Are Women In Charge Of The Dating Market? - Jon Birger

1. 0:00 – 3:20

   Intro

   1. JBJon Birger0:00

      A woman met a guy who's five foot nine at a party and brilliant and funny and handsome. She's not gonna notice that he's five foot nine. But when it comes down to putting a number on a screening function on a dating app, people start treating dating like shopping. (air whooshing)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:19

      John Berger, welcome to the show.

   3. JBJon Birger0:21

      Chris, thanks for having me on the podcast.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:23

      Talk to me about how you ended up as an authority on the dating market.

   5. JBJon Birger0:29

      Well, authority may be a bit strong, but- but yeah, th- this is the first question I typically get, which is basically, how the heck did a- a business journalist, a writer for Fortune Magazine ever end up writing a book about dating? And the answer is basically the ... It actually has a lot to do with- with my years at Fortune Magazine. The editorial staff at Fortune was more women than men, but it was one of these things where I couldn't help but notice that most of the men at Fortune were either married, like myself, or involved in long-term relationships. Whereas the women, especially the ones I seemed to know best and I was friends with, they were disproportionately single. And they weren't just single, they had all these dating horror stories and dating histories that- that made no sense to me. Especially since, from my perspective, a lot of them seemed to have way more going for them dating-wise than we guys did. Um, so the- the origin of my first book, Dateanomics, was basically just trying to explain how we got to a world in which dating had become so much easier for men than for women.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:37

      What was the summary of what you found out during that research?

   7. JBJon Birger1:42

      So initially, I thought this had something to do with the job markets in- in these really cosmopolitan cities like New York or London or Toronto, LA. Like I thought there was something about the- the industries, the job markets in these cities that was drawing more women, particularly college-educated women, um, to these cities than- than men. And that was- that was my premise for Dateanomics, but it turns out I was wrong. That this is not a- a big city versus small town problem. This is an everywhere issue. So basically, in every Western country and in many non-Western countries as well, over the past 20, 30 years, we've had about one-third more women than men graduate from college or graduate from- from uni as you may call it, you know, overseas (laughs) . Um, uh, and as a result, you end up with a dating pool after college that has, you know, one-third more women than men. And obviously, this wouldn't matter at all if we were more open-minded about whom we date and eventually marry, but at the same time that- that- that this higher education gender imbalance has been- become wider and wider, there's been a- a simultaneous increase in what academics refer to as assortative mating, which is just a fancy way of saying that university grads tend to want to date and marry other university grads.

   8. CWChris Williamson3:18

      What do you think is the root of the assortative

2. 3:20 – 10:55

   Increase of Assortative Mating

   1. CWChris Williamson3:20

      mating increase?

   2. JBJon Birger3:23

      I- I- I think a lot of it just is familiarity. I mean, people tend to date and- and marry people who we come in contact with. Um, and I think, you know, 30, 40 years ago, I think there were more ... Like the communities we lived in were more mixed when it came to socioeconomics. Um, and you might go to a church or a social club with people of more varied backgrounds. But I think because of kind of some of the social stratification we've seen, because of economic changes, I- I- I feel like I could be wrong about this, but- but my- my- my answer, my- my theory on your question is that, um, university grads and non-university grads don't rub elbows in the same way they once did 30, 40 years ago. And I think that's kind of the root- the root cause of it. But, um, you know, I ... A big theme of both Dateanomics and my new book, Make Your Move, is encouraging people to get past this and to be open-minded about dating people, you know, for- you know, with different educational backgrounds, because I think that's the key to solving this problem.

   3. CWChris Williamson4:36

      Well, the sex ratio hypothesis, and I've read a bunch of different studies, including, I think, the original seminal one that was done on it, is a hell of an effect. You know, you see really, really bizarre changes in the way that people respond to their local ecology. So there's this sentence in the study where it says, "It's almost as if human mating strategy responds to its local ecology," like a plant or something, right? That you adapt the way that you go about finding and refining your potential partner pool based on the relative number of men and women and what your, uh, sex is as well. So if you are a guy and you have a surplus of other men, you have to play the game, so to speak, that women want, which tends to be more dates before first sex. It means that you end up with less casual sex, you have higher rates of virginities, blah, blah, blah. Reverse that, when you have a surplus of women and a scarcity of men, you have more casual sex, you have fewer dates before sex, and I think you have an increase in sexual violence as well when you have a- a scarcity of men and an increase of women. But d- the bottom line is that it's- it's a very strange impact across both.

   4. JBJon Birger5:47

      Yeah, yeah. The scare- you know, in terms of the sexual violence, one of the things I- I- I discovered when researching the first book, Dateanomics, was I- I- I spent some time looking at- at, um, trends in China where you kind of see the opposite, where because of the old one- the- the one-child policy in China, um, you have a group of marriage-age people where the overall population is more male than female.... and what's interesting is that as the, as the youth population skewed more and more male, various levels of criminality increased, you know, um, uh, you know, uh, burglary, murder, things like that. The only category of major crime that declines as the population became more male was, was sexual assault. And the theory, um, um, the, the theory put forth by the author of this study was, you know, it's kind of crass, but she argued that as, um, when women are more scarce, men value them more, um, and are more protective of them.

   5. CWChris Williamson6:57

      Even if they're not in a relationship or don't think that they have a chance at being in a relationship with them?

   6. JBJon Birger7:02

      Y- yeah. I, I, I, I think, you know, I think this is more of a when in Rome thing than people making conscious decisions about how to behave based on a head count. I just-

   7. CWChris Williamson7:12

      (coughs)

   8. JBJon Birger7:12

      ... think that the, the, the, the culture, a- as you alluded to, the culture changes depending upon these, these prevailing sex ratios. And what's interesting is that most of the, the sex ratio, sex ratio research that you alluded to, that, that has been, you know, come out over the past 20, 30, 40 years, it, it kind of evolved from research on other species and in other, in, in o- other mammals, other primates, um, you see similar things, that when you have imbalances in the sex ratio among the mating population, you get the same sort of behavioral changes that we have observed when it comes to human mating and human dating.

   9. CWChris Williamson8:00

      Well, one of the things that's interesting about The China Study there is the increase in antisocial behavior and violent and nonviolent crimes amongst men because this is something else that you learn. As soon as a man gets into a relationship, his testosterone drops, and then when a man has children, his testosterone drops again. Why? Well, it's because if you are potentially going to father a child or you're now the father of a child, going out and doing something reckless or getting into a fight, you don't need to do that anymore.

   10. JBJon Birger8:30

       Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson8:30

       It's way, way, way too much of a risk. So it's much smarter for you to downregulate that testosterone, to be a more careful parent, to not get angry at the fact that your child won't stop crying or whatever it might be. Um, but this is one of the dangerous things. You know, these imbalances in the, in the sexual marketplace are leading to an underclass of sexless men, which can create quite a dangerous foundation for you to then sit society on top of.

   12. JBJon Birger8:56

       Well, I, I, I agree with everything you said. But what's, what's, for me, extra interesting about this is th- this, um, what you just described about putting men into competitive situations and suddenly their testosterone levels rise and you get more antisocial behavior. It's actually not just men, that, that when, when you put women into competitive situations, their testosterone levels rise, too. And if you read Hanna Rosin's book, The End of Men, she has a whole section all about rising criminality rates among women and, and how, uh, putting women into increasingly competitive situations has, has, has led to a rise in female criminality.

   13. CWChris Williamson9:38

       No way.

   14. JBJon Birger9:40

       Yeah. It's, it's fascinating. So, so I, so a lot of these things that we like to say, you know, "It's a guy thing or girl thing," it's actually a human thing. And, and I'm, I'm always trying to kind of pull it back to say, you know what, y- you know, this is about us as humans, not necessarily about you as a woman, me as a man, et cetera.

   15. CWChris Williamson10:01

       Do cities make this worse then? Did you find that the research coming out of cities further amplified these problems?

   16. JBJon Birger10:08

       I mean, I, I thought that was gonna be the case because I, I've lived in New York City for a long time, and I've heard m- my female friends have all these dating horror stories. But I'm not sure it's actually true. I mean, the, the imbalance, at least in the US, is actually greater in rural states like West Virginia than it is in Manhattan. Um, so I'm, I'm ... And I've interviewed lots, you know, lots of matchmakers in less populous parts of the country, um, where th- they've told me stories that sound very similar to what I've heard from people in New York City. So I, I, I, I assumed what y- I, I assumed that the city situation would be worse, I'm just not sure it actually is.

3. 10:55 – 17:13

   Responses to Jon’s Book

   1. JBJon Birger10:55

   2. CWChris Williamson10:55

      What was the response like from women and men when you did your post-book tour and you were talking about Datanomics?

   3. JBJon Birger11:03

      I mean, I mean with Datanomics, I, I think for the women who showed up at my lectures, book events, I, I think it was kind of a sense of relief that finally, like, th- they knew there was something really messed up in the dating market, and all their married friends and their mothers and their grandmothers and their aunts kept telling them that they must be doing something wrong. Um, and I think for a lot of them, just hearing that this is actually a statistical problem, a behavioral problem, provided some sense of relief that it wasn't their fault. Um, but I will say, like I, I didn't envision Datanomics as an advice book at all. It was kind of more pop science. Um, I had a really snooty attitude towards the whole self-help genre, I think because I came from this, you know, serious journalism background writing for Fortune. Um, but when I got out on book tour with Datanomics, while women, yes, were relieved to hear that there was this bigger problem that wasn't their fault and it explained some of their experiences, they still wanted me to tell them what to do about it. And I didn't...... I didn't really have any great answers for them then, and that's kinda what led to the, the second book.

   4. CWChris Williamson12:22

      What did men say after DateNomics?

   5. JBJon Birger12:26

      (sighs) Well, y- y- you may not be s- shocked to hear this, but men don't usually buy dating books, um, you know. Men, men actually don't buy self-help books in general. Um, so yeah, I did get some feedback from men and if you google my name a- like on some of the Reddit boards that deal with the red pill crowd, um, to me, like from what I w- read, it kinda sort of verified what they believed about, um, the competitive nature of, of relations between the sexes. But I, I wasn't really writing for men. I mean, I think th- this is a, this is a, a problem that exists for women, and the reason I wrote the book is because I didn't understand, and my wife didn't understand why, why we had all these single female friends who had everything going for them but couldn't seem to find a decent guy.

   6. CWChris Williamson13:21

      Okay. So, that's DateNomics, which is basically you've, you've created a problem for yourself. You've identified that there is an issue-

   7. JBJon Birger13:29

      Uh, yes.

   8. CWChris Williamson13:29

      ... in the sexual marketplace, but there's an open loop on the end of this, which is, "And what do we do about it?" And that's where-

   9. JBJon Birger13:36

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson13:36

       ... the next one comes in.

   11. JBJon Birger13:39

       Yeah. I mean, in, in hindsight it was probably cruel of me to write a whole book kind of laying out these-

   12. CWChris Williamson13:45

       No, get two books, get two books out of it, John. Don't give people every, all of the fucking answers in one.

   13. JBJon Birger13:50

       Well, I know, but wh- he... No, no, no, Chris, you're, you're right from that point of view. But I will say my, my editor for DateNomics, a, a brilliant woman named Maisie Tippmann, she, she kept telling me that I needed more solutions and more hope in the book. And I kept ignoring her because, again, I had this snooty attitude towards the genre. And the last thing in the world I wanted to do was become the love doctor.

   14. CWChris Williamson14:12

       Well, let me give you, let me just interject there-

   15. JBJon Birger14:14

       So... Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson14:14

       ... 'cause I, I'm having a, a conversation at the moment with a, a couple of different publishers and one of the potential things that I would be interested in writing about is this imbalance in the dating market. I think it's fascinating, I think it's relevant, I think that it has existential consequences for society, right? (laughs) And one of the very rough outlines that I sent over to a very, very good well-known publisher, they came back and said something along the lines of, um, "We would need it to be much more lighthearted, because this doesn't-"

   17. JBJon Birger14:44

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson14:44

       "... sound like a tremendously uplifting book." And they put in bold letters at the bottom, "Must uplift the reader." I'm like, well, (sighs) to be honest-

   19. JBJon Birger14:53

       No. No, you're right. Th- no, no, I-

   20. CWChris Williamson14:54

       ... it's not massively uplifting.

   21. JBJon Birger14:57

       So in this genre, if you're gonna write a self-help book, there has to be hope, it has to be uplifting. Th- this is something I heard a lot, so I'm not the least bit surprised that, that, um... And, and if you look at the, at the self-help books that sell well, they always are, are positive and they have solutions. A- a- and that, that book I referenced before, The End of Men by Hanna Rosin, um, it's a brilliant book, but I don't think it sold pretty, uh, terribly well.

   22. CWChris Williamson15:26

       Sold four copies, yeah. Well, I can already tell from the title. (laughs)

   23. JBJon Birger15:28

       Well, the... Yeah. The tit- well, the, the, the title itself is, is kinda dark, right?

   24. CWChris Williamson15:33

       (laughs)

   25. JBJon Birger15:34

       Um, and honestly, the DateNomics was not my preferred title for DateNomics. My-

   26. CWChris Williamson15:40

       What would you have called it?

   27. JBJon Birger15:41

       I wanted to call it The Man Deficit.

   28. CWChris Williamson15:44

       Yes. Yeah, 'cause you... That's one of the chapters, right?

   29. JBJon Birger15:46

       Right, right. And, and, but, but I was getting the same feedback you got, that that's, that's, that's depressing, that's dark, had... Not uplifting enough. Um, but for me, it, it kind of... You know, I... Uh, I mean, these folks know way more about selling books than you and I do, so I'm not, I'm not arguing against their, you know, their knowledge. But to me, the man deficit was more what the book was gonna be about. But what's the point in, in writing the book if nobody's gonna read it? So, um, so I, I, I get where they're coming from and I do think... I mean, h- honestly, I mean, one of my... I think in hindsight, one of my... I don't know if it was a problem or maybe I didn't emphasize it enough with DateNomics, was that I was way more interested in solving the boy problem in education than I was in solving the dating problem for women. Um-

   30. CWChris Williamson16:46

       Well, that's two, two solutions to the same problem, right? Typically, women are dating hypergamously as you have an increased number of women that are within a educated or highly educated field. They compete themselves out of their own dating pool because there are ever fewer and fewer men that are above and across from where those women are. So there are two, two solutions, that you can either get women to change the way that they're aiming or you can begin to bring the waterline of men up.

4. 17:13 – 27:07

   The Boy Problem in Education

   1. JBJon Birger17:13

      Right. But, but as you can imagine, the, there probably isn't a huge market for books on education policy. (laughs) Uh, I don't know if you, if you read DateNomics, but the last chapter is, is highly, um, focused on, on how we solve the boy problem in education. And also tr- trying to provide some advice to, to young people applying to college and to their parents, or university as you may refer to it in the UK. Um, just letting them know that, that the, the, the prevailing sex ratios on college campuses have a huge impact on the campus culture, particularly when it comes to dating. Um, I don't know if you want to get into that a little bit. But, but, but to me, I think... A- actually getting back to your first question that, or your prior question, this, this was a, a big reaction of the book, that, that particularly young people who had just graduated from college or parents of college or university applicants were telling me how shocked they were by some of the anecdotes and some of the research in DateNomics showing how, uh...... prevailing sex ratios in a college campus can have a huge impact on, on the way kids on campus view dating.

   2. CWChris Williamson18:29

      How so?

   3. JBJon Birger18:31

      So in Datanomics, I did a, uh, an a- an analysis of about 40 major public and private universities. And I, I ranked them by their, their sex ratios. And I paired that ranking with students' own descriptions of what dating life is like on these college campuses. And the descriptions came courtesy of the College Prowler, um, uh, you know, college review book. It's basically a, a book written for applicants, you know. So if you wanna know what the, um, you know, what the engineering program is like at University of Georgia or what the cafeteria food is like, or in this case, what, what the dating life is like there, you can read, you can read. And it's all written by current or recent students. So you can get a sense of what, what life is like, you know, on these college campuses. And it was really, it was, it was really striking how differently kids talked about dating at various schools depending upon the, the prevailing sex ratios. And I'll give you some examples here. So Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which is kind of a science and engineering school in Upstate New York, RPI. Um, RPI is about 70% men, 30% women, two, you know, more than two men for every one woman. And h- h- here's what students said about dating at RPI. "More people are involved in relationships. Girls seem to become stuck-up because they're in such a minority that they can afford to be choosy." Um, Caltech, which is, you know, California Institute of Technology in California ... And if, and if you remind me, I have an, I have a funny story about Caltech, which I can add at the end. Um, it, Caltech is 60-40, 60% men, 40% women, three women for every two ... three men for every two women. Uh, here's what students said there about dating. "Students here tend not to date, but have relationships. Breakups are rare and many couples get married after Caltech." Um, even the schools that were 50-50, it was kind of a more, it was more f- familiar to me as a 50-year-old guy when it came to, like, what I remember about college. So Tufts University, which is in suburban Boston, uh, Tufts is 50-50. "Halfway through sophomore year, people begin to pair off and generally stay paired off through junior and senior year." Th- that's, that was, that's familiar to me. That's what I remember. Um, University of Miami, which has a repre- a reputation as a big party school, but it also happens to be 50-50. And here's what, um, what students say about dating there. "Random hookups are common in the beginning, but after a few months or a year, relationships take over." So compare that, the schools that are either more men than women or, or 50-50, to some of the schools that are disproportionately female. I, I'll start with New York y- New York University in New York City. Uh, NYU is 61% female, 39% male, ag- three ... Go ahead.

   4. CWChris Williamson21:43

      Is that ... That's about representative typically, I think, on average for most colleges now.

   5. JBJon Birger21:51

      It, it, it wasn't when I wrote the ... It was more like 75-35. Or no, sorry, not 75-35, it was more like, um ... I'm sorry. It, it was m- it was closer to 58-30, uh, 42-

   6. CWChris Williamson22:05

      42, yeah.

   7. JBJon Birger22:05

      ... when I wrote the book.

   8. CWChris Williamson22:06

      But we're now looking-

   9. JBJon Birger22:07

      Or maybe 57-33.

   10. CWChris Williamson22:08

       By, by 2030, we're gonna be-

   11. JBJon Birger22:10

       But, but, but, but, but now, but now it's ... Yeah. But I think this year's graduating class, I think you're right. I think, at least in the US, it's 60-40.

   12. CWChris Williamson22:17

       It's gonna be bang on.

   13. JBJon Birger22:18

       So, so New York ... Yeah. So A- NYU, New York University, here's what, what kids say about dating at NYU. "Guys take advantage of the male to female ratio and most have no plans of settling into a long-term relationship." Um, Boston University, where actually my son is a senior, um, BU is 62%, uh, female, 38% male. Here's the comment. "Freshman year is a sexual explosion. There are girls to go around and around again." And lastly, Sarah Lawrence College, which used to be an all-girls school in, in suburban New York, it's now co-ed, but it's 75% female, 25% male, three women for every one man. You could probably guess what I'm about to read to you, but, uh, but I'll, I'll, I'll, you know, let me share. Quote, "The girls complain about loneliness. The guys get more than they can handle, and mindless one-night stands are rampant." So, so for me, like, doing the, doing the college research really kinda showed how these prevailing sex ratios don't just affect the statistical odds of getting into a relationship, but they change culture, they change behavior as well.

   14. CWChris Williamson23:33

       Yeah. And rolling the clock forward, the people that graduate from those colleges, presuming that men and women drop out at similar rates, I think men might drop out a little bit more than women actually-

   15. JBJon Birger23:43

       They do. They do.

   16. CWChris Williamson23:43

       ... but probably not enough to rebalance this, uh, sex ratio that we've got. And I think that, yeah, you'd be about right at saying 60-40 women to men, but by 2030, the projection is two-thirds women to one-third men at a four-year US college. So this trend is going to continue to get more and more pronounced.

   17. JBJon Birger24:04

       Yep. Yeah. No, I mean, I, I, I ... As I said, with my first book, I, I, you know, part of my purpose in writing it was, was reversing that trend and trying to figure out how we get more, more men to attend university or college, um...... but that's kind of a, that's a long-term thing. It's not gonna solve the dating problem in the short term.

   18. CWChris Williamson24:27

       Well, the other thing is that dating is inherently an individual act, right? Dating-

   19. JBJon Birger24:32

       Right.

   20. CWChris Williamson24:32

       ... your, your dating strategy, what sort of partner you're looking for, how you're going about looking for a partner, that's something that you can impact individually. What you're trying to do, or w- what you would be trying to do there, by continuing to improve men's desire to go to college, that's systemic, right? That's completely ... uh, that's a big, broad social change that you're trying to get to do. Yes, it happens individually, one by one by one, but I feel like trying to impact individuals' dating strategies is a simpler problem than trying to improve an entire sex's view of how to go to college.

   21. JBJon Birger25:07

       No. No, you're right. But I guess from my point of view, the boy problem in education isn't just a dating problem.

   22. CWChris Williamson25:13

       Oh, yeah.

   23. JBJon Birger25:13

       It's a ... yep, yep. (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson25:13

       Men don't just go to college to get laid. Yeah.

   25. JBJon Birger25:16

       Yep. Yep. Yo- yo-

   26. CWChris Williamson25:16

       Uh, although, your son, your son did choose one of the, uh, colleges-

   27. JBJon Birger25:19

       Oh. Uh-

   28. CWChris Williamson25:19

       ... that's got a high (laughs) female ratio.

   29. JBJon Birger25:21

       So, so, so, so, so my son is actually gay, so he gets zero-

   30. CWChris Williamson25:24

       Oh, God. He's ruined it.
5. 27:07 – 37:20

   How #MeToo Impacted Dating

   1. CWChris Williamson27:07

      Me Too movement impacted dating.

   2. JBJon Birger27:11

      I, so I, I, I, I look at it from the standpoint of, of women. And, you know, I, okay, I'm not ... I mean, I think in general, I think the Me Too movement has been good for, for dating and good for men because it's clearer now. Th- there was a lot of gray area behavior before Me Too, which meant, I think, unfortunately, thought was okay but never really was okay. And, um, and me, probably like lots of other men, I'm, you know, after the Me, MeToo movement launched, I, I spent some time thinking back about experiences I'd had when I was younger that seemed perfectly fine at the time, but weren't. A- and I think, I, I, I think this has been important. Um, but I think there's a real value for everyone to think about how the gains, the, the, the changes and gains we've made, thanks to the Me Too movement, how that might impact traditional dating strategies that involve playing hard to get. Because, as you know, pretty much every popular dating book that's been written over the past 30 years, from The Rules to Ignore the Guy, Get the Guy, to Why Men Love Bitches, they, they all revolve around a very complicated version of playing hard to get. Um, and look, I, I wasn't dating in 1950. Maybe playing hard to get worked really, really well back then, and I'm not saying it didn't, but I do believe that nowadays, and I actually think to a certain extent even before the Me Too movement, that playing hard to get has become harder and harder. And I mean, think about it this way, that, that if you're a guy at a party, and you're talking to a woman, and she seems disinterested, the correct response is not to assume she's playing hard to get and wants you to keep at it. The correct response is to leave her alone. So if you have all these, all these dating book gurus, like The Rules ladies, telling women, and I think in one of their books they actually say explicitly, um, uh, "Don't act so interested. Treat him like a guy you don't like." Well, that's not gonna work nowadays. And I, I'm not saying that to defend the men. I'm saying this to give an advantage to women. Because if you, as a single woman, know that guys are gonna be more hesitant and more reluctant to make the first move, wow, you have a huge built-in advantage over other women who are sitting back and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for the guy they like to step up. So-

   3. CWChris Williamson30:10

      'Cause those women are playing by the old rules.... and you're-

   4. JBJon Birger30:13

      Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson30:13

      ... playing by the new rules. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is-

   6. JBJon Birger30:14

      Right.

   7. CWChris Williamson30:15

      ... this is the wild thing. And I, I really feel for young guys now that are coming up. I was on a, a night out not long ago with one of my friends, young dude, real successful guy, big YouTube channel, u- university degree, prestigious uni, all this stuff. We were on a night out, and I was like, "Oh, there's a group of girls over there. Why don't we go up and talk to them? I'm, like, bored of your crack. I'm bored of what you've got to say to me."

   8. JBJon Birger30:35

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson30:35

      "Like, why don't we go u- go up and talk to them?" And he, he looked like I'd suggested that we go and, like, pour their drink over their head. Couldn't believe the fact that I was-

   10. JBJon Birger30:43

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson30:43

       ... suggesting that we go up and speak to a girl. "No, I would never, I would absolutely never. What about all of the Me Too stuff?" And that was the first time that I've ever seen in real life, you know, somebody that's close to me, that has similar values to myself, that's British, show the impact, the fear, like, complete terror. And I think that you, you quote it in the book, you say, "Men used to worry about being rejected. Now they're worried about being labeled a predator."

   12. JBJon Birger31:11

       Yeah. That's a, a quote from a, um, from Brian Howey, who's, who, who, um, Brian, um, runs kind of a, a, a comedy show or, or kind of a, a, a dating town hall called, um, The Great Love Debate. And that was a quote from Brian. I, I mean, he does these kind of dating town halls all across the US, and, and that was, that was his takeaway. Um, but I'm curious, your friend, is he younger than you?

   13. CWChris Williamson31:39

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's 21, 22.

   14. JBJon Birger31:41

       Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I mean, what's, when I talk to both men and women that age, in that age group, I'm always amazed. There, there, there's, like, this, I mean, o- obviously awkwardness and embarrassment. Like, it's never a good thing, but I feel like with the, the Gen Z crowd, there is a next level fear of saying or doing the wrong thing.

   15. CWChris Williamson32:06

       Hyper-sensitive. Hyper-sensitive.

   16. JBJon Birger32:07

       Uh, next, like, any kind of awkwardness terrifies them. And, uh, you know, I, this doesn't bode well for dating because dating really involves taking chances. But the good news for women is that, that, you know, my, my kind of go-to line when I'm talking about Make Your Move on the lecture circuit is that men like women who like them. So, so when a woman takes a chance, um, you know, striking a, up a conversation with a guy, the odds of her having blowback are far less. Um, e- even though she's anxious and, and she's worried and she feels the awkwardness, I, I, I, I think the odds of it being a positive experience are better than for your, your friend. Or maybe it's all in our heads, but I think even if it is all in our heads, I, I just think there are these huge advantages for women to, to making the first move, particularly if they've already identified the guy they like.

   17. CWChris Williamson33:10

       This is the double-edged sword of, um, the repercussions of Me Too into the dating market, I think, that I, I can sympathize with the young guys who are lonely, um, would love to get a girlfriend, but are now terrified of being labeled a predator. I think that one of the best fixes that you could have would be for women to kind of get a firmware update to their operating system and realize that men aren't playing by that old set of rules anymore. So, the thing is that women who aren't interested and women who are interested are both using the same strategies to respond to men that approach them. And the men aren't playing by that set of rules anymore. If you say no to a guy and he's a, a respectable guy that's learned from Me Too, he's gonna think, "Oh, fu- fucking hell, like, I better not, I better not push this. I don't want to end up on the, the front page of Reddit tomorrow." And-

   18. JBJon Birger34:03

       Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson34:03

       But if-

   20. JBJon Birger34:04

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson34:04

       ... if you're doing that in some sort of a strategy to say, "Well, if I say no, that's kind of this sexy men love bitches strategy thing," I, I think that explains a lot about why sort of chatting up and the circuits of dating are, are, are crumbling a bit.

   22. JBJon Birger34:19

       So, I, I had an interesting conversation with a woman named Francesca Hoagie, who is a, kind of a high-profile dating coach, matchmaker in Los Angeles. And we were talking about this very thing. And, and here's what I'm just gon- because I'm reading from the book here. She says, quote, "If a woman comes across as indifferent, men will take that as a sign that she's not interested and will move on. It's getting to a point that if the woman doesn't make the first move, the men are not going to. This is not the time to be demure, at least not if you're single and don't want to be single." A- and I, I think she's right. I mean, I'm, obviously, I'm, I'm generalizing and there are going to be individual situations that, that play out differently, but I'm writing, you know, I, my... The advice in Make Your Move is macro, not micro. And so I, I can't, I can't account for every individual situation. But I, I think what you just described is spot on, and that there has been this culture shift, and as a result, women who are willing to make the first move, or, or at least make it clear to men that if the, if they make, that, that, like, just to open the door wide enough so that the men know that, that it's safe to walk through.

   23. CWChris Williamson35:31

       Clear, unambiguous sign- signal. Yeah.

   24. JBJon Birger35:34

       Yeah. So, so I, I mean, I think, like, what happens as somebody who, like me, who's writing dating books and telling and sort of pushing out the idea of women making the first move is that you get people from the play hard to get crowd who, they, they, they're quick to say, "Oh, terrible things happen to women who make the first move." And they paint this picture that's kind of like Cruella de Vil chasing some poor guy down the street. A- a- and that's their image of what a woman making the first move is. And to me, you know, a, a first move by a woman can be much more subtle. I'll just give you an example from the book. There's a, a woman I interviewed, um...... very attractive, really big personality. And you know, some guys are a little intimidated by women who are kinda the l- the life of the party. Um, but, but she was at a, um, at a Super Bowl party a few years ago talking to a guy who she really liked a lot, um, uh, but he seemed nervous and wasn't sure what to do. So after, like, 45 minutes, she said to him, "So, are you going to ask for my number?" Now, she didn't have to grab his ass or like, you know, buy him a drink or, you know, like, she didn't have to do anything outrageous. Uh, all she had to do was make it clear to him that, that if sh- if he called her or he texted her, she would say yes. And, and that's, you know, that's the great thing from my perspective when it comes to women making the first move, is that it doesn't have to be this, this giant display, um, this big event the way it sometimes, the way m- men sometimes think it

6. 37:20 – 41:23

   Office Romances

   1. JBJon Birger37:20

      has to be.

   2. CWChris Williamson37:20

      What was that Melinda Gates story?

   3. JBJon Birger37:25

      So the, the Melinda Gates ... So let, let me see if I can find it. Ah. Um, (smacks lips) so, so the, the, what's inter- ... You know, I, I'm a big fan of dating in the workplace, and I ... and, you know, the research shows that, um, (smacks lips) that couples who meet at work marry at a much higher rate than couples who meet in any other way. I think the, the marriage rate for workplace romances is something like 30%, which is crazy high. Um, and you, you don't really, like, it ... you don't need a, a, a PhD in relationship science to understand why workplace relationships succeed. I mean, you already know the person, so like, um ... I mean, I'm, uh, I, when I- I think about like the US version of The Office with, uh, you know, with, with, with Jim and Pam, I mean, they, they, they, they knew everything about each other long before they went out on an actual date. Um, so to me, they were like al- you know, like halfway there or more before the first date. And I think this is the advantage of dating people you, you know from work, because you've seen them at their best, best and their worst. Somebody who is a good person in the workplace is gonna probably be a good person in a relationship. Somebody who is selfish, um, or cruel in the workplace is going to be selfish and cruel in a relationship. But obviously, there are, there are challenges to, um, with workplace dating, particularly nowadays. And you alluded to this Bill and Melinda Gates story about how they first started dating, um, and I f- I came across this podcast interview that Melinda Gates gave before they were divorced. (laughs) But, but she was talking about how, um, how she and Bill first started dating, and I guess they had met at some kind of a manager's retreat, and, uh, like a month later he called her up and he s- and according to her, he said, "You know, I was thinking maybe we could go out if you give me your phone number, uh, maybe two weeks from tonight." Th- that's, that's Melinda's recollection. And Melinda basically did what any self-respecting 1990s woman would've done. She played hard to get. And she said, "I said to him, 'Two weeks from tonight? I have no idea what I'm doing two weeks from tonight.' And I said, 'You're not spontaneous enough for me.'" Um, so, but he didn't ... Bill didn't take no for an answer, and this is how she described it. "Um, it was really sweet," Melinda recalled. "He called back an hour later and said, 'Is this spontaneous enough for you?'" And like, when I heard her tell this story, my initial reaction was oh, that's a cute story. Because I grew up in an era where that would've been a cute story. That's not a cute story nowadays to have, being-

   4. CWChris Williamson40:17

      No, that's a, that's a harassment lawsuit waiting for you the next day.

   5. JBJon Birger40:21

      Right.

   6. CWChris Williamson40:21

      The CEO ringing some assistant girl twice after she said no.

   7. JBJon Birger40:26

      Right.

   8. CWChris Williamson40:26

      That is, yeah, Forbes, a Forbes article and New York Times front page.

   9. JBJon Birger40:30

      Right. Right. Yeah. So, so, so that, that's the mo- the Bill and Melinda Gates story. But I, I have to say, I, I'm, I, I don't like these corporate rules that, that ban people from dating. Like, if the, if the single CEO of McDonald's wants to be in a relationship with another, uh, uh, single executive at McDonald's, um, I, I, I don't ... you know, as long as there's, everything's above board and I, I, I don't see the harm in that. Um, but I guess it really depends what you prioritize. I mean, if, um, if you put a high priority on, on, on, you know, marriage and family, maybe you're gonna be more willing to take a risk with an office romance than you would be if you're just looking for a hookup.

   10. CWChris Williamson41:22

       Going back

7. 41:23 – 47:44

   Distinguishing Flirting

   1. CWChris Williamson41:23

      to men and women's complete inability to decipher what the other sex is asking them to do, didn't you look at how useless men and women are at distinguishing flirting?

   2. JBJon Birger41:35

      Yeah. No, I mean, I, I think, I honestly think this is, this is the fundamental problem. Because I think particularly when you talk to singles about making the first move, they'll say, "Well, I was really clear. I flirted with him. Um, he obviously wasn't interested," or maybe she wasn't interested. Um, the, the, the rea- you know, the, uh, I quote some science, some research in the book, which shows that, I think it was 65 or 70% of flirtations are completely lost on the person on the receiving end. So if you're a woman, all those shoe dangles and hair flips, uh, he has no idea what you're ... what's going on. And I, I actually had this funny conversation with my literary agent, and she was telling me, "Oh my God, if I did a shoe dangle with my husband, he would've thought there was something wrong with my foot."

   3. CWChris Williamson42:31

      Well, here's the thing. Like, both men and women are, are bad at detecting subtle advances, but the environment that we have in 2022 is increasingly neurotic, and people are less able to deal with awkwardness. There are more externalities with being rebuffed. You don't want to end up as the, the butt of the joke in some WhatsApp group chat the next morning. "Oh, you won't believe what this girl did when, or guy did when they came over." So, it's almost like the risks are kind of higher in a way for people who do want to do the approach. And given the fact that women culturally just aren't the sexual protagonists ever, you know, in history, it's very rare to have that being held up as some archetype that everybody finds, uh, admirable. Um, it doesn't surprise me. And w- all of this wound up together explains it's one of the many reasons why I think it's men between the ages of 18 and 30 are, are reporting three times as many men in the last 10 years are reporting no sex within the last year. Three times as many men between the ages of 18 and 30. That's the age during which most men would be, you know, having sex, being single, perhaps meeting new women, going through multiple relationships. But yeah, when you've got... No one can determine whether each other is flirting, and both sexes are so terrified as to not flirt-

   4. JBJon Birger43:54

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson43:55

      ... that, that it doesn't happen, it doesn't surprise me.

   6. JBJon Birger43:56

      You see... Yeah. See, but from my perspective, I'm writing for women. And to me, what you see as a negative, I view as this massive opportunity for single women because those who are willing to take a chance just have this huge advantage, um, because the marketplace, so to speak, um, is so different than it used to be.

   7. CWChris Williamson44:17

      Well, you stand out, right, immediately, and you call this the, the suitors advantage. Explain that to me.

   8. JBJon Birger44:24

      So, uh, I have this quip in the book in which I, I say that the, that making the first move is the only, um, is the only dating strategy ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize. And that's kinda true, uh, but, but only kind of. Um, so there, there are a pair of economists who won the Nobel Prize for what they called, uh, matching strategy. And matching for them, yes, it involves relationships and marriage, but it also involves school admissions, uh, you know, uh, job applications, hiring, things like that. Uh, a- a- any kind of matching. And what they found in their research is that whichever party initiates the match on average has a h- has a better outcome than the, than the one on the receiving end. And when you think about this from a dating perspective, it doesn't... It makes perfect sense because one of the advantages that men traditionally always had is that at least if they were courageous enough, at least they had a chance with their first choice woman, right? So a- all they had to do was, was ask her out. Um, she could say no. She could say yes. But at least you g- you got kind of a definitive answer if, if you were willing to ask the question, and it was society said it was okay for you to, you know, ask Susie out on a date because that's what men do. But if you're Susie and you've always liked Chris, um, but society says you can't, you can't ask Chris out on a date, you have to wait for him to notice me, um, that's tricky because, you know, as I said, most people aren't good at communicating romantic interests. So obv- so if your, if your options are limited to the people who make a first move with you, it's no surprise that the, the outcomes on average are gonna be worse for people who are on the receiving end of the matchmaking process rather than those who initiate the match.

   9. CWChris Williamson46:34

      That was borne out in a n- a bunch of experiments that you did, right, where you got men and women to rank each other based on what they wanted, and then men approached and women approached, and whichever sex was the one that decided to be proactive, they, on average, all of them ended up with a higher level, um, rating.

   10. JBJon Birger47:00

       Well, I, I wish I could say it was my research, but this was actually part of the research that won the Nobel Prize. So there's these two economists.

   11. CWChris Williamson47:05

       Whatever. Take it. Take it.

   12. JBJon Birger47:07

       Yeah, yeah. (laughs) So I, I have my Nobel Prize in my closet back there. Um, but yeah, yeah, that, that was the gist of it, that, that, um, in this experiment, the, the, the men were the ones who were allowed to propose marriage essentially. And the men on average ended up with higher-ranked women on their list. I'd have to go through the math, and you probably don't want me to, but, but, but, but the, the gist of it is the outcome was on average better for the, for the men in this experiment than it was for the women. And I think it's for all the reasons, you know, I, I just discussed.

8. 47:44 – 57:10

   Advantages to Women Dating Earlier

   1. JBJon Birger47:44

   2. CWChris Williamson47:44

      You say that women in their 20s have an advantage at finding a partner as well. How come?

   3. JBJon Birger47:51

      (clicks tongue) So, um, I might not put it that way, but I do think there's an advantage to starting earlier, um, that, you know, the, um... (clicks tongue) there's a lot of messaging that singles, I mean, I would say women particularly, but I actually think it's, it's men and women as well, that, that, that you hear, like, young educated people are told that it's best to focus on your career in your 20s and worry about relationships or family in your 30s. And, um...To me, there are all sorts of problems with this advice. Fi- first, if you're actually worried about your career and your earnings, research actually shows that- that coupled people, married people, earn more than single people. So, the- the- the whole kind of no... You know, the- the economic notion underlying this advice is simply wrong. But there's also kind of an assumption built into this that dating will be just as easy at 31 as it was at 23. And for men, for educated men, it is. It's actually easier. But for women, it gets harder. And I- I always like to compare this to the game of Musical Chairs. Chris, did you ever play Musical Chairs as a-

   4. CWChris Williamson49:13

      Yeah, of course.

   5. JBJon Birger49:13

      ... kid?

   6. CWChris Williamson49:14

      I was a world champion yeah, yeah-

   7. JBJon Birger49:15

      Yeah, right. So, yeah, okay. So- so, you know the basic idea, like, you, you know, you- you start out with 25 players and 24 chairs, and, um, in the first round of Musical Chairs, in that- in that case you have maybe a f- a four or 5% chance of losing in the first round. By the last round of Musical Chairs, when there's two players and one chair, you have a 50% chance of losing the game. So, the- the more players and chairs are taken out of the game, the greater your odds of losing. And this is what you see playing out, um, in dating, uh, in- in with- with educated people when they, you know... This is the situation women are facing. So, let's say you start out with a dating pool with 40 women and 30 men. Um, once half of the women get married, once 20 of the women get married to 20 of the men, the- the ra... You know, the- the dating pool becomes 20 women and 10 men. So we've gone from a four to three ratio, to a two to one ratio. Once five more couples pair off, it becomes 15 women and five men, a- a three to one ratio. So, the point I'm always making, look, is if you, if you prioritize marriage, if you're a woman who prioritizes marriage, there is, there is no reason to- to delay. Um, you know, e- either in terms of economics or career, as I said, the, the... I- I've yet to see any good evidence that focusing on career, not family, in your 20s is beneficial, but especially when it comes to relationships, because the- the- the dating math is just gonna get harder, um, as you get older. Although, and, you know, one of my, one of my arguments in Make Your Move is that there is an advantage for older women to dip down age-wise. Um, and I know a bunch of couples where it's kind of a- a reverse age gap, a woman, you know, five, six years older than the man. Um, and by- by dipping down age-wise, women can kind of offset some of this.

   8. CWChris Williamson51:30

      Well this, f- I wanted to explain for the people who don't understand why this is obvious, the reason that it's more of a problem for women dating at 31 than it is for men dating at 31 is that women, as they get older, on average, are dating men that are their age or older, right? Whereas men have a broader cross-section of women that they can access who are younger than them. So it means that men basically get a- a broader dating pool as they get older, technically.

   9. JBJon Birger51:58

      Y- no, that's absolutely true but- but what I'm saying is that even if people were only dating others their exact age, i- if- if 28-year-olds were only dating 28-year-olds, you would still get this Musical Chairs problem-

   10. CWChris Williamson52:11

       Yeah, yeah. I understand.

   11. JBJon Birger52:11

       ... that I laid out.

   12. CWChris Williamson52:12

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. JBJon Birger52:12

       Um, but- but you're absolutely right that- that the problem becomes worse because men kind of have this, you know, huge pool that they can... Older men, like the 31-year-old man, can date, you know, more broadly than the woman who is... who, through custom or experience or socialization, thinks she can only date somebody, you know, a year or two or o... Is somebody older than them.

   14. CWChris Williamson52:41

       Yeah.

   15. JBJon Birger52:42

       Um, and-

   16. CWChris Williamson52:42

       But another, another consideration here in terms of attractiveness to men is that one of the fundamental things that men are typically attracted to is youth signaled through fertility, right? Or fertility signaled through youth, which is, you know, you can imagine a- a girl who spends her 20s, uh, going to college and maybe getting a postgraduate degree as well, and then, you know, working her way up through a- a company to be a high-powered executive, to then get to the stage that she's 31 and says, "Right, I'm now ready to find Mr. Right and go after him." And she doesn't realize that Mr. Right very well may be more attracted to the 24-year-old Starbucks employee who is younger and, in his eyes, fitter than this girl. Many men, not all men, but on average, men don't value education levels as much as women do. They also don't value resource levels as much as women do.

   17. JBJon Birger53:36

       Yeah, I- I- I mean, certainly that's... I- I think that's been the case in the past, but you know, there was an interesting OkCupid study which came out I... probably six years ago, in which they found that, um, that, that except in the margins, except for young women who are basically supermodels, m- men didn't really perceive a big attractiveness difference between, say, a 33-year-old woman and a 23-year-old woman. And th- that this, th- this notion that- that men all favor youth, it wasn't exactly borne out by the data. Yeah, t- but, but yeah, I mean if there's some 20 or un- 21-year-old model or starlet, yes, you know, that's different, but-

   18. CWChris Williamson54:21

       That's interesting. Yeah, that's... That- that would... That runs pretty counter to- to what I would have expected and what I've seen in a- in a- a fair bit of data. But again, another one of the- another one of the things to consider here is that the men, as they get older-... they are accumulating more status and resources, which allows them to slowly rise up through their own dominance hierarchy, their competence hierarchy as well. So the men that are 21 who might want to try and date the 25-year-old woman are competing with the men who are 31, who have 10 more years of experience-

   19. JBJon Birger54:53

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson54:53

       ... and charisma and status and resources and th- the understanding of what shirt goes with what pants and stuff like that. So it makes it a, a more difficult game.

   21. JBJon Birger55:02

       Well, the... you know, the, the, um, the couple who I feature in the chapter on these reverse age gaps, on, on women dating younger men, um, yeah, I think when they got together, she was 32 and he was maybe 27 or 26. And, um, one of the things that they talked about was that when he was dating people his own age, um... He's a very competitive person and he was frequently dating women who were in his own field. He's a, kind of a, a photographer, designer, arts type. And he would get really pissed off and jealous, um, anytime his girlfriend seemed to be doing a little bit bett- better than them career-wise. And one of the things that they talked about is that this kind of competitiveness was really a non-issue for them, because he understood that she was five years ahead of him career-wise, um, and it- it actually made the relationship easier. Because she could be really supportive of him and he could take her advice. And there wasn't this kind of friction of two, like, successful people of the same age, you know, two, two doctors, two lawyers, um, who are married to each other and are anxious about, about, you know, uh, uh, about the status of their career. Um, and I do think that these, these reverse age, age gaps can kind of address this problem that you hear women talk about all the time, about, about having a hard time finding men who are comfortable with their success.

   22. CWChris Williamson56:53

       Yeah.

   23. JBJon Birger56:53

       And I think, you know, if you, if you date a younger man, I think that's gonna be easier.

   24. CWChris Williamson56:58

       Mm. Yeah, I, I wonder... It would be interesting to see some more research on this. I think that it's going to be difficult for women to fundamentally be attracted to men that are younger than them, um. So I've got a, a, a little bit

9. 57:10 – 1:08:28

   Complications for Female Choice

   1. CWChris Williamson57:10

      of research here from Vincent Harenam, if you're familiar with him? Guy, writes for-

   2. JBJon Birger57:14

      I'm not, sorry.

   3. CWChris Williamson57:14

      ... writes for Quillette, data scientist, very interested in the dating market. You'd love his stuff. I'll send you some articles once we're done. Um, so this is just uh, uh, a bunch of stuff that you might not have been familiar with, all fairly recent research. So I'm just gonna do... r- run through some of this and I'll get your thoughts afterward. Let us consider height. According to one study, women were most satisfied when their partner was 21 centimeters taller. This was corroborated by other studies which found that 49% of women preferred dating taller men, and that the shortest man a woman would date is five feet nine inches, on average. A 1939 study found that American women rated good financial prospects twice as highly as males when gauging the value of a marriage partner. This finding was replicated in studies conducted in 1956 and 1967. Moreover, David Buss attempted to replicate these studies, surveyed 1,491 Americans across four states in the mid-1980s. Once again, women valued good financial prospects in a mate roughly twice as much as a male did. This gender difference has not changed. In fact, a 2014 Pew Research survey reported that 78% of unmarried women placed a high premium on finding a spouse with a steady job. Only 48% of men shared this view. In the study of the attributes valued in a marriage partner, psychologist Douglas Kenrick asked men and women to indicate the minimum percentiles of each attribute that they would find acceptable. When it came to earning capacity, women indicated that they preferred a man who earned more than 70% of all other men. In contrast, men desired a mate that earned more than 40% of all other women. Basically, it just bears out this is the sort of resources and status hypergamy thing that seems to be borne out in the data. But it seemed like when you looked at stuff for Make Your Move that you, you found a little bit of a different narrative coming through for women.

   4. JBJon Birger58:53

      So yeah, I, I mean, I, I, I do think men are competitive by nature. And I... This is why I think the reverse age gap, uh, like when you talk about a, a man wanting to be with a woman who earns less, um, I, I, I understand where that comes from. I don't think he's gonna feel the same way if it's like this couple I interview for my book where he's 27 and she's 32 and she, she's supposed to be making more than him because, because, because of the age gap. And the other thing I'll, I'll, I'll point out is that if you look at the same Pew Research data, yes, it shows that men are more li- uh, that, that, that married men earn more than their, their partners. But if you look at the trend, the, um, the percentage of women who are primary breadwinners in their family has been steadily increasing. There's actually, um, a higher percentage of women married to lesser-educated men in the US than men married to lesser-educated women. So the-

   5. CWChris Williamson59:58

      Is that not only in college graduates, though? Is that not only-

   6. JBJon Birger1:00:01

      No, this, this is everything. So this notion of the doctor who's married to the nurse-

   7. CWChris Williamson1:00:07

      Mm.

   8. JBJon Birger1:00:07

      ... or, or the investment banker married to the cocktail waitress-

   9. CWChris Williamson1:00:11

      Give me-

   10. JBJon Birger1:00:11

       Thi- thi- this is, thi- this is not borne out by reality. This is kind of this, this stereotype that's out there. And it... actually, men are, are choosier about women's education than women are, according to the data.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:00:23

       Given the fact that there's more women graduating university, this makes sense though. You would need to-

   12. JBJon Birger1:00:29

       It doesn't... It just-

   13. CWChris Williamson1:00:29

       You would need to normalize for the fact that there's far more women coming out of college in order to-

   14. JBJon Birger1:00:34

       You're right.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:00:34

       ... ameliorate that.

   16. JBJon Birger1:00:35

       Y- you're r- y- you're right. But, but there is this notion out there that w-... men will- men will marry anybody, and the women are too choosy. And the data does not bear that out. The data shows that when it comes to education at least, men are more choosy about education than women are.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:00:52

       Okay. So-

   18. JBJon Birger1:00:53

       Which I know doesn't- it d- it doesn't fit the stereotype, but it's true. And the- and then going back to David Buss. Um, I met him at a conference a bunch of years ago, and we were talking about some of this stuff. And he remained- he expressed with great certainty that- that the- that, you know, if you have 40-50% more women than men graduating- graduating from college, that there will always be, like, this large proportion of women who never get married. And that's just the way it's going- it- it is, and that's the way it's going to be, and that those women will never ever, ever, um, stoop so low as to marry an electrician or a plumber or anything like that. And I- and I- I just don't- I don't agree with that. It's not the kinda world I want to live in. I- I- I see so many examples of what I call mixed-collar relationships in the world these days.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:01:49

       But you've also said that in your research, there's been an increase in assortative mating.

   20. JBJon Birger1:01:55

       The- yeah. The- there has. And- and I think, you know, like, sometimes I- I would have interviewers ask me, "Well, w- why wasn't this an issue in 1940 when there were more men than women attending college?" And my answer to that is, "Well, the college thing wasn't as important back then, and people weren't making decisions about- about marriage as much based on whether or not somebody went to college." Um, which I think-

   21. CWChris Williamson1:02:19

       But that would- would that not also fit the hypergamous women are prepared to date open and across if men are outperforming women, then it's easier?

   22. JBJon Birger1:02:26

       No. N- no. No. Yeah. Y- you have a point, but I- I just- if you look at some of the more recent data, particularly from pure research, you do see the beginnings of a- of a trend. And I hope it's a longer term trend of people being more open-minded when it comes to whom they date and eventually marry. And actually, there was a- a- a- a brilliant reporter, um, for the, um- for The Guardian, who interviewed me about- about Datagenomics, um, and she wrote a- a story about the book. And she was telling me that she had been in a long-term relationship with a bus driver, and they were- they were very happy together. Um, and so for her ... And she had, you know, kind of successful friends who, you know, some of them were dating highly-educated men, some weren't, and it wasn't quite the same taboo in terms of dating somebody lesser educated, at least among her friend group, as it might have been for her- for her parents' generation. And so my- my hope is we're moving towards a world where the gentlemanly electrician is just as good a catch as the asshole investment banker.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:03:42

       How easy do you think it is for women to hack that hypergamous nature?

   24. JBJon Birger1:03:49

       I- I- m- to me, I think a lot of this goes back to how we meet, um, because when you talk about things like, "I- I want a guy who's six feet tall or makes more than $127,000 a year," whatever it is in pounds, or is this age or this amount of hair, it really sounds more like picking options on a car than it does finding your true love. And to me, all of this goes back to the cesspool that is online dating. Like, if you- if you met a guy who was five foot nine at a par- not you, but a woman met a guy who's five foot nine at a party and brilliant and funny and handsome, she's not gonna notice that he's five foot nine. I mean, I- I- I'm six feet tall. My wife is 5'2". Everybody looks tall to my wife. Like, w- whether I was 5'8" or 6'2", she would think I'm tall. But when it comes down to putting a number on a screening function on a dating app, um, people start treating dating like shopping. And there's this really unhealthy consumerist mindset that I think has infected the world of- of- of- of romance in which, you know, everything is shopping, and if you don't like it, you can return it, and it's all about finding the best deal, and you can just punch in some- some metrics on a- on a dating app, and out will pop up, you know, your Prince Charming. And A, I don't think that's true, and B, and I think this is really the important thing, that the stories of how we meet are important. Like, you- you- you could meet somebody on a dating app and not hit it off, but meet the- but the- the very same person, you could be in a, you know, a- a tennis club or a jog- or a running group with and get to know him or work with them, and it would be a totally different connection than chatting with them on a dating app and meeting up at Sushi Palace at 7:00 PM. And the- the- and- the- all the research shows that the stories of how we meet are really important, and people become much more invested in- in kind of stories that involve meeting in the real world, meeting in the wild. Um ... It- it's- it's also much, um, particularly for women, um ... I- I- I don't think men fully appreciate the-... the safety concerns related to online dating. I mean, I, I was on a, a podcast with a, um, a male author a, a few months ago, and he was recently divorced. And he was telling me this story about, um, going out on his first online first date, and he discovered that the woman who he met at the coffee shop knew everything about him because she had been Googling him. And he thought this was weird and creepy. And, and I was like, "That's not weird and creepy. That, that is the way... That's what every woman I know is doing." And it's because if you look at the, at the surveys on this, the majority of women consider online dating to be unsafe. 55% have been threatened with physical violence while using dating apps. Um, so obviously, they are going to protect themselves by doing this research. They're also gonna tell their roommate or their mom or their sister, "I'm gonna be at Sushi Palace at 7:00. If you don't hear from me by 10:00, get worried." But the problem with this beyond the obvious is that if you ent- if you go into a first date with this level of anxiety and, and fear, it, it's not gonna lead to falling in like or falling in love because you're, you're on guard to make sure that Robert the Handsome Money Manager isn't actually Billy Bob the Married Ex-Con. Whereas if you were dating somebody you actually know and actually like from the real world, it might not be a great first date, but there's so much more comfort involved in that first date experience, and you can just kinda relax and get to know the person, and it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be like a, an interview in which you're trying to poke holes in their story.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:08:25

       Based on what I have seen from your advice

10. 1:08:28 – 1:19:20

    Competitive Edges for Women

    1. CWChris Williamson1:08:28

       in Make Your Move, it seems to me that it's mostly, um, competitive edges that specifically women, uh, would be able to find by adjusting their dating strategy. So the first one would be don't be afraid of making the first move, of approaching the man-

    2. JBJon Birger1:08:46

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:08:46

       ... of being the protagonist in the, uh, flirting relationship, right, of suggesting that he get your number or asking for his number or whatever. And then the second one being more like a modality change that look at the other places that you can try and find people that you would want to date rather than online dating. So-

    4. JBJon Birger1:09:05

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:09:06

       ... both of these, no matter whether they run counter to culture or expected norms or whatever-

    6. JBJon Birger1:09:11

       (clears throat)

    7. CWChris Williamson1:09:12

       ... they're just opportunities as far as I can see it. All that they are are competitive edges that women can find incredibly easily by deciding that they're going to do something different to what the rest of the market does. So I've got this stat that I always throw around about podcasts. So 90% of podcasts don't make it past episode three, and of the 10% that do, 90% don't make it past episode 20. So by making it to episode 21, you are in the top 1% of all podcasters-

    8. JBJon Birger1:09:40

       (laughs)

    9. CWChris Williamson1:09:40

       ... ever in history, right?

    10. JBJon Birger1:09:42

        I love that. It's awesome. (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson1:09:43

        Great stat. That's consistency. Consistency is the most underrated and rare internet creator value that, that, that exists as far as I can see. Very, very few people do a hard thing at the same time every single week for an extended period of time. Similarly to this, if most women aren't doing a thing, however you know that there's a competitive edge by doing that thing, we've already seen, it's borne out in the data, if you decide to be the protagonist when approaching somebody, on average, you will end up with a preferable partner to if you wait for those people to come back around, right? Nobel Prize shit.

    12. JBJon Birger1:10:23

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:10:23

        Other side of that is that I, I, I don't think that online dating is a fantastically fun experience for most men. Most men are kind of wistfully sat on their own, not really getting matches from women. And most women are getting matches from men that they're not tremendously interested in and potentially fearful of even if they do manage to get a match and then go on a date, and then it's this sort of weird performative thing where you're fact-checking against their profile for all of it. So both of these are just competitive edges, but the same way as the consistency thing being a real easy hack to be able to get through podcasting, what are most podcasters not doing which is still a good outcome? Okay, consistency. What are most women not doing in the dating market which is a good outcome? They're not approaching, and they're relying too heavily on online dating.

    14. JBJon Birger1:11:05

        Y- yeah. I... That, that's a, a great summary. I mean, the only thing I'd add to the online dating thing is that to me it goes beyond, you know, coming up with a little edge or a little strategic advantage. I mean, there, there is a fundamental efficacy problem with online dating. There was a study out of the UK a few months ago which found that the divorce rate for couples who meet on dating apps is six times higher than it is, uh, for couples who meet in the real world. There was a Stanford University study which, um, claimed in the body of the report that there was not much difference in the one-year breakup rates of couples who meet online versus the real world. But if you dig into the appendix and you look at the actual data, the one-year breakup rate for couples who meet online in this study was 16%. For couples who meet through friends and family, it was 8%. For couples who meet at work, it was 6%. And for couples who meet in a house of worship, it was 1%.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:12:00

        1%. Yeah. I quoted this the other day.

    16. JBJon Birger1:12:03

        S- s- so it's not, it's not just that, uh, the women are relying too heavily on one thing and they need to diversify their strategy. I actually think there is something fundamentally awful about online dating that is going to lead to, um, uh, less r- I mean, uh, believe it or not, I'm a romantic at heart. And (laughs) I'm-

    17. CWChris Williamson1:12:27

        Despite the incredibly autistic view-

    18. JBJon Birger1:12:30

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:12:30

        ... of dating and-

    20. JBJon Birger1:12:31

        Yes. Yes.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:12:32

        ... s- data. Yeah.

    22. JBJon Birger1:12:32

        I, I, I want, I, I want people to be happy, and I want people to find true love. And I just think it's really hard to find true love when you're...... going out with complete strangers on a dating app. And I, I'm always, like, comparing it to friendship. Um, I don't know if you've heard me, he- with this, this shtick before, but, but Chris, do you have a best friend?

    23. CWChris Williamson1:12:54

        I do.

    24. JBJon Birger1:12:55

        Or your best mate, I guess you would say.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:12:57

        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    26. JBJon Birger1:12:58

        Okay. Okay. How did you meet your best mate?

    27. CWChris Williamson1:13:00

        Through another one.

    28. JBJon Birger1:13:03

        I- but in the real world?

    29. CWChris Williamson1:13:04

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. By referral, uh, in, in the real world.

    30. JBJon Birger1:13:08

        And, and you, you have real-world experiences together? Uh-
11. 1:19:20 – 1:20:49

    Where to Find Jon

    1. JBJon Birger1:19:20

    2. CWChris Williamson1:19:20

       Jon Berger, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do, where should they go?

    3. JBJon Birger1:19:25

       Um, so my website is jonberger.com. Um, I'm off of Twitter these days, but, uh, you can find me on Instagram. I'm ... I think I'm jon_burger1 on Instagram. Um, also if you have a book club and you want to read one of my books, um, I partnered w- well, obviously you can read it if you want. But I partnered with, um, with a, uh, an author platform called Bookyaya.com. And basically it's a platform that, that connects, um, book clubs with authors who maybe could do remote events, um, you know, with the, with book clubs. So you can find me on Bookyaya as well.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:20:05

       Cool. I, I really appreciate reading, um, a lot of the dynamics that I'm familiar with and I've been learning about and are very interested in. But from a, a female perspective, I think that it's something that I hadn't considered. And the more that I think about the experience that women have with dating, the more that I can understand where we're at. So I appreciate the work that you do, Jon. I look forward to whatever it is that you write next. I think it'll be really, really cool.

    5. JBJon Birger1:20:28

       Thanks, Chris. I appreciate you having me on.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:20:30

       What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:20:49