#815 - Blaine Anderson - A Woman’s Guide To Attracting Women
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Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Blayne Anderson. She's a dating coach, a speaker, and a YouTuber. Blayne has coached tens of thousands of men to be more confident and attractive to women, and today we get to go through her biggest tips for how to find, attract, and keep a great woman.

Expect to learn the way that women actually want to be approached, how to overcome approach anxiety, the most important factors for designing the perfect online dating profile, the best strategies to text women well, what are the biggest red flags to watch out for on a first date, whether it's okay to approach women in the gym, the traits women actually care about in men, and much more. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Blaine Anderson. Blaine Anderson

How do you describe what you do? I am a dating coach for men. So I help men build confidence, learn to authentically market themselves, create chemistry, flirt, and generally attract quality women they are excited about. How many times a day do you hear the sentence, why would I ask a fish about how to fish?

I tend to avoid my comment section on Instagram, so not very many. You know what I mean? There is sort of a big trope on the internet of men saying women can't teach men about how to pick up women. Yeah, and what I would say to that is...

That's like saying a woman can't give good advice. I'm not saying I'm the only one qualified to give this advice, but me not having a Y chromosome doesn't disqualify me from being able to describe what women want. In fact, some might argue, including myself, it makes me more equipped to speak to that.

Also, to be honest, the type of guy who says that isn't the type of guy I work with. That's not the type of guy who comes to me for my advice. And that's okay with me. It's probably somebody who generally isn't that open to looking to change themselves in any case. Yeah, and they're usually...

generalizing here more inclined to blame women for their problems or think the system is rigged and that women have it easy. And really, when I hear a guy say women have it so much easier, that tells me that they really just don't have empathy for women. I'm not saying men have it harder or easier. Both are struggling. Yeah. But also, I suppose if you're a guy who just from ground floor doesn't have any empathy for women, it probably is not fantastic for your dating prospects long term.

Absolutely. And I wouldn't be the right person to help them work through that. A lot of effort to get one date. Bumble app makes women's first move easier. In the end, it was the data that killed me, says Penny, about her decision to leave the dating app Bumble. If she opened the app, she might receive 100 likes, 25% of which she might be interested in. She would look at their profiles and write an individualized message. A few would respond. Perhaps one would result in a date. That's a lot of effort.

to get one date, she says, it's exhausting. Bumble, billed as the feminist Tinder when it launched in 2014, this week announced it was taking action to relieve the administrative burden on its female users. It has given them the option of firing off a short pre-written question to potential dates rather than a carefully crafted missive

after 70% of its female users said that they were becoming burned out. While it is not ditching the requirement for women to make the first move, its female users can now send a template question, such as, what book or film changed the way you think, using the site's opening moves feature.

What do you think about this? So I'm supportive of it, but I don't find it surprising. This really maps to the dynamics, male-female approach dynamics that we see in person, which is that the responsibility is on the man to approach and start the conversation with a woman. It's not generally the woman who is the one needing to approach or start the conversation.

But what I would say is this woman who says she was writing carefully crafted messages is in the minority. As someone who has looked at thousands of Bumble conversations, women generally send

Zero effort, one word responses like hi. And then the onus would still fall on the man to then come up with a creative or interesting conversation and steer that towards a date. So I feel like previously, OK, women were starting the conversation, but in name only.

I think there's a good bit of pushback from guys about this and I can understand why that basically they now feel like hang on women you said that you wanted an app that allowed you to make the first move which is what we've had to do for all of human history and then being given that

preference, privilege, request, whatever it is that you wanted, you're now saying that, oh, it's too arduous. Even though you can copy and paste a message, you can use keyboard shortcuts on iPhone to make it easier to do. And it's now been made even more easy so that there's pre-written template questions that you can just press a button to send to me, which means...

it is first move in name only yeah and I think it probably feels many guys that are dating will feel indignant it's like this is what it's like for me all the time not just on this one app yeah and I'm

Unfortunately, that's just the reality of dating. The man is expected to be the pursuer. And you can either, you know, not to say you were complaining about that, but complain about that. Or you can learn how to approach and appropriately attract women. And you can trace that back to evolutionary biology. You know, the man is across most species. The male is the pursuer. Sperm are much more abundant than eggs. Erics are the scarcer resource. Women become the chooser up front.

There's some interesting species where the reverse is the case. There's some birds, I think, and some spiders. It's the same two. And the male is the choosier one, quite rightly. The burden sort of switches and men are the ones that get to choose or the males are the ones that get to choose. But yeah, I think, you know, guys being the protagonists and women being the gatekeepers or the receivers in whatever way, anybody that is... People realize this. What are you hearing...

Or what is it that women say about their desire to initiate versus their desire to be pursued? What have you learned there?

So women want to be approached more and pursued more, at least for what I see in my personal experience, in my relationships with women and what I hear. And then I also conducted some informal survey data of 13,000 women in the US and the UK. 97% said they would rather meet their partner in person than online. And 95% said they wish they were approached more often by men in real life. 95% of...

Anything is crazy. I'm not sure 95% of people would agree the sky is blue.

And you ask them and women are saying in hordes basically like, hey, I want to meet a guy offline and like I want guys to approach me. And, you know, I hear guys saying, well, women are rude when I approach them or it doesn't work out. And the reality is, is it's a numbers game. Like there are some women who don't want to be approached. And there are even more women who already have a partner or aren't interested in men or don't like you for whatever reason that you can't control.

But that is out of your control. If you learn to approach appropriately, you're not going to be pepper sprayed or arrested or have some terrible thing happen if you talk to a woman in real life. Yeah, your sample was 13,000 single women in the US and the UK. I'm not sure what the age cohort was, but let's say that...

50% of women are in a relationship, 50% are single, that actually turns 95% into 47.5%. So for the guys that say, I've tried to approach women, what's the likelihood that each time I do it, it's one of the 5%? It's like, yeah, but you don't know unless they've got a green badge that says, yes, I'm single. You're not actually pre-selecting. Exactly. So it is, you just have to approach more often. And I get it. It

hard. It can be anxiety-inducing. You're oftentimes facing rejection. And that is just what has been happening for all of human history. And I think we have become complicit with expecting things to be delivered to us. You can press a button on your phone and have any meal you want delivered to your door. All of your groceries come to your door. Anything you want to watch, you can press a button and watch that at that time. And I'm not anti-technology, but technology has made people lazy and expect to always get what they want when they want it.

And dating and mating is not that way. Is this male approach anxiety the biggest problem that guys come to you with?

It is one of them. Absolutely. And it's not even necessarily that they come to me and say, hey, I have approach anxiety and I want to get over it. It's that they don't have the dating life they want and they don't even necessarily draw the conclusion, oh, I'm not approaching anybody when that is one of the very big problems. So I really encourage, I do this with all of my clients and

Any guys out there who are listening are like, oh, I'm like not meeting women. Keep an approach journal. I challenge you, a note on your phone, a real journal. Write down every time you talk to a woman. And you don't have to ask for her phone number. You shouldn't ask for her phone number or ask her out if the conversation doesn't feel like it warrants that. But just how many times you're actually...

talking to women. And I bet you will be shocked at how few it is. So this is the equivalent of using MyFitnessPal to track your calories and you're saying, dude, I'm only eating, I promise you, I'm only eating 1500 calories. And you say, let's track it for a week. And you go, fuck, it was 2200. I'm approaching 10, 15 women a week.

Oh, it was one. Maybe, maybe. And I think part of that is because you have access to social media, to OnlyFans. And so you're seeing all of these beautiful women and it tricks you into thinking like, surely I'm interacting with women. I see women all the time. Maybe you're even DMing some or interacting with them on OnlyFans. That doesn't count. That is not the same as walking up to a woman in the grocery store, at a yoga class, in a park and striking up a conversation.

What is your best advice for men to overcome approach anxiety?

Yeah, so I actually have an entire mini course on this because I have so many, I get so many questions about it. My biggest piece of advice is take the pressure off. So don't think like, oh, I need to approach and my goal here is to get a phone number. No, your goal is to connect with another human being. So you shouldn't just be approaching attractive women who you're interested in dating. Approach humans, people generally, women generally of all ages and talk to them and get really good at that.

And then once you feel comfortable with that, it will feel more natural to approach a woman who you do find attractive and have a good conversation. And then maybe you do ask for her phone number. But going from sitting on your couch and swiping to approaching at 10, yeah, that's really scary. So start small. Start with baby steps. Charlie Hooper from Charisma on Command has got a good piece of advice where he says flirt with the world. He uses Russell Brand as the example of this. And, you know, Russell Brand in his Lothario era 10, 15 years ago, he's doing this interview

And what is it that

And someone asks him the question, I've heard that you're a sex addict. Is that right? And he says, well, I don't know if it's right, but it's definitely enjoyable. And you just think like he's always playing this sort of flirtatious game. He's touching them. Like, I mean, it's Russell Brand. He also may turn out to be a sex criminal. We don't know about that. So, yeah, don't don't take your dating cues from Russell Brand. But the sentiment, I think, is true, which is and I know this, you know, I'm recently single and you go from being, you know, not at all single.

concerned with the way that you come across to women. And then you'd start to sort of have to re-kickstart this engine of, oh, okay, well, I need to actually be a little bit more playful here, as opposed to just the transactional sort of autist that you were previously. Absolutely. I love the flirt with the world because it's so true. And

we are so conditioned. Everyone is in their phone, like eyes down, looking at their phone, moving through the world with their headphones in. And you can't control if everyone else has their headphones in. You can't control anyone else's reaction to anything. What you can control is if you're the type of person who doesn't have their headphones in, who makes eye contact, who smiles, who says hello. I was picking up pizza the other day and I was

waiting in the shop and this guy walks in with noise canceling headphones on like over the ear headphones walks up to the counter doesn't take off his headphones just and the girl's like really nice she's this cute girl he's they're roughly the same age hey how can i help you and he just turns and holds his phone out at her and she's like oh okay it'll be right up doesn't say anything puts it back in his pocket and turns away and i was like oh

Like, I don't care if you're not single. Like, who knows? Maybe he's gay. Maybe he's not interested. It doesn't matter. You are not engaging with the world around you at all. It was really sad to see. That's interesting. Okay, so...

Reduce some of the pressure. Mm-hmm. Flirt with the world. Mm-hmm. Give me a third one. What else? Just don't try and overcomplicate things. You don't have to have this witty, flirty line that she's never heard before. You can keep it really simple. If your mind goes blank, walk up to her and say, hey, I noticed you from over there and I wanted to come say hello. I wanted to introduce myself. I thought you were cute. Something super simple, just you caught my eye and I'd kick myself later if I didn't say hello. Yeah.

is fine. It doesn't mean she's going to want to date you. It doesn't even mean she's going to want to talk to you. But if you do that and you have good posture and you have eye contact and you're smiling, you've put your best foot forward and you've done everything you can. What are the other things, the non-verbals? Oh, non-verbal is very important. So this can be our fourth thing. If you're walking up and you've already rejected yourself, your shoulders are bent and you're looking down, looking around,

You're telling her that you aren't worthy. So you need to walk up, shoulders back, eye contact as you're walking over to her. Look for eye contact. Actually, backing up from here, getting eye contact from a woman is the gold standard for before you approach. So it's not a requirement. You don't have to have made eye contact. But if you can catch her eye and give her a smile...

That is a green light and a much, it's a great place to start from with your approach. So you're not totally taking her by surprise. You've done a little pre-qualifying. And likewise, if you make eye contact and she quickly looks away and turns her back to you, maybe don't approach.

Like it just, it might not be a viable option. So that can be a good way to pre-qualify. Then when you do walk up, shoulders back, head up, smile, eye contact. It feels a little awkward. It absolutely does. And that's okay. And then, you know, speak with confidence. Don't speak too fast. Slow it down and go for it. And you're going to hear no a lot.

You mentioned a couple of opening lines there. What some canned openers that the super nervous guy that's going to go out and try this weekend a couple of times to do this. What are some of your favorite opening lines? Okay. Like I said, keep it really simple unless something comes to you that you're like, oh, this really makes sense.

So first, look for a few things. What's she holding? What's she doing? What's she wearing? Any of those things can be things to comment on. Maybe she's holding a yoga mat. So you can use that as a conversation starter. Maybe she's holding a cup of coffee or, you know, wearing some really unique Doc Martens or hat. Those are all things you can comment on. So leveraging that is one option. So you might say something like, hey, I noticed you from over there. Those are sick sneakers. I'm a sneakerhead myself.

Where did you get those? Or how long have you had them? When did those drop? That's an example of using something she's holding, doing, wearing as a jumping off point. If your mind is blank, she's not holding, doing, wearing anything you can comment on, then going back to just like, hey, I saw you from over there and I wanted to come over and introduce myself. My name's Blaine. Or, hey, I saw you from over there and I thought you were really cute and I'd kick myself later if I didn't say hello. How's your night going? Simple.

What about the next step after that? Because I think that a lot of guys, even if they've got some kind of openers, what she's doing, wearing, holding, if they get through that, I think the, oh, how do I now exit the conversation in a non-awkward way? Because, you know, the peak end rule in psychology suggests that the most emotionally intense and the final emotional moment are the two that are the most important of any event. I wonder how many guys...

might actually be able to overcome their approach anxiety, but their exit pain is so high that it actually clouds their memory of the approach. It's like the approach was fine, but the way that you... Okay, I'm not sure

I'll go now. Yeah. And this sort of weird, awkward, like a high five you or something. You know what I mean? Fist bump. Yeah. So it depends on where you're meeting her, of course. So let's say you're at a bar and you go up, you use that. Hey, I thought you were really cute. So I wanted to introduce myself. Cute, pretty, beautiful. What's the word?

You can use any of those, whatever. There's a lot of dudes listening that are like, fucking got to get this done with OCD. Whatever feels authentic to you because what you don't want is to sound like you're using someone else's lines. That's why I'm hesitant to even say use this verbatim. It's like I kind of throw out a few things and then make your own off of that and just keep it simple because the most important thing is it sounds authentic to you and not like you're reading a script.

That's just a comment on that. It's so right. I had a guy here, Hamza, about maybe six weeks ago, something like that. And he was talking about how he's like the...

epicenter of a lot of young men advice online. And he has started to ask himself the question of why do I dress the way that I do? Why do I sit the way I do? Why do I walk the way I do? Why do I talk the way I do? Because he's absorbed so much advice online that he's trying to model himself as the super masculine alpha Chad high value guy thing. And it's got to the point where he's got

Stockholm syndrome from the stuff that he's learned. It's imbibed so much of it that he has no idea where the advice finishes and he begins. And I think that that's a really good point that I think what guys want is, okay, just give me a set of rules-ish, but don't turn me into an actor. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I say when people ask what I do, I'm teaching men to authentically market themselves. I'm not teaching them to

be the cookie cutter Ken doll that a woman wants because that's not going to work. Even if you are able to be

become this persona that you think is going to attract women and maybe it starts working at first and women are attracted to you you're either having to hold up that persona forever and that's not your authentic self so life is going to suck or you slowly become yourself and then you're not the woman you're not the person that the woman initially fell for because it wasn't really you well and third option the women who would have genuinely liked you for being you were the ones that pass you by yes because you're not being yourself so that's the most important thing with

Everything when it comes to dating. Yes, we can improve the product. Like there are things you should do to be a better you. And we can talk more about that because building a life that you are genuinely proud of is a very important part of being successful dating. But then you also need to be able to market that life. You need to be able to talk to women in a way that they can see that.

that they see that you have a genuinely awesome life that they would want to be a part of. That's so interesting. So I've got it in my head. The original world that we had when Neil Strauss, who wrote the game, came up and did Pick Up, what that was was exclusive marketing. And I think that the world...

Much of the world of men's online dating at the moment in the more sort of nihilistic black pill side is exclusive lifestyle, i.e. one side said it doesn't matter what your life is. If you market yourself well, you'll be successful in dating. The current world in some corners says it doesn't matter what your marketing is. Your lifestyle is fucked and you're never going to get a girlfriend. So I think that balance...

balancing these two, which is you need to be as authentic as possible and actually raise up you as a person to be someone that women want to date whilst also holding in your hands. There's better and worse ways to do that. Yes. Yes, exactly. Uh, it's the product and the market and marketing and how you put them together and present yourself to women. And it's

even more important to be able to market yourself well today in a world with things like online dating and social media where women's options have quadrupled you know or 100x and so you have to be able to stand out the challenge for men dating is how do i stand out so women give me a shot and notice me or the challenge for women is how do i tell who's actually going to be a

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discount off your order by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to trycreate.co slash modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's trycreate.co slash modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. How do men stand out more? I think that's the state. So it depends where they're trying to meet women. For example, online, if you have

If you have anything short of an A-plus dating profile, you're not going to get matches. And the reality is, even if you have an A-plus dating profile, but you have some other characteristics that make online dating challenging for you, you still aren't going to get matches. But there are things to do to improve your online dating game. And then in terms of offline...

So much goes into it. You know, what you look like, that is part of it. If you look like a slob, you could be a really nice, like a great guy. You could be confident, truly. You could be successful. You could be charismatic. You could be funny. But if you look like a slob, women are going to look past you. And so you have to take care of yourself. Are you in shape?

Do you dress well? Do you have good hygiene? That's like one part of the outside. Then also how you talk about yourself is going to be part of how you market yourself. Do you go on a date and just say like, yeah, it works okay. I'm an accountant. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I go to nine to five. I get to work remote on Fridays. It's cool. Or do you say, I work for an accounting firm that helps dogs find new homes and I'm so passionate about it because X, Y, and Z. I love the people I work with and I'm expecting to move into XYZ position in a year.

It's not that you're bragging. It's that you are showing that you have a trajectory that she wants to be a part of and that she finds impressive. And again, I want to be clear because some guys go into dates thinking, oh, I need to impress her.

That is not the right mindset for a date. It's okay. I want to be my authentic best self and see if there is a mutual connection here. What did you mean when you talked about improving your life, your quality of life to make you more easily marketable and attractive to women?

So one of the biggest mistakes I see men make is, oh, I really want to go on this trip to Italy, but I'd rather wait until I had a girlfriend to do it with. They're putting their life on hold to live their best life until they have a woman to enjoy it with because they would rather do it when they have a girlfriend.

And that is a mistake. You need to build your best life so you have the ability to meet that woman that you're interested in. First of all, you're not going to meet a woman sitting at home. And second of all, the type of woman that you are interested in dating, what are you going to talk to her on a date about if you haven't built that life already? So you should have hobbies. These are things you're going to connect with her about. It doesn't mean she has to do the same hobbies as well, but are you passionate about them?

Are you spending your time doing things that you enjoy and help make you a better person? Or are you sitting at home playing video games on the couch, which sounds more attractive? You just crushed a pickleball tournament or started making ceramics or like you just beat whatever level in World of Warcraft. Like there is a difference. There's a niche of women out there who want the World of Warcraft guy, but I imagine that the competition for those women is also pretty high. Let's get back to online dating.

In your opinion, what are the best online dating platforms? Which apps? Yeah. So any of the ones that have the biggest user base. So that's generally Hinge and Bumble. Those are the ones I recommend for my clients. Then Tent is usually higher on those apps. Tender definitely has the highest user base, but it also has a ton of sponsorships.

spam and lower intent that you have to filter through. What do you mean when you say intent? So I found that from working with clients that a lot of the people on Tinder might just be there for hookups, might be soliciting sex, where intention behind finding a relationship or at least going on legitimate dates that aren't in exchange for money happens more on Hinge and Bumble. And then of those two, it's really dependent on where you live.

So you need to oftentimes try both and see where you find your success. So I have found that clients who are based in Austin, where Bumble is headquartered,

really like Bumble and they have like more women that they connect with via Bumble where just for as an example, I had a client in Seattle who was like, I don't get any matches on Bumble. Doesn't seem like there's any women there. I like Hinge more. So it does take some trial and error. And if you live someplace remote, it might be Hinge or it might, excuse me, it might be tender for you just from a sheer number of women on the app standpoint. So of those three, I recommend

people try them and see what works for them. I got banned from Hinge for impersonating myself. You're the second person. No, you know who told me that? Dan. Did he? On Bumble. His was Bumble. He got banned for impersonating himself there. James Smith, my business partner in Nutanix, got banned on Hinge for impersonating himself as well. Well, I'd been in a relationship for three and a half years and there was a deadline. I had to submit my proof of identification. I can't even remember using Hinge. And it was

20 like the end of 2021 like two three years ago and like I mean I'm swinging a miss for me on that but yeah a lot of friends definitely the guys that I speak to at least the guys that are in Austin say that hinge for them is the best yeah by far the best they say yeah it can be either what about Raya the league and

So these I actually have clients have success with as well. Raya, the problem is I think it's a lot of looking. It's people on Raya to see who else is there and swipe where I feel like the actual going on the date happens less just anecdotally, but from the many, many clients who I have spoken to and also my friends.

But I don't know, for someone like you is a public figure who has a following, there are more people in that bucket on Raya. But you're also seeing people all over the world instead of just in your five mile radius. Okay. So the numbers are smaller. When it comes to designing an online dating profile, what should guys do? How do you design the perfect online dating profile? The number one thing, the most important thing if you don't do anything else is you need high quality photos.

Not photos from five years ago of you on a boat, not a photo of you with Kobe Bryant in fifth grade. Photos that are relevant and look like what you look like today. If she looks at your profile and is like, I'm not really sure what he looks like, it's an automatic no.

So not- Because there's too much variation between photos. Too much variation or too far away. You're wearing sunglasses. She just can't get a good sense quickly. And you need to remember, these women are looking at your profile. And I mean, maybe men look a little closer, but when women are looking at profiles, it's like,

One and done. You have about one second to make a good impression. So that first photo needs to be clear. Not quite a headshot. We're not talking LinkedIn headshot, but it needs to be your face. I like it when you're looking into the camera. It feels like you're looking at her then. It creates more familiarity.

And that's the most important for the first photo. As you go down, you have opportunities to have other types of photos. You don't want six headshot type photos. Now you need to start incorporating a full body shot. You need one of those. And then you need what I call filler photos that are more lifestyle. So showcase how you spend your time.

If every photo is a headshot of you, then it doesn't tell her anything about you as a person. Do you like to ski? Have a skiing photo. Wakeboarding, traveling, whatever, with your dog, with your mom, whatever is important to your life.

use that in your profile. And no photos with women who look like they could be your ex. I don't care if it's your sister or your aunt. If she looks like she could be an ex-girlfriend, just skip it. I've heard that guys who have photos with mixed

groups, so girls in their photos, maybe one at least, seem to have some success because it shows that they're not so weird that no woman would ever choose to hang out with them even if they're just friends. Is that true? So I like a group photo and I'm not picky about if it's you and two guys or if it's you and a guy and a girl, a mix of people. But you and a girl is a little bit of an amber flag. You and one girl, like at a wedding, for example. I don't care if it's your sister. Like, it's a no. Yeah. Unless it's obviously your mom, maybe. Yeah. If it's obviously your mom or your grandma, that's great.

But you just don't want to be like, is he using a photo of his ex here because he didn't have more photos? And that's the mistake a lot of guys make when I look at their photos. It's they didn't build this intentionally. They just found six photos they have happened to be in. And those are the six photos they use. Not like, oh, these are six photos that showcase what I look like, how I spend my time and market me well. What about selfies? No. No.

So some selfies are okay, but I have learned that men are really bad at understanding what makes a good and bad selfie. So my blanket rule is just no selfies until they need to make a dating app profile. And then all of a sudden they're in their car with their Ray-Bans on like taking selfies. And I'm like, no. Okay. Mirror photos? No, no, no. Worse than selfie. Okay. Yeah. Arguably worse than selfies. Gym photos?

Gym photos are hard to get right. That is the problem. I absolutely love the idea of showing that you are fit and active and that is part of your lifestyle. But gym photos usually are mirror selfies, which I don't like, or tend to look really staged. Like why do you have your camera out at the gym? So instead, do you have a photo from when you did a Tough Mudder or you did raised your

You're in a race or ran a marathon or hike to the top of whatever mountain that is going to be a better photo to highlight that part of yourself. Something more lifestyle. Yes. Okay. Is there anything else to say on photos yet? No, that covers I'd say kids in photos or something is something I get asked about a lot. Hmm.

If you are like, you should say you have children in your dating app profile. If you have children, I think, you know, you are just delaying the inevitable if you're trying to hide it and then like drop it on someone later. Like, oh, yeah, by the way, I have two kids and she doesn't want to date someone with kids. Then you just wasted both of your time. As opposed to the woman who does want to date someone who's maybe got kids. Yeah. So just put it in your profile. Yeah.

If you don't have kids, I have clients who will want to do like nieces and nephews. It's just a little hard. It's a shaky road. High risk strategy. Well, I always have this rule. It's so funny to me when women...

Either in online dating or on social media, if they ever post a photo that's them and one child, there's always this huge fucking disclaimer. It's like such a great time with my niece this Sunday. You know, it's like this big banner of something that's like, I'm still I've still got fecundity here. Yeah. And that's what guys have to do if they want to use a photo with their niece or nephew. But I would say if like being an uncle is important to you, highlight that in your prompts.

and just like keep the kid photos off. All right. Okay. Moving down into bio, description, other bits and pieces. What's the do's and don'ts? So I would say the prompts are the next most important part and really what you will see right after a photo. What's prompt? A prompt or bio. So like for Hinge, for example, you have three prompts. You don't have a bio on Hinge. Right. I mean, it shows what I know. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, yeah. So prompts, how do you get... Let's do Hinge first and then we can do Bio after that. Yeah, so you have prompts. They're giving you... So if you don't have Hinge like you, the prompts will say things like, my ideal Sunday, my simple pleasures, one thing you should know about me.

Your bio and prompts need to be lighthearted and fun. Your goal should be to be lightweight and make her smile. So this is not your resume. You don't need to tell her everything about you here and get all of your, you know, your accolades out here. That's not what we're going for. And this is also not a help wanted ad. You are not saying what you want from her. You can look at her profile to see what

If she hits the things that you're looking for. So guys will say, oh, I really want a girl who's kind and likes to travel. It's like, okay, you're talking to every single woman on hinge here. So not only should you not be speaking about what you're looking for, you should also be unique into what you say. So if what you're saying is what everybody else is saying, one thing you should know about me, I really like to travel. That's lame. Be more specific. Where do you like to travel?

One thing you should know about me is every year I take a trip to Spain to buy dessert wines. Be as specific as possible. Details are what is going to help you stand out. Why?

Because she's looking at 1,000 profiles. So why you from the other guy that she just swiped over, who maybe you're both kind of cute, you both look kind of fit. He says he likes burritos. And you say you cook homemade dinner with your roommates every Sunday night and pick a new country to focus on. Like that's much more interesting. That gives something that she's like, oh, that's cool. I want to know more about that.

The point of your dating app profile is to get her to want to know more, and she's

If she wants to know more, she's going to swipe right. She's going to match with you. It's not to convince her that you're, you know, an alpha male. It's not to convince her that you are rich and or good at your job. What about watch photos, car photos, house photos? So slippery slope here. What I would say is if you're flashing your Rolex or your Lambo and that's what you are leading with, who are you going to attract? You're

You're going to attract a woman who prioritizes that over who you are as a man and your personality and your values. So if you're good with that, by all means, go for it. But if you are looking for an authentic, genuine connection and someone who really likes you for you, then you're better off leading with those traits, your personality, your values, how you spend your time. And you just tend to look really try-hard.

By putting the flashy photos out there. I wonder how many, there'll be a ton of chicks listening. I wonder how many of them are just like, yes, yes, yes. Show me what you. Taking, taking, taking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, and well, I'll have guys who come to me and they're like, I've like never had a match online. And we, and then I'm like, what? You're like decent looking. Okay, let's do this. We make a profile and then they have more matches than they know what to do with because the bar is really low. Yeah.

So few men are optimizing. Yes. They're just throwing up the selfie that they took in their car because they needed a sixth photo and saying that they like burritos. And women are like, why would I go out with you? Like this is you're not making me want to know more. You're not intriguing. And that's really what you're going for. What about Bayer?

So bio is similar to prompts. You want to hit all the same things. You want to be lighthearted. You want to make her smile. This is not a help wanted ad. So what can you say that helps you stand out a little bit from everybody else, intrigue her to want to know more about you? Don't overthink this, but it is worth spending a few hours developing prompts and bios. I tell my clients, spend an hour minimum on each prompt. You have three prompts. At least you should be spending an hour thinking about the word choice and thinking

when I work with clients, I'm like, write 10 and I'll pick three or I'll, and I'll make them better. So we like really pick every single word that goes into it. But if you're out there doing it yourself, like you should be putting in the same amount of effort and run it by some girlfriends, run it by your sister. Yeah. Does this suck? Is this okay? Yeah. Uh,

Yeah, I suppose it's so funny how much time I imagine guys spend swiping right and trying to get matches and stuff. You think that's you trying to do conversions on the back end. How long did you spend...

going and getting the photos. Presumably, you could spend a week, get a friend or even pay somebody, be like, oh, there's 50 bucks, like come and take a couple of photos of me. And what would be the difference in your conversions? What would be the difference in your effectiveness if you focus on the things that really matter as opposed to just kind of doing what you think is the urgent and going for the numbers game? Exactly. And a lot of guys...

cringe at this, I have almost all of my clients work with professional photographers. There is a whole industry out there for dating app photographers. You're kidding me. Oh, I'm kidding.

Absolutely not. It didn't even occur to me someone wouldn't know that because I'm so ingrained in it. You're in the weeds. Yes. And it is so important because most guys aren't taking good photos of themselves, even with very detailed instructions, step by step. They still go out there and their photos kind of suck. And you can have some photos in your you want some photos in your profile that are candid and organic and don't look

But having two professional shots that really showcase what you look like and have really nice backgrounds that are going to be bright and stand out can make all of the difference in the world. And see, it's such high ROI. I suppose it's a low-key signal as well of kind of vibrancy.

It's like, what's this guy do where he's got the professional photo? Oh, maybe he's maybe this is a press shot for something that he's done. Maybe it's part of a project that he's in. And just that you care. You're putting in effort. You're helping her see who you are. You didn't just throw like sometimes guys will send me profiles and they're like, oh, I want to match with this girl. I want to talk to this girl. What should I say? And I'm like, she put zero effort into her profile. That's why you have nothing to say to her.

And so do you think she's really banking on... Do you think she's looking for a partner here? Is this something that she's prioritizing? Your expectations for her response and her effort of meeting should be on the floor because she didn't even take the time to...

make a good profile. That's interesting. So the girl that just uses Tinder because when she's bored waiting for the bus, she decides to have something to have a little... And spoiler alert, that's a lot of women. I guarantee if you took a random sample of 20 hot girls, at least half of them would say like, ah,

I don't really use dating apps because I meet enough people in real life. I'm approached often. I have a good network. And then the other half might say, oh, I use it for fun or entertainment here and there, but I don't go out with that many guys. And then maybe, you know, half of that half like actually use it. But especially attractive quality women, they are not relying on dating apps. Interesting.

How can people text more effectively? How can guys text more effectively, flirt online? What are the biggest do's and don'ts when it comes to messaging game? So what I like to tell my clients is you are more likely to text yourself out of a date than into a date.

texting should be used for the logistics, but you really want to keep it minimal. A problem a lot of guys have is they are trying to get to know this person via text before a date and chit chat, and so much is lost in text messages. You don't have any tone. You don't have the nuance of facial expressions and body language. So a conversation or something can be said and taken totally out of context or just feel kind of weird, and all of a sudden,

You were going towards a date and she doesn't really want to date anymore because and then again, this goes back to online dating. She has a queue of 20 other guys.

which is unfortunate reality. So if you misstep, it's really easy to say, I'm just going to go back to the drawing board here. So less is more, but you do need to be clear and confident in your communications. So I have, you know, I have a course on this too. It's just about texting because so many people struggle with it that lays out basically templates or scripts. You want to open the conversation with something. Again, you don't need to reinvent the wheel here and make

say something hilarious or be a comedian if that doesn't

speak to who you are but look for something in her profile that other people might not notice or you can speak to maybe she has a photo uh in croatia and you've spent time in croatia you you can say like oh let me guess that's in havar you know you can say something that is going to start a conversation around something you're knowledgeable about okay you're off to the races she's matched with you she responds she said yes like i went you know two years ago have you been

Then you want to find a way to steer this towards a date relatively quickly. She's already seen your profile. She's already matched with you. You need a couple messages to establish enough trust that, you know, she knows you're a real person. She's not a serial killer. Yeah, she's interested in knowing more, interested in going on a date and then segue to the date to the date. So that can be as little as.

Two or three back and forths as much as 10. But anything more than that is you're doing too much talking and you're becoming a pen pal. And that's something a lot of guys get wrong. They're looking for this perfect opportunity to ask for a date. They're looking for a flashing green light. You don't need to do that.

Go for asking, I'm enjoying chatting with you about this. What would you think about continuing this over drinks? I know a great spot downtown. I know a great rooftop downtown with excellent happy hour. This, I guess, is a difficulty if any guys are traveling or if you're not using the geographic net of where you date. Because inevitably you can't say, why don't we continue this conversation over coffee on Wednesday? You live in fucking Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and that's just, do you want a long distance relationship? That's why, like with Raya, I said, you're looking globally. So a lot less meetups from my experience end up happening because you're not, you can't just say, hey, like let's grab it, do something casual. Let's grab a drink next Thursday. Let's go to fucking Tulum together or something. Yeah. It's like you have to, it's a much more level of investment or like, oh, I'll fly to your city for this date. And then there's all of a sudden so much pressure that

and expectation around it as opposed to doing something casual. If you meet somebody online, the first time you meet, I consider date zero. This is not even a first date. This is a vibe check. Let's just get together, see if we vibe.

If we vibe, if we have a good conversation, let's go on a proper first date. Let's get dinner. Let's do something more involved. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. You probably already know Magic Spoon for their super popular high protein cereal that has got 75,000 five star reviews. Well, now they've turned their cereal into treats that taste just like those classic crunchy cereal bars that you had growing up.

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What are your favorite examples for first dates? So lightweight. So it's a little different if you met her online than in person. But if you met her online, then casual. A nice bar for drinks. Don't drink. A coffee shop. A smoothie shop. Mocktails.

If you want to eat, okay, something easy. Maybe you sit at a bar and like have tapas or you even go to a food truck that you like. But you should not be over-invested in a first date, meaning you shouldn't be spending a lot of time or money or resources trying to orchestrate it or to impress her. Just a vibe check. And from a woman's perspective...

She doesn't want most women, most quality women aren't going to want to dedicate four hours to a fancy sit-down meal with somebody they don't know. They also want to see, okay, do I vibe with this person? If so, then like, you know, let's move forward. I sometimes have guys say like, oh, I've like matched with women who say like they don't want to go for a walk. They aren't a dog. They expect dinner on a first date. And

I would say take a look at whether that is where you want to start off a relationship on, you know, where you need to be the provider of laying out the red carpet for her. Because usually when women say that, they're also not thinking like, hey, my favorite food truck or my hole in the wall tie spot. It's like they're expecting a steakhouse or a fancy sit down dinner. And so if you're OK with that type of relationship and those expectations, go for it. What's your thoughts on walking dates?

So my husband and I's first date was a walking date. I would say if you're the type of guy who struggles to create romantic connection, it can be tough because it doesn't have an inherently sexy vibe. But it is a really nice way to get to know somebody, to get your steps in, and to just see if there is a connection. And from a woman's standpoint, like,

At least I know a lot of my friends, you know, especially women who are in their 30s, they don't want to drink every night of the week. Maybe they don't drink at all. Like sitting down at a bar is like, oh, I can maybe do this once a week. But if you're like, hey, why don't we, you know, grab a juice and go on a walk? That's an easy thing to say yes to. So, you know, whatever your date, your first date is, the ease of yes is important.

If you're asking her to drive across town or commit four hours or she needs to wear something special. Get ready for ages. All of a sudden, it's a lot. She's weighing the pros and cons and the cost benefit of doing it. Where if it's like, oh, I wanted to get some steps in anyway. I wanted to see if this guy was normal. Yeah, sure. Let's take a walk down the block and obviously plan the walk on the beach or someplace where in a neighborhood where you have value to add, where it's going to be fun to look at stuff. It's not just...

you know, walking down a busy street with like semis driving by. But I'm pro walk if you feel confident and comfortable on a walk. I guess from a safety perspective as well for women, a walking date during the daytime somewhere public is probably a pretty good start. Exactly. Interesting. So what about turning first date into second date?

And also, what should guys be doing and saying on a first date? Like, how should they behave? Yeah. So you want to be your authentic self first and foremost. But you also want to be. So when on a first date, you should be aiming to have her do 70% of the talking. There are studies that show the more somebody talks, the more they perceived the date or the time spent to be positive. People like to talk.

Realistically, a good date might be more balanced, more like 50-50. But the point here is you want to keep her talking, asking questions.

Something men get wrong, especially when they're nervous and it's understandable, is they'll end up rifling through questions in effort to keep her talking. And they're like, you said she should be talking 70%, so I just asked a lot of questions. And that's not exactly what you want to go for. I'd explain it as you want to pull the conversational thread. So you ask a question on a topic you also find interesting, and then you go down the path of that topic.

You don't need to beat a dead horse until you have nothing left to say, but then focus on that for a little bit because that's also how you are going to create more of an emotional connection if you're staying really surface level with your questions.

that emotional connection isn't established but if you can get her talking about travel and then you're talking about trips you went on as a kid and how every year she went to the beach with her family and it's a really happy memory for her those are good feelings that she's having and she's associating with the date so think about structuring dates and having conversations around things she's going to want to talk about and are going to be fun for both of you to talk about and leave you feeling good i

I suppose if you focus on something that you are interested in and maybe have a little bit of knowledge in, that already ticks the box of authenticity. And it means that you don't actually have to play a role. If you go, so what do you do for fun? And she says, oh, I'm really into crochet and the Kardashians. You go, oh yeah, tell me more about the Kardashians. Oh, you're going down a rabbit hole that you have no information about. Whereas if you can try and pull the thread of whatever it is that's a synthesis of your interests and hers...

And I guess as well, it's tough for guys because they don't have as many options on the table as women do, but it's totally fine for you as a guy to walk away from a date going, "Do you know what it is? She wasn't that interesting. She wasn't that interesting. This isn't a me problem. This is a her problem. I asked her some questions and she doesn't really have any hobbies. She doesn't really seem to do anything with her time.

she doesn't really communicate all that well. Like it is completely possible for you as a guy who is uncertain about your value in the world and your value to women to go on a date and the woman suck. Yes, definitely. So I tell my clients that a third of your effort should be spent towards making

making a connection. So helping her see that you have things in common, that you've shared interests, shared values. A third of your effort should be assessing if she is a good fit for you. So if she fits the criteria you're looking for, if she's interesting. And then the third of the effort is put towards flirting and having fun. So even if those two things aren't there and she's not your person, ideally you both still had a little fun. You can still flirt a little bit, practice that. And then you both go on your ways and, you know,

you chalk it up to like, okay, one less person who I have to meet and I know I'm not gonna marry. - Men aren't asking women's questions on dates, it's a problem. The cashiers at Trader Joe's ask more questions than guys on dates nowadays. I can remember the number of times I've asked a man a question thinking that at the bare minimum, he'll ask me the same one in return. But no, he is not inquisitive of my family or my job or my taste in music. After he's finished his long-winded answer, there is just uncomfortable silence

I then fill with another question for him. I am the one keeping the conversation going. I am the reason I had a fun time on this date. I am a tiresome jester who is being paid in dirty martinis. Girl, move on and go on some, we need to find you some better dates. I, that is, that's funny. And I hear, I mean, I hear that from women. They complain that guys don't know how to ask questions.

Not my clients. I'm teaching them how to ask questions. I think that I do feel like growing up, women tend to be more conditioned in how to make people around them comfortable and are oftentimes better conversationalists, therefore, than men. That is not a blanket rule, but I think it could be a general principle, at least that I've witnessed. And I would say if that is happening to a woman, I would have her say something like,

I feel like I've been asking a lot about you. What do you want to know about me? Just flip it. That's the thing on dates. People are oftentimes just scared to say what's on their mind. You're probably not going to want to go on another date with someone who doesn't have the decency or is not inquisitive about who you are anyway. But if you – maybe giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he's just really nervous. Yeah.

And if you can kind of click him into having that realization. Playfully with low pressure. Yeah. And he's like, oh, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm just, you know, it's a little, I'm a little nervous on first dates. Like,

tell me more about your siblings or whatever and he can turn it around. Maybe you're giving that date an opportunity to blossom into something more. That's, I guess, what sort of flirting and being playful and being lighthearted helps that it takes a lot of the pressure off. Like you could say, I've just asked all of the questions so far tonight. Mm-hmm.

are you going to ask me anything? Like that's delivers the same message as what you just said, but in a way more pressurized sort of backbite defensive. Yeah. Yeah. It's not fun. Um, so yeah, I suppose that you can kind of gesture the guys toward what you want them to do.

What are the other biggest red flags that guys do on dates in terms of communication, where they go, what they wear? Treating it like a meeting and not a date. So a lot of the men I work with have great jobs, really excel professionally, are good at communicating in work environments. But you do not communicate the same way on a date.

A date should be flirty. It should be playful. There should be some physical touch. It would be inappropriate if you were at a business meeting and you touched the person's knee who you were talking to. But on a date, that should be something that you are intentionally doing. You are creating familiarity and physical connection. So start of the date, there should be a hug, a kiss on the cheek, if that speaks to you, if that feels natural for you. Throughout the date, you should be

Hand on the knee to emphasize a point. Hand on her shoulder, guiding her to her seat. Touch her hand, you know, while you're talking. Again, this takes practice and a lot of guys who have zero practice with physical touch, this takes a lot of practice. And it flailing around like a sweaty octopus. Yeah.

A sweaty octopus. That's quite the picture. I actually feel like it's more they're like stick still and like have their hands at their sides like and aren't moving at all. And I think I might prefer the sweaty octopus. But I'll set a goal, say, OK, you want to have six physical touches on this date.

Just like how I say you should have an approach journal with how many women you're talking to, you should also be keeping a date journal and hitting some goals. How about, did I pay compliments? What questions did I ask and were well received? Did I hit my physical touch goals? Because of a date without physical touch is a meeting and she didn't come here for a business meeting.

And likewise, if the date went well, you want to go for a kiss at the end. That is a great way to end the date if it went well, but you don't want to go for a kiss if you haven't touched her at all. Just even if it's a great date, you're laughing, you're talking, things are going well, you're flirting, but your hands have been at your sides or in your pockets. And then all of a sudden you lunge for a kiss at the end. That's going to feel very awkward and out of left field.

Kiss on the cheek, kiss on the lips at the end. I was referring to a kiss on the lips in that sense. You can go either. You don't have to have a kiss on a first date. But I think if the vibe feels right and the date was good, then absolutely go for it. How many women do you think that's moving too quickly for? Some, and that's okay. But this is why you have to know if she doesn't want it. All you say is, no worries, like something to look forward to next time or like no pressure. That's a cool response. Yeah. That's a fun response.

I had a client recently who told me on their first date, he asked if he, because I'm also a big fan, if you're not sure about anything physically, just ask. Like stand next to her, stand close to her. Okay, this is a good sign. She's open to standing close to me. We're looking at each other's eyes. Signs are pointing to yes. I'm still a little nervous. Say to her, I really want to kiss you right now.

As a statement. And she's either going to say, like, I don't kiss on the first date. And you can say, great, something to look forward to or like no pressure. Or she's going to say, like, so do it or just like smile and lean in and be the one to kiss you. And so you're facilitating that. And that goes for really anything physical as things escalate. If you're not sure, just ask. And if you're too uncomfortable to ask, it's too soon to go for it.

What a good rule. And I feel like that's true with sex too. And I say like guys who are like, oh, I don't know if it's like if we should be having sex or like if it's time or like doing this or that in the bedroom. It's like talk to her about it. And if you are too uncomfortable to talk to her about it, it's too soon to do it anyway. That's a good rule.

What about how much effort guys should make with the way that they dress on the first date? Like full three-piece suit might be a little bit much for a daytime walk. Not convinced that Crocs and socks are allowed, although I'm pretty pro them.

I'm okay with your cracks and socks if they feel authentic to you. Yes, I fucking knew it. I also, if you're wearing them like in a sort of like stylish, ironic way, it's very different than if you're like 300 pounds and wearing them with board shorts that go below the knees, you know, and a colored shirt, like that's going to be a no for me.

In terms of a first date, I recommend guys have a first date go-to outfit. You don't need to be reinventing the wheel here. You don't want to be wearing something for the first time that you might not be comfortable in or trying to impress her. Just find an outfit that makes you look well-groomed, fits you well. That's the number one thing guys get wrong with their clothing.

too big often or too small. It's usually too big. Like their shirts are too baggy. Oh, okay. This is a big America problem. Yeah. It's a massive American men have zero fashion sense. This is also true. Yeah. It's atrocious. Guys in America think that wearing a polo collared under armor shirt constitutes smart dress, like under armor, polo shirt, jeans, leather belt, leather shoes. It's like

Smart, casual, like fucking incarnate. It's so bad. It's fucking atrocious with baseball cap. And you're like, dude, swing and a miss. God. I mean, I literally wear like metal band t-shirts, like Gymshark shorts, Stan socks and Crocs.

But I know that I can't wear an Under Armour shirt and claim that I'm going out dressed nicely. It's so bizarre. Like American guys. Why is that? Why is it like an America problem? Because you don't see. I was just in France and the men dress so well. Everybody dresses well. Yeah. That being said, I mean, the UK's got some sort of dodgy fashion trends that happen every so often. We had this addiction to skinny jeans for a decade, which I'm slowly sort of ripping myself out of. I'm not too sure.

There is definitely, if you're a guy in America, this is an advantage, I suppose, for dudes, disadvantage for girls. The bar is set unbelievably low for you to be a well-dressed man in America because almost every man dresses retardedly. They are. They are. Honestly, they're on that sunshine bus trip. Yeah.

Yeah. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. And the bar really is so low. I have a stylist on my team for this reason because even I touched on this before, but even if you're doing everything right, but you show up to the date dressed like a dweeb, it's like,

No, you don't look like you have your shit together. You don't look like you have self-awareness. And so if you can just get a few and it doesn't have to be expensive items, it doesn't have to be anything outside your comfort zone. But I recommend actually just working with a professional. It's a great investment or doing it yourself, but just having a few go-to outfits.

some nice staple pieces that you can mix and match. It goes such a long way. Talk about approaching women in person too. You want to leg up, look good. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Element. Stop having coffee first thing in the morning. Your adenosine system that caffeine acts on isn't even active for the first 90 minutes of the day, but your adrenal system is and salt...

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Okay, where should guys go to find women in person? Talked about online dating. What are your favorite spots for guys to approach women in person? Yeah, so any place you're already spending time and your hobbies. So you're going to have way more to talk about with somebody who you meet at your pickleball league or your run group than you are...

at a dark night, loud nightclub, or even just walking down the street. I'm not saying you can't meet women at bars and clubs and you can't approach random women on the street, but that's playing level hard. You have to find a commonality. You have to find something to talk about. Whereas if you were just pick up some hobbies...

and start going to them on a weekly basis. Pick three things you want to do and try and go to them every single week. Ideally, not all hobbies are created equal. Like pick hobbies that women also attend and just start talking to people. That's going to be the best way. And oftentimes what I tell my clients is you might not, okay, let's use pickleball for an example because as you know, I love pickleball. Let's say you join a pickleball league.

Maybe you meet a woman you're interested in dating there, but maybe not. But you might meet a friend who then invites you to his birthday party. And then at that birthday party, his roommate from college brought his sister, and that's the girl you hit it off with. And you're one or two degrees removed. So you have much more built-in trust. You have something to talk about while you're both at that party. Pickleball your common friend. And it becomes much more easy to start

a good conversation that can lead someplace. So you're optimizing for social events, things that involve a little bit of interaction like CrossFit gym. Great. Presumably not something that's super solo like fucking archery or something like that. Yeah, you're just...

So I am a big fan of you spending time in any place that makes you happy. Archery might be something great to highlight in your dating profile or talk about on dates, and that's going to be attractive to women. But you want to make sure your hobbies are not all solo hobbies that are going to be great for talking about. I go mountaineering. Yeah, but not great. I go rock climbing on my own. Yeah, but not great for meeting people and you want to diversify. But rock climbing gym, great. A lot of those solo things can be turned into fun.

Good places to meet people. One of my hobbies is baking bread, but you brought bread. I did. Show me your bread. Get your bread out for the lads. Come on. I was going to say baking bread at home is not a good place to meet somebody, but I've been to cooking classes, bread. Like I went to a sourdough pizza making class because I like baking bread. And there was lots of single men and women there.

Okay, and what's this? What have you got me? This is sourdough, just a classic homemade sourdough. I made it this morning. A little ASMR in there. Yeah, everyone can hear it. Oh, wow, look at that. Hold that sucker up. You're going to have to lift that up. I mean, that is...

That is fantastic. Thank you very much. I very much appreciate it. You're very welcome. Jesus Christ, I could slug an infant with this. It's really, really heavy. Pop that back in. I'm not going to leave this out for the elements to go and get. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. Yeah, that's fantastic. Bread by Blaine coming soon. Yeah. Okay. What about guys approaching girls in the gym?

I met my husband at the gym. I thought you went on a date, a walk. It was our first date. Right, okay. We didn't meet on a walk. Ah, I see. Yep, okay. So I met him at a fitness class, like a group fitness class. Like a Barry's 45 type thing. Yeah, Barry's. Yeah, exactly, in San Francisco. So you can meet women at the gym. I am proof that it is possible, but there are different considerations and some gym environments are going to be better than others. So like a rock climbing gym, a CrossFit gym, a fitness class.

these places are going to better facilitate meeting women. There's natural starting and stopping points. There's times when everyone is standing around. You can talk to her when she's not working out. Just an open gym floor like at Equinox or Lifetime where she has her headphones in, is on the treadmill, is in the midst of a workout, not good. You would then need to wait until she's like at the water fountain or you're coming and going at the same time, which is much more just chance. There's a lot of guys out there

Who are probably thinking, God damn it, I might need to put my bodybuilding gains to one side because my like solo neurotic heavy metal in the headphones training style of this bro gym isn't going to work. I need to start doing fucking orange theory so that I can hang around with girls as they come in and out. Literally. And I can have to. These are the sacrifices that men have to make that women really don't understand that.

you know, like the patriarchy is not alive or well when you have to sacrifice gains to be able to talk to women. But it's true. I have clients all the time who are like, oh, I really like my gym routine. I'm like, okay, well, that's fine. But then you're not going to meet women there. So if you want, you're saying you want to meet a woman who's fit, who likes to work out, you need to spend some time at these other places. And I'm not saying totally give up your own gym routine, but you might be surprised. Like every time I send a client to Pilates, they're like, holy shit, that was so much harder than I

thought like I was dying. - Solid core Rex people, they're getting so popular at the moment. Well, I mean, this is, you know, to lean into some of the evolutionary psychology stuff, there's an idea called sex ratio hypothesis, which is whoever in a local ecology is the rarest sex has the upper hand in the mating market. So you see that in areas where they male skewed sex ratio, there are more dates before sex,

women are less likely to say that they're happy with any one man, they're less likely to commit, men are forced to go on more dates before they can actually sort of move forward. And the reverse is true too, that if men are the scarcer sex, that there are fewer dates before sex, et cetera, et cetera. Reason being that if there are

more of your particular sex competing for more of that rarer sex's attention you need to play by their rules and that means that if you're a dude that goes to solid core and does pilates between you and the gay instructor there's two there's like one guy that's interested in the women in this entire room and maybe 70 percent of them have got a fella and a couple of them aren't looking today but that's still a really strong sex ratio yeah well this is

Maybe it's not 20 to 1, but it's 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. It's better than a nightclub. Yeah, way better than a nightclub where the reverse is often true. Yeah, that's a great point. It just makes a lot of sense.

I have a client in New York who started playing Mahjong. Are you familiar with Mahjong? It's like a board game? It's like with these little domino pieces. It's from China, but they have an American version. I'm actually very into it myself right now. Okay. But talk about a good place to meet women. He goes, he's like a Brooklyn Mahjong meetup and he's one of four dudes and there's a hundred women there. And he had like three girls give him their number and be like, you should join our Mahjong group, like trying to get a guy in. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. But I mean, run clubs at the moment are just the hottest thing in the world. Did you see there was a great meme that came out a couple of weeks ago that said, over-sexualized run club starter pack. And it was just all of the different things. It was like Ketone IQ element was in there, an Andrew Kuberman podcast. It was really, really good. But yeah, I think, you know,

I was trying to deconstruct why I think running clubs have become so popular. And I think that a big chunk of it is that non-weird opportunity to stand around before and after and talk. Like it's a...

It's like a social club masquerading as a fitness pursuit. Yeah. And it gives people the legitimacy to go and do something. Because if it was just, let's meet up in the park and stand around for a bit, everyone would feel weird. But if it's couched in, we're going to get our 5K in. All right, fine, I guess. I mean, the 5K is what, 25 minutes of work? Yeah. It's fuck all. And then...

People stand around again and go, okay, well, I can get her number. It's amazing. She's that chick from last week. She's got that sports bra on again. Yeah, and you're seeing the same people consistently, which also makes it way easier. Good opener to use. I feel like I've seen you before. My name's Blaine. I've seen you here before. You leverage that anytime you've seen a woman more than once as an opener. Mm-hmm.

That's a great one. Familiarity. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I love a run club because also you're weeding out people who don't have any interest in health. You know, it's like-minded people are going to go to a run club. Well, if you're up and awake in a park at 8 a.m. on a Saturday and someone else is too, you can probably tell quite a lot about the way they didn't go out last night unless they're hanging. They didn't go out last night. Yeah. They probably care about their health. They're probably quite reliable. They've probably got a relatively normal job. Mm-hmm.

That's pre-selection. Yeah. And I find so many people are just getting over the drinking culture and not wanting to just meet people at bars or hang out at bars. Or if we stand around in a park after work, then it's...

The expectation is usually, okay, like there's drinking involved or there's something to eat or drink and that's not necessary to meet people. And I think a lot of people, one, want to get off the apps and then two, don't want to be drinking. So things like run clubs or pickleball or rock climbing are great with places to meet people. Yeah.

CrossFit for me when I started doing CrossFit was outrageous for dating. Really? Yeah, just because it's all co-ed. A lot of the people, especially as dudes, a lot of the dudes that do CrossFit are

are already married because it does take quite a lot of dedication and it's kind of hard. And it's the sort of thing that a man who feels like he's given up all of his pursuits in other areas of life would decide to apply himself to. Yeah. For one hour a day, I can regain some control when I don't have to change nappies or deal with shit from work or, you know, take the bins out. So you actually have

although it's still probably about 50-50 maybe sex ratio, maybe a tiny little bit more skewed male. But when you actually look at the sort of men that go and the sort of women that go, I think that you have more unavailable men than you do unavailable women. And this means that it was an incredibly profitable few years when I was doing CrossFit in the Northeast of the UK. Plus there's

this sort of inherent like high five culture at the end of workouts. There's intermissions in between different things. There's usually some dicking about at the start, there's waiting around at the end. You are training between two and five times a week doing classes. So the consistency that you see people with, you don't have to wait one whole week until run club comes back around again. Yeah. I love all of those points. And even

Even something that gets you touching somebody like a fist bump or a high five actually goes a really long way to your point. Another one I love that is so good is dancing. Salsa, two-step, swing, whatever kind of dance you're interested in. Any of my clients who pick up dance are like, whoa, talk about a good market. And like if you're authentically into it and you're fun to dance with, even if you're a total beginner and you're a single nice guy, the girls are going to be

into it. Like there are way less men than women dancing and women want to dance with the fun single guys. So if you can be that guy in your dance group, you're golden. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Manscaped. If you're still using an old face shaver from...

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socially acceptable gesture. Also, there is free shipping worldwide plus a 20% discount if you go to the link in the show notes below or head to manscaped.com slash modern wisdom and use the code modern wisdom at checkout. That's manscaped.com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout. What was that creepiness research that you did? Yes. So especially after the pandemic, I found that men were consistently telling me

I am worried about being creepy. And I would ask, okay, well, what does creepy mean to you? And the answer, they either didn't have an answer or it was always different. So I first, I did some research around like,

what men, if this was holding back men and spoiled, the answer was yes. Like men were very worried about being creepy. And I think something like 46% said that it limited their interactions or affected their interactions with women, which is a lot. And then, but they couldn't define what it was. So then I asked women, okay, what is creepy to you? And what guys thought was creepy and what women thought was creepy wasn't always the same.

But what I really realized from doing this research or my takeaway in relation to my clients is the guys who are actually worried about being creepy are usually not the creepy ones.

By definition. Yes, by definition. And maybe like one in 10 of the guys who are worried about being creepy are unknowingly doing something creepy. Some of the things on the top of the list when I surveyed the women of what they found was creepy was excessive staring, unwanted physical contact, cat calling. Unwanted contact online is actually a very big one that I think guys don't think about. What's that? So you see a girl at yoga class and

You hear her name when she checks in. You then add her on Instagram. You haven't talked to her. She didn't give you her Instagram. That's inappropriate. Interesting. And a lot of those things I just described aren't things that a guy who's worried about being creepy is actually doing.

And so I found like it was almost just helpful to tell these men who were worried about being creepy, listen, your problem isn't that you're creepy. That's not why you're not getting girls. Your problem is that you're being too much of a nice guy and you're actually not putting yourself out there enough and taking enough risks with the women you're interested in. That's the category they fell into. Right. Okay. So what are the things...

think are creepy but aren't. Was there any of those that came through? I'm trying to... Let me... I didn't survey the men on what they thought was creepy. That's more just like what I... Like...

They were worried about it. I feel like they thought being approached with, yeah, okay. I'm remembering now. Men oftentimes were worried that just approaching a woman was creepy, that looking at a woman was creepy. And so, okay, women didn't say looking was creepy. Women said excessive staring. So this goes back to what I said. If you look at a woman and you make eye contact and you give her a little smile, that's a great opportunity and an opener to go approach her. Hey, I feel like we made eye contact before. So I wanted to come over and say hello.

But if she looks away and turns her back and then she looks back, glances back at you and you're still looking, you're still staring. That's creepy. That's the excessive staring that she's talking about. If you approach her and you expect to get her phone number right away, you form no trust. And you're like, hey, I'd love to take you to drink sometime. Could I get your phone number?

Okay, that's just weird. And like, she might think that, yeah, that was kind of creepy. He just like demanded my phone number. He didn't establish any connection or trust first. That's a question. Should you ask for a girl's phone number or ask for their Instagram? Phone number. Why? It shows more intent. It shows if you ask her, ask her on a date, first of all, and then get her contact information first.

Be confident and direct in what you want. Like, oh, I want to keep in touch. Let's get your Instagram. Can I get your Instagram? Like, what? You need to like check out where she's traveled in the past couple years? Like, why do you need her Instagram? You either want to go out with her or you don't. We'll say sometimes women will say like, how about we do Instagram instead? She wants to make sure you're not a serial killer. She does want to suss you out a little more. And in that case, sure, no problem. Let's do Instagram. But I would say as the man,

ask for the date and then ask for the phone number. That's really cool. That's a really cool way to do it. Because what you're doing as the guy is you're just kicking the can down the road in any case. If I get her number, if I get her Instagram, after I've got her Instagram, I'll ask for her number. Then once I've got her on WhatsApp, I'll ask her to go out on a date. You can do it right there. I guess I wonder whether a lot of time on online dating and kind of a normalization of that as the

MO for what most people do is kind of making everyone forget that you don't need to jump through those hoops. That's the thing that you do when you don't have the in-person thing. I had this, Jeffrey Miller told me about this idea where he wished that he could have a dating

platform where all that it consisted of was 30 second videos and obviously you'd have to have some really robust AI to work out what's in those videos because the dating app that's videos could cause some controversy but I do think that there's so much to be said for you know like a

maybe a video call. I didn't actually have to be online at the same time, so synchronous communication is kind of a bit tough. But like if you had an async, just get to do a 30-second video because you can just tell everything. And if you're in person, that's...

100x over a video. And so yeah, regressing back to okay, we'll begin at the top of the funnel. I started Instagram, take it down to WhatsApp, and then from WhatsApp, take it to a date. It's like, bro, you had you could just you didn't need to go back up. Yeah, why are you adding in the social element of essentially a dating app? Yeah. And drawing it out? And guess what? She might not love your Instagram. How important is a curated social media feed? So it depends.

The younger you are, the more relevant I think social media is in dating. And if you're going to attach your social media to your dating app profile, then you need to at least have it be decent. You don't need to be posting every day. You don't even need to be posting every week or every month, but you need to think about what the top

upper fold looks like. So that's like, you know, when you open a newspaper and like what's at the top, it's like when you open your Instagram, what's at the top is what she's really going to see. So that needs to look good. And you should treat it like your dating app. All of the things that we talked about that makes a good dating app, quality photos, clear, concise captions, those are all going to play in. So if you have social media, make sure it checks those boxes. But personally, I find it really attractive and impressive when somebody doesn't have social media.

So, and I think a lot of women and men would feel that way. It's like, oh, I actually don't have Instagram or I don't use Instagram. It's like, yeah. Yeah. God, this is like a barn find. Jesus Christ. It's only got a couple of thousand miles on it. Yeah. How can guys, we're talking about avoiding being creepy, the way that they communicate. How can guys be more charismatic and funny? I'm not a funny guy. I don't do the funny thing. You know, that's for someone else.

How can they lean into that sort of playful, teasing, flirting stuff? Yeah. So the first thing I'll say is you don't need to be a comedian to be good at dating.

You don't need to be telling jokes or doing a bit that is going to make her laugh. What you want to be is lightweight, fun, and flirty. So flirt is adult play. So can you be playful with her? Can you tease her about something or tease yourself? Those are easier ways to get the flirtiness going that aren't, oh, I need to think about being funny. And if you really feel like

I want to be funnier. I feel like I'm not good at making people smile or making people laugh. Then my few suggestions are watch more comedy. You will understand a lot about delivery and tone and how comedians make themselves funny because that is a learned skill. It is not something they were born with. Take a comedy class or take an improv class, especially if you're someone who struggles a

with word associations and coming up with something to say, building that muscle by doing improv can be really beneficial.

And it's hard. Like a lot of guys are like, I could never. And it's like, that's all the more reason. Or something like Toastmasters, build that skill. Because dating and just like dating is a learnable skill, just like being funny is a learnable skill. Having good conversations is also a learnable skill, but it takes effort. I haven't done Toastmasters, but I've done a good bit of improv and...

at least in my experience, the opportunity that you get in improv for sort of relinquishing fear of failure. The one that I did every time that you got something wrong, you had to put your hands in the air, bow and say, I failed and everyone applauded. And it was to try and sort of

desensitized that's amazing it was so I failed and then everyone goes oh there we are we failed it's really funny and it it really sort of helps to cast off a lot of that nervous energy does this yes that would translate to approaching correct yeah like it doesn't matter I failed like yeah and whatever um

I love that. One of the best... I can do it with you now, actually. So let's do my favorite. I've never done improv for the record. That's fine. This is from my speech coach, Miles. So this is one of his favorite improv exercises. So...

I'm going to do three phases of this. Okay. First one, you're going to just point around the room at different objects, things. And as you point at them, you're just going to tell me the name of what they are. So you're just going to point at them and you're just going to say the name of them, do it at the pace, whatever you want. All right. Three, two, one. Bread, can, iPad, Chris, camera,

TV, light. Perfect. Okay. Second version. You're going to point at things around the room, but you're not going to say the name of the first thing you point at. And when you point at the second one, you're going to say the name of the first one.

And then when you point at the third one, you're going to say the name of the second one. So you're going to not say the name of the first thing. And you're always going to be one object behind as you're pointing. And I need you to not point in the same, the same things in the same order. Not the same order. You can point at the same thing. I was already like, I got this. No, you can't do it in the same order. Okay. All right. Three, two, one. Camera. Light. I failed. I failed.

That is hard. I was like, I got this. All right. So third one. Now you're going to point around the room at objects and you're going to call them anything in the world that isn't what they are. All right. Three, two, one. Plant, dog, car, basket, TV.

um baby cool okay well done we did it um so what we've done there first one is just straight up description and it's can i get what's in my brain uh in my eyes into brain and then back out of mouth second one's the most difficult ones that's parallel processing you're going around the room and pointing at the things that are there but you're not saying what's in your mind you're saying what was previously in your mind so that's being able to hold on to multiple threads at the

same time and then the final one is just straight up creativity can i point to the thing and do something creative i love that exercise it's so fun you can do it in two minutes and that second one just breaks people's brains yeah and it gets your brain like ticking in a different way that's something i want to practice it's really cool do you feel like as you get better at that game it helps you with parallel thinking in conversation for sure

That's a great strategy. It's fucking cool, isn't it? I'm going to bring that. You can have that one. Yeah. I mean, it's just so it's so much fun to do with with anybody because they immediately go. I've never had to try. Yeah. Why? I mean, if you're going to make your date seem silly. But yeah, you're right. It's being silly on a date is a good thing. That's true. But making the other person feel silly. Maybe you doing it and saying, OK, so I'm going to go first. Yeah. And then showing up. Yeah. Or a second or third date. You can have that one.

Yeah, I love that. I love that as an idea. But the point being that that is showing you just how further, because there's people out there that I've seen do that, that can just go bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, being one behind at all times. It's wild. I'm going to practice. Next time you see me, try me. Vicious. Okay. One of the conversations that I've had a lot on the show over the last few years has been about the sort of loneliness epidemic of men. Obviously, you're dealing with men who are struggling in dating, right?

You've done some research on this. There's a lot of talk about the perils of men and the challenge of modern masculinity and how men are falling behind. And, you know, I've been one of the people that's pushed this. But from your experience, from your research, how much are men struggling with loneliness at the moment? What did the data say? So there is absolutely a large subset of men struggling with loneliness. What I have actually found, though, is it's not

all men. It is certain men in a certain group. And actually the type of men, because I did this research like two years ago, and I have noticed over the years that actually the type of man who works with me isn't necessarily from that lonely bucket. The type of man who comes to a woman and is seeking help in his dating life often has a very robust life outside of dating.

A lot of people assume like, oh, someone who hires a dating coach, he must be like a real loser. And that is absolutely not the case. Most of my clients are successful professionals, have robust social lives, hobbies, lots of friends, family that they are engaged with. They aren't the ones who aren't seeing any friends and family for a month at a time.

And it's just their dating life that they're confused about and they want to level up and match where the rest of their life already is. I would say for men who are really struggling financially,

With loneliness and making friends and leaving their house, that is something that needs to be addressed first and separately than thinking about how am I going to get a woman to join me? Because no woman is going to want to join you on your lonely couch where you never leave six nights a week. So the...

Journey of getting into a relationship begins with getting some friends. Yes. Your dating life is going to be infinitely easier once you have a social circle and a community that you are actively engaged in.

It's wild that this is revolutionary information. Well, it's really sad that we've come so far from that just being the standard. And this goes back to what I was saying about technology. We don't have to have community or social lives to get our baseline needs met, to get our food, to get our pleasure, to get our dopamine.

But I don't think it's good for society. 45% of men say that they see friends less than one times per month. 35% say that they're either unmotivated or have given up on dating. 54% say they'd rather play video games than have sex on a given day. That's terrifying. And that was...

2000 single men in the US. So again, we're selecting for people who may already be low sex drive, maybe the sort of people that are less likely to be dating anyway. And in that same data set, in that same survey, there was a category that I didn't include that was men generally and men in relationships. And it was the single men that were struggling.

The men in relationships saw friends and family more regularly, had interest areas, didn't feel as lonely, were more interested in sex. But it's,

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of, okay, I'm not having sex. I can just masturbate at home watching porn on OnlyFans. That becomes easier. It now is one step harder to get out of the house the next day and go work for it when I have this at my fingertips at home where that wasn't an option.

decades ago you know even taking back one decade definitely two or three decades like if you wanted to get laid you had to go out and do it like sure maybe you go even if you had to go to the video store and rent like a vhs porno at least you're out of the house at least you're to interact with somebody yeah man i think a lot of young men are being sedated out of the state of seeking reproductive seeking behavior that they would have done previously uh

The video games versus sex thing is wild, but I suppose that for so many guys now, there's just this big fear around it. And like you say, guys that are in relationships, they see their family more, they see their friends more, they're less likely to say that they're lonely. But that doesn't mean that getting into a relationship is the solution to those things. You don't know which direction the arrow of causality is going here. And usually you need those things to get in a relationship with a quality woman. Because...

Yeah, you're not going to, first of all, like I said before, meet a quality woman if you're sitting at home on your couch. And then two, you're not going to have anything to talk about with her if you're not building that community. Like the community and the social circle is a byproduct of having interests and investments that you do outside of your home and that you're passionate and interested in. Yeah, because even the friends thing, I think people presume...

They know that there's a kind of pre-selection thing going on with dating, that people aren't obligated to just get into a relationship with you because you're there. But the same thing is true of friendships too, that there's been periods in my life where even though I've had tons and tons of status, I basically haven't ever not had status since I've been an adult because I went club promo into reality TV, into the podcasting thing.

But there was definitely periods where the sort of people I wanted to be friends with wouldn't want to be friends with me because I had nothing to talk to them about. Because even though the things that they were interested in, I was also interested in, I hadn't actually curated that area of my life at all. I just had this, yeah, well, you know, like, I'm sure that I'll be accepted or whatever. And it's like, no, it's not. So you need to work hard together.

to get friends and you know working hard at anything sucks it's way easier to not have to work hard and to then rail against the world about why it's unfair about why friends aren't for me i'm going to be a lone ranger sigma male fucking alpha wolf and it's like no dude you're gonna die soon and you have people on the internet who are saying you're right for that and you have your little eco chamber that are of people who agree with you so you actually don't feel like

so alone or so isolated in that view you're like yeah look at all these other guys all these other people feel the same way and they're just as lonely and sick and sedated misery loves its company how much can guys turn it around in your experience because people are coming to you we've just said lots of people that are lonely i have an absolute shit ton of sympathy for the guys out there that are struggling i've done 50 episodes on the show that are talking about this what i don't have sympathy for are guys that don't believe that it can improve and i have

active distaste for guys that are encouraging other guys to believe that they can't improve it. Like there's a special place in hell reserved for people who are nihilistic and convince others to be the same. Yeah. How much can guys who are, I, Blaine, I heard you on this podcast and I really like it. And I feel like I want to get friends. I want to get interest. Then I want to get friends. Then we're going to get a relationship and I'm going to have a life.

How much can the person that thinks it's hopeless turn it around in your experience? It is 100% possible if you are willing to do the work and get outside your comfort zone. This is not something that improves because you watch a seminar on it and you watch my course and you read all the books. That is not what makes the difference. Are you willing to get outside your comfort zone, take action, try and fail, try again?

We can do a 180. We can transform your life. And most of my clients often are coming to me with a pretty good base. They already have their interests and they already have some friends, but not everyone. Some come to me really much at square one and it's,

I need help with all of this. And we can do that. Everything I'm teaching about approaching women and talking to people is absolutely applicable to making friends. And, you know, sometimes what some people need is a cheerleader and to be held accountable. And

taking a course or working with a coach helps them being encouraged, I suppose, if you've got no one who's telling you well done for going and doing the thing you said you were going to do, as opposed to just yourself who already thinks that you're a piece of shit. But there's definitely been times, you know, it's so funny because I think I have personally the psychological makeup of somebody who

would be and could be incredibly isolated and lonely if it wasn't for the fact that kind of the situations I've ended up in have kept me moving and dragged me out of that. That's interesting. There's a lot of pushback on the internet. I started talking about bullying in school about two years ago, a year and a half ago. And so many people seem to be incapable of imagining somebody who is now

achieved some level of worldly success as ever having had any setbacks. And this guy, this guy, I know, like you can tell that this guy was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Like show me that you didn't have any problems without telling me you didn't have any problems. I'm like, bro, my childhood, like,

was fucking rough, like really rough, especially in socially, especially in school. And it took a long time for me to get rid. I'm still in therapy, unpacking the assumptions I have about myself, the story that I tell myself, but I can see, and this is why I'm always a little bit torn because even if it doesn't appear like it from the outside,

I really genuinely understand the psychology of the guys that are stuck in the house, that do not have a particularly high sense of self-worth, that are scared of going out and making friends, that do feel like they've been rejected by society because for so long that was me. And yet, was it a little while ago? And yet, did a bit of a glow up and some time in the gym maybe rip me out of that? Was I fortunate to sit next to a guy that made me a club promoter in my first seminar at university? All of these things, yeah. But a lot of that came from

Luck, some of it came from sort of predisposition, but a ton of it came from fucking agency and me doing the work. And I think it's often discounted. Anybody that has like looks or success or money or whatever, well, it must be nice, easy for him to say. And it immediately discounts all of these things. But I don't think that it's true. And I really, really try as hard as I can to sell a message to young dudes that luck is,

I've been in a very, very similar position to you for a very long time. The world's forgotten about me. No one cares. It's hard. It sucks. I don't need anybody else. Things are too scary. It just doesn't feel safe to me. And yet...

There are like the bar is set so low because so many people feel the same thing that you do. And so few are prepared to get over it. And I understand why you're unprepared to get over it. I know. So you don't need to be, it's like that thing about, um, if you're being chased by an alligator, you don't need to run faster than the alligator. You just need to run faster than the guy that's next to you.

And it's kind of the same as that. So few people are going to be prepared to take control, to go and do something that makes a good change in their life. And that can be you. Like that could be you tomorrow. Tomorrow you could get up. You could not hit snooze. You could go to the gym. You could go for a walk in the morning. You could join the local run club, which is fucking free. You could listen to podcasts that you think make you better. You could get...

the Audible subscription, you can switch out for some fucking streaming service subscription that you've got and you can start listening to books and improve yourself. It is such a blessing to live in a time now where you have the best of every single human that's ever existed at the touch of a button and you can use it and tomorrow make yourself better, make your world better. It's fantastic. And that's why

I'm always so torn between sympathy for the people that are struggling and then this desire to just say, bro, fucking step it up. Yeah, get it together. Because no one else is going to do it. No one else is going to come and save you. No one's going to come and drag you out of your pit of hopeless self-pity. You're going to have to do it or you're going to stay there. Which one do you want? Yeah, you have two options. And the

And the choice is really yours. And I think it's way easier for people to look at you and say, he got lucky. He had a silver spoon because that means you didn't take action and you don't, they don't need to have agency because they didn't get lucky and they didn't have the silver spoon. So it's much easier to just assume everyone else had it better than you. And you are miserable because of your circumstances than to look at yourself and say, I can change my circumstances.

There's a quote from Paki McCormick where he says, the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince you that the pessimists are the good guys. And it's fucking true. I don't want to be around those people. I haven't for a long time. And yet I see it draw into myself. We had this idea last year called The Lonely Chapter, which is,

when you've started to change, you're thinking differently, you've maybe done a bit of personal development, you've got dreams and goals and aspirations for yourself. So you're different to your existing set of friends, but you're not yet sufficiently developed that you're at the level of the friends that you're going to have. And you're stuck in this sort of no man's land between two. You can't have conversations with your old friends without regressing back to a person that you really kind of don't want to be anymore. And yet you haven't

you've managed to cultivate the new friend groups of the more developed person that you're going to turn into. And, you know, you spend a lot of time stuck in this lonely chapter, stuck in this sort of middle. And it's so easy for you to turn back, just go back there. And there's a scene in The Matrix where Neo has been met by Trinity and she opens the door and he's about to get out and walk down it.

And she says, you don't want to go down that road, Neo. You've been down that road and you know where it leads. And that's what I see when I think about people turning back. When I think about guys and girls turning back down a road that they already know. The familiar. I'm going to go back to drinking on a weekend with the boys, getting a bag in, spending all of my money on one lad's holiday per year. I'm not going to have any bigger dreams for myself because it's scary. It's uncomfortable. It makes me feel concerned about my future. No one else around me is doing it. I'm scared that I'm going to be alone. It's like, bro, you're already alone. You

You're already alone because the people that are around you don't get you. They don't genuinely care about you. They're just happy for you to wallow in your own pity and stagnation along with them. And

Even if they're not doing it because they want to hold you back, they don't have the same dreams that you do. And this isn't a value judgment. The people that are happy with a simple life where you don't have to have travel and ambition and a big company and whatever, whatever it is that you think you need in order to make yourself happy. There's maybe an argument to be made that the most simple person has the better life and that they're actually a superior human to the rest of us. They probably are. But if you are not that person, there is this permanent ambient little devil on your shoulder saying,

You're not doing enough. You could be better. This isn't the life that's made for you. You should be doing more. And in my experience, that voice won't go away. It can only be satisfied by you actually trying to do things and make changes. And this comes for getting friends, for improving yourself, for losing weight, for getting into a relationship. There are people out there for whom the asexual community, it's, is it the 1st of June today? No. No.

First of June? Well, my watch is definitely wrong because it says it's the 2nd of June, but I think it's the 31st. 31st of May. First day of Pride Month tomorrow. The LGBTQIA, asexual, there's some people out there, but it's way fewer than people want to make out. And the AI girlfriends aren't going to come sufficiently quickly, and I don't think they're going to make you satisfied. So yeah, rant over, but I think there is an awful lot that guys can do to lift themselves out of their...

whether self-imposed or societally imposed. Absolutely. I think that was a great rant and well said. And I think a lot of guys are thinking, wow, that sounds so hard to lift myself up and to get into shape and to get a girlfriend and to have a better job. Like start small.

If you're not doing anything today, just go on a 30-minute walk every single day without your phone. Do that for 30 days and see how you feel. Just wake up half an hour earlier every single day and get sunlight into your eyes. Just chat to the woman at the cashier at the grocery store and see if you can make her smile or laugh. Make her day. Tell her what you like about her appearance and watch her light up.

Taking these small, baby, but very important steps should not be overlooked or underappreciated. That's where you have to start. And that is okay. You know, you didn't wake up here in this chair interviewing people with perfect lighting and millions of people watching. You started, you know, talking to people on the internet and... Accidentally turned it into a career. Exactly. Do smart guys struggle with dating? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Why? In my experience, a lot of my clients are very smart. They're very analytical. They have high IQs and maybe not high EQs. And that's often why that translates to struggling with dating. They're overthinking everything. Rather than just saying the authentic thing that comes into their mind, they're worried, is she going to like me if I say that? Should I say that? Is this going to impress her? And then two seconds have passed and she's looking at them waiting for a response and

And then they just blurt out, you know, something that they think is going to be agreeable. So they are consistently overthinking. And oftentimes they're really good at forming intellectual connections so they can talk about work and what they read or saw on the news. But they aren't forming the sexual or emotional connections, which is a totally different skill. How can smart guys develop those two skills?

with practice and starting small. So it depends on where you feel like you're struggling, but oftentimes it's just becoming aware of it. When I'll talk to smart guys who are struggling with dating and I say, hey, I bet you're really good at forming intellectual connections and you can talk about A, B, and C, but I bet you oftentimes hear, I didn't feel chemistry, you're not progressing things sexually, and the sexual and emotional connections are missing. They're like,

Yeah, I never thought of it that way because to them, they love having the intellectual connection. They love speaking intelligently and deeply about topics that they are passionate about. And that might be really nice. And the woman might view them as, hey, he's a really smart, interesting guy. But I didn't feel the romantic vibe. So just being aware of it first and that there is a missing romantic vibe is often the first step.

The low-hanging fruit of, okay, let's take this from a meeting to a date is what I touched on before is just inserting physical touch. Creating the familiarity of being physical is a huge jump from not keeping your hands by your sides and not touching her at all. Mm-hmm.

So can you make her feel comfortable? Can you make her, you know, maybe you have your hand like lightly on her lower back as she's getting to the seat and she's kind of like, oh, like he touched my lower back. Like that is flirting without saying anything. And that has to be incorporated. So again, starting small, incorporating that. Then being playful.

Can you tease her? Can you say things that are a little bit silly? Can you play a game that makes you look silly and gets both of you laughing rather than just having a serious conversation? And maybe it's a good conversation and you're debating the merits of, you know, something that you actually are both passionate about. But it's not something that's getting her feeling like light and girly and like she wants to be feminine and, you know, flirt with you. That idea that especially smart guys

over-optimized for intellectualism or for kind of clever conversations. Charlie, again, from Charisma on Command, totally saw me, like just fucking x-rayed through my soul when he talked about how lots of people that like having

interesting conversations and spend a bit of time thinking, they always assume that the right answer to a question is the correct answer, as opposed to purposefully saying something that's wrong or Russell Brand. Russell, I've heard that you've got a sex addiction. Is that right? I don't know if it's right, but it's definitely enjoyable.

It's the wrong answer, but it's actually better than the correct answer. Way better. So much better than the correct answer. So, you know, Charlie was teaching me. He said that if you ever walk out of the house and it's particularly extreme weather, rainy, hot, cold, just say whatever the opposite is. It's the shittest dad joke ever. It's the shittest dad joke ever.

it's almost guaranteed to get a bit of a giggle. Is it lame? Yeah. But by saying it, you know it's lame. It's so lame that you know it's lame. And the same thing goes for somebody asking a question like George, my friend who's out here currently in Austin, is so great at when there's a game of tennis going. So conversation is kind of like a game of tennis. You hit the ball back and forth in a linear manner.

there's a question and there's an answer and there's another question and there's an answer and it's back and forth like this. And he just grabs the ball and pulls it up into the sky. It's something completely separate or it's a callback to something from half an hour ago. And it always rips me out of it. And it always makes me think about that Charlie Hooper thing, which is, oh, fuck, like that was better. His incorrect answer was better than the correct answer to this thing. So I just think that, you know, purposefully being

Yeah.

oh, wow, like this is a guy that can do both. Yeah, yeah. And why that works is you're making her feel something. This isn't, she's having an emotion outside of what she was already feeling. She can have a, like probably a nice conversation with just about anyone, you know, if she's a good conversationalist. But if you're giving her,

like an emotion i don't like love calling it an emotional spite because that sounds like kind of pickup artisty but that that is some there's something to be said for that that's what you're going for you want her to feel things when she's talking to you or when she's with you and that might be because you're putting your hand on her leg or because you're saying something silly or goofy that throws her for a loop it's not just what she's expecting saying something or doing something that she's not expecting is actually very attractive i suppose as well that it

How many conversations does she have with the guy on the airplane, with the person at work that's married or whatever, that stays within the confines of, let me tell you about why Kyoto wasn't bombed during World War II. That's perfectly fine. The sort of

that are crossed where that's less common are the sort of playful teasing of people watching, commenting on the way that a dog looks like its owner, whatever it might be. That's much rarer. And I suppose it helps to separate you as a guy out from all of the other dudes. The ones that aren't interested in dating, the ones that are interested in dating but aren't as interesting or as clever or whatever. Exactly. She's going on dates with... She's probably getting drinks and going on dates with...

multiple other guys, maybe even that week, especially if you met her on a dating app, and she's probably having the same conversations, what she does for work, where she's from, whether she likes the weather. So how can you incorporate topics or themes into a date, either because you're planning a unique date that's like

That's what I like about a walking date. You are going to have things to see and talk about that will spark conversation outside of the mundane. We're sitting across from each other at a bar, sipping a drink. There's not anything unique happening around us. So we're left to either have the same conversation you always have or it falls on the guy to know. Hmm.

come up with something different. If you feel like you struggle to have different interesting conversations, a walk can be helpful in facilitating that. A statue, look at that bird over there, et cetera, et cetera. That funny looking dog. Yes.

Yeah.

Something that throws guys is women care a lot less about what you look like than you care about what she looks like. So yes, your appearance matters somewhat. You can't look like a slob. You need to be dressed appropriately. You want to be in decent shape. But whether you have a six-pack or a dad bod, you can do equally well with women if you're hitting on the stuff that they do want. So talking about what is important to them, what they do want, they want a guy who is

shows that he can be a provider. And that doesn't necessarily mean like you have a big paycheck and you drive a nice car, but it means that you have ambition and drive and interest to get things done. So I talk about, I tell my clients, when you're on a date, you want to talk about your trajectory because it doesn't actually matter where you are today. She cares where you are going. This is why people who are in medical school and, you know,

star athletes are treated like they're in the NBA or they are doctors because that is where their trajectory says they are heading. It's the starving guitarist that's sleeping on his friend's couch, but he's kind of talented. And in future, he may become Ed Sheeran. Yeah. And if you can speak to that and your goals, then you're almost as good as there because that's really what she's looking for. And this goes back to having those investment areas and hobbies that we talked about,

You being dedicated to going to run club every morning or even hosting dinner for your friends every Sunday morning, whatever it is that are your hobbies that you've developed, this shows that you have perseverance, that you care about things. That is also showing her that you can fulfill your promises. And this is why online dating is so different for men and women because

A man can look at a woman's profile and he can tell a lot about what he needs to know about her, at least enough to go on a date or to sleep with her by looking at her profile. And a woman cannot do the same with a man. She can exchange dozens of messages with him and still not know if he's the type of guy she wants to go on a date with because the traits that she's looking for in a man aren't discernible from photos and bio.

She wants to see so much more about how he's going to be in the future, how he's going to provide, how he's going to make her feel. I talk a lot about women want three things. I break this down into three things that I then break down subsequently much further. But women want status, which we sort of just talked about. They want to feel desired and they want to have fun. And if you are missing one of these three things, you probably aren't going to be a romantic partner for her. So if you're high status...

and you're having fun, but you're not appropriately expressing your desire, like the romantic side, she might think you're an awesome guy and even really compelling, but she's not going to want to sleep with you. She's not going to be romantically interested in you. Or if you're flirty and fun and you are telling her, giving her the desire point, and you're having a good time with her, but she doesn't see that you have status and that you're going places,

She might entertain you in the moment, but she's also not going to see you as long-term potential. So it's really building those three things distinctly and being able to then deliver them on dates and with women you're spending time with that results in getting the results you want with women and having your pick, ideally, of women that you're going out with that want to pursue things with you as a man. Are there any other traits that guys think women care about that are overpricing?

Their job, I think it's a lot less about what your job actually is and it's how you talk about it. So if you're talking about being an accountant and it's fine, it's whatever it pays the bills, that sounds lame. But you could have the exact same job. But if you frame it in a way that I do the financials for a company that changes the world.

Even if you don't like your job that much, that's like, oh, damn. Okay, he's doing important stuff. So it's less about what your job actually is and more about how you talk about it and how you feel about it matters too. Why are you spending eight hours a day doing something you don't like? That strikes me as a guy who doesn't have agency over his life and isn't taking control and building the life he wants. I think a good...

get out of jail free card there because a lot of people might think well I don't do a cool job and I don't necessarily like it my boss is a dick and I don't want to lie you've said that I need to be authentic so I can't pretend but if you were to say something like so I can't lie

My boss is a dick and I work really hard at the thing that I do. I'm an accountant at this big four accountancy firm. I don't think that I'm going to be there forever because my dream is to away you go. So what I'm doing at the moment is I'm accumulating a bunch of cash within the next

18 months or so, my plan is to... Okay, well, this is a journey. And this is someone that shows... Initiative. One of the things, I guess, about this kind of sucks that I work for a boss that's a bit of a prick, but I'm actually really proud of myself for getting through this period. And I guess if I go into business with someone who's a prick in future, I'm going to be well set. What you're learning from it. Yeah. Or it's great because it's paying the bills right now. And it allows me to spend...

extra time with my dog on hikes and we're trying to summit you know these seven peaks this year even if it's not professionally related like what is the reason that you're there and then I would challenge you if you if you really can't find a positive in it then you need to do some soul searching and rearrange rearrange you know well that's what you said about um

Improving your life. Building a life you're genuinely proud of. Yeah, yeah. It's not all just marketing. There is product in that too. And the delivery. The way you said it, you know, my boss is a prick, but with like a smile on your face, you're kind of playful with him. It's like, my boss is such a dick. It's very different where you're like, you're angry and you're letting it affect your emotions. But if you just let it roll off your back, it's all about the delivery. Hell yeah. Blaine Anderson, ladies and gentlemen. Blaine, I appreciate you. I really liked the fact that you were a fish teaching...

Fisherman how to fish or whatever it's called. Where should people go? They want to check out all of the things. Yeah, you can find me across all social media, Dating by Blaine, my website, datingbyblaine.com. Any of those get in touch. I would love to help you start meeting women you're excited about. And baking bread. And yeah, baking or bread by Blaine also. Find me on Instagram there. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Get away. Get off it.