Transcription
About 10 years ago, my oldest daughter was about 15 years old, and I was driving her and her best friend to the mall, or the movies, or something like that. And I was overhearing them. I was eavesdropping on them talking about their social lives, and they were discussing, gossiping about some guy who was simping on some girl. Now, being a middle-aged man, the word "simp" was not part of my vocabulary. And as a curious person, I interjected and asked the question, "What is a simp?" And they both rolled their eyes and giggled at me because I was stupid. And they proceeded to tell me their definition of a simp, which was essentially that this guy is just giving her all this stuff, no self-respect, and she's basically using him.
Anyway, I looked it up in the urban dictionary or whatever and found that a simp is a man who will dedicate all of his resources, time, energy, money to a woman who really doesn't have any interest in him, and he will do it at the expense of his self-respect and dignity. Well, it didn't take very long, maybe my next thought or two, for me to realize in my marriage that I had become a simp. It was a bit of a shock. I could feel the shame kind of rush over me all at once, where I realized that I had become that, that I was that guy that they would have been laughing at. Yeah, it was pretty tough to handle. It was pretty, uh, unnerving in a way. And I had to give some thought to how this happened. I wasn't like this before. How did this happen to me? How did I become a simp? How had marriage turned me into a simp? That's what I'm going to talk about. How marriage can turn even the most masculine, self-confident men into weak, quivering simps. Given enough time, let's talk about it.
I believe simping occurs on a spectrum. So, you can be a minor simp, or you can be a major simp. Simp and seduction are separated by a very thin line. So, when you're dating a girl, you're getting to know a girl for the first time, you don't know whether or not she likes you or not. So, you might, in your, um, endeavor to seduce this girl, overdo it a little bit. You know, that's not simping. No, that's seduction. Now, if she says, "I've already got a boyfriend," or she blows you off with something else like, "Yeah, I'm not interested in dating anyone right now," and you continue to lavish her with gifts, money, and attention and become her emotional tampon so she can cry on your shoulder whenever her boyfriend is, uh, giving her a hard time. Well, then you have, you, you've made, you've crossed that line. You've gone over to being a simp.
When you're married, technically, it's hard to be a simp because you've already won the girl. You know what I mean? So, you've already done all the right things. You've gotten there. You have expressed whatever level of masculinity was necessary for you to achieve that. And you are now in a marriage with a woman. You've hit the ultimate relationship. You have won the race. You are in. Yet, somehow, from this perspective, from having been the boyfriend, from having seduced the girl, from having achieved all of the accolades associated with being a good man, having crossed over into being marriage material, and now you're married, and for some reason, 5, 10, 15 years later, you find yourself acting like a simp. This happens a lot. In fact, I would suggest that this happens in the majority of marriages. Thing is, most middle-aged men and older don't know what a simp is, so they don't realize that they're doing it. But yeah, it happens quite often.
So, how is it that perfectly good men can go from being confident, masculine, pulled together, the boyfriend, the husband, have all their together, and eventually evolve into being a simp? Well, it starts when we're kids, and we don't realize it when it's happening, but we are taught, especially as boys, that there is honor in sacrifice. That sacrificing yourself for a larger cause is an honorable act. And we see all the, you know, war movies and, you know, all the great stories about how men sacrifice themselves and their own well-being for the benefit of others. And marriage is the perfect opportunity and the perfect excuse for men to do that, to put their wife and their kids, their family ahead of their own needs. And most men when they enter into marriage are of that mindset, like they're going to do whatever it takes. And I can tell you once you start bringing babies into the world, you know, you feel like Superman. Like you will just lay it out there. You will do everything in your power to, um, make sure that that kid, that your wife, are safe and healthy and are, are thriving. So you put in the extra hours at work. You do what you can around the house. You're doing everything that you think is necessary for everyone to achieve their goals, to be healthy, happy, and content in their world.
Unfortunately, women don't see that as sacrifice. They see that as par for the course, like it's just baseline what you're offering at that level, even though it might be far more than anything that you ever thought was possible. And from an external perspective, people would say, "Yeah, he's really given a lot to this relationship." Well, she may not have that same opinion. She might think that you aren't giving enough, that she's got a disproportionate share of the burden, that she's more, uh, engaged, say, with the kids or the cleaning or the house or something. And because of that, she's going to expect more from you, and she's going to have this conversation that is going to change everything. And it's subtle, but every man has this conversation with his wife at one point or another. And once you've had this conversation, just know that the seeds of your simpness or your simpitude are being planted.
So the conversation goes something like this: She says, "I don't think you're doing enough around the house," and you go back with, "I don't know what you're talking about. I think I do a ton around the house. I think I'm helping out a lot." And she says, "Well, there's just so many things that need to be done that you just don't see." And you respond with, "Well, if you tell me what needs to be done, I'll just do it." And then she comes back with this, and this is the key right here. "I don't want to have to tell you. I want you to just know what needs to be done." Yeah, it seems innocuous enough. You think, "Wait a second. I just need to have a higher level of awareness. I don't know what she's talking about." Whatever. I always put my radar up and I'll just try to be more aware of things that need to be done. So, you think, "Okay, fine. I will do my best to just know what needs to be done, but if you need see something, you just tell me."
Now, keep in mind that by the time this conversation has happened, there's already been a certain amount of, um, withdrawal of affection, silent treatments, you know, expressions of dissatisfaction from her to you about, you know, her lack of, you know, being impressed with your contributions to the household. So now there is a simplicit threat that unless you pick up your game that you're not going to be the beneficiary of a lot of those marital experiences that you got into this game for to begin with. So sex is going to be off the table. Um, affection is going to be off the table. You know, even having a, uh, a friend, companion, someone that you enjoy hanging out with is going to disappear. So, you start doing everything you can. You start simping. You start finding ways that you can contribute to the household in any way possible. But there is no way that you will ever know what she needs you to do. And so, as a result, you're going to fail. Now, to compensate for your failure, you're going to start doing extra stuff. You're going to start buying her gifts. You're going to start asking her all the time, "How are you feeling today? Is there anything I can do for you?" You're going to start becoming an indentured servant to her because you're trying to make her happy. You want her to be happy so that you can have a happy life, too. That's where that whole idea of "happy wife, happy life" has come from. It's because other men have had that conversation and they realize that the only way that they're going to have any peace in their life and remain married is to find ways to make her happy.
Well, this begins not just the simping, which is the behavior, but the underlying problem is so much more dramatic. And I would suggest that there is emotional trauma associated with it on the par with emotional abuse. Let's talk about that next. Deboo, don't go away, buddy. I need you to stay nearby. Yeah, I need you to stay nearby. I need to be able to see you. Do you want me to give you a treat?
So, like I said earlier, when I'm describing a simp, what's happening there is the man's setting aside or losing his self-respect and his dignity. And when you're in the dating process and you set aside your self-respect and dignity in the process of what you think is a seduction, even though it might be something else, well, the trauma associated with that is relatively minor. It's more of a self-esteem thing at that point. But when you've been married to a woman and you've been put into this position where now you're being asked, or forced, I should say, coerced is probably a better word, extorted might be strong enough, um, to simp for your wife. Well, that, with your head. That gets in there deep. It doesn't happen right away. Sometimes it takes until after the divorce before you reflect back on it and you realize how much you lost yourself in that moment, how much you gave of yourself and how little you got in return. The psychological trauma that goes from being almost placed in a role of emotional servitude to another human being, whether it's in a marriage or in any kind of relationship, is pretty significant. It's pretty dramatic, and this diddy trial is on, you know, there's a lot of physical and emotional abuse that happened in that, those relationships, and of course, it was perverted and weird beyond all comprehension, but there's a psychological aspect of it that I think caused the most trauma, and I would liken the kind of trauma that men come out of marriage with when they reflect back on their surrender of their self-respect and their dignity on behalf of this relationship, on behalf of this woman. It has that kind of effect on your mind where you, you really do lose yourself. You, your identity gets lost in this situation because it's hard for you to embrace this guy that you were at that time because you have no respect for him. You don't want that to be you. There's shame associated with it. And that shame is powerful. And the, the more, um, shame you feel, the more, uh, depressed and traumatized you become.
So simping in a marriage is not just a step toward divorce, a big step toward divorce. It's a big step toward mental illness, to shame, to depression, to, um, losing respect for yourself. It's the kind of thing that you don't, like I said, realize until after you're out of the marriage. Now, I was somewhat fortunate to experience it, you know, when my daughter defined it for me and I realized that's what I was and I realized that I was experiencing shame as a result of it. But the only thing that you can do, and I didn't do this at this point, the only thing that you can do is to get out of that marriage. I guess you could go to therapy. I mean, you could try addressing this issue in therapy. I doubt that that would work because if your relationship has evolved or devolved to this state where simping is a big part of the dynamic between the two of you, I don't see how it can be, be saved. It seems to me that that's beyond saving.
All right, you guys. I think that's all I got for you today. Um, I hope this video has been enlightening. I know that when you go through, I know that when you go through that kind of experience and you have that shame and that trauma that comes with it, it's really hard to come to terms with. And I hope that this video, by just shedding some light on it, will help you understand that you're not alone in this situation, that lots and lots and lots of men are either going through it right now or have gone through it in the past. Simp is not something that we, um, do naturally. It's something that we either coerce ourselves into through a lack of, um, self-respect. No, no, Doo, leave that. Leave it. Or it's something we get coerced into, you know, through a relationship like that. Debb, no. No, don't play with that. Doo thinks this, this thing is a stick. He wants to play with it. All right, that's all I got for you. I hope you've enjoyed the video. If you have, please like and subscribe. If you know some poor guy that's going through this right now, I implore you, share this video with them. Hopefully, it'll help him escape the clutches of this terrible situation. Stay healthy, and if you can, stay single.