The PROBLEM With Modern Dating & The Word "SIMP" | Matthew Hussey

It's this really dark situation that profits on all of this simp behavior that everyone's laughing at without addressing the real thing, the real need that's going on. Well, Steve, put us out of our misery. What, in your estimation, is a simp?

Well, you put me on the spot here. Well, I. My understanding of it is it's a kind of guy who is prostrating himself at the feet of a woman who is kind of putting himself, like, worshiping her like she's a goddess and he's kind of willing to do whatever for her affection. And in some cases, there seems to be a kind of fetish angle to it, but it's often just used as a derogatory term to. To describe what they call, like, beta males or guys who are crushing over one woman really hard, even if she, you know, is. Even if she's like, hey, thanks.

Apparently it can apply to men in relationships, too, that they're fawning constantly over the woman they're with, doing anything they can to please her, just. Just living to please her. But of course, at the other end of the spectrum, you've got guys who are doing that over women that don't even know they exist on social media. You have a TikTok dancer who has thou. Or in some cases millions of men commenting in, you know, and saying how much they love her or how lovely she is, how wonderful she is, how much they admire her, all of that.

And I don't think simping has to be gender specific, but. But it tends to be a derogatory term for men.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard simp. I don't. I think it is pretty much exclusively used about men. By the way, I just want to make a statement about this word. I hate this word. I don't. I don't like. I think this is a pretty mean word, and I think that what's underneath it is actually quite serious. Very serious. And referring to people in this derogatory way does no help to the situation. But if we take the person in a relationship, we could say, okay, that might be someone with a somewhat anxious attachment style or someone who is just trying to go out of their way to please their partner because they think that that's the only way that they'll be loved and that if they can do enough for their partner, their partner will stick around. There's an obvious kind of win there, right? I. I'm keeping my partner, that my partner is with me. And I think by doing lots and lots and Lots of nice things for them and constantly fawning over them and looking after them that they will stay with me. There's a difference between that and the sort of thing we see online these days where men, so many men en masse are just liking and commenting on pictures of women that they will never meet, who will never see their comment, who will never even acknowledge them for the most part, and yet they're waking up seeing a picture of that woman and liking and commenting on that picture. What do you think of that, Steve? Because I think it's fascinating when there's, there's, there's not an obvious reward to that. You know, it's not like you're being scammed and you know, you think you're talking to someone one to one and it turns out it's just a bot online that's talking to you. They can see that there's hundreds and in some cases thousands of other people commenting and liking on this woman's picture or video and yet they still decide to throw their like or their comment into the mix. What do you think is the reason that men do this?

Well, I think part of it taking away even just the element of someone being sexually attracted to someone, there's all the stuff you said is only the same in fandom culture where you are fawning over a celebrity and commenting all day on their pictures and posts over a pop singer that is not seeing hundreds of thousands of comments. And that's fandom, right? There is a one way trend. There was a one way relationship there. And now the simping thing is a little different. Because, right, like people when they're doing it on an attractive person's profile or guys doing it on a hot woman's profile, it's not like, oh, I really love One Direction's music and I'm so into the albums and stuff, it's like, I think she's hot, I think she's hot. And I want to express a moment of horniness of that bikini picture really did it for me. I'm going to put a sexual emoji. I'm going to like or I'm going to be like, oh, I worship you.

It's not quite saying I love your work, but there's. But the thing is, Steve, for a lot of that it does. It's not just simple leering comments. For a lot of it. A lot of the time when people are referring to simps in the comments section of women's profiles, they are referring to a kind of niceness and a loyalty that comes across in those comments, you know, they, they're not, they're not saying, oh my God, you're so hot, I'd like to do XYZ to you. They're not saying that. They're saying, you look amazing here, babe. You know, hope you're having a great day. Or they, they're that same sort of niceness and sweetness that might be associated with that kind of guy or that behavior in a relationship is being applied in this context. So it's not even stereotypical testosterone fueled male behavior.

No, some of it is, Some of.

It is, some of it is.

It leans towards the fetishistic and the dirty and minded and you know, they'll go like I'm simping over you with these drooling emojis and sexual innuendo, whatever.

But like, yeah, at least there's self awareness in that one.

But you're right, there are some dudes who will put like a very lavish number compliments and, and go like, oh, you're so, you know, you're the perfect woman. You're so whatever. And then someone under it is obviously like, you're simping, bro. You know, don't be a simp. You're like. Or they'll put like simpler, you're simping.

Do you know who's the best is that person. That. There's the person who's doing the, you know, the praising, the worshiping. But then there's the simp police who you want to go, why are you here then? What are you. What you. You've sort of tipped your hand here because what are you doing in this comment section right now? Why are you down here? You're 100 comments in. Why are you down here? Firstly, you had to be on this woman's profile in the first place. Secondly, you had to have read down the comments and decided to pick on this poor simp.

They're going to flush out the simps, bro.

And what you're for the good of men everywhere, letting him know, hey guy. Hey bro, I just want to know your simp showing like what, who are you and what's this I see? I think Steve, that's just advanced simp tactics. I think that's just. I'm hoping that I get noticed for calling out a simp and by I'm disassociating with that behavior. But really I'm still in the comments section of this 25 year old's dancing TikTok.

It's kind of sim simception simp within a sim.

I would Say it's simp adjacent. But I, I'm, I see. Steve, my, my whole thing on this is I, I actually think that this is an interesting phenomenon and it's one to be, I think it's one to be pitied. I think it's one to, I, I think it deserves a level of empathy and sensitivity. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the maid cafes in Tokyo. When we were in Tokyo, we, you know, we had heard about these maid cafes and you, me and Harry went to one. And for everyone out there who's listening, a maid cafe is a, is a cafe in Tokyo. It doesn't have to be a night spot. It could be. You could go there in the middle of the day. I think you could probably even go there for breakfast. But it's basically a place where there are maids or, well, women dressed up as maids. They're usually fairly sort of young women in their 20s and they're in these sort of somewhat skimpy maid outfits, but not, they're skimpy but not skimpy. And they, they're not, they're not sexual. They, it's very much cutesy. It's like manga, anime cutesy. And from the moment you get there, they're very sweet to you and very giggly and laughy and they sit you down and you order food and when they come over they do these sort of strange anime rituals where they get you to make a heart with your hands and say like a little, a little spell.

Or you do like a cat noise.

Yeah, you'll do a cat noise. Together they may be like sing, sing. They take a picture with them, but there's nothing really sexual about it. I'm not saying that's the case in our Western social media in the case of simping, but in, in Japan, in these maid cafes, it's so not, you think that this is going to be this seedy, horrible thing and actually it's so not sexual. What happens is you get there and you look around the room and you start by finding it sort of funny and silly and strange and fascinating. And then you look around and, and in a way it can feel quite sad because you, you see these men, they're often sort of middle aged salary men in their suits. They've just come from work and they're not behaving in any way inappropriately. They are just sitting there and, and talking to these women who work there who are laughing at their jokes or who are giving them a moment of attention in conversation and they are so happy to get it. And you get the impression that these people are there a lot. Right. I mean, it's not. You don't get the impression that this guy came here once in the last 10 years. You get the impression that this is a regular place, that this guy comes for this very small amount of attention and synthetic connection. And there's something about what I see on social media now with the way that guys interact with these. These women who have large audiences that feels similar to me. It might be more sexualized than the maid cafes in Japan, but it's still this very low grade synthetic form of attention and connection.

Yeah.

That doesn't amount to anything. You know, it's so. It's so impotent.

Yeah.

There's nothing there. It's not even. It's not even a lap dance at a strip club, you could say about a lap dance in a strip club. What's the point? Like, what's the point. What's the point in going and getting teased by someone for 20 minutes or 5 minutes or whatever and then leaving and nothing actually comes to fruition? Right. Like that. You could say that, like, what's the point? But there's still a lap dance here on social media. There's no lap dance. There's. It's. It's not even a tease in that way. You're probably getting nothing back, but you're still commenting. And I think that should be looked at culturally as a sign of just how. Just how devoid of attention or connection these people actually are that I think of it, Steve, like I'm willing. I am so starved of something that I am now commenting on the wall of someone who probably will never, ever see my name alongside a thousand other men. She's never going to comment back, but I'm willing to settle for whatever kind of tiny, tiny, tiny thrill that is and maybe just the hope that this person might interact with me on some level. And even in that is the kind of. This. I've bought into this cultural narrative that this is really valuable. I don't know this woman. I don't know what she's about necessarily. I don't know what she's like in life. I just know that she's hot and that she dances and. And that's. This is what makes her so valuable to me. I've. So. It's not just that I'm getting nothing. There's nothing tangible I'm getting out of this. I've also bought into this narrative culturally right now that this is really valuable and that I would should want to interact with this quick interlude to the video guys, whether you are trying to work on your career, your finances, your relationships, your relationship with yourself or any goal this year that's important to you, you're going to need confidence. This month I am bringing back the 30 day confidence challenge. Ran it twice last year. It was amazing. I went through it too. We're all going to go through it again this month. It has five specific missions to improve your confidence over 30 days and you can join for free at MH mhchallenge.com the link is also in the description. Go to mhchallenge.com and I'll see you there.

And I guess that's why those guys are lambasted and mocked is because like you say, there's something, there's something beyond even like just mere lustful jeering about it. There's something where they are going a step further and being like, I, I think about you, you're a fancy, I dream about you, I love you. And it's like synthetic emotion, you know. And when the simp police come along, what they're saying is you're one of 200, 500 guys in this woman's DMs or on her only fans and you're talking to her as if you like have something with her and she sees you as, she sees you as attention or money or followers and, and you're like prostrating yourself as if you have, you know, you're making up these feelings you have. And I think that's why those guys are mocked so mercilessly.

And if people had more empathy, they would see the connections with this and everything else. Steve I once coached someone who had a very short interaction with someone, you know, 10, 15 minutes, exchanged numbers and then for months exchanged a handful of texts with this person. But it never went anywhere. I think one time he said, you know, he suggested maybe they see each other. But it never came to anything. He never followed through on it. And for months she had held onto this thing that the way she described it was like it had somehow been a relationship. She didn't call it a relationship, but the way she spoke about it, you'd think someone was talking about an actual relationship they were having. And all that really happened was that in the, you think about it time wise, in the context of a year that 10 to 15 minutes had been shared together. And then for months this had become the, the fuel for this kind of imaginary dynamic that was going on. One that he probably never Even thought about twice. You know, maybe he just fired off a few texts here and there, but he clearly wasn't giving it much thought. I mean, he would be stunned, no doubt, to find out just how much he had been on her mind for months. This person that he'd only spent 10 or 15 minutes with. It would absolutely floor him. Most of us in life, men or women, would be floored to find out at one stage in our life how much someone we never really gave any actual attention or intention to thought about us. And when I speak to someone like that and this person that I worked with, what's evident is that a this, there's some need at the core of this. There's some deeper need at the core of this. There's something that's not being a need, that's not being serviced in your life either by yourself or by your life in a more nutritional way. And that this has become a surrogate for meeting this need in a genuinely connected way. And it even becomes a kind of excuse not to engage in the real world. It becomes an excuse not to engage in a real relationship. I remember thinking about this person that I was coaching that as long as she engaged in this fantasy of what happened and why didn't it turn out to be something, and I can't stop thinking of him, and I still get upset thinking about as long as she engaged with that she didn't actually have to go and involve herself in the real game. She didn't actually go and have to risk anything. In her mind, she had created this sort of fabricated jeopardy of like, what's going on here? There's this drama that she had constructed in her head, but it wasn't real drama because nothing was actually going on. As long as she lost herself in this, she didn't need to go and actually meet someone where something could actually happen. And that's true, of course, for anyone commenting. It's like as long as you're commenting relentlessly on your pop star's career and work and, you know, when. I mean, Steve, there are, you know, pop stars, when they show up at a hotel, there are people always. And it's usually the same fans in every city that when that pop star rocks up to that city, the same fans go and show up at their hotel. They. They know what hotel they're going to go to. They figured it out. Which, by the way, on its own is an unbelievable detective mission. In a. In a. In a very secretive world where false names are used to go and check into hotels, somehow their Fans have figured out where they're going to be staying and have done all of the reconnaissance work to know that, and then show up at that hotel, sleep there overnight, outside, sometimes come, or show up at 3am to try and witness the moment in the middle of the night where that person shows up. They are there for all of that. And when people do that, I think this is a distraction from focusing on your dreams. You've become so obsessed with somebody else's dream that you don't actually have to focus on your own right now. They've become your dream, their dream, their life has become your dream, your life. You're not focusing on your own dream. That could make you as wonderful as they are or as wonderful as you think they are. Whatever they've achieved that impresses you, you could actually be doing right now. If you weren't spending all of your time and energy chasing this person around the world. You could actually be doing that for yourself. You could become that person that other people look at as incredibly impressive or extraordinary by going and working hard. And the same is true of people who, quote, simp. You know, whether it's a man on social media or whether it's a woman who is stuck in an imaginary relationship with a guy that she once, quote, dated or met for 15 minutes, it's a distraction from going and having a real relationship, from actually having stakes when the guy is commenting on the woman's profile. It's a distraction from the fact that he could actually go out there and talk to a real woman and risk rejection. There's no what's risked by leaving a comment on a woman's profile that gets 10,000 comments? Nothing. There's the faint, tiny, glimmering hope that maybe she'll see my name and comment back. But there's also no downside. There's no I'm not risking anything. Whereas if I went up to an actual woman in the coffee shop I go to every day and said something then, now I'm someone who could actually be rejected. And since I don't believe in myself anyway, and I don't think I have very much to offer, the last thing I want to do is have that confirmed by someone in the real world. I'd rather just give my attention to someone online who has no interest in rejecting me because I'm one of many people propping up their social status and their image who, by the way, is using me just to profit. I mean, there are millionaires being made everywhere who are just profiting from that kind of behavior. And encouraging it. You know, no pop star wants to tell their fans, don't show up at my hotel, hey, stop doing this. I'd rather you go work. Work on your own dreams. No one wants to say that because I need these fans to be crazy about me. The woman who benefits from millions of people following her online or the man who does, has no interest in saying, guys, honestly, it worries me how much you comment on my shit. It concerns me. If you were my brother, I'd be worried about you right now. And I want to let you know, like, go live your life. Go live your life and do something meaningful in your life. They don't want to say that because I want as many likes as possible so that I can get those sweet advertising dollars. So it's this really dark situation that profits on all of this simp behavior that everyone's laughing at without addressing the real thing, the real need that's going on. And it's no different. It's no different from the person that Steve, you or I often come across who is stuck in a situation in their head instead of living their life. It's just happening at scale in a. In a way that, you know, we think it's. It's. It's funny to laugh at, but it's actually a situation that I think deserves empathy and sensitivity.

I agree with that. And I think it. Yeah, I don't. I feel it's like witnessing some of our worst human characteristics. And that's what troubles me when I see people's willingness to do it, because it's like our. Our desire to be told what to do. Our desire just to follow a leader blindly, to subjugate our own individuality to someone else because, like, that will give me purpose and meaning. Is if I follow around this band and like you say, if it was your significant other or something who said, I'm going to go and fly around eight cities to follow around this band, you'd go, you're. This is mental.

And there's nothing wrong with, like, Steve, you and I, you know, we. We like the rapper Watsky, right? And when he went on tour, we, like. I traveled to Chicago to go see him on tour. In fact, I think I've seen him like three times now. You know, I've seen him once with our friend Michael Roche in Chicago and my friend Casey, we've seen him once in New York. And I'm a fan. I'm a fan. There's nothing wrong with being a fan. But. But are you being inspired? Is it. Are you Going and you're a hardcore fan who's being inspired by what you're seeing and then going and using that to create magic in your own life. Or has this become the thing? Has. Has your work in your own life become being a fan? Because that to me is where it steps over into a different territory. Is this inspiring you to go and create magic in your own life? Or. Or is the magic you're creating that you're pouring into just being a fan? Because now it's a closed loop. Being inspired by something should be an open loop. It should be something that then spreads into the rest of your life. It shouldn't be something that is a snake eating its own tail, where you're inspired by this person that you follow. And what do you use all that inspiration to do? Follow them harder.

Right? Yeah. And just like worship anything they do. Look, I'm huge fan of many things. There's artists I've seen multiple times. If I love a movie, I'll go see it four damn times at the cinema. Like, I love being passionate about things I love. And to me, fandom is one of the coolest things. If you like, if it. It's like talking with my friends and nerding out over something I really love. And like, we all go and like, do the thing together because we're all lovers of this video game, this movie, this book, whatever. And like, it's a community you have and you love it and you share it with people and it's like a source of passion. That's all beautiful stuff. And that's that like you say is inspiring and you're inspired by people, so you want to like, absorb everything you can of it. But it doesn't mean you go to this. It's when it crosses to this weird. Subjugate my individuality, hero worship. This person is a golden God. And I, you know, I must like, subjugate my life to everything they do.

I take you as a point with the whole. The whole fan comparison to simps, but to me there's a distinction that's important where a fan leaving a comment or behaving this way is doing it as a signal sort of not just for themselves, but for a whole community. For like a tribe, a tribal impulse. The simp phenomenon is more. Is less of a signal and more of a strategy. And I think the misguided strategy is just simply of being nice. And like, if I am nice enough, to me it's all. It's like a grade school crush. Like the impulse that a guy would have in third grade. Just like, I'm just gonna be so nice to this person that they're gonna give me attention back. So nice. So nice. So nice. And the misguided part that you've talked about for years, Matt and Steve, is just that being respected is far more important than being nice in attraction.

Yeah, I. I mean, look, this is. This relates to both the world of simping online with someone that's never going to know who you are and also within a relationship, because people make this mistake all the time in a relationship. If I'm just incredibly nice to my partner all the time, if I just. If I just go out of my way to please them all the time and give them everything they want and. And worship them and make sacrifices, then they will love me more. And it is misguided because people don't love us more simply because we do more for them. I think about it like attraction is a series of levers, right? There's the I do things for my partner lever, which, by the way, is a perfectly great leverage. You don't want to not have that lever or you're just an asshole. But it's not the only lever. There's also the I'm really fun to be around lever. There's also the I'm super silly and playful lever. There's also the I am mysterious in certain moments lever. There's also the I am challenging my partner lever. All of these are good levers. And if you keep using the same lever over and over and over again because that's the one you're most comfortable with, you're going to wear it out, you know? Or if you think about it like a carrot, you keep. It's possible to overfeed someone with carrots. Like, you can't. You can't keep doing that same thing over and over again and think that it's going to give you proportionate returns. And in your relationship, it doesn't work like that. At some point, you get diminishing returns from trying to impress someone the same way. And that's true of any of those things. If you're mysterious and that's your way of. Of impressing people, you know, you start with a sense of mystery that's great for five minutes, like, so, oh, he's super mysterious and whatever. Try doing that for a year in a natural relationship. You. It's gonna get old so quickly.

Yeah, and that's the thing. We'll. We'll park this for another episode. But that is why people find the I'm Just being a nice guy thing. So grating is just. Because the way if all you are is just saying nice things, if all you are is just a sweet guy, well, so what? Like that's, that's loads of people are nice. It's like, it's not interesting. It doesn't make you. If you have no boundaries, if you're just a nice, nice, nice. I'm really swee. It's, it's one strategy and it's like, yeah, you're pulling the same lever, same time and hoping like maybe they'll just see I'm really, really nice.

Yeah. By the way, as if that's what. As if that's the number one goal in life is to find someone who's nice. I, you know, there was a Jameson came across an article recently that said women are now looking for nice guys. I don't know what study was done to show that women, women are now looking for nice guys. But that's laughable to me because what I know is actually meant by that is that they're now prioritizing nice as well. It's not that. It's not that now I'm willing to abandon everything else I want for a nice guy. Because if you, if really, if nice is all you want, you can find it. Go, go look in the comments section on Instagram and you'll find a bunch of people who are being really, really nice. Right. You don't need. The search isn't difficult to find someone who's just nice. We don't want just nice. What we want is someone we respect who is also nice. And that's the part that people find difficult because it's a unique pairing. Right. We've talked about this many times in our work. Unique pairings are those qualities that we find when we just find one nice, good quality in someone, we get attracted on some level. We might get attracted to them as a friend. We might get attracted to them as a lover if they're mysterious or if they're sexy. We might get attracted to them as a mentor if we think they're particularly successful or knowledgeable. Right. One quality can create attraction. What makes someone an addiction, someone we want to give much more space to in a rounded way in our life, is when someone has unique pairings. Two qualities you don't normally find in the same person in the same person. And when you find someone who is. I don't like the word nice, let's say kind, you know, or someone who's respectful. When we find someone like that who are generous. These are all better words than nice because they're sort of proactive words. Nice is a bit of a passive reactive word, but when we find someone who let's call it nice for a moment, is nice and we respect them, that's a unique pairing because a lot of people we find nice we don't respect, and a lot of people we respect don't always come across as very nice. What we're looking for is nice as well. Oh, I'm finally prioritizing someone who's nice in addition to all of the other stuff that I've always prioritized that has got me in trouble when it didn't come with nice. This next video I have for you is really, really important. Click here to watch. If narcissism can be associated with a kind of obsession with control, if I can dismantle your ego, if I can dismantle your confidence because your confidence is a threat to my control.