Poisoning the Water Hole

If you have the time, please read the whole post, but the TL;DR:

90% of genderslop—even the stuff we agree with—is bad. It’s not helping men become better men. It’s not helping women become better women. And it’s not helping us get what most of us want: a loving, supportive relationship with someone of the opposite sex. It’s poisoning the water hole we all drink from, making things worse for everyone—and I mean: everyone.

Because even those who are happily partnered are still targeted: for genderslop warriors, the opposite sex is the enemy, full stop. The man vs. bear absurdity is a perfect example.

And for those who say they don’t care, or even want, a partner of the opposite sex, why are you participating? Because you care. If you didn’t, you’d find other things to do with your time.

The women who flood comment sections saying how most men are the absolute dregs of the earth and they’d rather be single ARE LYING. Same for the incels and MGTOW men who’s feelings are so hurt by not being chosen. They care deeply. But they don’t seem to realize they fill their cup from the same pool of bile they’re pouring into.

This has to stop. Attacking men doesn’t make things better for women. Attacking women doesn’t make things better for men. So please, if this is all you read, stop participating. And push back on your friends when they participate. Because the only answer is a truce.

No one wins the battle of the sexes.

Hate the throat clearing thing, but feels necessary given the territory we’re about to traverse. If you don’t need it, feel free to scroll along…however:

1. Nothing that follows means anyone should do anything they don’t want to. If you don’t want to get married or have children, don’t. Live whatever sort of life you feel will make you most happy. That is what I’m advocating for. The theme of this and so many posts on GBS, is that most often, for most people, what you’re being sold on social media will NOT make you happy, nor lead to a meaningful life.

   Being an internet person who’s only contribution to the world is negativity and meanness is a hollow existence. Don’t be one or listen to them.

2. It is a blessing women are now free to live as they choose, without discrimination, legal or otherwise. Society has benefitted tremendously as a result of female accomplishment, ingenuity, and influence. The only path is forward, and nothing that follows should be construed otherwise.

3. When people use the term “feminism” or “feminist” today, what you’re typically going to see and hear is misandry. Because modern, third wave, blank-slate “feminists”—whatever you want to call them—are no longer advocating on behalf of women. Like, many these people can’t even admit women have vaginas and get pregnant—to them, all being a woman means is claiming to be one. They’re not arguing for the rights of women to be expanded or better understood, and they’re certainly not arguing in favor of femininity or having female life experiences, or even full human experiences. Feminism today has collapsed into genderslop; what the manosphere is for men, feminism today is for women.1 And as I’ll prove, it hurts women more than men.

What a broken society looks like

Imagine traveling back to the 1990s to tell the professors, doctors, leaders, and parents of the time that the cultural forces unleashed by feminism, liberalism, reactionary conservatism, and modern technology would manifest in 2026 with a majority of young women claiming to dislike men, wanting neither marriage nor children, and that a significant portion of young men were attempting to become more “masculine” by smashing their faces with hammers, taking all manner of drugs (some to the point of being infertile in their 20s), and injecting their balls with silicone. Then add that somewhere between 10-15% of women aged 18-24 are selling porn online, around 30% of young men (18-30) haven’t had sex in the past year, and despite more and more women graduating college and out-earning men, female depression and dissatisfaction with life—especially among the most highly accomplish and educated liberal women—is at an all time high. Finally, you note that there are burgeoning communities of both men and women who bond and relate to each other primarily over masturbation (gooners and erotic fiction aka romantasy).

Fewer people are in relationships, getting married, having children. And many men and women have very negative views of the opposite sex (as above more so women—especially young women).

Most likely our predecessors wouldn’t believe you. But if they did, they’d be horrified. This is not what a functional society looks like, and it begs the question: who wants this?

I’ll answer definitively for my sex: men don’t. Despite what so many women hear and see on social media, the vast majority of men love and value women, not merely as romantic partners, but as human beings and equals.

I’d expect the answer for most women is also a strong no, but this is where we run into the first of many problems. Because while no sane person wants to return to a world where women are uneducated, barefoot, pregnant, and beholden to a husband who can behave tyrannically without consequence, Western society has a fundamental inability to acknowledge that women do actually need men (and not only for superficial reasons!), that most men are good people, and that most women at 40+ would be much happier married with children than single.

No one is perfect, and we are not meant to be alone.

Whether you believe the Story of Creation in Genesis or not, it contains two fundamental human truths.

First, we are all sinners. Sometimes WE ALL do things we know to be wrong.

Second, without a companion, man (aka Adam) is lonely, so God makes woman (aka Eve) to be his companion, and they are to be united in flesh. Note: He didn’t make another man—He made woman to be his companion.

Shriek about patriarchal religions all you want, but the point isn’t spiritual. It’s human. We do better when happily paired up. Why else would we spend so much time, energy, and consternation on the project of finding a romantic partner? It’s not only for sex, protection, and provision; it’s because the bond between human beings who love each other is part of what makes us whole—we all yearn for a companion who loves us. That goes for queer and gay relationships too!

Again, two human truths:

1. No one is perfect, we are all flawed, we all make mistakes.

2. We are not meant to be alone—human beings need community and connection, specifically with someone we love as a romantic partner.

Unfortunately we’ve forgotten both.

The first was perfectly encapsulated in a recent Scott Galloway podcast with John Burn-Murdoch. They began discussing the decline in relationships and birthrates, noting the very negative opposite sex stereotypes so common on social media…and then immediately proceeded to blame men for everything. Burn-Murdoch suggested there was “validity” to the idea that having a boyfriend was cringe or low-status, and then Galloway—noting it was his favorite hobby horse—immediately doubled down to say that the crisis in mating and dating was entirely due to the lack of “economically viable young men.”2 And some consider Galloway problematic for how often he focuses on the problems of young men!

As a society and culture, we are simply unable—or unwilling—to suggest that women can be wrong or bear any responsibility for any problem: every impulse, act, and emotion women feel is true and right, and if they can be said to err, it’s the fault of something beyond their control, either a man, or the patriarchy. If a woman does something that appears wrong or bad, our first impulse is to blame her circumstances. Or a man.

Preferably both.

For those of you blanching at this statement, consider what we’ve told three generations of women now:

• “The future is female”

• “Girl power!”

• “Believe all women”

• “Girls rule; boys drool”

Moreover, look objectively at the stories we tell, the discourse in modern feminist circles, the content posted on social media. Aside from a small slice of people like me who aren’t misogynists or politically motivated, but willing to describe the problem for what it is, modern culture assumes women are never wrong as a matter of faith-like belief. People blame misogyny when epics and action movies with female leads fall flat, but it’s not because we want to root for a hero over a heroine: it’s because there’s no arc of growth. There can’t be. She’s already perfect (I liked the Odyssey, but if you look at the portrayal of female characters, it’s exactly this).

Take the most extreme example: Bonnie Blue can literally have hundreds of men (many in masks) lining up for their turn to fuck her so she can rake in millions as a publicity stunt, and while not universally celebrated, we’re told sex workers deserve dignity, because “sex work is work!”

But if you’re a man...

The only thing that matters is the court of public opinion, and for men, you’re guilty, often even if you’re later proven to be innocent.

Like, it was a scandal that Andrew Huberman had more than one girlfriend. Hundreds of men were cancelled and lost their careers to false #MeToo claims. And look what’s happened to Cesar Chavez and MLK Jr. When it comes to men, we’re so obsessed with moral purity that having sinned (especially if it involves women) erases all the good one might have done, even if it’s in service of the oppressed! Just 10-20 years ago we were passing laws to rename streets and schools after these men; now we’re doing everything we can to erase their memory—same with so many of our great male leaders from the past, even if their only real crime was being white and on the wrong side of some obscure issue long ago.

This isn’t to absolve these men of their sins—it’s to underscore the difference. We hold men responsible for their actions in a way we simply don’t when it comes to women.

This crazy double standard goes for expectations too. We’re perfectly comfortable telling men they need to “man up”, make more money, stop playing video games, see a therapist, get fit, and become “marriageable” to assuage the needs of women, but tell a woman getting married and having children is gOoD AcKtuaLly, suggest she should stop posting thirst traps and/or set it to private, or that she shouldn’t do OnlyFans, and you can hear a pin drop.

Understand, this isn’t an attack on women: it’s a cultural problem that leads directly to genderslop. Because if one sex can do whatever they want and never be held responsible for bad actions, and the other sex is assumed to be in the wrong—at least most of the time—the stage is set for disaster if we need the two sexes to trust and cooperate with each other.

Because without mutual trust and cooperation, relationships becomes purely transactional.

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The irony is that this isn’t misandry…it’s misogyny.

To whatever extent men have suffered under current cultural forces, the path to a successful life has largely remained the same: work hard as a young man to learn a trade, skill, craft, or practice to establish economic security (and continue to do this always), find a good woman, have kids, contribute to the community, and you’ll enjoy a purposeful, happy life. Despite what the blackpillers will have you believe, this life path is still available to most men, because despite what women say on surveys, there are still plenty who will get married and have kids if they meet a guy who’s masculine and successful.

It stings a bit to admit (being once divorced and once dumped from a long term relationship—but then, there were other reasons as well), but the truth is most women don’t leave men who are strong, powerful, well-adjusted, and gainfully employed. The greatest crime that’s been committed against men in the past 40 years has been convincing them they don’t need to embody these masculine traits women find attractive. “Happy wife, happy life” has been an absolute fucking disaster.

But the true travesty is what’s been done to the modern woman. She’s been utterly cheated, deceived, and lied to. Told to revel in the beauty and abundance of her youth: travel, party, get a career, be independent (“don’t worry about finding a man or having kids, you’ll always have plenty of options, that all can wait”) and now we have legions of women living alone in big cities with dog, cats, or plants in place of children, working tirelessly for corporate overlords, addicted to validation on social media, lonely, stressed, depressed, and anxious—the most likely cohort to be prescribed SSRIs, which have now been shown, along with birth control, to sap a woman’s sexual desire and satisfaction.

And why do so many young women feel anxious? Why are they so depressed? Because they’re incomplete. Because they’ve been sold the lie that the only reason a woman needs a man is for money, service, or status—if she needs one at all. The modern woman has been told that the love, adoration, loyalty, devotion, and partnership of a good man is worth nothing. Call me a romantic, but as much as I’ve written about how value is important in relationships, I still hold to the idea that a relationship isn’t a commodity—it is not merely a transactional economic exercise. Relationships are living, breathing, evolving entities we create through the connection of mind, body, and spirit, built through mutual trust and cooperation.

But the social media “approved” life path for a young woman today doesn’t include a meaningful relationship.

She’s told having a boyfriend is cringe. That most men are dangerous (man or bear) and lazy. That having children will ruin her body and lifestyle. That her main goal should be to make money so she doesn’t need a man. That if she wants to get married and have children, she should have fun and secure a career first—again, all that can wait until she’s in her 30s or beyond. And when anyone points out that this doesn’t work for an increasing cohort of women, there’s a flood of cope and indignation in response to drown out the truth. Ever wonder why age gaps and the wall are such explosive topics on social media? Because if we admit that a woman’s age matters—even if it’s simply for reproductive reasons—it destroys the entire project.

But think about how short that runway is. We all know having children after 35 presents problems, and that a woman’s best chance of finding a husband is in her 20s. Is it really such a surprise so many fail to stick the landing?

And then, of course, there’s the list of red flags she has to look out for: he can’t be conservative or have any controversial, non-approved beliefs, he can’t be more than a few years older or younger than her, he can’t have already been married or have any children, he has to make lots of money—preferably owns his own home—he has to have a college degree, and depending how often she’s on Tik-Tok and Reddit, the checklist grows from there. In some cases he can’t even read the wrong books.

We’ve done young men no favors either.

Looksmaxxing. Redpill. The Manosphere.

The shift in the sexual marketplace has led some men to dark places. As women have become more selective in their mate selection, huge numbers of men have been left behind. And the consistent attack on the masculine traits women find attractive has compounded the issue: educators, contemporary culture, and oddly enough, women broadly speaking, have told men to be more emotional, less decisive, more risk-averse, and less concerned with gaining wealth and status. “Where are all the real men?” they ask. Y’all fucking told them not to be!

And where social media poisons women, for men it’s porn. The widespread availability of pornography is nothing short of an abomination for men—an on-demand, zero friction means of satisfying his sexual needs; a mediocre, but serviceable simulacrum that can never replace real sexual connection with an actual woman. In a way, it’s worst of both worlds, because it arouses our primal desire while robbing the motivation it would take to truly satisfy.

Further complicating matters is the fact men don’t inherit value as a simple fact of being the way women do. Women are beautiful—an incredible gift evolution bestows on them. All it takes is growing up and becoming a sexually mature adult who’s value is obvious, if not in some cases extraordinary.

For men this is not the case. Sure, men become more attractive as they become adults, and some men are lucky to become exceptionally attractive—but save for the best looking, tallest <5%, even this will not be enough to be successful with women. Indeed, I was in the sauna the other day with a young man who had the body of a Greek God (he of course spent some time staring at himself in the mirror flexing before joining me, which is a fucking weird thing a lot of young men do now), and yet, he was probably only 5’9”, and I’ve coached enough guys to know that if his game isn’t tight, he’s cooked—even more so later on if he doesn’t make a good living. But like, his female equivalent—regardless of any other qualities—could easily date and/or marry any single man of her choice.

A man has to be made. He needs the guidance and leadership of older men, whether mentors, fathers, uncles, older brothers etc., along with the will to make himself valuable through hard work, discipline, and suffering. He needs to be economically viable, physically powerful, and capable of gaining status in some form or fashion—on that I agree with Scott Galloway.

This has always been true, but in today’s society, we have no ritual or system for helping men become the sort of man women desire. They go to school where they’re mostly taught by women from a curriculum that’s been geared to promote female learning styles and moral values. If he’s lucky he gets involved in sports and has men in his family who teach him how to become a man, especially how to interact with women—but these days he’s more likely to have a putz Boomer or Gen X dad who’s life motto is “happy wife, happy life” and has absolutely zero sense what it’s like to attract a modern woman in the post-smart phone, social media era who’s not actively seeking a man as a life partner.

The result is the battle of the sexes, aka genderslop.

And it makes losers of us all.

It manifests as misandrist and misogynist attacks on social media, but at its core are grievance, anger, longing, and sadness. People are hurting. We yearn for a romantic life partner, and those who don’t have one feel the sting constantly.

Behind every nasty TikTok about men and every misogynist YouTube about women, is pain. It’s the pain of people who aren’t in relationships, who’ve been in failed relationships, or who are exploiting that pain to generate engagement—often all the above. What the algorithms have done to us politically, they are now doing to men and women. Dividing us, sowing suspicion, making enemies of the very people we need to feel complete, loved, and safe.

It’s all a smokescreen. A lie. A gross misrepresentation, without even the pretense of a fair hearing. Again, it’s the same thing our political tribes do: they take the most egregious, insane, bad behavior of the opposite sex, and use it to make sweeping generalizations about men or women.

And it makes losers of us all. We lap it up because it feels good to hear someone on our team say what we’ve so often felt. It feels good because we aren’t getting what we want from the opposite sex, and it’s always easier to blame someone else for our problems or loss or lack, than to take responsibility for our role in the status quo.

But no matter how many times CHH writes about age-gaps (her and my all time favorite topic), or ThatZonaGuy posts about hoeflation—hell, even some of the shit I’ve written (although I do try to provide actionable advice and solutions!)—it’s just pouring more poison in the water hole from which we all drink.

We can’t break the wheel, but we can walk away.

Like any game that’s rigged against the player, the only logical choice is to walk away. Unless of course, you want to keep losing. Which, if so, by all means keep spinning away and telling yourself it’s all the fault of the opposite sex.

But if you want to win—if you don’t want to feel terrible about the opposite sex and want to find a romantic partner to build a life with—you have to stop consuming content that poisons your mind against the opposite sex.

And if you don’t think winning in that way is worthwhile, allow me to educate you, especially if you’re under 30: the options you now have won’t last forever. However good your social life, for most people it shrinks as people move away for work or other reasons, or they’ll get married and have kids and disappear. If you’re a woman, your looks and options will fade, and it’s an exponential curve once it hits. If you’re a man, you options won’t likely improve, unless you acquire exceptional social skills while building wealth and status—because even if you stay in shape and retain your looks into your late 30s and 40s, a lot of attractive, younger women won’t date you because of your age. And many older women get pickier and fussier with age, even as their value has declined.

Moreover, instead of thinking only about what feels good right now, think at least a little about the last half of your life…

What happens during those years? What does that life look like? Do you want to go through the afternoon, sunset, and twilight of your years alone and purposeless, with no legacy or connection to the world? Do you want to spend as much time as you do now posting to and scrolling through social media when you’re in your 40s and beyond?

If you don’t want to be lonely and listless in old age, it’s time to cut the genderslop shit out of your life. Remember: it’s all hypothetical anyway—you don’t even know if it’s real. And so many of these creators are do as I say, not as I do.

Like, take the age gap thing. How many women bitch about it on social media, but then meet and date or marry a man 10+ years their senior? Loads of ‘em. Since getting divorced in 2016, I’ve dated a ton of women, and most of them were 10 or more years younger. They didn’t care, I certainly didn’t care, and guess what: when we were out and about, no one else really cared either. Not even my last long term girlfriend’s parents (we were together nearly four years), even though I was 13 years older than she was.

On the flipside, internet men are fond of telling young men: “you’ll get better looking with age. You’ll have much higher value to women.” And that’s true…if it’s true. But a lot of men hit the wall around 35 or 40 just like women do, and the honest truth is that if you want to date women in their 20s, the easiest it will ever be is in your 20s and early 30s, even if that’s purely due to proximity and having a similar lifestyle. Women mostly prefer to date men their own age…until they don’t. But don’t bet on bucking the trend. The older you get, the harder it will be to date young, beautiful women.

For everyone…

Stop watching and consumer and producing genderslop. You wouldn’t punch yourself in the face repeatedly, would you?

For the boys…

Stop watching porn. Get fit, dress well, and keep up on hygiene, but you don’t need to smash your face with a hammer to become more attractive. Stop hiding in self improvement. Sure: get better. Soon! But stop hiding from life and hardship and rejection and suffering. Dive in and learn from it. This is what makes you a man.

Go get rejected by a hundred girls you approach. It will make you a better man.

Forgo the pleasure of masturbation. I’ve always thought the “no-fap” thing was a bit silly and extreme, but see if you can make it two weeks. Your nuts will not explode, I promise. And you’ll feel fucking horny and have way more desire to talk to girls.

Instead of watching YouTube and listening to endless self-help podcasts (guilty), read some fiction. Listen to music. Pick up a hobby: pickleball or yoga or hiking or volunteering would all be awesome ways to do something worthwhile and at the same time, meet girls.

Finally, stop asking women to be something they’re not: women are sexual creatures who want sexual attention, and that’s exactly what we should want as men! They’re going to post thirst traps and do all manner of other things to get sexual attention from men. Jealousy is not a good look. That doesn’t mean you should accept disrespectful behavior, but being endlessly concerned about what a girl is doing when she’s not with you, or what she’s done before you, is a fantastic waste of your time and energy.

Like, the prim-proper tradwife ain’t giving you road head on the way to the campground (and if she does, marry her). If you want a chick who likes sex, she’s going to be a little slutty. So while you’re with her make her your slut and stop worrying so much about what comes before or after.

For the girls…

So ladies, what are your plans? Because I can guaran-fuckin-ty you that spending 5+ hours a day scrolling Tik-Tok content about how men are evil—or anything else for that matter—isn’t going to lead to a productive anything: relationships, career, or life in general.

The best advice I can give women in general when it comes to men is contained in an old but valuable joke:

A woman goes to the Husband Store on Fifth Avenue, and on the first floor there are hundreds of hot guys to choose from. “This is amazing,” she says to the salesman, “I can pick any of these to be my husband?”

“Yes.”

But she says, “These guys are great, but what else do you have?”

“Follow me,” the salesman replies.

On the second floor, the guys are all good looking AND rich. The woman is thrilled. “Wow, good looking and rich. Jackpot.” She inspects the men, likes them, but she wants to see the third floor.

Now, they’re good looking, rich, AND funny. The woman says she’s pretty much there. “But is he good with kids?” she asks. The salesman brings her to the fourth floor, where the guys are also good with kids.

This keeps going. Good with pets. Highly educated. Nice to her mother. There’s even a special floor for guys who are all these things and into kinky sex.

Finally, she gets to the 12th floor, and she’s in the room full of guys with numerous superlative qualities. But she’s still not quite there yet. Has she really found her soulmate? She steps out of the elevator on the 13th floor, and it’s the roof. She walks to the edge.

“There are no guys up here? What’s going on? Where is everyone?” She peers behind her and sees the elevator door closing, with the salesman disappearing behind it.

She runs down the stairs and back around the block to front of the store.

But the Husband Store is now dark, with a “Closed” sign on the door; she pounds on it, and the salesman opens it ajar to say, “Sorry, ma’am, but, as you can see, we’re closed.”

“Ma’am?” the woman says, “I’m not that old, and also…” But the door is closed and she hears the lock slam shut.

Don’t make perfect the enemy of good.

Moreover, don’t expect men to be something they’re not. If you’re wondering why most young men don’t share far-left/feminist political beliefs, it’s because they don’t hate themselves, and that is a good thing, because no woman wants to be with a man who doesn’t respect himself.

The truth is, women want to date and fuck and have relationships with more powerful men they can submit to, and be submissive during sex. But then they invent a million red flags and rules that prevent them from dating a guy who embodies these traits. Newsflash: a guy who claims to be a feminist and slobbers all over himself to serve women isn’t going to tie you up, or use toys in bed, or fuck you well—and that doesn’t mean the guy who will is a misogynist.

But he’s not going to be a pussy or a pushover. And shock, horror! He might have read Hemingway, and have a few different political views.

Namaste y’all.

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Would a woman hiking alone in the woods rather come across a man or bear?

According to internet women on social media (it is important to remember, this is an entirely online controversy), the answer is “bear”—although I’ve always wondered whether that was a truly serious answer or more of a tongue-in-cheek thing? But the anecdote was revived recently by a female friend, in-person, arguing it’s true most women would choose the bear, because men are fundamentally dangerous.

Note: Full story lives behind the paywall—highly encourage paid subs to scroll down and read the lead-up first for all the dirty details.

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Now, while it’s clear women wouldn’t make this choice literally (more on this to come), the underlying claim that men are “dangerous” is worth examining, because so many women believe it to be true, or at least, say they believe they do.

Of course, it is true some men are dangerous, and that on a population level, men are far more likely to commit crime, and particularly violent crime, than women (although less than I expected: 69% by men, 31% by women). So men collectively are more dangerous than women. No arguments there.

I will also state here and now that sexual assault and rape are horrific crimes, any such instance is one too many, and we should do everything we can to prevent them from happening.

On the other hand, we’re living in the statistically safest period in human history. If you live anywhere in the West or in many other countries throughout the world, you’re remarkably safe compared to our predecessors—particularly if you’re a woman.

Why? Because not only is crime more rare now than ever, but most violent crime is man on man violence. The numbers I saw vary from 70% to 80%, but statistically, men should be far more wary of other men than women are. Moreover, most violent crime committed by strangers is also, not surprisingly, experienced by men. And again, it’s important to remember that all types of violent crime—including rape and sexual assault (SA)—are at historic lows in the US and Canada, especially when compared to where they were as recently as the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

The other thing about many types of crime, from petty theft to murder to rape and SA, is that the perpetrator is often well known by the victim. In other words, a totally random SA or rape by a guy who jumps out of a bush or van is extremely rare, as is the assertion that women are likely to experience sexual violence from a guy she meets on a dating app—indeed, the latter is basically impossible if she meets him in a public place.

We’ll come to the claim that 1 in 5 women have experienced SA later on, but the point is that the types of sexual violence women claim to fear most simply don’t happen very often. What does happen is that women who use the apps go on lots of bad dates, tend to choose the same guys on dating apps because they’re filtering for looks and age instead of character, get ghosted because they’re choosing guys with abundance +2 of their own SMV (or guys who are just plain fuckbois), and then like a game of telephone, the whisper network on Tea and AWDTSG Facebook groups goes to work making mountains out of molehills—and what’s the best way to get back at a guy who’s a scumbag or doesn’t want a relationship when she did? It’s to say he was violent.

Are there scumbags out there? Sure. But the thing for women to do is to report those scumbags to the police, credibly, with specific evidence about what happened. The good news is that this is happening more regularly. The bad news is that many instances still go unreported. Many understandable reasons are given for why this doesn’t happen, but the fact remains we can’t punish a crime no one knows about, and this becomes even more difficult when claims come out years, sometimes decades later, and so many others are proven false.

But most men aren’t scumbags, and even less are dangerous. A major, four decade-long study out of Sweden found that around 1% of the entire population is responsible for 63% of all violent crime. Yes, it’s almost entirely men. But the vast majority of men—nearly all—are just dudes going about their business who have no intention of hurting anyone, especially a woman.

This becomes even more obvious when we look at the data. In the U.S. there are around 359 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people. Sexual assault or rape are 70 per 100,000. For context, there are 835 major injuries from car accidents per 100,000 people. But most of us still get in a car everyday without thinking twice about it, and we certainly don’t see women or anyone else regularly freaking out about how dangerous it is to drive on social media.

What’s even more shocking is that there are somewhere around 750 male victims of violent crime per 100,000 in the US per year (this number is higher than violent crime overall because far more violent crime is committed against men than women). No one talks about this. Why? One reason is that we simply don’t worry as much about male safety as we do about women, but the main reason is that it’s still incredibly rare and not worth worrying about.

Fiver does a good job in the post below of dismantling the “patriarchy is the cause of everything bad in the world” mantra we see from the feminist camp, but as it relates here I’ll just point out: if there really was a cabal of men who wanted to subjugate women and had the power to do so, they could create a dystopian Handmaid’s Tale type scenario, and surely they would’ve protected guys like Weinstein and Epstein.

The Barking Years

Bullsh*t and the Patriarchy

Look, I never wanted to become a gender-slop essayist. I just want to write about how our culture is stuck, art is dead, and anyone interested in the true and the beautiful is going to have to expand their search beyond the places they’ve been told to seek those things…

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7 months ago · 39 likes · 3 comments · Fiverr

So why doesn’t that happen? Because there is no patriarchy, and because most men are good people who are horrified at the notion of any woman being sexually assaulted or raped and would do anything they could to stop it from happening.

Two other important points to make here, but before we move on, allow me to ask a question for the people who are reflexively upset to see the “men are dangerous” narrative being dismantled: why? Like, aren’t you glad to know the world is way less dangerous than you thought it was? I mean, if I found out my chance of getting cancer was a fraction of what I thought it was, I would be elated! So truly, haters, ask yourself: why are you so invested in painting all men as dangerous, when the statistics show that’s not true? Note that whatever you say will require the same logic white supremacists use when they argue other races are inferior despite our knowledge to the contrary.

Anyway…

1. This is a classic example of the kind of genderslop that is pointless and makes things worse for everyone.

Promoting the idea men are dangerous doesn’t make women any safer. Because:

A. 98%+ of men aren’t dangerous, and a large portion of the 1% who are, are in jail (and, again, they’re far more likely to be dangerous to other men than women).

The usual palm tree

Gentlewomen prefer bears

I was admittedly lukewarm on the original "would you rather" discourse surrounding men as compared to bears. There was a Midsommar joke to be made, so I did, but that was meant to be the extent of it. Beyond that, this seemed like a debate for the horde of amateur statisticians who spent several days gamely trying to calculate the mathematical odds of d…

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2 years ago · 173 likes · 42 comments · Kat Rosenfield

B. It doesn’t change women’s behavior. If men were really so dangerous, as Kat Rosenfield points out in the article above, women would behave way differently than they actually do—like, life would look radically different for all of us. But women don’t behave as if all men are inherently dangerous, because we’re not, and to do so would would be both unnecessary and impractical.

So the only thing that’s being accomplished, like most gender slop, is to poison the water hole, making women feel more negatively toward men (sometimes radically so—surely, this is a big reason so many young women reported feeling negatively toward men in the New Statesman survey), and men feel more negatively toward women.

But while it doesn’t make women any safer, it persists because for a certain subset of women (aside from those who just straight up hate men for whatever reason), the allegation that men are dangerous serves two purposes:

1. Cope for the inability to retain a relationship.

2. Intrasexual competition: the evolutionary strategy women use—often unknowingly—to discourage other women from being successful with men, either for direct (more men for me) or indirect reasons (less desire from thee). “Pick me” is another example.

And as I’ll elaborate in an upcoming post, this negativity prevents people from getting what they want, which for most of us is to have a supportive, loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex. After all, who’s better off: the woman who spends all day spreading misandry on social media because she’s lonely and depressed, or the woman who’s boyfriend is taking her out for a picnic after work?

Indeed, the bear example is actually a good one. Because we don’t try to scare hikers about bears, as it’s super unlikely they’ll come across one. We would also worry—rightly—that discouraging people from going hiking for any reason is bad, because hiking is good for our mental and physical wellbeing, one of the simple joys in life: to be out in the open air, enjoying the beauty of nature.

Just like being in a supportive, loving relationship.

2. How rape and sexual assault are defined varies wildly, both over the course of time and in terms of extremity.

This is where I’ll call the 1 in 5 number into question, because to assert this ratio is accurate and to be taken seriously (to be clear, I’m NOT suggesting we shouldn’t take the crimes seriously—we absolutely should), we have to have a firm definition of what constitutes sexual assault.

But we don’t for one very simple reason: assault and consent are based purely on the individual’s perception and perspective—both of which can be inaccurate and/or change over the course of time. They’re subjective.

#MeToo is a perfect example. For all the good it did to bring many men—particularly those who wielded power in Hollywood and Washington—to justice for sexual abuse, there’s no denying it metastasized into something of a moral panic. Almost overnight, social media exploded with millions upon millions of women coming out of the woodwork to allege they’d been sexually assaulted or raped. I’m not saying some of them hadn’t been, but at the time it seemed like nearly 4 in 5 were making this claim, four fold of what is now claimed at the extreme.

Aziz Ansari’s cancelation is still the most powerful example of how the #MeToo zeitgeist redefined sexual assault. I couldn’t find a valid link to the original article (super suspect in itself and shows how poorly it’s held up), but even then, many people who read it did not see what happened as sexual assault—including the NYT and NPR—both big supporters of the movement and not fans of men generally, especially in 2018, when published. “Grace” was consenting to physical escalation, Ansari stopped when she gave signals of non-consent, and when she said “no” he stopped entirely and said they should put their clothes on. Then he paid for her Uber home.

At the time, however, almost every woman I knew held this up as textbook example of SA. Like, the same woman who “man or bear-ed” me told me on another occasion that she only realized she’d been raped years after it happened, because of #MeToo.

The problem is that if an awkward sexual experience (or a “bad date” as NPR argued in the case of Ansari), qualifies as SA, or a woman doesn’t even realize she’s been raped until years after because she retcons or regrets the experience, then I 100% believe the 1 in 5 number that’s so often thrown around when it comes to this topic.

But like, even the legal definition of sexual assault varies wildly and basically depends entirely on the subjective experience of the victim. For example, I’ve been sent nudes and had girls flash me even though I didn’t ask for them to do that, and technically, if I hadn’t wanted to see either, that’s sexual assault. But we can surely all agree there’s a long way between unwanted exhibitionism and a man groping a woman on the subway, and yet still a much longer way between that and truly forceful, violent rape.

I wouldn’t want anyone to experience any of the above, and I’m sure you wouldn’t either, but I also know which crimes we would want the police to take most seriously and in what order.

In this way, because “sexual assault”—like “racism”, “genocide”, “fascist”, etc.—has been thrown around so casually and can literally mean almost anything, it’s hard to know how seriously we should take the 1 in 5 statistic. Like, did a homeless guy pull down his pants and it was gross (but not ultimately a tragedy), did you start hooking up with a guy and then it got awkward (like with the Ansari case), or did your boyfriend physically force you to have sex even though you told him “no” like what Graham Platner allegedly did? Depending on who you ask, all three could be considered SA, but I don’t think any sane person would say they’re the same.

There’s also, unfortunately, regular anecdotal examples where women have made false claims—it seems to happen particularly often to famous men, often years or decades later. So like, not only is the definition of the crime all too muddy, it’s also one where allegations are regularly dismissed for lack of evidence or found to be entirely fabricated.

So how prevalent is SA or rape—like the kind that is both true and truly bad? I honestly don’t know. The fact it happens at all is awful, and we should do everything we can to hold these guys accountable.

But let’s call the “all men are dangerous” campaign what it is: another gross, untrue form of misandry that’s been totally blown out of proportion. And frankly gents, if she says she’d choose the bear, it’s you who should be running away.

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1. I was referring to superficial standards: looks, money, height, power, status—that outstrip the woman-in-question’s own value. I thought that was pretty clear, but there’s always some white knight who has to pretend he doesn’t understand and rushes to the defense of women in hopes to score points with the fairer sex.

2. #notallwomen. One important thing to remember is that if someone’s commentary doesn’t apply to you, it’s not about you! Women who don’t have overly strict standards or succumb to the self-sabotaging female intrasexual competition campaign on social media (pick-me, age gaps, red flags, boyfriends are cringe, “man or bear”, etc.) have far more opportunities to meet and have relationships with high value men, because they A) actually still like men, and B) are more authentic and interesting people themselves. The more out of touch a person’s standards, the more pessimistic their outlook, the more likely it is they’re getting their script from someone else (social media), see relationships as an economic exercise rather than a human experience, and/or don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

3. Observing that women have a tendency to be picky (hypergamy) and suggesting they be aware of this tendency isn’t an attack on women.

   In fact, we do this all the time with men for perfectly rational reasons. Because when men don’t get what they want, get disappointed, or experience conflict, we can feel the impulse to become violent. And men are impulsive: we consistently rank way higher in risk taking than women. These two tendencies are why most crime, including violent crime, is caused by men. So we teach boys from a young age to solve their problems with words, express their feelings, and find other ways to manage these tendencies. “Look before you leap”, “discretion is the better part of valor”, and all that kind of stuff.

   And it works! Despite the alarmist nature of the MSM that leads people to believe the world is a dangerous place, crime and violence in the West is way lower than it ever has been. Our societies are remarkably safe. Part of this, surely, is that we train boys to be aware of their worst tendencies.

   All I’m suggesting is that we make women aware of their tendency to be overly judgmental and picky in a similar way, as it clearly has negative effect on both the individual woman, but society at large.

In some versions of the story, Goldilocks gets eaten for being too picky.

Indeed, when it comes to a woman finding a suitable partner, overcoming this tendency to be overly choosy (aka hypergamy) is her central problem. Consider most women’s greatest fear as captured in any great pop song: that she will fall in love and/or sleep with a guy who won’t stick around, return her love, and give her commitment. Why is this? Because women are always going to be attracted to the highest value men they have access to, but men will have sex with women they won’t commit to—especially if she throws herself at him and makes it super easy. This is just simple biology playing out: women want the best genes for their offspring, and men will jump at most opportunities to create more offspring.

So while it’s perfectly reasonable for a woman to have high standards, if they’re too high, she’s either going to get used for sex or passed over entirely. Is it great that men will have sex with women they won’t commit to? No, not really. But it takes two to tango, and if you make a bad bet or investment, it’s kinda your fault when you lose money. We might not smile upon the bookie or broker who took it, but the primary responsibility rests with the person who gambled and lost.

At the same time, most people (men AND women) get less attractive with age—it just hits women harder because men care more about appearance, whereas women care more about the status, wealth, and confidence that accrue as we get older and wiser. So as she ages, logic dictates she become less picky…but we all know that’s often not the way it works for perfectly understandable reasons: the palate does not become less refined as we taste more varieties of food. In essence, this means there comes a time for most women where her standards will exceed her value, and if she can’t find a man before this point—or adjust her standards—she won’t find one. Ever.

Side bar: fit people mostly bypass the age problem.

The number one thing that makes people less attractive as they get older is getting fat. Yes, we get wrinkles and lose some of the glow that comes with youth as the years advance, but the main difference between people in their 20s and people in their 40s and 50s is 10-50lbs, which looks even worse when paired with a lack of sleep, poor diet, and regular boozing. People who take care of themselves can look amazing into their 50s and 60s, and if you’re in great shape, you’ll have romantic options at any age.

The good news is that women will always have options.

Always. There’s a great Jerry Seinfeld bit where he notes (toward the end) that there’s always at least one guy (often more, sometimes hundreds) trying to get with any given woman at any given time.

The problem any individual woman has is they’re often not the men she wants…it’s why women love Rom-Coms and Lifetime Movies, where a commone theme is that suddenly, out of nowhere, a much more attractive man enters the picture to pursue her. But this is fiction. The level of guy any woman has access to at any given time is likely appropriate to how attractive she is and how often she puts herself in the ambit of high value men.

Men have the opposite problem. Most men aren’t too picky—they’re are too passive.

They don’t give themselves enough options with women, because most women will say no (often because they are being unreasonable, as was just outlined), and yet, no one likes getting rejected.

What men need to realize is that a woman rejecting you—assuming she’s in your league—is more about her than you. Like, yes, there’s a skill to approaching women, but the fact is, you can totally fumble it, and if for whatever reason she likes you, thinks your cute, etc., she’ll give you her number, and on the flip side, your game can be as tight as Ohtani and you can still strike out…which is why you shouldn’t let rejection bother you!

Quick story to illustrate the point: I recently had a true blind date with a girl, setup by some random people I met at the grocery store. We met at a local restaurant, shared an appetizer, and chatted for about an hour. Everything seemed to be going really well: she was smiling, laughing, highly engaged in the conversation—indeed doing much of if not most of the talking—and we shared a lot of interests and similar life experiences. At the end I kissed her, seeded the idea of a future dinner at my place, and we went our separate ways.

I texted her the next day to see how she was doing and let her know I had fun meeting her (IMO, this is best practice: texting the same night is too thirsty, but more than a day and you risk losing momentum). She replied a few hours later (not a good sign; remember, most people are on their phones constantly), and her reply was what I then expected: rejection—kind, but suggesting we could be friends.

As no reply was necessary on my part, I left it there. This is key: once a woman indicates she’s not interested (which could be as simple as her not replying to a text), stop talking to her.

Seriously though. Stop. No snarky text back, no questions, no being butt hurt. Just stop. Delete her number if you have to, and then apply your attention to more productive pursuits—one of them should be talking to more girls.

Frustrating to be sure. And getting rejected will always sting some. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. No one likes to be told no, especially when it feels personal as it always will with dating. But that’s the trick: the earlier the rejection happens, the less it’s about you, and the more it’s about them.

Because early on, they can’t possible know that much about you. Like, this girl hasn’t tasted my cooking or shared my bed, she has no idea how much money I make, she has no real knowledge of my sense of humor, or anything else about me. Like, who knows why she didn’t feel the spark? Could be any number of reasons, legit or not.

I truly don’t know. And I truly don’t care. I’ve dated younger, more attractive women than her, I will again, and I’m sure I’ll eventually find a high quality woman who’s worthy of long term commitment (if that’s what I want). Why? Because I don’t care about rejection, which means I get as many shots as I’m willing to take.

The looksmaxxing bros are a perfect example of the opposite: they’d rather smoke meth, smash their face with hammers, and gamble their longterm fertility by taking TRT at 20 years old than get rejected. I’m all for getting in the gym and getting jacked, but stop there and learn to talk to chicks—it would take far less effort and hassle and consternation than all the shit these poor dudes put themselves through.

Stop being afraid of rejection. It doesn’t matter. If you want to get pussy, you have to stop being one (btw, when people say someone’s being a “pussy” they’re referring to the how cats are overly afraid of stuff, not the female anatomy).

10 signs you’re either too picky (or too big of a pussy):

The last post also lacked any kind of guide or definition to help people understand if they’re being too picky (or too big of a pussy), so here you go:

1. If you’re over 21 and haven’t had a relationship longer than three months, you’re too picky (or too big of a pussy).

2. If you’re a woman who can’t wear a bikini, but won’t date a guy who’s a little overweight, you’re too picky. Now reverse it: if you’re a guy who’s overweight, but only wants to date girls who wear bikinis, you’re too picky (unless you’re a millionaire, but probably then too).

3. If you’re over 23, and aren’t willing to date someone three years younger, or 10 years older, who fits all your other preferences, you’re too picky. The older you get, the less age should matter when it comes to your romantic partners.

4. If you genuinely like and are attracted to the person, but don’t want to date them because you’re worried what your friends and/or family might think, you’re too picky (and possibly a bigot).

5. If you have income requirements (ladies), or debt requirements (men), that are more than 30K of your own income or debt, you’re too picky.

6. If you can’t forgive a person for having a few minor non-threatening habits or personality flaws (like chewing with their mouth open—I find this super annoying, but it’s also really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things), you’re too picky.

7. If you’re evaluating the other person or your relationship based on shit you see on Reddit, Tik-Tok, Shorts, or Reels, rather than your lived experience with them, you’re a fucking moron. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: IF YOUR GO-TO FOR LIFE ADVICE COMES FROM SHORT FORM VIDEO ON SOCIAL MEDIA, YOU’RE FUCKED.

8. How ever many expectations you have of a partner or potential partner, if you can’t list an equal number of benefits you would provide for them, you’re too picky. Ladies, we’ll give you an advantage here: regular sex counts double—if you add BJs, you’ve got four on the board already.

9. If you’re a woman 35 or over and you’re not willing to date single dads, guys +15 years of age, or younger men who don’t quite have their shit together, you’re too picky. Time’s tickin’ mama.

10. Regardless of age, if you’re a man not willing to date a woman you find genuinely attractive because of age, having kids, or being poor, you’re too picky. For those ladies wondering why I didn’t include too rich or accomplished, it’s because that’s not a thing. As I’ve pointed out before, no man in the history of the world has ever been too intimidated to fuck a chick he’s genuinely attracted to. If he’s intimidated it’s probably your weight, not your weighty degrees. Up with hope, down with cope!

What truly compounds the problem of pickiness is “and.” “He needs to be over 5’10” AND have his own house AND be liberal AND”…it goes on. But as Orion Taraban points out, AND is extremely expensive—it’s a function with negative exponential growth. Because with every additional requirement, the field is cut down by whatever proportion of men or women don’t fit that requirement.

Which is why we’re best to keep our expectations as simple as possible.

A) Are you genuinely physically attracted to them?

(One obvious point here is that our expectations should be in line with our own attractiveness. To go back to the chick who rejected me, it’s certainly possible she didn’t think I was attractive enough, but if so, her expectations were unreasonable: her friend and husband obviously thought I was a good match in terms of looks, and she was on the less attractive end of the women I typically date—for example, I would probably not have approached her on my own—but yet she was attractive enough, and had a good enough personality, my ultimate answer to A would have been yes. Point being, if you’re an out of shape 50 yo man, you don’t get to date a super hot 24 yo smokeshow, and the same is true for whatever the reverse of that is…in any case I digress.)

If yes:

B) Do they treat you well and do you enjoy spending time with them?

C) Do you share similar lifestyle goals and habits?

If yes to B and C, that’s really all you need.

Don’t outthink this stuff y’all. Namaste!

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A: They’re all rooted in hypergamy.

Hypergamy is the female preference to mate with men of higher status: men who are better looking, richer, and/or more powerful than other men. And social media, coupled with dating apps, have put this evolutionary instinct on steroids, where women are exposed to near infinite perceived options.

An attractive young woman growing up in a small midwest town 30 years ago would have been limited to men in her social circle, the local bar, church (how quaint), etc. Now she can post thirst traps to IG and have the possibility of getting flown out to Miami or Dubai by some Bitcoin millionaire or oil baron or influencer for a weekend on yachts and exorbitantly expensive restaurants. And if she lives near any large metro area, dating apps—with a 3:1 or higher ratio of men to women—offer her a consistent feed of thirsty bros who want to take her out.

Her perceived options are essentially limitless.

And while it’s a very good thing modern women don’t need men for provision or protection the way they use to, it also means there’s no real urgency to find one…so like, why not hold out for the best option? After all, if he’s not real good looking, rich, or adding massive value in some other way, what’s the point? The cumulative effect is that women are now more picky about who they date than any other time in human history.

Unfortunately, this optionality doesn’t lead to better outcomes. Just look at data: single, young women—especially middle to upper class, liberal, white women—are the most miserable segment of society, more anxious, depressed, and pessimistic about the future than other subgroups, despite all economic and wellness indicators pointing in the opposite direction.

GIRLS

Girls Are Not Alright

Hey everyone…

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4 months ago · 138 likes · 36 comments · Freya India

Why? Because in our march to a more equal and glorious future, a future where women are encouraged to put off having children (if they ever do) in lieu of a career, travel, and independence, we’ve forgotten that the same evolutionary programming that makes women hypergamous also includes an innate desire for a family and a tribe, including children and a male partner she can rely on—not only for provisioning and protection, but also for companionship: for connection, shared experiences, and *gasp* good, regular sex.

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We’re all aware of the crisis of modern relationships between men and women. People are having fewer relationships, less sex, and express more dissatisfaction with their prospects than in previous eras. But the blame always goes in only one direction: men.

Men aren’t making enough, not working hard enough, not bringing enough to the table. To some extent I have no doubt this is true. A lot of men out there could be doing more to make themselves the sort of marriageable man women are seeking, and the silver lining is that any individual man, provided he’s willing to put in the work to make himself a more attractive option, can overcome the headwinds of hypergamy. Ask me how I know 😉

Brackish Waters, Barren Soil

It has never been easier to be better than average

This post on Reddit is one of my favorite things I’ve come across in a while. With nearly 50,000 upvotes at the time of writing this, the person is too scared to enter his room…

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a year ago · 584 likes · 51 comments · Rohan Ghostwind

But for all we could say about men who aren’t rising to challenge, no one dares bring up the fact the maybe, just perhaps, women’s collective expectations are too high.

There are two problems with this dynamic:

First, in any negotiation where two parties are trying to partner for mutual benefit, both have to be willing to take responsibility and be willing to make some concessions or sacrifices for the relationship to exist. Take an employee, employer relationship. The employer has more power than the employee, but if they don’t pay the employee enough and/or treat them with some level of dignity, the employee can and will go elsewhere. On the flip side, the employer can fire the employee if they don’t do their job. Both parties have to fulfill their end of the bargain or it doesn’t work.

Take a related example: suppose an employer has to hire someone for a senior position that’s critical to the company’s success, so they list out all the qualities, qualifications, and experience they’d like in their ideal candidate on the job description, and tell their AI to screen out any applicants out who don’t fit the mold. A few months later they can’t find anyone who meets this criteria: turns out this ideal candidate doesn’t exist, or isn’t interested in the job at the pay plus benefits listed. So what do they do?

A smart company loosens their requirements and starts considering candidates who show promise in other ways, and is willing to train someone they think can grow into the role. Or they increase the pay + benefits. Or all the above. A dumb company leaves the position unfilled and forces other employees to perform those tasks ad hoc, becoming increasingly unstable, unorganized, and ineffective.

(Sound familiar to any particular group of people you can think of?)

What we would NOT do is blame the candidates who are applying. Like, even if they’re under-qualified, we’d applaud them for their ambition, right? Moreover, we wouldn’t say all XYZ type employees are lazy, good-for-nothings who need to 👏 do 👏 better. Surely, we’d place at least some onus on the employer for having unreasonable expectations.

But we refuse to do this when it comes to women who can’t find a partner. We tell them: “There just aren’t enough good men out there,” and ask on their behalf: “Where are all the real men?” Scott Galloway is fond of saying: “women won’t lower their standards.” But what if their standards are just too high? Like, does an overweight 5 deserve a high earning finance bro who’s got a six pack, quotes Aristotle, looks like Brad Pitt in his 30s, saves baby seals, and volunteers at a children’s hospital in his spare time? No. A super hot chick gets to have that guy, if he even exists.

People—especially women—hate the concept of having to settle when it comes to romance. But here’s the thing: everyone has to settle. No one is perfect. And if your expectations of the kind of partner you deserve are too high, you’re settling to be single. And look, if you’re fine with that, great. But clearly, most women aren’t happy with the end result.

Second, no matter how excellent men make themselves as a collective, if we don’t expect women to control their hypergamy, it won’t make any difference, because women, collectively, will still want to compete for the top 10% of men. If women can’t control their hypergamy, it’s an arms race for the top guys, and most women are going to lose. It also, ironically, makes those top guys less willing to settle down, because as long as women continue throwing themselves at them, they don’t have to.

Youth and high school sports are a perfect example of this. They’ve never been more competitive and professional. As young as 7 or 8 kids are getting put on travel teams, have personal coaches, and train year round to specialize in one sport. The collective level of talent and ability has never been higher than it is today.

But that doesn’t change the calculus of who gets college scholarships or NIL money, or beyond, who gets drafted onto professional teams. It’s still only the top 1% who make it. So even though a 16 year old kid may be a far better baseball player than anyone on his high school team 10 years ago, if he’s not significantly better than the best players now, he’s SOL.

We see this now, manifest in looksmaxxing. I work out regularly at a college rec center (best, closest option to my house), and I see it every day: the young bros are talking peptides, taking testosterone (absurd for any man that young), and religiously concerned with their physical appearance, posing in front of the mirror, flexing. It’s working too: a lot of them look great! We can make fun of them all we want, but look at it from their perspective: what the hell else are they supposed to do? We’re all aware of young men who rise quickly to fame and fortune, but those are outliers—not everyone can become a millionaire by the age of 27.

Yes, they should learn how to talk to girls. Yes, they should develop a broader personality than tracking macros and watching self-help podcasts. And yes, they should realize that while women are certainly into a guy who’s fit and looks good, most aren’t going to want a guy who’s obsessed with his physical appearance at the expense of developing a good career and engaging personality.

But young men are responding to the feedback they see in their environment where women have become super picky about appearance, where everything has to be posted on IG or Tik-Tok, and where only the very best looking guys get any attention from women. Looksmaxxing is merely a symptom of a much larger problem, as is the Red Pill, manosphere, and all the rest. Misguided? In a lot of ways, yes. But if the rules of the game change when it comes to sex and relationships with women, men are going to change their behavior, in good ways and bad, to meet that challenge.

It manifests on the female side in situationships, fuckbois, and the absolute flood of female intrasexual competition we see on social media: red flags, icks, concern about age gaps—even Gen Z fashion: the baggy, oversize jeans and sweatshirts—all of which effectively suppresses female competition for men.

Like, why are situationships a thing? Because top guys don’t have to commit to any particular woman. Same thing with why fuckbois exist. And there’s no doubt having these experiences makes women jaded, but they’re the result of out of control hypergamy: too many women competing for the same high value men. Women who choose men who are a good match in terms of value with similar relationship goals don’t experience fuckbois and situationships, because those guys will commit. Because those guys know it’s a good deal.

But in every case where there are bad outcomes in the sexual marketplace, we blame men, not women.

Sex work for women is celebrated. Men with OnlyFans subscriptions are losers, gooners, incels.

Women deserve to be treated like royalty and are right to have high expectations, but the very notion a man should ask what a woman brings to the table in a relationship is a toxic red flag.

We complain that there aren’t enough marriageable men, but never ask why a woman waited until she was in her mid 30s to settle down, or why she prioritized her career over finding a relationship. And perhaps most galling, when women in their 40s or 50s—often fresh out of blowing up their marriages—can’t find men who are enthusiastic about dating them, we ask once again: what’s wrong with men!

A big part of this is that our culture still hasn’t adjusted to women’s liberation and success. Before say, the 1960-70s, we didn’t hold women responsible or assign them much agency in their life or circumstances, and rightly so—in most cases, they really didn’t have a lot of options or power, so they were treated as a protected class.

What’s strange is that it’s obviously not the case today. Women are doing better than they ever have—at least in terms of education and economics—but for some reason, we still feel uncomfortable assigning them agency or responsibility for their circumstances. Women in many ways, are still treated as though they’re a protected class, even though they have every bit as much opportunity and freedom today as any man.

Ultimately, we’re right to be concerned about the state of men. A society that doesn’t produce high quality, high agency men is a society that doesn’t survive. Look no further than what’s happening in Japan, where the culture has been cowed into producing submissive, feminine men who are more comfortable obeying than commanding.

Terminally Drifting

No Country for Young Men

I. The Move…

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4 months ago · 627 likes · 122 comments · Terminally_Drifting

But we only need look slightly east in South Korea to see what happens when women opt out. Both of these nations have essentially become failed states because young people are failing to connect and have children.

Make no mistake: that’s where we’re headed in the West. I’m not suggesting we need all our women to become trad wife baby factories, but if we put all the responsibility for the breakdown of the sexual marketplace on men, we’re missing half the equation. As noted above, even if men collectively raise their game, it won’t matter if women continue to develop standards 80% can never meet. Like, it wasn’t so long ago that a man could get a high school diploma, work a blue collar job, and make a middle class living that included a loving wife and children. Now where’s the bar he has to clear? For example, how many women whose fathers were shorter than 5’10” now expect to date a man who’s 6’+? That’s not even something guys have any control over.

My advice to men: stop watching porn, get into the gym, embark on a productive career, and develop strong social skills. Stop being scared to approach women or get told no—there will always be more no’s than yes’s. If you want help, hit me up in my DMs.

As for the ladies, I’ll offer this bit of age old wisdom: the higher your standards, the more likely you are to be continually disappointed, especially if those standards are fundamentally unreasonable. There are a ton of good men out there who will work very hard to make you happy…if you give them a chance.

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

“How much you want for that car there?”

“Oh that one, she’s a beaut. I’d want at least $35,000 straight cash fer ‘er. Too bad fer you she ain’t for sale—I want to drive her around a little while an’ enjoy ‘er. Come back in a few years an’ we’ll talk.”

Five years later…

“Hey there Cyrus, see you still got that car sitting in the lot. How much you want for her now?”

“She’s still a gem, lemme tell ya. Got few miles on her now, but she’s better than ever. More experienced if ya know whatta mean. Had a fender bender a year back, but she’s right as rain now—lots more adventures in her future. I can’t take less than $40K given the appreciation, but we can finance the deal if you want to.”

“But it’s not new anymore. That’s not the way this works. Cars depreciate in value. Seriously, come now, I’m sure we can figure out a reasonable price we can both be happy with.”

“Sorry friend, apparently you don’t understand: this car here’s special. The offer stands, though. 40K, give you 0% APR for the first two years.

“Appreciate that but, no thanks.”

“Yer loss.”

Eight years later…

“How much you want for that car now?”

“$35K in cash, same as before, take it er leave it. Don’t have time to negotiate—it remains a prime automobile.”

“How many miles?”

“What’s that matter. She’s got a few on her now. Little north of 200 I guess, but I’d haf ta check. Runs great though. You just gotta jiggle the keys a bit, an’ goose the gas pedal in a pattern of threes.”

“Can I take it for a test drive?”

“Not a chance, sorry man. How do I know you won’t wreck it? Like I said, this here premium automobile is $35K. Cash. Take it or leave it.”

“Can I at least see the inside? It looks like the upholstery might be damaged.”

“That ain’t damage—that there is character. And no ya can’t see tha inside. You saying what you can see from here ain’t good enough for ya? Are ya blind?”

“Fair enough.”

“So you’ll take her?”

“Nah, I’ll pass. Good luck.”

“Well if you ain’t man enough to buy her it’s yer loss. You’ll regret it. None of these newer models have anything on this girl.”

(Highly, highly, highly recommend The Value of Others, by Orion Taraban—he goes deep into how the romantic marketplace functions, and how we can get what we want in terms of relationships)

A good deal: what arranged marriage can teach us about how to form lasting relationships.

Throughout history, human societies across many cultures have practiced arranged marriage. What often raises eyebrows from the “concern crowd” is that there was frequently a notable age gap between husband and wife, with girls sometimes as young as 13 or 14 married to men in their 20s or 30s. But those were the extremes. Most historians agree the average age was somewhere between 16–19 for women and 23–27 for men.

It’s also commonly assumed, in retrospect, that women entered these arrangements without meaningful consent—but the historical record complicates that narrative. Both husband and wife were required to consent by the church (at least as the Europeans practiced it). Objections were simply rare because the purpose of an arranged marriage was to secure the best possible match a woman’s family could find for her—and typically, both she and her father would have a range of strong candidates to consider, or at least the best options realistically available to them.

In other words, it was usually a good deal, and only a fool says no to that.

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Today, we’re left to figure it out for ourselves (which is good!), but the further we get from the 1960s and 70s, the less well it seems to be going (which is bad). This is a problem for social harmony, cohesion, and general happiness—the data show unequivocally that those who are married are generally happier than those who are single. They’re also wealthier and live longer. And it’s also just kinda obvious people do better when they’re paired up.

But whether it’s a suitable partner or sexual satisfaction, a lot of people aren’t getting the relationships they want to have. And although it isn’t helpful, nor rational, the default move is to blame the opposite sex for our discontent and inability to find a partner, as evidenced by the pithy takes and acerbic content that have become so common on social media, aka genderslop.

But whatever the de-centering men committee or manosphere bros say, the reason the dating and mating market has broken down is actually quite simple: as things currently function, for reasons we’ll get into, it’s very, very difficult to match in terms of value. Dating apps create a market of lemons, and this, combined with the effects of social media has left people with a false impression of their worth and optionality. Most singles are looking to buy something they can’t afford, or trying to sell their wares at too high a price.

Romantics blanch at this idea, but they shouldn’t. Anyone who’s been madly, wildly in love with another person should recognize why: because we were absolutely thrilled with the other person. We were getting a good deal. Whatever combination of values that attracted us to them—looks, personality, lifestyle, shared values, etc.—we were ecstatic to the point where there was never a question in our mind of this person being more than enough to satisfy us. If we’re honest, a lot of this comes down to physical attraction and interpersonal chemistry.

Great sex doesn’t hurt either.

And people only balk when the concept of value is applied to them. When it comes to who they think they deserve to be with, you’ll find they’re quite stingy about what they expect. But no rational person would buy the car described above at the prices and terms the seller was willing to negotiate. Because it’s not a good deal.

What happens when most sellers behave this way? The market freezes.

To explain, let’s return to the age gap common in arranged marriages—why did it work out this way? It wasn’t because the societies who practiced arranged marriage had some kind of weird DD/LG kink: it was because it was the surest way to maximize the value proposition for each party.

Consider the graph below.

It shows that men at almost every age find women between 20-25 most attractive. Why? Because that is the age at which a woman is most fertile. As I’ve pointed out before, this is the NUMBER ONE FACTOR evolutionary success would select for in terms of male attraction to women: can she get pregnant? Attraction to women who can’t become pregnant could not have been passed on genetically, or even culturally. It’s an evolutionary dead end. So, despite the fact men are constantly shamed for this preference, one may as well try to stigmatize children into not liking ice cream, or women into not preferring men who are tall and have big muscles.

Women’s value is obvious and visual; Men’s value is subtle and demonstrative.

When it came to arranged marriage, families knew their daughter was most attractive—and likely to retain her beauty for years to come—in her late teens (one thing to note here is that people at this time didn’t live nearly as long either). If they waited too long, her value would diminish—not only in terms of her beauty, but people would also wonder, “what’s wrong with Gwendolyn? Why doesn’t she have any suitors?”

So why not choose a man of similar age? They might if the suitor’s family was exceptionally rich and/or powerful, or if there was some other political reason to make the arrangement, but in general it was better to wait.

Why? Because a man’s value is very hard to determine when he’s 18. Many, if not most, still look like boys. Many still are. But more importantly, he hasn’t been tested. Is he smart enough to make good decisions running his estate? Kind and savvy enough to curry favor with his neighbors and lord? Strong and brave enough to defend his keep, or survive battle? Can he hunt? Does he have a strong work ethic? Will he become hardy and muscular, or be weak, or a drunk, or have poor character? Can he control his temper?

None of this can be known when a man is 18—indeed, much of this can’t be known until he’s well into his 20s, possibly even 30s. And in many cases, if he was of lower nobility or a peasant, he needed time to improve his wealth and status before he could make a reasonable offer for marriage.

Like, families wanted to ensure the man they married their daughter to could take good care of her and would treat her well. Smart!

For these reasons, long after marriages were officially arranged and negotiated, families—especially wealthy families—still had a huge influence over who their daughters married, preferring men who were older and more well established. Take the classic novel Pride and Prejudice, loved by women the world over: Mr. Darcy was eight years older than Elizabeth.

And this system worked! It generally created marriages where both the man and woman were getting a good deal. The man got a woman in the flower of her youth, capable of bearing children; the woman—if she and her family did a good job of vetting—got the best man possible: a man who was proven and had attained some measure of wealth and status.1

This is still true today, at least when it comes to men: most get better with age (to a point of course). They have more established careers, more patience and ability to deal with adversity, better social skills, more maturity. Most of the things we admire in men require experience, and that experience is simply something that a young man doesn’t have—not for any shortcoming of his own, but simply because he hasn’t had the time to learn and grow.

Fast forward to today, and the system is all out of whack.

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The work can’t begin until we admit we have a problem.

And if you have to reframe it. No one wants to have problem, but on the other hand, it’s a tremendous opportunity to grow and learn.

I know this to be true given my experience with addiction, but it’s true for any problem we face. Until we raze our excuses, cope, and justifications to the ground, progress is impossible.

Why? Because until the solution to our problem(s) rests on our shoulders alone, it’s someone else’s fault.

“I can’t get a girlfriend because modern women are too picky.”

“I can’t get a boyfriend because there aren’t any good men out there.”

“I can’t get a new job because it’s impossible to get an interview. AI. Muh.”

“I can’t buy a house because they’re too expensive…fucking boomers.”

“I can’t pray because I don’t believe in God.”

“I can’t make friends or meet new people because I have social anxiety.”

Now, change “I can’t” to “I won’t”, and every ending to “make changes.”

Because that’s the truth.

It’s not that there aren’t challenges out there, or that the complaints above aren’t real. They are.

Modern women, collectively, have become too picky (Looksmaxxing didn’t just magically appear out of thin air). Too many men are falling short when it comes to making themselves desirable partners (12% of men under 30 are now considered NEET—not in education, employment, or training). Housing is way too expensive, and many people are truly crippled by social anxiety.

But for every problem, there is a solution. Not for everyone, but that’s not our concern. The only concern we have is to find the solution that works for us.

However, that’s impossible as long as the solution is an excuse, cope, or justification. As long as our problem isn’t ours to solve, it’s out of our control.

I have a friend who’s a perfect example.

A Master Class in Cope…

Note: soon, most of my more controversial takes, including those on dating and mating, will be paywalled. I’m doing this for two reasons:

1. Eventually, I want GetBetterSoon to be a full time job (which would mean much, much more content!), and to do that, I need to start making money from the time and energy I spend producing content—none of which is AI. Podcasts (coming soon, I promise) will be free, as well as much of the basic GBS takes.

2. More importantly: Not every asshole on the internet needs to have access to my more intimate thoughts and observations. Those I reserve for people who are truly bought in to Getting Better Soon. And, like in the case below, some people who know me will know the person I’m describing—not because I identify them directly, because that I will never do, but because well…you’ll see.

For those who choose not to sub, the takeaway is that this person makes every excuse in the world not to change, and as a result, is living a miserable life—because they can’t admit they have a problem. And yes, eventually I will have an intervention, although I have no confidence it will take, because well…you’ll see.

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“If you have sex on the first date, he’ll put you in the short term bucket,” quoth Dr. Debra Soh on Modern Wisdom recently.

Soh is an incredibly intelligent, accomplished woman, and I highly recommend her work—the interview with Williamson is worth a listen as it illuminates so much of what’s going wrong with sex and relationships in the Smart Phone, Dumb Person Era.

But sometimes people get shit wrong and it’s worth calling out. Not in the hair-on-fire, Chicken Little manner you’ll find on the far right or left, where someone being wrong is devastating proof they’re the spawn of Satan, as we so often see on places like BlueSky and Twitter.

No, sometimes people are just wrong, because they misspeak, or don’t understand the topic fully, or whatever. Or maybe we just have a fundamental disagreement. People are different and have different experiences that inform their beliefs and opinions. And that is actually OK—we’re fully anti-cancelation here at GBS.

However, it’s still important to correct the record, so here we go:

Having sex on the first date can only help the woman secure a relationship. It will never hurt her.

This is probably an astonishing thing to hear someone say, especially for most women, because it flies in the face of their felt experience as well what most women tell other women about having sex on the first date, namely, something along the lines of what Soh says: if you have it too soon, he’ll discard you.

But this totally misunderstands how long term relationships form, and men generally. I know because I am one, and because I’ve spoken to thousands of men specifically about mating and dating, along with having coached nearly a hundred at this point.

Here’s the thing: men…like…sex. Shock! Horror! But seriously, we do, so a woman showing us she’s willing to have sex sooner rather than later is actually a fantastic signal to the man in question, because it means:

1. She (probably) likes sex

2. She desires him sexually—this is a strong signal of genuine attraction

3. She’s not in the habit of leveraging sex as a means of manipulation

4. She’s not jaded by previous experiences of one night stands

5. She’s open to the experience of love and dating, not following a scripted plan

I could go on, but you get the idea: these are all excellent indicators this woman will be an amazing partner, should the man want to partner with her. So why is it that women experience ghosting and/or fail to claim a relationship with the men they desire after having a one night stand?

There are several possibilities:

1. She isn’t special to him in terms of youth/beauty and the other qualities men desire in women—to be blunt, she gets discarded because she’s going after a guy who has far higher value than she does. This happens a lot because of how dating apps and social media distort the Romantic Marketplace in women’s favor, but even more so in favor of the top 10% of guys most women are chasing after.

2. Sex was the only good part of the date. Men will put up with a lot of shit to get laid, but if everything leading up to it was a miserable experience, he will not want to do that again. But NOT because of the sex—it’s because everything else that shows him she’s not going to be a good long term partner.

3. He’s an immature douchebag who doesn’t know a good thing even when she slaps him right in the dick—or in this case, sits on it. But not having sex with an immature douchebag who’s not ready for a relationship will not transform him into a grown man who’s ready to be husband hero. The key is to avoid these guys in the first place, which we’ll come to.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying women should have sex on the first date—they should have sex whenever they want to for the ordinary reasons one would want to have sex.

But the notion women shouldn’t have sex early on in a relationship because it will cause men to “put her in the short term bucket,” is completely wrong. It’s irrelevant. The problem is upstream of this.

So what can women do to avoid ghosting after sex?

A) Choose men who are a similar level of value to themselves. I know this is hard and runs counter to the female desire to choose the most attractive, high value men available to them (aka hypergamy), especially through the markets of dating apps and social media, but the simple fact is that men aren’t going to engage in a long-term relationship with a woman who’s not sufficiently attractive vis-a-vis his own value and experience.

Like, if he’s the 6-6-6 women are chasing after, understand how rare that is—are you bringing commensurate value to the table? If you’re not in at least the top 10% of his options in terms of youth, beauty, and the other feminine qualities men care about, like kindness, softness, intelligence, and support, while he might not pass on sex, he’s going to pass on the relationship.

I wish this weren’t so, but I’ve done this before—it’s one of the reasons I don’t like dating apps. Because for guys it’s so hard to match with a woman of equal value, but then you get horny, decide to give the girl a chance, and whether you have sex or not, in the end it’s just never going to work. Because the foundation of mutual value isn’t strong enough to support a long term relationship.

And no amount of making a man wait is going to change that. Making a guy wait doesn’t transform Suzie Six into Sydney Sweeney, and it never will. To drive the point home, consider that the reverse is also true: Sydney Sweeney having sex with a guy on the first date doesn’t transform her into Suzie Six. Like, why would a guy put a woman he’s super attracted to into the short-term bucket because she has sex with him on the first date? He wouldn’t. He’s going to want to see her again and make her his girlfriend.

B) Once you’ve selected a guy of similar value, then regardless of when sex happens, show him in the dating phase what it would be like if you were his girlfriend. Show him how you’d add value to his life. I’ve written an entire post on how to do this.

And by the way, if you find the concept of adding value to a man’s life off-putting, then you don’t want a relationship with a high quality man. Like, surely you expect him to add value to your life, right? Shouldn’t he expect the same?

C) Avoid the immature douchebags who aren’t ready for a relationship.

Easier said than done, but there are several heuristics women can follow on this:

1. Guys in their 20s, especially early 20s, are going to be less likely to be ready for a long term relationship—this is especially true of the tallest, best looking in this cohort, because they are the most sought after, so they’re going to be way more picky in the first place. The exception are younger guys who’ve already had long term relationships, like a high school or college sweetheart, or guys who are super career driven and don’t have time to be players.

2. Guys in their 30s and 40s will be more likely to want to settle down—key thing to look for is IF they’ve had at least one or two long term relationships before. It’s not necessarily disqualifying if he hasn’t, but if he’s good looking and has a decent career, he’s had options, so the fact he’s never settled down is a red flag, more so the older he is. Ironically, for some women it’s a turn off if the guy’s been married or has kids, but these are both actually really good signs he’s a relationship oriented guy. So, if you can get past the goldilocks desire to have everything just right, these guys are excellent candidates for long term relationships and marriage.

3. Prioritize guys you meet IRL. Why? Because if he’s done the work to approach you, get your number, and ask you out, he’s way more invested than if you meet on a dating app or through social media. It’s also more likely you’re a match in terms of value, because if you weren’t, he wouldn’t have approached or you would’ve turned him down. Additionally, it’s a sign he’s not using dating apps or social media to meet women, so he’s not exposed to the constant hamster wheel of these mediums turning people into commodities rather than flesh and blood human beings.

4. Does he read? Have interesting hobbies? Have a side hustle or ambitious plans for his future? Or does he spend a ton of time playing video games, watching YouTube, or is otherwise addicted to his phone, doesn’t have much to say, etc. Like, if he’s spending a lot of time on IG or Tik-Tok, he’s not a mature man nor is he on the path to becoming one.

This is also true for you. Women who want to have a serious, long-term relationships shouldn’t be spending a ton of time on social media, especially if it’s posting thirst traps to get validation and attention from other men. Like, is the kind of man who’s looking for a serious partner going to want his girlfriend or eventually, his wife, to be obsessed with Tik-Tok and IG? No.

Relationships happen when there’s a match in value, when the man and woman find each other mutually attractive and have enough in common to enjoy each other’s company and have fun together.

When sex happens doesn’t change any of that. Indeed, the real danger is if it doesn’t happen soon enough, because that is one of the main ways people bond. It’s fine to wait until you feel ready, but the longer that time spins out, the more the guy is going to wonder: is this woman actually attracted to me? Does she even like sex? On a long enough time frame, he’s going to conclude both answers are no and dip.

Food for thought.

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If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

Adversity and failure are the greatest teachers.

But it’s not for the conventional reason that they show you what’s wrong so you can fix it, or because it teaches you gumption or perseverance.

That’s all great: useful when we’re not learning the material in class, plodding along the wrong path at work, or in relationships or pursuing hobbies where progress and satisfaction are stagnant or regressing.

But these sorts of small setbacks don’t typically provoke a full-scale reassessment of what we’re doing, and more importantly, what we believe to be true. Failing a test or losing a client is cause for reflection, not a reset.

Total reset—for most people, in most cases—only happens at rock bottom: a divorce, the loss of a loved one, complete financial disaster, a serious or debilitating injury, a near death experience, addiction, or a brush with cancer or some other life-threatening disease.

I’ve been lucky enough to experience two such “natural” resets (divorce and addiction), but I also know it’s possible to force a reset, or at least, to resist what seems to be an overwhelming social and cultural reset.

This happened when I was teaching, after Trump got elected in 2016 and the all consuming tide of identity politics and what we now refer to as wokeness followed.

Read the post if you want the whole story, but the TL;DR is that, though no fan of Trump or the insanity of his movement, I refused to go along with the deranging ideas that transformed the Left—my political allegiance to that point—into an unrecognizable mob of maniacs who’d suddenly become obsessed with skin color, imagined privilege, and calling into question the very biological nature of sex and gender, all while proclaiming to believed in science and equality.

You remember the yard signs, right?

Nearly everyone in my community—friends, colleagues, family members—went right along with it. But like the last allegiance of elves and men facing Sauron in the Battle of Dagorlad, I resisted!

But I digress.

The point here is that a reset allows us to see the most important guiding fact of our lives: what we believe to be true. Because what we believe is true about the world, about people, about society, predicts how we will act, what we will do—indeed, what we think is possible or impossible.

In this regard, Get Better Soon is intended to do two things:

The first is fairly uncontroversial: basic advice, frames of thinking, practical tactics, and knowledge people can use to…Get Better Soon. For example, one of the next few podcasts will be on some basic things people can do in terms of health, nutrition, and fitness—all of which I’ve learned from listening to various podcasts over the past few years from experts in their respective fields, and implemented with positive outcomes.

But suggesting men ice their balls while in the sauna (thank you Bryan Johnson), while certainly odd, isn’t particularly controversial. Or at least, it’s not offensive.

The second, however, is where it gets controversial.

That’s where we’ll tackle what’s potentially offensive—depending on the audience. Like suggesting that women, in general, don’t take enough personal responsibility when it comes to relationships, that vaccines are good, actually, or that men who can’t talk to women they find attractive IRL are pussies.

Now, maybe you think I’m wrong and don’t care if your kids die for no good reason or if you die single, childless, and lonely. And if I’m wrong, then you’ll surely prove me wrong…right?

Regardless, what I can promise you is that I won’t shy away from discussing what’s real and likely to be true vs. social norms or beliefs people either genuinely believe, or are too afraid to challenge publicly for fear of backlash.

And this is important in an age where many people have come to believe things that have either been entirely fabricated on the internet by some asshole or collective of assholes, or are the products of political or social ideologies engaging in outright propaganda to achieve a particular end.

Why is this important? Because if we believe shit that’s not true, it’s going to produce bad outcomes on an individual level, which is the only thing we can control.

Take the anti-vax movement. The result of this skepticism—advanced as part of the political agenda on the right—is that a bunch of kids are now dead because their parents didn’t vaccinate them against diseases that we’ve all but eradicated, like measles. That’s about as bad as it gets. Do you want your kids to die unnecessarily because of your political beliefs? Of course not. But that’s exactly what happened to a bunch of fucking morons because they were so fucking stupid they didn’t get their kids vaccinated.

Or, how about the inability and unwillingness of parents, schools, and politicians to understand the dangers of smart phones and social media? Again, we have a bunch of dead kids who committed suicide as a result.

Unfortunately, toxic beliefs abound, in large part due to the above influence of smart phones and social media. And people are going to experience real problems in their lives if they can’t disavow these beliefs—if they can’t hit the reset button. And it’s only going to get worse as AI slop invades social media, schools, and the workplace.

My goal is for Get Better Soon to act as an antidote. That I can offer views and information you won’t hear elsewhere, because people are too afraid of the social or political consequences. And again, that’s not to say I’m right about everything or have some exclusive license on the truth. But the numerous resets I’ve been gifted allow me to see the world more clearly, because I don’t have the time to be ineffective, and I don’t have patience for bullshit: with where I’m at in life, I have no choice but to be laser focused on my health, finding and fostering high quality relationships, and building wealth and abundance.

I want to live my best life, and I want you to live yours.

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How to reset your beliefs: cut the cope, ask hard questions, and learn to observe what is going on UPSTREAM of the river water you’re wading in.

Let’s start in reverse—the reference is to Dan Heath’s book, Upstream: the quest to solve problems before they happen. Recommended reading for sure, but the start of Chapter 1 (Moving Upstream) reveals the basic premise:

You and a friend are having a picnic by the side of a river. Suddenly you hear a shout from the direction of the water—a child is drowning. Without thinking, you both dive in, grab the child and swim to shore. Before you can recover, you hear another child cry for help. You and your friend jump back in the river to rescue her as well. Then another struggling child drifts into sight…and another…and another. The two of you can barely keep up. Suddenly, you see your friend wading out of the water, seeming to leave you alone. “Where are you going?” you demand. Your friend answers, “I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids in the water.”

—A public health parable (adapted from the original, which is commonly attributed to Irving Zola)

Point is, if we only look at the immediate problems we see, we’ll never discover the proximate cause of those problems, and as long as that remains true, solving them is impossible.

A good example is dating. Men complain, “I can’t get any matches on dating apps, women are too picky.” Women complain, “where have all the good men gone—I go on dates, but I always get ghosted or end up in a situationship.”

And in both cases, if they keep doing what they’re doing, nothing is going to change. Why? Because they’re not fixing the problem upstream of their experience, which is typically, a problem of value, or at least, perceived value.

For men, at the very least they should get better photos and write more intriguing prompts. But even that might not be enough. Clearly looks-maxxing has jumped the shark (and I’ll have more to say on that in the future), but the basic concept is correct: a lot of guys do need to lose weight, improve their physique, and/or learn to dress well, get a haircut, groom themselves better, and in general, improve their appearance.

But even that will only get them so far. They also need to learn how to talk to women and perform on a date so as to spark attraction. In short, he needs to increase his value in every way possible so that the women he dates feel genuine attraction.

It’s the same for women, only flipped: most single women are single because they’re chasing men who are far higher value than themselves—and will therefore never commit—or they’re being way too picky, or using the wrong heuristics when choosing who they should go out with (like being overly concerned about age, height, and perceived compatibility based on categories of personality, like religion, politics, or lifestyle), and often all of the above.

As I’ve pointed out in numerous posts, just as women won’t sleep with men who don’t show value and spark attraction, men will not commit to women who don’t add value to their lives. If it’s not a good deal for him, he’s not going to commit, let alone put a ring on it—and the higher quality guy it is, the more options he has, the more this is true.

In both cases, if the upstream problem remains unsolved, kids will keep floating down the river.

The same is true of anything in life. Before we complain about a problem, or wade in to fight the current endlessly, we have to examine what is going on upstream. If you find yourself consistently disappointed by the results you’re getting in life, consider the fact that you’re wrong—you have beliefs, even an entire system of beliefs, that are simply not true.

“The Red Pill” gets a lot of shit—some of it warranted, because there’s definitely a lot of nonsense, noise, and ugly misogyny associated with it, but the reason it became and remains popular is that at it’s core it shows men what women are actually attracted to, not what we’re taught women are attracted to by popular culture. Like, that’s why it’s called “The Red Pill”—it’s an homage to the Matrix, where Neo is faced with a choice: take the blue pill and remain in the world as you see it, or take the red pill, and “see how far the rabbit hole goes.”

If you’re going to be mad, stop being mad at the questions, and start being mad at the answers. Or do what is most wise, and accept the world for what it is.

Ask hard questions:

Is my allegiance to feminism, or right wing politics, or insert any other extreme ideology, actually serving my best interests? Is my community of friends and family telling me what is best for me, or best for them? Are my beliefs helping me get what I want, or holding me back?

A good litmus test is this: do you ever disagree with people you’re inclined to agree with? Like, do you support or disagree with Trump 100% of the time, regardless of what he does? If you’re a woman, do you like all the posts on Tik-Tok, Stories, and Shorts claiming men are trash or chopped, eating up the red flag, entitled princess narrative? If you’re a dude, do you do the same with all the bullshit you see from Zander, ThatZonaGuy, and other freaks who talk about hoeflation and dream of trad wives in sundresses?

Develop an independent mind. Learn to separate what emotionally feels good from what is true. The truth will never align perfectly with what we would like to believe, or is convenient to believe.

This goes for our habits too—some of which, left to fester, will almost certainly lead to disaster. Trust me, you don’t want to let it get that far. Like, most of us know we shouldn’t spend all day and night on our phone scrolling through social media, but we continue to do it anyway.

Start with agency: are you willing, truly, to accept full responsibility for the outcomes you experience in life? Most people aren’t. They’d rather blame others and complain about it on social media, with the expectation that if enough people complain long and loudly enough, eventually things will change.

But they won’t.

People do what they do. It’s no one’s job to live with the explicit goal of benefitting YOU. If we want things to change, it’s our job to initiate and enact that change.

The good news is this doesn’t have to happen all at once. Start small. Make progress over time. Getting sober took me a long time. I had a lot of relapses, but after each, my goal never wavered: I don’t want to drink, and I’m not going to.

Our habits, especially compulsive habits like scrolling, drinking, smoking pot, overeating, etc., are hard wired into our biological feedback loop. Changing them is like telling a massive barge heading downstream on a big river to reverse course and starting heading upstream instead. It’s going to take a long time to make that turn. So give yourself grace as you change, slowly but surely.

Get help! Tell people you want to make a change. Having a few tug boats to help get the bow turned upstream helps immensely. Get friends or family members to act as accountability partners. See a counselor, or if it’s the type of thing where you can join a group, join one. For example, whatever people say about cross fit, there’s real power in getting fit with a bunch of other people who have the same goal who will push you in every work out, ask why you didn’t come Tuesday, and encourage you to eat healthy. There’s tremendous power in community—not online communities filled with cope where people make shit up and complain, but real life communities where people speak honestly, share experiences, and encourage each other through personal relationships and community events.

Cope: the great scourge of our modern time.

So we’re clear on what it looks like, a few examples:

• “Men are intimidated by my job and personality—that’s why they won’t commit.”

• “Women only date uber Chads, so unless you’re over 6 feet with a chiseled jawline and six pack abs, there’s no point in trying.”

• “I don’t believe anything published in the mainstream media, because they lied about COVID.”

• “The only difference between men and women is how we’re socialized by our culture.”

• Name your conspiracy theory.

Let’s define what cope is: a belief in something that absolves us of the responsibility to make better choices, change our viewpoint, or admit being wrong or having regret.

No one is right 100% of the time, and anyone who says they have no regrets is a fucking liar, and worse, a coward. Sure, everything in your life to this point has led you to be who you are, but even if you’re happy with who you are, to say you don’t have any regrets is asinine. Of course you do. We should learn from our mistakes, and that learning contributes to who we are now, but if you say you don’t have any regrets, that means you didn’t learn anything—the learning can only take place and take hold if you regret the mistake!

Cope is the ego telling us we don’t have to change, robbing us of the opportunity to see things clearly. It might make you feel better temporarily. It might make you appear more confident and successful than you are on social media and the internet, where no one is ever wrong or admit they’ve made any mistakes, ever.

But your heart and mind know the score. And if we’ve managed to fool them by retconning our lives so that nothing bad that happened was ever our fault and we truly believe these internalized lies, we’re truly lost—stuck in an unreality that prevents us from making progress and growing as humans.

We can’t get better—sooner or later—until we’ve confronted the obstacles in our lives for what they are, truly, not as we’d like to perceive them.

More to come soon, my friends.

Namaste.

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If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

I haven’t written much lately, but you’ll soon see why.

The conventional excuse is that I got a new job at a cool start up (true), and I’ve been grinding my ass off to get the sales funnel up and running (also true).

But I’ve also had other, more important work to do.

Last year in early March, I was arrested for a DUI, just after I pulled into our driveway. To be honest I was lucky to get that far—I thank God every day no one got hurt.

Well, at least not physically hurt.

But everyone involved will have scars for the rest of their lives. My son, who was in the car. My ex-girlfriend. My ex-wife and her family, my family, friends, and everyone else who had to deal with the aftermath and wreckage of what my addiction wrought.

I apologized already, but I’ll do it again when I get there in my Step Work (it takes longer than you think—I’ve been sober now for a long time, but I’ll leave it there, because the program is anonymous for a reason).1 I don’t blame anyone if they don’t give a shit what I have to say after all the problems I’ve caused, but I owe it to them—and to myself—to offer an earnest apology, and to right my wrongs so far as I can.

It’s ironic because the one who deserves to be the most mad at me—my son—still loves me. He has forgiven me, or at least moved past the need for it. Perhaps he’ll change his mind someday when he gets older and reflects on what happened that night, but I’m going to do everything in my power to show him it is possible to redeem yourself, even when you’ve made a mistake everyone but God agrees is unforgivable.2

My parents have also been supportive the whole way, along with a handful of friends I’ve had the courage to tell—and I say courage, because one of the first (and I mistakenly thought, one of my best) friends I told immediately turned his back on me. And that hurt. Bad. But like everything, it was my fault. My responsibility. And whatever follows, please know: I’m not suggesting in any way, shape, or form that I wasn’t 100% responsible for all of it. Because it was my fault. Everything.

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This has been by far the worst year of my life, despite wild career success. Somehow, through the mess of it all, I earned more money last year than any other year of my life. But I lost my ability to drive, I foolishly moved away from my family and friends out of pure hubris to a city where I didn’t know anyone, and I’ve spent the majority of my time alone (oddly enough, one of my favorite reality shows I’ve been rewatching lately), battling this demon.

I regret it all of course—no one wants or asks to find themselves in the throes of addiction—but as time spins out, what I regret most is losing my girlfriend. She was an incredibly sweet, loving woman. Beautiful, kind, sexy, full of grace and joy and positive energy. And I took her love for granted. Not that I was a jerk or an asshole—I treated her well, cooked and cared for her, loved her as best I could, but my alcoholism separated me from my better self and ultimately from her. And the thing that hurts most is knowing that if I’d been my truest, most authentic, best self, our relationship would have thrived.

But I fucked it all up because I couldn’t stop drinking.

And what you realize as you get older is there’s no going back. The time we lose is lost forever. It doesn’t seem like that matters much when you’re 22, but the time’s just as valuable then—maybe even more so—which is why the older you get the more you wince at how foolishly so many people squander it, and the opportunities to love the people who love us, thinking we can find something better. Taking our opportunities for granted.

But we tell ourselves the same lie…tomorrow. Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow will be the start of a new day, a new life. And as long as life is, that’s not an unreasonable notion. There will be a tomorrow, surely. And we could indeed start…tomorrow. The problem is that at some point, tomorrow is too late.

But you won’t know until it is.

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My goal isn’t to depress anyone, and I don’t need anyone’s pity. I made my bed, now I get to lie in it. And honestly, I count myself lucky. Because despite how badly I fucked so many things up, I still have plenty of time to erase the previous 25 years, stained as they’ve been with drinking, delusion, and confusion. I’m finally clean, healthy (amazing how fast you can get sexy when you stop boozing, watch your diet, and workout consistently), and I now have the chance to live the rest of my life sober, powerful, giving, compassionate, and full of purpose and love.

But the fact remains, I wish I didn’t have to write that paragraph, or anything that came before it. I’ve lost so much time, so many opportunities, and so many people—including my ex-girlfriend, who could’ve been my loving wife if I hadn’t blown it.

True love isn’t a lark, by the way. It’s exceedingly rare. If I’m lucky I’ll get to experience it again someday, but there’s no guarantee. That’s true for all of us, but you won’t hear that in the petty smallness of the genderslop discourse, to which on too many occasions I’ve contributed.

So don’t do what I did.

I get that it’s easy to say, but that’s what the meditation gurus and self-help podcasters really mean when they say we should practice gratitude. It’s to actually STOP and be thankful for what you have so you make sure not to lose it like I did.

Stop and think about all the things your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family, friends, and community do for you. Put aside the things they do you don’t like, and focus on all the ways they love, support, and help you. Think about all they’ve done in the past to contribute to your joy, security, and happiness.

If your love life has waned, think about the times in the past when you’d spend entire weekends in bed, when you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. If your friendship has lapsed, give them a call. Or even just a text. Ask them how they’re doing. Tell them you miss them. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll hear back. And if you don’t, then at least you know where you stand.

Be grateful. Actually grateful. Think about all the good things you have going for you. Like, my life sucks right now—I can’t drive, I don’t have a girlfriend nor any prospects (was seeing this one chick, but she recently ghosted lol), and I’m actually shit you not, being audited by the IRS, as if I needed more bullshit to deal with right now (I’m happy to pay my taxes, but I did, this is a mistake, and I hope they all fucking die)…

But I have so much to be thankful for. I have a job that pays my bills (and it’s actually pretty cool, and has the chance in the future to be highly lucrative), I have the chance to workout or walk every day in a beautiful city, I can fly fish half a mile from my house, I’m getting amazing sleep for the first time in years (drinking DESTROYS your sleep), I’m still a badass cook, even if I’m typically only cooking for one, and I talk to my son almost every day—and the fact it will only be another couple months before I move to where he is now is yet another blessing.

And despite the fact a lot of people gave up on me, a lot of people didn’t. A lot of people have stuck with me and forgiven me. They’ve believed in me and supported me, even if I didn’t deserve it. And I owe it to them to repay that trust by getting better, making amends, and using my experience to help other people.

I remember way back when I was 12, maybe 13, and my friend’s dad was taking us steelhead fishing. He said something incredibly powerful, “If you’re so down that you’re thinking about suicide, recognize that by definition, you’re at rock bottom. No matter how much money you have, or don’t, or whatever else is going on, if you’re thinking about ending your life, it doesn’t get any worse. It can’t. From there, it can only get better. So never give up. Never lose hope. It can only get better.”

I’ve never been suicidal, but as someone who’s been at rock bottom for the last year, and many other times, I always remembered that.

On addiction, a few things. I have some experience as you now know:

1. If you think you have a problem—like if it’s even a question “do I drink too much?”—you almost certainly do. Don’t ignore that instinct.

2. If drinking—or any other addiction for that matter (like scrolling through your phone all hours of the night)—is disrupting your life, e.g. causing problems with your relationships, ability to work, finances, or peace of mind, you have a problem, whether you want to admit it or not.

3. If you have a problem, GET HELP! You cannot beat addiction alone. There are a lot of different programs out there, or you can see a counselor, or you can try some other practice you think might work for you, but you have to let other people know and get help from forces outside yourself. You will not just stop on your own. Addiction isn’t about will power. If it was, you wouldn’t be addicted. You’d stop.

4. Don’t let pride get in the way. Pride will get you blackouts, DUIs, disaster, financial ruin, etc—I’ve lost friends to pride, and I nearly lost myself.

5. If your hangup about going to AA is the belief in a Higher Power thing, get the fuck over yourself. Can you control the weather, stop a river, reverse time, or even get your friends, lover, or family to do what you want most of the time? No? No shit. Because you’re not the fucking master of the universe. Get over yourself. At the very least, guess who’s a higher power: the State. The policeman. The judge. Ask me how I know.

6. If you’re concerned about someone’s drinking, or some other kind of addiction, by all means say so. Just understand, they can’t change for you, and they won’t. Recovery is inherently selfish—it has to come from within. And if you have to walk away because you can’t watch someone kill themselves and you don’t think they’ll stop short of that, then you have every right to walk away. I wish my ex believed in me, but she didn’t. And I gave her a million reasons not to, so I don’t blame her, nor anyone else for that matter.

7. If you can stick by them, however, if you have that strength, it will mean the world to them if and when they manage to see it. Indeed you may be one of the reasons they pull through. I am forever grateful to the people who stuck by me: my parents, my friends, and most of all, my little boy. I love you buddy, with all my heart.

OK, had to get that off my chest. I’ll get back to writing and podcasting more regularly—and don’t worry, not about this, at least not often. I’ve actually got a bunch of drafts I need to finish, podcast notes cued up I simply need to record, and I’m working on another podcast with a good friend—we’ve already recorded three or four episodes. Once those drop I’ll be sure to let you know.

Be thankful my friends. Be grateful. Truly. Actually. Not as an academic exercise, but as a matter of heartfelt honesty and reflection. Step away from the inanity and insanity of social media, away from the absurdity and silliness and pettiness. If you’re wondering why you feel anxious, scared, or depressed, it’s that. So stop. And if you can’t, you and I have more in common than you should want.

Read a book (highly recommend Mink River, by Brian Doyle, which I just finished). Go for a walk without your phone. Listen to your own thoughts occasionally, instead of filling your head with someone else’s. Trust me, you’ll feel better.

Be well, and if you need help or want someone to talk to, my DMs are open…and I’ll actually try to check my notifications more regularly. But as you can see, I needed some time away to deal with this shit.

Namaste.

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

I’ve been watching Survivor (the greatest reality show of all time IMO) since it’s inception back in 2000. I get that it’s not for everyone, and maybe you think the claim “greatest” is crazy, but hang with me as the point of this post goes far beyond the show itself.

For those who haven’t seen it: Survivor is a classic reality/game show where they take 16-20 players (modern version is 18) and each episode (typically one day) someone is voted off by the other contestants at tribal council. The game’s slogan is “outwit, outlast, outplay” and true to form, that’s how you win: by forming alliances with other players and/or just being well liked, by competing in challenges where you can earn reward and/or immunity, and by strategically influencing the vote or solving puzzles, riddles, and other problems to gain advantage.

The show’s popularity is at least in part because the rules are always roughly the same, and yet there are any number of ways to win using some combination of social skill, athletic prowess, political strategy, risk and resource management. And the game is so well tuned that whoever does win is typically the most deserving person—or at least one of the most deserving. Luck plays a big part of course, but that’s true of life in general. And no matter how lucky they get, a hollow person has never won, and never will win, because like any high quality competition, you can’t fake or cheat your way to victory.

So what’s a hollow person?

Allow me to introduce Rizzo from season 49. This may come as a shock to anyone who watched, because Rizzo was presented as if he were a good player. He was well liked by nearly every other contestant on the show, and made it to four—for those unfamiliar, if you make it to the final three, you get to pitch your case to the jury why you should be voted sole survivor. Jeff Probst, the host, clearly liked him too, and he made enough of a name for himself he’s been invited back immediately to compete on Season 50, a special season that includes some of the most famous, well-liked, and notorious contestants. Despite what I’m about to say, I liked Rizzo too: he’s a sweet young man who loves his family and has a great story to tell.

But Rizzo was a bad player. He couldn’t solve puzzles, couldn’t compete in immunity challenges, made stupid mistakes, couldn’t make fire, and despite crying at some point in nearly every episode, gave himself the moniker “Rizgod.” I’ll give him this: Rizzo had good social game in the sense of being likeable. But that’s it. And that’s never been enough to win Survivor. Nor, unfortunately, is it enough to do well in life.

First and foremost, why didn’t he prepare? Like, if you apply to be on Survivor, you know there’s a chance you’ll be selected, so presumably you’d start training and preparation by exercising, lifting weights, practicing athletic games of skill (like throwing darts, shooting pool, playing basketball, etc.), eating more if you’re extremely thin (as he is), doing puzzles, and learning to make fire using flint. It’s precisely why Savannah won season 49: because she was an athletic badass coming into the game (whether that’s just her normal routine or not, her fitness was a massive advantage), which allowed her to win four immunity challenges, along with several reward challenges.

Rizzo did none of the above—or at least, if he did, his game play doesn’t show it. He was particularly pathetic when it came to puzzles: the only way he could solve them was to cheat off other people, which he did on multiple occasions. That method earned him his only win in the game, when he shamelessly used Alex’s solved puzzle to solve his own in order to win supplies for his team, which should never have been possible. I’ve watched nearly every season of Survivor, and it was painfully obvious the game making crew fucked up hiding Alex’s steering wheel (needed to raise the flag to win the challenge), either too deep in the sand or in the wrong spot entirely—like, he dug holes all around the area indicated on his map. Rizzo, on the other hand, found his immediately.

Rizzo also managed to get an immunity idol, but that was only because another player (Nate) gave him the clues to find it. He then stupidly revealed his idol to everyone and held onto it for nine tribals in a row! The only reason he didn’t get voted out was because the other players knew he couldn’t win challenges, and they were idiots—remember kids: other people doing stupid shit doesn’t mean you’re smart.

Like Survivor 101 is:

• A) If you have an idol, don’t tell anyone, because

• B) As soon as other people know you have an idol, they will put votes on you at tribal so you either have to play it or you go home

Even worse, one of the players (Sophie) had the ability to steal Rizzo’s idol, but chose not to: a move that will go down in history as one of the dumbest things anyone has ever done on the show. Rizzo also got away with lying to everyone, saying that his idol had to be played with six people left. But anyone who’s watched the show knows that’s not how it works: it’s nearly always the rule that immunity idols expire at five. Why someone didn’t call out the lie we’ll never know, but even if they believed him, they still should’ve voted his ass out to flush the idol!

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But the truth will out as they say, and Rizzo finally lost: once again, he couldn’t put together a very basic table puzzle to win the final immunity challenge (the other three snapped them together quickly), and then couldn’t make fire to beat Savannah to get into the final three. Not being able to make fire is absolutely inexcusable: assuming they have their flint, any player can practice anytime for however long they’re on the show, and though the show cuts it out, there’s obviously a ton of down time where they aren’t doing anything.

I could go on: the fake idol he played pointlessly, strategic missteps, his pathetic performance in challenge after challenge, etc. But you get the point. He was bad. And he was especially bad considering he proclaimed himself a Super Fan—a student of the game who claims to truly understand how to outwit, outlast, outplay.

In an age of veneers, substance matters more than ever.

So what was Rizzo doing the entire time, instead of preparing for his appearance on the show? Probably what so many others do for hours every day, especially younger millennials and Gen Z (though plenty from older generations fall into this trap as well): watching short form videos on Tik-Tok, Reels, or YouTube. Ceding much of their lifespan to voyeurism, passively observing others rather than doing anything themselves.

People used to read in their spare time. Or build shit. Or play games. Or do puzzles. Or participate in sports, exercise, make art, learn new skills.

Now, they rot in bed and scroll. If they become anything, they become masters of memes and appearance and mimicry—nothing too complex or deep required when you and everyone you’re communicating with has the attention span of a goldfish.

Not everyone of course: plenty of people still play games, read books, create, and “do shit”, for lack of a better term. But the number of hollow people is swelling—people who don’t really know anything, and can’t really do anything. They can be entertained. They can consume. But that’s about it. And as such, they’re not really all that useful. Like if all someone can do is watch stuff on their phone, what good are they?

It’s incredibly sad, but as I pointed out in my last post, we don’t have to do this to ourselves. It’s a choice. And if it’s not a choice—if it’s an addiction—then we have to seek help and work a program to get better, like the alcoholic who goes to AA. The insidious thing about phone addiction is that it doesn’t cause obvious problems, unlike most other addictions.

The good news it that there’s a huge advantage to be had for people who choose to fill their lives with substance rather than voyeurism. Whether it comes to work, friends and family, hobbies, or love, those of us who can do separate ourselves from those who can only watch. I made some suggestions in the post above on how to do this, but I’ll offer a few more here:

• Get some old fashioned jigsaw puzzles, or play games like Wordle, Monument Valley, or other games that force you to solve problems and think.

• Read! Instead of scrolling through your phone, leave books around the house, and pick them up when you’re bored, instead of watching TikTok.

• Call your mom—or really anyone—and have long conversations with people. Practice the art of being social. Say hi to people at the grocery store. Give compliments to strangers.

• Go for lots of long walks, and at least some of the time, listen to music instead of podcasts or audio books, or take out your earbuds entirely. This will allow you to think your own thoughts, rather than running someone else’s script.

• Always be doing at least one thing athletically, if not multiple. Like honestly, everyone should be lifting weights for the baseline health benefits, but add something else too, like riding your bike, swimming, hiking, or some other kind of strenuous exercise. If you can get involved in a team sport or athletic hobby, so much the better.

• Learn to cook for yourself. You’ll eat healthier and learn a valuable skill you can share with others—cooking for other people is an act of love everyone should be able to give!

• Get out of the house: go to concerts, sing karaoke, watch sports with strangers at the local bar, do yoga, go to church, volunteer—find activities that bring meaning and joy to your life.

If you have other suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

Last point: always leave space to be wrong or change your mind. Like, maybe I’m wrong about Rizzo. Maybe he did try to prepare for Survivor as best he could and he’s just not that skilled. He’s young, and that’s a disadvantage as well—there’s just only so much you can know at that age. In any case, I hope he proves me wrong and does better in Season 50.

That’s all for now. Namaste y’all!

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

Barely two months into 2025, my life fell apart. An unforced error of the worst kind (I’ll write about this at some point, but it would distract from the purpose of this post).

I started this blog in May 2024, but only produced three posts that year. I was too busy reacting to the needs of others and self-medicating. But sometimes when everything goes wrong, it leaves space for something to go right, and in the nadir of that catastrophe the content seemed to write itself.

I started posting on Notes and Reddit to increase engagement. Reddit was short-lived: you can’t say anything true there—especially about relationships or sexuality— without it being censored. Reddit is the world conceived by people who believe life should always be perfectly equal, safe, fair, and that everything should break in their favor always, a delusional space utterly divorced from reality. The fact people give and get advice there is tragic (same is true of Tik-Tok, Reels, and Shorts).

Notes however, seemed promising. Subscribers grew rapidly, and my posts garnered a fair amount of engagement. Before long I was caught up in the shit storm that is genderslop, and heterdox politics/philosophy, interacting with and sometimes responding to big swingers like:

• (still not sure why they hate her)

To be clear I don’t have anything close to what those writers get in terms of views, subs, etc. But I was in the mix! And all the while, the algorithm was dialing in on what I agreed with, and would make me mad. Because the surest way to get someone to engage on social media (other than sexual intrigue, envy, or hope baiting) is to show them content that confirms or conflicts with their system of beliefs, whether life experience, politics, or group/self interests.

The original concept for GetBetterSoon was to write and podcast life lessons, taking concepts from the self-help industry, literature, pop culture, history, and philosophy to help people live happier, more fulfilling lives. However, as I became more entwined in Notes, my mission began to drift. The essential frame never changed—to the best of my knowledge all of my posts offer actionable ideas on how to get better soon—but the topics I was writing about had taken on the stain of arguing with some of the regular bullshit you’ll see published on Notes. I was responding to the conversation driven by the algorithm rather than saying what I wanted to say.

The sad truth is it’s not just me. Anyone who takes a step back for a moment can see that this is what Substack has become: an endless parade of divergent takes on the same topics—a never-ending argument of responding to the response of the responder.

Worse, most of it isn’t even honest. It’s performative, emotional, often intentionally provocative. Because that’s what drives engagement. That’s what helps our “team” win. Notes, like all of social media, is essentially a high school popularity contest, metastasized to scale and carried out on a screen.

We don’t have to do this to ourselves.

It is possible to just leave and not care. Shortly after Elon bought Twitter it went to shit: you couldn’t use it to promote posts, and it became a hellscape of bots, truly repugnant people, and vile garbage.

So I left. I actually tried to go back once—because Twitter, for all its flaws, was awesome at one point—but found the same and gave up.

Notes, for all its flaws, is far better, but nevertheless, I recently deleted the app from my phone…and my life got better almost instantly. Whatever small amount of time it was—maybe 20, 30 minutes a day—was time I got back, no longer exposed to the continual stream of nonsense and argument, the constant bickering, the never-ending chain of contention.

As I’ve observed many times now, “no one is ever wrong on the internet.” You’ll almost never see someone admit to a change of mind or heart, or in retrospect admit their priors were wrong. And the question we should all ask of ourselves and others is: “if nothing can be said to change our mind—if there is no argument, set of facts, or circumstances that will move us—what’s the point?”

A: there is none.

And that’s the problem inherent to social media, Notes included. Because so often it’s not about learning, or discovering the truth, or having a genuinely interesting conversation. It’s about winning, about gaining followers, about advancing an agenda—often without ever truly considering whether the agenda is even worth advancing in the first place. Worse, it warps people’s world views to become ever more extreme, setting them on a path traveling opposite reality, like a rocket shot into deep space.

Let’s take two examples on different sides of the political spectrum: feminism, and far-right extremism.

The Horseshoe Theory of Feminism and the Far-Right

(Note: I could have chosen other groups/movements, like trans-activists, the antiracist movement, the silicon valley AI fascists, or any number of others—but point remains the same.)

It’s taken for granted by most women, most liberals, indeed, most people today, that feminism is an obvious good—a movement we should all support. Even the corporations agree. And to the extent feminism is a means of ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women, I’m all for it!

But if we take a step back and look at how feminism now manifests—especially on social media—what is it really accomplishing? From what I can tell (and please correct me if I’m way base here), modern feminism encourages women to be more like men, and to hate men. Because their framing means men can be only two things: competitors or oppressors. Indeed, modern feminism encourages women to reject their own feminine nature to the point of encouraging them not to have children—an experience that is, or at least has been, fundamental to the female experience throughout human history, as well as crucial to the survival of our species.

And it’s not like it’s working either.

On almost every measure, the wellbeing of women, especially young women, is getting worse. Is this any surprise given the toxic trap feminism has laid for them, where it’s unacceptable to genuinely like men (if you do, you’re a “pick-me”), to aspire to being a wife and mother, to admit the plain fact that women in general are more submissive and passive than men? Like, unless you’re a boss bitch who has multiple degrees and makes tons of money working for a big corporation, you’re failing the sisterhood. Feminism as manifested in 2026 puts women at odds with their own biology. But as a society, and on social media especially, it’s just taken for granted that feminism is great, that the patriarchy remains a major oppressive force in the world, and that men are just as misogynistic now as they’ve ever been, despite the fact our lived experience points in the opposite direction on every measure.

We see something similar thing happen on the far-right, whose supporters have completely abandoned all sense of principle or any sort of north star of morality for the idolatry of Trump and pure, ugly tribalism. Like, the same people who got angry Obama wore a tan suit are willing to completely ignore the fact Trump is selling pardons, bulldozing the White House, using crypto as a means to take bribes from foreign governments, and was obviously involved in raping underage girls with Epstein and loads of other rich, powerful men.

Make no mistake, as a former liberal I have common cause with conservatives on several issues:

• There are two sexes, and the distinction between them is sacred

• The cost of living is too high, especially the cost of housing

• Our immigration system is broken, and there are way too many people here illegally

• We’re over-regulated, our educational system is geriatric and liberally biased, and we should be far more skeptical of big corporations, especially big pharma

But that doesn’t mean we should look the other way when our government is carrying out extrajudicial killings of people in other countries, throw out due process when enforcing our immigration laws, or allow our justice system to be politicized to persecute the President’s political enemies unless there’s a good reason to believe they actually broke the law.

Does the far right give a fuck? Nope. And as a result, they now have a crazy base, including the groypers, no small number of whom think Hitler was pretty good, acktually—people like Nick Fuentes who are truly racist bigots and quite proud of the fact.

Like women who swallow the poison of modern feminist rhetoric, is this making them happy or helping them live better lives? The answer is a resounding no. People on the far right are utterly miserable, swimming in a never ending sea of conspiracy theories, hate, confusion, and fear, beholden to some of the most shameless, evil maniacs alive, people like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and of course, Trump himself.

Make no mistake: neither feminism nor the far right’s fall into complete and utter moral error happens without social media. Indeed, the irony is that either group can point to the other and credibly cite them as the cause for their own extreme views.

Social media ruins people’s lives, and is making society worse. But it’s a self inflicted wound. We don’t have to do this to ourselves.

As I mentioned, we could point to any number of other groups like this:

• Guys balls-deep in the manosphere who’ve become true misogynists to the point where they can’t have healthy relationships with women, from looks-maxxing freaks to the black pill incels

• Anti-vax MAHA libertarians who’re skeptical of any medical treatment and think all you have to do is take vitamin D and workout a ton to avoid getting sick

• Trans-activists who genuinely don’t understand why we shouldn’t allow biological males to compete in athletic events with biological females, and endorse hormone treatments for children, despite the fact we really don’t know the long term effects and so far it doesn’t look good

• Woke anti-racists who believe identity is the only thing that matters and are ironically themselves tremendously racist

Like, there are communities of people whose entire identity revolves around My Little Pony.

Blocked and Reported

Episode 289: #BelieveBronies

This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie explore the strange world of adult My Little Pony fans, aka bronies, and the attempted takedown of YouTube star Saberspark. Plus, the Clavicular mom…

Listen now

8 months ago · 58 likes · 122 comments · Katie Herzog

Because that’s what being overly online does: it warps reality. Consuming social media is essentially bathing your brain in crazy. It takes good concepts and turns them into lumbering Frankensteins, distills interesting facts and observations into cancerous poisons. Like, we have huge numbers of young people can’t reliably read a book, or write more than a few original sentences. Nearly 15% of women between 18-24 are on OnlyFans or engaged in some other kind of pornography. People can’t make basic decisions without consulting ChatGPT, even though it regularly hallucinates crazy stuff that isn’t real. Worse, many are using it as a therapist/friend. Does that sound like a society headed in the right direction?

The good news is that we don’t have to do this to ourselves. It is possible to stop—and trust me, life will go on just fine. In fact, it will be far better, because you won’t have the super hot chick posting thirst traps, or the anti-vax troll, or the chicken little conspiracy theorist, or the guy who’s trying to convince you everyone has parasites in their gut, living rent free in your head. Better yet, you won’t be stuck rotting in bed for hours at a time, scrolling aimlessly while you pickle your brain in shit that’s designed to fill you with lust, paranoia, envy, and anger.

Here’s how:

1. Delete the apps from your phone, or put a timer on them. All of the good aspects of social media can be accessed from a computer, and at least then it’s intentional, not compulsive.

2. Carry a book or journal to write in, and when you feel the compulsion to look at your phone, read or write—or if you must, read or write on your phone.

3. Apply Occam’s Razor to everything you see on social media: is this likely to be true? If not, start blocking those accounts.

4. Do things intentionally: what do you want in life? Define your goals and take action in that direction. Four posts on that:

   1. Almost all problems are solvable on an individual level

   2. Stop engaging with ideas that lead to dead ends or are otherwise unworkable

   3. Forget “the rules” and focus on the objective

   4. Fortune favors the bold

As I’ve written before, we are slowly diverging into two groups of people: those who are overly online and crippled by their addiction, and those who are self-actualized, enjoying lives rich with purpose and meaning.

Which do you want to be?

Happy New Year and Namaste y’all. Took a little break there, but don’t worry, I’ll be publishing content regularly again!

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If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

The general discourse would lead you to believe there’s something terribly nefarious about male desire, but it’s really quite simple: men evolved to be attracted to women who can bear children. Like, this is the number one criteria evolution selected for in male attraction—not big boobs, not a shapely figure, not power, status, clout, or intelligence, but literally: can this woman get pregnant, or not?

The Walt Right

Raise the Age of Consent to 23

Over the past few years I’ve grown increasingly convinced that the age of consent is a few years too low, and that this is producing suboptimal life outcomes for all involved…

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a year ago · 31 likes · 11 comments · Walt Bismarck

That said, grown men do not need to be dating high school girls for obvious reasons—the age of consent is a very good thing in this regard. Could it be a bit higher than 18, like 21, or even 23 as has suggested? Sure. Although as I’ve pointed out, the fact we talk about this re: sex (and let’s be honest: we really only care about the age of consent for women, not men) but not other things, like the ability to take on massive debt to attend college, drive a car, have social media, enlist in the military, or start an OnlyFans tells you all you need to know about the the authenticity of these same internet women’s concerns for young people generally; that is, other than this issue, non-existent.

It’s also inherently misogynistic. Like, we can trust a young man to decide he wants to risk his life in military combat at 18, but a young woman of the same age can’t decide who she wants to have sex with? And like, if they really cared, wouldn’t they be just as outraged by young women showing their midriff or wearing otherwise provocative clothing? After all, if she’s not an adult who’s ready to have sex, she shouldn’t signal she’s a sexual being, right? Or?

The only logical interpretation is that women who make these arguments don’t think women are as capable, able, or agentic as men, in which case we should consider changing the age when females can use social media, start an OF, drive a car, vote, smoke cigarettes, attend college, etc.

But of course, none of this logical. It’s emotional, performative intrasexual strategy. And, as with so much of what we see on social media, it shouldn’t be taken seriously, or literally.

Indeed, internet women should stop to consider they’re often taking inherently misogynistic positions arguing for less freedom, more judgment, more policing of language and behavior, and promoting the pathologization of life (aka safety-ism) generally—and that many people do take them literally and seriously, even though they should not. It’s no accident that women who consume lots of social media, especially young women, are far more likely to be anxious and depressed—because they’re consuming content that’s emotional, alarmist, and spiritually malignant.

In any case, aside from the inherent misogyny and fundamental dishonesty we see on this topic, the hysteria surrounding age gaps forgets something else: age is but a number—quite literally.

It matters with children, adolescents, teenagers, and old people, because it maps onto their physical and mental development, advance, or decline. However, once your’e an adult, how predictive is age of a person’s career, hobbies and interests, character, or really anything else important to our humanity?

As it turns out: not very.

People of any age can and do work almost any job.

We see all ages of people working all kinds of jobs, with a few exceptions:

• Executives and/or CEOs—not because a young adult couldn’t perform their duties, but because the people hiring for those positions place value on experience and typically hire from within, so only older adults qualify.

• Doctors and lawyers also skew older, but that’s because their schooling takes longer.

• Priests, clergy, and professors for a similar reason: because knowledge and wisdom takes time to accrue, and fair or not, we tend to respect a person who is older when it comes to speaking on moral and spiritual matters.

Otherwise, if you look at almost any other type of job, you’ll see that age isn’t a reliable predictor of who’s doing it. Cashiers, servers, bartenders, bank tellers, construction workers, salespeople, nurses, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, etc.—we see people of all ages doing these jobs.

How could this be the case if age were so tremendously significant? Like, surely, if being older or younger by five or ten years made such a magnificent and important difference, we’d see the job market far more segregated by age.

By the same logic, we can also put to bed the whole age-gap/grooming panic. Because if being just a few years older always gives a person such a magical and obvious power advantage when it comes to relationships, it should be exceptionally rare to ever see a younger person who makes money or has more status than anyone who’s older than them, right? Because that older person should be able to easily manipulate them and would otherwise have clear advantages of benefit to their employer.

But that’s not the case, because age doesn’t accurately predict a person’s skills, talents, work ethic, nor even experience in some cases if the person started that position at a younger age.

Hobbies nor lifestyles discriminate by age.

If I told you someone did any one of the following things, how predictably could you guess their age?

• Golf

• Cooking

• Tennis

• Pickleball

• Camping

• Paddleboarding

• Fishing

• Hunting

• Skiing/Snowboarding

• Going to concerts

• Attending sporting events

• Traveling on vacation

• Wine, beer, or spirit connoisseur

We might be able to guess broadly—like that going to concerts would skew younger, or that being a wine connoisseur would skew older, but as with jobs, adults of all ages partake in the above activities. And again, surely, if a person’s age was of massively predictive of what they like to do and who they are as a human, that is not what we should expect, right?

How predictably can you guess a person’s age based on appearance?

Since everyone likes to freak out the most about young women, here you go—take a look at the following photos and guess the actresses’ actual age at the time of filming. Note: I chose similar types of movies from roughly the same era to make for a fair comparison.

Can you guess the actresses’ age when filmed with any accuracy? Take a moment before you scroll, don’t use google, and write down your guesses…

Come on don’t cheat!

Answers: the ages of these actresses when the movies were filmed are…

• Mean Girls

  • Rachel McAdams: 25

  • Lindsey Lohan: 17

  • Amanda Seyfried: 18

  • Lacey Chabert: 21

• Emma Stone in Easy A: 21

• Mena Suvari in American Beauty: 19

• Anna Kendrick in Pitch Perfect: 27

• Alyson Hannigan in American Pie: 25

Of all the above, IMO Alyson Hannigan and Mena Suvari look the youngest, but the relevant point here is that their characters are all supposed to be the same age (17-18), and yet in reality there’s a range from 17-27, a ten year span.

This is, I think, the point Richard Hanania was trying to make, however ineloquently. That is, if it’s possible for a 27 year old to look 17, and vice versa—which it 100% is—then by transitive properties, you’re basically saying men can’t be physically attracted to young women of any age, which is why men get so frustrated with this framing: because it’s saying our basic biological instincts are immoral. It would be the same as telling women their attraction to tall, muscular, high status men who make good money is evil.

Now of course, there’s a correlation between how old a person is and how old they look, but like anything where human beings are involved, there’s tremendous variability.

For example, I live in a college town: some of the girls look like they could be in sophomores in high school, and some look like they’re 30+. Same thing with the dudes, only greater variability: some of them look like they could be in middle school, and some of them look like middle aged dads (balding and beer guts included). Generally the girls look a bit older than the dudes, but if we saw most of them working at a bank or an office job instead of a college campus, we’d simply add several years to whatever our guess was, which could still be off the mark by as much as 5-10 years or more.

So while physical appearance gives us a general idea of how old someone is, it’s still very general, and this varies massively with time, especially as people get into middle age (30-60)—some people look like they’re in their 30s when they’re 50, and some people look like they’re in their 50s when they’re 30.

Want to cut through the bullshit? Look good! Get in shape! Wear nice clothes, accentuate your assets, mask your liabilities! There’s no reason people of both sexes can’t look good for their age at any age, and there are more ways to hold onto a youthful appearance that at any other time in human history. And…if someone looks good, as in, is sexually attractive, and we vibe with them, as in, have a genuine personal connection, does age matter more than that attraction and connection? It shouldn’t. I mean hell, there are loads of people my age I have nothing in common with and wouldn’t want to spend any time with whatsoever.

And yet, it seems that our society—Gen Z especially—are fucking obsessed with age. Not just re: sexual relationships, but even friendships. It’s absurd, and worse, extremely limiting.

Like, my close friends range in age from 23 to 62, and guess what? Our difference in age almost never matters. I’ve given advice to my 62 year old friend, and taken it from my 23 year old friend. I’ve seen all of them have the same types of joys, the same types of struggles.

Because what matters—just like with race, sex, sexual orientation, or some other marker of identity (like age)—is the person’s character and our personal connection, not some marker of identity.

Because once you’re an adult, age is but a number.

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about.

If you’re a man, join Wings! Thanks again for your support!

has alleged several times now that young men being told they can’t get women until they get older is a form of intrasexual competition the same way women (wittingly or unwittingly) use the terms “pick-me”, “de-centering men”, and the “age-gap” panic to fool other women (and often themselves) into fumbling with men for fear of social ostracization.

But men don’t need to do this. Nor, generally, do we. Because the way men compete for women is direct and overt: typically by gaining status, wealth, or showing ourselves to be bigger, stronger, and more powerful, whether physically or socially. We learn to be funny, entertaining, interesting. We compete in deeds, not words. As points out, basically everything men do is for sex, from starting bands to learning comedy to trading crypto to playing sports and so on. We used to literally go to war over women. And it’s all out in the open for everyone to see.

Archwinger’s Substack

Everything men do is for sex; Everything women do is for status

There’s a really old Greek story about some magic golden apple that fell from a tree guarded by a monster. The apple was addressed to “the most beautiful woman in the universe” or something like that. All of the female goddesses wanted that apple because they all thought they were hot stuff. This one nerdy Greek dude snuck past the beast and stole the a…

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9 months ago · 119 likes · 35 comments · Archwinger

We buy nice houses and cars. Why? To impress chicks.

We learn cold approach and endure rejection. Why? Because the small chance of success is worth risking the strong likelihood of failure.

Guys spend money learning how to use IG and dating apps—to get laid (which is the obvious precursor to having a relationship with a women; if she doesn’t want to sleep with you, then by definition it’s not a sexual relationship). We buy nice clothes, learn how to style our hair, and adopt archetypes…to get laid. Some of us even hire dating coaches or take expensive courses from random people on the internet. Why? You guessed it.

For women, getting laid “just happens.” For men it’s purposeful: you don’t stumble into bed with a hot chick on accident—it only happens if you make it happen. This is true even for supposed “naturals” (of which there are actually very few from what I’ve seen—most guys like this know exactly what they’re doing). As I’ve written before, we know what we expect of men and everyone complains when men don’t do what we want when it comes to sex and relationships, but no one expects anything of women (so far there are zero comments on this post from women on what men should expect from a woman in a relationship—ZERO).

What men don’t do is spend a bunch of time trying to get other guys to give up.1 Our time is much better spent making ourselves more attractive to women. Besides, it would be pointless. A guy who is motivated to get laid will move heaven and earth to get laid. He will learn, study, practice, and train, sometimes for several years if that’s what it takes.

To use myself as an example (definitely not a natural), after I got divorced I was too fat, had no idea how to use dating apps (still not the modality for me), was living for a time in a shitty apartment, and then even gulp with my parents for summer while I figured shit out and made the arrangements to get a better place downtown. I didn’t get laid for over a year, and the first few women I hooked up with weren’t what I was looking for long term (nor was I really ready for that anyway having just gotten out of an eight year relationship). But the whole time I was hitting the gym hard, tight with my diet, and spent nearly every second outside of work or writing my second novel to learn cold approach: watching hours of YouTube, reading every book and blog I could find on the subject. Initially I got rejected again and again and again. This went on for months of trying, approaching hundreds of women. I didn’t get my first date from cold approach until August of 2018 (divorced in late 2016), but nothing was going to stop me from learning this skill so I could meet the kind of women I truly desired (read: hot ones).

At first it was extremely difficult, but the more I worked on myself and my Game, the easier it became (by late October 2018 I had more women interested in me than I knew what to do with)—it taught me there was nothing I couldn’t do if I put in the requisite time and energy to achieve a particular goal. This also happens to be why I started this blog: to encourage people to get better, in whatever arena of life they want to improve.2 Because I know it’s possible. I’ve done it.

On the flip side, a lot of guys—more and more these days—have given up to become gooners or whatever it is they do. But I don’t have to convince them to give up, nor does any other guy. Modern women do a far better job of that than men could ever hope to do.

If we cared to do it. Which we don’t.

Because that’s not how dudes work. Look at all the time and energy guys like me spend writing blogs or books, publishing podcasts, posting on YouTube, etc, trying to help guys do better with women. There’s an entire cottage industry built on male improvement with the explicit aim of getting guys laid. Why? Well for some, surely because it’s profitable. But it’s also a labor of love. Men ENJOY helping other men, whereas from what I can tell, women spend a ton of time and energy trying to STOP other women from doing well with men, which is unfortunate. For men, however, other than getting laid ourselves, there is nothing that gives us more joy than helping a buddy, client, apprentice, or student get laid.

Because male sexual competition is overt. If I’ve gotten myself to the point where I can consistently do well with women, I’m not threatened by other men—if they can steal a girl away from me, there probably wasn’t anything I could have done to keep her (for any number of reasons), and in any case, there will never be a shortage of women for high quality men. Why? Again, because women—especially today—have done such a good job of making it so difficult for average guys that many give up because they think the delta between where they’re at and where they need to be is so vast they can’t ever hope to close the gap.

This isn’t true my brothers!3 What it takes to become a high quality man isn’t easy, but if you continue to chip away and work on yourself, it is inevitable. And this is especially true for younger guys: women in their 20s would generally prefer to date a guy close to their own age. CHH is right about this—no doubt. Yes: a lot of younger women will still date those of us in our 30s and 40s, but it’s a bigger lift, especially now that older women have successfully propagandized so many younger women into being freaked out about age-gap relationships despite the obvious benefits of dating an older man.

But see, that’s the point: that kind of shit wouldn’t work on men. Like, in a way, this is the true mark of a grown man: he wants what he wants, will do anything to get whatever that is, and doesn’t care what other people think…Do you think Leonardo DiCaprio cares that older women complain about the hot 23 -year-olds he dates? Do you think Bill Belichick or Al Pacino or any number of older male celebrities care what other people say—or even just your random run-of-the-mill guy in his 40s who happens to be dating a younger woman? Of course not. And no amount of complaining or propaganda will ever change this.

From what I’ve seen in life, one of the primary differences between men and women is that men do what we want, whereas women often defer to doing what they think other people want. And the former is a much more direct way to be happy and fulfilled in life, because instead of constantly second guessing everything I do, I can just do what I want. Sometimes that’s taking my mom to lunch, or volunteering for a charity, or giving a homeless guy some food. Doing what you want doesn’t mean everything you do is selfish. It just means you do things because you genuinely want to, not because it’s what you think other people want you to do.

So much easier! And there’s nothing stopping the ladies out there from adopting this mindset!

But in any case, young guys—go get it. Stop gooning, start spooning! Namaste my young kings!

If you want help, subscribe to the blog and read my paid stuff. You also get a free hour consult with me on whatever you want to talk about, and if you want we can set up a coaching course to help you get better with the ladies.

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If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about.

If you’re a man, join Wings! Thanks again for your support!

It takes two to tango

Some people are bad apples.

For whatever reason, be it upbringing, hormonal imbalance, issues with addiction, a rotten moral compass, uncontrolled impulsivity, or just plain old fashioned selfishness, they treat other people poorly.

However, in the context of sexual relationships, we often make the mistake of attributing the offending person’s behavior to sex, rather than character.

But bad behavior exists in both sexes. Take cheating for example. It appears men are slightly more likely to cheat than women (20% vs. 13%, although who knows how this data was generated, or how accurate it is), but that’s not a huge delta, and I’d argue the impulse to cheat has far more to do with a person’s character than their sex.

This is true of most reasons a relationship goes awry. It’s not that it didn’t work because the other person was a man, or a woman—it typically doesn’t work because there’s a some baseline of incompatibility, a mismatch in value, or for other interpersonal reasons.

I’ll take on one the chin here as being a dude who’s cited the, “70% of divorces are initiated by women” as a reason for men to be skeptical of marriage. In truth, it’s kinda like cheating: sure, women are more likely to want divorce, but it’s not as if men never do—and surely in most cases the man’s behavior was a contributing factor, in the same way a woman’s behavior may contribute to the reasons a man cheats. This isn’t to justify either; as I’ve written, a lot of people are too quick to throw away relationships when there’s no guarantee someone better is going to come along.

I’ve had the privilege to play officiant and marry two beautiful couples in the past, and in both ceremonies I reminded them of a saying my family often repeats: it takes two to tango. Relationships succeed when two people cooperate and provide value to each other so that life is better together than apart; they fail in the absence of mutual cooperation and the exchange of value. This is why, when relationships end—even if that relationship encompasses just one date—the individual should spend most of their time figuring out what they contributed to the dysfunction, rather than everything that’s wrong with the other person.

In the case of a first date, maybe it’s nothing. But the longer the timeline, the more likely it is that whatever problems occurred, WE were a contributing factor. It’s like the old saying about the person who continually gets bad service at restaurants: they’re the common denominator, and that is worth examining.

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On The Red Pill

Since it’s apparently red pill week here on Substack, I’ll put in my two cents, with the goal of keeping it as simple as possible.

1. Reduced, TRP (as I understand it) is the praxeology1 resulting from the observation women prefer men who exhibit traditionally masculine traits that align with evolutionary biology. At the core of this is an axiom put forth by : attraction cannot be negotiated. Women either are attracted to a man, or they are not, and vice-versa.

2. TRP teaches men how to build and maintain this attraction, and to do so, has to dismantle so called “blue-pill” behaviors, beliefs, and expectations society instills in men that destroy his power and value as it relates to women (“happy wife, happy life”, “believe all women” and that sort of nonsense). Men are taught from a young age that if they defer to women, are super nice to them, agree with everything they say, and do whatever they want, women will like them and give them sex, respect, and relationships. This is obviously not true. Women know it’s not true. It seems no great crime to teach men this fact.

3. Sexual strategy is amoral, neither good nor bad. Men do not owe women a relationship in the same way women don’t owe men sex. These things are earned and deserved, not paid for or expected. Caring for children and old people or being kind to animals are moral expectations—people who can’t do these things are judged as bad. Rightfully so. However, we all get to choose who we want to have sex and relationships with, and under what conditions and circumstances.

4. For the most part, the core principles TRP teaches men are good for them AND for the women in their lives, like:

   1. Building muscle and losing fat to become more physically attractive

   2. Becoming more successful to gain greater wealth and financial stability

   3. Improving one’s social skills and knowledge

   4. Developing a fun, interesting lifestyle

   5. Learning to be confident and assertive, both in life and in bed

The misogyny that is often associated with TRP is not a part of the praxeology. It springs from the fact a lot of men find red pill stuff after being burned badly by a woman, or have never been successful with women in the first place, and they bring their bitterness with them. It’s the mirror image of women posting “all men suck” content after they get ghosted or mistreated in a relationship. But I’ve never encountered any red pill content where it’s suggested men should mistreat, hurt, or deceive women, nor does it teach men to view women as bad or immoral.

Shows like “Whatever” and “Fresh & Fit” aren’t red pill—they’re rage bait. Same with Andrew Tate.

Indeed, part of the misunderstanding about TRP is the fact that people attribute any expression of misogyny to TRP, but this is to misunderstand correlation from causation. Yes, some men who consume TRP are misogynistic. But that is divorced from the praxeology.

Terms like “narcissist”, “trauma”, and “gaslighting” are overused these days. And, like the term “racist”, stripped of precise meaning and impact. They all just mean “bad” now, a pejorative for someone the user doesn’t like, whether the term applies or not.

We live in a culture that transforms seemingly everything into extremes and negativity, but not everything is extreme or negative in nature. In fact, very little is. This was always the problem with the term “micro-aggression”, because it took truly innocuous acts and made them into something sinister. I remember a diversity training we did back in the peak panic of the COVID era, where a student asking her fellow classmate, “OMG how did you get into that school?” was taught as a racist micro-aggression because the girl asking the question was white, and the girl who got into the good school was Latino (Latinx, was the word used at the time, lol).

And I was like: “couldn’t she just be expressing surprise and happiness for her friend, in the same way we’d say ‘how’d you do that?’ to someone who did something amazing?” Got the stink eye for asking that question from about half my colleagues. The other half thanked me after for questioning the silliness of it all.

One of the deep aversions to wokeness was and is just this—nefarious intent being attached to innocent speech and acts depending on identity and circumstance. But sometimes a lie is just a lie—something that isn’t true—and telling a lie isn’t always gaslighting. In fact, most of the time it’s not. Gaslighting is actually quite specific and rare: the continual and deliberate practice of lying to the point where the subject questions their own reality.

The same thing has happened with trauma. As people use it now, the term has expanded to mean basically anytime a person experiences any discomfort whatsoever. Indeed, the mental health industrial complex has promoted the belief that no matter how wonderful our life has been, we’ve all experienced trauma in our past that requires healing. Convenient, no?

This belies the fact that parts of life are merely uncomfortable, hard, or difficult—but not trauma. Your parents having an occasional argument isn’t trauma. Getting a flat tire on the way home from a camping trip isn’t trauma. Losing electricity for several days isn’t trauma. Your junior high track coach forcing the team to run wind sprints isn’t trauma. It’s just hard, and it sucked, and maybe the guy was a dick—but it’s not trauma.

Going to war and seeing live violence is trauma. Experiencing physical abuse at the hands of a caregiver is trauma. Being homeless is trauma. True trauma is: “a physical or emotional response to a distressing event, such as a serious accident or violence, that can cause lasting mental or emotional damage.” That doesn’t include bad things sometimes happening. Bad things happen to everyone. It’s called life.

We see a similar transformation with the term “abuse”, but as Rian Stone correctly points out:

Abuse is abuse. If you have to qualify it, you’re lying. Financial-abuse, emotional-abuse, online-abuse. If it’s abuse it’s abuse. We have very robust and easily enforced laws around abuse. This isn’t abuse. This makes you feel bad. That’s not the same thing.

Rian’s Substack

Every Man Should Know the Red Pill will Kill you Inside

How novel, how new! A in person example of the true effects of men who wear the banner of the Red Pill and their wake of terror. Pack it in, nothing more to see here…

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9 months ago · 23 likes · 13 comments · Rian Stone

I could go on: narcissist, love-bombing, fascist, pedophile, age-gap, grooming, etc. Yes, there are real, actual examples of these things, and despite the fact Epstein technically wasn’t a pedo, he was close enough I don’t see the point of splitting hairs. But when someone says every ex they’ve had is a narcissist, or that a five year age-gap between adults is problematic, we’ve jumped the shark, and the words fail to mean what they’re supposed to mean.

Final example…if feeling icky or uncomfortable about consensual sex or a date several months or years after the fact counts as sexual assault, how can we it seriously?

Polls and surveys: stated vs. revealed preferences

These are all examples of people using language in ways that obscure, or even misrepresent the meaning of the language they are using to achieve a particular purpose—which brings us to polls and surveys.

When someone is asks respondants to take a poll or survey, they are asking their opinion in an academic, hypothetical way, and that is how it will be answered. It’s also snapshot in time: how do you feel about this question…right now? And there’s a third factor to consider, which is that in the age of social media, everyone behaves like a pundit, meaning they answer polls and surveys knowing the data will be used to make judgments and predictions about the future, potentially affecting public opinion and policy.

I’m not alleging some grand conspiracy theory, but people take surveys in the same way they misuse language: seriously, not literally. But the answers DO NOT reflect how the average person goes about daily life. For example, a Trump loving guy from rural Georgia might hypothetically despise liberals, reflect this predisposition in polling and on social media, and yet fall in love and marry a liberal woman from New York if they meet in a context where politics don’t come up right away—or maybe even so if the attraction is there! Likewise, a brainwashed zoomette might say she thinks age-gaps are predatory, and yet find herself in a relationship with a man 10 years her senior if the question of age doesn’t arise until she’s already smitten.

This is why we often see a stark difference when statisticians and social scientists compare stated preferences (what people say on polls and surveys) with revealed preferences (what people actually do in real life).

Most of us are aware of this distinction, and yet many still respond to data from polls as though stated preferences are the same as revealed preferences—the same way people forget that not everything they see on the internet is true. Consider: everything you see on social media is a stated preference, and it’s even less accurate than what you’d get on an ordinary poll or survey, because it’s purposely performative.

The dad bod controversy

An obvious example is women writ large saying they prefer dad bods, even though revealed preferences show they don’t: guys posting six-pack abs and showing off their guns get more matches on dating apps—although it’s difficult to find that data, because it’s buried by article after article in the mainstream media about how women don’t care about muscles.

Despite my claim the term is overused, the extent to which men are told this looks and feels an awful lot like gaslighting. Because it’s obviously not true in a way we experience on a daily basis through women’s revealed preferences for men who are fit and muscular, and yet we’re told again and again by women and the media that dad bods are in!

Anecdotally, as a guy whose weight has fluctuated a lot over the years (I’ve always been super active in terms of lifting and working out, but not always so disciplined with my diet), there’s an incredible and obvious difference in how women respond when I’m overweight vs. in-shape. When I’ve been under 20% BF, and especially under 15%, it’s way easier to do well with women, and though I’m a big guy at baseline (I hide it well), I’ve noticed that even a slight difference in weight makes a huge difference in female attraction.

Almost every guy has experienced this, whether they tend to be heavy, like me, or guys who are naturally thin but manage to bulk up. I had a conversation recently with a former student who went from skinny to ripped and muscular, and he said it was overwhelming and almost intimidating how big of a difference it made in terms of how much female attention he now gets.

Does this mean women are lying? No—or at least, not exactly. They’re stating a preference that mirrors what other women say, because that’s what the sisterhood has officially agreed on as the talking point for now. It just happens to be at odds with what women actually do.

As for the motivation behind the message? Hard to say. Some have speculated (Chris Williamson on his pod Modern Wisdom for example) that a guy who’s ripped is a more anxiety provoking partner, because he could cheat more easily. But if that’s true the poison pill is plain to see, because women know that their revealed preference is to bang hot guys who are ripped. Another possibility is solipsism: they want men to think fitness matters less so that in turn, men won’t care as much about female fitness.

This gets to one of the fundamental misunderstandings in our collective conversation about sex, relationships, and attraction. Women think men should (or do) have the same attraction triggers they do, and because of this, seek to become the men they would like to date: college education, social skills and maturity, remunerative career, lots of hobbies and travel and exotic/luxurious experiences.

But men don’t give a shit about most of that stuff. What we want is a woman who’s physically attractive, affectionate, feminine, kind, and for most guys, wants to have a family. It’s evolution: we want women who could become mothers (are fertile—why physical attraction is so important to men) and would be good with children. In this case, our stated preferences are the same as our revealed preferences, but those aren’t the preferences women think men should have, which is why most female generated genderslop is either telling men we’re wrong or bad for liking what we like, or convincing other women not to cater to men’s desires in order to suppress the efforts of their intrasexual competition.

(Honest question: What percentage of female communication is either overt or unwitting intrasexual competition? I don’t suppose it’s possible to quantify, but A LOT.)

Genuine beliefs, or people telling us what they think we want to hear—or what makes them feel better?

Freya India (who’s fantastic btw) recently published a piece titled, “The pressure to be single”, about how modern women, especially those in their 20s, are pushed away from having relationships, especially serious ones. She cites studies with large percentages of young women saying they don’t care to date and aren’t interested in marriage, and it would be troubling indeed if we were to take these surveys at face value.

GIRLS

The Pressure To Be Single

I keep hearing about how there’s too much pressure to settle down. Apparently everyone wants to know when you’re getting married, when you’re having kids. Being single is stigmatised, shamed, pitied. We supposedly feel so rushed to find partners that we choose wrong, and that’s why relationships are failing. It’s this…

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9 months ago · 709 likes · 167 comments · Freya India

But like women saying they prefer dad bods, these are stated preferences: they’re the answers young women are supposed to give, but have little bearing on what these same women will actually do when faced with reality. Are we really to believe these women would turn down an eligible bachelor should he present himself? India’s not wrong about the pressure—hence the poll results—but I’m skeptical we’ll see it culminate in practice.

We sit on the far end of a swing toward sex-negativity, which Katherine Dee quite correctly predicted a back in 2021. But life isn’t static—it’s only a matter of time before things swing in the other direction. Why? Because living alone, doom-scrolling through social media, rotting in bed, and seething with hate at the opposite sex is a miserable fucking existence, and no amount of cope can cover that up. Because sex feels good and being in a loving, romantic relationship is far better than being alone.

At the least, what we’ll see is a severing of society into two types of people:

1. Active, social, productive people who have interesting lives and quality relationships with those similar to themselves.

2. Goons (and goonettes?) who keep to themselves and live an electronic, depressed, pathetic existence.

Who would purposefully choose the latter? Not many—at least not willingly, if they knew what they were signing up for.

Point being: things are not nearly as dire as they seem. What people say is not what they do. It’s been and will continue to be a theme here at GBS—what you see on social media is NOT what happens in real life between or among flesh and blood human beings. That’s a very good thing!

Those of us who grok this have the duty to point it out and pull us back from this brink of the negativity and nihilism we see expressed on this site, YouTube, TikTok, IG, etc. Things change. The way it is now—even if we include what people say on polls or claim to believe on social media—isn’t how it will always be.

Watch what people do, not what they say. Namaste my beautiful optimists.

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

Everything is about sex, except sex; sex is about power. — Oscar Wilde

The biggest problem with social media and the internet writ large is that they allow large swaths of people to escape, obscure, and ignore reality. This is bad because reality is like gravity: you can pretend it’s not there, but you’ll still break your leg or die if you fall off a cliff.

Online delusions run rampant in nearly every direction, giving every tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist a platform to spout nonsense about all kinds of things—forget the whales, apparently now it’s shrimp we need to save? Forgive me if I’m not up to speed, but I’ve found it far better for my own sanity to ignore rather than indulge nonsense.

There is one species of hallucination I find particularly odd, and that is the extent to which people are prepared to fuck around (and find out) with concepts of sex, gender, and sexual attraction. What’s particularly bizarre is that these aspects of our humanity are both central to who we are and obvious in their manifestations—it is truly, for most humans, the equivalent of denying gravity.

Because from the moment we begin transforming into sexual beings, the desire we feel toward those we’re attracted to is as plain and powerful as feeling hungry or thirsty—and for most of us, like 95%+, this desire is directed at the opposite sex. And the differences between men and women are unmistakably distinct.

I can see how some people can convince themselves to believe in conspiracy theories about COVID or The Freemasons or Hollywood Elites—because wealth, power, influence, and politics are hard to understand and disentangle—but to confuse sex, sexuality, and gender takes a massive dose of cognitive dissonance and outright delusion.

This is surely why the trans-project has never gone over: it’s not that most of us can’t believe some small percent of people don’t identify with their biological sex, or that we want to discriminate against anyone on that basis. It’s that to accommodate the trans-activist ideology, we’re asked to pretend not to see things we can plainly see, and ignore obvious differences between the sexes central to the human story and experience.

Internet women: hold my beer…

Lately there’s been a similar move among internet women, who are pretending not to need or care about men. And yet all they talk about are…men. Because no matter how hard they want to deny their desire for muscles, testosterone, confidence, and bravado, women are biologically geared to be attracted to and want sexual attention from men.

I laugh every time an article comes across my timeline by an author who claims she’s de-centering men by not being good in bed, talking shit about her friend’s boyfriends or husbands, shaming pick-me’s, or how she and other women are quiet-quitting life (wtf does that even mean?). Because in every one of these posts, men are central to the story. We are the topic and subject, the cause and effect, the alpha and the omega.

Take the the recent uproar over whether having a boyfriend was cringe…what was it about, ultimately?

Men.

This was sponsored by three groups of women:

1. Influencers and hot chicks who have boyfriends or husbands, but don’t post about them because they don’t want to lose (mostly male) followers.

2. Sad girls throwing a pity-party because Chad turned out not to be the man of her Disney Princess dreams.

3. Professional cope-stars who can’t get a boyfriend—either because they are too picky or trying to out-kick their coverage—and don’t want to see other women who are successful with men because it’s a reminder of the man-shaped hole in her life she can’t fill.

And all three are desperately trying to win approval from other women in the attempt to deny their own nature, wittingly or unwittingly partaking in sex-negative intrasexual competition and poisoning the waterhole for all of us.

Watching women continually work themselves into a lather on Substack, IG, or TikTok over the topic du jour (red flags, icks, de-centering, pick-me’s) is both hilarious and kinda sad, like watching lemmings drive themselves off a cliff for no good reason other than the desire to blindly follow the herd (friendly reminder: the ones who survive are those who don’t jump).

Because it’s still all about men. Even feminists spend like 97% of their energy on men. And of course, all these internet women could prove me wrong immediately. Anytime. Super easy. You could just…

But we all know that’s not going to happen, and that’s the point: if women really didn’t care about men, they wouldn’t spend all their time talking about us.

I’m going to make a friendly recommendation: STOP.

Stop denying you’re attracted to men. Stop denying you’d like a boyfriend, want to get married, or just want some good dick. It’s a waste of energy, and prevents individual women from acktually getting whatever it is they want from men.

I know this will come as shock to everyone on the internet, but complaining doesn’t solve problems. It might feel good, and can be useful insofar as it allows one to vent and be rid of negative emotions, but it’s not going to change the underlying dynamics that cause us distress. The guy who was shit in bed was shit in bed, but that’s not a colossal, world-ending tragedy, and complaining about it doesn’t have anything to do with the next guy, who may be fabulous. Women too often make the identity politics mistake in dating, like “that guy was named Brad, so no more Brads” or, “that guy was older, so no more older guys” or, “that guy rode a motorcycle, so no more motorcycle bros”—and the logical endpoint is, “that guy was a man, so no more men.” Or…maybe, just maybe, none of them have anything to do with the others, sometimes things just don’t work out, and your next relationship with a man named Brad will be fucking amazing.

Women disappoint men too, and on social media, men are exposed to huge numbers of women behaving badly on purpose (exploitative, cheating, teasing, flaking, or just plain mean) by nearly anyone’s standards. But this is not the norm. As I’ve noted before, most women are normal, good, and want a man as their primary life partner. The shrill cries and doomerism from incels is just noise: insecure dudes who think whining will solve their problems. But we all know it won’t.

And yet, social media is convincing a lot of women to adopt this same incel strategy: the desperate hope that people will care and come to your rescue if you throw a fit, take your toys, and go home. But no one cares, and the guys you could’ve had are going to get swooped by the women smart enough not to fall prey to this mindset.

The existential crisis of losing a partner, or not being able to find one in the first place.

From what I can tell anecdotally, it seems the proximate cause of male derangement syndrome for a lot of women comes from two circumstances:

1. Going through a break-up

2. Not being able to find a suitable man as a partner

The mantra “all men bad” solves neither of these problems, nor will it remove your desire for a man. What works instead?

Let’s consider what we would want a man would do in either case, instead of complaining on social media (imagine how pathetic that would be):

• After a breakup or divorce: he goes to the gym, redoubles his efforts at work, takes a few months or even a year off dating, deletes or ignores social media. He doesn’t swear off women, nor does he blame his previous partner for the dissolution of the relationship. Instead, he looks at mistakes he made that caused problems, seeks honest council with his friends, potentially starts therapy or engages a mentor to help him become a better man going forward.

• If he’s not able to attract women into his life: he makes a point to get in great shape, improves his social skills, hires a dating coach, learns a new hobby, levels up his wardrobe and style. He might also re-adjust his standards and adopt a more realistic expectation of the women he can attract who are of similar value to himself.

Women in either of these situations would be wise to adopt similar strategies.

And let’s also be clear about what we would not want men to do? Rot in bed, scrolling through social media, bathing in misery and self-pity.

As a species, we’re biologically designed to seek mates. It’s the primary thing we’re born to do! It’s why women wear makeup, shave their legs, post on IG, dress slutty on Halloween, etc. It’s why men go to the gym, start bands, become entrepreneurs, learn pick-up, etc. And it’s OK! This is the way it be! For most humans living on earth, the opposite sex is central to much, if not most of what we do in life. The sooner we accept this and get on with it, the easier life gets. The game exists whether you choose to play or not, and if you choose not to play, you still lose. Wouldn’t you rather learn to win and get what you want?

Good, because it’s not that hard: be zen, go with the flow. Accept the fact you like men, and then do what you need to do in order to attract the kind of men you want into your life.

This is the way.

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

My mom says my posts are too long, so figured I’d do some quick hitters on Sunday mornings to get the blood flowing—warm-up sessions for working on my book.

The radical notion that women are human.

I’m sure a fair number of readers see some of my posts as problematic, because a large number of people in our society see any critique of any kind re: women as misogynistic. The irony is that this belief denies women the agency to change or make adult decisions in the same way we expect of men. Isn’t that misogynistic?

Like, how much of the dating discourse is focused on what men can do differently to make themselves more attractive to women? 90%? 95%? I consume a lot of gender-slop in both analog and audio formats, and it’s exceedingly rare to see advice directed at women about how they could get better results when it comes to dating and mating. Go look up how many dating coaches there are for men vs. women. It’s a one-sided affair.

Am I wrong to think women are capable of making changes to how they pursue men and evaluate relationships? I thought that’s what true equality means, but it seems many out there—including a lot of women who call themselves feminists—believe that women still need a sort of societal affirmative action.

The norm is work and school, not tik-tok.

When thinking about life, it’s useful to remember that most people are as they appear at school or work: fairly even-keeled, kind, thoughtful, and mostly concerned with what they need to do to be successful.

That is not life as it appears on TikTok, but when you scroll for hours upon hours, it’s easy to get a warped perception of what people are like. So for those doom-scrollers out there, rotting in bed, remind yourself every 10 minutes or so: this isn’t how the people I encounter act in real life. Better yet, ask the question: do I know anyone who behaves like this?

Believe what people do, not what they say.

This topic probably warrants a longer post, especially as it relates to Guy Game, but people say a lot of shit that’s totally divorced from how they live. The chick posting on IG about how boyfriends are cringe and the patriarchy is terrible is also going to spend three hours that night on her feminine hygiene and makeup, wear next to nothing to the club, and grind on the hottest guy she can find to rap songs about how “bitches ain’t shit but ho’s and tricks.”

I’m all for it: she should do whatever she wants. But I’m not taking a shape shifter seriously, and neither should you. It’s the same for all these old guys who want to talk about how hard things are for young men. The fuck do they know? They’re married, rich, bought houses when real estate was affordable, and grew up before social media detonated across our collective conscience. I appreciate the sentiment, but talking about it isn’t doing anything.

Do things that make you feel uncomfortable.

This topic has come up several times this week in my reading and audio diet—seems like the universe trying to say something.

One was Kyle Juszczyk, the 49ers fullback, saying every morning he gets up and does an ice bath whether he wants to or not—most of the time not. But it forces him to start off every day doing something uncomfortable, which opens his mind to other possibilities and keeps him from getting into a rut (despite the irony that it’s a habit).

Another was The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday. The core thesis is to take things that make us uncomfortable—our disadvantages and struggles—and flip them to become an advantage. But we can only do so if we learn to abide in that discomfort, and this takes practice.

Some things you can do to get out of your comfort zone:

• Approach three people today—random strangers—with the goal of talking for at least a minute. Here’s your opener: “Hi, how are you?” If they don’t respond, continue, “I noticed that (something you noticed about them)” or “I really like your (hat, coat, shoes, or whatever)”…

• Instead of driving to the store, walk or ride your bike. You’ll have to solve a bunch of problems you normally take for granted.

• Make amends to someone you wronged in the past, or reach out to a friend or family member you haven’t talked to for several years.

• Fast. Don’t eat for an entire day. Trust me, you’ll be OK (unless you’re a diabetic or have some health issue, in which case, DON’T).

The best people are those who have put themselves together after being broken.

It seems like we should want everything in life to be easy and good and low stress…but that’s not what makes for a high quality human being. What can we really know about ourselves if we haven’t faced true difficulty or strife? Precious little. Like, who would you want to have dinner with, Kelly Ripa and Mario Lopez, or Robert Downey Jr. and Lady Gaga?

The most interesting, thoughtful people have been through some shit that forced them to learn something about themselves and life that can only be taught by going through something truly dark and difficult. The irony is that it’s typically not something we can choose—it’s often something like a battle with illness, addiction, unemployment, depression, etc.

We can however, choose to live authentically: to lean in, not away, to take risks rather than avoid them, to choose discomfort over comfort. And while I wouldn’t wish tragedy or discomfort on anyone, I can also say—having experienced both (will talk more about this at some point)—it makes you strong and powerful in ways normies can’t understand, and the confidence and authenticity you build is resounding advantage in life.

Unfortunately, my generation (Millennials) and Gen Z have been raised in a culture of safety-ism that cautions against this sort of life, and it’s sad, because so many will be marshmallow people as a result: bland, not much substance to speak of, easily consumed by the smallest spark of difficulty. I suspect this is why so many young people don’t want to have children.

Just keep in mind, a life of hedonistic narcissism degrades with age. What began as good time brunches every weekend with friends and a series of vacations as a serial monogamist will grow decidedly tired and meaningless.

What will be your mark as a human? Who are you becoming? Where are you headed? These are not idle questions.

So be willing to take risks when it comes relationships.

Develop guiding principles rather than following the rules.

Get going! Today is a great day to start!

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

Party like a rock star, hammer like a porn star, rake like an all-star. — Jason Giambi

I live in a college town, and I can tell you, the world does not need more shitty mustaches. Young men haven’t gotten the memo. They all have the same haircut too, short on the sides, big mane down the middle. It’s a polarizing look to be fair. But when they all do it collectively, paired with the otherwise blah zoomer wardrobe of baggy jeans and ironic t-shirts, worthless. Like they all signed up to play the same joke. Guess who wins that game? The tallest, fittest, best looking, most socially competent guys.

Fashion is for women in the sense that style changes and there’s an intense desire to fit in and win social acceptance. They all look the same too—it just doesn’t hurt them in quite the way it does men, because when it comes to appearance, male attraction is triggered by facial beauty, youthful appearance, hip to waist ratio, and of course, her other secondary sexual characteristics 😉.

Granted, women could learn something here too: the other day I saw a chick all decked out in Victorian era garb—it was hot! And while I get that square-waisted, baggy pants are in, the women who wear more form fitting jeans, yoga pants, or skirts are going to get way more attention than their more “fashionable” peers, but I digress…

Men need to stand out, or as Orion Taraban says, they become wallpaper.

Why does the peacock have his shiny plumage, the lion his massive mane, the elk his magnificent antlers? It’s a show of dominance. And it’s precisely these traits that help him attract female attention. A woman does not want a man who’s the same as all the others—not a good, ambitious, smart woman, anyway. She wants the exception to the rule.

So be polarizing. Evoke a strong reaction. Be an original. We don’t want to provoke offense or ostracism through our presentation, but there’s a fine line we want to ride, right on the edge. Better to have a look that is off putting to nine women but triggers strong desire in one, than to be mid to all 10. Recall the basic female dilemma: most of the options she has in terms of men are to her mind and experience, mediocre—very hard to distinguish between the good options and the bad, and even more so if they all have shitty mustaches, lion’s mane haircuts, and dress the same.

For those who’ve read The Game, you’ll know the term peacocking, a style the famous PUA Mystery embodied with his elaborate robes, top hat, black fingernails, and all the rest. It’s called peacocking because the bird’s beautiful feathers make him an easier target for predators. The fact he’s able to survive despite this shows his fitness—the bug that becomes a feature. It’s the same reason women are attracted to high testosterone men. Testosterone is an immune inhibitor: the higher the level of testosterone, the weaker a man’s immune system. Like the peacock, the fact he’s able to survive and thrive nonetheless shows his fitness and makes him more attractive as a mate.

This is why getting jacked is not an option—it’s a necessity. Big muscles, broad shoulders, and low bodyfat are displays of fitness; the outward display of high testosterone. And in America today, how many men are in great shape? Not many, and those who are stand out. Women like to say they want dad bods, but that’s pure gaslighting—don’t believe it for one second. Look at the movie stars and athletes they “ooo” and “ahh” at: they all have low bodyfat and big muscles.

But once you’ve got the body, you gotta have the look, so let’s get into it…

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Now that I’m a bit older and less snobby, country’s definitely in the mix. There’s a zen to country’s celebration of life’s small pleasures, the simple beauty of ordinary events, the earnest struggle in making things work out day-to-day, the heartbreak we all experience. I lean more trad and 90s than bubble-gum, pop country, but there’s a super catchy song by Kelsea Ballerini called “Heartfirst” that’s absolutely brilliant.

Lyrics:

Met him at a party
Accidentally brushed his body
On the way to get a drink at the bar
I couldn’t wait ‘til later
Talking in the elevator
Then we’re kissing in the back of the car

[Pre-Chorus]
That voice in my head says to slow down
But it can’t see the way you lookin’ at me right now
It may not be next week what I need
Then again, maybe it might be

[Chorus]
Could be forever or we might break
That’s just the kind of risk that we take
My head is yellin’ that I could get hurt
But I’m gonna jump right in, baby, with my heart first

There’s more, but you get the gist, and she’s right: we have to throw caution to the wind when it comes to love. What she leaves out is that the risk looks different for men vs. women.

Women risk sex without commitment (“We might break” and “I could get hurt”…but “that’s just the kind of risk we take”)—that they’ll develop genuine desire and attraction for a man they sleep with, but is unwilling to offer the relationship they want. Typically, this is monogamy moving toward marriage; most women want a steady boyfriend who could potentially become a hubby. In the past, this was much less likely, because when people meet in-person—whether at work, a bar, or through friends—they A) tend to looks-match, and B) are more accountable for bad behavior (this is certainly true in social circles, but even if you met at a neighborhood bar there was a fair chance you’d see that person again). However, now that a lot of dating happens through apps and social media, bad behavior (such as ghosting after sex) is far more common (especially given the underlying dynamics of how men and women use the apps)—but that doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking for the woman who has this experience.

Men, on the other hand, risk wasting time, energy, resources, and emotion pursuing a woman who either has no interest, or does until he fumbles by triggering her defenses and/or failing to spark sufficient attraction. It’s not heartbreaking, but exasperating, sometimes to the point of despair for men who don’t understand what it is they are doing wrong.

Put another way, in the beginning of relationships:

• Women bear the burden of attraction: can she maintain his attraction after sex?

• Men bear the burden of performance: can he use his time, energy, resources, and emotion to create a sexual relationship with a woman he finds attractive?

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Too many people are trying to out-kick the coverage.

Red pill bros like to talk about hypergamy—the idea women only date and mate with men of higher value than themselves—and clearly it’s a thing: we see it in the stats on dating apps, and women often express this preference explicitly on social media and elsewhere.

But while it’s true men are less picky than women, it’s still true that beautiful, young women get far more attention than their older, less attractive peers, and often from men who have no real shot at cultivating relationships with them—especially true in the age of the internet. How else can we explain the explosion of simping and the popularity of Only Fans: clearly, a lot of men would clearly rather spend their time, energy, resources, and emotion on women they know will never give them sex and/or a relationship, than women who are available to them IRL (which, IMO, is about as gay as it gets).

Aged Well

Rethinking Porn.

Note to readers: This would be a bad tab to leave open at work. And the audio version is not something you should listen to with your mom, kids, or priest nearby…

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a year ago · 119 likes · 126 comments · David Dennison

Side bar: most of the genderslop on this site is WRONG.

Why? Because it’s written by people who are overly online and/or have been married for years, and have no fucking clue what they’re talking about because they neither in the game, nor inhabiting reality. Like, if your take on Gen Z is based on what you see on TikTok, you don’t know shit (Go talk to some: most are no different than you or I when we were in our 20s). This is why most dating advice and genderslop is either irrelevant or actively harmful: the writer takes their false perception of reality and then extrapolates a take meant to influence an outcome they’d like to see—their volley for whatever side they represent in the battle of the sexes—or that’s transparently a reflection of their own insecurities, like women who bitch about age gaps, or the men who snivel about the fact anything should be expected of them to get laid.

For example, men telling other men to stop simping isn’t intrasexual competition as Rob Henderson has alleged. We’re not telling guys to stop liking photos on IG or sending girls money so that we can do it. We’re telling them not to simp because it doesn’t work. In point of fact, men generally try to help each other get laid (the opposite seems true for women; ladies please correct me if I’m wrong, but 95% of the time it seems like y’all are trying to cockblock each other), but the only way to do that is to cut through the bullshit and fantasy to ascertain what women actually respond to (which is what the Red Pill is actually about, not what people think it’s about—another example of people writing about stuff they don’t understand), not what society or women generally would like us to believe they respond to.

To return to the point, in the age of social media and dating apps, both men and women have become too picky in terms of what they expect. And when people attempt to date people who are significantly more attractive than themselves, the greater the risk they’ll get hurt in the process (women), or have no success at all (men).

Why?

Because the way dating apps work, unless you’re willing to SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER YOUR STANDARDS as a man, you will not get very many matches. You may not get any. To start, there’s three of us to one chick on most apps, and she’s got more options than she knows what to do with—so guess how she’s going to filter:

1. Looks (read: pictures/video)

2. Height

3. Age

In practical terms, this means unless you’re very good looking, tall, and near her age, you’ve got no shot.

The flip side of this should be well known by now (because dating apps created a market of lemons): the matches men get on dating apps, unless he’s an absolute Chad 10/10 (and we should remember, there’s an even greater asymmetry because most women who are 8+ in terms of looks aren’t on the apps as they have plenty of other ways to meet high quality men), are mostly going to be with women he’s meh about in terms of looks—they aren’t going to be on his level.

So what happens? Over time, men get horny and lower their standards, women look up to see they’ve matched with a guy who is super hot in comparison to the usual matches, the two get together for a date, have a couple drinks, sleep together…and then the guy wakes up and thinks OMG WTF have I done, and because he’s a slimeball, he doesn’t have the courtesy to even text this girl, who’s got her hopes up for something more. A story as old as 2018.

I won’t defend this behavior, but it’s not entirely on the dude either. The ghosting is, but the fact the girl is trying to get with a guy who’s significantly higher value than her is also a problem, especially if she wants a relationship. Why? Because…

A man won’t commit if he can’t see you as his girlfriend.

Ladies, if you’re getting ghosted on the regular, it’s one of two things:

1. You’re dating guys who are significantly more attractive, or higher value, than you are.

2. You’re not showing these guys how you would make their lives better if you were their girlfriend, either because you’re withholding sex, or because that is the only thing you’re bringing to the table.

If in category one, it’s an easy fix: you’ve got to start dating guys who are a closer match in terms of attractiveness. Understand, you’re NEVER going to get a relationship out of a guy who’s significantly better looking/higher value than you. There was an article recently titled: A Sub-Standard Man is Worse than Death.

Fair enough, but the same is true if you replace “sub-standard man” with “unattractive woman.” In both cases, what counts as sub-standard or unattractive are subjective and relative to the individual at hand, but rest assured, just as women couldn’t bear to be with a man she considers boorish, immature, or unsuccessful, men won’t engage in long term relationships with women they find unattractive.

For men, attraction works something like this: “would I have sex with her?” multiplied by time/commitment. The higher the product, the more attractive she has to be. So while the number of women he’d have sex with once for zero commitment is huge, it drops exponentially when it comes to offering a long term relationship, living together, or marriage. It’s kinda like food: most people adults will try anything once, but if it’s not tasty, you’re not going to keep eating it. Like, I’ve tried salt and vinegar chips a few times—not for me. And because I know I don’t like them, I’m not going to keep trying. The point is that if you’re a woman who’s a six in terms of looks, you’re NEVER going to get a guy who’s an eight to engage in a long term relationship, no matter how many times you try.

For those in category two, once a woman rises above a certain threshold of physical beauty, it’s a question of whether she brings other qualities men value. Sex in 2025 is non-negotiable: if you’re not having sex with him in the first month or so, he’s eventually going to walk. Beyond this, being kind, feminine, sexy, enthusiastic, and supportive, are all qualities that differentiate a girlfriend from a fuck-buddy. So if you are dating guys who are roughly a match in terms of attractiveness, that is why you’re getting ghosted: he can’t see you as his girlfriend, because you’re not having sex, and/or you’re not acting like a girlfriend.

Remember, if you’re single it’s your fault, no one else’s, so let’s get to the dudes.

Overcoming limitations for men: clearing the bar, being realistic, and understanding modalities.

It’s actually not terribly different from the ladies in one respect: you’ve got to clear the bar in terms of physical attraction. Men are lucky in that women can become attracted to us over time based on our intelligence, personality, sense of humor, confidence, etc, but just as above: if she’s an eight and you’re a six, it’s going to be very difficult. See the post below if you’re wondering what it takes, generally, to clear the bar.

Also, since it’s a man’s job to manufacture dating opportunities, modality matters in terms of your standards.

• Dating apps: TL;DR—most guys will need to significantly lower their standards if they want to rely on dating apps. It’s very difficult to match with women who are on your level in terms of attractiveness, unless you’re very, very attractive. You need excellent photos and a lot of patience. You will be screened heavily for height and age. If you’re on the shorter side, it will be difficult generally, and if you’re on the older side, it will be very difficult to meet women more than five years younger than you (although as you get older this expands somewhat).

• Social media: similar to the apps, but here you have more of an ability to demonstrate lifestyle and it’s less explicit: age and height matter less because there’s no requirement to list these. That said, viable connections will depend heavily on your social circle and friends—if you don’t know a girl, and she doesn’t know you, it will be very difficult to get on her radar. I’d also recommend taking a course on how to use this properly, because the way I see a lot of guys use it comes across as pathetic and needy. Remember guys, social media is for chicks. A high quality man doesn’t spend all day taking pictures of himself or posting, unless it’s in his business interests to do so.

• Cold approach (IRL): The beauty of learning to talk to women IRL is YOU get to choose. And because women find it exhilarating and flattering to be approached, as well as the fact you’re demonstrating confidence and social fluency, she will be more attracted to you than she would be based on physical appearance alone. However, the better your physical appearance (fitness + fashion), the more success you’ll have. If you’re an older or shorter guy, this is by far the best way to meet women. If you’re older, it will allow you to date much younger women, and if you’re shorter, it’s your best shot at meeting attractive women, full-stop.

• Social circle: it’s all up to you on this—if you build it they will come, but creating a vibrant social circle is very difficult.

Whatever modalities you’re using (every man should learn cold approach IMO), if you’re making a concerted effort to meet women and not getting dates consistently, your trying to out-kick the coverage. Make no mistake: there will be a lot of no’s if you’re trying, and that’s OK. But we need to be swinging at pitches in the zone—targeting women who would realistically be interested in us. One good way to think about this is: would it feel natural if she were your girlfriend? Like would you feel comfortable and confident and DESERVING to have her? If not, you’re aiming too high. That’s actually not a bad heuristic for women either: if would people look at you as a couple and think “what is he doing with her?”, or “he could do better”, your instincts are off.

Regardless of sex, if you can’t or won’t lower your standards, you have two choices:

1. Make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex. This can be done by improving your fitness and physique, upgrading your fashion, and/or becoming more socially fluent and confident.

2. Take two weeks off, and then quit.

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No Risk-It, No Biscuit

Assuming you’re not trying to out-kick the coverage, you’ll be fine…eventually. But we all have to take the risk that we will seek love and it will not be returned from some of the people we’re attracted to. This cuts against the modern cult of safety-ism: the idea that life should always be perfectly safe and good—which a lot of people, especially Zoomers and women, have unfortunately bought into.

Because no. Life has never been easy and it has never been fair, and in fairness, it has never been as easy as it is now. Understand: anyone who peddles the safety-ism bullshit wants you to be a pathetic loser, because they are a pathetic loser. I can think of few things as gross as promising people they’re entitled to live a life that’s perfectly safe and comfortable at all times, because nothing could be further from the truth. A life well-lived is a life where one takes risks…and, OMG, sometimes experiences loss and heartbreak. Makes mistakes. Has bad stuff happen.

Because that’s what it takes to win. To have good stuff happen. To find love.

You gotta “jump right in, baby” with your “heartfirst.”

Namaste and happy hunting my risk-taking readers!

If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!

I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about Taylor Swift at this point—I know I am. Like everything on social media, anytime something big happens, everyone has to have a take about how this indicates some larger cultural phenomenon, or portends some terrible doom to come.

No. Actually, sometimes shit just happens and it doesn’t mean anything at all. Some small percentage of people freaked out about the Sydney Sweeney “genes” commercial because…they’re morons. That’s it. Apply Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation is almost always the right one.

Nevertheless, anytime Taylor Swift does anything, people freak out. Which is crazy because there’s nothing all that objectively controversial about Taylor Swift. She’s attractive, successful, nice, agreeable. She’s not doing porn or promoting drugs or hurting anyone. She’s engaged to a handsome, superstar football player. Her music is good—not built for me, but it’s classic, catchy pop-type stuff a lot of people love.

It’s only in our postmodern hellscape of overly online people who have to overanalyze everything to death that anyone cares. And oh do they care! Like, the range of emotions she sparks in people is wild, ranging from all out hate and disgust to adoration bordering on worship. Why? Because people are going to people, and freaks are going to freak out. But it’s ultimately not about Tay Tay. It’s about them. Like the women who are now horrified she’s engaged, wants a traditional marriage and lifestyle (fun fact: most women do—see below), and is in love with a fairly trad-coded man, are upset because they’ve either drank the feminist kool-aid, convincing themselves they don’t want these things (intrasexual competition at its finest—weeding out the dummies), or recognize they want them but prefer cope instead of taking responsibility for their relationship woes.

Or both.

The same is true for you and me. How people in our lives react to what we’re doing isn’t about us—it’s about them—which is why people pleasing is such a fruitless exercise. Because unless we’re talking about children who rely on us materially for their survival, it’s not about satisfying needs—it’s about what’s in their best interests, or how what you do reflects on them. The more tenuous the relationship, the more this is true.

Because again, it’s not about you you—it’s about them. This is perfectly natural. As I’ve noted on GBS consistently, all relationships are about an exchange of value: we have them because we get something out of them we couldn’t get otherwise. The only exception are relationships involving unconditional love, but this is much rarer than we’d like to believe. For most of us, only our parents meet this criteria, and sometimes not even then (why having children, or being heavily involved in the life of a child, is the only guaranteed way you can experience unconditional love on the giving end).

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Sometimes you really should run from the altar.

After they got engaged, my friend’s ex-wife moved in to his apartment—his first time living with a romantic partner. Up to that point, there had been a clear delineation between his living space and his girlfriends’. Combined it was…well, let’s just say it wasn’t Shangri-La. There were aspects of her personality he hadn’t seen before and didn’t like, and who knows, she may have felt the same about him.

Some of this is to be expected: no relationship is perfect. But as the day of marriage got closer and closer, he starting having major doubts. Like: maybe this is a terrible idea and we shouldn’t do it…But the families loved each other. They were a “perfect couple.” Everyone approved and was excited for the wedding. I personally thought she was great! And while any marriage is hard by nature, if you both work at it, we assured him, you’ll be just fine.

Alas…it was not to be, just as he feared.

He has beautiful children as a result, so not all was lost, but it’s an example where social pressure to please other people led him—and maybe her—to go forward with a marriage that was doomed from the start.

This is all too common. People choose partners, get into and out of relationships, and make short and long term decisions all the time—not because it’s what they want—but because they think their decision will please others.

Like, there were SO many girls in high school and college I found attractive but didn’t date because I was worried my friends or family would disapprove, or because going in, I knew I couldn’t offer them a long term relationship.

In reality:

A) Most of my friends wouldn’t have cared, or would’ve congratulated me for actually getting a girl.

B) Good people don’t say negative things about the people we love; indeed, my friends and family have been super nice to every girl I’ve ever dated, despite several being questionable selections.

C) Who knows if those girls wanted anything serious with me? Like, maybe they just wanted to smash!

In the post above, I describe the three basic aspects of life and why we need to develop principles to get what we want, rather than following rules. These are:

• Lifestyle (job + hobbies + friends/family)

• Love (sexual relationships)

• Purpose (what drives us as people)

Rule following is wrong directionally, but it often results out of a desire to please others: we believe, whether explicitly or implicitly, that if we do what we’re told, our lives will be good and people will like us.

Unfortunately, this is bullshit. As I point out in the post, following rules without understanding the end goal is like having a map with no destination. Worse still, the rules—what other people tell you—are often wrong. Think they’re going to own their shitty advice? Think again. And as above, people only like it when you follow their advice because it makes them feel smart and important. It’s not going to make them like you more.

While men often lose opportunities due to fear of rejection, women are far more likely to fall victim to people pleasing.

It’s human nature to want approval from those around us, but women, especially younger women, are particularly vulnerable to making adverse decisions in order to fit in and gain approval from their peers and society in general— has written a lot about this.

Radically Pragmatic

The feminist script for success: compliance disguised as merit

Welcome, new folks, and I’m grateful to all of you for the gift of your attention in a noisy world. After the below, I recommend catching up on parts 1 and 2 of this argument for the larger theoretical trunk, of which this argument is a branch…

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a year ago · 78 likes · 25 comments · Anuradha Pandey

Any teacher can tell you: girls are significantly more submissive and eager to please than boys, and far more desirous of approval from authority figures. Social media is a perfect example: men spend way less time taking pictures of themselves, posting, and curating their profiles than women. And while there might be some degree of social conditioning at play, most of this is biological.

Consider: why are men and boys so much more likely to take risks, especially dangerous risks, than women and girls? It’s not just testosterone and stupidity. It’s because evolution favored men who took risks: the man who risked death in war or hunting to become a leader of his tribe or community was far more likely to produce offspring and have a greater number of sexual partners, and his offspring were far more likely to survive and thrive if he could provide them a life of abundance.

And what is risk taking at it’s base? It’s doing what others are unwilling to do, going against the grain, choosing non-conformity over conformity, choosing the more dangerous path over other conventional options.

Which is precisely why evolution doesn’t favor risk taking or non-conformity in women, because assuming she survived childhood, nearly every woman would reproduce, and the longer she survived after having offspring, the more likely her children would be to pass on their (her) genes. So a woman who took risks was putting herself and her children in unnecessary danger—even in worst case scenarios, such as the tribe’s men losing in battle, she and her children would have a much better chance by submitting to the victors than fighting to the end. Far better to play it safe and survive.

But that’s not true anymore. Indeed, women who are willing to ignore social convention have a huge advantage. Just as we evolved to fear rejection, especially sexual rejection, as this could lead to social ostracization (especially for men), we’ve also evolved to seek social approval from others. This is true for all of us to some degree, but it’s especially pernicious for the modern woman.

The biggest reason is that women use social coercion as a means of intrasexual competition. “De-centering men”, the “concern” about age gaps, “body positivity”, calling women who get along with men “pick-me” girls, and even slut shaming—this is all meant to prevent other women from being successful with men, a means of suppressing competition.

And it works: a lot of women go along with these ideas to fit in and win approval from their female peers, squandering multiple opportunities along the way, and not just with men. This happens in social circles, at work, or in any situation where there’s a social hierarchy. Again, cannot recommend ’s work highly enough. has written about it as well.

Brackish Waters, Barren Soil

The Great Feminization and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race

There was an article in Compact Magazine a couple of days ago entitled: The Great Feminization…

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10 months ago · 117 likes · 19 comments · Rohan Ghostwind

Do you want to live in a bucket of crabs, or cultivate relationships where a rising tide lifts all boats?

To say there aren’t consequences for women who buck the prescribed social order would be a lie: there are, and women in groups can be particularly cruel. But women who do this were also never true friends: they’re crabs in a bucket. Like, if you’re expelled from a group for being successful, losing weight, getting promoted, or landing a great guy, do you really want to be a part of that group? You know what we call men who behave this way? Incels.

Recall the Tay Tay effect: their disapproval isn’t about you. It’s about them. And regardless of sex, true friends won’t begrudge your success. Because, on top of being decent, good, and loyal friends, they know they’ll be around long enough that what is good for you is also good for them. Like, if my friend gets a better job, or meets a great girl, or loses a ton of weight, I’m happy for him simply to be winning, but it’s also true that his success is good for me too, for all the ways he will be able to influence and help me become a better person.

I’ll end with the classic example we’ve all seen hundreds of times: a guy approaches a girl in a group, and before he can say much at all, one of the other girls—almost always the least attractive—shuts him down. Why? It’s not out of true concern for her safety. Like, didn’t they go out to meet guys, hopefully attractive, cool ones, like the kind who have the balls to approach and display their social fluency? No, she’s shutting it down because she wants to be chosen, and since she wasn’t, she claws everyone back down into the bucket.

The true friend? Lets her enjoy the attention and make her own choice—quietly exits stage left to let her friend talk to the guy, give him her number, or even go home with him. Because she wants the best for you, whether it leads to something more in terms of a relationship, or just ends up being some good dick.

So do what you want. Pursue your goals with passion, not because you think it will impress others, but because it’s what you believe in and want for yourself! The people you want in your life will applaud. The rest? They’ll be staring up at cylindrical walls, wondering why they can’t climb out.

Namaste y’all.

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If you want to get in touch, DM me on Substack, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!