Modern Dating is Broken- Dating Apps, AI Partners & The Future of Relationships | Dr Orion & Shlloka

Modern Dating is Broken- Dating Apps, AI Partners & The Future of Relationships | Dr Orion & Shlloka

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Title: Modern Dating is Broken- Dating Apps, AI Partners & The Future of Relationships | Dr Orion & Shlloka

Author Name: SHLLOKA

Description: ➡️ 90% of a Good Relationship is Selection | The Dating Truth Nobody Tells You 😱 | Dr Orion Taraban
➡️ Why Modern Dating is Broken | Attraction, Commitment & What Men and Women Really Want 🔥 | Body to Beiing
➡️ Dating Apps, AI Partners & The Future of Relationships | A Masterclass | Dr Orion Taraban | Shlloka

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🎙 Today's Video Covers:
Welcome to one of the most powerful and honest conversations ever recorded on Body to Beiing! Today we welcome Dr Orion Taraban, licensed psychologist, bestselling author and creator of PsycHacks, for a complete masterclass on modern dating, attraction, relationships and the future of love. From why dating apps are failing both men and women, to the psychology of commitment, arranged vs love marriages, toxic relationships, pornography's impact and how AI is about to become your biggest romantic competitor by 2030, this conversation will completely change the way you think about love, attraction and relationships 🙏

✨ What You Will Discover:
🪷 Why 90% of a good relationship is selection, not love or chemistry 💡
🪷 The 4 ways to meet people in 2026 and which one actually works 📱
🪷 Why dating apps are a marketing problem not a personal failure 🙏
🪷 What men and women actually want from each other, and what they get wrong 💔
🪷 Why most first dates should stay first dates and that is okay ✅
🪷 The anti-dating principle, why traditional dating gives you zero real data 🎯
🪷 How attraction changes in your 20s 30s 40s and beyond 🔄
🪷 Why arranged marriages statistically outperform love marriages 😱
🪷 The truth about pornography and its impact on real relationships ⚠️
🪷 How to spot signs of attraction, in men and in women 👁️
🪷 Why domesticating a man destroys the attraction that brought you together 🏍️
🪷 What makes a toxic relationship and the on-again off-again trap 🚫
🪷 Why relationships are transactional, and why that is perfectly okay 💼
🪷 By 2030 your biggest romantic competitor will be an AI, not another human 🤖
🪷 The one dating habit you should stop immediately 🛑

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction 🎙️
01:16 Guest Introduction 🎙️
03:42 Let's Begin 🌿
04:19 Dating Crisis Explained 💔
05:06 Dating Apps Truth 📱
06:47 First Date Rules 🗓️
07:26 Questions to Avoid 🚫
09:01 Second Date Purpose 💋
10:10 Intimacy Timing ❤️
11:15 Anti Dating Principle 🎯
13:59 Arranged vs Love Marriage 💍
17:27 Masculinity Today ⚔️
19:46 Good way to Approach 🤩
23:14 Who is approaching whom ?🤔
26:43 What is true Masculinity💪
35:25 Adult content side effects 😮
40:00 What Women Want 👩
42:15 Attraction Signs 👁️
44:16 Attraction Changes With Age 🔄
47:06 Arranged Marriage Success 💍
49:26 Relationships as Business 💼
53:07 Domestication Danger 🏍️
54:34 Selection is Everything 🎯
01:19:10 Young Men Struggles ⚔️
01:21:47 Rapid Fire Round ⚡
01:24:15 Finding Right Partner 🗺️
01:25:26 Stop This Dating Habit 🛑
01:29:26 Future of Dating 2030 🤖
01:33:37 Outro 🙏

🌸 Today's Episode Highlights:
Dr Orion Taraban delivers one of the most brutally honest and scientifically grounded masterclasses on modern dating ever recorded. From the psychology of why we choose the wrong partners to the economics of commitment, from the danger of domesticating men to why AI will replace human partners by 2030, this conversation is a wake up call for every man and woman navigating the modern dating world. If you want a relationship that actually works, this episode is required listening 🙏

🌟 About Our Guest:
Dr Orion Taraban is a licensed psychologist, bestselling author and the creator of Psych Hacks, a platform that helps millions of people understand love, dating and relationships. He is the author of The Value of Others which explores the hidden psychology and economics behind modern dating and relationships. His work bridges clinical psychology with real world dating advice reaching millions across YouTube and social media.

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YouTube:    / @psychacks  

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#ModernDating #RelationshipAdvice #DrOrionTaraban

Transcript:
(00:00) I believe that 90% of a good relationship is selection. >> Doesn't that make it transactional? >> Well, yeah. >> And that's okay. >> Is it not? Men have trouble even getting to the first date. I have an episode called the four ways to meet women. So, there are four ways in 2026. They are dating apps.
(00:16) Hold approach or pickup, social media, and social circle. And the best possible cachment is basically someone who's vulnerable, someone who's sensitive, someone who's kind. Those are things that men look for in women. But women are not attracted to those guys. So there's kind of two ways to have successful long-term relationships in my conceptualization.
(00:37) The first person you fell in love with, the first person you ever had sex with, you just decided to tie the knot. The alternative is you go long like a world traveler. >> Who approaches whom first? >> It's the man's job to serve, you know, to put the ball into play. I've never seriously heard of a woman proposing to a man.
(00:54) I actually don't think that masculinity per se is being attacked in today's day and age. It's just masculinity in men that's under attack. Whereas when women lean into their masculine, they are celebrated. Maybe one of the big reasons for the the relationship crisis that we're currently facing is because we shifted from arranged marriages to love marriages.
(01:16) Dr. Orion Tarabat is a licensed psychologist, bestselling author, and the creator of Psych Hacks, a platform that helps millions of people understanding love, dating, and relationships. He is the author of the value of others where he explores the hidden psychology and economics behind modern dating and relationships.
(01:34) What about sexual incompatibility? Is that a dealbreaker? >> Oh, sure. So, it's called the five hard conversation and those things are money, sex, children, politics/ relligion and >> what are some of the red flags or how do I know that my relationship has become toxic? >> Probably the most common toxic relationship is the on again offagain one.
(01:55) Okay, >> those relationships never get better over time. That person was an ex for a reason. >> I want to ask you about the impact of pornography on dating relationships. 50% of men who are in committed relationships watch pornography at least once a week. >> That's dangerous, especially for a marriage, which is a sexual relationship.
(02:14) >> What is the best way to find a partner these days? And today, we're excited to deep dive into the world of modern dating with Dr. Orion here on the body tobe podcast. >> I will say that I do believe that by 2030 most men and women's greatest intraexual competitors will be AIS. We already have people falling in love with chat GPT.
(02:40) >> Today we have more ways of meeting people than we ever did before in history. Did you know that globally more than 350 million people are on dating apps? Yet, in a recent survey, 88% of the respondents said that they felt disappointed by the kind of people they meet online. We've turned finding love into an industry, attraction into an algorithm, and now we're turning to AI for relationship advice.
(03:06) But technology can't settle the bigger question. What makes someone attractive? What makes someone commit? Why do people cheat? Why do good relationships fall apart? What do men actually want? What do women actually want? And in a world where there's infinite choice, how do you know you found the right person? And that's exactly what we're going to be unpacking today.
(03:27) Modern masculinity, attraction, dating rules, commitment, breakups, and ultimately what men and women want from each other in order to build relationships that will last. Welcome to today's masterass on modern dating. But before we get into it, I would like you to reconsider subscribing to our channel if you haven't already. Every subscription helps our content reach a wider audience and more importantly help us bring bigger ideas, better conversations, and more incredible guests onto the platform.
(03:54) Dr. Orurai, I was reading an article yesterday which said that women are exhausted from trying to outman the men. If statistics were to be believed, then we have about 35% of the global dating population single. 78% people report experiencing acute levels of fatigue and burnout on the level of physical, emotional, psychological.
(04:21) Only 12% of the dating app users have been able to find committed relationships. And Jenz's today are dating far less in comparison to what millennials did. Men seem to think that there are no good women out there. Women seem to think there are no good men out there. What's going so wrong in the dating ecosystem as we speak? >> Yeah, it's a significant problem.
(04:39) It's the topic of the forthcoming book that I'm working on. You're basically describing the relationship crisis and when fewer relationships get transacted, fewer people get married, fewer people start families, fewer babies are born. And we see that across all of the developed world, there's actually only one country that is reproducing above replacement rate.
(04:58) >> So, what are some of the classic mistakes you think that people are making in the dating scene given that 70 to 80% of the first dates don't translate onto the second dates? Well, the hardest thing is even getting the first date and that definitely is asymmetrical between men and women, especially you mentioned dating apps.
(05:14) So, dating apps are an imperfect technology, but for better or worse, one of the main issues is that both men and women are relying on them as their primary means of meeting a significant other. And I think that that's probably not a good idea. I think dating apps can and should remain one among many strategies, but relying on it as the primary or even the exclusive strategy is probably not going to lead to success.
(05:37) Men have trouble even getting to the first date. Men might have to swipe thousands of times to get a couple of matches to get a couple of women who will respond and maybe it will translate into a first date possibly. I consider that kind of a marketing problem. This isn't something that people should take very personally.
(05:52) They have to understand that people are going to be making very quick judgments about six pictures. They might not even look at them all and maybe three pieces of text and they might not read those texts at all either. So, what we're dealing with is a presentational issue. With respect to a lot of dates just being first dates, I think that's kind of normal.
(06:13) I think most dates probably should be first dates. I mean, if we're talking about finding somebody that you're going to have for a long-term relationship, a marriage, which ideally is for the rest of your life on some level, what's the hurry? I mean, if a corporation is going to hire for a seale executive, they're going to do a worldwide search, entertain hundreds, if not thousands of resumes, fly people out for in-person interviews.
(06:34) These processes can take several months and only one candidate gets selected. So I don't think that not getting a second date is necessarily a bad outcome. It could be the right outcome and it doesn't waste any more time for the individuals involved. >> So if you had to tell me step by step what are the things I should be doing on the first, second, third, and if at all the fourth date, what would they be? >> One of the main problems with a lot of first dates these days is they feel like job interviews.
(07:03) And I think one of the things to blame here is the movement of let's say intentional dating. Generally, people have been single for a while or they've gone on a bunch of dates. Uh maybe it's led to some short-term relationships, some situationships, nothing seems to pan out. They get frustrated and impatient and they think, "I just need to see if somebody's going to be aligned with what I want as quickly as possible.
(07:23) Do they have what I'm looking for? Can I filter them out if they have what I'm not looking for?" And so they ask a lot of direct questioning and it starts to feel like an interrogation. There's no charm in it. There's no fun in it. There's very little space for any kind of genuine emotion to come into play in a job interview.
(07:41) So, what I would say is if the question could be answered in a survey, don't ask it on a first date. Like, you don't need to be physically in the room with another person to answer these questions. Where did you grow up? How many siblings do you have? What do you do? It's like all those things are interesting.
(07:58) I guess they're interesting piece of information and they will be revealed in the fullness of time as people start to open up about their lives and their stories. So you don't need to worry, just listen. You're going to get the answers to those questions. And the reason why it's not a good idea to ask very specific questions with respect to their intentions or their values is you have to understand that a first aid is also kind of like a job interview.
(08:20) And you're not going to get a lot of reliable information from an applicant by asking them direct questions in a job interview. Like for example, if you were interviewing applicants for a company, one of the worst questions you could ask that applicant is, "Are you honest?" Because both the honest and the dishonest person are going to say yes.
(08:38) So, it's a completely unreliable test of honesty. One, and two, it might actually lead you to think that just because I got this person said this that I can now treat this person as if they are honest because of their own self-disclosure. It's much better to like watch how people are and then make your own judgments and observations when they're in a more relaxed and natural state.
(09:01) >> What is the purpose of the second date and how does the second date differ from the first date? >> Well, um, we might be coming across some cultural differences and I understand that the way that people date is different around the world and I'm not an expert in how people date in India. But in the western culture, especially in America, we live in a society where for better or for worse, sex precedes commitment.
(09:27) And that might be part of the problems that we're having in the sexual marketplace. But it would be unreasonable to expect that that's going to change anytime soon. So, I think that on some level to move things along, uh, the second date needs to more or less explicitly involve the possibility of hooking up. Let's put it that way. >> Mhm.
(09:55) Um, what is the ideal stage to bring in physical intimacy or sex for that matter? because you're a psychologist and I understand that there would be some psychological repercussions to that perhaps in the form of emotional attachment early on and some things that might also dictate the course of the relationship in the long haul. >> Well, I don't know if there's an ideal phase in a relationship for everyone.
(10:15) Like I don't think it's a one-sizefits-all. Uh, we could certainly argue that an ideal world sex only happens in the context of a loving committed relationship, but that's sort of like saying that we should all just eat organic farm grown food with all of our loved ones every night. So, if that's the only way we were allowed to eat, I think there would be a lot more starvation in the world.
(10:37) So, sex is kind of like food and people eat all kinds of different foods for all kinds of different reasons. So, it's not particularly useful to have a lot of moralistic judgment about how people eat, just like it's not very useful to have a lot of moralistic judgment about how people use physical intimacy. With respect to your question though, because we live in a a market where sex precedes commitment, it can become a liability to delay the sex too long.
(11:04) Like, it often will disqualify potential partners. >> How about date three and four? I kind of operate under the principle of anti-dating. That might be surprising that people often refer to me as a dating psychologist, but I'm not a really big fan of dating as it's conventionally practiced in today's day and age because a lot of dating is irrelevant at best and misleading at worst.
(11:29) Look, if we're going to be engaging in dating in a good faith way, it's because we're trying to basically vet somebody for a long-term relationship. That's the good way of dating. What you're doing is to try to get pieces of information about the person that would reliably and accurately help you make that decision. Okay.
(11:49) So, what kind of information are you receiving if you're taking her out mini golfing or you're going to a Michelin star restaurant to impress her or you're going for a walk in the park? Unless these are things that you already do all the time anyway, you're basically practicing courtship in a bubble that's removed from either one of your realities, which doesn't provide good data at best and could be entirely misleading or unsustainable at worst.
(12:19) So, the principle of anti-dating is you don't date in the traditional sense. What you do is you basically invite the person along into the life that you're already living on kind of a temporary basis because that's kind of what the relationship is going to be. So, think about the kinds of things that you typically do 90% of the time in a long-term relationship.
(12:41) If you're like most people, it's you get together, you talk about your days, you have a meal, then you go cuddle on the couch, and maybe some things happen. So, that's the date. Like the best question to ask a potential job applicant is not these structured interview questions. Are you honest? What's your experience? You give them the job that you potentially want to hire them to do.
(13:04) You ask for a work sample. And that's what this is. It's basically a work sample is that you want to be potentially my long-term girlfriend. This is what I do with my long-term girlfriends. Do you like this? Does this feel good to you? Is this something that you would want to do? Do I like doing those things with you? Those are actually accurate and reliable piece of information that could help you make that decision.
(13:23) >> So would you be anti- casual dating? >> So casual dating has some issues, right? But there's also issues if we eliminate casual dating and I don't think those are as obvious. Like I think one of the reasons why we might inappropriately idealize grandma and grandpa's generation when they got married at 19 is because you couldn't have sex unless you were married.
(13:50) And these were horny teenagers. Let's just put it that way. No one wants to think about nan. Like let's just state the fact. And maybe they stayed together because they couldn't get divorced and the woman had no resources over her own. Like let's just be real about that. Now, if we change the fact that women have their own resources, if we change the fact that divorce is possible, we change the fact that people can have sex without getting married, we have basically the current situation, which has some pros and cons. Maybe it's not a good idea
(14:15) that you end up with the rest of your life with the first person you had sex with. Maybe on the whole, that's a good thing. Potentially, the pendulum has swung too far, but I think that most people reach a point, even if they engage in casual sex, that they tend to get tired of it. So, there's kind of two ways to have successful long-term relationships in my conceptualization.
(14:34) There's stop short or go long. Um, stop short is kind of like marrying your high school sweetheart. It's the first person you fell in love with. It's the first person you ever had sex with. You just decided to tie the knot. You move out somewhere. You plant yourself, have a bunch of kids, and and that's it.
(14:49) And you kind of protect that by getting off of social media because what can then happen is people can get this sense of FOMO that there's a whole world that they missed out on. All of these feelings, all of these experiences and maybe they just made a hormonal decision as a teenager that they now regret. So part of stopping short is actually having those boundaries around your relationship for your own kind of like peace of mind.
(15:13) Because if you stay in the relationship but you're feeling envious or resentful, it's not going to be a happy relationship for either one of you, right? Um the alternative is you go long. So the metaphor I use is like a world traveler. This is somebody who didn't just like go to a couple different places. He's been to all the continents.
(15:31) He's been to 200 different cities. He's been in the Himalayas and in the Amazon and in all the different biomes and he's seen pretty much all the world has to offer. If this traveler were then to come across a new city or a new culture and he was like, "Wow, I really like this, you can be reasonably assured that that's the best he's ever going to find.
(15:52) " So, another thing about casual dating is that if you start to go into it and you're moving towards the goong, um it can become somewhat of a dehumanizing experience, especially if you just rely primarily or exclusively on the apps. These are just these aren't people. these are just pixels on a screen which on some level is true like you're not looking at people you're looking at a profile um the six photographs etc.
(16:16) You can get kind of get lost in the sense that there is this illusion of infinite optionality and infinite optionality is very difficult for people to make decisions about because within that space the opportunity cost of committing to anything also becomes infinite. If there truly are infinite options, deciding on one means you lose infinity minus one, which is basically the biggest loss you could possibly have from an opportunity standpoint.
(16:44) And people psychologically are much more likely to make decisions to reduce loss than to secure gain. So that's another thing is that we can get into this habit where there's probably someone better out there, which is probably true. Like in a world of 8 and a half billion people, the possibility that the person that you're dealing with is the objectively best match for you and all the future use that you two will eventually become is functionally zero.
(17:10) But how long will it take to find that person? And how many resources, time, energy, and money are you willing to spend in that search? So we all have to basically make compromises with respect to how long we're willing to stay in that space and when we found someone that's good enough which will feel like settling because it always is to some extent.
(17:32) All long-term relationships are settling to some degree. >> Correct. And it's I assume the paradox of choice as the psychologists would say >> paradox of choice. Exactly. So when we talk about the classic mistakes, one thing that you mentioned is that a majority of the daters might be looking at dating apps. What are some of the other avenues that they should be looking at? >> Yeah, I have an episode called the four ways to meet women.
(17:54) So there are four ways in 2026. They are dating apps. They are cold approach or pickup. There's social media and social circle. So dating apps and social media are both technos solutions. uh cold approach and social circle are real life solutions and different strategies work in each one of those four different environments and the best possible cachement is basically sourcing from all four of those at once and each one of those has their benefits and their liabilities.
(18:22) >> Can you explain to me what cold approach is and uh what are the kind of pickup lines? Oh, I don't know any really good scripted pickup lines to be honest, but cold approach is just you're out and and about and you see a handsome or attractive stranger and you want to strike up a conversation and see where it leads.
(18:40) So there is a great deal of reticence to do that. Uh certainly in today's day and age, I think number or percentage of men who have approached a woman they don't know in the last year is probably at all-time lows and there's a number of social factors uh related to that. I think a lot of men are afraid that it's going to come off as creepy or as harassing to the woman in question.
(19:00) I've approached at least a thousand women in real life. Uh that's never been my issue. I think that there are ways that you can go up to somebody and even if they are not interested, and they generally aren't, you can leave that person better than how you found her. So, I don't necessarily see it as the problem that other men do on the other side of trying.
(19:23) And when you actually try, you get better at it. You might even have fun. And you just remember it's another human being that you just want to go up and have a conversation with. The idea is to actually be kind of curious with very low expectations. Don't have the expectation that you're there to get her number, to take her on a date or take her home.
(19:39) You're there to just like talk to another human being and see who she is. How does she feel? What's going on in her life? And you can kind of take it from there. That generally works the best. >> Understood. What is the good way to approach um men and women by the way of communication? What I think of, especially with the very first initial interaction, it doesn't really matter what you say.
(19:58) And a lot of guys get this wrong. They're trying to think of the perfect moment, something really smooth, something really funny, something really witty that's going to just knock her socks off. And in the act of contemplating that, they get too much in their heads. And that kind of hesitancy generally reduces a likelihood they're actually going to approach the woman.
(20:14) And if they do manage to screw up the courage to do so, they often feel stilted and wooden and they don't come off as natural and easygoing and confident as they otherwise would. So that's sort of like playing out a chess match with another opponent before either one of you has made a first move. Like the game is absolutely not going to go as you imagine in your head.
(20:33) What I teach guys is that a conversation is like a game of tennis. All you have to do as the man is to put the ball in service. And that serve kind of serves as a litmus test as to whether this particular woman has any interest in playing with you whatsoever. If a woman likes you, and again, she doesn't really know you because you're just a stranger that comes up to her.
(20:54) So, she's going to make some snap judgments about the way that you're dressed, uh how you're holding yourself, the proximics between the two of you, the tone of voice. She's going to make some pretty rapid judgments. She has to. But if she likes what she sees, she's going to try her best to keep the ball in play. So, it doesn't matter if it's even a little awkward or it's not the best placement, she's going to try to find a way to keep the volley going.
(21:16) On the other hand, if a woman for whatever reason just doesn't like what she sees, she's going to hit the ball right out of bounds. It's not going to be ambiguous whatsoever. Frankly, the the worst rejection I've ever got from cold approach is just a woman who kind of looked me up and down and then just turned away. She didn't even bother to tell me no.
(21:32) That was the worst thing that happened to me out of a thousand cases. So, um it's really not much to be scared of. I think it's generally a good idea to kind of make your intentions known as quickly as possible. Uh obviously, this depends on the context, whether you're at a supermarket versus a nightclub, but the woman kind of needs to understand that this conversation is happening because there's some sort of sexual interest in the man approaching the woman.
(21:58) come on too strong and it's going to be off-putting for sure, but she doesn't want to mistake that you're just being friendly or that you have a business proposition for her if it's at a networking event or something like that. So, there has to be something that says that you're kind of looking at her as a man looking at a woman.
(22:16) And one of the best ways to do that is to kind of comment on her physical appearance. Generally, shy away from her body, her physical body. It's really safe to talk about the way that she's dressed. Women put a lot of thought into how they're dressed. They it reflects their moods, their identities. And if you can make a genuine compliment or an observation even about what she's wearing, um that's often a good place to start.
(22:39) And you can see based on her response what the litmus of her emotion is in that moment. >> Who approaches whom first? And I say this because uh traditionally as per the anthropological understanding in the hunting and gathering societies it was the men who actively pursued mating and today data especially in India is quite shocking because um there's this very famous matrimonial website which is a go-to for several single Indians who are seeking matrimony and the data showed that women approached men three times more than what they did in 2022. So
(23:15) scientifically and perhaps physiologically, who is wired to approach whom first? >> Interesting statistic. I don't know this site in particular, but we have to be careful about percentages cuz like if four years ago 1% of women were approaching men and now it's triple that, it's still a very sizable minority relative to men.
(23:37) I think that for better or for worse, men are expected to initiate. like they're expected to approach, they're expected to ask out the woman to plan the date, they're even expected to get down on one knee. I've never seriously heard of a woman proposing to a man. They often propose the proposal. There's very often a proposal behind the proposal, but you know, I've never seen a guy like this on his Instagram with a woman on knee with a ring, you know.
(24:04) So, it's the man's job to serve, you know, to put the ball into play. And what happens after depends on who you're playing with. Now what's also interesting about that because I'm not an expert about what's happening in India these days but there is a uh dating app in America. It might be in India as well called Bumble. Have you heard of Bumble? >> Yeah.
(24:21) >> So Bumble's entire premise was that women would make the first move. It was a huge failure. What they saw after they instituted this policy um through privately revealed messaging and surveys with the women that were using the product is that women quote felt too much pressure associated with making the first move.
(24:41) Twothirds of women on a dating app expressly designed to facilitate women making the first move felt too much pressure to do so. So they created some like backd dooror for the men on the app to basically initiate the conversation. Um, what this reveals though is a really big difference between stated preference and revealed preference.
(25:00) What Bumble did was listen to what women were saying, especially in the West, is that the idea that women should just be passive and wait for a man is a vestage of patriarchal mating systems and we are empowered women in today's day and age. and Bumble listened to them and they didn't like it as revealed by their behavior on the app and in their anonymous surveys.
(25:26) So, there is a huge and growing divide between what modern women are saying they want men to be and how they want relationships to progress and what they truly want. And sometimes what women actually want is at odds with what they're supposed to want with respect to, you know, fourthwave feminism and the empowered women movement.
(25:47) And that that creates probably a lot of internal struggle potentially in women because it can feel like betraying yourself or betraying the movement or betraying women. I'm not sure. I can imagine that might be difficult. Some cognitive dissonance there. Anyway, >> it's like paying on the first date. Who pays? Would a woman like to be the first one to initiate the payment or what do you think? >> There's definitely been surveys about that.
(26:09) I mean, if you're asking me personally, I think the man should pay, but maybe I'm just oldfashioned. Who knows? I think that is basically a demonstration of financial solveny. I mean, one of the main reasons why women throughout all of history have sought after men is for protection and provision, resources. And a very easy way to show that you have enough resources to care for a woman on like a primal level is you buy her a drink.
(26:32) It's not that big of an ask >> you know but traditional codes of masculinity which is protection providing care physical strength are also undergoing change and evolution right so then the question what is true masculinity I recently had a guest on the podcast and she comes from the side of Vic astronomy and she says that we're entering the age of Aquarius and the next 300 years is going to be governed by Saturn which is why you see gender identities becoming so fluid you see gender constructs of masculinity and
(27:00) femininity dissolving and becoming very fluid So, um, how do you see this impact dating decisions and the dating landscape? >> Well, again, I think people are getting mixed messages. There's what we're supposed to believe or to say out loud, and there's what people actually want and what they're attracted to and what they're interested in.
(27:19) And those two chips are moving further and further away from each other. Now, let's talk about masculinity. I actually don't think that masculinity per se is being attacked in today's day and age. We really like empowerment. We really like strength. We really celebrate success and achievement if a woman does it. So we have to be clear that masculinity is not under attack.
(27:41) It's just masculinity in men that's under attack. Whereas when women lean into their masculine, they are celebrated. >> Correct? But this is potentially dangerous because everything about traditional femininity that many modern women have jettisoned, they're holding out as a sign of a non-toxic male. Someone who's vulnerable, someone who's sensitive, someone who's kind.
(28:05) Those are things that men look for in women. But women are not attracted to those guys. They're not. And a lot of young men grow up and this is what they hear. It's pretty much the only thing that they hear for a long time unless they start to really get into the internet and they don't quite understand why it's not working.
(28:25) They grow up and they think, "But I'm sensitive. I talk about my feelings. I treat women as equals. I respect them. I'm not like those other guys. What's the problem?" And the problem is those women aren't attracted to those men. They think that they're cute at best, but they're not going to sleep with them, and they're probably not going to feel safe in a relationship with those men. Okay.
(28:47) Now, the issue with praising and celebrating the masculine and women is that no matter what, no one is going to be better at masculinity on a population level than men. >> Period. >> Yeah. >> Just like no one is going to be better at femininity on a population level than women. Most men are more masculine than most women.
(29:08) And the most masculine people are always men. Just like most women are more feminine than most men. The most feminine people are always going to be women. So leaning into women's masculinity is kind of setting them up because as they go higher and higher up, they're going to be competing with the most masculine men. And I don't think that they can beat them on those masculine attributes.
(29:30) So they're going to hit what might be interpreted as a kind of glass ceiling, but could be based on other issues going on, which is that the most masculine people are always going to be men. you know the society and the education system um like you said glorifies women in masculine professions even the education system is gearing us up for that right a woman fighter pilot will be celebrated a classical dancer who's a man will not be celebrated as much u so this collapse of hetronormative polarization of femininity and
(30:01) masculinity u do you think this has been a reason for why men and women are not compatible enough or they're not able to find correct matches given the influx of dating apps, relationship coaches, and everything else that's surrounding relationships. >> Yeah, that's a really good point. They call it in some circles sexual polarity.
(30:23) And generally, the more masculine a person is, the more they attract a feminine other regardless of the biological sex of the people involved. Um, two very masculine partners are often a recipe for trouble. I mean, masculinity in general is more hierarchical. It's competitive. Femininity is more egalitarian and inclusive, right? So, when you have two very masculine people, especially if they're if they're doing similar things, it's going to take a great deal of awareness and maturity to not enter into even unconscious competition with each
(30:58) other. I use this metaphor in my book about ships and captains that the sectional marketplace is like a big dock where there's big ships parked that are built by these captains and they're looking for passengers and the passengers get to choose which ship they want to get on. And these roles, captains and passengers I talk about in the book are gender neutral.
(31:18) Like men can be captains and women can be captains. Men can be passengers, women can be passengers. Doesn't really work out well for the male passengers. So they really only have a chance of success by becoming a captain or they languish on the docks. Women actually have more options. They can be a passenger on a very nice ship or they can build a ship themselves and sail around.
(31:37) The issue is that most female captains, the ones who actually put in the inordinate amount of work to become successful, to make money, to establish themselves in the world, to achieve status and respectability, uh they don't want to just end up with a male passenger, a guy who hasn't done any of those things, right? They still want a male captain just like the female passengers do.
(32:01) They want a male captain and typically a captain with an even bigger boat than they've built. But now we have what we call the two-body problem. This is comes from uh academia. The two-body problem is this idea that uh let's say you go get a PhD. It's a very small program. You're working really hard and you end up getting into a relationship and falling in love with another grad student there.
(32:20) This happens all the time. And you guys both spend 5 to 10 years getting your doctorate. Now, it's very hard to get a job as a professor if that's what you're looking for. the likelihood that the two of you will both get placements within a 100 miles of each other is functionally zero. So maybe only one person gets a placement, the other one doesn't, or they're on opposite sides of the country or something like that.
(32:41) Now, in this situation, you both have spent just as much time, spent just as much blood, sweat, and tears getting to where you are today. On what reasonable ground can one make that one should sacrifice for the other? I don't know if there is one. So that's the issue with women who lean into their masculine and become captains in their own right is they still want another male captain and he's not going to abandon his ship just like she might be loathed to abandon hers.
(33:11) She's like I built all this from nothing. This was hard work and it very much is. So I can understand as a captain myself how difficult it would be for me to leave my post as it were. I don't think I would do it. And so these women often have to either content themselves with the passengers they think or there's some sort of cope like oh men are just intimidated by these intelligent successful women.
(33:37) Not necessarily. There could be other men who would love to have them on their ship but she would have to give up what she has. >> What about the concept of stay-at-home dads house husbands? Is that just in theory? I I mean, I don't really think that stay-at-home dads are a feminine fantasy.
(33:58) Like, right now on the New York Times bestseller list, I think about 70 of the titles are romance novels, which are basically female pornography. We just got to call them that. I don't think there's a single one of them that features a stay-at-home dad. And these are women writing for other women, and they're gobbling it up.
(34:13) So, if this was actually a fantasy that existed uh among women in general, we would have no problem sussing that out. And trust me, men would be jumping over themselves to be stay-at-home dads because a lot of what men do throughout history is to position themselves to be more attractive to women because that will secure them more and more attractive reproductive options.
(34:32) Like, men will invent an eighth day in the week if it would help them get women. Like, trust me, I've talked to a lot of uh boys and young men. I've never heard a single one of them say that they hope to be a stay-at-home dad when they grow up. You still see young girls, they're playing with their dolls and they want to be a mommy.
(34:50) I've never heard a a young boy dream about that. I don't think that's just cultural. Nor have I ever heard a successful woman or a woman who wants that for herself to say, "Yes, I dream of one day taking care of a grown man financially." But there's plenty of men who say, "The reason why I'm working so hard is that one day I can provide for a wife and children.
(35:08) " When a woman goes through that struggle, which it is a struggle to become successful and to make money, the idea that she's going to use that money to subsidize a man's lifestyle is absolutely anathema. Like, it's almost disgusting to her. I don't make the news. I just report it. >> Doctor, I want to ask you about the impact of pornography on dating relationships.
(35:30) About 50% of men who are in committed relationships watch pornography at least once a week. Studies have shown that watching pornography has made the relationship transactional. I think the sense of empathy and compassion has been eroded from the relationships. What are the other kind of repercussions does pornographic material and watching pornography have in the dating ecosystem? >> I can imagine that pornography is going to impact long-term relationships.
(35:53) I'm not sure, frankly, how it would make them more transactional. In fact, I think it might make them less transactional. Part of the reason I mean we have to make distinctions between let's say people who are addicted to pornography use and let's say the average user of pornography. Those are two different categories.
(36:12) If the average user of pornography is having sex on a regular basis he doesn't use as much pornography. Most non-addicted men use pornography as a substitute for sex or as a release of sexual tension or frustration. if their partner is taking care of that, I don't think that we'd have as much pornography use. But maybe the average guy who's using pornography is using it because his partner is unreceptive or there's some sort of uh difference with respect to their libidos.
(36:40) He wants that she has a headache, you know, as the stereotype goes. So if he were to use pornography to release that tension, now he needs one less thing from his from his wife, from his partner, which actually makes it less transactional. Once we take sex out of the picture, maybe I can have these other things, right? But I would say that's dangerous, especially for a marriage, which is a sexual relationship.
(37:04) At least it should be in my opinion. We enter into relationships because we want and need things from each other. We don't approach, let alone enter into partnerships with people we don't want anything from or don't need anything from. Like this is just axiomatically true. So the basis of any relationship is that I continue to want and need things from you.
(37:24) That's what we were talking about before about the mission and missions get completed which is kind of dangerous because it makes the original partnership kind of obsolete or irrelevant. We satisfy or eliminate needs or desires at risk to the longevity of the relationship. So, it's probably not a good idea for a husband to need sex from his wife less.
(37:43) Okay? It might be a relief to some women. Oh, he's not handing me anymore. I don't know. But now there's one less reason for him to need that relationship with her. Now, if we get rid of need entirely, and that's part of, to bring this all full circle, part of the relationship crisis the world is experiencing is that right now the average woman doesn't need a man.
(38:04) Okay? Women need men around like on the population level. Men need women around like on the population level. But a specific man does not need a woman and a specific woman does not need a man and certainly not for the rest of their lives. A lot of women in the west are doing just fine on their own with respect.
(38:21) They have careers, they have degrees, they pay their own bills, they live their life, right? Okay. We take away need. Well, now the only reason to have relationships anymore is desire. And desire is dangerous because it's far more fickle than need. Just think about most people's jobs. Most people do not sing praises about their employment, but they still go to work every day because they need the job.
(38:48) So, if you take away the need, you're probably not going to put up with a lot that you don't want, right? You might be out at the first sign of any kind of disappointment or frustration. You might reject people because they're only 80% good enough as opposed to 90 or 95, etc., etc. So standards have gone through the roof because we've eliminated need.
(39:08) Like if you never had to work again, you probably would be very choosy about any kind of job that you took. It would have to be very personally meaningful or interesting to you or it's very high level criteria. And that's what I hear from very successful women that I do consultations with is they just want someone to have like a real genuine emotional connection with, >> right? But I tell them that's like a peer.
(39:31) That's one of the hardest things to get >> with anyone. Like how many best friends do you have? You don't have that many. I don't I don't know you, but people don't have that many best friends, right? So the idea that out of all the people you've met in your life, all the friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers, there's one person who like knows you in and out and you trust them, they have your back, and you can talk about anything and you can laugh and you can cry and they won't judge you.
(39:56) It's like there's one person. That's how rare that is. So to expect that kind of genuine, real, authentic, emotional connection from another human being that we also have to be sexually attracted to. Oh, just those two things make it really difficult to find somebody, >> right? But isn't immediate sexual gratification have a bearing on the relationship? By that I mean pornography.
(40:22) >> Uh well, yeah. I mean, if the guy starts to use pornography more to satisfy or relieve his sexual tension as opposed to his wife or his long-term partner, then the sexual energy kind of gets siloed like they might more or less become roommates. The guy has this issue that the woman has no interest in or thinks disgusting or who knows and so the guy just goes over here and takes care of it and the woman is over here.
(40:46) And I don't think any one of us is going to say that's an ideal relationship, but maybe that's the best that those people can hope for. Who knows? It's very rare for a man in a healthy sexual relationship who's getting sex frequently to use pornography very much, if at all. Now, of course, there's that small subset of men who can get addicted to pornography.
(41:09) That's that's a real thing. Um, and that just like most addictions is very heavily correlated with the onset of first use. Like this is true of any kind of addiction, whether it's alcohol or drugs or gambling or in this case pornography. The younger you are when you first use, the more likely you're going to have a problematic relationship with it throughout your life.
(41:32) Especially if that predates maybe by a decade your first real experience with another woman, with a with another human being. So it's like that person has trained his body and his mind to certain uh arousal cues and certain uh I don't know behavioral rhythms or atmospheres or what have you. And like that's what is necessary for him to have or experience sexual pleasure.
(42:01) And the likelihood that any flesh and blood woman is just going to do all of those things is functionally zero. which is a shame because that basically locks him out of having a satisfying sexual relationship with a woman, which someone who's tried both, the women are much better. >> How would I know if a guy is genuinely interested in me as a woman? And conversely, how would a man know if if a woman is interested or attracted to the man? What are some of the signs? >> The best sign is that it's happening.
(42:26) like we're talking again in a room or a place filled with dozens or hundreds of people where I always have the option to just do my own thing and not bother anybody. The fact that I've broached an obvious low-grade social boundary and transgress that into your personal space to strike up an unnecessary conversation is abundant evidence of interest in you.
(42:49) Well, I should say because they don't know who you are. It's of attraction to what they see because with men, attraction is primarily visually dominated. >> Mhm. And what if I am on a date with someone and I'm interested to know whether that the gentleman finds me attractive or whether he's just wishing for the date to get over and go back home? >> Well, uh, the fact that you're on a date is probably a good sign, right? Because there's lots that can happen between the initial approach and actually being on a date. Most men are pretty stoked to be
(43:17) there on most dates because they often don't get a lot of chances. But how would you know? A lot of this is revealed non-verbbally. It has to do with proxmics. How close you are to each other? Is there any kind of casual touch? Does the touch seem spontaneous or forced? Uh is the person more You might not know this because you don't know the person, but are they animated? Are they revealing more or talking more? That's usually a sign that there's some kind of arousal or even anxiety, which could be excitement. Uh there's smaller
(43:50) physiological signs that are really hard to like flaring nostrils or pupil dilations. When men start to get entranced, they start to slow down their talk. They start to kind of get lost in your eyes a little bit. Maybe they they take a quick glance at your mouth and back at your eyes.
(44:10) So, there's lots of subtle signs about the fact that attraction is building and that there's some sort of physical climax approaching. >> And if I were a man, how would I know if the girl is attracted to me? What are the signs? >> A lot of the same signs. Women tend to be a bit more difficult to read than men.
(44:29) I think that signs of interest are that she's asking questions of you, like she wants to know more about you. Um, any kind of casual touch is a huge sign because women do not touch men accidentally. There's the kind of pining effect. They're touching their hair, you know, maybe they're fudging with their makeup because they're kind of seeing themselves through the man's eyes and they're wanting to be presentable or attractive to him.
(44:54) So, those are generally good signs. How does attraction change in the 20s or the criteria for attraction change in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and so on? >> Not in the 50s yet. I can talk a little bit about the other ones. So, I think it's important to understand that the brain doesn't even fully develop until we're 25.
(45:13) On some level, I know we have to draw the line of maturity somewhere. So, we do it at 18, but between 18 and 25, people are kind of adults. You know, they're adults in the legal sense, but they're certainly not fully matured, even biologically, let alone psychologically. And the last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with higher reasoning processes, emotional regulation, and impulse control.
(45:36) I still remember being a teenager, and I remember feeling emotions like they were the most intense and important things in my entire life, which maybe they were, and I wanted as much of that life as I could get. I think that young people tend to be more impulsive, more sensation seeking. They're interested in novelty.
(45:56) They're interested in excitement and stimulation. Like the idea of me going to one of the bars I used to frequent when I was a a young man where there was just like people cheek by gel and the music was pumping and you couldn't even hear each other. It's like it just sounds absolutely exhausting to me now. So I know my tastes have changed, but for whatever reason I thought that was the place to be when I was 22, right? So people are probably going to make choices with respect to their romantic partners that lean more towards those things that this
(46:25) person can provide me more with an experience uh emotional stimulation, excitement, novelty as opposed to I think this person might be consistent, stable, mature, reliable. Like that sounds really faking boring to a lot of young men and women. And also, when I was 20, I never thought I would be 40. You know what I'm saying? It's like 40 seemed impossibly far away.
(46:54) And the idea that I was going to choose someone for the rest of my life, or how would I even know what it's important at that stage, it just was completely beyond me. And that could be why throughout most of recorded history, marriages were arranged. Maybe one of the big reasons for the collapse or the relationship crisis that we're currently facing is because we shifted from arranged marriages to love marriages.
(47:17) I know in India that there's still a practice of arranged marriages and they often have better rates of uh success than their love counterparts even in the existence of a world of divorce. And why might those be more successful? Because the parents involved might actually know what's important after you get out of that sensation seeking period of your early 20s.
(47:40) They might be able to make appropriate estimations for the goodness of fit for a long-term relationship that a person, man, or a woman at 20 years old probably cannot make. And they know their children a lot better than the children know each other. Like a father knows his daughter really well by the time she's 18 or 20 years old.
(48:03) And in the vast majority of cases, her father is going to care way more about her long-term happiness than any guy who's looking to date her. Period. But the idea in 2026 that women are going to let their fathers choose their romantic partners, I mean, good luck with that. It's just not going to happen.
(48:23) And this is one of the really tough things about relationships is, you know, about every 7 to 10 years, I become slowly and often so gradually that it's beneath my conscious awareness basically a new version of myself. And I only really see how different or how far I've come in those moments where I look back at different periods of my life.
(48:43) So let's say that every 10 years you basically become a different version of yourself. Lots of things happen in the interim. Your priorities shift, your tastes change. you're not the same person you used to be. The same thing is true for your partner. So even if you had like perfect goodness of fit, that might last at most 10 years if it's not successfully navigated.
(49:04) So this is the hard part. >> Yeah. >> A good relationship is like holding sand. That's the metaphor I use. So like if you're too lax, it just blows away in the wind. But if you try to squeeze it too tight, it just slips through your fingers. So you there's enough structure to kind of give people a sense of support and some freedom.
(49:27) So that means that when you sign up for these long-term relationships, you're basically signing up to be in a relationship with somebody you haven't met yet, with somebody that you haven't yet become. It's actually an impossible choice for any human being to make. The only the best thing you could say is that there's some sort of loyalty or commitment to making it work as best as possible. Priorities also change.
(49:49) Like I often think about relationships like businesses. Like no one just founds a business for fun. They found a business to do a specific thing and to sell a specific product or service. >> Doesn't that make it transactional? >> Well, yeah. >> And that's okay. >> Is it not? >> I'm trying to think of it in terms of the unconditional love.
(50:09) >> I think there's unconditional love, but I don't know if I can expect to receive it from another human being. So I think unconditional love is a spiritual force or reality not something that we can or should expect from other human beings. So what ultimately keeps relationships together what even brings people together to begin with is the value proposition.
(50:30) Even in like the best case best faith scenario which is I am dating to meet my future wife. Well why do you want a wife? Well because I want to start a family together and have kids. Okay so you have a mission. Like that's your that's in the business metaphor. That's what you want to sell. Now, it's pretty important to be aligned with respect to your mission.
(50:49) Like, you can't expect to have a successful long-term relationship if you want kids and she doesn't. You can't compromise on certain things. You can't have half a kid. It doesn't make any sense. That's kind of my point is you come together in relationships, whether it's for a night or for the rest of your life, to accomplish something.
(51:04) And it's best if you both are on the same page and you have a complimentary skill set. The issue with respect to your question about the long-term relationships, 20s, 30s, 40s, etc., is that missions get completed. So, let's say that I'm dating to start a family and I meet a woman. I want to start a family, too. Great. We get married. We have kids. Awesome.
(51:22) The kids grow up. Well, now what? If we had kids at 25, we could still be in our mid-40s. That's pretty young still. We could have more of our life ahead of us than behind us. What are we going to do for the next four or five decades of life? I didn't think this far ahead on some level.
(51:40) How long can a company stay together if they don't have a product or service to sell? like what's their mission now? So the issue is that missions continue to get accomplished which threaten the necessity of the relationship. But if there are no missions or goals, there's no reason to have a relationship to begin with.
(51:57) You can't dispense with goals. But as soon as you achieve the goal, the relationship becomes obsolete unless you can introduce a new goal that you both can sign off on. That's the art really about staying together long term is that the goals will change and the goals that both of you will be interested today are not going to be the goals that you're going to be interested 10 years from now.
(52:21) So how can you ensure alignment? It's actually kind of an impossible task which might be why throughout most of human history basically made it impossible for people to get divorced because it's kind of impossible to stay happily married in perpetuity functionally speaking. And this is part of the issue is that sometimes women or wives, they want their man to be their girlfriend.
(52:40) >> Yeah. >> They want him to just listen and not provide solutions to be more open and sensitive and deval. Get that from your girlfriends, ladies. I'm not saying it's not important or that you don't need it, but don't take your grocery list to a hardware store. That's not a good idea. And less frequently, but it still happens, some guys try to make their girlfriend or their wife into a guy friend and they want to, you know, like take her hiking and have kind of the rivaled sense of humor with her.
(53:06) And uh that doesn't usually work. The things that guys do on their own are generally not things they do with women on dates. And the more that the relationship becomes that, the more that those activities disappear from a man's life, which is also dangerous, not only for his own happiness and mental health, but those could be part of the reason why the woman was attracted to him to begin with.
(53:28) And we undermine the basis of another's attraction really at her own risk. Maybe uh you see a guy, he's got a motorcycle, he's a little edgy, he's a little risky, you don't really know when you're going to see him again. It's very exciting. Makes your heart all of flutter, etc., etc. Let's say you actually succeed in capturing his heart and now years later it's like, "Oh, you got to get rid of that motorcycle.
(53:47) It's too dangerous." Now that we have a kid, no way. That's I can't bear to think about that. And you never have to question whether you're ever going to see him again. Maybe the question becomes, will I ever get some time to myself away from out from under this guy? There's so much security. There's so much predictability.
(54:04) There's so much safety. He's gotten rid of all of the activities that may have drawn you to him in the first place. Congratulations. like you've succeeded in completely domesticating what was a borderline wild animal which could be part of why you were attracted to him to begin with. So, did you win? Like maybe you got what you wanted.
(54:22) Like he gave up the motorcycle, he spends all his time with you, but did you win? What are you left with? That guy that you're left with is not the man that you fell in love with. And I think that is very dangerous for the longevity of that relationship. What are some of the factors that I should take into consideration if I want to be in a relationship both for men and women that can stand the test of time? >> Okay. Yeah, that's great.
(54:45) That's a good question. I think at this stage of my life, I believe that 90% of a good relationship is selection. You have to choose the right person for the job. Most people do not do this. What they do is they operate under the assumption and I have a whole chapter in the book about this that they can have any relationship with anyone.
(55:06) They have an idea of the relationship that they want in their minds and they want to have it with the person they're most attracted to. But they basically assume that anybody can have any relationship. So why can't the person I'm most attracted to have the relationship that I have in my mind? It sounds kind of absurd when you say it out loud, but a lot of people operate under those assumptions.
(55:25) Um, you can't have, let's say, a loving, stable, committed relationship with people who are unstable, chaotic, emotionally disregulated, dishonest, low integrity. It's just not possible. Uh, however, the heart kind of wants what it wants and it certainly could fall in love or be very attracted to men and women who display some of those traits or characteristics, right? So, a lot of it has to do with selection.
(55:51) It also has to do with accurate self-nowledge. Like you can't lie to yourself. And it's actually really easy to lie to yourself. You have to know that for instance, maybe the model that you have in your head wasn't a model that you built yourself. Maybe it was a model that's more of an introject. It was like more or less stuffed into your mind by your own parents or your culture or what your girlfriends say that you should want, etc., etc.
(56:19) And that's going to be difficult because even if you do succeed in getting that relationship, it's not going to have the goodness of fit with what actually makes you happy and fulfilled and interested. So we have to be willing to say that some of the things that make me happy, interested, and fulfilled might not be entirely socially acceptable.
(56:38) Maybe they're not things that my parents or my grandparents are going to be able to understand. Maybe I'm going to have to say, you know, I can't go down that road with my girlfriends or my guys anymore. You know what I'm saying? So, if you know what really works for you and you get good at observing the traits and characteristics that are conducive for long-term relationships in others, it's much easier to choose.
(57:02) Like most people actually, they tell on themselves all the time. You go on the internet and you think that we have this epidemic of malignant covert narcissists in the world and that people are just these cunning, sneaky, sociopathic individuals. Those people absolutely exist. I'm not saying that they don't, but most people aren't that sneaky.
(57:20) Most people telling themselves all the time. The issue is we've already decided that we like them. We've already decided that we want them. And that commitment to our emotional reaction or our attraction causes us to rationalize so many things. That's why it's so much easier to identify the red flags in retrospect.
(57:39) They were there the entire time and on some level you knew that you were lying to yourself or rationalizing things away. like it's doesn't take long to see that somebody is not going to be for the rest of your life. >> If you had to name some traits that are absolutely non-negotiable when it comes to partner selection, what would they be? >> It's easier to start with uh what is going to cause the latter, the destruction, the chaos, and the heartbreak.
(58:06) Again, the whole point of a deal breakaker is that when it's present, it will destroy the relationship all by itself. Like the presence of the deal breaker makes the relationship impossible. Not just because you don't prefer it. You don't have to prefer or even like all the things about your partner. It's important to tolerate the things that you don't like.
(58:26) You shouldn't hate them, right? You should tolerate them. So, for example, one very common deal breaker is addiction. And I worked at addiction health for years. It's not possible to have a relationship with an addict because that addict is already in a relationship with the drug or the behavior of choice, right? And addiction only gets worse. It never gets better.
(58:48) If it doesn't change, it only gets worse. And having worked with hundreds of alcoholic individuals and their spouses and their families, it's like that only causes chaos, destruction, heartbreak, pain, and suffering for everybody involved. So, you can't reasonably expect to have a loving, stable, peaceful relationship with somebody who is addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling.
(59:14) It doesn't always have to be a substance, right? Uh so, that's an easy one. I think kindness is really important for a long-term relationship because we are going to make mistakes and if this turns into like holding a grudge, never forgetting, bringing something that happened seven years ago up in every argument, assuming the worst possible explanation for the motivation or the intent behind the behavior, uh keeping score, like all of these things that a lack of kindness produces will end the relationship.
(59:47) ship all by itself in the sense that it would make it completely miserable for both people involved. And why do you need to walk down that road to the end of the line? >> What about sexual incompatibility? Is that a deal breaker? >> Now, with respect to sex, so big sexual incompatibilities are very difficult to navigate. I mean, think about it.
(1:00:05) This is why I generally don't use the euphemism romantic relationships because I don't know about you, but not a lot of relationships I see are romantic. It's not like the guy is composing poetry and sending the woman flowers and things like that, but that's the euphemism we use for sexual relationships, which I think is more honest.
(1:00:21) And we're all grown-ups here, so we can use the correct term. On some level, the sinquendon, the thing that makes sexual relationships a sexual relationship is sex. Like on some level, it's the most important thing. Now, you might think, well, what about love or what about companionship? Absolutely. I think that those things are more important than sex.
(1:00:37) You don't need a sexual relationship to get those things. You need a sexual relationship to get sex though, just like you need a professional relationship to get money. So maybe it's a good idea to prioritize money in your professional relationships. If you start to put all these other burdens on your job, like it has to be meaningful, it has to be fun, it has to it's like that's going to be harder and you're probably going to have to take a pay cut, which will lead to maybe other unforeseen issues.
(1:01:00) Like I'm not saying that having fun is unnecessary or people don't need meaning or fulfillment. Just get them outside of your job. Right? So, there's many things that people need and want that might be easier and more satisfyingly filled outside of sexual relationships, but if you're going to have a sexual relationship, you got to talk about sex.
(1:01:17) And it's really a good idea to be more or less on the same page with this. The biggest thing to be on the same page with is basically relative frequency. And this is something that is tricky because one, it's hard to talk directly and explicitly about sex. Like, it's makes a lot of people very uncomfortable.
(1:01:34) Sometimes they don't even have the language to talk about it and I have some sympathy for that. Um, but this doesn't usually get negotiated explicitly. You know, it's not like, well, you promise to have sex with me three times a week for the rest of my life, right? If you can promise me that, then I'll get married to you, right? That might make guys feel a lot more uh optimistic about matrimony.
(1:01:53) But, um, it's usually negotiated behaviorally. Most important things in these relationships are negotiated behaviorally and tacitly, not conversationally and explicitly. So you should know if you've already entered into a sexual relationship after some months. It's dangerous because usually things are hot and heavy in the beginning, but you'll know if you are on very different pages with respect to your libidos. Let's put it that way.
(1:02:19) If one person has a very high sex drive, wants it a lot, and the other person doesn't, even compromise there is going to feel unsatisfying because one person's going to get it much less than he or she wants. The other person's going to have to do it a lot more than he or she wants. And it's just better to find somebody that you're more aligned with on the core principle of sexual relationships.
(1:02:41) What is a good point in the relationship or in the dating period to negotiate sexual boundaries or to give preferences? Might I add, doctor, without killing the chemistry and without alarming or frightening the partner? >> It's really hard. In my experience, the only people who are really good at having these types of conversations have a lot of experience and they generally have a lot of experience with a specific kink.
(1:03:06) Like it's a big part of their identity. They've done it for a long time. Maybe they're part of a community. They understand that the vanilla population doesn't share it. So, there's generally this process of like welcoming them into this world or this practice or things like that. Those people typically are better at having these kinds of conversations than just, you know, the average Joe or Jane, right? Well, it's generally easier to talk about what you don't want, right? So, I guess that's what a boundary is. Don't do this to me.
(1:03:32) And that's feedback that you give your partner all the time in the bedroom. You know, it's like you pull back or you say ouch or no, I don't. You just move their hand away. That's that's a way of communicating a boundary that should be intelligible to your partner, right? So, I think it's a good idea to be open-minded about certain things, especially if you've never tried it before.
(1:03:59) I mean, I'm not saying I would try everything, but uh you don't often know if you're going to like something until you try it. But it's totally appropriate or everybody's right to have their boundaries about how they want their own body to be treated. That's fair game. But if there's something that you don't want to do and I really do want to do, we might not be the most sexually compatible partner.
(1:04:20) And generally, you figure that out sooner as opposed to later. Like it's that shouldn't be kind of a big revelation 10 years into a relationship. So it's called the five hard conversations. So this is not something you do on a first date because these are pretty deep and vulnerable. um discussions. But after you've dated for a while and you think that this person might be someone that has long-term potential, you do want to have the five hard conversations sooner as opposed to later. And the five hard conversations
(1:04:47) pertain to the five things that most commonly lead to divorce. And those things are money, sex, children, politics, relligion, because politics tends to be religion for non-religious people, and in-laws, which doesn't seem important until you have kids, but uh it becomes very important afterwards. You have to expect that there won't be perfect alignment between the two of you two, but if the divergence is too great, it's really difficult even when there's tolerance.
(1:05:19) So, for example, it's certainly possible for people of radically different religions or political beliefs to have a very loving, peaceful, fulfilling relationship with each other. It just becomes much more difficult when children are involved because a big part of having kids is the prospect of passing on your values and your legacy to another generation.
(1:05:39) So, if you're different religions or one person's religion, do you send the child to a religious school or a secular school? Does the school have this kind of political alignment or that? And if you're too divergent with respect to your positions, this can be the cause of a great deal of of arguments. At best, it can be negotiated as a kind of debt trading.
(1:05:59) It's like, okay, you choose the place of worship. I'll choose the school. You choose where we live. I'll choose where we go on vacation. And it basically becomes this chimera, which can work, but requires a lot of tolerance, a lot of patience, a lot of communication, understanding. The more aligned that you are, the more that you select properly, the less work relationships become.
(1:06:18) People say that relationships are work because they didn't choose well. >> Doctor, what about childhood trauma? Is that a dealbreaker when selecting a partner? It could be any kind of trauma. >> H well, trauma is a tricky word cuz uh like many things in popular culture, it's a psychological term that I believe has been radically overgeneralized beyond its original meaning.
(1:06:40) like any disappointment now can be described as traumatic and that's just what happens with language. So I don't think there's any way that we can prevent that. But it does make it sometimes difficult to differentiate between there's trauma and then there's trauma. Right. >> Right. >> And trauma is a very significant event.
(1:07:01) It's associated with a pretty predictable constellation of symptoms including reexperiencing, uh, dissociation, etc., etc. It's a it's a pretty serious thing. It's not just that something bad happened to you. Bad things happen to everybody. I hate to say it, but you no one gets out of here alive. Like, you cannot escape something bad happened to you.
(1:07:20) That doesn't necessarily mean that you were traumatized, however. Right now, the important thing to understand here is let's say you're dealing with somebody who was legitimately traumatized, especially as a child, which is the worst thing cuz you know the kid, I mean, he's just so powerless or she's so helpless. I mean, it's just a terrible thing when children get usually abused.
(1:07:40) That's what we usually talk about, childhood trauma, right? So, it wasn't their fault. But let's say now you're 30 and you're meeting somebody on a date. Pro hopefully not the first date because remember you wouldn't say this in a job interview. You wouldn't come out of the gate with I was traumatized as a child.
(1:07:57) Right? So um but you're getting to know each other. You're talking and you know I think you should know this. I was traumatized when I was five. It's like okay oh man that's that's terrible. Maybe they tell you a little bit about the story. you you give the appropriate sympathy and at that point it's like okay well what have you done about it because that was also 25 years ago and you've been an adult the vast majority of that time.
(1:08:20) So the issue is that some people use their trauma or bad things that have happened to them in the past as a way to kind of seek indulgence or acception in their current relationships. Like give me a pass. I was traumatized. Don't hold me to the same standards that you would an untraumatized person. This is one of the secondary gains of victimhood basically which is why we have a lot of victims in the world whether they are actual victims or self-created victims I don't know but uh the issue is not what happened but like what did you do about
(1:08:55) it and if you're telling me that this happened two decades ago you've done very little if anything to correct this problem and you just expect the world including myself to adapt to you don't you think that's a little strange like that's not conducive to a successful relationship because what they're going to say is that my trauma exception takes precedence over all other let's say reasonable standards of or expectations in a relationship.
(1:09:27) I get a pass because I'm mentally ill or I'm depressed or I had this happen to me and I don't buy it. I call that the trap of understanding. And some very sensitive or compassionate men and women do this the same is like I can love him back to health. >> Yeah. The fixing mindset. >> Yeah. And women actually do that more than men do.
(1:09:49) Um but men have it's like I can fix her. Um and that's generally wishful thinking that was rationalized by your attraction. Like you probably wouldn't think that about someone you were less attracted to. If you were less attracted to the person, you think actually I don't know if this is a good idea. Right? So that's the attraction talking and it's kind of nonsense and hopefully some of your friends or family will knock some sense to you a bit.
(1:10:13) Um so the idea is with enough love or patience or understanding this person will be healed and then I would eventually have the relationship with him or her that I prefer even though they've given me absolutely no evidence ever that they are actually capable of having the relationship that I would prefer.
(1:10:32) In fact, they've given me nothing but evidence to the contrary. And I'm filling in the gap in the future with this fantasy about who they will transform into after they're healed through my unconditional love and support, which is I mean that's just a fairy tale. >> What are some of the red flags or how do I know that my relationship has become toxic and it is time for me to step out of the relationship? >> So toxic is another one of those words like trauma, right? that's definitely making the rounds.
(1:10:59) And sometimes it's unclear where the toxicity lies. There are absolutely narcissists and sociopaths and bad actors, both men and women, in the dating market. And they can ruin a relationship all by themselves. And you'll know that you're dealing with one of those people if you haven't had these kinds of problems in your relationships in the past.
(1:11:27) Like I don't understand. I used to be able to have conversations with my boyfriend and my girlfriend. We'd agree on things and then things would like change because we both kind of like came to an understanding, made an agreement, we moved forward. But that doesn't seem to be happening here. or like I've never had to keep reporting on my location every 20 minutes in a relationship before. Like that's kind of weird.
(1:11:50) I never had to like break up with all of my friends or not talk to my family because it upsets. It's like if the toxicity is really in one person, the relationship is going to look really weird and different than any relationship you've ever had before if you're like a reasonably normal and healthy individual.
(1:12:09) And that's kind of it is that most people don't stay in those relationships. Like a healthy man or a woman gets a little taste of that and they're like, "No thanks. I'm good." And they leave. Generally, people get sucked into these relationships with these toxic individuals because they have, let's say, their own unresolved wounds.
(1:12:30) They're not quite healthy, not all the way. Like there might even be something toxic about that. Like for example, some people might complain about their partner being toxically controlling, but maybe there was something in their presentation that was like toxically dependent, like unable to make decisions for him or herself.
(1:12:50) And in the beginning, it was kind of attractive, those complimentary issues, but then it became kind of a, you know, a bad scene as they say, right? Being disappointed in your partner, not getting what you want, sometimes getting what you don't want doesn't necessarily mean you're in a toxic relationship.
(1:13:10) It's like probably the most common toxic relationship is the on-again off-again one. Okay? >> Like those relationships never get better over time. And we see this in any kind of um even abusive relationship where you know the couple's together for whatever reason the resentments are mounting the arguments are happening more frequently and then there's something really bad that happens and there's something really scary or painful and heartbreaking that occurs and then it's like all right I'm done and then they process that emotion
(1:13:46) and then They might even begin to feel relief that they're out of the relationship. But then after the relief, there could be boredom or loneliness. And then especially if the other person comes back and is like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. You know, you were the best thing that ever happened to me.
(1:14:03) And I know I didn't treat you right." And they say everything you want to say. And they promise that it's going to be different next time. And then there's this glorious reunion which is like just as positive as the terrible event was negative. But especially if that was only just a couple of months ago, how much have these people changed in the intervening time? Not not much.
(1:14:21) It's hard for people to change even when they want to. So it's just the merrygoround. And every time that cycle recurs, the fights get bigger and the reunion gets potentially more powerful, but obviously the negatives are more negative than positives are positive in the long run. Like pain causes more pain than pleasure causes pleasure.
(1:14:41) So that cycle as it increases intensity, it's just a downward spiral. It it doesn't go anywhere good. So you have to understand that I mean in general getting back with your ex is not a good idea. Like that person was an ex. >> Yeah. That person was an ex for a reason. >> Do you think men are increasingly also less interested in the sexual activity visibly what it used to be say a decade or two decades back and women are rather becoming more sexual comparatively? There seems to be some evidence for that across the board. This has been kind of
(1:15:11) a perennial argument. I think it's been mostly put to bed, but according to research over and over and over again with very large population studies, men on the whole are more sexually desirous than women are. They seem to want sex around two to three times more frequently than women do. according to their own self-reports and this has been replicated hundreds of times across like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.
(1:15:34) And we know that there is a relationship between testosterone levels and sexual interest in men and that testosterone tends to go down with age, which could be part of the reason why there's less sexual interest as men get older. I certainly remember being a young man and it was uh it's it's intense. Like, >> yeah, >> I I don't think a lot of women understand how powerful the urge to have sex is in young men, which is very confusing because you might not even know what sex is or what to do or have any outlet for it. So, it's kind of like
(1:16:04) being in a cage. That's how I would describe it. But according to some of the evidence, especially in Gen Z, the young men in their late teens and early 20s, we see far fewer sexual relationships, even casual sexual relationships, than we do among millennials, and certainly among Gen X's.
(1:16:25) I think Gen X's had the highest rate of casual sex of the generations of the last 100 years. Um, and there's a number of possible explanations for that. One is that to piggyback off of what I just said, like testosterone levels among young men are at all-time historic lows. Like the average 25-year-old man has the testosterone level of his 85year-old grandpa. That is a problem.
(1:16:49) Like it's it's it's really bad. And there's lots of reasons why that could be happening. I don't think there's any one single issue and some things are still in dispute. But what is absolutely not in dispute is that young men's testosterone levels are on the floor. Testosterone isn't just about having sex.
(1:17:06) It's about like motivation and focus. Like we have to remember that the human male is like the apex predator on the planet. And it's like that. So what makes a person a good hunter? The strength to overcome the prey, the focus and concentration to track an animal for hours or days. The insensitivity to pain and rejection, the willingness to go out again after a failed hunt, motivation, resilience.
(1:17:28) All of those things that I would say are attractive in men to women also make a man more likely to approach and initiate a relationship with women. And uh I think women are scarier to young men than most of them understand. Like as to most teenage guys, a pretty girl is the scariest thing you can think of. You'd rather probably fight a lion.
(1:17:52) Okay. Um so that's that's part of it. Maybe it's the low testosterone levels. Another part of it is it could be something of making a virtue out of a necessity. So for example, in a study that came out I think last year it was said that one in three men in America under 30 hadn't had sex in the previous 12 months. One in three 30%.
(1:18:14) Which had tripled relative to the previous decade. That's a lot of young people not having sex. Why is that a problem? Because in our world sex leads to dating. Dating leads to relationships. Relationships lead to marriage. Marriage leads to children. At least that's the general path. We can't on some level poo poo casual sex in a world where sex precedes commitment because how else do you get commitment? And if you got no commitment, then how do you get kids? And if you don't get kids, how do you repopulate society?
(1:18:44) Like there's a lot of important downstream consequences here. So, it could be that a lot of men are either too afraid because of their low testosterone, they're too unmotivated. It could be that um they are wrapped up in pornography, but I would say probably more likely video games or uh other aspects of their life that seem to give them some kind of control or fulfillment.
(1:19:11) Like, you have to also understand it's really hard to be a young man and very few people talk about this. It's really hard. It's much harder in many respects than being a young woman because as a young man, you're at the bottom of every hierarchy. Like women don't want you because you don't know what to do with them. You're inexperienced. You're not very strong.
(1:19:27) You're not rich unless you have a a famous daddy or something like that. You got no status. You have no emotional maturity. You're still a boy. That's not what most women want. They complain about being a mommy to a man that they're in relationship with, right? They want daddy. They want the daddy energy.
(1:19:45) But takes years for a man to become daddy. And that young man is kind of useless to other men because he has no skills. He has no experience. I mean, think about every cop movie. No cop wants to be paired up with the rookie because the rookie is a liability. The rookie doesn't know how to do things and might shoot him in the back when he's not looking, right? So, most men are useless to other men and are completely unattractive to women. And that's hard.
(1:20:10) And no one really is teaching those guys what to do about that. So um that creates a gap that's being filled primarily with I guess social media influencers. I I guess I include myself in that batch, you know, and they certainly run the gamut with respect to, you know, their advice to what extent it's it's good or bad or effective or ineffective, etc.
(1:20:34) , etc. And a lot of guys, they can fall into a state of hopelessness or despair. Like it's really tough to be rejected hundreds and hundreds of times. And when a guy is exclusively using a dating app, yeah, when rejection is small, that's probably why a lot of young guys or shy guys or more introverted or inexperienced guys prefer dating apps because it takes a lot of the sting and the fear out of a face-to-face interaction or rejection.
(1:20:59) But those rejections mount up and you can spend months, hundreds, thousands, no matches, no dates. if that's your exclusive pathway to meeting a woman, it might be easy to become hopeless and despairing over that situation. And so some guys, especially young guys, are just falling into uh a sort of bad faith in the existential sense.
(1:21:23) It's like there's nothing I can do about it. The system is rigged. I just will never be attractive to a woman because I just didn't hit the genetic lottery. And there's no point in trying. And that's often coupled with, well, there's no good women anyway, right? So a lot of these things are copes. There's good women and there's good men, period.
(1:21:39) They might be the minority, but there's they're still out there and it's often easier to find a good woman if you're a good man and vice versa. >> Doctor, I have a quick rapid fire for you. >> Okay. >> What should my dating app profile communicate if I want a serious relationship? >> Don't say that you want a serious relationship. I'm sorry.
(1:21:57) So, that's part of like the trap of intentional dating. If you want a long-term relationship, talk about the values that matter to you in a long-term relationship and talk about how you exemplify those things. So, don't talk about what you're looking for. That's not what this is about. Like, that makes it seem like it's my job as a guy just to give you what you want.
(1:22:19) Just like in business, the best way to get customers is to give the customer what they want. And if your product is good and it fulfills the customer's needs or desires, they will enthusiastically part with their money. But a lot of women in particular are like, "This is what I'm looking for. I want this. I want kids in two years. I want a ring.
(1:22:33) " It's like, it's like, "Okay, that's nice, but what about me?" Like, that's just like a company that says, "I want your money." And that's their advertisement. Like, how successful is that company going to be? So, the best way to get what you want is to give the other what they want. So, I would start by not by promoting what you're looking for, but what you can provide and what you can offer and have those things be in a successful long-term relationship.
(1:22:56) How quickly should you move from texting to an actual date? >> Pretty quickly. Like the the phone should be for setting up dates like at that stage. It's about navigating logistics. I'll meet you at this place at this time on this day. It's not about getting to know each other. That's what the date is for.
(1:23:15) Like again, if it's just a structured interview, just send each other a survey and then we'll send it to some sort of AI program and they'll issue a percentage compatibility. You know, if you think that dating will work that way, I don't. You can just behave that way. There's no need to even show up on the date. A lot of what is important is how we feel in the presence of the other person.
(1:23:33) That's why relationships are cool and interesting is different people draw certain aspects of ourselves out of ourselves. And you're not going to know that until you're actually in the presence of that person. Like there's something kind of magical that happens. And it's very unconscious. And that's the fun of relationships is among other things besides getting to know another person, we get to know another side of ourselves.
(1:23:54) And you're not really going to know if you vibe and you get along if you're not meeting up. You also don't know if the person is who they purport themselves to be online, right? So, that's another thing is >> yeah, >> you probably don't want to build a whole emotional affair with somebody that you've never met in real life. That's a bad idea.
(1:24:11) >> What is the best way to find a partner these days? >> Karaoke. No, I'm I'm kidding. They're not anywhere. There's not like one place you could go. If I could say go to Kansas or Bangalore or something like that, I wish I could. But like good men and women are everywhere and they're nowhere.
(1:24:27) They're a minority spread out around the world. Now, it is important to know that if you're looking for a a relationship, you might but you're in a small town of 2,000 people, unless you're a very traditional person, that's probably not going to work. So, if you only have three options and you don't like any of them, you might have to leave.
(1:24:50) Now, most people don't have as a lot of qualms about relocating for economic opportunity. There's just some places there no jobs, there's no money. How do you make a living? And people have been migrating for thousands of years to centers of economic opportunity and they shift over time, right? Everyone thinks that, yeah, it's hard to do, but you got to go where the jobs are. You got to go where the money is.
(1:25:09) But for some reason, people think that it's strange to relocate to increase your romantic opportunities. And I don't think that that's necessarily true. And that's two of the things that cities are good for. Cities are good for meeting people and making money. And once you find a way to do both, it's also a good idea to get out of the cities cuz that's not where the quality of life is.
(1:25:26) >> What is the one dating habit that people should stop immediately? >> Well, we talked about the interview questions. We don't want to interview each other on a date. We want to have a conversation and understand that people are going to reveal themselves as they go along. So, that's one. Another one is leading with your expectations or what you want as I just discussed.
(1:25:47) So that generally is kind of off-putting and tonedeaf u because it suggests that the other person is there simply to fulfill your needs or desires which is a very one-sided transaction, right? I think that it's generally a good idea to not date in the traditional sense like don't go out to nightclubs or fancy restaurants unless for whatever reason you do that on the regular is to try to bring this person as soon as it seems reasonable to do so into your real life.
(1:26:13) Like if you go to the gym, invite him or her to the gym. If you need to go shopping at the grocery store, take them grocery shopping. If you spend the night every evening watching a TV show, invite them over to watch the show. Like that's what your real life looks like. Let's not pretend that it's somewhat more glamorous uh or exciting than it actually is.
(1:26:32) If you're dating for short-term relationships, it's better to air on the side of being too bold and exciting. If you're dating for a long-term relationship, it's actually better to air on the side of being too boring. It's like give everyone every opportunity to leave as quickly as possible. Again, a failed second, the fact that there's no second date doesn't necessarily mean that it's a failure.
(1:26:50) Like that could be the filter working properly. And long-term relationships are not a roller coaster. Not the good ones, not the peaceful ones or the happy ones. Generally, they're kind of I mean peaceful, the other word we use for that is boring. And whether you see the same situation as peaceful or boring has more to do with your level of maturity than it has to do with the objective reality of the situation.
(1:27:11) Like good relationships are kind of boring because what it's mostly going to the store, doing chores, having conversations. It's maybe you take a trip once or twice a year, you do something to spice it up, but it's like it's mostly the day in dayout routines of living and that can be very dull, especially to young people. It's almost like zen-like.
(1:27:29) You can kind of get into a sort of groove with respect to things like life becomes a little bit more muted and tempered, but there's all kinds of like little small joys and little delights that can come out of that kind of arrangement that are just aren't possible if it's all just a merrygoround.
(1:27:47) one thing that men misunderstand about women and one thing that women misunderstand about men. >> Both sides treat the other as they would like to be treated. So, one of the things that a lot of women complain about, as we mentioned before, are like the physical compliments, the objectification or even sending salacious pictures.
(1:28:05) That's how men want to be treated by women. Objectify men. Trust me, no one has done that to him in his life. Just say, "Ah, your your arms. I just want to like eat them up." or when you walk by your little buns, it's like ah like it'll make his day. Trust me. Send him some salacious pictures.
(1:28:22) He's not going to he's not going to be like, "Oh my god, I didn't ask for this." It's he's doing it to you because he's hoping that you're going to do it to to him. And same thing with women. A lot of guys don't understand that women want different things. They want more affection. Affection doesn't cost money. It doesn't necessarily even require a lot of effort.
(1:28:43) Affection is just a sign that I'm thinking about you when you're not around. I'm thinking about you and it's connected to something that we've talked about, something I know about you. It's reminded me about you and I'm I'm bringing you this token. Whether it's a meme I'm sending you on social media or a little flower I picked by the roadside, it doesn't matter.
(1:28:59) It's a symbol that I know you and I've been thinking about you even when you're not around and I couldn't directly benefit from your physical presence. That is great for women. But when women try to do that for a guy, they're like, "What am I going to do with this daisy? like I don't I don't need a I don't I don't need a pebble.
(1:29:15) I mean, this cute this cutesy meme, you know, send him some nudes. He'd like that a lot better. And she might like some sign that you're thinking about her uh in a way that deeply understands her when she's not around. >> Great. Okay. My last question is um in closing, doctor, how do you view the future of dating and relationships? >> We might have to have another twohour conversation about that one.
(1:29:40) That's the entire um last chapter of my book. Uh I don't know. It's it's getting weird and wonderful in some respects, but it's like the wild west right now. I will say that I do believe that by 2030, most men and women's greatest intros competitors will be AIS. They're not going to be other men or other women. They're going to be virtual agents.
(1:30:07) And I know that sounds a little strange or even ridiculous now, but we already have people falling in love with chat GPT >> and getting married. >> The getting married thing is is a little weird still, but what what seems more natural is that people's em they're going to develop deep real emotional connections with virtual individuals.
(1:30:30) I don't even I don't even know what to call them, but uh that's going to happen. And it also suggests like, well, what do we really need from each other? That's what I was talking about before. It's like, we need companionship, but maybe you get that with your guy friendss or with your girlfriends. We need to have excitement, but maybe you get that on holiday.
(1:30:48) You don't have to have that at work. Well, we need emotional connection. We need to be understood. Well, right now, chat will validate and understand you better than a average therapist. And people fall in love with their therapists every single day. Why? because they feel like you're the first person to actually understand me non-judgmentally and to care deeply about my well-being.
(1:31:08) Like what a rush that must be if that's the first time that that's happened to you. So, we need these things and we've been getting them in marriage and long-term sexual relationships for thousands of years. But if people abandon those solutions, marriage for others, it's because the new solutions are more convenient, they're safer, and they're less expensive.
(1:31:32) People are very rational with respect to their economic decisions. No one is going to choose all of the things being equal, the more expensive option over the less expensive option if everything else is equal. No one's going to choose the more inconvenient option over the less inconvenient option if all things are equal, etc.
(1:31:48) So, it's not that marriage or even potentially other human relationships can't solve these problems, but maybe they're too inconvenient like my partner doesn't always understand me. Maybe they can't or won't or they're dealing with their own thing. Maybe they're so expensive. Like it takes so long to understand another person.
(1:32:06) Takes how many years and all the dates and the cohabitation. And maybe it's just what was the other one? It's not as safe. There's a lot of risk with respect to dating. Not just the like the obvious physical risk, but like the risk of heartbreak, getting emotionally attached to the wrong person, etc., etc. We can't necessarily chide people from an economic perspective to choose solutions that meet their needs if they're cheaper, easier, and safer with respect to the alternatives.
(1:32:29) And that's what we're seeing. And this is this technology is only going to get better whether we like it or not. Now, does that mean everyone's going to be marrying their AI? No. Just like not every man is using porn or every woman is reading romanty novels, etc., etc., but the need for emotional connection could be met. >> Yes.
(1:32:46) And that is one of the primary needs that all human beings, men and women, have. And they've been getting it in relationships of all kinds because I mean one of the relationships that they that human beings have created on some level is their relationship with God or the divine. And that's a relationship and there's a whole set of practices and rituals around it where I can get my spiritual needs filled and I can be loved unconditionally or I can be understood.
(1:33:12) But there's a relationship in that um understanding between God and and the individual in question. It doesn't actually have to require another human being. like this is something that humans figured out millennia ago because I think every culture that I'm I'm aware of has some kind of evolved uh spirituality or religion and and and that also argues that this is a core human need that cannot be eradicated but we might find other nonhuman or transhuman ways of fulfilling that need.
(1:33:36) >> Sure. Um Dr. Oruran Taravan, it has been such a pleasure and honor to host you. Um thank you so much. This has been a powerp packed session and uh can't wait to host you another time around. So, thank you so much for making this happen. >> This was great. You asked excellent questions. I had a lot of fun.
(1:33:55) You were very easy to talk to and all the best. Thank you for having me on. >> In case you'd like to be a part of our online and inerson yoga, diet and spiritual programs, you can join our WhatsApp group below where we post all our upcoming programs and give free tips on health, diet and lifestyle.