Dr. Orion Taraban pushes back on the "black pill" mindset that tells young men they're hopeless in dating. He argues men can change their socioeconomic status, social circles, style, and skills, even if height and facial symmetry are fixed. He rose from low-income Brooklyn to the top 1% across several metrics.
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Okay, so Mr. Justin says, this is in, this is in regards to just in general dating and the mating game, if you will. The stats say, now anytime somebody says that, I'm like, okay, what stats exactly are we quoting here? But the stats say that the women are attracted to, he says, 5% of the male population. I don't know where he got that, but while men are attracted to roughly 60% of the female population, it seems that all of the advice is about becoming the the 5% man. If it's a question or just a statement, would you agree with that statement overall?
I don't know where these percentages come from. They don't feel correct to me to say that only 5% of men are attracted to women. But I do think that, let's say, I think it was even Andrew C.K. that mentioned this in one of his stand-ups, it's like men are kind of wired to be willing to have sex with most of the women that exist. And it's like, if we're talking about attraction to the sense of like, I'm willing to date you or to have sex with you. So I do think that men are willing to entertain a wider swath of females for sexual opportunities than vice versa. That's true.
Yes.
A lot of the advice is to become one of those top percentile men. And I would say, yeah, that's probably true. And I think some guys hear that and they just throw their hands up in the air, I think in a little bit of foreclosed helplessness in the sense of like, oh well, I'll just go back and be 6'3". Like, that's the problem. I should have told my father to reproduce with an Amazon and that would solve all my problems. Yeah, thanks a lot, Orion. I'll just try to be taller and better looking, et cetera, et cetera. So that's focusing on some of the things that you can't change. Like, you can't change your height, you can't change your facial symmetry absent some very intensive surgeries. Mhm. But there's a lot that you can change. And you have to understand that, like, you know, 15 years ago I was living in the projects in Brooklyn, and I was broke. I didn't have a degree. I didn't have a girlfriend. I was at the bottom of the barrel in terms of social hierarchies. Now I'm definitely in the top 1% of men in a lot of different metrics. A lot can change in 15 years, you understand? So it's like the people who are at the top now, even if it's in terms of pure attractiveness, they're not the people that will be at the top 10 years from now or 20 years from now. Men, they— we do have a kind of privilege in the sense that we can take more time to figure things out and to get our shit together. Women kind of have to get— figure that out and get their shit together faster, for better or for worse. But men are kind of like long-term, slow-growth investments. And if you can't change your height and you can't change your facial symmetry, then change your habits. Are you smoking weed and playing video games all day? Change your social circles. Change your outlook on life. Change your socioeconomic status. Change the way that you dress and present yourself to the world. Change your skill sets so that you have more of what women might be looking for, if that's your goal, or at least have more that other men might be looking for so that you can be of value to your fellow human being. Like these are all changeable things. They're not changeable overnight and they're certainly not changeable without, in some cases, a great deal of hard work. But what else are you going to fucking do? It's like, it's too young. It's too early at 25 to throw your hands up in the air and say, I'm never going to be a top percentage man. So I can understand how the young guys like myself at that age would just hear that and say, well, I'm never going to be able to compete. But the fact of the matter is, is that we live in probably the most fluid, mobile socioeconomic society that has ever existed on the planet. But it doesn't mean everyone's going to be a billionaire. But it does mean that the people at the bottom of the barrel 10 years ago might be near the top 10 years from now. And to focus on what you can change, because even if it doesn't lead to better outcomes with women, though it probably will, it will lead to better outcomes for yourself. Like chances are you will be happier if you're more agentic, which is that you take more responsibility for yourself in the direction of your life, as opposed to feeling like you're just sort of a victim of circumstance or hopeless. There's, there's a time to give up hope. I worked in the cancer ward for many years, and when all the other treatments have failed and it's metastatic disease and you have systematic failure, that might be the time to accept gracefully the situation and to move with dignity in the direction of the transition. But it's it's not, in my opinion, correct to give up hope when you first get a stage 1 diagnosis. So that's sort of like the Blackpool movement online is I think that men, young men have reached for hopelessness and surrendered hope far too soon. They have not done enough. And more than anything else, they will thank themselves for making those changes and assuming responsibility for the direction of their lives. And they can turn that franchise around just like I did.
Very well put. What a perfect ending to this. I hope, uh, guys, you know, I always leave these things like when I do events and so forth, I always tell the guys at the beginning, some of these events I go to, people pay good money to go to them. I'm like, you've been given a platter with some good knowledge here, some good information, do something with it. So I hope somebody listens to that and sets aside a lot of the victimhood that we hear so much of, and like you say, the black pill, which is a very nihilistic view of the world and so forth, and just say You don't have to do that, guys. There's— there is hope out there, and there's— it's all within your power to make a lot of change. And you do have a lot of power to change your life. I'm one of those guys that flipped things around 12 years ago. Orion, same thing. Sounds like you're in, what, Bed-Stuy or something like that in Brooklyn or something?
Crown Heights.
Crown Heights. Oh, even worse.
Well, uh, it depends. I, I hear Bed-Stuy is very bougie these days, so yeah, everything changes.
That's kind of my point these days.
That's kind of my point. But yeah, it takes a long time, but you know, if it's gonna take a while, you might as well get started. That's kind of my opinion.
