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Relationship and Marriage Advice Overview

  • When I was young, pretty much all of the marriage and relationship advice I heard boiled down to wait as long as possible to do it. Don't marry until you're 30. Date as many people as you can. Take care of yourself first. Don't give up too much of yourself. Date around. Find someone who's perfect for you. And if they're not perfect for you, kick their ass to the curb and move on with no regrets. Now, statistics say that the past two generations have apparently taken this advice to heart. The marriage rate is at an all time low, people are waiting longer than ever to marry, and people date more frequently and date more people than ever before. Non-monogamy is becoming a thing, and the coup de grace, infidelity rates have risen every decade stretching all the way back, the free love '60s. Now, with dating apps, it's never been easier to drop one person and skip right to the next one. Sorting people by your ideal checklist of traits is standard now, and the refrain of, they weren't right for you, you can do better, has never been stronger. Yet, if you dig into the psychological literature, the findings are clear. Married people are happier, they live longer, they make more money, they report more meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Being in long, boring, stable relationships is good for our mental health and happiness. Yet the message to young people seems to be the opposite. Long-term relationships matter. I didn't appreciate this until I was well into my 30s. I grew up with divorced parents telling me not to settle, to get my career and friends and finances into order before I found someone to share them with. I dated around as much as possible in my 20s, and I dropped relationships, both good and bad, at the first sign of danger. Now I look back and I wonder if maybe I took things too far. My guest today is Sadia Khan, a psychologist and dating coach. Sadia is a British Muslim, so she brings an interesting perspective from two different cultures as well as her academic background. She's unconventional in that most of her advice is stuff that my grandmother probably would've said if she were alive today. Yet in the age of social media, dating apps, and abundant pornography, Sadia's advice is, well, it hits a little different than Nana's. Let's just put it that way. In today's episode, we discuss how the skills that people develop to maximize their dating prospects are the same skills that hinder their long-term relationships and intimacy. We talk about the relationship between sex appeal and status, how men and women who objectify each other kind of deserve each other, and how insecure men's simplistic views of sex only makes them feel even more insecure. We talk about how most women's dating advice encourages outright narcissism and entitlement, and how this is only frustrating the women in the long run rather than helping them. We talk about how pornography has skewed male expectations of intimacy while social media has skewed female expectations of intimacy, and well, the disaster that it's caused for everybody. We talk about the relationship between self-esteem and love, and why insecure men and women overcompensate in all areas of their lives, not just with each other. We talk about why boundaries are actually for other people's benefit, not just yours. And of course, we talk about prostitutes, gold diggers, and glory holes, you know, the three pillars of any good relationship podcast. That and much, much more. Drew joined me in studio for this one, so it's a very special episode, and please be sure to follow the show, leave a review, tell me and Drew how handsome we are. It helps me get more guests for the show and it helps Drew get more dates and it's the best way to support us and let us know that you love all the juicy information you got from the episode. So without further ado, let's get into it. - [Narrator] 20 million books sold, zero fucks given. It's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast" with your host, Mark Manson. - Welcome, Sadia. This is the first in-studio interview on "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast." Honored to have you as a guest. - Extremely honored to be here. I've been saying this online all the time. I am the biggest Mark Manson fan. You're the only content I refer to when I'm double checking if I've got something right. So I'm like, what would Mark say? Okay, let me double check. Okay, he agrees. Perfect, then I must be right. - Well, flattery will get you very far in this studio. This is also a first. Drew is joining us for the first time on an interview. We thought it would be fun since you are a relationship expert. - Yeah. - I'm happily married for a long time. He's happily single. And so we thought it'd be interesting to have both perspectives and come at it from both angles. So we'll see where this goes. I wanna start with, you had a spicy quote that I saw recently, which was, you said that modern dating is training people for divorce. What do you mean by that? - You're practicing all the skills and tools you need to recover from a breakup, to have disassociated sex, and to look for very extrinsic values in a partner. So things that we would look for in short-term dating, like looks, sex, status, power, and how to replace them in case it goes wrong. So we always go into dating with an insurance policy in case this person goes wrong, in case there's somebody else out there, in case I can do better. With that mentality, we don't practice any of the skills and tools we need to maintain a connection and therefore we are going from relationship to relationship rather than learning anything that will maintain the relationship. We just learn how to recover and replace people, sadly. - Interesting, okay. So there's a lot I think we can pull, there's a few threads there that we can pull at. The first one that stands out to me is that we're filtering for the wrong things. We're filtering for kind of the superficial, extrinsic traits. Looks, status, sex. Why do you think, is that the apps? Like, what's driving that do you think? - I would say the apps don't help and I really don't like to sound like a broken record, but I think from a female perspective, the extrinsic values are really pulled from social media and seeing a lifestyle that they're constantly bombarded with. So that's caused them to look for more extrinsic values. For men, I think pornography has caused them to look for very extrinsic values, and that combination of women that are looking for money and men looking for sex means that sex workers and more promiscuous women are reaching the most successful men and they're pairing up quite quickly and easily. It doesn't last, but they're pairing up quite quickly and easily. But people who are actually looking for intrinsic values and looking for connection, they're really struggling in the dating market. And so we have to look at where society's made it easier for, and we're making it easier for people with the most junk values. - How do we counteract that? - It's very difficult. It's very, very difficult because people don't realize where the indoctrination is coming from and they don't think they're indoctrinated. They don't realize that when you're constantly seeing really beautiful airbrushed women all day every day, and then you're googling what they look like naked, and you're being able to subscribe to that, they don't realize that that is severing away at your ability to connect to a woman on your actual level. Like they'll be men who are, you know, super overweight, super old, might be from a different culture, but they're googling their dream woman and thinking they deserve them. They think simply because they've seen it, they deserve it. Same thing with women. They'll be watching couple content where a man buys a woman a bag for Christmas and for Valentine's Day and decorate. And they think because they've seen it, they deserve it. So we have to really undo the conditioning, which is difficult to do. - It almost just sounds like people should get offline. - Yeah, I know, and it's like, how do we counteract online behavior? We just simply can't, and I say this from a privileged position. I didn't grow up with Tinder and Instagram and stuff. I didn't grow up with that. And so when you are grown up with Snapchat, you've grown up with Instagram, like, so they start at 10, 11 years old. How do we uncondition that young mind? So I think I'm speaking from a, it sounds like a higher horse, but I've actually just escaped that part of life. But if I was 10 years younger, if I was 21, 22 years old, there would be no way I would think any differently to what the young people are thinking now. - My wife and I, we met each other like a month before Tinder came out. And we joke that we like- - Really, you just met before? - Just got in- - So it would've been 2000 and- - 12. - 12, oh, is that when Tinder came out? 2012? Yeah, it must have been. - Or it was like a month or two before I heard it. - Oh, wow, you just missed it. - Yeah, yeah. - Thank goodness. - Yeah, thank God, right?
  • Thank goodness. - But it's funny though 'cause like a conversation I often have with people who come to me who are single and frustrated, you know, it's, I think everything you're saying is true. I also think the nature of the dating apps is that, you know, you have to set filters for yourself and you have to set, you have to define like what you're looking for and what you're not looking for. And I just think that most of the things that if you ask somebody, what are you looking for in a partner? The most immediate answers are probably the wrong ones. You know, people think, oh, I want somebody who's like tall and wealthy and funny. And like, okay, that stuff's nice, but ultimately that's not the thing that determines whether it's gonna be a good partner for you long term or not. And I just remember, like, when I think back to my own dating life, here comes Mark's old man moment. So back in my day, when you actually went to a bar and talked to a woman, there were so many circumstances in my young life where I would go to a party or dinner or something and I would meet a woman. And my initial interest, like there was no initial interest. I didn't think she was that attractive. I wasn't that into her. But over the course of the night of like talking to her, seeing her personality, seeing her sense of humor, there was a chemistry there that ended up being like very sexy. And actually a lot of those women was like some of the best relationships that I had, right? So it's like you said, you get this, online, you get this idealized version of what a partner should be that is impossible for anybody to live up to, whereas it's almost better to like not know what your ideal partner is. And just kind of like use that curiosity to go find out. - But the thing is, you went in with the mentality of humanizing women, like wanting to know what they were like and that's the key. - Horrible mistake. (everyone laughs) - So with that- - I still haven't recovered. - With that mentality, you can either create connection or not. But with the dehumanized version of dating that we've created through online dating apps and Instagram and pornography, by dehumanizing both men and women, we go into relationships looking what we can access from them rather than what we can contribute to them. And as a result, we've got endless people almost dating with a psychopathic kind of mentality of just, what can I get rather than what can I give? So you'll have men like, I can get sex from this girl, I can get this, I can get that. But they're not looking at, can I be responsible? Can I look after, can I father children, can I do? So we're forgetting responsibilities and just looking at the hedonistic view of creating connection. - What say you, single man? - Well, so I haven't used dating apps since 2018. I'm off them. Yeah, I'm barely on social media anymore too. Do you think though too that, dating apps, not only, somebody could come in with the right motivations and they have, you know, solid values and intrinsic values like you talk about, but the dating apps actually prime them more towards the extrinsic values. So, you know, just by the nature of using them, you're actually pushed in that direction. - Absolutely, it's catering to that need. It's kind of making it so zoomed in on extrinsic values. You don't know them, you can only judge by looks. So when you are beautiful, you'll be overwhelmed by the dating apps and as a result, you start to dehumanize men and you think, "Oh, I'm so sick of responding to these guys." And when you're a successful man at it, you dehumanize it and just use it as sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. So what ends up happening is the people who have the most access become the most jaded by them. Yeah, either become too sexual as a man, or you can become too fed up of men as a woman. And the ones that actually have the best and purest intentions, they can't even utilize it for the right reason. So it gets difficult for them, for the people who are actually going in with the right intentions 'cause they learn very quickly in order to stand out and even get a date, you have to cater to the wrong intentions. If you're a woman that wants to actually get a marriage from it, but you're realizing you're getting no matches, she'll end up starting to show more skin and therefore attract men who are looking for her looks. If you're a man who can't get any matches, he learns, let me just post my watch, or let me just show my car and then I'll get more matches. So by design, we end up pushing them towards intrinsic values. - You know what is like a billion-dollar business idea? Somebody should create a dating app. Maybe somebody's already tried this. Somebody should create, you know like that Netflix show "Love is Blind"? - Yeah. - Somebody should create the dating app version of that where it's like, it's personality test-based. So you get questionnaires about your values and your personality and the things you enjoy doing, and then you match or unmatch people based on that. And then it reveals like what they look like, what they do for work, all that stuff later. - That would be a cool concept. But Drew, if you're not on dating apps, how do you meet people? - Through friends mostly, yeah. - 'Cause people always ask me how they meet people. Do you know what to say to that? Like, when people ask you where to meet, what do you usually say? - I mean, over the last several years, people that I've dated, I've met through friends. It's a lot slower pace obviously too. I usually get to know them a little bit. We'll hang out a few times and it's like Mark was saying, you come to find things attractive about them that you don't immediately see or they become attractive over time. So it's usually through friends and just yeah, just putting yourself out there saying yes to more things for sure, yeah. - Drew has become very passionate about yoga, which is straight man code for getting a date. - Well, you've gotta put yourself in the right environments. I guess it's worth a try. Like you gotta put yourself in the right environments. But it is very difficult. I don't know where single people meet each other sadly. Outside of apps, I don't know. 'Cause I talk about how bad apps are, they sometimes can be used as a way to numb heartbreak as well. So people don't even experience heartbreak anymore. They just jump on an app, distract themselves. So we're devoiding ourselves of human emotions and therefore devoiding ourselves of how intimate a relationship should be. But at the same time, I don't offer a solution. So this is where I feel bad, I don't have a solution. What's the alternative? I wish I knew, but I just unfortunately don't really know. - I heard you speak about male-female relationships, or I'm sorry, friendships, yeah. And that to me, I've always made friends easily with other women. And so I think, you know, having that and then I'll meet some of their friends or something like that. And that's a good, just a good way to do that. - Yeah. I've understood the advice of not having female friends and not having male friends. - Do people actually recommend that? - Yeah. And I, I have so many of my clients will come to me and say, "My dating coach says I should never have female friends." - Fire him. - Fire them. What childish advice is that? - Some of my closest friends are women actually. - Yeah, my coaches friends have always been male. And one of the reasons I have this perspective online where people are a bit confused why it's so masculine is because I've always had male friends. And the amazing part of male friends is you finally get to, you don't sexualize everybody of the opposite gender. People without opposite gender friends, they sexualize everybody. Everybody of a different gender, they sexualize. When you make friends with the opposite gender, you're less easily impressed by them because you know how the opposite gender works and you're not easily swayed by what they say and do for you but you're also less excited by the opposite gender. You actually, it takes more than just them being a man or them being a woman for them to gauge your interest. So I think you really deprive yourself of a lot of stability when you don't have the opposite gender friends. - Absolutely. I think that's a big reason why men and women struggle to make friends with the opposite gender is that they don't know how to stop sexualizing them or seeing them as some form of other. But the crazy thing is, is that if you spend time, as a man, if you spend time with a lot of female friends, you get really good at communicating and empathizing with women, which makes you a much better partner when you start dating. - And the other thing it does is it helps remove women off their pedestals. So many men I was friends with when I was younger who may have had a little crush, after getting to know me in five minutes, they could never in a million years, yeah. They're like, oh, you know, they realize how quickly attractive, unattractive, or how quickly we're all the same. Women are just simply the same. You talk to them the same way you would talk to a non-attractive partner and it just releases that anxiety you have with talking to the opposite gender. - Yeah. Yeah, they're human too. - Yeah. They're flawed as well and it's just- - Yeah, everybody shit stinks. What is the, I mean, other than that, what else do you think most men's dating advice gets wrong? - The first with the lack of friendships, but the other thing that they do is they really place a lot of their self-esteem on the attractiveness of their partner. And they derive a lot of their ego from how attractive their partner is. And they feel really low self-esteem when they don't get an attractive partner. And they make their type an appearance. So they'll say, "My type is blonde, blue eyes," or, "My type is brunette and curvy." But my advice is always make your type of treatment. How do you get treated by that person? If every time your type is blonde, blue eyes, but she's treating you badly, she should no longer be your type. Or if your type is this particular man and he's not treating you well, he should no longer be your type, your type shouldn't just be a decision. It should be malleable based on the feedback you're getting from that type. So I always try and say, make your type the, how much do they soothe your anxieties, how loved they make you feel, how connected they, how do they treat you, how do you need feeling? That should become your type. - You know what's ironic about that? I used to run into guys like that all the time. So full disclosure for listeners, I started my career as a dating coach. - Yes, and also, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mark's book and "Models" is absolutely fantastic. I came across it recently, I was just telling him before the show, it is still so relevant to men today. And it was written in 2011. Please go buy that book. It's fantastic. As a man, skip this podcast, go buy that book. - Your check will be in the mail. So I started my career coaching men and I used to run into that all the time. And I remember the irony with that is that the men who obsess over getting the hot girl or the hottest girl, it's only to impress other men. Like they're actually being driven by a desire to connect with other men more than they're being driven by a desire to connect with women. And I used to try to tell this to guys, like, I explain this to them and I don't know, it would make their heads explode. Like, I remember I used to ask guys, I'm like, what would you rather? Behind door number one is a 10 out of a 10, but she's a total pain in the ass. Selfish, doesn't treat you well. Behind door number two is like a six or seven out of 10, but she's amazing. You have so much fun with her. You're so happy with her. You like her family, you have great sex. Which door would you pick? Now all the sane men would say door number two. But occasionally you get a guy who would say door number one. And I remember like, I would just stop the entire session right there. I'm like, what are you thinking? Like what is this about really? 'Cause it's not about women clearly. - It's not about women. It's about their relationship with vaginas. - Yeah. - And one thing that's made me a little bit jaded about working, when I first came out, I was known as very misogynistic and very pro men. And I've no problem with that. I'm a very, I love men. I have a very good partner. I have a great relationship with my father. I have a great relationship with men. But then as I've started working with more and more men, as particularly as they get more and more successful, they reduce women down to vaginas because they don't have the time to become intimate and connected to their partner as they get busier and get more successful, they reduce them down to sex and they will risk a very stable, connected relationship with their wife and kids, which might get monotonous, boring. It happens, it happens in relationship. They'll risk that for somebody who has nothing else going for them but is able to please them sexually. Are the normal men going for connection because they haven't got, aren't spoiled for choice, but when men are given all the money in the world, do they become more crude in their selection? - I don't know. I mean, the short answer is I don't know. But you know, I think the relationship between wealth and promiscuity is pretty obvious, which is that the wealthier you are as man, the more opportunities you're gonna have. And the easier it is to cover your tracks. - Yeah, yeah. - Like you can afford to go get that hotel room for a night or whatever. - And a personal assistant who will send the emails to everybody, yeah, yeah, know what she's doing. - So that makes sense. Like one of the things that, I had Morgan Housel on the podcast months ago and he wrote "The Psychology of Money" and one of the things that he said, he said, "Money doesn't change people, it amplifies what's already there." Right, so there's probably a lot of men who don't have the self-control or the correct prioritization to be in a committed relationship, be faithful, be loyal, but they also don't have the means to fuck up their marriage. And so that almost, like, it puts guardrails around them, but then when you get a lot of money, it removes the guardrails. So if you are that sort of man, then it's fair game. This episode is brought to you by Timeline, wizards of life science and global champions of longevity research. When I heard about Timeline's secret sauce, Mitopure, and how it could help with muscle recovery and vitality, I thought, sure, fuck it, why not? And guess what? It's actually been, it's been great for my health journey. 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So just hop over to timeline.com/idgaf, that is timeline.com/idgaf. - What created the desire, from your perspective, to not chase more like just very shallow qualities and actually want to get to know women, actually wanna connect with them coming from a pickup artist background? - So I was a little bit weird in that it took, and it took me a while to admit this to myself because I wanted to be like all bro-y man, you know, a man's man, whatever. The sex itself was never that interesting or exciting. It was almost the game. It was like the connection and the excitement and the flirtation and the escalation of everything. - Chemistry part of things. - That was the most fun. Like I actually, it took me a while to realize this, but I actually enjoyed, I would have a night where I would have this like amazing kind of romantic, intimate experience and not have sex with a woman then just like find a drunk girl at the bar and take her home and bang her and forget about her the next day. Like the latter was just not very satisfying at all. And eventually I admitted that to myself and realized that my issues are actually much deeper than I thought they were. And that I just kind of have this weird craving or constant desire for intimacy that was, I wasn't finding a way to fulfill that in another way, in a healthy way. And it was, I was very, I had a lot of commitment issues. And so I think it was a compensation of like, well, I'm terrified of commitment, but if I can just like, have all these like romantic flings and like one week, you know, tris and it can like overcome that I guess. - Okay, so that was a mentality, but do you think that's most men confusing their desire for sex when really it's a desire for intimacy? - No, my experience is that I was the exception. Most men it was- - They're obsessed with it, right? - Yeah, either like some sort of sexual fixation or in most cases it was a status thing. And I think it was a status thing to come back to your point of like, they were the nerd growing up, they had no opportunities, they were looked down on. Now they're 25, 30, 35, they're really successful, but like they've still got that- - They're stuck at 16. - Yeah, they're stuck at 16. They still have something to prove. They've still got a chip on their shoulder and they're like, "You know, if I sleep with a bunch of hot girls, then all the guys at work will like respect me. Or you know, then I'll be like the cool guy that everybody wants to hang out with." - And they literally get stuck at 16. I meet men that are 45, 50 years old and they're still sexualizing 19, 20-year-old girls. And I can't wrap my head around it. But online, they give the advice that that's the way men are. But I feel like you haven't humanized enough women at that age for you to, because when you meet a 19-year-old, you should realize she's a child. You should realize that my desire for her is me being stuck at 16. As an adult male, I should recognize that she's not an adult enough for me and I shouldn't be sexualizing her. But they've pushed past that. And I don't know if that's pornography-induced or if it's online information, but they somehow have pushed past their disgust and turned that into desire for girls of any age or any background and even her financial background. They will exploit that just for their own gains. And I don't how that's going to pan out. - So another epiphany I had at some point in my adult life was a realization that there is a difference between beauty and sexual attractiveness. That you can have an extremely physically beautiful woman who is not sexually attractive and you can have a woman who's not extremely beautiful, who is very sexually attractive. Like those two things, I think most men just couple them in their brains and they don't critically think about that. And so they'll see a hot 19-year-old and their just immediate assumption is like, "She's hot, I wanna fuck her." And they haven't thought through that process anymore yet. And to the point where they would have the emotional, I mean it is essentially emotional maturity that we're talking about of like realizing that, you know, sexualization is like almost the most primitive form of- - Of evaluating a product. - Evaluating a person or seeing somebody. And when you open yourself up to kind of these more emotional levels and the different dynamics that play out between two people, that you can actually lose attractiveness. I remember when I was like, 'cause I worked with a lot of those guys, you know? 45-year-olds who wanted to date 20-year-olds. I never really got it, but I remember when I was like 28 or 29, I went on a date with a 19-year-old and I couldn't get through the date. I was like, this is, I'm with a child. Like she is literally a child. And like, there's nothing for us to talk about. There's nothing interesting going on in her life. Like, why am I here? - And I feel that even when I have therapy clients, so when I have like an a 21-year-old might come to me and I almost feel guilty because I'm like, I'm getting impatient with this conversation and I'm treating you like a child when really you're coming to me for help. But because the inability to kind of complete their sentences or know their thoughts, it's totally what should be happening at their age. But I'm coming at it as a lens, as an adult. So I can't imagine being able to sexualize somebody that you know is still so early in their development of intelligence. And I'll get men who will come to me and say, "Oh, my ex-wife was a narcissist. She was so terrible. I want you to kind of work with my daughter. I don't want her to grow up like her mom. Please work with my daughter." And I'll work with their daughter and she'll be like a 16-year-old. And she says, "My dad is currently dating a 21-year-old and he's 56, and that's making me uncomfortable." So they somehow have not taken any accountability for the selection process. They still have that poor selection and then wonder why the women that they're selecting are becoming narcissistic. It's because they can see that your desire only one trait of them, and you don't genuinely care about them. You only care about what they add to your status. So as a woman, she should exploit you because you're exploiting her. So she should financially exploit you, but they want her to be dedicated to him while he is utilizing her for his own status and gain. So I just think if you're a 19-year-old using and abusing a 44-year-old, good for you because he's doing the same to you. But yeah, but he thinks he's sincere and genuine. - It's funny, like, so, you know, in the past when this topic has come up, I've gotten a lot of flack from other men who are like, you know, I don't know. - They think we're jealous and they- - Yeah, they're like, "Oh, Mark's such a beta, you know, like he doesn't get it." But it's funny because I used to think that way. - Right. - And then I did enough work on myself emotionally and mentally to when I stop thinking that way. And what these guys don't understand is that when you stop thinking that way, it frees you to such an extent. Like it is a prison to see 50% of the population as vaginas. It's a fucking prison. - Prison. - You are imprisoned by your dick. And you are captured and like being forced into relationships that are not making you happy over and over and over again. And there's, for some reason, some men just don't see that. They're like so captured. They have like Stockholm syndrome to their cock. Like they're just like, "No, this is what dick says to do. Just so dick makes me happy." And like it doesn't make you happy. - And I really realized it when I realized that there's a thing called like glory holes where people go into and they go into places. - Did you just find out about it? - Yeah, wait a second. - I discovered this two weeks ago because there was a comedian talking about it on TikTok. - Oh, bless you, child.
  • And I thought he was joking. I genuinely thought he was joking. I thought it was part of a skit. - You haven't met enough men. - Oh my god. - And then somebody told me, no, it's a real thing. You put your penis in a hole and anyone can, and I just thought imagine being that much of a slave to your impulses, that much of a slave that you are willing to risk it all. That could be a man, woman, child, anyone behind the screen, but you're that much of a slave to your impulses. And I just thought, oh my goodness, I know I'm really late to the party, but that's a normal thing? - The glory hole party. - Is that a normal thing? I had no idea that was a thing. - It is a thing. It is a thing. I do think part of the excitement around the glory hole is that you don't know what's on the other side. - Oh, I can't think of it. Is that, oh, okay, so I'm seeing it in the, what I'm describing is actually what they actually like about it. - Yes. - Oh, okay, got it. Goodness me. So do you know if you really get into a man's mind, is it really that primitive when it comes to how they see women on a fundamental level? - No, no, it's not an all or nothing thing. I think it's, I mean, look, it's when you get into sexual arousal, like, we're animals. And so there's some like very base primitive stuff that happens post sexual arousal. I think, but just because something can potentially happen post sexual arousal doesn't mean that that's what you always think of. Like this is something that's actually, if you ever look into like, well, you don't know what glory holes are. So if you ever decide to get into BDSM, what you'll discover is that they, but they talk about this a lot that, you know, just because you are into something during sex doesn't mean that you are that way outside of sex. So like, if you're a masochist and you like to be dominated during sex, that doesn't give the person permission to dominate you outside of sex. - Like they're two different realms. - So separate the realms. - Because, and it really is. Like people get into things, you know, it activates like kind of the most animalistic part of your brain. And so there's stuff down there that kicks in. And I imagine most men relate to this, that afterwards you're like, "Oh my god, I can't believe I did that." - Yeah. - Drew, tell us more. - Okay, actually, I'd like to get off glory holes and BDSM real quick. - Please do. - Let's go back to your point. - Yeah, what were we talking about? - So like the oversexualizing. - Yeah, the oversexualizing, that's what important. And I would imagine the use of pornography and the availability would just activate that side of the brain so much. - Yes. - 100%, 100%. - And the dating apps too, social media, it all feeds into that. Pornography is a big one too. I'm a weirdo. I don't know, I don't use dating apps. I'm pretty much off social media. I don't use porn. - Yeah. Amazing, you don't use porn? - No, no, I don't. - [Sadia] I'm so happy for you. - Drew is- - He's a gem. - What I've found though through from that- - The most eligible bachelor in podcast. - Yeah, no. - I'm convinced at this point that Mark started this podcast just to give me a girlfriend. - Well, you should. Like, you deserve a good woman. You deserve a good woman. - Submit your applications. - I'm gonna look. - What I've noticed from that though, and I don't know, it's kind of all three of those things. Dating apps, you know, porn, social media. I now have gotten, that little voice you were talking about that like, men have this, oh, I want to be a higher status man in the eyes of other men even too. I just don't give a shit anymore really. Maybe that's part of, part of that's probably getting older as well. But I've just noticed that I have a far greater need for connection with somebody now before I'm even remotely attracted to them. So yeah, like, younger women just, it's not, - And I get a lot of hate because- people are always like, "Oh, you're just jealous." I'm really not jealous. I'm very happy in my relationship. And if my husband did leave me for a 19-year-old, it wouldn't make me jealous of the 19-year-old. It'd make me look at him in a different way. - And be like, what the hell, dude? - Yeah, what's going on in your life that this is what you've decided to do? So it's nothing in that sense. It's just more of a sense of what men think when they walk into a room with a woman that's 20 years younger and smoking hot while they're not, they think everyone's thinking, wow. But what we're really thinking is how are you stupid enough to not realize why she's here? We're not thinking, wow, you're so cool. We're thinking, wow, you're really rich. Other women might look at you thinking, okay, I can also use and abuse him. And other men are looking at you like, oh, you're probably really enjoying it, but how much is she? And they're probably thinking they have a chance. So you devalue your status, if anything, rather than enhance it. But they've got the, because the outward statements would be like, wow, she's super hot, they're looking for those outward statements rather than internal dialogue that people are having about them. - Well, and you raise an interesting point, which is the perception of other men, right? Because a lot of these men who say like, "No, you don't get it, you're just jealous," or whatever, part of that is that all the men that they hang out with think the same way as them. - That still is, yeah. - They don't realize that the majority of the male population thinks that's immature and stupid. Why would you ever do that? But the reason they're not exposed to us is because it's like, and this has happened many times where I have met a guy who is very impressive professionally, seems very intelligent, has a lot of interesting things to say. And he's like bringing escorts around or dating a girl who's like less than half his age. And I lose all respect for him. - I mean, automatically. - 'Cause it says so much about his character and his self-control and his composure and what he values in life. And it just makes me realize, I'm like, okay, this is not a serious person. - And also their emotional intelligence. I can't imagine a man feeling, I don't know how he has to block out that part of his brain where he doesn't care if she enjoys it, if she wants it, if she's lubricated, none of that, none of that matters as long as he's achieved his goal. Wouldn't part of the enjoyment of the sexual intercourse be the fact that she wants you and she's so aroused by you? But having to buy her arousal just seems that you are almost compensating her for this bad experience she's about to have. So it's indicative of how poor you think your performance is. That's how as a woman sees it. We see you must be terrible at this and that's why you have to compensate women for their time and for being with you. - But I think part of that is it comes back to the power thing. - Power. - Because it's what arouses them is kind of the fact that it doesn't matter if she's into it or not. - Oh wow, men are disgust, I'm sorry. You guys are so weird. - We're turning Sadia into- - You're so weird. - She's like, "I don't want to coach these guys anymore." - Oh, I think I've just been so naive a little bit with this area of life 'cause my advice initially was very, I'm a very traditional woman and I come from a Muslim background. So my advice was always like, what's the problem? You can have a great guy, you know, you'd be loyal to him and faithful and just be good to his family. Like, what's the problem? It's easy to get a man. As I've been working with more and more men, I realize that the underlying trait is none of that matters until you sleep with them in the way that they like. And that's what I realize and that's why- - Sometimes. - Sometimes, yeah. Or he has a low sex drive, in which case then you're great. Yeah, then you've got nothing to worry about. But if he has a high sex drive and you're doing all of those things without access to you, it doesn't actually, yeah, it doesn't actually matter as much. - It also depends on the man. It also depends on his maturity level and his, you know, it's just- - Yeah, so there's a lot of components. - I have a high sex drive when I was younger. I didn't really know how to manage that and I think I let it manage me. - Right. - And as I got older, I learned how to manage it. And, you know, now I'm married and it's, I just, I manage it. Like, it's not a problem anymore. Like at a certain point as a man, I think most men have to make this decision of just like you can't keep prioritizing it. Like you're just not gonna build a good, stable, interesting life for yourself. - It just can't be a priority forever. - If you're following your dick around everywhere. Like, it just, it's not a sustainable life strategy. So at some point you just have to decide like, you know what, sex just needs to matter less than it used to. - Exactly. - And that's fine. - There's a lot of compartmentalization too that men do. Like you've kind of already mentioned that as well. And I think that's how they can separate a lot of those areas. And for whatever reason, I'm not sure how that works out developmentally or whatever. Or, you know, if something has happened to them or they've just, how they were raised, I don't know. But I think men are just really good at compartmentalizing this part of their lives. - [Sadia] Yeah, that's true. That's very true. - And a lot of the inability to empathize, to connect emotionally, to humanize with women is directly proportional to the objectification of themselves. Like, this is something I used to write about and like men, like, I used to try to explain to men. I was like, objectifying women is bad. But it's not just bad because it's bad for the women. It's bad for you. When you see women as status objects, you aren't just hurting them. You're hurting yourself because you are basing your entire emotional life around status objects, around collecting trophies and achievements. - That's a very great point. - To impress your guy friends who honestly don't really give a shit because they're emotionally stunted as well. So it's just a bad game to be playing, period. - Yeah, they're objectifying themselves usually financially as well. That they really are just a financial component. So they're volunteering for that objectification. Both parties are in those circumstances. - What is the biggest piece of women's dating advice that is wrong in your opinion? - But in terms of the worst piece of advice that women are getting is the narcissistic movement. The movement about how every person you've disagreed with ever in your life is a narcissist. Whether that's your mom, your dad, or your ex-partner. Everybody's a narcissist and they use these buzzwords like gaslighting, bread crumbing, all of this stuff. So it is the worst piece of advice women have got to. And the reason I say that is nine times out of 10 when somebody's come to me and said so-and-so's a narcissist, they are a narcissist themselves. They have a narcissistic desire to be a victim in every situation, they have a narcissistic desire to avoid any accountability, and they have a narcissistic desire for excessive sympathy from the people around them. And so the people who claim that they're victims of narcissists are usually the narcissists themselves. They're just in reverse. They like to be a victim. Real people who've been abused by narcissists will come to me and say, "How do I get better? Because my husband says I'm too fat. My husband," they're actually trying to please the narcissists. They're so brainwashed by the narcissist that they think they have done nothing right in this relationship. They're awful and they need to improve. But if you are in the end where you're posting memes about a narcissist, you haven't been through narcissistic abuse. You've just been in a bad relationship, which both of you have contributed to equally I would say. So I think that movement has been really damaging for women. Yeah. - I could see that. - [Sadia] Yeah. - It's funny, there's a quote that I love from David Foster Wallace. He says that, "Evil people don't believe that they're evil, they believe everyone else is evil." I think you could replace evil with narcissists. Like narcissists don't believe they're narcissists, they believe everyone else is a narcissist. - Exactly, exactly that. And it just sets them up for so much failure. There's so much lack of accountability. There's so much digging into like trying to diagnose this person rather than, how did I get to this state? How did I choose this person? Why have I chosen this person? And how do I improve and make sure I don't do it again? Instead, they just want to speak to a therapist that will tell them, "You are a victim. You have totally chosen badly. You did nothing wrong. How can I cushion you to feel better? And that will be $1,000, please." That's what they wanna hear, yeah. - This episode is brought to you by Surfshark VPN. Using a VPN is like wearing pants. When you go outside, all the important stuff is private and secure. If you're an avid cafe goer, traveler, or just general wanderer, Surfshark encrypts your online data and activity to keep you safe, even on public Wi-Fi networks. That includes sending and receiving sensitive files, whether that's financial information, personal data, or hey, wanna let the freak flag fly? Go for it. No judgment here and no one will anyway because Surfshark keeps your location and download history private by encrypting all internet traffic. Plus, with Surfshark, you can virtually travel the world with the tap of a finger. Wanna watch Canadian Netflix in Cambodia? No problem. With Surfshark, you can get around online content blocks in just a couple of clicks. It's so easy. As one of my podcast followers, you can get three free extra months on your subscription if you use my link at surfshark.deals/subtleart or by using the promo code, SUBTLEART, as in "Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck." That's surfshark.deals/subtleart for three free extra months of Surfshark's VPN. - What would you say is the worst piece of advice that women are getting? - That women are getting? - Yeah. - I don't know. I'm kind of out of this world at the moment, but like, I don't keep up with the dating advice world as much as I used to, but I generally, as a rule, I feel like the dating advice for women is over reliant on protecting their feelings. And this kind of relates to the narcissism thing. Like they shouldn't tolerate anything that upsets them. They shouldn't tolerate, you know, they deserve to feel good and happy and cherished and feel like a queen and all this stuff all the time. That's unrealistic. That's not really looking for a partner, that's looking for like a parent that's gonna pamper them and baby them. And so I find a lot of that vein of female dating advice. I mean, it's tricky because I think women have a tendency to, women have a little bit more of a tendency to try to fix a broken relationship like for too long. They tend to stay in bad relationships for too long I think more than men do. So I understand like trying to coach women to have better standards for themselves and have higher expectations for those. I think that overall is a good thing, but I just think maybe the way it's communicated by being over, like it should be, the language should revolve around things like respect and trust and shared values and boundaries. It shouldn't be about, well, you deserve to feel like a princess. And you should be treated like a princess. - Yeah, it should be mutual trust and mutual skills rather than just entitlement. - And by the way, sometimes mutual trust and mutual like, shared values, like sometimes, it's uncomfortable. You know, it's- - 'Cause I got hate for saying that like men, because women in this dating world, liking another woman's picture is a real big like, issue for women, which I completely understand. As a woman myself, I know what it feels like. So liking pictures is a real problem. But then they see nothing wrong in posting provocative pictures. And they think the male, they don't see that as a female equivalent. It's the female equivalent. If a man's liking a bunch of bikini pictures and you're posting, it's the male and female equivalent, but they see it as, no, I can do whatever I want, but don't do that 'cause that hurts my feelings. And so they're almost breeding the narcissism in the women by overprotecting their feelings and how they feel, and if they feel it, it must be true. And that's the mentality that's put in them. Drew, as somebody who's dating and stuff, is it difficult with women at the moment? What do you notice is some of the advice that has encapsulated their brains? - I don't know if it's difficult. Again, I've slowed way down, which has helped a lot. I think there are a lot of just unrealistic expectations right now for sure. And throw on top of that, like the paradox of choice that we have at the moment. That's what's making it difficult as well. And but I think you're right. It's just they talk about the battle of the sexes, right? We've set up a war that just can't be won. We have this tit for tat going on that we're explaining and this is a weird moment we're in where it's all scaled with technology and it's, yeah. We just, it's a race to the bottom. - You just said kind of the curse of high expectations. When I think about all of my friends, male and female who are still single and don't wanna be, almost across the board, unanimously, almost. There are a couple exceptions, but almost all of them, it's a curse of high expectations. Like, they just have this checklist that is completely unreasonable in their brain. - And especially when they can't meet their own expectations. They're looking for somebody above them in almost every trait, and then they think they're single. Because I always say to them, when somebody comes to me, and they're perpetually single. It's either that they don't love themselves enough and they keep going to the wrong people and just settling for too little and then eventually being too abused and have to leave, or more often than not, they have this excessive self-love where they think they deserve so much better than what they offer. Men and women, both of them deserve so much better than what they offer, but simply because they've seen other people access it or they've seen it online. So they're waiting for their moment to access this, but they're not realizing if they're actually worthy of that. So if you have found yourself single for too long, make sure that you don't have a delusion of what your value is. - I think some of it too is that a lot of useful and traditional advice that exists in, say, productivity or personal development has bled over into relationships and it doesn't apply. Like, I think if you look at people, especially the highly ambitious people, people who start businesses, like, you know, there's a lot of advice of, you know, that essentially boils down to the harder you try, the better it's gonna get. - And believe in yourself kind of mentality. - Whereas in relationship, that's not true, you know? Or like have, you know, have higher expectations 'cause you'll perform better. Like shoot for the moon, all this stuff, like, in relationships, it doesn't translate one to one. You know, I had a good friend of mine who is in his early 40s, and he's a really good guy and he like genuinely wants to settle down and meet his wife. I was talking to him, this was like a year or two ago, and he was just, he was really frustrated and I was like, "Okay, list out, like what are all of the non-negotiables that you need to have in a partner?" And he started listing out all these things, you know, she needs to be smart, she needs to be beautiful, she needs to love to travel, she needs to, and it just went on and on and on. And like, he ended up with like a list of like eight or nine pretty difficult things to find. And I looked at him, I'm like, "Okay, now cross out half of these." And he couldn't do it. And I was like, that's why you're single. - Yeah. - That's why you're single. - And it's not that we're saying you need to settle. We're just saying, just be realistic. 'cause that's all it is. They see realism as a form of settling when it's simply not the case. It's just be realistic. And as long as the treatment part of things is never mentioned in the checklist, it's never that I want somebody who checks in quite a lot when I'm away or somebody who is able to label the relationship quite early, somebody who communicates well, it's always just more aesthetic. - It's traits, it's, yeah. The settling thing is a really interesting topic because I feel like that's become a dirty word in our generation. And I understand that again, maybe it kind of comes from the productivity mindset of like, you don't wanna settle for what's like not optimal. Like you've got this idea of like what the perfect person would be and you don't want to stop short of achieving that goal. - Yeah. - Because in other areas of your life, that's a bad thing to do. But in relationships, it actually works the other way around because what you realize is that it's actually in the acceptance of your partner's flaws that you find most of the intimacy, that you unlock the closeness that it's seeing the shortcomings and loving them anyway. Like even just saying that, it like probably sounds like a bad thing. - But it's not truly love if you haven't had to compromise on anything. - [Mark] Exactly. - Yeah, if you've got perfection and it's not truly love. Love is when you can fight through the imperfections and kind of go against what you thought you wouldn't accept in order to be with this person because this person's so valuable. - Yeah. - Yeah, because I'll sometimes have women in their late 30s and they'll say, "I don't wanna date a man with kids." And I just say, "Look, realistically, if you wanna be a mother and stuff, realistically, you're not gonna find someone with no kids whatsoever, and if you do find that, it puts a lot of pressure on your body. What if you can't have it? And then you're doing rounds of IVF and stuff. If they already have children, your mind could be like, 'Perfect, at least if I'm having any problems, I don't deprive them of being a father, but I also get a child in the process.' And then whatever happens, happens." It's not settling, it's adapting, but it's the refusal to adapt, which they see as settling that gets them right. - And it comes back to the narcissism. - Narcissism. - It's like, why should I give anything up? Why should I change myself? You know, they should change for me. - Yeah. - Yeah. What do you see is the relationship between self-esteem and relationships? - So without self-esteem, not only will you not be able to receive love, but you don't give it correctly. The thing is like people with low self-esteem tend not to receive love very well, we know that, but they also don't give it very well. And the reason why they don't give it is their love is coming from an empty hole in them. So they'll give love to the person that can fill that hole. If they are somebody who's not financially stable, they'll love the person who financially stabilizes them. If they're not somebody who's attractive, they'll love the person that makes them feel attractive. If they're somebody who's not confident in their sexual skills, they'll attach to the person who makes them feel like they are. They're coming from a place of egoism. And as a result, when that person stops feeding that egoism, their low self-esteem is not enough to keep them happy so they lash out. So it's very difficult to form any kind of long lasting relationship. And I've learned this the hard way myself without self-esteem because you accept the unacceptable and you seek sometimes the unacceptable and you can't maintain relationships because you don't have the source of self-love to maintain it, yeah. - I feel like it's also where the power struggles kick in. Because then you start seeing relationships in terms of conditions of like, what are you doing for me? You know, oh, I'm here because you are making me feel this way. But now you stop making me feel this way, so I'm gonna do this thing to hurt you so that you do the thing to make me feel good again. And you get this tit for tat going and it just spirals out of control. - The one thing I'm even interested in myself, I always wonder, how do you know that you've reached a relationship with high self-esteem? How do you know that it's actually high self-esteem? And I only realize that even myself when I felt like I completely love my partner, but I have a willingness to walk away if I was very extremely disrespected or things were wrong. I think maybe previously I would've just clung on for dear life or left very easily regardless. So there's a willingness to fight, but there's also a willingness to leave if need be. And it's finding that balance. I think I used to tip over too much on the willingness to walk away or tip off on too much on the willingness to stay regardless of treatment. And only when you have that balance that I feel, you never know, but I feel more confident. But I don't know the exact measure of how you know your self-esteem is right. - My intuition is going towards, it's one of those like, if you have to ask, then it's probably not there. You know, I think about really insecure relationships that I was in in the past. There was kind of this constant questioning of our status. Are we good? Is she happy? Am I happy? Is she getting what she wants? Am I getting, like- - There's a curiosity. - You're constantly wondering and stressing over all these kind of existential questions within the relationship. And I just know like within my wife, there's like peace. There's just, the questions don't even come up because there's no need to ask them. It's just things are good. I think that's another aspect that an optimal relationship is actually when nothing needs to be optimized. Like it's just, there's no questions even arise because both people are just comfortable and happy. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Finding the perfect therapist is a huge win for your mental health. But let's face it, it's not always easy or simple. That's where BetterHelp can come in. With BetterHelp, starting your therapy journey is accessible and flexible as ever. Whether you prefer texting, a phone call, or a face-to-face video session, BetterHelp has you covered. And if you ever feel like your therapist isn't quite right for you, switching is as simple as clicking a button. I'm a testament to the wonders of therapy. It was crucial for my personal development and wellbeing. It helped me deal with a lot of my social anxieties and gave me tools to deal with all the shit that life inevitably throws at all of us. Honestly, without it, I doubt I'd be here sharing this with you. So if you're feeling bogged down, lost, and don't know where to turn, give BetterHelp a try. I've also got a special treat. If you head to betterhelp.com/idgaf or use the promo code IDGAF, it stands for I don't give a fuck at checkout, you'll get 10% off your first month with BetterHelp. So get your shit together, sign up for BetterHelp. - I'm sorry to ask, but how do we know then there's a difference between that there's peace or there's denial? Yeah, because sometimes some men will come to me and say, "We have a great relationship." Some men will be like thrown off guard. They're like, "We had a great relationship, our sex life was great, there was nothing wrong, and I found out she was having an affair the whole time." But what I'm guessing is there was some element of denial to keep the peace. So I would say that the peace, as you described, definitely a relationship that require the peace, but the peace is not achieved by you suppressing what your actual thoughts and desires are. The peace is achieved because there's a synchrony in what you both desire. - Yeah. - And is the peace achieved through, this is bumping up against boundaries, which, you know, you're both real big on. - Yeah. - Like Mark, you wanna get to that point in your relationship where you are at that level of peace. I think you have to get there through a series of boundaries and enforcing them, right? And you've talked before, Sadia, about boundaries and that they're kind of the instructions or teaching people how to love you. - Yeah. - Can you talk more about that, I guess? - Yeah, the thing is, and I've been guilty of this myself, people feel like they have a strength to them if they can just cut people off instantly and they're like, you broke my boundaries, I cut them off. And they feel so strong about that. But that's actually a signal of weakness. The real strength of boundaries comes with your willingness to teach people how to truly love you, not play mind games. So what I mean by this is if you're somebody who doesn't appreciate your partner leaving you for weeks on end to go travel, you simply, it's not that you hold them by the throat and say, "You've gotta do this, you've gotta do that." It's more just a case of, "I like us to be more connected. So this is what I value in a relationship. If you would, if that's something that you're compatible with or you can work towards, perfect. If not, then I wish you the best, but it's not necessarily ideal for our relationship." But you're working towards a compromise rather than just cutting people off immediately. Boundaries I always say is a bit like when you're ordering in a restaurant. If they ask you what are your allergies, you have to tell them. You have to tell them what your allergies are. And if they don't have anything that caters to you, you don't scream at the waitress. You simply go to another restaurant. Where people get it wrong is that they think, "This is my boundaries. You have to listen to me. I don't want you going out, I don't want you to do this." But they keep enforcing them, getting more and more toxic instead of thinking, "Well, if this person doesn't wanna change, I should just leave. The end goal is with me, not with the person changing." So it's a very tricky one, but it's one that if you can just set them early, you'll filter out the wrong people anyway. And throughout the relationship, you'll be in line with each other's boundaries. - Yeah. I'm still thinking about that question about the guy who thought everything was great. - Naive. Yeah, the denial rather than peace story. - Yeah, my first relationship was like that. I was completely oblivious, but I think- - But in your mind, was it peaceful, the relationship? - So here's the funny thing. It was not peaceful. She and I fought all the time. But in my head, that was normal. - Right. - That that was okay. That that's just what relationships do. And so it never occurred to me that, so I think part of it is just a poor definition of like what a good relationship is. So you can be sitting in a pool of shit, but like if your understanding of relationships is that they're all pools of shit, then you're like, this is fine. - That's fine, yeah. - Whereas I also think too that, you know, some of it comes down to communication. I could see there being a case where it's like maybe he was happy. Maybe the relationship had been kind of, she had been catering to him for a long time. And so in his head he's like, "This is great. Relationship's great, I'm happy, she's happy." And either she didn't communicate that she was unhappy to him, which then it's a communication breakdown or she tried to communicate to him, but he just shut it down and wouldn't listen or didn't respect what she was saying. What's coming up to me as I think about this is that there is a process within the relationship of, I guess, constructive critical conversations. - Yeah. Peace is not achieved through suppressing what you actually need to talk about. - You earn it through difficult conversations. - Yeah, yeah. - Through uncomfortable conversations. And I think one thing that my wife and I, we were always good at it together, but I think we've gotten excellent at it over the years, is having those difficult conversations and remaining non-judgmental and not taking things too personally. - Did you ever have fiery fights with this particular, with your wife or not so much? Is she just- - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - She's got that nature.
  • She's Brazilian. - I was just getting there. 'Cause I have a fiery nature as well. - Yeah, yeah, I never wonder what she's feeling. (everyone laughs) - So, because then I always sometimes wonder, am I like, 'cause my partner would definitely say that it's not easy being with somebody who is so opinionated and so, so I don't know, like, I don't know if he would describe me as a peaceful person, but he knows how to create peace in our relationship. - Well, the funny thing is, is that you adapt to each other, right? So when I first started dating my wife, she was extremely fiery and emotional and very expressive. And it was sometimes it was a lot. Sometimes I was like, oh my god, there's, I would feel overwhelmed. But as the years have gone on, I've just gotten accustomed to it. And I've learned how to read, you know, it used to be, you know, maybe she would seem very upset about something, but it turned out that it was actually a minor thing and she's just Brazilian. - Yeah, yeah, that's what I was trying to explain to my part. - To my white boy brain, it sounds extremely upset. But now it's like I've calibrated to her. And so I can see now if she's kind of, you know, yelling about something, I can actually see if it's actually a problem or if she's just temporarily. - And it usually passes. It's just for, well, women, I know I sympathize 'cause I have a similar nature. It is just a simple vetting process. Like just venting out and it will calm down. Where men sometimes get it wrong is they overreact to our reaction. When really you just gotta let it slide down and it will come back to normal. And then you'll see that she's back to normal again. - Which this gets back to the value of just long-term intimacy, commitment. There's a joy in that. And I think the same way people have, you know, different communication styles, people have different emotional styles, people have different emotional backgrounds. You just learn each other over a long period of time. Like you learn to read each other and understand what each other are thinking and feeling at any given moment. And I've just discovered like there's a real joy and to come back to the word peace of developing that with somebody over the course of a decade, that you can't recreate that in any other way. And you know, it's one of those things that if I could go back and talk to 20-year-old Mark, you know, I'd like take him by the shoulders and explain that to him. Like, you know, the novelty and the thrill that you're seeking in this, like, large variety of romantic experiences, actually the biggest thrill and the most uniqueness is going deep on one romantic experience. - And what would you say to men whose main worry is going deep into one, is that you might lose the sexual interest? - Deprioritize sex. - Amazing. - Like, do you just wanna live by the code of the dick for the rest of your life? - Thank you. This is so refreshing. - There are some things that are more important in life. - God, this is so, because I'm dealing with clients where they really prioritize that and they'll leave wives after wife or woman after woman. I've got mentors getting a bit jaded thinking this is just how men think now, but you just simply have to deprioritize it. - You have to realize that just by the act of being in this profession, you are self-selecting. - Skewed, yeah, very skewed. - For a certain population. - And even the people who watch my content is self-selection of people who maybe going through it. So I still have a very warped perception of the world from it. - Absolutely. And to come back to the maturity point, like I do think it is, sexuality is very, very tied to young men's self-esteem. Like, it just, there's something about it that young men, as they kind of discover their sexuality, it's a huge deal to you. And it's really this figuring your sexuality out, figuring out your dating opportunities, figuring out a lot of it's probably tied to kind of figuring out where you are in the status hierarchy. You know, it is a big deal to young men, but the point is to mature past it and not be beholden to it for the rest of your life. If you are in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and you're still obsessing over this stuff- - Then you're stuck at 16. - You're stuck back at 16 or 20. And that's not appropriate. So I would say I imagine a lot of your audience is younger men. Like if you're a 18 or 20-year-old man, yeah, you probably should be kind of obsessing over sex and girls and, you know, does she like you? Does she not like you? Why doesn't she like you? Like, those are normal things to obsess about at that age. But the goal is to move past it at some point. - Yeah, yeah. That's the goal, perfect. Good to hear that. There are normal people. - There is sanity in the world, Sadia. There is, I promise. - You must look hard, you must look hard, yeah. - I just have a very warped perception and sometimes I get really jaded and I say, and then I have to remind myself, do you know why I have this perception? It's because before I was online and before I started doing therapy more and more, the friends I had were always, because I had male friends, it was men who are comfortable around women and men who are comfortable rejecting women and men who had really great relationships with women. So I just assumed all men have that mentality. And it's only when I got into this world that I realized for a lot of men, they are suffering when it comes to this. They don't have access to women and they don't have that experience of saying no to women. And they've never experienced being able to walk into a room and get the girl you had your eye on. So then I guess I was unaware of the impact that has on their entire psychology. And that's what I've learned more and more, yeah. - I think the same way women are judged quite a bit by their appearance. - Yeah. - I think men are judged quite a bit by their charisma or lack of charisma. - [Sadia] Yeah. - By their ability to at least have potential partners. - [Sadia] Yeah. - And I think that is ultimately is what, you know, when you see that 55-year-old man walking in with a 20-year-old escort, that's what that is is that he still has that insecurity, and he's still trying, there's some voice in his head that he's still trying to prove wrong, still trying to say, "Mo, I am the cool guy. I promise, I'm the cool kid at school, I promise. Look how hot she is." And it's really hard, you know, especially if you go through a lot of really negative experiences when you're young, it's really hard. - It's really hard, yeah. So I know it sounds critical, but I'm actually trying to understand them a bit more. And I'm trying to understand where they're coming from. So it's good to hear that they can deprioritize it if they've had the right level of love shown to them. - Yeah, and I will say too, my experience when I worked in that industry as well, is that the majority of men would come to me wanting a lot of sexual partners. They would learn some social skills, maybe dress a little bit better, develop a little bit of confidence. They'd get a couple sexual partners, but within a year, they've settled down with a girlfriend and that's actually what they wanted all along. - They want it completely. - I would say 75, 80% of the time that was the case. It was really only kind of a loud minority of men who developed this like fixation. - I would imagine there would be porn addicts. - Today, probably. - Yeah, in today's world, they would be the ones that are addicted to pornography. - 100%, for sure yes. - It makes them addicted to novelty and inability to build connections, so yeah. - Yeah, in glory holes. - I just, not to be personable, would you ever try something like that? - Fuck no. - Thank god. Oh my god. Yeah, how scary is that? - No, no, no, no. - TO each their own but. - To each their own, to each their own. - I am an open-minded guy, but not that open. Amazing. Sadia, Sadia. - However you like. - However. - Miss Khan. - Miss Khan, ah, I like that. - It's been a pleasure. - Thank you so much for having me. - So great having you out here. And thank you Drew. - Yes, thank you. - For representing the single men. - Yeah. - [Mark] The single man. - I don't know if we got anywhere with me, but. - No, you were. - The applications are open, ladies. Drew Birnie, the most eligible podcaster. - Absolutely. Thank you guys again for having me. I really appreciate you guys. - Thank you. - Thank you. (upbeat music)