All right, welcome to the Good Girls podcast where we talk about confident men and when is it sexy, when is it toxic and what pickup tricks would work on UK. Probably all of them, but I can act like I'm pickier for the sake of this exercise. And this is a genuine curiosity 1 and I want our listeners to play along. So we're going to go back to like the original pickup artist material from The Game by Neil Strauss. So this is especially a lot of this content comes from his
pickup artistry teacher guru. They're called gurus. So their primary audience that they're clearly trying to pick up is like early 2020 somethings in a club in LA or like even younger sometimes. So I need you, OK, to put yourself in the shoes of you out on the town trying to meet guys in like your earliest 20s. Early to mid 20s let's not give me you know better credit when we're at 1022 you.
Were not at the club when you were 21 OK all right so we're going to try some of these these tactics on you. How do you feel like nagging would hit for you? And apparently the way that you're supposed to do this is if you're doing it right, you're not just like totally trashing on the woman, but you're just supposed to make her feel like a little bit uncertain about herself so that she's more
attracted to you. Apparently one of the tips from the book was to compliment a woman's dress, but then say that you think you saw somebody else at the club wearing the same dress. Which I'd be like, cute. We should be friends. I also saw that it's like the equivalent of blowing your nose in the middle of a conversation with somebody. It's not necessarily rude, you're allowed to do it, but it would indicate to that person that you're not trying to woo them during this time.
Yeah, I'm not supposed to be part of it, right? So. I have different opinions for this. I think the underlying idea of nagging where you make the women feel like, oh, I'm going to have to like work harder for him to see me as sexy. That annoys me. But why I think that it might actually work and would actually work on me is for a different reason where I think that would tell me, oh, this guy is not trying to hit on me. This isn't a high stakes
situation. And so I'm going to relax and have a funny conversation with him because we're not going to hook up. You know, he thinks that my dress is from Target or he thinks that my nails should have, you know, been done before this. He blew his nose in front of me and we're going to have a good time and. I think some of these it's like at their court like really depends on kind of like which way you go with them. Like I could just see it to kind
of just try to lower the stakes. And it seems like if you are trying to be charitable about some of this pickup artist advice, you could take it in a way that's just like, if you're somebody who has high anxiety about social interaction, this is just supposed to lower the stakes a little bit so that you can be normal. So if that's where this is entering the conversation is to just kind of try to be like, oh, I'm going to be a little disarming.
Like maybe I'm not trying to just like find somebody to hook up with tonight Then like that could be OK if you have something that's like a genuinely nice personality underneath that this allows the person to. Get to you, right, The guys and the woman, if you're starting not around like a man, like you look hot tonight. I want to, you know, take you on the dance floor. But instead you're kind of making a joke about how like some part of the outfit is goofy.
Then as long as the woman takes it right and has high self esteem and the guy's not too mean about it. And I don't know, sticking more with like the blowing the nose idea then maybe again disarms them and. Yeah, I agree. If a man just walked up to me in a situation and it was like, wow, you are so hot and that dress looks really good on you and it will look even better on my floor. I would just be like gross Next
okay, peacocking. So this is when they didn't learn until I started reading about this stuff and I was like, doubtful. So this is like you wear something that is like stands out and is unusual looking so that it draws the eye. It can like draw a comment. You're wearing like purple metallic sunglasses and you have, you know, women are going to come up to you and be like, what? What are you wearing? Unfortunately, the person that this comes from mystery.
He looks like an amateur magician. Very peacocky. Yeah, he has. An age-old so he's still on Instagram. I think it's Ask mystery as his handle if you want to check him out. So now he's also like aging and looks like an amateur magician, so he'll. Probably get in laid because he's mastered the tricks. Probably. But is he happy with his life?
Actually, there is a whole thing about apparently in the book the game, like he's kind of talking, documenting that mystery is kind of having a breakdown in the book a little bit because he's a bit of a sociopath and seems like he just came from an abusive background and is doing all this like peacocking to just fill the. Void of his soul. Yeah, for sure. Anyway, so I am. I'm showing Kay right now a picture of mystery in in his
prime. He is wearing like a fur what I would say you would wear for a pimp hat costume in 2001 and. You can look at you can Google. Like a Fred Durst soul patch situation and some earrings, soul patch eyeliner, a heart-shaped Locket, I think a feather boa. All right, Kay, this man walks up to you in the club and has the smoothest pick up line. Your reaction.
So if that person as dressed the little soul patch would just make it that the two of us were not probably meant for each other, but both ways, you know, like he probably wasn't going to approach me and I wasn't going to go home with him. I'm trying to remember because I think I was attracted to some ugly facial hair in the in the early knots, but I'm, I don't even know like soul. Patches. It goes together with like string instruments.
Excuse me, I did not say I like soul patches, I'm just saying I had more questionable thoughts due to Backstreet Boys on facial hair. OK, that's fair that this is around Backstreet Boys when they definitely did have soul patches. Now, how I was seeing it was I kind of already switched it through a guy who I would be attracted to. And I saw it more as like, you're going to a baseball game and the person has like the Hawaiian shirt version of what the team's logo is.
Just something that's enough to remark on. And that's how I interpreted peacocking that yes, there's like the extreme version of guys who are in really nice pattern suits. I would say Travis, Kelsey, Joe Burrow tend to wear some more extravagant cloth clothing items than ones that you would see on, you know, guys who are trying to dress in ways just to blend in with other guys. Probably. That's probably just not my style, and there's nothing against either of them.
I'm not their style either, so. It's true. I think it is a marker of confidence. So if we're talking about confidence on this episode, yeah, the the more modern example is like going to a work Christmas party and there's always the guy that has like the tipsy elves suit on that's like this, you know, candy cane print suit while everybody else is still wearing normal party clothes. So I'm like, that's a marker of
confidence. But to me, that's also like a particular like social marker of like you're a frat boy and you haven't learned how to like go to a tailor and get like, because you can stand out by being well dressed without wearing a tips yellow Santa Claus suit. And so for me, I want a guy who stands out by having like a very well tailored suit that maybe has like a color that's a little bit more bold, but without going full. I'm a frat boy who doesn't know how to go to a tailor.
I do not put that much energy into how I dress. I wish I put more energy into it. I think that being with a guy who put more energy and thought into like very extravagant fashion choices would disarm me. And I don't know, it would be something to get used to. I think that having one piece that sticks out a bit, whether it's like a funny tie or a funny hat, which is a way to Peacock, would, you know, help again, lighten the mood and be a
conversation starter. I do try to help my husband with this. He works in very Gray suits kind of line of work. I have gotten him some like whimsical socks because when you sit down you can see the socks and it's just enough to like start a little conversation. It shows a little bit about your hobbies and interests of like what kinds of things are on your socks. And it's really about as intense of peacocking as you can do in
professional industry. Also, I guess he's not trying to get anybody to have sex with him, but I think like. How do you know? Yeah. I guess I maybe, but I do think that this is some of what I was realizing as I was reading content for this week's episode is a lot of it is just like we're all seeking genuine human
connection. And I feel like sometimes we're men are kind of losing this or when we hear about the male loneliness epidemic is because they're putting so much single minded interest on that connection being like a, a partnered relationship, whether that's like a one night stand or like marriage or anything in between that that's like much more of a single minded focus of men and that they put much more
on that. Whereas women are like they're they're even if they are seeking or have a romantic relationship, it's not their source of everything. Yeah. And actually the follow up, and I know I don't know much about Neil Strauss. I don't have a opinion on him as a person, but I do know that the follow up to the Game was actually Rules of the Game and it really was much more about men building their self-confidence in approaching people and starting
conversations. There were things in it like, you know, every single day make a habit to start up a conversation with somebody new. And it wasn't saying, you know, exclusively woman, it was saying men, women, anybody at your office just to get into the habit that when you approach somebody and start a conversation, you know, 99% of the time people are probably going to be receptive and smile back at you. And whatever you said, they found a way to respond off of. Yeah, I'm much more.
I'm much more here for that kind of advice from Neil Strauss than like a description of the threesome that he had using the mysteries tactics for getting with borderline underage women. OK, how about time pressure? So give the idea that like the woman has to prove herself and you only have a short amount of
time to attract. The Miller to making I thought that this would make me more relaxed because I wouldn't feel like, oh, I actually was just on my way to the bathroom or I was just grabbing a drink for my friend and I really want to get back there. And now I'm stuck in this conversation with a guy who, you know, might be cute, but I really had in a certain agenda in mind that if he said I only have one minute, but I wanted to ask you this, I'd be like, Oh,
well, if he only has a minute. I feel like if he only if he says he only has a minute and then he wants to do something to like demonstrate that he is attractive, instead of like, I have only one minute to demonstrate to me why you're attractive. I'd be like fine. Like I agree, like I'd be like, OK, fine. To give the the the tip credit, I don't think that they were saying they were going to directly tell the woman you have one minute to prove your worthiness.
I'm Simon Cowell. You're going to, you know, ask a question where you then had a chance to have your. Personality as somebody who in like small talk kind of scenarios is very bad at like extricating myself from like a conversation I no longer want to be in and then like until. Would make you feel relaxed. Yeah, I do appreciate that.
They're like, OK, this is like going to end shortly, I guess, if you actually stuck to it. Because I feel like if you tried to disarm a woman by saying you only have a minute, but then you're like, oh, this conversation is going well and then you like keep going forever then. You have the option, you know, actually I have to get back to my friends now because I told him I'd be back. But you know, do you mind if I stop by later on?
I don't know. All the situations seem to happen around bars, but we can make them anywhere, you know, they can be bowling, they can be the knitting club. You know, Gen. Z doesn't drink anymore and I feel like that's probably there's less dating, but there's probably also it seemed like a lot of the stuff in this like pick up artist thing was vaguely dependent on women being like
somewhat or very intoxicated. So I'm also kind of happy for this generation that is making fewer poor life choices because there's less alcohol involved, that maybe they're dating less, but they're probably also wasting less time on like situations that I feel like all of us had in like, college where, you know, it wasn't full on anything, but you were just kind of like, you felt icky about it the next day. And you're like, I wouldn't have given that guy the time of day
if I had been sober. Lots of mornings spent feeling icky about the previous nights and then the person texting to follow up and being like oh. Yeah, I'm like, I feel like taking alcohol out of the situation a bit more might actually be helpful. All right, this was 1 I had never heard of, but I was reading a guy's blog about, like, he was summarizing things that he had gotten from different pickup artists. So I'm not sure if this one's in the game or he's gotten it from later writers.
It just seems, again, sometimes this is just like breaking down very basic stuff for people who might be socially a little bit anxious or maybe inept. But it's called keno escalation. Have you heard of this one before, Kay? I saw that it's like how you can slowly increase your touches and
start off. And like start with a light touch, like just a like non invasive a tap on the arm and like professionally acceptable kind of stuff maybe and into like gradually escalating it like touching her more. This. Seems not a touching person, so I don't. Do you feel like, and maybe this is just because I have had like some people that don't seem to like understand where the boundaries are.
And if if you are somebody who is socially awkward and you had to have this explained to you, then you may not be the type of person who's going to pick up on like. What's the? Appropriate way, yeah. I had like a male supervisor once that had this habit of like touching women more and it was in a totally non sexual way. Like he he read very like a sexually.
I don't know what he was like at all, but I think that in some like white men's management seminar somewhere he had been told that like, oh, women are more like emotional and connect more through touch. So like if you're connecting with a female colleague, then like give her a little pat on the shoulder or something. It totally read as creepy though, of course. And I like talk to somebody at HR who like kind of had this conversation with him on my behalf since he was senior to me.
But we were like, if this is just a real easy one for you men, cuz you can just like not touch women at all. Like if you're like, what is the appropriate amount to touch a woman? That they don't know it makes us feel great. Yeah, the the zero is always a good answer. So I don't know. Yeah, this one reads to me as a little bit creepy, Especially if you're not, if you're somebody who's going to pick up artists.
For writing things on it you. Don't have good instincts, so you should probably not try this. So my partner told me that something that he had read once and anybody who's outside of United States would laugh at this because they'd be like, well, yes, this is just what we do. But he's like when you're introduced to a girl who you find attractive, you kiss him on the cheek. It's like 1. You introduces your touch to them and then they can decide if
they like it or not. But then there were also kind of caught off guard. And then you do it again when you say goodbye to them. And I don't know that again just made me think like, oh, but I would probably already be in the mindset of like, am I doing this wrong? Am I now supposed to kiss them on the cheek bag? I do. Agree, I think that it would just throw me off but not in a good way. I would just be like wait, is this guy European?
Like if the guy was European or South American or whatever, like I wouldn't think anything of it, but like if it was just like a regular American dude, I'd be like, what am I missing here? I think I'd be confused by it, but I would just be like this is odd. It made me farther laugh because I round back and I remembered my first date with my partner where he went to try to kiss me but I didn't know what was going on and we were in the back of an Uber.
So I like tried to turn away and it ended up with him kissing my forehead and I'm all like he was probably trying to kiss my cheeks. I've got some situations like that too. Or even just like one of you goes in for a hug and one of you goes in for a handshake and then you like awkwardly bump into each other and you're like, I do like that about European culture, like a lot of other countries besides the US where there's very like define like.
And then you even have this like if you're, you know, traveling there for the first time that they're like O2 women always greet each other with a kiss. Like a woman and a man always greet each other with a kiss like men, men, you know, that there's just like predefined things. And in the US, it's just like, do we do a handshake?
Like then you have the people who just be like, I'm a hugger and then they just go for it. But I do appreciate them specifying that they're about to go in for a hug, even if I am not a hugger. I also feel like this keno escalation one kind of sounds like advice that they give you about like taming a horse. Some other kind of like spirited animals. Offer like a little lump of sugar in your hand and approach slowly.
Okay, last one is push and pull. So you like you're positive and you compliment them and then you like you're kind of like you go hot cold. So you're like oh, don't get too cocky like I'm not that. And and like you, keep the other person uncertain of where they stand with you. I don't know if any woman would be able to follow like a guy intentionally trying to push and pull them. Like, I don't think people would probably be like, I probably
just didn't hear him right? Like I don't think that somebody's like, oh, I'm like in France right now. Like they're keeping me guessing. I think they're probably just be like, oh, they probably said something nice because they're polite. And now they said something kind of annoying. And so maybe that's who they are, or they said something really nice. So they're nice. And when they said something that came off as mean, they
probably didn't realize that. I don't think that anybody's like, oh, what is this push, pull? So intrigued. Yeah, I feel like mostly that would come across to me as a red flag. A guy doing this is like that you're emotionally unstable or emotionally unavailable. I'm not like, oh, I'm like intrigued because I don't know where I stand with him and I, I have to try to pull him in and I'm like, maybe especially if you are like as doing it as like expertly and seamlessly as
mystery himself. And I'm just wondering, like, if you give some guy who feels awkward approaching woman just any sort of list of things to talk about with them, and that guy feels like, OK, now I have to say something. That's this. You're still keeping the conversation going. I think the guy is still making it. I don't know.
I just wonder how many, how many women out there are really like they're receptive to being talked to by a. Person, I think it's like not that complicated and they do understand the need for something that is maybe just a bit of an icebreaker that gives you something more original to start the conversation with or to give you like a bit of like a false sense of like a fake it till you make it.
Not like false confidence, but like we all sometimes need to fake it till we make it a little bit. So, you know, things that can do that without trying to come across as an emotionally unstable asshole or make the other person feel unstable to promote your own self in there in there. So you don't have this one on
the list of pick up things. And so I want to ask you which is that what my partner said who had read this book and used some of the different strategies, some of them he said you were not worth even. I would have loved to see him and at the top of his pick up game picking you up. He definitely did not have much of A dating life. So does not, you know, bode well for the book's actual success.
But he did say that that what felt right and good when he read it was the idea that as soon as you go into a social situation where you're with a group of guys and they're then you should go immediately to another group of women who seem largely, you know, single. Like they're just there with only their own sex. And start talking to them, not to hit on them, not to, but almost just to like combine groups in a way so that that way.
Dating like in high school? Like that, would the other woman at the bar see them as more comfortable and approachable and also potentially desirable? Like, they don't know, oh, maybe this one guy's dating that girl, but maybe the friend single. Yeah, we can ask the girl. She's like, he's cool, but, you know, they're all smiling and talking to them. It makes you, like, look more desirable and confident and like you're someone who knows how to talk to women.
I don't know. Yeah. He's going to have a high success rate that. Is, I mean, I feel like also again, just if like a lot of these pick up tactics seem like there is much for getting rid of the man's anxiety or, you know, like giving him like a bit of that confidence so that he can be. And, and then I think ideally that you can be your authentic
self. And that underneath that anxiety is somebody who's like genuinely very kind and interested in a, a relationship with a woman of, of whatever length. So I guess that's like what a lot of these things get to. And is it, is it just like you're using it to try to just dispel a little bit of your initial anxiety? Because I think that we all need that. I think that these things aren't written as and this will dispel your like, you know, insecurities and anxieties about
approaching women. But I think that what they're actually doing is that. Because when you go into a bar and you approach women, not with the goal in your mind that you know, I'm going to hit on one of these specific women, but I'm just going to start a conversation, then you realize how how easy it is and that everybody's having a good time. They're like, humans are naturally social people. If you walk up to start a conversation like people are most likely going to be receptive.
Yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, there's just so much that's gotten heaped on this idea, especially like men that get frustrated about this.
And then they're sort of there's so many forums for them to just kind of like continue circulating around in an echo chamber Reddit or some places that are even a little bit more a little bit darker than Reddit. That you're just like reinforcing this idea that, yeah, that that first of all, that you're not so much like seeking authentic connections with other humans of like whatever nature, but that like solely you are only interacting with women to like go get as
much pussy as possible. And I do think that like, one of the reasons that you don't see like women complaining about this as much is because there are more women. I mean, obviously they are also seeking romantic partners. They're also like corny and looking for one night stands, but they are looking for a lot of a lot of maybe diversity.
And that you don't have this idea of I see men posting on Reddit things like, oh, you know, I just think that like, I talked to all these women and only like a small percentage of them find me attractive. And I think it's like most women probably are not like in a situation where like every man in the world finds them attractive, but it's like, you don't need that. Yeah. And I don't think that a woman is every single guy that she sees being like, is he attractive enough for me to go
on a date with. I think that time and time again it's shown by, you know, who a woman will end up going on a second date with after meeting somebody through online, through blind dates, is that they're actually much more like understanding and receptive towards, you know, talking a little bit to a guy, figuring him out and seeing if she can find him attractive even if she didn't initially find him attractive on first look. Yeah, Yeah. I think that there's a lot more to it than physical
attractiveness. And the confidence piece seems like it is just a piece of it to like get that initial interaction, to get that first date or something along that line of just kind of breaking the ice initially. But beyond that, you know, I don't think that confidence is like the top thing that most women are looking for. One thing also that I got from I've been rereading Emily Nagowski's Come As You Are, which I think we're going to discuss more on a future episode.
One of her points in general about just women's sexuality is that there's much more variation. She kind of compares it to height where she's like, even though on the whole men are taller than women, there's more variation within women's heights than there is variation between like the average woman and the average man. And she says that that's very true about like a lot of data
about sexuality as well. So I was just listening to a chapter where she's just like listing off all of these things that different women who she had interviewed listed as like their turn on, like what really gets them going. And she's like, so and and then also like what their turn offs were like what put your brakes on? And at the end of the day, the main take away from it was just that there's so much more diversity within the data set of
women. Then there is like any one thing that you can take away or any one thing that you can say. Men like this and women like this other thing. Yeah, so going on with that is that there's a book Models Attract Women through Honesty by Mark Manson, which was seen as like a more comprehensive, actually in tune with people's
emotions book than the game. And they, they talk about the idea of non neediness and at the concept of neediness and which is deeply unattractive to, you know, not just woman, but really people in general. And neediness is when a man places a higher priority on others perceptions of him than
on his perceptions of himself. And there's a theory that like the man's attractiveness is inversely proportional to how needy he is. So the less needy he is, the more attractive he will be to woman on average. And I think that's kind of an interesting thing because yes, you want a person to, I don't know, have a high perception of themselves and to care about that, not bend to what other people find. But you also want them to be able to listen and take feedback and to adapt.
So I, I don't know, does that like there's kind of like a balance there? Yeah. When that gets back to the research, I think I mentioned the last episode, that's like successful relationships are like there's a lot of openness to being changed and like evolving with your partner. So we think that there is a piece of like openness and vulnerability which I can understand is different than neediness and where I thought he was going to go a little bit with the needing the.
Vulnerability is next and his and his list I had. To read the book. So vulnerability as like he, as he describes it, is the ability to be comfortable with your emotions, your faults, and being able to express yourself without inhibition. And that that's a big part about building attraction. And so this isn't, you know, unloading all your issues to somebody else. But. Knowing, you know, oh, I'm actually, I'm not the best at this.
So like, I do get too angry in these situations and I, you know, I, this is like the reality of my station in life, like. Yeah. Of it, yeah. And just I think especially for the male side, when men are socialized to not talk about their emotions that much, that I think vulnerability is openness to talking about your emotions and processing them and things
like that. I understand Maui, he's differentiating like there's like neediness and vulnerability because I think that that makes like a nice balance to walk of being vulnerable without being needy or like without trauma dumping and things like that. Because otherwise you just end
up with an emo kid. And I, I think it goes for women too, this idea that to be ready for a relationship, we need to have kind of a strong sense of self and be willing to go into it knowing that we have faults and ready to talk about them. And to, you know, maybe hear other people express that they're having a frustrating time with some of your own
faults. Yeah. And a lot I was reading why one reason why men might be struggling a little bit with adapting to kind of the changing nature of relationships between hetero men and women is just this shifting overall power dynamic. And that women used to just kind of need men for security and just like, to be able to have a bank account or like own property. They couldn't do any of this on their own. So it used to be fairly straightforward that, like, all that men had to offer was just
that, like, physical stability. And anything else beyond that is kind of icing on the cake. And so now we are in this era of, like, women can provide for their basic physical needs on their own. And so some men are kind of like, Oh, well, then that makes us obsolete. And this particular writer, I wish I remember when I was reading, but I think I've seen this point made by a few people.
Is that like, no, this is this opportunity for you to have all this space to be a true partner to a woman. And that they are still, you still see women out there looking for men, but now they're looking for like a partner, you know, someone to share experiences with, just somebody who has a sense of humor, who brings more enjoyment to life. And so you don't have to be, you know, stuck in these traditional
roles, either of you anymore. And that frees you up to to have much more psychologically fulfilling relationship. That's and I saw something the other day and it was a guy posting on one of the social media forums that, you know, he's so proud because he gets to retire his wife. They had a three month old baby and the wife was now, you know, retired by him and that this is a blessing and a privilege.
And I was thinking like, oh, the way that you phrase that, it's kind of bothering me because it should be fully her decision and her thing and you should need to acknowledge, you know, what she's giving up during that. And that's not really like you retired her. Like the status symbol that he has that he's like, I got to like, yeah, render my wifes job obsolete because I'm so successful.
Yeah. And if you are also giving her like, you know, full financial freedom, all those things, she's not going to have to go to you when she wants to go out for coffee or anything like that for parishion, then it's not that like, that isn't awesome. It's just like the wording around it. Yeah. Give me the ick. Yeah, yeah, I totally get that.
Yeah. And you know, a reason why we're doing this episode is just to kind of clarify some at least of our beliefs around the idea of, of confidence and, you know, alpha males for lack of a reward and why there is some attraction to them. But that comes with balance. And we're not asking for somebody to take over.
Or we said attracted to confidence without necessarily wanting an alpha male because I think we had kind of talked about that last time that we had the X&Y axis of of with good guys and the bad guys, but that the missing piece from that was confidence. And so I think maybe like talking about confidence in the in the aspect of it being something where the underlying nature motivation of the person is like good and like meaningful connection and not just being an
asshole. Yeah, and I saw a post that really kind of speaks to this, which is that sometimes it feels like the woman shouting the loudest about misogynistic men are the same ones who want that guy from 50 Shades of Grey. And I felt, you know, personally targeted by this post. And I was like, whoa, okay, Christian Gray actually did ask for consent. And yes, there was, you know, BDSM and Dom sub, but that happened within the confines of
something very specific. But also I don't even I didn't read 50 Shades of grey but there are other books where there is the guys kind. Of yeah, and we've talked a lot about how also we might be seeking that out. And so like this persons post that says like, oh, you know, these women who are screaming about misogynistic men are seeking them out. And it's like, OK, hold up Reddit, bro. Like we are seeking them out.
At least in in the examples that I'm talking about, obviously there are women who are inherently attracted to like abusive or violent men. But I don't think that that's something associated with feminism. I think sometimes some of us come from difficult past or have, you know, things in our childhood that are attracting us
to destructive relationships. But on the whole, when we talk about women who are feminists and are like, you know, these men need to, you know, be more whatever that we're not then like turning around and marrying Christian Gray. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, that we're that we're we are. I think at least when I look around, I mean sure, like short term relationships and one night
stands and things like that. But when I look around at the strong feminist women that I know and who they married, like none of them are married to Christian Gray. None of them are married to Mystery. Not that you could tie mystery down with marriage. Or like, I don't know any of these examples or like I mean any like this romantic stuff of like werewolves that also like tear their clothes off their body with their claws. And I saw a review for a summary of a book written by an author
actually for that book. And she's like, I want to make it clear that this book does not represent what a healthy relationship is or a guy that people would actually be attracted to in real life. You know, this book is meant to be sexy and deserve the purposes of something you read that's sexy. You know, the same way as when we watch adult videos or something, we might seek certain content, but that's not necessarily what we're looking for in our day-to-day partnerships in life.
So. Totally. And I did because there have been some questions about like what is it that attracts men that attracts women to this kind of like alpha male kind of characteristic. There was an article by Gable at all in Evolution and they were looking at some previous research that is kind of like, why are women attracted? And, and like, does it have to do with an evolutionary kind of thing of like maybe these men are more masculine and able to reproduce?
They were studying whether women are more attracted to appetite of aggression, which is just basically like when men are violent without any like reason to, they're not provoked, they're not defending anything. So. Gosh, no. Yeah, I mean, and I guess that's like what you see in kind of some of these like characters that we're into in books or when they're like, oh, you're attracted to these like misogynistic men in in this article, they called it kind of like the warrior archetype.
So they did find that when women are in the peak of their fertility cycle that they were more attractive. They gave different scenarios of this soldier, his experience returning from war and they gave you 4 different vignettes with trauma related symptoms with high or low appetite of aggression or no trauma related symptoms with high or low appetite of aggression. And the women are like ranking how much they would want to be with the soldier in this little
like story that they're given. Oh my gosh, it's like right when they're horniest, they want to be with the people who can, like, protect. Right when they're horniest they do, they're more attracted to the alpha male.
But even in that case, it was an uptick in how many of them reported they'd be interested in a short term relationship with this aggressive alpha male warrior type than that any of them were like, Oh yeah, this is the man that I want to like get a mortgage with and like hosting. Raising my kids. Do be a soccer coach for my kids
soccer team. So yeah, this is this idea that like this is a marker for recently this like masculinity is like a marker for reproduction, but we don't actually see them necessarily as relationship material. Yeah. And that's funny. So something that Neil Strauss did write about that I thought was kind of ridiculous because when I was actually imagining it happening, I was like, Oh my gosh, that would be such a turn
off. But it was for guys to come prepared with stories about how they were a leader in different situations. And so when they were starting the conversation with a woman, they would get into sharing these, you know, work antidotes. I would always have them in like the leader of the alpha position because we're evolutionarily attracted to guys who are in that.
And I'm just imagining that if I were sitting there with like, you know, some 23 year old like Deloitte associate and he's like, I was really leading when I told this company this. Oh my gosh, I'm actually just flashing back to like, I was at a party and I was being hit on by some Deloitte douchebag bro, and he was talking about something. I was like not even talking about work because of course, like I was 22 and like had no job that I needed to talk about
in a party situation. But he was like, oh, like, do you have a passport? Then like you have me to thank for it Because I, or I think I was like saying something about how I traveled a lot for work. But he was saying to me like worked with Deloitte on like passport control technology or something. And he's like, it's like, thanks to my work that like you can move like quickly through other countries. And I was like, OK, how did this just turned into a LinkedIn post?
Like please Get Me Out of here. Support conversation now, yeah, so. I also wanted to ask about some of our favorite characters while we're on this topic, who some of our favorite characters are that come across as like very confident and maybe that they have traditional qualities of masculinity to like test this a bit, mainly because as you know, Kay, I am reading the a court of.
By Sarah J. Moss We finally to read A Court of Thorns. I am finally catching up on all of my romanticy reading so no spoilers because I'm only into the second book, but just from knowing general things about this series and hearing about it from our friends and obviously being the last person to be reading this series. So I just finished the first book and it's all about her, her relationship with Tamlin. And I'm like, I know they don't
end up together, right? So I'm like waiting, I'm like no Reese and is the name of the guy that she. So then like later in the book, I'm like, oh OK, this is who she's going to be with. And he is just a total douchebag when you first meet him, but there. Are reasons for that, yeah, it's. Like in the book, so again, it's like this guy who reads as a
total douchebag. But I feel like whenever you have those characters, which is like pretty much always the setup in the enemies to lovers trope, which is kind of my least favorite trope because I feel like you have to manufacture this like slightly unrealistic situation of like why they would be bitter enemies and just like totally hate one another, but then like find some reason to like totally lost after each other later, which. Is why it works.
Yeah, exactly, which is why it only works in fantasy. And yeah, so I'm I'm already kind of like getting into this, but it's not just that he is this like, because she's not attracted to him being this alpha male or like kind of an asshole and really confident. And I'm not really to the part of the book yet where she's into him. But you can already see like where it's starting to set it up that he has these reef moments of vulnerability and that's what's actually attracting her to him.
And then meanwhile, her relationship with Tamlin is starting to to break down a little bit. And in that case, it is because he's very controlling. He's not seeing her as an equal partner. It's not because he's being a beta at all that she's less attractive. Or in a lot of these other books, if there's the guy that's the initial love interest or the guy that she's supposed to be with, who's the obvious pick? It's rarely that she's not into him because he's being a beta.
So do we think that that means that Sarah J. Moss read the book called Models Attract Women through Honesty by Mark Manson? So she knew that there had to be non neediness and vulnerability. I mean, not having gotten even through the 2nd book yet, I think that you can answer this better than I, but it kind of seems like that's the setup
here. Yeah, it's interesting because I think that Reese and is very alpha, but when I look back at it, the moments where you actually become a attracted to him are through these more vulnerable moments where he's acknowledging his inability to do things or his. Yeah, yeah. So I. Think and I guess also in in the books with primarily, especially where you have this is not the only series that you I mean, I think this is the most famous where you have women lusting
after fairies. When you have all these men who are like, oh, I'm an alpha, like, I have to have all these like markers of traditional masculinity. And yet what you see that these women are lusting after, at least in this case of fairy romanticity, I mean, these men have long hair in a lot of cases, I just. Not my thing. Well, again, this is like fantasy things that we're lusting after. I don't also feel like you would be sexually attracted to other
kinds of hairy beasts either. So I guess those are pretty like alpha masculine. But the theory is I, I did not realize until reading this book that the love interest is wearing a Mardi Gras mask that is surgically plastered to his face for the entire first book. So like, it was very glitzy. He's got like a lot of glamour. I feel like he is just reading as a little bit like. You have to put on like a weird mask for these. A little bit fancy. Yeah. No, I mean, I have no problem
with that. I like that we're like bridging it a little bit. And it's not just like he had a motorcycle and a six pack. And I mean, he's not like coming across as effeminate, but he's also not coming across as this traditionally masculine that his biceps ripped through his leather jacket. Also plays the fiddle, you know. That I love a good orchestra dork.
So I hope that this is an OK time to switch over to an important thing that also leaks back to the orgasm gap because it is relevant in terms of romanticity. So I was reading a book about demons this weekend. This is the Sexy Satan book. Next to Satan, there was Lucifer. There was, you know, an Archangel. I mean, it really had everything
I needed. But the important part about it, relevant to the orgasm gap and important about women writing books about fantasy worlds, is that, according to to this book's Canon, demon vaginas have a second clitoris that is inside the vagina. Is this the G spot it is? I mean, it's kind of like. It's the D spot, the big. D spot is. It is instead the literal hypersensitive clitoris. You know the G spot is not. Nobody would say that any of the G spots are the same as a
clitoris for a woman. And this was literally a second clitoris within the vagina. I love this. I would also I think that this is you were reading some you were a beta reader for some material for the author. Should we credit? I was just an early reader. The book is called Beast and it's by Georgia Lee and I thought that it was a blast and as soon as I read that there was a sexy Satan on the first page I was like I am.
Fulfilling your Catholic fantasies that we've already previously discussed we. Always knew that Satan would be a daddy in bed and unfortunately she did not get to have sex with Satan. But Satan was actually one of the better demon Princess, where we kind of wish that she had had sex with Satan at the beginning and they left you no doubt that he was going to be able to give a good time if she had gone through with it, yes. For for a fallen woman.
But I won't get into it. But she was a furious. My sweet spot is reading books that have like under 100 reviews on Goodreads that aren't their first couple months. Because it just feels like you're doing two things at once. I'm reading a book that I genuinely want to read, but also if I'm giving a review afterwards out of my own free will, I feel like just putting good karma out there. So we're going to end up with a little talk on the loneliness
epidemic. Yeah. I think to summarize this, it seems like confidence is attractive when it is an indicator that you are somebody who is generally open to relationships. And I like the model book, that idea of being vulnerable without being needy or just that you're somebody who is genuinely
seeking human connection. So I was just listening to an NPR piece on the male loneliness epidemic, and they actually pointed out that if you just look at the Pew Research on people reporting that they're lonely, I think they said that like 30% of people overall feel. In the most recent Pew Research, 30% of people overall feel lonely once a week or more. But then it was about 16% of people overall said that they are lonely most or all of the time. But there was actually only about 1%.
I know I'd like first of all nine. Percent. Join us in the comments and you can come be our friend. But they said that. So I think there was just like a 1% difference between. So I think it was like 16% for women rounded and 17% for men. So the the journalists who are commenting on this were like, there isn't actually a big difference if you just talk
about being lonely. That's just more of an overall cultural trend when we live in a world where I think post pandemic, you can name a number of reasons for that that we've had to break down in some of our traditional communities. And many of us live in a town that's like different than the one we grew up in. So we don't have these long standing communities. So they were kind of talking about like, what are the other differences for men?
And one of them that they said is that there's this conflation that was mostly just among men of loneliness and like not having a partner relationship that they were not like separating the 2. And so women are thinking like, on the whole, we're more seeking both friendships and a relationship, either or and or both. And but that like men are conflating this idea of like having connection in your life as like you, the best and highest form of that is to have this relationship.
And one way that they saw that play out is that they asked people like, how likely are you to go to these different relationships or these different people in your life when you need something or you need support or advice? And men were as likely to go to their spouse as women are to go to their spouse for like help or advice. But men are less likely to go to like every other type of relationship in their life. So women would go to their spouse, but they would also. Go.
Their parents, their siblings, their friends, you know, their their their work wife, whatever. And men were pretty much like, if you have a spouse, you would go to her, you would go to them for advice and support. And then other than. That comment towards us burying most of the load there, but
that. Was a huge discussion piece for it and the amount of pressure that this is on women again, that men have such singular focus on these partners relationships in that they're expecting to get so much more out of it because they have like fewer friendships to fall back on or the friendships they they are used less in that way. So men, you know, maybe use these game tactics on other men.
You know, maybe when you walk up, I think you put three boys and you see another three boys in the bar. Just go talk straight to them, you know? OK, honestly, I feel like a lot of these tactics are like the nagging stuff like this would work equally well on male potential friends because I do think that men a little bit more than women enjoy like a good little nagging or something like that. And and there's so I don't know if you ever see. Talking gives the men something
to respond to and the other guy. Yeah, exactly. I think that they're the same way that they say women are actually dressing mostly for other women. I think these men who are wearing these like sort of outlandish clothing are probably mostly doing it to like. Make other guys laugh. Status symbol amongst your Bros. You know, as we said, this idea that like as society does become more equitable that women don't need men for these like basic
needs anymore. And do you ever hear that French guy on social media that he's always like or she doesn't need you anymore bro like she doesn't have to be bothered with it just for your like weak ass relationship. I don't know. He does like all these funny things that just do. I will send you some videos from him, but he's like, she doesn't need you. She's got her shit taken care of.
Unless you can give her something that really is going to be amazing for her, then she doesn't need to be bothered. He says she's single and deliciously undisturbed is one of the last videos that I wanted watched. And he says dating in 2025 is like applying for a job that doesn't pay well. So there's like a lot of videos and content out there of basically like, hey, women are doing well. Like we've got great friend
groups. We have, you know, jobs and health insurance now and we can have credit cards on her own. So like men, you have to offer us something. Yeah, and there's a lot of different ways that you can meet friends and people and the relationships might naturally come from there. But things like, you know, kickball leagues and running groups and all. That well, this is this is something else that I noticed when we were talking about our Nice Guys episode. Is that the friend zone complaint?
Have you ever heard a woman say like, oh, I got put in the friend zone by this guy, even though like maybe we have all, I mean, I know I have. We have all had a situation where you were like, oh, I was attracted to this guy, but he didn't really like see me as more than a friend. But we don't have this like we'd never. Be like oh I'm friend zone. We would just be like, oh be. Like, oh, that's disappointing when you had different like thoughts on where this relationship was going.
And then you can decide if you want to like be friends with somebody that you kind of wish you had something more or that that's too painful. So I think that that's just such a particularly male thing, this idea that all relationships that aren't, you know, going to end in some kind of like sex or boyfriend girlfriend thing are just not worth having. And so that like friend zoned is negative or just like connecting
with a bunch of people. Yeah, like, again, maybe that trick at the bar where you go and you talk immediately to a group of girls, it works because you're just having a good time and people want to be with people who are having a good time instead of being focused on, you know, who you're going
to bring. Home and that seems like that's really a reliever for your anxiety is instead of setting up a fake situation where you pretend that or that it's not going to turn into something more maybe just like genuinely
go in with that expectation. Well, following up on things from previous episodes, we always like to wrap by following up. I know that we owe our Gilmore Girlies an official apology because we were talking about Rory's different love interests in a previous episode and mistakenly referred to Jess as Jesse. One of our intrepid listeners pointed this out. I am going to take all the fault for this one cake. I know. You're not watching. Gilmore, but. Why was?
His reaction was, why is there a man named Jess? So I would encourage you, Kay, to deconstruct a little bit your desire for traditional masculinity and look into the fact that he is actually the most emotionally vulnerable of all of her love interests. I'll try, I will try Gilmore Girls maybe sometime if I have to spend 3 months in a hospital. That is the only scenario that you consider. Can't read? Yeah, neither audiobooks or normal reading books are available to me.
Then I'll watch Gilmore Girls. While I am continuing to move through the Court of Thorn and Roses at a fast clip, so. And Speaking of just female friendships being peak and men need to aspire to have their friendships be more like women, I would just like to shout out to Kay and our other Court of Thorn and Roses bestie who is the like #1 fangirl that got me into reading this series. I've been live texting my commentary on this series as I go through for the.
It's just so hard to not respond with spoilers because it's like oh I know exactly what chapter it's going to get good but you all. Are doing a very good job of that, but I just feel like pig female friendship is when you were like, oh, OK, yeah. Like you're about to get to like the part of the book where it gets really hot and then both of the two of you like 10:00 at night. You were both like, I'm going to flip to that scene in my Kindle and we're all going to be reading it together.
In the same time, because like the scene was is literally that she meets the guy who we both love. And so the scenes literally just hello, I've been looking for you. And so Sarah and I separately texted him. We're like, SJ is going to be pretty unhappy with what that scene actually is. Yeah, I was, but I just really appreciated that you are now, like, reading our, like, smutty book together with me in
solidarity. And we're like, all in our beds late at night, like reading sexy fairy fiction. I say. Like the reason that they think maybe a lot of men are struggling to have the same level of friendships as women are is because of all of the homophobia that they're conditioned with and that they're like, oh, you can't like do anything that would be like too emotional or gay with your bro. So you have to just like, talk about sports and like nag each
other, you know, on sexually. Imagine if like our partners were all texting each other like hey I just watched a really great adult video. Yeah, they're like, OK, guys, They're like totally getting to this part where they're like, there's this really amazing blowjob. Like let's all watch it together at the same time and then text each other about it. I would love that for them. Well, have a great day everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Appreciate a five star review
and a follow. No nagging in the comments needed though. You know only. Appreciate nagging one-on-one in the club in 2004.