All right, I do Part two.
Family, I'm back with part two of our last podcast.
I am mister Wright.
I'm here to tell you all the things that men are thinking about and picking up where we left off with our last set of questions. Well, Leslie forty six, says this. She says, dating takes so much effort in time time I don't have anymore like when I was in my twenties. How can we make ourselves more excited about dating and take away the stress and anxiety from it being one more thing to do in our already
busy day. Now, that's coming from Leslie, who's forty six, and right off the jump, I'm gonna say, Leslie, I don't think maybe right now is a good time for you to date. It sounds like dating doesn't sound like fun to you, which I get it, Like there are times that it just you know, life is too complicated, or you are still recovering from a breakup or hurt
and you're just not available. Because dating should be exciting, Dating should cause a little anxiety and a little bit of stress and a little excitement, a little bit.
Of all these things.
And so if dating feels like it is a chore, if it feels like it's complicated. I think it might be just your particular situation and you may need some time to heal and work through this. Because if you go into dating, if you go out on a date with somebody and it's not exciting and it's not fun and you think of it as a chore, it's not going to go well. And I think that you're setting
yourself up for failure at the very least. And you know, if your days are busy and you have anxieties and you're not excited about it, just wait, just wait, just wait until you're ready.
That's fine. You don't have to be ready today.
Give yourself some time to get in a headspace where you're looking forward to that anxiety, where you're.
Looking forward to the excitement.
Who it is that you're going to meet, What adventures are you going to go on, not worried about if it's going to fail, Because you have to be optimistic, especially in chapter two. Optimistic is the ingredient that makes a relationship possible. If you're going into it already thinking it's going to fail or it's going to muddy up your busy day, it probably will all right, Well, Margaret, who's fifty three, says something that I think a lot of us think about that my body in my fifties
doesn't look like it did when I was younger. I've had two kids, I've had tons of loose skin around my midsection and stretch marks when I was married, and I wasn't insecure about my body because my husband had seen me when I was fit, thin, pregnant, all of it. Now that I'm back in the dating scene, the anxiety that I have about my body and knowing men might age prefer to date younger is sending me into a spiral.
Do men care about loose skin and stretch marks? Or should I find a way to tell the guys I date in advance to see how they react. Advice please, now, Margaret, this is an interesting way to put it, because I would often think that it's.
The other way around.
That your husband that knew you when you were young and as you say, fit and you know, without the things that happen to a body when having kids or whatever else, and they've seen you kind of progress. Oftentimes women are more anxious or worried about that man who's seen them, you know, when they were young, and that you know and see them until they've gotten more mature, versus meeting a guy that didn't know you when you were younger and didn't know you any other way than
the way you are now. So I think if you meet a guy now at fifty three, with all of your perfections and imperfections and all the things that happen to our bodies and our faces and our everything, you don't need to tell the guys anything.
They know what they see.
You don't need to give them warnings, You don't need to give them a head's up or anything else. They can figure it out for themselves. And I think that you should be confident in the body that you have, and if you're you know, and if you exude that confidence, that guy is not gonna care. Don't get worried about
what you think guys look for. If you think they're gonna date younger, if you think they're gonna not like your your stretch marks or your blue skin or whatever it else it is, then you're already starting behind the gates.
So you don't want that.
Be confident, Margaret, They're gonna love you for the person that you are, imperfections and all, all.
Right, So, Britt, who's thirty five, says this.
I saw TikTok recently where a man said the bar is quote unquote so low right now for men to do anything for women, that women are really just looking for simple.
Things like kindness. To questions here, why is the bar so low? In your opinion? And two? Whose fault is that that it's so low? Is it the man or the woman's fault? Now?
The question is do I think that the bar is very, very low? And I'll tell you, mister right right here thinks that the bar has been lowered. And I'm not sure if that's because I'm a bit older, a bit more mature, and I'm you know, I'm looking at the dating world and it does seem as though there is there is this kind of movement away from kindness and chivalry and acts of kindness, and maybe I just don't see it as often anymore. And you know, guys, I
think I don't know if it's social media. I don't know if it's just you know, me being an old fuddy duddy and looking back, I just think chivalry, if it's not dead, it's certainly wounded in a lot of situations.
And I think that there is you know, if it's the man's fault of the women's fault, I think men are are women are also wanting to be treated so much differently than than what I remember, you know, the old days of you know, holding the door open or you know, paying the bill every time, or all those sorts of things I think might be looked down as old fashion.
And so I don't know who's at fault for it. I think that I do see it.
I do think that the bar has been lowered in terms of the way that guys treat women kind of early on, and that probably changes, you know, over time, but in terms of kind of the dating world, I think it's I think it the bar has been lowered to a certain extent, and I don't know if it's
just the guy's fault. I think it, you know, I think that that women are are also part of this, and because they are expecting to be treated quote unquote equally, which is great and I'm all for equal treatment or whatever else, but sometimes that will take away some of these chivalrous things that guys want to do to show kindness, to show affection because they're worried about stepping over the line, and you know, I want to bring in a producer,
Heather on this one. And you know she's a self proclaimed feminist and single right now, but coming out of, you know, some long relationships.
What is your take on.
It, producer Heather. This is just my perspective in my chapter two. But what do you think?
I mean, I'm not out there actively dating whatsoever looking but you see this. But I do see a lot of this stuff, and I think that the bar is really low. I think that it is twofold. I think that men. I think that men aren't talking enough to each other about standards and how they're treating women. And I don't think that men are holding other men accountable when they witness bad behavior or hear bad behavior. I don't think that they actually call out their buddies or
their friends about this kind of stuff. And I think that women, unfortunately allow the bad behavior to go on for two long. I'm super guilty of this. I'm actually really guilty of allowing bad behavior to continue for too long and not address it and not put my foot down on stuff. So I think, yeah, I think it's twofold.
I think it's I think it's both people's problems, and I do feel that we've gotten away from common decency and just you know, everybody is trying to play it like too cool or like there is you know, another you right around the corner. So I don't need to like, you know, do too much. I feel that like my perception obviously I'm not a man, but my perception of men is that sometimes doing too much and being too vulnerable is perceived as like being a simp or being
a wimp or anything like that. And so I feel that there's like a hyper awareness around masculinity right now amongst men and about being as masculine as possible. And for some reason, I think men equate masculinity to sometimes putting women down or keeping women in a in a spot where they can be dominant, and I think that's that's also something that we're seeing play out in the dating scene right now.
Okay, so you agree that it's both the men and the women take some responsibility for it. But I think that you know, this, this treating of women with respect and kindness and small acts of chivalry, I think that's oftentimes something that that older guys have an advantage on
over younger guys. It's a level of confidence it's a level of experience also vulnerability as well, where guys you know in my age are probably more willing to be a little more vulnerable then you know, a younger version of myself.
So you're saying that that vulnerability came through your chapter one or do you think you were acting like this early on and that's partly how you got to your chapter one? Was your vulnerability your openness?
No, I think I think that I recognize that probably not being vulnerable enough and not being mindful enough got me to where I am right now, which is in my chapter two. And so I think that you know, experience, mistakes, all these things you know are are you know, kind of made me the person that I am, certainly from
you know, day one till now. But relationship wise, I think guys that you know are in their chapter two are probably realizing what are some of the things that got me in the situation, and we go and fix those.
You would hope that men out there are doing the work in their chapter two. It begs the question, though, if a man never gets to chapter one, is he still that observed of things that he needs to change? You know, these men, you know, we're seeing a lot of the time now that I think marriage rates and
traditional kind of things like that are declining. So we're seeing men in their mid forties that have never been married, never been engaged, And so it begs the question of do they learn those kinds of things about vulnerability if they've never experienced what you're talking about that you experienced in chapter one. That's kind of been eye opening for you.
Yeah, and I think that those probably, you know, those guys probably are the anomaly inasmuch as they've you know, they don't they're not looking for relationship, they're not looking for family, all those sorts of things. But I think that guys in their chapter two hopefully have learned from I don't want to say learn from their mistakes, but
learn from their experience. And you know what, you know what has what works, what hasn't worked, And then you know, as you're going into your you know, in your in your chapter two, you're trying to go and not repeat those same those same mistakes.
Yeah.
Interesting, but our listeners should write in if their experience is that the bar is super low right there.
Yeah, And I want to I'm also curious in which and what what ways is the bar lower in like what capacity? Like what what are the things? What are the specific things that make the bar lower?
What I see a.
Lot on the internet is that the bar is low in terms of communication, that men are not moving the ball forward in terms of you know, if they're let's say they're online dating and they match with somebody, they're not doing that forward movement of now let's get a date, let's do it on this day, let's do it like I see tons and tons of tiktoks of women being like, it's six pm and we're supposed to have a date tomorrow.
Let's see if he actually confirms, and then they'll do like an hour update the next day, and I see nine to ten times these guys don't confirm. So these girls don't actually end up going on a date with these men.
They leave them hanging.
They say we're going to go get drinks on Wednesday at seven, and then they never fully confirm, or they never lock it in, or they never tell them the location or something. I remember last time I was single, I had a guy say, you know, after our first date that he wanted to go out again the following week. I think the next day he locked in date and time, and then proceeded to not communicate with me for the next couple of days. And I remember, I'm like, Okay,
so it's Friday. I'm supposed to go out with this guy on Saturday. Haven't really heard anything from him. And then he waited until Saturday, I want to say, like two hours before we were supposed to meet up, to tell me that he decided he couldn't go out with me anymore because he had decided he was moving to Boston.
Oh he should he should have to pay like some sort of cancelation fee, like like like you know, like we go to the doctor and you don't show up, Like if you waste somebody Saturday night, that should be like a two hundred dollars penalty like that it should be.
But again we're talking about the bar being low, and this was ten years ago. I mean, like, I just think that it's it's rough out there in terms of like I mean, I haven't gone through chapter one and I will not be getting back out onto the wild West of dating apps. It was way too much for me and my mental health to uh to go through
that again. But I think that I've experienced it, so I understand what these women are saying and men when they talk about, you know, the communication going stagnant on the apps. You want to take it off the apps. You want to communicate. They don't text, they don't call, they don't you know, set something. It can be very robotic feeling. And again it goes back to that previous question that talked about it being you know, another job, that's what you know. Modern day dating can kind of
feel like. And I remember the last time I was single that that's how I had to approach it. It was like every Thursday was my date night. And then if I booked a date on Thursday, it was like I went to a place and got my hair blown out.
I had, like.
I remember, and then I like picked up like three other hobbies so that I had things to talk about on set dates. Then I would go out every Friday night and every Saturday night, mingling, meeting people, hoping that I would pick up another date for next Thursday.
And I mean I.
Was just out there really pounding the pavement. And I mean I did it all. I did blind dates, I did setups, I did online dates, I did asking men out in person. I did.
Oh yeah, I've asked I've asked men out.
I've i have sent drinks over to men as like a way of flirting. You know, Ladies, I think that if you want to give it a try, I think it's actually super low pressure.
I don't know why.
I've heard women say that it's like super scary or whatever. It's like I've been I remember I've been at like karaoke, pulled over a waitress and been like that guy over there on the other side of the room is really cute?
Is there a ring on the finger?
And they'll be like no, And I'll be like, great, whatever, he's drinking right now, get him another one, put it on my tab, and when he when you deliver it, you can just point to me. That's super low pressure, ladies, because guess what, it's then up to him if he wants to come over and thank you for the drink, do that whole thing. You are not then having to go over and be like did you get the drink?
Yes, you have, you have. You have tossed the proverbial ball across exactly. They could the guy could just you know, sort of raise an arm or a cheers across if he's not interested, which.
I have had I've had some guy just like raise his hand and say thanks so much. I've had a guy come over to the table and say thank you so much.
I was really flattering. I'm in a relationship or whatever. Nice, fine, have a drink.
Or you could end up singing Islands in the Stream together in the karaoke or that.
I mean, it's a backfire.
I ended up sending one to a guy once and then he came over. He thanked me, and then was like, we should go out this week so I can get you a drink.
Da da da dah whatever whatever. So I ended up going out with him, and then.
It only took one drink for me to find out that the guy hadn't had a job in eight years and was CouchSurfing. And I was like, well, no, wonder he really enjoyed that free drink I sent over.
The guy doesn't have a.
Job, He's like, let me get some let's good chicken wings with that next time.
Man, you can't always tell.
It's not like a fool proof kind of situation, but it's like, yeah, if the guy's attractive, he's gonna enjoy having a drink sent over. I think it's like a compliment regard. And I think that, you know, going back to the bar being low, I think that people aren't complimenting each other enough, you know what I mean. It's like, if somebody's attractive, handsome, whatever, if there's no ring and there's no girl on the arm, feel free to give a compliment. You don't have to be creepy about it.
Men too, you don't have to be creepy when you give a compliment. But like, that's a great those are great shoes that you're wearing, you know what. I really like that hat that you're wearing. It doesn't have to be like you have a nice ass, you know what.
I mean, Even if they do, you don't have to say it.
Eat the rule exactly.
I just think that we as a society have really pulled back on being complimentary. And I think I'm not going to get too far into it with like political movements and things like that that have happened in recent years where men act like they're not allowed to say complimentary things. That's that's actually not what any of these big movements have been about. It's about if you're my boss, yeah, you shouldn't be saying a compliment or something weird about me.
But when we're out in the world and we're engaging in conversation and you're not intoxicated, and I'm not like if I had children, if I'm like not with my children, and we're just like in an adult environment, and you know, it's respectful. Yes, people, we can give compliments to each other. That's not like something of yesteryear that we're not allowed to do anymore.
I feel like, do you feel that way that people have like stopped?
I think I think that the moral of the story is men and women. Let's raise the bar back up. I think so too, Let's be flirty.
Our last question coming in here is from Susan, who's fifty seven. This is what she says.
I like the opinions you gave in your last episode about finances and relationships. I'm in my second marriage and my husband has three kids from his first marriage, with the youngest about to graduate from colleg This is our time to focus and shift into our retirement years. But my husband is talking about financing their youngest child for quote unquote a couple more years. I think it is time for them to fly on their own now that
college is over and it bothers me. How can I explain this to my husband so he understands my point of view? All right, Susan, this is always going to be the trickiest of conversations, which is how to deal with children from a you know, the previous marriage, especially when you've blended a family, or even if you're just coming with no kids. It is a very touchy subject. And I'll give you all the warnings. The raising of
a child or children is a delicate thing. And to go and and to critique, you know, any part of that, I think is going to be something that you're going to want to deal with set with sensitivity. Now you a perspective here, because it's you know, it sounds like you guys have been married for a while. You guys are looking into your next not your next chapter in terms of marriage, but next chapter in terms of life. You're getting into retirement and there is some fiduciary responsibility
that you both need to have when doing that. And if you thought that the you know that you were you were saving this much and this is going to be your plan. And now that changes dramatically, of course, Susan, you are going to have a perspective on that, and you're going to have an opinion, and you're going have a right to have that, but be careful to make sure that you're not overstepping in terms of making the guy feel like he has to prioritize child or wife.
It's a very delicate, delicate relationship, and I would just I wouldn't want there to be something that explodes because of it. I think you should certainly voice your opinion
and your perspective on it, but do it gently. Do it knowing that this is your husband's youngest child, this is the last you know, the last child he's raising here, and and maybe come up with a compromise that allows you guys both to achieve your goals, his of being a good father to his youngest and you to make sure that the you know that your retirement, that the goals that you've been setting financially are being met and you're not at risk of losing something because of overspending
on a category that you hadn't planned on. And that's I think a big part of it is that planning and why you should talk about finance is because if something comes along that you haven't talked about, then who is right or who's wrong. Get all that stuff on the table, talk about your finances, talk about your future together. It is the easiest way to try and side step, which could be a delicate familial situation. All right, guys,
thank you so much and keep your questions coming. I'm here to give you the real things men think about. So send us an email or leave a voicemail if you want to get in contact with us. All our information is in the shown notes. Check us out on social media and follow us. I Do Part two an iHeartRadio podcast where falling in love is the main objective.