Transcription
So why is it so many men pick the wrong woman and marry her? There's a hilarious joke I see in the comments all the time. You know that rather than going through all the trouble of finding a woman and dating her, getting married, having children, getting divorced, giving her half your money and being miserable, you should just go out and find a woman that you hate, give her your house and half your money, and then you've got the rest of your time free. I get that, fully get that. And although women certainly are part of the problem—that's an understatement—but we men, we keep lining up for this. Why are we doing this?
I mean, the divorce rate has been high for a long time. I think going back to the 80s, it was in the 50% range. It's actually slightly better now than it was then; we're still 45 to 50% of marriages are ending in divorce. So why is it all these smart, educated, hardworking guys lining up for this? It's like a firing squad. You know you don't have to go; like you don't have to go; you don't have to go to the firing squad. You can opt out, but we go. We all line up: "Shoot me next! Shoot me next!" Why are we doing this?
So today I want to talk about why are we doing this? Why are men getting married? Why do we choose the wrong woman? What's going on here? How is it that we keep lining up for this crap? Let's talk about it. I guess one question is: Are we the victims of some vast conspiracy of corporate elites to keep this social-economic engine running at full speed so that other people can profit on our marriage and misery, our reproduction, and all that stuff? You know, I heard Elon Musk talking with great concern about the shrinking population because I think we're like at 8.1 billion people, and now the Chinese are having trouble getting it on, the South Koreans don't want to do it anymore, the Europeans have been shrinking for a generation, and there's all this concern about this 8 billion number, and we're we're we're dropping, which is problematic.
Well, I remember when I was a kid—this is like in the mid-to-late 1970s—asking my dad how many people are on earth, and he said 3 billion people. And I was like, "Holy, that's a lot of freakin' people!" Now that wasn't that long ago; like we've more than doubled since I was a kid; more than doubled since I was a kid. Now it seemed the Earth seemed kind of crowded back then, and there were all these books being written about the dangers of overpopulation and how we weren't going to have enough food to feed people and how it was going to strain the resources of the planet, and or just catastrophic predictions that if we had too many people, all hell was going to break loose; it would just be mayhem. Well, we've more than doubled, and it still seems crowded; still seems like there's plenty of empty space. But now we're all worried about the shrinking population, and so they want to encourage people to have as many babies as possible. Let me tell you that it has nothing to do with anything; it has to do with keeping economies growing. That's it. That's it.
And the reason I bring it up is social norms and society as a whole is a big uh influence on marriage. Now this was fine, like if you were living in a village, say in the 17 or 1800s, and that village had like 200 people in it, and there was a girl, you know, across the village who was about your age, well, the village was kind of depending on you to keep the action going, you know, keep the population growing. We definitely needed people to be hooking up, so they arranged marriages for you. You know, you just married that girl 'cause she was just your age; that was it. That was the only criteria; that was all you needed to know: there was a female in the village that you lived in, and she was about your age. Done. You're in. No thinking about it, no worrying about it: relationship, marriage, children, grandchildren, the whole nine yards. Now, with 8 billion people in our little village and the ability to communicate with all of them in an instant, we've got a problem. The problems are exponential.
You know, so I look back at my experience because I I have to start there. Let me just make sure the dogs aren't on the ice 'cause they scare the crap out of me when I can't see them. All right, so let me tell you about my experience. So, you know, I I was not the most responsible guy growing up. I made a lot of mistakes, um, had sex with a lot of women, and one of them got pregnant; gave me a son, or I took a son from her, whatever. You can watch that video if you want. Um, bought a house, had a good job, all that stuff; all my boxes were checked. I was doing really well, and then it was like, okay, what's the next thing? What am I going to do now? And I felt compelled to find a woman. So I was dating lots and lots of women at that time. I was um fooling around with—I actually had one girl live with me for a while, which was a really bad idea—um, but then, you know, I meet my wife, and she's the prettiest girl I've known. And so, you know, the story… I was not considering the possibility that this relationship would not work, number one. Number two, I did not have any concept that women would look at these relationships differently than me, even though I heard her thinking out loud with me in a conversation once, telling me about why she decided to to get married, why she decided to marry me, and it had very little to do with what a great guy I was. It had a lot to do with where she was in her life, like where her career had evolved to and how she was fed up being a dancer and doing all these quick changes and traveling all the time. So she was tired of being a celebrity, and uh, despite, you know, her wonderful uh glamorous life, she never really made a ton of money because they they paid for her housing and all of her food and all that stuff. So she—this was like back in the 90s—she was making like 35 to $40,000 a year, but without any expenses, that was pretty good money, but she had never really made a lot of money in her life, and at the time I was making what seemed like a lot of money. I mean, it was like 70, 70 to 75,000 a year, so that was a lot of money to her. Um, I had a son, and she wanted to have a pre-made family; that way she decided not to have children of her own; there would already be someone there, a child that needed her, and she could start to sort of step into this role as a mother. Um, I lived in a particular area in Northern Virginia which was close to where her family was because they lived in Maryland. Um, so all these boxes I checked for her, none of them had anything to do with me. Oh, I look like the guy um Greg from Dharma and Greg, which was a sitcom back in the in the 90s. So that was it; that was it. Had nothing to do with who I was as a man, the quality of my character, what I was bringing to the table in any way. Oh, and I had a straight—you know what—I had a straight member. She said that was critically important. Yeah. None of that had anything to do with really who I am as a person. I, of course, was interested in her physically, but I wanted to make sure that we had the same spiritual connection, that um, you know, we had some things in common, I guess. You know, I was just as bad. You know, I got to take it; I got to take it. Yeah, she was really pretty; like that was like the primary criteria: she was a female and she was pretty, and uh, and she would say yes. Oh, and she slept with me like on our second or third date. So all those things said, okay, I think we're good to go. None of that stuff would I recommend anyone use as criteria for choosing a mate these days. That is the ideal formula for disaster.
So I think then, right from the very beginning, got to accept some responsibility for: number one, not understanding what's important about selecting a partner, you know, not knowing what criteria to be looking for; and number two, not trusting my um my urges, my natural need, you know, for companionship and for uh feminine company uh as criteria for even pursuing such relationships. You know, everybody has these physical urges; that's totally normal. Um, the need to not be lonely was a big deal for me; the need to find a mother for my son was kind of a big deal, but none of them really stack up to the kind of things that I should have been thinking about. So right from the very beginning, I think I was on the wrong track. Ignorance of female nature is probably the biggest, most significant thing that men are missing right now when they're looking for a woman: is we assume that they think the same way we do. We assume that they're looking for, you know, a real spiritual, heart connection; you know, they're looking for that uh that person that you can talk to, the person you can trust, all that mushy stuff. We think that that's what they're looking for because that's kind of what we're looking for.
I mean, really, as boys growing up, first of all, no child is ever completely satisfied with the amount of nurturing they get from their mother, period, period. No child ever gets enough, especially if you're in a family where there are multiple children, because you obviously went from being the center of the universe at some point to being just another planet in the solar system. So I think as boys, when we seek out feminine company, we seek out nurturing from a partner. Um, there's this sense of lack that we're coming into this relationship with, and we think that we can find this emotional connection with a woman to make up for whatever emotional connection we didn't feel like we got from our mother. So we are coming at this from a very vulnerable emotional level, I think most of the time, or a lot of the time. Um, women, despite the fact we've been told they're not very good at math, they do this calculus, like they're doing some math in their head really quick when they meet you. They're evaluating you based on the criteria like I was just outlining with my my ex-wife: like where she is in her career, how old she is, or some math going on there; what's her reproductive years remaining? What's the likelihood of her finding someone as good as you? Um, how many people has she been with so far? Um, how much money are you making? What's your prospect for being able to support a family? Do you have a home? You know, what's your what what's your resume look like? Um, and then she's figuring out what's the likelihood that she can do better, and all that comes together in about 30 seconds, and she decides yes or no: you're a good C candidate or you're not. Now that's some pretty pretty seriously sophisticated math. So all these STEM programs that are trying to get girls involved in math, either they're just wasting their time, or they've been very successful, because I don't think I could put that all into an Excel spreadsheet and come up with a numerical, true answer, but they seem to be able to do it very quickly in their heads.
So as boys looking for this emotional connection and this girl who's giving us this emotional energy because that's all they are is emotional energy all the time, we think, well, this must be it. I've got this emotional connection with this girl, this woman, whatever. But no, you don't. She's just emotionally—you're you're thinking that the light came on for you. No, the light was always on. The light's been on the whole time; you just walked into the room, you dummy. It didn't come on when you came in; it was always there. Um, the emotional connection—she has that with everybody. She has that with her friends, with her family, with her other boyfriends, with guys at work. She's always got an emotional connection 'cause she's an emotional animal. That's all they can do is have emotional connections. So when we step into that room, we think, ah, it must be me. I I am obviously the right one. I am obviously the special man that is going to sweep you away and make you feel wonderful and good, and I'm going to be a great husband to you. Um, all she's thinking is: the math works; let's do this.
The next mistake that we make, next bad judgment that we make, is um we don't understand what marriage is like. We think that marriage is this long-term, romantic, loving relationship. And I think that for a a very small percentage of the population, it can be that. I don't think they make all these movies up and these things from, you know, out of a whole cloth. I think that there there was one or two people who actually had one of these relationships that was just so perfect and pristine, they said, "Oh, we got to make a movie about that." But then we come along, we watch that movie, we think, wow, that was great. Obviously, this marriage thing is where the action is; this has got to be it. This is where the romance and the love and that full, you know, satisfying, nurturing um experiences—this is where I'm going to find my uh my true love; I'm going to reach my full potential as a human being in a relationship with this lovely, wonderful, emotional creature that I have stumbled across, who obviously thinks I am wonderful because she—I saw her thinking about it for a second, and she said yes. All right, so here you are, entering into this world of marriage, this institution they call it. Oh, anything they call an institution—that's that's not a place where you want to go, man. They threw you in the back of a truck and said, "Don't worry, son, we're taking you to the institution; you're going to be fine." You'd be getting out of that truck like, "No way! I'm not going to the institution; I don't want to go!" But we walk into this one—oh yeah, we walk into it. We think our eyes are wide open; we're walking into this thing just naive and as open-minded and just open-hearted—oh my God, open wallet, man. We just give it all away; we're just in it. We are in there; we are emotionally attached to this person, and we are just going all in on this institution that's going to allow me to have this long-term relationship.
Now I don't know why we think we need to have this institution to have this long-term relationship. Like women have jobs; women make money; women live in houses; they don't need us to take care of them. Why are we honoring this ancient uh I don't know ritual of marriage? It's just the dumbest thing I can think of. I mean, I could see, like I said, 200 years ago, the village and the girl across the village, and you need to take care of her; you need to take care of her family. They wanted you to be legally bound to this woman; they didn't want you walking away from her, leaving her high and dry; her family would be stuck taking care of her. But now, like there's plenty of jobs; like you can do stuff; you're not some, you know, village—a girl across the village that can only milk cows. No, you got lots of skills; you can do lots and lots of stuff. You don't need me to be that financial source for you. In fact, with the cost of living these days, you better find some girl that can work and make some money, because otherwise you guys are going to be living in a shack somewhere; you're certainly not going to be having kids. But yeah, this institution that we're entering into is a legally binding contract that is more far-reaching than any other legally binding contract that you will encounter, because not only does it give her rights to your property and your money, it gives her those rights for a long time, and in some cases for the rest of her life. So yeah, you know, they wanted all their equal rights, so goddammit, give them their equal rights; that means that you know she's got to work; she's got to have a job. Do not support a woman, period. Do not support a woman, 'cause she will use that as ammunition to take your money in court. But anyway, I'm I digress.
So we're at the institution; we're happy; we we've we've entered into this relationship, and now we are uh moving on with our lives, and the next step is we're going to have some children. Oh, have you seen the commercials, like the laundry commercials where the kids just come running in and fall into the clean laundry, and everyone's laughing, and it's just so much fun? Have you seen those commercials? Yeah, marriage isn't anything like that. Oh, there is nothing as intensely emotionally and psychologically rewarding than bringing another little life into the world, and I, you know, um, I've seen it happen three times. I've been in the room three times; they've handed me these little slimy babies that look like aliens from another planet, and they've all grown up to be lovely, wonderful people, but there was a long period of time there when um yeah, I was wondering if I had made a really bad decision. Like, just enough to put you off sex. I mean, there are some birth control elements to this whole child-rearing thing that you need to be really clearly aware of. There is a lot of freaking work involved; like this this—they don't raise themselves. You know, and just when you think you got it figured out, they move on to another stage, and they have a whole another set of challenges they're going to confront you with. So yeah, this child-rearing thing is a big, big deal. And these days, you know, since we're no longer living in the village, you men are expected to play a significant role in this process. This is not something; this is not ladies' work; this is not women's work. No, this is family work. You are in it; you're going to have your elbows in diapers. I swear to God, you're going to be up to your elbows in diapers. You're going to have diaper Genies; you're going to have um, you know, all kinds of video equipment around your house, you can keep track of where this kid is, what their kid is doing. You're going to have them uh broadcast into your bedroom at night so you can hear every fart, every burp; you're going to know everything that this child does for at least a couple of years. Um, and then the expense of child care and all of it—it's just just like a I don't know—it's just—no one tells you this is going to happen; like no one tells you this is going to cost you a million dollars, and it's going to keep you up in the middle of the night, and uh, yeah, and it just never ends, you know, and it just never ends. Now at this stage, my kids are in their 20s and 30s; it's much nicer. I only have one of them living with me, and she's a mess, but the other two are doing okay, but I still get lots of—I still got to play a role there, you know; there's still a lot of emotional support that goes into it, but it's a lot more fun now. Okay, and I'm not regretting my children; I just want to make that very clear. But I just want you guys to know that when you walk into a relationship and they want to have babies, man, that's a lot; that's a lot; that's not a little thing. And uh, if you're going to marry a woman, you better make sure she knows about babies, because if you marry a woman doesn't know about babies, oh, you guys are going to be learning together. And you try to put put together some Ikea furniture with someone who doesn't know what that is—it's worse; trust me, it's worse; it's going to be bad. So pick carefully; do not pick a woman who does not know anything about babies, because you will definitely uh regret it.
All right, so let's get back to why we're making these bad decisions. So as a stand-up guy, as I'm sure all you are—everybody's an honorable man; we're not going to do bad stuff, right? So now you you've done the nasty with her a few times, you know, you've been down and dirty, you've gotten into some pretty kinky stuff, and uh, well, you feel a little bit of a commitment to her just based on that. I mean,
You guys have shared some pretty intimate moments. You've seen each other naked. You've seen each other from angles that most people don't see each other. So you know, even with the lights off, you know a lot more about this person than maybe anyone in her family does. Hopefully, hopefully. I don't know if you're in some states in the United States; you might, might not. I'm not going to name any states, but anyway. So you got to know her carnally very well, very well, in a Biblical way. Well, as a stand-up guy, it's hard not to feel some level of commitment to this woman, and so you give her a commitment of sorts. You know, maybe you just promise you're not going to see anybody else; maybe you're going to be exclusive, that kind of thing.
Well, now you're into the addiction phase of the relationship. CU. Now you're getting your oxytocin, you're getting that testosterone boost because there's nothing like, you know, some, some fun new, new girls to get your tea going, and uh, you got the serotonin going and the dopamine going, and you got all the good, you know, neurochemicals flowing through your body. And if you're getting sex on a regular basis, if you're getting it on the regular, I remember being with girls who want to do it every day. It's like, "What are you kidding me? Oh my God, every single day, every single day!" I don't know what I was thinking. It was just like getting a, it was like taking a hit of heroin or something every day, or cocaine, and it was just like the best thing in the world. Not that I've ever tried those drugs, but I'm just assuming they're good, given that people are willing to die for them.
Um, but now you feel the sense of commitment to her, and uh, and she's given you all the addictive drugs. I mean, you're feeling it, you're feeling great, and uh, the pressure will eventually begin to mount for a marriage. And once you're in that deep, man, you think you're making a decision, but really the truth is the decision has already been made. Then, of course, the circumstances are going to get uh, even more intense. You're going to meet her parents, meet her family, meet her friends. You know, after a period of time, you just get to the point where you give in, and it's like, "Okay, we just got to get married." So the circumstances can drive your decision to jump into the institution, to line up and and go.
Obviously, if she gets pregnant, that's another big factor that will drive your behaviors, and um, I would argue that neither of these situations is a good enough reason to go to an institution. Okay, you need to stay out of the institution as much as possible. The only time that you should be entering into the institution is when you don't need any of that—when you don't need the company, you don't need the sex, you don't need the oxytocin hit, you don't need the dopamine. Um, you have a clear vision of your life; you know where you're going. You're flying high in your career; you're making tons of money. You are a fully functionally formed man, not just a um, in a physical sense, but in an emotional, psychological, spiritual way. You're fully formed; you are 100% confident in your own skin. Now, if it fits into your vision for your life, and only then, and having children is part of that program, and only then, only under those circumstances should you consider getting married. That's my advice to you.
If kids are not in your, your vision of the future, fut for yourself, if you don't want to go down that path, then you have no reason to be getting married. There is no reason to get married if children are not an issue for you. If it's just you think you want to have a companion, trust me, you do not need to go to the institution to get a companion. Telling you, you don't. You can have a companion; you can even have her move in if you want, if you're really, you know, want to push it, but uh, yeah, you don't need to marry her. Now I know like in Australia, all these guys tell me, "Oh, if we live together, you like, if we even spend the night at her house one time, like we could be, you know, lined up for uh, child support," whatever. I don't know, but um, in America, I would avoid cohabitation as much as possible.
Um, but you know, if you're a fully formed man and you have your frame strong and you feel really good about your life and where you're going and what you're going to do and where you are right now, then by all means, you can jump in there. You're probably in a better position to take a calculated risk than anybody else. But if, if you're not there, if you're 25 or 30 years old and you're still wet behind the ears, I don't think you should do that. I think that you're probably playing, um, you know, playing a risky game, and I would recommend strongly against it. All right, you guys. So there are the reasons: one, society pushes us because someone's driving this social economic engine, and it's going to be you. You're going to be paying for this stuff. We need you to get out there, buy a house, have some kids. Kids, get her pregnant, get her pregnant, because that drives the economy, and eventually you're going to have more kids, you're going to need a bigger house, more cars, more baby clothes. All that stuff just keeps that economic engine running. So do your part, be a patriot, give your life away to a woman, join the institution. No, don't do it, don't do it. The human race will figure it out. Like I said, when I was a kid, 3 billion people, now 8 billion people. I think we got some room; we could drop back to 3 billion, and I think everybody would be okay. Yeah, you know, Elon might not sell as many of his toasters or whatever the hell they are, but we'll be okay. We will be okay, I promise you.
Circumstances. Oh no, the uh, the whole uh, Disney movie thing. Yeah, thinking that you're going to find the romance of your life, and she's going to fulfill the, the role that your mother didn't fill, and she's going to make you feel whole as a human being. No, no, no, no, no. No, she's not going to do that, I promise you. You might have that feeling like when you're in deep, if you know what I mean, but uh, once that's over, you're going to lay back on the pillow, and you're going to go, "It's really not all that. It's really not worth everything I've ever made." You know, it's not worth giving my life away; it's not worth going to the institution. And then um, circumstances. Yeah, you get yourself into a day situation; you're using that L word, saying, "Oh, I love you because I love having sex with you. I love hanging out with you. I love kissing you. I love the way you feel when you're laying on top of me." Oh yeah, all that stuff is wonderful. That's not love, FYI. That is nothing to do with it; that has nothing to do with it. So don't do it, don't do it, man, do not do it. You can get all that action without any of the institution without ever having to go.
So um, my advice to you guys is do everything you can to stay out of the institution. Do not allow yourself to SL slide down that slippery slope. You see, I'm, I'm standing here right next to the stream, and it's all ice covered, and it looks like it's solid. It gives you the impression that it's solid; it is not. That's the way marriage is; it's like it looks like it's a good deal. It looks like, "Oh, I can cross that." No, no, no, no, no. You're going to be in deep in some really unpleasant water. Trust me, trust me. All right, that's all I got for you. I hope you've enjoyed the video. If you have, please like and subscribe, and uh, let me know in the comments what your thoughts are. You know, I really enjoy reading your comments, and you guys give me some great ideas for videos too, and I appreciate that. All right, I'll see you in the next one. Until then, stay healthy, and if you can, stay single.