Why Women Are Giving Up on Men in 2025

Foreign.

Giving up on Men in 2025 so a couple of weeks ago we released an episode, episode 313 if you want to go back and listen to it. 50 of women will be single in 2035 was the title of that episode. It provoked quite a lot of discussion in the comments and some heated comments and some interesting comments. Wanted to take this episode to dig in a little deeper into why women aren't choosing men now in quite large numbers, it seems, and from both sides. For men and women, it feels more difficult than ever for us to form bonds with each other. It seems more divisive in many ways or more divided than ever out there and we want to talk about it. Some men, by the way, did point out that the Pew article that we talked about when we were talking about that stat of 50 of women will be single by 2035 doesn't point out that 50 of men are already single. There were women in the comments who pointed out, hey Love Life Podcast team, you might find this depressing, but women in the field are happier than ever. I guess the field being the field of single people. All of this is going to be discussed in this episode. And Audrey, we will start with an interesting email that we got addressed to you over the weekend. Hi guys, I have some comments about this episode. First of all, great conversation and back and forth, but I was somewhat discouraged that Audrey found the statistic to be sad slash depressing. I am 36 and single and while lonely, I am not willing to give up my freedom just to get married and have kids. There is way too much at stake. I found an article from Female Invest that really summarizes how I want to respond to Audrey's opinion that the idea that 50 of women will be single in 2035 is a depressing statistic. The article she cites goes like this. At first glance, this might sound like a crisis, at least according to traditional narratives that still idealize marriage as the ultimate female aspiration. But dig a little deeper and this emerging trend tells a very different story. Research consistently shows that single women are happier, live longer, and earn more than their married counterparts. Hm, maybe you shouldn't have married me after all. The same cannot be said for men. In fact, marriage appears to benefit men far more than it does women. No one is saying being single is better than being in a good relationship, but being single is better than being in a relationship that drags you down, drains your resources, and limits your potential. And for the first time, women are widely in a position to make that call and to be applauded for it. Looking back, I realized that the pressure to find someone was never really about desire. It was about fear. Fear of being alone, fear of failing at some unspoken test of womanhood, fear of being left behind. But I now see something I didn't before. Being single is not a failure. So Hannah cited that article that said all of that, and she said, I hope Audrey reads this and looks at the data a little less negatively now.

Well, Hannah, thank you so much for your email. I want to clarify, though, that I. What I found to be sad was not the fact that people. Well, it's not directly the fact that people in the comments were saying, yeah, we're happier than ever. It's the fact that, as this article states, you know, being in a good relationship is preferable to being single. And to me, this amount of comments suggested that women were giving up on the idea of finding a good relationship. And I've heard those statistics before, actually, that, you know, men benefit far more from being in marriages and relationships than women. And actually, women that, like, a lot of the times, end up kind of far more unhappy when they're. When they're coupled.

Which makes sense to me.

Which makes sense to me also. But I still think it's kind of a. I. I just. I don't know. I. I sort of. I didn't mean it like that. I. For me, I just. I just think that it's sad because it's suggestive of a kind of, you know, having given up a little bit on looking for something that makes you really happy.

Well, you love. You love relationships. I do.

I think.

And I think you are deeply passionate about the idea of what an amazing relationship can do for someone's life. And you've always. Since the day I met you, you've always felt that way. And I know that even from speaking to you about the times when you were single. You felt that way in the bad times, not just in the good times. You know, there's a story you once told me of a friend of yours who never opened up, had a really hard time opening up, and then opened up to someone and he broke her heart. And she said to you, like, I don't know how you do it. I just don't want to ever date again now.

And she was like, how do you keep putting yourself back out there every time there's disappointments?

Yeah. And you. Your. Your response was like, I'm. I have a. That's not what happens when I get hurt. What happens when I get hurt is I don't think I'm done with dating. I think I put my focus on the wonderful people I haven't met yet.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I, I completely understand, by the way, the desire to be like, you know, I've. I'm giving up on dating because it's so painful and it's just so much easier to be by myself and it's so much easier to make myself happy than to essentially just, yeah, just feel disappointed over and over again by, you know, people who don't match up to what I actually want a partner to be. But I, I suppose I just don't really relate to that because for me, I just think that finding the right relationship, although a very, you know, it's no small feat, trying to find the right relationship is such a rewarding thing. And I. And I wouldn't want people to up on if that is a dream, if there's not. Everybody wants to find love and be in a relationship and I respect that. But I think a lot of people do. They just don't think it's going to happen because they feel like too let down and disappointed by the process. So then they just go, well, it's easier to just tell myself I don't want it. And I think that's a shame because I think that those very same people could meet somebody really wonderful who makes their life better.

A lot of the rhetoric that we got in the comments really does seem to revolve around the idea of, you know, Alex says, I honestly just really enjoy my freedom. The J and Air says, I'm not surprised that women are choosing to stay single these days. Priorities have changed for both men and women. And honestly, the Internet hasn't helped real connections. Many women now focus on financial independence, don't feel the need to rely on a partner, and some are even moving abroad. In India especially, more young women are saying no to marriage or while men are finding it harder to find a wife, something that was much easier just a generation ago. The cultural landscape is evolving and with it, the definition of what it means to live a fulfilled life. For many women today, being single is not a compromise, it's a conscious choice. And I think that that's true. It is for so many people, a conscious choice. And especially, by the way, if you live in a country where there's a really magnified sense of those traditional gender roles and it hasn't evolved to the extent that it has in the west, although even the west, we're seeing that in some places. It seems in, in some areas There's a regression into older gender roles.

And yeah, if you have misogynistic and patriarchal cultures, you're obviously, as a woman who gets to now, you know, actualize and, you know, be independent and take care of herself, why would you tie yourself to something like that? Yeah, like, I, I completely agree with you.

I agree. And it's like, if the options being. If that's the option being presented to me, I'm all right, thanks. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be on my own and earn money and do my thing so that, that makes complete sense to me. And I do. I, I do think that a lot of guys haven't necessarily evolved in that same way where they're going, well, okay, I. This person not only no longer needs me for a whole bunch of things that I used to be needed for, I'm not going to score points that way anymore in the same way that I used to. I'm not going to score points just by having a job and a stable life. I'm also going to have to show up in full force with my personality and what I have to offer someone, the energy that I bring. And I'm also going to have to be okay with the fact that this person is not submissive. You know, this person is my equal, my teammate. They're not someone who just, you know, goes along with what I want to do because I am the one putting food on the table. When that dynamic is over, people start asking for more. And I think a lot of, a lot of guys haven't, haven't connected to what it means to bring more at this stage. And I know that there's going to be like, you know, there, there'll be plenty of guys, and there's one here who will say, I don't even relate to that because I'm just struggling. There was a guy that said this. RJ Flores says, as a man, I have found even getting a date over the past five years since my ex girlfriend left me extremely difficult. I'm no Brad Pitt, but I'm tall, in decent shape, and dress pretty well. And most of the time, I feel completely invisible to women. I' a couple of dates when I've plucked up the courage to talk to women, but the amount of rejections I've had to go through has left me feeling like an utter imposter. It's as if I don't deserve to be confident with women and they don't actually want me to be confident because I am me. I know that the woman in this video, I think he's referring to you. Audrey would never want to date me in a million years. I know I have a perceived lack of self worth, but it doesn't help that women make almost zero effort to have a connection with me anymore. So there's clearly, you know, this is. There's clearly guys who are willing to try, who are also really, really struggling out there. So I'm curious what we think is going on there.

The guys. Why guys find it a struggle to get any attention at all. Yeah, I think partly the dating apps haven't helped. I think a lot of guys do feel invisible on dating apps. There are some stats about how many less matches guys get on a dating app or how many less, like sour swipes or whatever you want to call it. And I think it can be brutal. It can be a lot more superficial. I think that can hurt your self esteem a lot. Like if you're, yeah, you can be much better in real life than you are in some static pictures and profiles and have all these other tools. And then when you're kind of in this, like meat market of a dating app, you can feel like, wow, I feel really less attractive and invisible. I also just think there are things where, you know, I think there are, there are different expectations of, like, women don't need to be in a relationship in the same way they used to. There's less stigma about being single. There is potentially that people can take care of themselves now. So marriage doesn't have that impetus where this has to happen or I'm not going to be able to even have a viable, you know, economic future. So I think that happens as well. I actually wrote down some reasons based on me collating all the comments. And there was a Wall Street Journal article on why women are giving up on marriage. One was just, yeah, peace. There's a lot of women who say, actually the whole, I feel like I might have to settle or there might be some man who expects me to do certain things that I don't want to do. And so it's more peaceful, just not the drama mismatching lifestyle or expectations like shared roles, finances, emotional labor, people feeling like I don't want to have to, you know, kowtow to that culture. Just having other life priorities first, which is like my career, my friendships, things I want to do, experiences I want to have. And so I think you put all that together and. And then there's just people who've had bad experiences as well. I think, yeah, we're just, we're just a Lot more selective. And I think that the gap between men and women in educational attainment hasn't helped. I think that means that certain women feel like the pool of men they would like to date is lower.

So the date, the data on that shows that it says in 2024, 47% of American women ages 25 to 34 had a bachelor's degree, according to Pew, compared with 37% of men. So there's a lot less men coming out of college, you know, who are, who have those degrees. And it's.

And even in non college graduates, the men who are non college graduates or non college are struggling way more than women who are, who didn't go to college. So even, you know, in that pool, they said even more that, that women are feeling like, well, I might be with a man who can't even support himself or, you know, doesn't have the same prospects I do. And this all feeds in. So it can make certain men feel like, well, I don't feel like I'm a viable player in this marketplace now. And especially if I don't feel I can use the looks card, I can't use, you know, I don't have a card to be able to play. That's like, here's my upper hand. Here is what I can offer you. I don't have status, whatever it might be. So, yeah, I think there's just a, you know, it's. It's like there's a growing class of men who do feel like they're just invisible.

Guys. There is something I know for sure, and that is that the truths that you're hearing in this episode are things that need massive amounts of repetition. They may be making you feel a little better right now, maybe a lot better. That's a wonderful thing. But what I know is that there will be a time 24 hours from now, a week from now, a month from now, where those feelings will revisit you. What we have to do is wage war against those feelings. We have to keep reminding ourselves of the truth that you're connected to right now by listening to this episode. And I know of no better way to do that than to have me by your side 24 hours a day, whenever you need me to remind you of the truth. Now, how could you possibly get that through Matthew AI? Matthew AI is my digital mind that you can call or text any time of day for advice, questions, feedback on a situation you're going through, practical strategies on what to do next, or just emotional support to help you process and make your way through heartbreak so that you come out the other side of it. If you are not using it, you're missing out on what is literally one of the best things we have ever created. You can find it and ask any question you like right now@askmh.com in fact, my suggestion is that you literally think of something thing that this episode brings up for you, something you'd like to talk about or a question that you would ask me right now if you were sat at this podcasting table with us. Take that question and go and ask it of Matthew AI right now@askmh.com and by the way, you even get a few free minutes to try it out. So if you just want to try it and see how insightful and healing it can be, go try it now. Ask MH.com.

I think it's really hard for men today to find their significance in the way to everything you've said, everything you've both said, actually, you know, there used to be such a specific role for men in society and certainly in relationships and in romantic relationships. And I think that with women, which is a wonderful thing, the fact that women can support themselves and they don't need to be reliant on the man and they do have more financial independence and they are able to make decisions, you know, even if you don't meet the right person by a certain time, you can now have a child on your own. That's a really wonderful thing. But when you think about it, the ripple effect of that is I think that, you know, on both sides, there's a lot of entitlement that happens. So I think women feel very entitled to a certain type of person. And I don't mean, by the way, like, you know, the wealthy guy, the, what is it, six foot five, trust fund, blue eyes or whatever it is. I don't mean that.

Six figures. Six. Six foot six pack. Six figures.

Yeah, I think that's just a bit like. Yeah, some women feel like that. But anyway, we won't get into that today. But the point is that's not what I'm talking about. I just think a general kind of entitlement and expectation of the kind of person they want to see themselves with. I think men have an equal entitlement expectation of the kind of woman they want to see themselves with. And I think that it ends up creating, you know, I think that the sort of like top percent of those genders end up sort of having much more opportunity to meet each other and to get into relationships. And there's a huge, huge, huge chunk of people who feel overlooked. And I think that when it comes to women, we are used to finding meaning and significance in so many different areas because we've never had those kinds of upper hand where it's just been sort of like, you know, we've been able to go, oh, well, we can be the provider. So as long as I get a job and as long as I'm able to do that, then I will have my pick of some men. Like, women have not necessarily had that luxury. And so I definitely think that we are more resourceful in making ourselves happy and we are better at finding community and friendship and all of those things. I mean, that is proven, I think, by what we're seeing here in the response of women going, well, actually, I'm very happy being single, like, whereas men are like, I'm looking for love. You know what I mean? Like. But I think it's really hard for men because it's sort of the first time that they haven't had that sort of very clear role and significance in that way. And I think that on top of that, which I don't think we should get into today either, but there has been such a kind of demonization of men in the last few years and sort of like, men are this, and men are the root of all the problems in this world. Meanwhile, there's so many men who don't relate at all to being the problem. They don't relate at all to being the people who ruin everything, who are players who do this and who do that. They just feel completely overlooked. They feel unremarkable, which is a really horrible thing to feel when you feel overlooked and unremarkable. And then they're told that they're the problem and, you know, they're the, the bad guys in this, in this, in the story. And so I think that it's really, really tricky for men. And I think that it's going to take a little while for men to understand even. And, and on top of it, by the way, the inability to communicate your feelings and the feeling that if you communicate how you feel about something, you're going to be perceived as unattractive, which only compounds the fact that they then go, well, I'm not. If I'm like a guy and I'm feeling all of these feelings of inadequacy, like, I can't even talk about them, I can't even express them and be vulnerable about them because that's going to make me even more unattractive. And I don't have anyone to talk to about it. So where do I go to online forums or I just go to anger and resentment. And I think it's just, I think it's hard. And I think women, I think we have to take responsibility also. I think both sides have to take responsibility, but I do think women have to take responsibility for the fact that there is this tarring men with the same brush. And what you're really talking about is a percentage of men who behave in a certain way, but you are actually completely disregarding the vast majority of men who are not at all like that. And you're kind of complaining about men as a whole, but really what you're complaining about is like 20 of men, not the other 80.

And it's really easy to get lost in that 20. And, and even just the really like poisonous views of minority of men or minority of women. I went down a rabbit hole the other day when I was, I can't remember what I was researching, but I was like looking at one of the female forums on Reddit and I can't remember what it, it was like, maybe it was female dating strategy or something. Is it fds?

There's semi misandry on there. It was some outright misandry.

It was pretty like there was some stuff on there, not all of it, but there was just some. There was some stuff on there that was just really like, really mean.

Yeah.

You know, like really just nasty. And I thought, God, this is, you know, I, I can't, I don't know that there's nearly as much of it on the female side as there is on the male side right now. So I'm not trying to draw an equivalence, but I saw things in there in terms of the way men were spoken about that really appalled me.

Yeah, yeah.

And were really nasty and were. I don't know how you can in the same breath talk about the problems of the other side while you're speaking in a manner that if they spoke in that manner, you'd be appalled.

Yeah.

And, and, and I actually thought to myself, God, if I was a single man inside this forum, and I lived here in this forum reading what these women were saying, it wouldn't be long before I developed insecurities.

Well, when, and even on TikTok, you can see all these things about like broke guys. And if he can't buy you this, he's like, ditch him. And, and you're like, you know, the lifestyles people are talking about are absurd. And you're kind of like, well, if you're just the average guy who can't do any of those things, you're like, so what is that the standard? If I can't. If I can't provide, like, a life of luxury, I'm, like, not worthy of being married.

I read a bunch of comments on, like, penis size and stuff like that where I'm like, you can't. Like, this stuff gets in your head and you start worrying about that and you start. And the problem is it's all such an abstraction from what an actual relationship looks like, because it's not. That's not what a relationship is. A relationship isn't a scorecard.

Yeah, exactly.

Where you look at how high you are, you score out of a hundred in this category and this one and this one and this one. A relationship is you actually. You actually develop love for a human being, for a person, not just fall in love. I caught myself as I was about to say that, because that's not what a relationship is either. You don't just fall in love, and that's a relationship. Plenty of people fall in love, and it never becomes a relationship. You develop genuine love for another human being, for the world that they represent to you. And they almost certainly do not come in the exact package that you had imagined. And they almost certainly don't score 100 on all the things that you told yourself it was important 10 years ago for them to score 100. Like, it's just right. I knew. I knew as I was saying that you were going to be like, where do I not score 100?

Well, yeah, because anyone who's truly. Anyone who's truly in love has a great partner. The guy. Oh, but do you mind that he has that, you know, whatever. Do you mind that he's, like, balding? Do you mind he has that and bigger. Well, I love him. I don't.

Talking about.

It's like, no, I don't think.

Yeah, that's not you. You're so missing the point of. You don't. You clearly don't see me if you think that's the basis on which I've made the decision about this relationship, you know, and. And so that's what so much of the. Of the kind of complaints that we fall into when we're single and. And we're pointing the finger about stuff like this. So much of the tiktoks you see out there aren't abstraction from the real world of actual relationships. And I think it's really important to remember that, because the moment you get fixated on something that you think might be a problem for you. And then you go down the rabbit hole of looking for communities where other people have that problem and have had that experience. On one hand, there's the solace of, oh, I'm not the only one. On the other hand, you're now in an echo chamber of people who all think that that's a giant problem that they have. If it's money and I. My lack of it, that means no one wants me, I can find a forum full of people who all say, yeah, it's hard, isn't it, bro? It's so hard out here not having money. No. And it's like, you'll fight. You'll find an army of people who validate you about that, but the problem is it will make that story so real to you that you now, it's all you're thinking about, it's all you're focused on. And you lose touch with the fact that not every woman you meet is going to give a about money. If you are someone who's constantly on forums about how tall you have to be in order to attract someone, that's going to become a very real story to you because you're going to find no shortage of people who say, say, I've met women who say that, you know, who didn't want to date me once they found out my height. Of course you're gonna find those people. And it's the same. The same is true the other way around.

And I think you actually end up attracting the very thing that you are afraid of when. When you have those insecurities in your head. Because, you know, it's really interesting, like, this idea that, like, women are giving up on men. They're not choosing men, they're quitting dating because ultimately it's like, there's no viable options, blah, blah, blah. I think what's really kind of sad about it all, and sorry, Hannah, because I'm going back to saying it's sad, but only because I think to your point, it's such a good point, like, it's an abstraction of what a true relationship is. Because when you meet somebody, you obviously need to be sexually attracted to them. You need to have chemistry. You need to feel like, I have got myself a good deal with this person. That's human nature, by the way. You can hate people all you like, but, like, you, you know, you can. If. If you don't feel like you have got a good deal, if you don't feel like you've got a good person, you're not going to be happy, so that's fine. But checking yourself and saying, what does a good person actually need to have in order for, for it to qualify as a good person? Right, because what ends up happening to your point, Stephen, of like, you know, are they balding, are they tall enough, are they whatever enough. It's like if you're with somebody and then they get sick and lose a limb or lose all their hair or lose all their money or lose, you know, their ability to walk, whatever it might be like, if you really love them, that doesn't make you leave them, doesn't make you not want to be with them. You just go, well, now we have to work through this challenge together. And, and I think that like, we forget almost like what it takes to actually make a long term relationship work. And we focus so much on those very like early markers of attraction and we overlook what makes an amazing life partner. Like, who is the person that's going to stick with you if you lose your ability to walk? Who is the person that's going to be there for you when you get sick or when you get depressed or when something goes wrong? Like, you know, are they the person you had the most is awesome chemistry with or are they the person who you were able to go, I have enough chemistry with this person. I think that they're really like attractive. And I think I've got a good deal here as in, I think I found a good person. But what I'm really, really drawn to about them is those deeper qualities, those deeper shared values. And it was actually there was a study that was conducted that where they found that sexual chemistry was something like, see if I can find it.

Oh, 90 of singles say sexual chemistry is crucial in relationships.

Yes.

It said other important traits include kindness and empathy, which was 48, physical attraction at 39 and shared values at 35.

Right. And I read that and I was like, fair enough, I do think you need chemistry. But the fact that shared values was 35, I was like, well then, then that, then there's going to be a lot of divorces because I'm sorry, but like in order to stay together for a whole lifetime, you have to have shared values and you have to be with somebody who is aligned with you in terms of what they see your relationship being. And I think that like the reason I say all of this is I, I think instead of going, oh, this is also hopeless and there's no good options and women are like this and men are like this and a Kind of division and polarization that exists today between the genders starting to go, you know, I need to be sexually attracted and have chemistry with somebody, fine. But once I've got that, can I just focus on finding really wonderful people to be with? Because really, ultimately, those are the people that I'm actually going to be able to go to the distance with.

And there will no doubt be people who say, yeah, but I'm not even getting to that stage. You know, I'm not. I. I'm not getting that attraction with people at the outset. And I think we have to. I really believe that there's so much all of us can do to increase how attractive we are. There's so much more than we ever really give ourselves credit for. And when we work on those things, we're increasing the number of people who could be right for us when increasing the number of people that will be attracted to us. And as a guy, if you're really struggling out there to get that attraction from people right now, I would put. I would say, like, I'm gonna stop trying to be this. I'm gonna stop comparing myself to people who walk into a room and immediately just get attraction from people. Because that may not be my game, but what is my game? Well, let me just start with what are attractive qualities? Curiosity, leadership. Like someone who knows what they want. Someone who's decisive.

Intelligence.

Intelligence is someone who is passionate about. Yeah, but not everyone can have wit.

No, but you can be funny.

Not everyone can be funny. You might be able to train.

I'll tell you. I'll tell you a trick on how to be funny. Notice things that are funny. That makes you like, that's true. 40 more funny. So even if you notice things that are funny, if you have an eye and you're literally just looking out for things that are funny, that makes you instantly more funny. So even if you don't have weird. I get that. Like, I, that's fine. But, like, just prioritize humor.

I. I think that is true. And that's, in a way, that becomes a form of good conversation. I was going to say good conversation. But actually recognizing what's funny and being able to bring that to the table makes you good in conversation because it's like you're curating content for conversations.

Yeah. And gregariousness, positivity, discipline. Anyone can have discipline.

And discipline goes hand in hand to me with having a thing. Like, have a thing. Something that you love, something that you care about, something that you unashamedly are geeky about, or that you. You. You find fascinating and.

Or build high competence in.

Or build high competence in. Or even just have a passion for. Because you might not be highly competent in the books you read, right? You might read books on a subject where you're not highly competent, but you really love books on that subject. And if you could talk about that stuff, if you. One of the most endearing qualities is when someone can talk about something with a level of passion and excitement where they're not worried about what you think. Like, I think that's what made Steve Irwin so attractive to me. Like, Steve Irwin was not. He was not like, a classically handsome man, right? For those of you that don't know, I'm talking about the, you know, Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, you know, but he was cool. He wasn't, though.

But that's what I mean. He was cool. Despite being a dorky crocodile.

He was super dorky.

He was the cool, dorky crocodile.

He was impossibly earnest, impossibly sincere. He wasn't funny, like, not intentionally, anyway. He was actually very funny. But he didn't mean to be. But his love for what he did made. Made him cool. I remember, get him going on Conan o' Brien and, like, there's a clip online of him on Conan o'. Brien. You can look it up. Conan is, like, sarcastically, like, making fun of him the whole time he's there, and it just bounces off him. Not because Steve Irwin has, like, great comebacks. He doesn't. But it bounces off of him because Steve Irwin so just loves what he does, that there's no insecurity there for Conan o' Brien to, like, tap into. So Conan's being sarcastic because that's what Conan does or did, you know? But that's not. Steve Irwin was not. He. Sarcasm was, like, lost on him because he was just like, I just really care about what I'm doing here, and I love it, and I want you to love it as well, and I want to share it with you. And so. And I think a lot of us, we get lost in other people's approval, and we get lost in other people's approval, especially when we don't have things in life that we care deeply about, whether it's a purpose, a mission, a cause, or just things that we love and go deep on. And when we care about those things, they're suddenly, there's something bigger to me than your approval, and when there's something bigger to me than your approval, now I'm attractive to you because you're, like, oh, you don't need me. You have something that's bigger than me. You may be showing interest in me, you may be curious about me, but you don't need me because there's something bigger than me in your life. And that, to me, is one of the most attractive traits. But I think a lot of men forget that when they're trying to attract women. Women become the number one thing that's important for them in terms of approval in their life.

And of course, it goes too much the other way, where they go, I'm gonna live my chilled life. And then they actually end up being quite dismissive of women, which is also unattractive because they do it from a place of, like, same with women.

Well, they'll get unhealthy women if they do that.

Yeah, but women do the same thing. They like, almost go, like, I'm gonna act so cool and like, I don't care. And then that ends up putting off.

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So if I. I'll. I'll give the argument on behalf of what some guys will be saying watching this. I know some guys will be saying. They'll say. They'll say the. But the thing is, when a woman's searching for a relationship these days, I will be Attractive in all these ways, but, you know, she has certain expectations for a certain lifestyle. Say she's a working, professional woman and I've got to live up to, to not only being able to equal that, but also I'm expected to be a provider as well. I'm expected to even like outdo that.

Choose a different woman.

Yeah, choose a different woman. We should talk about that. We should talk about that on another episode. I think the kind of economics of dating is really fascinating, but we don't, we don't.

We, we. One thing we have to start doing is we have to start seeing people who reject us when we're, when we're being our best as people that we should be rejecting. And we get it so wrong in that respect. We hyper fixate on that person who rejected us and say she didn't need me just to like, be a great guy and to show up and be reliable. She also needed me to be a provider, then reject her.

And there's plenty of women who don't need you to do that. Like, I think that that's the other thing is that clearly a lot of these women, you know, who are saying, I don't want a date, I'm giving up, they're not looking for a provider, they're just like, I'm going to provide for myself.

So they are saying, I don't want to carry someone. They are saying, I want, but that's fine.

And that's, that's. You're allowed to not want to carry someone financially, whether you're a man or a woman.

Yes, I agree.

So I think that's, there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm just saying. They're not saying it's irrelevant.

No, no, but, but you're saying, yeah, yeah, of course I don't think it is irrelevant for a lot of people. And like I said, I think we should do an episode on that. I think it will be a really interesting conversation. But I do think that, yeah, there's just a lot of women who, they're just looking for a great guy. They're looking for someone who is kind, who is, makes them feel good, makes them feel excited about life. And that can come in so many different sort of forms. And you know, I, I think that it's, I would, I would say to those, those people who are saying, yeah, but those women are, you know, they want, they want me to provide for them and they want me to match them and blah, blah, blah, blah. I would say like you are kind of maybe assuming what women want. Like people don't really know what they want. If you can get on a date with somebody and you can make someone feel really, really good on that date, 90 of the time, people don't really care about the other stuff.

Email us podcastthewhassey.com Let us know what you think of this. It's fun to continue the conversation. I'm sure that there'll even more discussion resulting from this episode. And look as a group like this is about constantly orienting ourselves closer and closer to what's helpful, what's right, what's an accurate read on what's going on. There's so there's so much about this that's complex and there's so much going on today in dating. I think that's why it's fun to talk about it. But you know, we want your feedback. Help us shape this conversation. Where is helpful for us to go with this conversation. And let's never forget that what we care about is not simply pontificating on dating. What we care about is what's actually helpful for people in moving forward. So, you know, whenever we come from a place of personal accountability, it's never from a place of pointing the finger. It's always from a place of saying what's what's actually going to move us forward. Because one thing I know doesn't move us forward is being surrounding ourselves only with people who share our biggest challenge and tell us that we because of that challenge, we are fated to never find love.

Now that's a recipe for misery and dooming as they say, which I I totally reject. It does not help you. It's pointless. You should focus on what you can actually do.

We got a couple of comments in recently. 1 On episode 315, the X effect, why your brain won't let them go, which was our episode on Moving on from an Ex Love Cat Purrs said As with many other things, the key to moving on from a Phantom X or any other unrequited love is bringing the focus and feelings back to the self. Take the focus off of the other for just a second and come back to what the self feels. Most. Often what hurts most isn't that they are withholding their love. It's that they are not accepting the sincere, deep love and admiration we feel for them, the rejection of our love for them. It's very beautiful. Feel it, grieve it, and then see if we're not doing the same to anyone around us. Most often there is somebody. A friend, a family member, a current admirer that is looking at us us the same way, wishing and hoping we would see and know their worth and also how much we are loved by them. We take our gaze off of the unavailable and turn it towards the one that are available to us. Wonderful. I really love I love that comment episode 314 they have stopped trying don't chase a good episode to go back to if you've got someone who've stopped trying for you in your life, Mazik says. Hey guys, enjoying the concepts of episode 314 as I contemplate this, I can't help but think of love language languages and how they come into play here. I am naturally an acts of service person wondering your thoughts on this love language style and how they tend to do things for others to show they care. Generally speaking, are people with this love language style more people pleasing and feeling that they are not enough? Is there a difference between acts of service and what you talk about in depth in this episode? Well, I think that I won't go into detail on this right now, but I do think that there is a big correlation between people who focus on acts of service and people who use acts of service as a way to make them feel like they're enough in a relationship. Often people who give too much give too much because they're trying to compensate for not feeling lovable if they're not constantly doing things for someone all the time. The key question is, are my acts of service coming from a place of genuine love or are they coming from a place of fear and insecurity and inadequacy in trying to make myself equal to the other person because I don't feel equal equal to them if I just am myself. We have a love lifeline here. Who do we have today?

David hi, I am trying online dating.

In a big city and there's literally 500 likes that I got. How do you go about going through a thousand people?

Wow. Well that's a great problem to have.

Quite different from what we've been speaking about in the rest of this episode. Look, I think this is actually an interesting thing because in some ways I actually think there's more similarity between the person who has a thousand likes and the person who has currently no options, or so it seems than we would think, because both have a problem of like finding a person who's right for them. And how many people do you need who are right for you?

1. 1.

So if you're you are quick to that, but if you're someone who currently doesn't have an option that you know about, by the way. You have options, you just haven't met them yet, right? If you have no option, you don't have no options. No one has no options. You just have options you haven't met. They're there. There's just an information inefficiency right now where you don't know each other, but you just need one. If you've got a thousand likes, a thousand likes. Out of those, you still just need one. And in some ways, when you've got a thousand likes, a lot of that is just noise, right? It's not. If you think a thousand like. I'm not suggesting that Anna, who. Who left this voice note for us. I'm not suggesting that she is, you know, saying that having a thousand likes is such an amazing thing. It sounds like she's saying it's actually a bit of a challenge. But if you think about celebrities who. It's always like a puzzling thing for a lot of people, right? How could you be one of the most famous people in the world and struggle to find love when you have millions and millions of adoring fans? But the reason is because it's noise. It actually gets in the way of finding someone who's right for you. And you have to actually learn. I think one of the hard things is people have to learn to train their attention and focus their attention on fewer things, right? How do you find. How do you decide where to travel for your next vacation? You could go anywhere in the world. Like if. If you have. If you. Someone said to you, you can have a ticket to go to any country you want in the world and any city in any country and any town in any city. How do you pick?

What would you choose?

And it would be way easier if someone went, there's this vacation or this one. But if someone listed you 100 countries and said, choose the one you want, you go, oh, my God, I can't.

What would you choose? You. I think you literally just.

No, no, as in, what would you, Matthew, choose?

Oh, you know what I'd choose. I'd go back to Japan.

No, but you've already been.

You have.

You can't go back to Japan. You have to go somewhere.

I love Japan.

I know, but you can't go back to Japan.

Korea might be next. Korea, Taiwan.

Go choose one. You need one.

Yeah, let's go Taiwan.

Okay. What about you, Steven?

I'd like to go to China. I've never been.

But the point is, there is no right option. There's just the one you lean into. And it. You'd be better just when you've got a thousand likes. Pick five people that look interesting to you and start talking to them. Don't sift through a thousand likes because you're not. It doesn't work like that. There's no, you know, there are many people that could be right for you, but in order to be right, they have to have values that are synergistic with yours. They have to have the willingness to actually engage on a serious level in getting to know you and you. Them, you know, they, they have to. You have to have sexual chemistry of a kind. So there's things that will narrow it down very quickly once you get talking to people, but it's pointless. The, the idea of I've got a thousand likes is a, is kind of a pointless thing to look at. Right. Because, you know, attention is cheap. What are they liking you based on right now? Not much.

Right.

Some profile pictures and maybe a little bit of text. So we also shouldn't overvalue our likes. What we're looking for is someone who genuinely gets us and sees us and we get them and see them. So go. I would say focus much, much smaller. Like go through, spend. The best people for you right now are the people you actually meet. Set a time in your week, this week, where you're going to sit down and just go through 50 of those people and send a message to three of them or five of them, them and see what happens. And. But set a time to do that and say, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find five interesting people in this 50 group of 50, and I'm going to message them and I'm going to just see what happens over the next few days. And if nothing happens, then I'll take another 50 and I'll do the same thing. But it doesn't. A thousand people is irrelevant. It means nothing. And by the way, there could be three people who are right for you in that thousand. It's not about like the perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect person. The right person for you right now is the person that you actually end up dating who ticks enough of the boxes that you need them to tick.

And out of those ones, then look for who's giving you the right kind of attention.

Exactly. Thank you, Anna. I was an interesting kind of inverse of a lot of the things that we were talking about today. But a good reminder that there's not. I don't, I honestly don't. Think there's much difference in many ways between those two different polls right now. No attention and a thousand people. You're both still just looking for a person. And finding a person, by the way, is the great leveler. Because I don't care who you are in this world, you could be Brad Pitt, you could be, you know, Gal Gadot. You could be anyone who's deemed to be, like, a person who has tons and tons of options. You can't be with a million people. And by the way, for anyone listening, because I know there will be guys listening to that and going, oh, here. This is the crux of the issue. It's like, now, you know, after all this, we've got one woman who's saying, I've got a thousand, you know, likes or a thousand matches. How many women who are watching this right now will find that completely unrelatable? And they'll be like, I haven't got. I'm struggling to get a match, let alone a thousand. So for the guys out there, don't think that just because someone is saying, I have that much attention on an app that that is every woman's experience, because it's absolutely not. And it's just another way to other people to be like, oh, the other side are all doing great, and I'm not. And again, I can't say this enough. Tell yourself if someone. If someone is out there getting an extraordinary amount of attention, great. That's. That's a game that they have figured out. That's not the game I'm playing. It's not the game I'm playing. And once you get. Go into radical acceptance about that, life gets a lot better. Like, I. There are things that I know if we did them on this podcast or if I did them in my YouTube videos, if there's a kind of content I know if I made, it would get ten times more attention. I know tomorrow, if we started commenting on celebrity relationships, do we get a completely different level of attention? I know it. There are people out there who get tons of attention. They're on all sorts of big TV shows because they are willing to. To comment on celebrity relationships. Never done it. Never done it. Have no interest in doing it. It's. I. I'm opposed to the idea of commenting on the relationships of people who have not asked for it. And when I look at that, I'm like, I'm choosing. I'm not playing that game. It's not a. It's not my game. My game is different. And I think that sometimes one of the ways to take back ownership and control is to say to ourselves, that's not my game. And I'm okay with that. Being the sexiest man alive is that guy's game, not my game. And I'm okay with that. You know why? Because I'm not that. What's going to make me happy in life is not having hordes and hordes of people going crazy for me. What's going to make me happy in life is finding someone who's right for me. So if that's all I'm looking for, guess what? You can achieve that.

And to your point, the sexiest man in the world is also looking for one person to be happy with.

Yeah. At the end of the day, it doesn't actually matter.

Everyone's looking for the same thing.

Everyone's looking for the same thing. And that is the great leveler. The person who found the love of their life and moved to a farm in the middle of nowhere and they're having a wonderful time together is as happy as the megastar who has spent half their life trying to find love through the millions of people who want them and one day, hopefully, maybe finds peace in a happy relationship. And guess what? That person is going to find it way harder. That's the irony. It's that time again. The time that everyone's waiting for.

Matt got so excited that he's having a coughing fit.

Yeah.

I'm like Tiny Tim who's gotten over excited for his Christmas goose and can't stop coughing.

Oh, my God. That is a Muppets reference. For anyone who doesn't know, it's a Dickens reference.

But it. Yes. Also a second secondary. It's a Muppets reference. And I sound like a Muppet saying it's.

Steve.

Wait, what are you doing? It's Steve sleeve.

I love how protective you are over that. It's me that says it. Amazing. Sorry, Stephen. Steve Sleeves.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Steve Sleeves. Today we are going to play. Today we are going to play BBC.

News at ten Bong.

We're going to play Future forecast.

Cue the theme song. Don't be bereaved. You know that we can't leave without another episode of Steve Sleep. Okay, Future forecast.

Okay, we are gonna talk. We've been talking about dating. Where it is, maybe where it's going, who knows? I want us to paint some possible scenarios, optimistic ones for the future of dating. And you're gonna give me the probability that it will happen.

Okay?

Okay.

Okay. Out of 100%. And you can say whether you Think it'll make dating worse, better or different? Okay, so less ghosting, more closure. Social norms shift. Ghosting becomes a huge taboo. And people start giving short, kind explanations when ending things because it's seen as necessary etiquette.

How likely?

Yes.

Zero percent. Why?

Social norms change.

Human nature doesn't change and people will. Most people will take the path of least resistance. And the path of least resistance is not having hard conversations. And telling someone why you're letting them down is by definition a hard conversation. And we're bad enough at having hard conversations with the people we love the most in life, let alone someone who was a stranger to us two weeks ago, who we now don't want to go on date three with, and who we probably won't run into again apart from online. And the world is just becoming more and more distant online in terms of people's ability to just easily phase each other out of their lives. So that trend is only going in one direction. I'm sorry.

Okay. Return of the real life. Meet cute people. Gen Z sparks a huge resurgence in localism. Community based activities. You know, people really rebel. We reached a tipping point. People really rebel against the screen based life. And singles increasingly meet through community hobbies. There's many more social spaces and you know, there's not as many bars but there's wholesome spaces where people have real life introductions.

I think that's quite likely. I, I, well, you know what I think? I think that dating apps as they are today will change. And I think that because I think that that's, that whole model is just broken and it has to get better otherwise people will just stop engaging with it. And I think that people will absolutely start to try and invest more the way Gen Z are doing more in, in real life interaction. So I think that's quite likely. What percentage like of likelihood of it happening? I think 70.

I'm gonna say 33.

You're such a pessimist.

I think that what, what's happening with Gen Z is it's one thing to be like, I'm sick of dating apps and Gen Z have always had them. So they, they may that you know that from everything we know they are sick of them. But there is a cost to having grown up online which is that certain social skills, maybe things you've never really had to refine or learn. So it's not, I have to do more than rebel against this. I have to decide I'm going to now put myself well and truly outside my comfort zone.

I think Covid did that to people.

Did it made it worse? Yeah, I agree.

I think Covid made me less comfortable socially.

Also, there's a huge amount of money being invested right now in AI companions for people, and that as people become increasingly disappointed with people, it will be more and more tempting to turn to a high eq, empathetic, wonderful conversationalist in the form of an AI companion who never gets tired of you, never gets sick of you, gives you undying attention, and that's going to become a very seductive thing. That's going to be the new online porn. You know, what has online porn done to sex? Right? It's made it a lot. It's taken away the edge in people's hunger to go out there and have sex. It's made it far easier to get off at home, and it's given you a level of variety and, you know, weirdness that most people in the world are not going to entertain.

What if the AIs make pick up some of the emotional labor, pick up some of the slack in a relationship? And so people go, oh, my needs are more. I'm spreading out, getting my needs met.

I mean, maybe, maybe. Maybe that's a positive. Maybe people start liking their AI a bit more than their partner.

Okay. We all just become a lot more chill about gender roles. You know, a lot of, like these high. You know, a lot of the conflict here seems to be sometimes there's these gender roles that seem restrictive to people. People just become more chill about not who's gonna pay, it's just whoever can pay more. You know, who. How they contribute labor at home. And we just become a lot more relaxed about, well, whoever can do it, does do it, and it doesn't affect the dynamic.

I 50 50.

It's a hard one because it's hard to change that.

I don't. Yeah, I don't think that's changed well.

On one hand, like, but it has changed. It'll be a bit sink or swim for men in the next 20 years, I think, because they're. They're gonna have to find other ways of showing up and other ways to impress and other ways to get their value.

Something's gotta give.

Yeah, they. They can't. You can't keep clinging to the old ways when the old ways are dead. Where I'm a little less confident because I think that there will be, like, new generations of men will grow up in that way. However, I. You know, there's been a lot of regression of late, so I'm less convinced than ever that progress is a Straight line when it comes to, you know, people, equality and, you know, the people being able to evolve in these ways.

Let'S say, okay, millennial saviors. Millennial saviors. Turns out millennials will save us all. They're far better parents than the boomers and raise much more emotionally evolved children. There's a lot more therapy. Therapy is cheaper because AI therapists are really, really cheap and commoditized. So it's very much easier for people to get help with their emotional issues, become healthier, better communicators, and millennials save the future with their better parenting.

Aren't people worried millennials are going to raise a generation of like, really soft children? Isn't that the idea that.

Well, the critique of millennials was that they are snowflakes. That was the critique. But I don't know, you know, I know a lot of good millennial parents who are my friends.

Do you worry that millennial parents are like, so eager to rebel against the way their parents were in, in the boomer generation that they, that they will sort of end up going too far the other way?

I'm not sure. I. My friends seem to have a very good balance of being like, disciplined.

Or was it boomer parents that are coddled too much? No, I guess not. Right.

Well, it seemed that boomer parents were told they were super special and that's why people think boomers have narcissism.

So it wasn't the boomers were easy on their kids. It was. They were just all about themselves. That's the stereotype.

The stereotype is that the boomers were self centered then. The stereotype is that the millennials were coddled and participation trophies.

And what encourages me is how much, I mean, we might say the progress is too slow, but how much more men talk about their feelings.

That's true.

That genuinely encourages.

That's gotten better.

I think also people understanding the effect of like, trauma and, you know, the impact of our childhood and like, how we kind of shape our children's nervous systems. I think that's like, way more talked about in our generation than it ever was in our parents generation. So I feel optimistic about that one person.

I really like some. I find it really endearing when guys, especially the kind of guys that, you know, a generation ago would not have been in therapy or any kind of coaching when they do that work. And it's not just like, you know, it's not hustle, like they're not, they're not on some course to hustle harder or do. They're genuinely going somewhere where they're talking about their feelings in a way that they would not have done a generation ago. That, to me, I find extremely encouraging. And I do think that's getting more normalized.

All right, well, let's end it there. Thanks for playing. Future Forecast.

We are so happy to have you here on the Love Life podcast, and we can't wait till next time. In the meantime, don't forget to grab your ticket to the retreat@retreat access.com if you're going to join us in person in Miami, by the way, even better. But don't let that stop you. If you can't get on a plane to be with us in person, you can get a virtual ticket and join us from wherever you are in the world. This is an amazing opportunity. Do not miss it. You'll have to wait a whole other year and you don't even know where you're going to be next year. When you get the opportunity to do something that's good for you, take it. Retreat access.com is the link. We will see you next time. Don't forget to leave us a comment on this episode. Sam.