Dark Triad, Romantic Partner Selection, and Dating Advice w/ Rob Henderson

Hey, Upstream listeners. Today we're releasing a conversation I had with author Rob Henderson on the state of modern romance. We discuss evolutionary psychology, pickup artist culture, dating advice, and much more. Please enjoy the episode and feel free to drop a comment letting us know if you like this kind of discussion.

Rob, thanks for coming on the podcast. Excited to chat with you.

Yeah, thanks, Erik. Great to be here.

So Rob, you write a lot about the intersection of evolutionary psychology to explain questions in relationships like why do women like dark triad men? You know, how do dating apps change the, the sort of, you know, dating marketplace and how to think about picking the right romantic partner? How did you get interested in these questions as it relates to evolutionary psychology and what do you think evolutionary psychology has to offer.

Well, I got interested in that intersection, evolutionary psychology and modern dating, probably because around the time that I was studying psychology, I was in my, let's see, I was in my mid-20s. You know, there's a whole backstory to that. And I think you and I have talked about this on a previous episode, why I got to college so late, but I arrived in undergrad. I was age 25, majored in psychology, studied a lot of evopsyche, grad school as well, and my PhD. And so through, you know, my mid-20s, late 20s, that's also the period that coincides with, you know, when people, young men, young people in general devote a lot of effort to dating and to becoming attractive and wondering why these sex differences exist, why we like what we like. And it was kind of a relief in a way, I think, when I, when I started digging into the empirical research, reading a lot of books, listening to interviews with evolutionary psychologists and other scholars that there is, you know, scientific explanations for why men like what they like, why women like what they like. You know, of course there's a lot of overlap and we all generally tend to like a lot of the same things, but there are pronounced differences as well. And so that was what got me initially started was sort of, sort of that personal experience. But then also, you know, I just find people endlessly fascinating. And so digging into how mating efforts explain so many other facets of human behavior, from jealousy to homicide, to envy, to insecurity and anxiety around social status and those kinds of things, things that you would think might be kind of far removed from romance and sexual attraction, but a lot of those things are actually intertwined. So that was what got me initially interested. And then, yeah, more recently I've been, you know, I've written a piece about You know, how people choose romantic partners, you know, how to go about it in a, in a wise way. And right now there's this ongoing discussion with the, the, the shooter of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Luigi Mangione. And I found that that was a unique opportunity to write about something I'd been meaning to explore for a while. And maybe you and I can get into it in this conversation now or a little bit later about, you know, what is it about violent and aggressive men, men who score highly on the dark triad personality traits. That seem to be so uniquely appealing to women, especially young women. And so, yeah, I just think take an evolutionary psychology lens to a lot of these seemingly mystifying behaviors and it's really helpful.

Let's get into Luigi because I think it'll be a good segue into other topics. I mean, if he wasn't as good looking as, as he, as he was, or if he didn't go to Penn, you know, would he, would he be as, as attractive? Or, or when you explain the phenomenon of why women are attracted to violent men?

Well, so obviously his looks help, no doubt about it. He's, you know, he's just a good-looking guy. But I, I suggest in this Substack post that I think above and beyond that, his murderousness actually added a little extra something to, to his appeal, why women were especially intrigued by him. And so my suggestion here is that even if Luigi Mangione was a little less good-looking, but he committed the exact same act, I think that, you know, the interest with him would be greater than if he was just a normal person who hadn't committed the act. Or if he was still physically the same, if he looked the same but he had never committed murder, he would still get some romantic interest just based on his looks alone. But the fact that he committed this, this shocking act, this, this violent act, actually may have boosted his appeal among some, some women. And so I used this event again to explore this idea of, you know, why are women attracted to men who are high in The dark triad, this personality construct in personality psychology. So this is narcissism, which is entitled self-importance, psychopathy, which is sort of callousness and cruelty and impulsivity, and Machiavellianism, which is kind of like strategic exploitation, using duplicity as a means to get what you want. And there is a lot of interesting research around the dark triad, and at least for first impressions and for short-term mating encounters, men who are high in these traits do seem to do better than average. And so, so why is this? What is it about violent men in particular that women find appealing? Well, I spent a good deal of time over the last, well, let's see, you know, I read Richard Wrangham's book, The Goodness Paradox. So Richard Wrangham was an evolutionary biologist at Harvard. I read Frans de Waal, who just passed away, I think earlier last year, but he was a primatologist who wrote, you know, endless streams of papers and a lot of interesting books. Both of them are well worth looking into if you're interested in, I mean, human behavior and psychology, evolutionary psychology in general. And, you know, I'd also read Diane Fossey and Sarah Hrdy. And anyway, I could name all these people. But anyway, basically my impression from all of this work is that if you look at chimpanzee troops, gorilla harems, our nearest evolutionary relatives, There's a lot of infanticide, you know, for gorillas in particular. A gorilla female is more likely than not to lose at least one infant to an infanticidal attack, typically by a gorilla male. And what happens often in these cases is that a male will come in. This is— this goes for chimpanzees as well, that if a man or a male, you know, murders the infant of a female, then she will often frequently experience arousal and then immediately start to sort of pair bond with that new male. And so if you read the accounts of primatologists and evolutionary scientists, they suggest that our nearest evolutionary relatives to chimpanzees and orangutans and gorillas and so on, their mating systems were much more similar to our existing primate cousins rather than modern human mating systems. And so it's possible that for very early humans and pre-humans, that was basically how things were set up as well, where there was a lot of infanticide going on and females who would attach to violent males. But why is this the case? So why would females respond in that way? Why would they immediately experience some sort of arousal or this longing to, to mate with this male who just murdered their, their infant? And the suggestion here is that the reason for this is You know, if they were to mate with this violent male, the likelihood of their infant being killed is dramatically reduced because he's violent. And he's especially going to be likely to be violent against any other, other infant that isn't his. But if it's his infant, if it's his child, he's going to be less likely to murder it. And so evolution would select for females who would mate with violent males. Those genes get selected for, they pass on. And so my suggestion here is that there's probably something similar going on with some Human females as well. There's this intrigue, this appeal when women see violent males. And this may be kind of an evolutionary misfiring in the modern world where you see women sending letters to serial killers. Or, you know, in that piece I cite, a lot of women, you know, when, when, when The Sopranos was still on the air, there was this ongoing discussion of how it was possible that James Gandolfini was considered a sex symbol, even though he was bald, he was overweight. He wasn't conventionally handsome by any means. And, you know, if, if he were just a nonviolent, law-abiding patio furniture salesman, women would not have responded to him in the same way. But the fact that he is a mafia boss and you see him in the show capable of extreme acts of violence and brutality, that was for a lot of women, they were perplexed by their own attraction to this man. And they even within that show, they depict that, that confusion in Dr. Melfi. So Tony's A psychiatrist, she herself expresses her own confusion at her interest in Tony Soprano, despite how he looks and how he behaves. And on paper, he's a horrible, unappealing man, but then you meet him in person and you see how he is and you're, you understand what he's capable of. And, you know, there are things that we want and things we want to want, and those 2 things aren't always, they don't always coincide. So, you know, me, you know, obviously I think this is true that most women do want Men who are nice, who are kind, who treat them well, and so on. And that's what women want to want as well. But you know, sometimes there are things that we are intrigued by or we want that we know isn't necessarily good for us or whatever. And I think that for a lot of women, they respond to violent men in this way. And so I think Luigi Mangione was basically like this kind of example of this. Of you know, it's it's it's a bit. I guess not, not as straightforward as, as like the Tony Soprano case or something, because he's already physically good looking. So I made those stipulations that yes, he's good looking, but even above and beyond that, there's something about what he did that was extra interesting. And this is one evolutionary explanation for why men are more violent on average than women, more aggressive, more impulsive, more risk-taking, and so on, is because throughout our evolutionary history, those traits were often sexually favored. They were rewarded.

Yeah. Is it, is it accurate to say that if men are doing something that is high status to other men, it's also likely it'll be high status to other women too? Or is that not a sort of perfect— Hmm.

That's interesting. You know, there, there is, there's a great deal of, of, of work on this question. And the answer seems to be yes, that when men, especially if you look at sort of small-scale hunter-gatherer societies, A lot of men in these communities will organize sporting contests or games in which young men in particular can display their physical prowess. And inevitably the men who perform the best in these kinds of contests and sporting games, they, well, they tend to have more sexual partners, more numbers of children and so on. There's, there's a great book called Manhood in the Making by the anthropologist David Gilmore. And he writes about the Mehinaku. This was an indigenous tribe in a remote part of Brazil. And so this community, the Mahinaku, they regard themselves as a nonviolent society because they don't actually go into conflict with other neighboring tribes. They go out of their way to, to be peaceful. But within this community, despite the fact that they don't go to war with other communities, within the community, they organize wrestling matches among the young men. And if you refuse to participate as a young man in these wrestling matches, everyone else makes fun of you. They mock you. They tease you. And during the matches, often the participants who are the most vocal and enthusiastic, people who are cheering it on the most, tend to be young women. They enjoy watching these matches because basically it's a, it's a kind of a, it's a way to assess physical ability. It's a way to kind of, you know, from, from that kind of cold evolutionary perspective, it's a way to assess genetic quality. You know, how physically capable are you?

Are you tough?

Are you, how are your reflexes? How smart are you? How clever are you? You know, how are you, are you able to defeat someone who's larger than you, for example? And how do you do that? And so all this is to say that, and this is, this is also the case in the modern world too. I mean, if you look at sporting events, I mean, I was just at a Knicks game this past weekend. And you know, it's just, it's funny. You study enough evolutionary psychology, then you kind of see these star athletes who, you know, objectively you strip away all the bells and whistles and these are just guys. throwing a ball around, but you see, you know, they have cheerleaders there who are cheering them on in the audience. You see groupies, you see women who are intrigued by these guys. And we've kind of set up in our own society, in our large modern industrial society, we have the same kinds of games and contests, not just in sports, of course, but in work and occupations and all these other kinds of things. If you look at rates of marriage, men in the top socioeconomic brackets are far more likely to get married, far more likely to have children compared to men who are sort of lower down the ladder. So women do seem to like men who are admired and respected by other men.

Yeah.

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And so, you think about your Luigi story. I was asking, you know, in terms of women liking men who are more violent, the question I was going to ask is like, what is the takeaway for men? Because of course, you know, men aren't going to, you know, be, you know, listeners aren't going to be, you know, violent as a way to pick up women. But, and I want to segue this to a broader topic, which is a backdrop I'll set, which is, you know, in the late 2000s, there was this book called The Game, which chronicled the rise of of sort of pickup artists, i.e., these nerds who, you know, studied evolutionary psychology and other topics and tried to take insights along with their own independent research and create a community around sort of, you know, getting better at picking up women either for short-term or long-term sort of relationships. And I haven't really heard about that community in over a decade or so. And I'm curious, just maybe 10 to 15 years out, like, was that community successful or were those tools successful? And I think, were those tools successful in the ways that they wanted? Because there was always a question of, did that attract the type of person? And this is— we can do a segue later to your post about how to pick the right partner. Did that attract an insecure person, or did that attract the type of person that they want in a wife, in a partner? And so anyways, there's sort of a few questions there, but I'm curious if you could riff on some of these topics.

Yeah, I mean, so I read The Game The Neil Strauss book. Yeah. I mean, I thought it was interesting. I think by the time I got to it, it was probably a little out of date or whatever. I think I read it in like 2011 or 2012. And my understanding was like, that was like right around the time that a lot of those tricks or whatever were kind of, they, they became too mainstream or something. But I thought like the idea underlying it, well, it was actually a pretty hopeful message of self-improvement of, you know, if you're kind of an awkward, like socially awkward, unsuccessful guy with women that you can actually physically transform yourself and mentally transform yourself and become a more attractive person. You know, I guess, I guess like there, there was all the gimmicks and stuff, which, which probably wasn't ideal, but the sort of underlying, like sort of deep transformation, I think that there's something there that a lot of guys could, could benefit from. You know, I, I talked to, to my friend Richard Hanania about this and he suggested that that was actually a more hopeful period because now, like whatever that was, the, the, the PUA stuff. That seems to have evolved now. It was like PUA, red pill, and now you just see like this black pill stuff and incel stuff where it used to be like, okay, so you're kind of a loser and you're not getting any girls and whatever, but if you work really hard and, you know, get over your fear of rejection and talk to women, that, you know, eventually someone will, will like you. And now it seems to be, you know, this very bleak, like no matter what you do, You're never gonna be attractive, so just give up. And that's like a very defeatist message. And I think like, you know, maybe they just didn't do a good enough job of teaching men. I mean, I think like the fact that that was even necessary in the first place probably speaks to something, you know, a potential issue in our culture that young guys had to sort of seek out these weird underground communities in the first place just to get a girlfriend. I think what may have happened too is that a lot of the guys who were drawn, there could be a selection effect here playing out. And again, you know, like you said, I'm Just riffing. One thing that could have happened is, so guys discover, they read The Game, they go out, meet girls, whatever. I think most guys aren't interested in being a pickup artist. I think most guys just want a girlfriend. And so they try out these tricks and they follow the advice and everything else. They meet someone who likes them, they get into a relationship, and then they exit out of that whole scene. And so then gradually dwindles down. And so who's left after, you know, multiple iterations of that? You have guys who are kind of Whatever, like sociopathic guys who love the, the chase and love racking up numbers. And then you have another group who were never able to get anyone. They approached a bunch of women and something was off about them, or they didn't self-improve enough or in the right way. And then they transition into being some blackpilled incel or something. And they say, well, I approached whatever, 100 women and none of them liked me. So none of this stuff actually works. And then, you know, then the sociopathic types, they approach 100 women and sleep with whatever, 15 or 20 of them. And they're like, this is great. And everyone else just sort of self-selects out and exit out of that, you know, that whole scene. So I think that's, that may have been what happened. And then in addition to that, there's the, you know, the whole dating app phenomenon where I don't think it's that common anymore to meet people in that way that Neil Strauss describes in that book of going out to nightclubs or bars or whatever. And You know, doing your cold approach openers. I think now it's, it's more and more about the apps, although I think there's, you know, there's this whole idea of dating app fatigue, and I think a lot of people are, are sort of getting burned out on those too. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting. And yeah, it's just, it's, it's sad that like there, we, we have, I think, lost a bit of hope from, from that era from 10 or 15 years ago.

Yeah, that's really interesting. The, I remember there was this dialogue either in the book or, or some adjacent sort of related text where someone is asking Neil or one of the sort of coaches something like, hey, when can I stop, you know, using game and just be myself?

Okay.

He's like, this is your new self now. And I, I, I, I say that to ask a question of like, you know, when you learn about evolutionary psychology, but you also kind of want to be a good person and kind and nice and sweet and Or maybe that's who you are naturally. How do you sort of reconcile that? Or how do you, how do you not get blackpilled? How does it inform one's, one's perspective or how should it inform one's, one's perspective? Huh.

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I think, I think, you know, you kind of go through this cycle where initially you're naive and, and then yeah, maybe you do just generally act nice because that's kind of how you're trained and socially conditioned to just be like a good, nice person. And then you learned a little bit of evolutionary psychology, or you learned the kind of warped caricatured version of it you see in social media and whatever. And then you maybe become bitter. But I think if you've, you know, if you read the actual research and you study it long enough and you're not looking to have your own priors confirmed of, you know, maybe you get rejected a few times and then you just decide to write off half population, and now you're reading papers and you're trying to like search for evidence that they are, you know, women are bad or men are bad or whatever. And then, you know, if you, if you don't do that, if you just read it as it is, what it actually says, the good and the bad, I think you end up like the way that I, you know, I came out of it just saying like, oh, people are, you know, we're all human beings. We're all flawed in some ways. And there are sort of evolutionary adaptive reasons for this. But then on the other hand, you know, like we, we have existed throughout the millennia. We've pair bonded. We've had children. We, you know, the only reason, like, you know, human, an individual human, if you compare it to any other mammal, is pathetic, you know, physically unimpressive. And yet we've been able to survive. And, you know, basically we're, there's this great line in, I think it's in How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker. Where he says, you know, he's riffing on this, like, you know, if you compare a human to a tiger, you know, we have no claws, no fangs, we run slower, we have less, you know, muscle mass per whatever, per unit of weight or whatever. Like overall, you know, you compare physically a human to a tiger, we are nothing. And yet humans are responsible for the fate of tigers and not the other way around. And he's talking, of course, about our cognitive ability, our brainpower, but also the ability, our ability to cooperate. And get along with one another and trust one another and to build communities. And you know, I think like there is a hopeful message in that too. You know, the only reason you're here is is because of multiple thousands of generations of trust and cooperation and pair bonding and romance and trust and all those kinds of things too. So there are kind of you know you can you can approach human nature from both perspectives. But I think you know the the fact that The fact that people are, I think a lot of young guys are kind of overeager to like look into the darkness, maybe, you know, I think they would, they would do well to also look at, at, you know, the other side of it as well.

Yeah. And so let's segue this into picking a romantic partner and partner selection in general. What have some of the most more interesting findings you found on that or some of the theories you've developed there?

Yeah, well, I wrote this long piece on called How to Choose a Romantic Partner in my Substack. This must have been, was this like earlier this year? I think actually. And I think this, this was specifically aimed at straight guys, you know, which I think is mostly my audience on Substack. It's like mostly, mostly youngish straight guys who are interested in this topic. And, but it, but a lot of it is applicable to relationships in general. And, you know, so one of the things I point out, there's this, you know, there are kind of 2 ideas as a first pass, how to go about seeking a romantic partner. So one common adage is opposites attract, and then the other adage is birds of a feather flock together. And which one of those kinds, kinds of common adages is most likely to be true? And if you look at the psychology of assortative mating, it's, it's actually the case that people who are similar to one another are more likely to, to, to enter relationships. They're more likely to get married. What's interesting though, is that the specific attributes people are similar on are not necessarily ones you would expect. So if you look at, for example, physical traits like height and weight, there is a modest correlation. So if you have a man and a woman, they tend to be, you know, slightly correlated on height. You know, if you have a tall man, he's likely to be with a woman who's a little taller than average for a woman and, and weight as well. You know, people who are very fit tend to favor people who are fit and not so fit tend to favor not so fit. But these are very small correlations. Same with the Big 5 personality traits. So openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These are kinds of the big personality categories that, that our sort of behavioral attributes fall under. And these too tend to be very modest. In terms of how similar couples are to one another. The big ones are education, intelligence, and political beliefs and religion. So education and intelligence. So people tend to, to mate with people who are roughly similar to them in, in, in education and intelligence. Part of that might just be sort of environmental effects that, you know, we've created this system in the US and in, you know, modern first world countries in general where You know, you kind of get shuffled off very early into a certain educational track. And so this may just be because of the people around you. You know, if you go off to college, you're around other people who went to college and you were kind of selected for standardized tests and GPA and academic interests and those kinds of things. And so it's unsurprising that you're, you know, if you go to college and you have a bachelor's degree and you marry someone with a bachelor's degree, so you get set into these kinds of dating pools pretty early on. So education and intelligence, I don't think that's, that's, that's quite as interesting as the others, which are, yeah, political orientation and, and religiosity. And I think in the, in that instance, what people are really seeking are, are shared values. Do you have the same priorities? Do you have the same kinds of ethical principles? Do you have the same kinds of aspirations and expectations for behavior, for family, for your future? And, you know, this, this potentially may pose a problem because you've, I'm sure you're aware, Erik, and a lot of your listeners that there's been this sort of gender divergence and political views with men going, you know, depending on the survey you look at, men going slightly to the right, but women have veered dramatically to the left. And women are far more likely than men to say that they are completely uninterested in dating someone of a different political view than them. And so, so that's, that's one, one part of that essay that I focused on is that actually birds of a feather flock together. We tend to like people who are similar to ourselves, but then the specific attributes, it kind of varies just in terms of how similar we tend to be.

Yeah, it is interesting because when you think about most evolutionary psychology, people just say, you know, apply to dating. They wouldn't think to make that connection in terms of what people look for. They'd think this is something of what we were saying earlier around like, oh, the, you know, woman likes the bad guy, you know, Fifty Shades of Grey, et cetera. And, you know, when people who struggle to pick up women You sort of think about how they can improve their chances. They're quicker to be like, oh, I should be more of a bad guy when really perhaps they should just get a better career and be a better person or something.

Yeah. Oh, I see. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's always a, it's always dangerous to give sort of general catchall advice like that because, you know, if, if you're a naturally timid guy who's afraid to talk to girls and then you say like, oh, you gotta be more of a dark triad. You gotta have more of an edge to you. You gotta be more bold and, and unafraid, then that, that's actually, that might be good advice. Like not, you know, don't go all the way over into psychopathic territory, but be a little bit more courageous in terms of, you know, how you carry yourself. But of course, if you deliver that same exact message to guys who are already kind of borderline on the fence in terms of their dark triad characteristics, if they're already kind of high in narcissism and psychopathy and so on, and you say, you gotta be as bold as you can, you gotta get out there, you gotta put yourself out there and take risks. Then you're gonna encourage them to potentially do dangerous things or to hurt people or to put people in dangerous or uncomfortable situations. And so it's tough, you know, that kind of catch-all advice. And so yeah, it's, yeah, tailor it to yourself, I guess. You know, if you're a timid guy, then that's worth listening to. But sadly, I guess, yeah, if you're high in dark triad, you're, you know, you're not gonna tailor any advice. You're probably just gonna do whatever you want anyway. So. Yeah, I think that's, that's right. The other thing, speaking of this assortative mating point of, you know, the birds of a feather flocking together, this is also true, interestingly, for dark triad personality traits. So people who are high in these 3 dark triad traits, they tend to mate with people who are also similarly high in them. So people who regularly engage in deception or manipulation or strategic social games and trickery. They tend to pair up with one another, which I, which is, which is interesting as well. You know, narcissists tend to be drawn to, to other narcissistic types, whereas people who, you know, aren't, aren't so high in those traits tend to, tend to actually avoid those people, especially for long-term relationships. It's possible, you know, the average person may find someone with, with these dark triad traits alluring, maybe for a short-term interaction, maybe for a one-night stand, maybe for something very casual, very quick. But in terms of committed relationships, yeah, people tend to avoid people with those traits.

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So if men are asking like, what is the best way they can improve their, their mating value? And they have to, if like, you know, there's like the career stuff, there's like the fashion stuff, there's like the, you know, looks, you know, physical bodies stuff. There's the sort of personality angle. Either it's become a little bit more dark triad like you were suggesting, or sort of become a bit more sort of put together or confident in, in kind of different ways. I know it's hard to give blanket advice, but what, what, what do you find typically that's— What's like the highest leverage thing men could do to increase their mate value?

I mean, I think like, you know, this is, it's obvious, but it's true that I think like physically guys should, I mean, you, you look around, man, a lot of guys are just sort of, you know, they're, they're totally, you know, in terms of how they dress, how they look, they're not well groomed or they're not like, they're just not taking care of themselves physically anymore. I think something happened after lockdown too, where even things like deodorant, I think people just like forgot to smell good or at least not bad. And so I think as a first pass, just basic grooming and hygiene, get haircuts, or, you know, if you have a certain look and a style, keep it up and, you know, make sure that it's, it doesn't get out of hand, you know, buy clothes that fit. And then, yeah, I think going to the gym, you know, there, there, you know, a lot of guys will talk about how there's a dramatic difference between being, you know, being husky or being fat versus just being like normal, normal weight. So I think, yeah, like Getting to the gym, lifting weights. And so I think physically there's a benefit, but also I think psychologically just being in good shape will give you a little, little extra confidence when you talk to women. And, and of course, like the same advice would hold for women as well, just trying to look as best as your genetic potential will allow. All of us have different ceilings, but try to get as close to that ceiling as possible. And What else? And then, yeah, of course, like try to get, try to become as educated as your ability will allow as well. So, you know, don't, you know, don't neglect your educational credentials because that will often, especially if you're a really young guy, I mean, it varies depending on what you're interested in. You know, I know of multiple people actually now who've dropped out of college and have pivoted into very successful careers, but most guys would not be in a position to do that, or they're not, they don't have the skillset to be able to do that. So, you know, education is important too for most guys, not every guy. And then yeah, try to, try to, try to earn some money and, you know, get, get promoted, be successful in your career. And then also get your, your living situation in order. You know, it's kind of sad now, you know, I've talked to women recently about this, about how little effort is required now, I think, to impress a lot of women, young women in particular, in terms of how you live. So if they come into your house or your apartment or whatever, and they see that you have, you know, a nice bed frame and it's clean and it's well kept, and, you know, the, the, the sink has soap and like just very basic, you know, there are towels, they have, you know, if they stay over and they know that you have a spare toothbrush, like they just feel like it's a comfortable, cozy space for them, they're far more likely to Come over and stay over and want to come back. So little things like that can go a long way too. And yeah, I mean, I think that's a, that's a good starting point. That whole, you know, there's this like meme going on, looks, money, status. I mean, those things help too. And those are kind of superficial attributes, but they help. And then, yeah, I would say, you know, just sort of focus on that kind of internal confidence as well. But that'll come, I think, with success, with time, with, you know, physically improving yourself and professionally improving yourself.

Yeah, it is interesting where there's this sort of funny thing that happens to men where when they're younger, it's harder for them and they're like, oh, you know, nobody likes me. And then if they're able to have some success, then they're like, oh, now people start to like me, but do they only like me because of my success? And, you know, not all men are as sort of reflective in this way or care that much that people, you know, that people didn't like them and now they like them. But for the people who do, it's a little bit of a— Catch-22 or something like that.

Yeah. Well, I think there's, so, so going back to the earlier point about the whole pickup artist thing, I think something happened because, so, so I read Tucker Max's books as well back in, you know, whenever it was like the early 2010s, right around the time I read The Game. And I think at that time it was like, there was this, like the default cultural setting, I think for guys was to be nice. And then you read some PUA stuff, you read I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, you read like that kind of stuff that was really popular and like the 2000s, that era. And then that, those ideas in those books trickled throughout the mainstream. And then I think like the, the, the factory setting got, got switched over to the default is to be a little bit of an asshole, to be a jerk. That's what women like. Women expect you to be nice. So if you're an asshole, you'll intrigue them. And that's so interesting. It's so novel to them that they'll find you to be more interesting in some way. But I think those ideas have permeated the culture so much That, you know, women kind of expect guys to be assholes now because, because of those books and the influence. And not just those, I'm sure there were other factors involved, but now women kind of expect guys to be unkind and uncommitted and flighty and untrustworthy. And so weirdly, I think like if you wanna stand out now, I'm not saying like be a pushover or be naive or something like that, but I think if you're just like a normal guy who's generally pretty nice, And like, obviously, like, you know, don't, don't lie and don't fabricate your views or anything, but like, be who you are and be a nice guy. And I think like that intrigues a lot of women now, that just being, having, having some sense of chivalry, having some sense of compassion and empathy and whatever. I think like now that actually intrigues women now too, because yeah, it's, it's becoming vanishingly rare, I think.

But it's like the Pete Davidson archetype of like, you know, of a sort of vulnerable guy who's also, you know, obviously very funny.

Soft boy.

Yeah, exactly. And yet is a lady killer. Yeah.

Okay. So your question earlier was, or your observation earlier was interesting. Yeah. That, so if you, if you're too successful or you're, you know, will, will you start to wonder? I don't know if that's, you know, cause I don't know if you can separate out those things because you could also say this for women as well. Right. You can imagine a very beautiful woman saying like, do they like me or do they like my beauty? But like, Those 2 things are intertwined. And so, you know, I think often you're, as a man, your success, for example, or your money or whatever it is that you have, you know, that in and of itself is probably not enough. It may be enough to kind of get your foot in the door, but the only way that someone will stay with you for the most part, I mean, there may be some especially strategic Machiavellian types who will play the long game or something, but for the most part, If someone's with you and they want to be with you and they enter a relationship with you, it's because like they've kind of, you know, they see something beyond that first impression of you and they see that there's something else about you in the same way. I think it is for men and beautiful women, right? Where like maybe the beauty initially intrigues you, but then you get to know the person and then you start to actually fall in love with them or become interested in who they are as a human being. Whereas you can easily imagine. Examples, and I'm sure listeners can imagine examples of, you know, you see a woman who's very physically appealing and then you start talking to her and realize, oh, like I actually don't like this person very much and discontinue talking to them. And I've heard this happen with women too, where there's a guy who's famous or has a lot of money or has something going for him, and then they start talking to him and realize like, oh, this guy actually sucks. And then they, you know, they, they back off. So yeah, I think it's, it's sort of, it's like an audition and, you know, you can pass that first step, but then after that you actually have to be Someone who they're interested in.

What does the science say about age gap relationships?

Yeah, well, so, so this is, this is sort of cross-cultural and global that women invariably tend to like men who are a little bit older than themselves. It varies anywhere from kind of 2 to 8 years. I think in Western countries it's kind of steady around 4 or 5 years. And yeah, this is, this is kind of a consistent finding. I mean, what's interesting is that when you look at When you look at likelihood of relationships dissolving, so, so divorces, for example, when the man is older than the woman, they are more likely than average to divorce. So it actually seems to be, and, and he's more likely to cheat as well if he marries a, a woman who's older than him. And so, yes, it does happen that there are relationships where the kind of expected age gap is actually reversed, where the woman is older than the man, but in those relationships, they seem to be rockier. And less, less stable. And this was an interesting observation pointed out by Diane Theis and Roy Baumeister in their book, The Social Dimension of Sex, where they talk about how, you know, generally in relationships, romantic relationships, they're 50/50. You know, you both kind of give your contribution, your input in terms of who makes decisions, who makes the final call, what you should do. So on and so forth. But one of their more, let's say, spicy observations on this point is that, you know, if you have— so, so generally speaking, when you have a man and a woman who are together, the man tends to earn a little bit more money on average. Women tend to like men who earn a little bit more. They tend to like men who are a little bit older. They tend to like men who are taller and who are at least as professionally successful, if not more so than them. And so Basically, their suggestion here is that these kinds of romantic preferences actually kind of recapitulate gender inequality. So why is it the case that overall men earn more and so on and so forth? Why are they more successful? Well, part of it is because, you know, women tend to like men who, who are successful, who have those attributes. So that was one kind of spicy piece of that. The other one was that, you know, in, in most relationships, One person does seem to hold a little bit more of that sort of final decision-making influence and usually tends to be the man. And they point out here too that, you know, if you imagine, you know, imagine that you have a friend, you know, if you're a same-sex friend, if you're a man, it's a male friend. If you're a woman, it's a female friend. And this friend of yours is a little bit shorter than you, earns a little bit less money than you, is a little bit less professionally successful. And, and so on and so forth. Generally speaking, with this friend, it's probably a 50/50 relationship. You're probably on an equal plane, but whenever someone has to make a final decision or make that sort of final call of what to do, it would probably be unsurprising that it would be you rather than, rather than the friend, simply because of those additional attributes that you have. And so, so yeah, I think, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, that was, yeah, that was an interesting point that they'd made and.

Yeah.

I read this passage to a few different women and privately they were like, yeah, that does make sense.

Yeah, it's really interesting. You were talking about how sort of the PUA pickup artist sort of community morphed into this black pill incel community. And it's also worth mentioning that MeToo happened and sort of changed norms perhaps a little bit, or perhaps intersected, but The black pill incel movement, I mean, it's easy to say that, you know, they're not really serving their own interests unless their interests are camaraderie among other men who are also struggling. But maybe they, you know, I'm not familiar enough with the community to know if this is their goal, but maybe they hope that with enough sort of, sort of victim sort of grasping that they can achieve the desired protected status that other marginalized groups and deference.

That's not happening. That's not happening for them.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So they should— I'm curious why they don't just pivot because it's not— it's beta. It doesn't get them what they want. And you know, it's, it's just better to have some agency over your life. Yeah.

Yeah. There's, it's just not going to happen. Like as, as a male, you know, you're never going to get that kind of the same. Yeah. That sympathy is just not going to get elicited.

No, women look at it with disgust.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is just, you know, there's that's Just that classic observation that, you know, if someone sees a woman in distress, they want to help her. If someone sees a man in distress, they're kind of like, you know, they get the ick or whatever, you know, like they're just not, you know, yeah, it's just not, you can't really kind of, you like exploit your own sadness or use that as a, yeah, as an instrument to get what you want. You just have to suck it up and, and Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think like some of those communities, maybe they started out with good intentions, you know, like I can imagine them sort of beginning as support groups, you know, but then over time, you know, a lot of, a lot of online spaces, they devolve and the kind of most extreme views take over. And so I could imagine initially maybe some of these incel groups or whatever, it was just like sad guys who were like, man, this sucks. And it's nice to hear that other guys out there are struggling too. And then it devolves into like, women are evil and, and my life's never gonna get better and let's all cry together. And yeah, it's really— I think like in a way, like the internet overall, I think the internet in terms of social community, it's, it's been kind of mixed, good and bad. But I think this in particular has been bad in a way that these guys can cluster together. Because I think what used to happen if you were, especially if you were like a young teenage boy and, you know, girls didn't like you and things just weren't going well for you, just like they usually don't for any teenage boy, You're kind of isolated and you're alone, and maybe you're embarrassed to talk about this with your friends. And then you just kind of get older and grow up and get over it and get a job and become an adult. And, you know, that's just part of that whole rite of passage of being an awkward teenage boy, and then you grow out of it. But now I think you can sort of prolong that aggravation. You know, you can prolong that feeling of being beleaguered By going online and being sort of socially validated and rewarded for it, where the whole status game in these incel message boards or whatever is like, who has the saddest story about how your life sucks the most? And those, those posts get the most likes. And so you've created this perverse competition to be the biggest loser possible.

Just on that note, there was this funny Twitter, Twitter interaction where someone described this guy as the LeBron James of incels, apparently. You know, fucked around and had sex and he was sort of celebrating that and other incels were taking him to task saying, hey, why did you do that to us? And he has this, he, he tweeted something like, you know, we're incels, we're not Jedi. Like, this isn't like a code. Like, you know, we should be trying to get, get out of this, not, not stay in it.

But, uh, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, that's insane. I mean, it's, it's hilarious that like, how could you do this to us? Meaning like what, like get a girlfriend? Like. Yeah, that's just wild.

It's funny, I mean, you said this in another podcast, but it's like, this is the last area of life where it's not just you press a button on your phone and you get food or you get car. It's not, you can't solve it easily. It's not like you could, you can't just press a button, get a personal trainer, you get fit. It's like, it's actually kind of hard. There's risk involved. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's false starts. And, you know, it's really It's, it can be, it can be more demoralizing than anything else because it's, it's, you know, sort of the most real sort of analysis of you as a person, right? In some sense is what is the, what is the opposite sex thing of you? It's like the most raw version of that.

Yeah, it is like a very, you know, it's like a confrontation with Mother Nature, you know, like the, like, are you, are you worthy? And I think like those 2 areas in particular, So, so, so one is friendship. I think like a lot of people shy away from, you know, building a good social circle and making friends and so on because like you don't have complete control over that. And it's the same with romantic relationships where, you know, it's just, that's that you can't control what other people think of you. And I think for a lot of people that's very scary. But yeah, everything else, all of the modern, all of modern life's conveniences. Yeah. You're warm, you're sheltered, you're fed. You're entertained, you know, every other aspect of your life has been taken care of, but there's this one area of fulfillment, romance, where, you know, I think we tried to create that tap of a button with the dating apps, but we ended up probably making the problem worse, or at least not improving it as much as we'd hoped. And so, yeah, people are, people are sort of lashing out. They're, they're not used to having to suffer and struggle and, and change themselves in some way in order to get what they want. And if this used to be like, I think it used to be kind of common knowledge too. I mean, I think like that's one of the ideas that I point out in that how to choose a romantic partner piece in my Substack is that there's a lot of, there's so much advice for young people as far as like what college to go to, what major to choose, how to ace a job interview, you know, how you should be thinking about your career, you know, and books and motivational speakers and all these kinds of things out there. And it's mainstream. It's not You know, like I remember, you know, talking to a friend who told me that he, he bought these DVDs to, to learn how to pick up girls. This might've been like a P— it was like a PUA box set back in the day. And he told me he was like nervous about it. He was like, oh, he was like hiding it. He didn't want people to see it. Which on the one hand, like I get his embarrassment. I totally get it. But on the other hand, if he had bought a, a box DVD set for professional advancement, how to ace job interview and get promoted in, in, in an organization. That's like, that's perfectly acceptable, right? But like both of those 2 things in your life, career and romance, those are equally important. So it's funny that we mock people and make fun of people or judge people for trying to improve in the one area versus the other where it's totally normal and expected. And so there's this absence of useful information out there and there's this weird kind of stigma and embarrassment around like a young person trying to seek honest and authentic advice for like how to, how to find someone you're compatible with. And How to build a relationship together.

It's interesting because that advice is usually, it seems like tactical and kind of like more about sort of short-term stuff than it does around like building long-term confidence or character or sort of capacity or some of these like really attractive long-term qualities perhaps. And it is interesting. I mean, who are the most influential men in the last decade around advice for men, you know, perhaps Jordan Peterson, who I find very uplifting. And I'm surprised that people thought he was such a menace to society or especially, you know, compared to, I don't know, Andrew Tate or something a few years later. And so yeah, it is interesting how these characters, I guess they're 2 of the most popular advice givers to men. They have a very different sort of aesthetic and flavor. And my, and probably overall substance in terms of their advice to men, though perhaps there's some overlap around, you know, being confident, taking, you know, age, you know, matters into your own hands, et cetera. And I'm curious if where the manosphere will, will develop, if, if, if the next sort of influencer will make Andrew Tate look tame, or if that was kind of a, you know, sort of an exception and there'll be more sort of Jordan Peterson-like, you know, in terms of You know, sort of having real integrity, real character, you know, being a good person, but also being a realist as to how the world actually operates.

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, on this, yeah, on this point about, you know, like, like self-improvement, I guess it's, yeah, connected to what we were talking about earlier. I think like another area that men could work on actually is, 'cause I mentioned friendship, a lot of guys I think are like sort of struggling socially, not just romantically, but socially. And so, you know, like in that conversation that, that, that I mentioned before that I had with Richard, I'd pointed out that, you know, a lot of young guys, they wanna know how to talk to girls, but actually what they need to learn to do is talk to people. And if you have no friends, you know, it's just gonna be way harder to get a girlfriend. So I would say like, try to make a friend first before you try to get a girlfriend. Try to have 1 or 2 friends that you hang out with that like kind of keep you socially aware and well-practiced, sort of exercise that social muscle. of just interacting. And, and I don't mean like on, on like your Xbox headset or online, but I mean like physically in person, in meatspace of, you know, meeting up for meals or playing sports or hitting the gym or taking walks. Like start somewhere where you're actually meeting people and interacting and sort of like getting the, the rhythm down of a social interaction. And, you know, I'm, I'm sort of like talking about like the, the almost like the worst case scenario of a guy who has like no social life. But even if you do have A modest social life, like keep it going and try to build it and make it better. You know, women respond to that. You know, women, women are way more adept at this. Like I've only just now, and I've talked to this with my friends too, only in the last couple of years. So women, when they get a new boyfriend, they introduce the guy to their friends. And then later they, like when the boyfriend is away, like in a later subsequent interaction, they'll say, what did you think of him? And they all give their character evaluation of this guy. Guys don't really do that until later. Like, You know, once you reach your kind of later 20s, when you become a little bit more socially aware and mature, when you have a sort of wider breadth of perspective, then maybe you learn like, oh, let me ask my guy friends what they think of her. But when you're in your teens and 20s, like, it's like you're, you don't even think to ask your friends what you think of, of this person. So it's, it's useful to have your friends as a resource when you are seeking a romantic partner to get their input on that. So yeah, build your social circle. And then yeah, your question about like, you know, I, Yeah, as you know, I'm a big admirer of Jordan's. I don't— I'm still kind of perplexed by Andrew Tate because, you know, obviously he's done a lot of bad things in his life, but I kind of thought of him at least initially as like kind of a character. Like, I viewed him almost in the same way that I viewed like a rapper from like, you know, like when I was growing up, you know, like the sort of 50 Cent or like the Dr. Dre, Eminem, like that era of like, yeah, there was like a grain of truth in what they were saying, but they were also performing for an audience and they were intentionally saying provocative and inflammatory things because they knew that like the teenage boys would think it was cool. And they knew that, you know, suburban moms, their hair would get set on fire and say, oh, how could anyone say this? This is so horrible. And I think he— I thought he like, that was the character he was playing. Now, you know, I'm less sure. I don't follow him that closely. But like, yeah, the, the, the core message there of like, yeah, taking, taking your life into your own hands, you know, hitting the gym, stop feeling sorry for yourself, all of those kinds of things. It's, it's a little bit out there. And first of all, I hope we don't— there's, there's nothing more extreme than that on the horizon. And yeah, I think like he had, he had a large following and he had his moment, but I, my impression is like, yeah. He's kind of peaked. Yeah.

The, yeah, he's like a mix of Tai Lopez and sort of like the internet hustler. Well, also, you know, he has some Jordan Peterson in that he gives advice to men and, but then also some Alex Jones and that he's like conspiracy, you know, sort of weighing in on global events. It's sort of like a, you know, very populist anti-elite energy. He's just like a content machine basically. Like, and he's an entertainer.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's, yeah, he is entertaining. Like I get it, you know, and he was sort of built for TikTok. Right, of like very flashy, very quick, very provocative and inflammatory, delivering those like 15-second soundbites of saying something that has like a little grain of truth but said in them in, in a sort of an exaggerated cartoonish version of, of whatever that truth was.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on how should men think about vulnerability as it relates to, you know, being attractive to the opposite sex?

Yeah, vulnerability as it relates to the It sucks. You know, again, like it's, it's hard to, to, to give like sort of blanket advice, but I think a lot of guys are worried about coming across as weak or timid or something like that. And I think there is that, there is that kind of signaling and counter-signaling component here where, you know, I saw, so I'll give you an example of this. So I listened to this podcast with Bill Burr and Joe Rogan. This might've been like 2 years ago. And Bill Burr, I think he's talking about how like he refuses to cry or something like that. And he's a comedian, so he was like half joking. He was like making a joke. He's like, I don't cry. And Rogan was like, there's nothing wrong with crying, man. Nothing wrong with like getting in touch with your feelings and expressing yourself. And Bill Burr was like, Joe, when people— when you cry, people like it because you're like a ball of muscle and you're the UFC guy and you're allowed to cry because it like, when you cry, people are reminded that you're human. When I cry, people are just, they just think I'm weak. You know, and I think there is a bit of that, that like, if you are already perceived as soft, if you're already perceived as weak, that maybe you shouldn't, you know, give them any more reason to think that than they already do. But if you are successful and otherwise, you know, your life is well put together and all of those kinds of things that, you know, exposing a little bit of vulnerability, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If it's authentic, if it comes from the right place.

Yeah.

And, you know, this is something that I talked about with my own, with my own book and my own life that, you know, back when my life was actually hard and, you know, I was struggling kind of financially and emotionally and everything else, I never let anyone know about it. It probably would have been a mistake at that time to talk about it or to dwell on it. But once I left that part of my life and things started to improve for me, then I could step back and reflect and be more open and honest and And, you know, express myself in a more vulnerable way. So I think it's, it kind of depends. It's good to be authentic overall, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily sort of wear vulnerability on your sleeve if people already have reason to think that, you know, that, that you're, you're whatever. Like if you're, if you're around people who might exploit that vulnerability, let's say.

Yeah. Is, is there anything related to this? A topic that we haven't yet discussed that's, that's top of mind or anything we want to leave our listeners with in terms of, or any other questions that you yourself are curious about that you're eager to do more research or thinking about?

There's nothing that comes immediately to mind. I think, yeah, I'm hoping that, that as, as we go on and as the whole dating app fatigue, as there's, there's been a lot more conversation around this, it's funny. Legacy media, they always take like 4 or 5 years to catch up to where the conversation's been in these kinds of online spaces and people who are forward-thinking and kind of on the vanguard of what's happening in the culture. But now I'm seeing more and more pieces in places like The Atlantic about like what's going on with young people, what's going on with the sex recession, what's going on with romance. And so it does seem like there's a broader awareness, at least among the educated public, that like obviously there's something wrong with young people. And that there is this lack of guidance. I mean, it's kind of funny, you know, when it comes to career, you know, and I know I used this, you know, I made this point before, but, you know, when it comes to career, no one expects you to know without mentorship or guidance, right? Like, oh, you know, you're 18 years old, so just get out there and figure out your career. No, there's like all these measures put in place to like help people, young people. You know, there's outlets, there's guidance, there are people who are willing to help you along the path. But with, with romance, it really is just the Wild West. Part of it I think is just older people in the older generation. They have no sense of what's going on anymore. Like they, like even if they could give advice, I think a lot of them are just kind of bewildered at the current state of things. But on the other hand, I do think like, yeah, if you're older, if you've been suc— you know, married and you've had a successful marriage and relationship and you have some wisdom to pass on, or you've been thinking about these issues for a long time, that yeah, talking more openly about it, because clearly there's a, there's a, there's a lack here and a lot of young people are confused. I mean, I've been shocked. by the number of Zoomers, like, you know, early 20s who say, yeah, they've had multiple sex partners, but they've never had a boyfriend. They've never had a girlfriend. And I'm like, never had it. Like, how's that even like, how can you reach 23 and you've never had a girlfriend? Like, that's just, that blows my mind, but that's not unusual now. And I think a lot of people want, they want that, you know, and it's strange. Like, it's almost embarrassing if you say, I want a successful career, perfectly fine. You know, people will applaud you for it. But if you say, you know, I want to have a successful and happy marriage, or I want a girlfriend who I care about and who likes me, somehow that's like an embarrassing thing to say, which I think is, is too bad. So I'm hoping, yeah, through these kinds of conversations, we'll be able to get, get past that.

Yeah, no, that's a good place to, it's a good place to wrap. I, one white pill I'll leave us on is I did a dating app experiment with a friend where basically we, we created our own little Hinge for maybe like 200 people that we knew or friends and friends of friends. And I see all the data on the backend and originally I was like, oh, I know the dating app data. It's going to be this power law where some men are going to get all the swipes and some of the— there's going to— all the men are going to coalesce around the best women. And I was actually surprised at how much range there was. And I was like, wow, everyone on the app got You know, someone else who was interested in them and people actually have different tastes. And so that was just one way, you know, it's a small sample size, but, but it opened my eyes to, to the possibilities of, of, you know, different people having, having different tastes, even though, you know, even though they're all generalized ratings, but there's an, you only need one, right? And so there's enough edge cases, you only need one person to like you. There's enough edge cases where, where maybe there is, you know, if not someone for everyone, you know, more people for The market is not efficient. Let's just say, you know, there's more people for, you know, the people that are unavailable now. But Rob, thanks for coming on the podcast. This has been a wide-ranging discussion and to be continued.

All right. Thanks, Erik. This has been great.

Upstream with Erik Torenberg is a show from Turpentine, the podcast network behind Moment of Zen and Cognitive Revolution.

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