golden Seeds, venture cap, women in venture capital, black women's consulting club, there there women support group, there's nothing for men and these groups are really wonderful. Man talks is one that I've been looking at where they've said let's get together and just be supportive of each other and it's and it's a fairly new phenomenon. I think people are afraid of men gathering because traditionally bad things have happened in that right there. I mean, gangs. I'm just thinking of like many situations in which like if once there's a tiki torch, I want there to be some women there, right? Like, so there's a reason why people have been fearful of this. Or it's like when the whole world was a men's group, a men's club, you didn't need to have men's clubs. But I think in this moment, this is a really powerful organic grassroots way for men to change. So, I imagine that you have group chats with men that are your peers that you go to for advice. And I feel like there's men out there that don't have that. And we are meant to make decisions by getting advice from other people. I personally have a board of directors that in my life when I'm going to make a big decision, I meet with them. So when I took my last job, when I decided to move, all of these different things. I meet with my board of directors and I say, "What am I not seeing? What are my blind spots?" And they've given me a lot of good and hard advice. And I think we all need to be building our own board of directors. And for men, that might be this men's group.
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