Modern WisdomEvolution & The Modern Dating Market | Rob Henderson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 161
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 26,688 words- 0:00 – 0:38
Intro
- RHRob Henderson
Men look for reasons why they wouldn't sleep with a girl, whereas women look for reasons why they would sleep with a man. So the default position for a man is, you know, "I would sleep with her unless there's some extraordinary re- reason why I shouldn't." Whereas for women, it's, "I'm definitely not going to sleep with him unless there is some particular reason why I should."
- CWChris Williamson
Rob Henderson in the building. How are you, man?
- RHRob Henderson
Good, Chris. How are you?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, great. Great to have you on here. Welcome to, uh, the UK. You're in lockdown as well, by the way.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, it's great to be here, you know, in the middle of this, uh, pandemic, so... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) So
- 0:38 – 1:00
Todays topic
- CWChris Williamson
what are we going to be talking about today?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, uh, I thought we'd talk about some evolutionary psychology, some social psychology, and, uh, what's going on with modern dating. Um, modern in the sense of, you know, the... 2020, but also in the sense of, uh, what's going to happen with this coronavirus and how that might affect, uh, the dating scene
- 1:00 – 6:30
Evolutionary psychology
- RHRob Henderson
too.
- CWChris Williamson
I can't wait. I love it. So where do we start?
- RHRob Henderson
Uh, yeah, I mean, I suppose we could start, uh, with some, some basic evolutionary psychology. So just right off the top here, I mean, you know, a lot of people have questions about, why do we like what we like? Um, how flexible are our preferences? You know, why, why does it seem like men seem to be attracted to younger women? Why do women seem to be attracted to exceptionally wealthy men? Um, and of course, there could be some cultural components, but, uh, a lot of e- evolutionary psychology focuses on sort of more innate or more cross-cultural preferences. And they basically are looking at, you know, what, what is sort of evolutionarily advantageous for human beings to pass on, uh, their, their genes? Um, and so evolution operates at the level of the gene, and so sometimes we do things that are advantageous for our genes, but they actually hurt ourselves. Um...
- CWChris Williamson
What like?
- RHRob Henderson
Uh, something like, for example, um, for men, we'll stick with men, risk-taking. Uh, so on average, women tend to be, uh, attracted to men who take, uh, risks, uh, in, in intelligent ways. Um, but things like, uh, say motorcycle riding or bungee jumping or certain kinds of sports, I mean, these are, you know, typically, uh, more attractive, and they're also extremely risky. Um, and so things like this can, can attract partners, you know, female partners, but they can also put your life in danger. Uh, but that's one of the interesting things about evolutionary psychology. I mean, one of the principles is that, you know, if you have a trait that is reproductively advantageous but harmful to yourself, that trait will still tend to proliferate.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Um, whereas if you have a trait that, uh, is advantageous for survival but turns off the opposite sex, then that trait will tend to disappear from the population. So say you have, um, some kind of trait that, um, promotes longevity, but I don't know, it makes you look unusual in some way or, or just turns the opposite sex off, then it doesn't matter that it's keeping you alive. If you can't find a partner, that gene is going to... or those genes are going to disappear, so... Um, something else, uh, that's important to know, uh, about evolutionary psychology in men and women, uh, is that women take on a much greater burden with child-rearing than men do. So if you think about, what does a man have to invest to have a child? Well, really not much more than a few minutes of activity, and that's-
- CWChris Williamson
A few, few minutes maybe being very generous to a couple of men as well, Rob, I think... (laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Well, yeah, yeah, I'm trying to be nice.
- CWChris Williamson
We've all had a, we've all had a bad night, all right, you know?
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) That's true. That's true. Um, and there are some... S- so yeah, exactly. So, so some men, they invest a few minutes, maybe a few seconds in some cases, whereas for women, they have to invest. I mean, if a woman happens to get pregnant and have a child, I mean, that is, you know, nine months of pregnancy followed by, you know, years of having to take care of, of a child and so on. And so in the ancestral environment, women took on a much greater burden, and so women have, uh, evolved to be particularly choosy about who they partner with. Um, they tend to be more, uh, scrutinizing. They evaluate men, uh, to see whether a man is, is, uh, you know, a sort of worthy partner, whereas men tend to be slightly less, um, you know, scrutinizing and, yeah, a little bit more relaxed in, in terms of who they're willing to, to have sex with. Uh, when it comes to long term relationships, men do have, um, some rigid standards about who they'll partner with. But, um, even though today we have birth control, we have all of these reproductive technologies and so on, um, our brains and our bodies are still sort of stuck in this Stone Age. Um, you know, humans... There's some debate about this, but humans haven't really changed much in the last 100,000 years or so. Um, and so some strategies that we enact today reproductively, um, are more beneficial for a different environment, for the ancestral environment.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I know a, a good example of this, I think, is men fighting and the increased chance of men fighting when there's a group. Have you seen this?
- RHRob Henderson
Oh. Oh, yeah. I mean, I haven't seen that specifically, but that makes sense.
- CWChris Williamson
So if there's... Uh, men tend to fight. It's a display of dominance. Um, there's a, a, an embedded, um, winner and loser behavior mechanism as well, that the loser cowers. It means "I am lower," that the winner kind of is up and tall, stand up straight with your shoulders back. Um, and, uh, apparently, I can't remember where I read it... I'm just swimming in evolutionary psychology at the moment, so it's like David Buss or Robert Wright or Rob Henderson. Um, and, uh, yeah, that when, um, there's a group of people observing...... a man's likelihood of fighting, of getting to a physical altercation goes up. And that would make sense-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... in a evolutionary standpoint, right? If you are in a tribe which only has 50 people in it, and everybody knows everything that's happened, and there's people watching, and you back down from a fight, they might think in future, “I can push Rob around. That guy's a pussy.”
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um,
- 6:30 – 8:35
Physical altercations
- CWChris Williamson
whereas if you stand up for yourself, even if you potentially lose, but if you stand up for yourself, people might think, "Yeah, Rob's worthy of respect."
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That, uh, that seems to, yeah, that seems to align with, with, uh, some evolutionary, yes, psychology principles, and, uh, yeah, when there is a crowd, it would make sense that men are, are sort of more willing to engage in a, like sort of physical altercation. Um, I've also seen, um, you know, if you look at data, I think, um, uh, Martin Wilson and Margo Daly, I think I'm getting the names right, uh, Wilson and Daly in any case are the last names, they looked at, uh, young male homicides and the causes of young male homicides in the United States, and what they found is that, um, most homicides started over, um, what they called trivial altercations. Um, essentially, uh, sort of minor insults, you know, uh, sort of dissing one another or insulting one another, and these are, are the most, uh, the most common, uh, reason for a male homicide is because of these trivial altercations is what they discovered. Um, and so, uh, interestingly, I just read a, a blog post about this on Psychology Today, um, by Douglas Kendrick, and he said that if you're a young man, one of the things you can do to promote your own survival and longevity is to be polite to other young men, um, simply because, you know, disrespecting another young man is actually very dangerous, um, based on, based on some of these findings on, on what causes men to kill one another. Trivial altercations, man. So like you were saying.
- CWChris Williamson
Dangerous. You don't knock someone's drink over or cut in line at the supermarket or... well, there's not enough people at the supermarket at the moment anyway to allow that, is there? You got to keep two meter distance. Um, so okay, so men and women have different risks associated with having sex.
- RHRob Henderson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And until recently, we were unable to have any reliable form of protection, despite how accurate and well-timed you think your withdrawal game is. It is not the, um, it's not the-
- RHRob Henderson
Not optimal. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) It's a suboptimal,
- 8:35 – 10:15
Muscular men
- CWChris Williamson
uh, contraceptive strategy. Yeah. Um, so what, what else do we need to know?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, I mean, something else that might be interesting, uh, are, you know, so I've read a lot about, uh, about men in particular, you know, why we are driven to do these things that, that, uh, that we do, and something like, like weightlifting or, um, playing sports, things like this. Um, well, one reason why, for example, men want to weightlift is to, to build big muscles. And the research does show on, uh, research on attraction that women are more attracted to, to men with big muscles. Uh, muscular men are, uh, they report having more sexual partners relative to less muscular men. Um, part of this is because, uh, you know, building muscles is costly, right? It's a, it's a sort of fitness indicator, not in this, not fitness in the sense of like, you know, sporty or athletic, but, but fitness in terms of, uh, reproductive fitness, Darwinian fitness. Um, if you can build muscles, it indicates a lot of things about you. Uh, it indicates that you're able to obtain, you know, calories, the resources necessary to build those muscles. Uh, it indicates conscientiousness, which is a personality trait. Um, someone who can, who regularly goes to the gym, that person is diligent and hardworking. They, they, uh, have goals and stick to them. Um, and then of course, you know, they confer, uh, protective advantages too. You know, people are less likely to mess with a, with a muscular guy relative to a smaller guy.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Um, and so yeah, you see some of this, uh, in, in the research. Um, yeah, muscular men report, uh, more sexual, sexual partners. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I just want to, I just
- 10:15 – 12:20
Sexy Sun hypothesis
- CWChris Williamson
want to s- to kind of dig into that for a second here. Um, the fact that women find those traits attractive-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and a man has those traits suggests that if she was to mate with him, that her children would have those traits, which means that they are more likely to reproduce because other women will find that to be attractive.
- RHRob Henderson
Uh, yeah, yeah. So this is, uh, some, some call this the, the sexy son hypothesis.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) What a, what a brilliant name.
- RHRob Henderson
Um, which is, uh... Yeah, yeah. So, so this is, uh, I first learned about this, I think in Matt Ridley's book, The Red Queen. This, uh, the sexy son hypothesis is basically this idea that women are attracted to men who are attractive to other women, and the reason is because if they have sons with this man, that their sons will also be attractive to lots of women, and thereby, you know, uh, pass on those genes. But yeah, I mean, the basic idea you're, you're describing is that, yeah, when women want, uh, men who have certain qualities because, you know, those qualities will tend to pass down to their offspring. Um, but I think it's also important to make clear that these aren't, um, you know, these aren't calculated or sort of, uh, you know, deliberate, uh, you know, strategies that, that we're enacting. A lot of this is going on sort of under the hood. Um, we're not even aware of why we like what we like, or why we do what we do. We just know that it makes us feel good. Um, you know, so, you know, when, when a woman likes a muscular man, it's not because, you know, all of these operations are going on. "Well, if my, all my kids will be muscular and their kids will be muscular."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) If there's a woman out there who's gone through her, gone through that discourse that we've just had in her mind, I, I want to meet her and talk to her because she'd be fascinating.
- RHRob Henderson
That would be great. Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
But, um, yeah, you're, you're totally correct, and that was the point I, I really wanted to, to try and get out of you.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you explain how genes and what they do to promote genetic fitness and emotions and feelings and the more conscious side of the brain, how those two things interlink? I think, um...... is it Robert Right that says, uh,
- 12:20 – 15:05
Genes and Preferences
- CWChris Williamson
genes are the preferences and emotions that are executers, something like that?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. I mean, genes are basically selected for, eh, a- and basically through evolutionary pressures, uh, shape certain behaviors. Um, and of course, like, there are other factors involved, cultural factors, social factors, and so on. But, you know, a lot of our behaviors and our, our strategies, um, enacted through, through our genes. And it's not like we're consciously aware of it. We're just sort of going through these motions in the same way that say, you know, when you're, when you're eating sugar, um, you're not going through this calculated process of, you know, "Well, I'm eating the sugar because it's giving me caloric energy, which I, I can expend later and so on." Um, the sugar just makes us feel good, and our genes give us this little reward. You know, our biology gives us this little bing, like, "Okay, you're eating sugar, it makes you feel good because that's advantageous." Um, but things don't make you feel good for no reason, right? Like, everything that makes you feel good i- is something that at least in the ancestral environment, you know, paid off, um, in a, in an evolutionary sense. Um, so when you, when you see a beautiful woman or you see a particularly, you know, athletic man or whatever it happens to be, you feel a little bit good, you know, you feel some positive, uh, response to that. And none of this is deliberate or calculated. It's, it's just sort of, you know, built right into us. And, you know, it's, it's, yeah, it's not, it's not anything that, um, that we're really thinking about necessarily.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, for sure. I think this for me is precisely why I've found evolutionary psychology to be so interesting.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It is looking... It's, it's even looking under the hood. It's taking the engine apart, and it's looking-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... inside of the engine. It's looking at why do we like the things that we like? Why are our preferences the way they are? And then when you take-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that, you take the fact that we have these unwritten rules about the way that we operate-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then you apply them to an environment in which they were absolutely not designed to operate, which is where-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... we are now, I guess, was it, um, the last 10,000 years probably I guess it'd be maybe-
- RHRob Henderson
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
... 5,000 to 10,000 years or so would be beginning, but especially now, you know?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, you, you're totally right. Perfect example, I love the idea of, um, guys going to the gym displaying the fact that they're able to get surplus calories, um-
- RHRob Henderson
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
... because surplus calories is something which would have been a rarity. You know, 50, 50,000 years ago when all of our problems were problems of scarcity, not problems of abundance like now.
- RHRob Henderson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and a, a guy who's able to be big is, "Oh my god, he must be an unbelievable hunter. Uh, he must-"
- RHRob Henderson
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
"... be very diligent," like you say, must be very conscientious. But people are now able to game that system,
- 15:05 – 20:00
Secondary Male Characteristics
- CWChris Williamson
you know?
- RHRob Henderson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, you're choosing to eat a protein shake and go to the gym and lift some weights and stuff. That's gaming the system.
- RHRob Henderson
Right. Yeah, yeah. And, and on that point about, you know, going to the gym and building big muscles, um, something I wanted to touch on earlier about this, you know, a lot of these sort of secondary male characteristics, um, there's a, there's a, a paper called Beauty and the Beast by, uh, this, this, I think is an evolutionary psychologist, David Putz. And he basically found evidence for these secondary male sexual characteristics evolving not necessarily only to attract women, but also to signal, uh, dominance towards other men, uh, to basically intimidate potential, uh, sexual partners, sexual rivals. Um, and basically what he found is that, you know, if you show women pictures of, you know, uh, muscular men, for example, um, and ask how attractive they are, you know, women do have a small preference for muscular men relative to less muscular men. But if you ask men how intimidating a muscular man looks relative to a non-muscular man, men are actually, like, the, the effect size for intimidation, men are much more intimidated by that. Um, other characteristics like beards. So there's a wide de- debate, you know, o- online and everywhere else, you know, do women like beards or not?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Um, and, uh, you know, I see you got a little stubble going on there. I, I, I-
- CWChris Williamson
This is... I'm... I can't decide. I'm trying to play both camps at the same time, Robert. That's it.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. Well, unfortunately, we have, you know, you could grow it out, you can shave it, you know, there's-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
... options. Um, but, uh, for beards, um, the evidence is totally mixed, uh, about whether women actually like them or not. Um, whereas for men, if you ask them how intimidating is this man with a beard versus without, men are, are very likely to say he's more intimidating with a beard. Um, almost no man would say a clean-shaven man is more intimidating than a man with a beard. And so-
- CWChris Williamson
That's so interesting. Did you have a look at men with checkered shirts?
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Let me, let me take a look at that one
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
... maybe on that side.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that would be good. I, I think it was you who tweeted the study and then I tagged a couple of my buddies in it.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, am I right in saying that the most robust characteristic or physical trait for a man to have is muscle size? It was more effective than low voice-
- RHRob Henderson
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
... than beard, and than height? Is that-
- RHRob Henderson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so I saw a study that was a, a, a big analysis and there was varying small degrees, little bits here and there with certain women, certain age ranges of what they liked in men.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, but across the most robust strategy for making, uh, a man more attractive to women across age ranges was just put, put some muscle on. So-
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... if, if you're listening, if you're listening and you're struggling, you've had a little bit of a dry spell and you're thinking-
- RHRob Henderson
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
... "Uh, I, I don't know whether to grow a beard or go to the gym," go to the gym first.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Go the... Maybe grow the beard while you're at the gym. You know-
- CWChris Williamson
Nice.
- RHRob Henderson
... do both. Yeah.
- 20:00 – 24:55
Whats Next
- CWChris Williamson
hot, whatever. Um, so, what, what do we move on to next? What's next?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, we can look at, for example, I mean, we could, we could even go back to ... and this could, this could maybe connect to some of, some of the more modern dating kind of stuff, but, you know, again, so men, uh, have, have, uh, f- far smaller investment in, in sex compared to women. Uh, again, you know, this sort of few minutes, few seconds kind of thing. Uh, so it's, it's advantageous, actually, evolutionarily, for men to seek, uh, more variety. Uh, they tend to be more interested in novelty. Um, I just listened to, uh, this podcast, I think it was Justin Lehmiller who's a, a sex researcher, and he reported that, um, basically, when women have sexual fantasies, um, it tends to be the same person throughout the duration of the fantasy, whereas for men, men tend to switch, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
That's interesting.
- RHRob Henderson
... you know, who they're fantasizing about, um, you know, minute to minute as, as they're going through the fantasy. <|agent|><|nolang|>
- CWChris Williamson
Which as, as any, any man or woman who's listening knows is completely impractical and wholly-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... would be a com- an, an operational nightmare.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Well, i- in real life, you'd beam.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. But, but yeah, in the fantasy, men will sort of go through these different scenes, different people, and so on, whereas women tend to stick with the same person. Uh, and then you see this sort of, uh, in real life too. Um, well, the thing is, so if you look at number of sexual partners, um, straight men, straight women tend to report, uh, about four to six, uh, sexual partners is the median number that men and women report, uh, in the US at least. Um, lesbian women are about the same, four to six sexual partners. But if you look at gay men, the numbers are something like 16 to 20 sexual partners.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
And, and, and the thing is, like, you know, they're basically ... like, I think this is, is a more sort of representative look at male sexuality in a way. Um, I think straight men would prefer to have 20 partners versus four partners.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Um, but, you know, they have different challenges, right? They, you know, they have to basically convince women to like them, and women are, are choosier, um, in comparison, right? And so, yeah. I mean, th- and this is something als- also that's interesting. You know, women, women are choosier in a sense, but, um, the psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams, uh, he's got a pretty big Twitter account. He, he has called ... you know, he's, he sort of described women's sexual strategies as selectively promiscuous. Um, and what that means is that women will, you know ... it ... basically, if a man has exceptionally high status, uh, if you're a rock star or, you know, uh, an actor or something like that, um, you can tend to ... you, you can basically get a lot of female sexual partners. Um, many women will sort of reduce their standards for emotional commitment or for trust or cooperation or all of these kindness, these kinds of things if a man has, you know, this extraordinarily high status. So women can be, in some cases, sort of this selectively promiscuous, um, as Steve Stewart-Williams puts it. Um, but in their j- in their, in general, in their daily lives, they tend to be, you know, quite careful.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah. So what I want to kind of touch on here is that we have this evolutionary landscape which has an asymmetry. No matter what you think, men and women aren't the same, um, at least in this particular domain. I do not want to get into a deeper discussion about that. Men and women are not the same in terms of their investment in how children are born, and what that means is that women have to be the gatekeepers and men have to be the sexual protagonists.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And what I think is interesting is that you see these roles play out in cultural memes that become caricatures, right? So you know e- every man ... has, has a woman ever been called a sleaze?
- RHRob Henderson
Sleaze.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, like, or a creep.
- RHRob Henderson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, there's n- there's no woman who's ever so much the sexual protagonist that a man would call her a sleaze, but that's a, a common put-down for men, right? You know, or a-
- RHRob Henderson
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... a fuckboy or what, you know, pick your vernacular, whatever you want to say.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Um, sure, sure.
- CWChris Williamson
So you, you have that, but you're like, hang on a second. That is a modern day interpretation-... of an ancient system at work.
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Right?
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Then that, the fact that, oh, well, he should text first. Perfect example. Like, why should a man text first? Well, probably because y- you have, as a woman, you have more to lose by a sexual encounter, which means that you need to make him jump through more hoops to get to have that sex, because-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- 24:55 – 26:35
Modern Interactions
- CWChris Williamson
interactions that every man and woman that's listening will know, reflect that.
- RHRob Henderson
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And y- you can see this, yeah, even, even in our, our more enlightened age. You know, the other, the other day, for example, I was talking to a, to a woman, and she told me that she had a crush, uh, with this, you know, this guy at her work. And I asked her, you know, "Why don't you ask him out then?" And she said, "Oh, I would never ask a guy out." And I said, "But you really like him, right?" Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I have a number of- a number of girlfriends that would say exactly the same thing.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. I- she, she said, "No matter how much I like a guy, I would never ask him out." And can you imagine a guy saying this? Like, one of your guy friends, you know, he likes a, uh, you know, some woman a- a- and you say ask her out, and he says, "No matter how much I like a woman, I would never ask her out."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Does that make sense? That doesn't compute, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
And so, yeah, we see these, you know, as you were saying, this sort of, uh, protagonist, this sort of, uh, gatekeeper, uh, these, these kinds of roles that they're in.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I mean, as a, as a, uh, a perfect experiment there-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to the men and to the women that are listening, to the women, how many times have you gone up to a guy and said, "Hey, I think you're really hot," or, "Are you single?" or whatever. Now, you may have gone up to a guy and said, "My friend who sat on that table thinks that you're really single."
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"But that doesn't count, so don't try and slip it past me." And then on the flip reverse of that, for men, how many times has a girl come up to you and said-
- RHRob Henderson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... a- and said the same thing? Like, it is, it ... I can count, you know, I, I've worked a lot of nights in my life.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, man, it, I can remember probably most of the times that that's happened is of a very exceptionally unique makeup of a girl who is prepared to go and do that.
- RHRob Henderson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And you think, well, why? Why is that the case?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Is it ... It could
- 26:35 – 31:15
Sociocultural Influence
- CWChris Williamson
... Can such a skew in people's behavior simply be sociocultural?
- RHRob Henderson
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I'm not aware of any, any culture or society in which it is the norm for women to ask men, uh, out on dates or sort of take the initiative in these courtship rituals. Um, yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right-AI. And, and I think it's, it could be even more important, you know, it's just this, maybe we can sort of transition into, into, yeah, this sort of modern dating. It could be more important for women to, um, take this initiatives, especially educated women. Um, because among the educated population, uh, within the US and I think within most Western countries now, uh, there are more educated women than there are educated men. And so if you're an educated woman looking for a partner who's also educated, um, things are actually looking quite tough for them.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a bad dating market at the moment.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah. It really is. Um, you know, coronavirus aside, you know, even before all of this, uh, I think, yeah, things were, were looking, um, actually quite grim if you look at the data, uh, for, for especially educated single women. Um, so there's this great book, just a couple of years old, uh, from John Berger called Datonomics, and he basically ran a bunch of analyses looking at basically, you know, how many single men and how many single women are there, how many educated women versus uneducated women, and so on. And what he basically found is that among people with bachelor's degrees or above, um, who are in their, you know, 20s and their 30s, sort of young adults, young singles, there are 33% more women than men. So, there are four women who are college-educated compared to every three men. And so basically, the market is actually looking quite, you know, uh, quite unappealing or, or sort of ... Not, maybe not unappealing, but you know, it, it's not looking good-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... for women, whereas for men, it's actually the opposite. So if you're an educated man, there's actually a surplus of potential partners for you, uh, in part because if you're an educated man, you can date educated women, of which there are more, you know, educated women than men, but you can also date less educated women, right? Whereas educated women tend to be more reluctant to date men who are less educated for some of the reasons that we mentioned before. Women want men who have certain qualities. Um, now, there are some cases where women will date men who are less educated than them, but what the research shows is that in those cases, their partners tend to earn more than them. And in fact, women who date men with less education are twice as likely to be married to a man who has higher income than themselves. So, you know, if you, basically, if you're an uneducated man, all hope is not lost for you if you want an educated woman, but you just have to earn a lot more money.
- CWChris Williamson
You got to, you got to get your graft on, man.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) I've got to hustle, man.
- CWChris Williamson
Start making some ... Yeah, exactly.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So again, here's another cultural meme, and-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, I can s- I can feel the, the triggering. I can feel it happening even in myself, right? Like-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... I, I don't like hearing the fact that women have hypergamous dating preferences-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that they date what is referred to as up and across, right? They will-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They ... It's the same ... Um, perfect example of this is, if there are any tall girls who are listening, you don't tend to want to date a guy that's shorter than you.
- RHRob Henderson
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
If you take that as a characteristic across most, uh, important elements of dating, you ... Most women on the whole don't want to date a man who earns less than them or who is less educated than them. And if you are-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... less educated, you need to compensate by earning significantly more, as the data would suggest. Um, but, you know, it's very easy to turn that into a caricature. And what's the caricature of that? The gold digger.... you know?
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm. Right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the, that's the modern, that's the fuckboy, Tinder generation, WhatsApp, world speak-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of what that is. It's, it's the girl who is purely interested in-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, resource acquisition, um, and-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- 31:15 – 32:55
The naturalistic fallacy
- CWChris Williamson
that this isn't the way that people behave. We have some pretty robust data, and everybody knows, everybody knows the guy who is prepared to sleep with women who are of varying standards.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But I don't know many women that are prepared to sleep with men who are of varying standards. Does that make sense?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Yeah. And yeah, it's important to, that, you know, the studies that I'm describing and, you know, some of these, you know, generalizations, these observations, you know, they're, they're descriptions, right? They're not, they're not prescriptions. So these are sort of, um, you know, describing what people do, but it's not saying this is what people should do. You know, some people sort of make this, you know, what's called the naturalistic fallacy, which is basically that just because something exists in nature, that means that's the way it should be. Um, but clearly this isn't the case. I mean, you know, coronavirus exists, right? That arose, you know, that, you know, someone ate a bat or something-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
... and now there's this pandemic. Should that be the way it is? Uh, not necessarily.
- CWChris Williamson
Darkness, darkness on a nighttime.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so yeah, there are some maybe less savory aspects of human nature, but doesn't mean you should enact it, but we are describing it. I think describing it and talking about it and bringing some of these out into the light can help us, you know, inhibit it or, or redirect it to something that would align more with our moral commitments and, you know, try to, try to make people happier. So (inaudible)
- CWChris Williamson
What a perfect example of this to, before we delve fully into the world of Tinder, um-
- RHRob Henderson
(coughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... a per- a perfect example of this is the modern, the modern setup of
- 32:55 – 36:10
Modern monogamy
- CWChris Williamson
monogamy, right?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, what's your... I'm gonna ask you to put your money where your mouth is now, having read a fair bit of evolutionary psychology, what's your feelings on what would have been a typical ancestral setup for, um, relationships?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. So I mean, basically what I've read, um, for, you know, what goes on in hunter-gatherer societies, um, they were largely monogamous, um, for the most part, uh, for multiple reasons. Um, one reason is, um, it was essentially impossible to stockpile resources, uh, in a hunter-gatherer foraging society. So, uh, a s- a man could not accumulate vast amounts of material wealth simply because if you're in a, a, a small band or a tribe and you're constantly moving, you know, going where the food is, where the water is, you can't hoard like lots of material resources and carry it around with you. Um, that's one reason. And then another is that simply, um, you know, men had to rely on one another and trust one another in war and in hunting, and, you know, men aren't going to go, you know, fight for, you know, their, someone in their, in their tribe who has all of the women, right? Like, why would they do that?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
And so basically, men had to essentially, I mean, this sounds, you know, maybe it doesn't sound so good, but basically, like men had to create a system where the sort of access to sexual partners or whatever was roughly equal in order for the tribe to survive. Um, now, this doesn't mean that in hunter-gatherer societies, you know, infidelity didn't, didn't exist or, you know, mate poaching, which is, you know, luring someone else out of a relationship. Like, there's, there's research on modern day hunter-gatherer societies, and there is infidelity, there is, you know, cheating, there's, you know, divorce exists i- in a way, where basically like, you know, people will switch partners later on and leave their current partner. Um, so there's al- there's all of the things, you know, all these things that are sort of recognizably, um, parts of human nature, but, you know, polygamy and its variations didn't appear to exist until the u- the rise of a- agriculture. Um, once people were able to sit in one place and, and stockpile resources, the invention of money, uh, the ability to have, you know, uh, the, to command large armies and so on, um, those things didn't come until after the advent of agriculture. But in, in small bands, um, they were mostly monogamous, is my understanding. But, you know, the quest- o- often the question is, you know, are we naturally monogamous? Are we naturally promiscuous? What are we? Um, and the answer is we're kind of both. There is no, you know, universal template for human beings. Um, it looks like in terms of stability, monogamy is the best, um, both, you know, maybe modern society and also in, in foraging societies. Um, but, you know, people still do have urges and people want to, you know, have, have more than one partner, divorce is widespread. And so yeah, we sort of want to, what is it, have our cake and eat it too?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's it.
- RHRob Henderson
Which is very,
- 36:10 – 38:25
Tinder and modern dating
- RHRob Henderson
you know, that's very human.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, for sure. Okay, so we're moving into the, we're moving into the modern world. We're moving into Tinder and, and, and modern dating and stuff like that. What have you been thinking about to do with that recently?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. Well, one thing that's been on my mind lately, uh, and I talked about this in a recent newsletter, is what is coronavirus going to do...... with, you know, with casual sex, um, which, you know, Tinder and these other apps are associated more with, with sort of casual sex, although people do meet their partners on them. And, you know, you can't... Like, all the bars are shut down, right? Like, you can't go out, you can't go to restaurants, like, you can't meet anyone anywhere. And so, that's, you know, one obstacle if you want to meet someone new. And another is, we don't know who has this virus, man. Like, are you, like, excited to go meet someone new if you don't know, like, who has this virus, who doesn't?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Like, who's eager to, like, have a new sex partner who, who might have COVID-19?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
So, um, yeah, this is something that, uh, my, my, my impression is that there will be less casual sex, at least throughout the course of this epidemic. Um, and I think people will sort of recommit to whatever relationships they happen to be in for now. Um, after this is all over, I'll be curious to see how it goes. Um, you know, I've, I've heard some stories about, you know, couples who live together are starting to feel, you know, a little bit irritated at their partner because they've been cooped up inside for so long with this sort of social distancing stuff. Um, but yeah, yeah, Tinder's very interesting. Um, you know, s- speaking of, you know, e- education and, and so on, this, uh... There was this study, I think it was this year or maybe it was late last year, on Tinder, um, I want to say it was in the Netherlands, where they basically took, um, male profiles on Tinder. Uh, took the same exact man, same profile, and all they did was change his education. Uh, so in one profile, the man had a bachelor's degree, and in another profile, same man, he had a master's degree, and found that the man with the master's degree got about twice as many, uh, likes compared to the man with the bachelor's degree. Um, so again, you know, you mentioned earlier to your listeners here, you know, uh, hit the gym, but maybe also, you know, hit the books, uh, if you
- 38:25 – 42:15
Sexy selfies
- RHRob Henderson
want to get more likes.
- CWChris Williamson
It's hard, Robert.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
There's a l- there's only so many hours in the day.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) That's right. That's right. Well, prioritize, uh, one or the other. But, uh, but yeah, so, so this is pretty interesting. Um, even on Tinder, you see these, these sorts of, um, you know, the- these sorts of mating strategies, uh, emerge in terms of, uh, status, education. The r- and all of these kinds of signals. And, you know, relatedly, um, you know, given that the economy seems to be tanking right now, um, this could be bad news for, for some men and maybe good news for others. But basically, um, what the research shows, uh, this, this rise in, in sexy selfies, right? So, is this, this research basically that was, it was done on, on sexy selfies, and what they found was that basically... So, they had a question, you know, why are women taking sexy photos of themselves in this way? And then a-
- CWChris Williamson
How do they define sexy photo?
- RHRob Henderson
Uh, I'm not exactly sure, but, you know, sort of provocative, maybe, you know, not wearing much, something like that. Um, I don't know if they're
- CWChris Williamson
Bikini, bikini photos or well-posed photos-
- RHRob Henderson
Something like that.
- CWChris Williamson
... and stuff like that. Okay.
- RHRob Henderson
Right. Sort of beach photos, this kind of thing. And so, the researchers asked, "Well, are women doing this because..." Like, are the societies women doing this in more misogynistic maybe, uh, societies that are more likely to objectify women or view them as sexs-... you know, uh, just, just for, because of their sexuality or something like that? Um, or could it be, uh, something else? Um, and so they basically, like, collected, you know, data from all of these different countries, different regions within countries, and they found, um, that, you know, the misogyny of a country had nothing to do with how many sexy selfies women were posting. But what sexy selfies were associated with was, um, economic inequality, um, within, uh, developed countries. So, for example, within the US, in regions like New York City or Miami, uh, San Francisco, places where there's a bigger gap in, in income between men, you're going to find a proliferation of more, uh, female sexy selfies. And the researchers posit that the reason for this could be that, you know, if there's a small number of men who have a lot of economic resources, women are basically competing, um, and sort of advertising themselves to these men. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
They have to up their game.
- RHRob Henderson
Basically, they're upping their game, uh, in, in regions where, yeah, basically there's a, a lot of haves and, or rather few haves and a lot of have-nots. And, yeah, I mean, there's, there's also interesting research, uh, from the 2008 economic recession on, um, purchasing habits of women, and what they found was that, um, shortly after the 2008 economic recession, sales of cosmetics, uh, increased. And again, you know, the researchers there posited that, you know, in an economic downturn, uh, where, you know, women are, are again sort of upping their game trying to find, um, the, the relatively fewer men who are economically successful, uh, in those situations. Um, you know, I feel like we're sort of like just, you know, th- talking about women and, and this, you know... Like, you mentioned gold diggers earlier. I want to, I want to, again, you know, sort of discl- write this disclaimer here that, um, you know, women aren't gold diggers or anything, but, but, um, that they are enacting a strategy that paid off for their ancestors, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Facts is, facts don't-
- RHRob Henderson
To, to identify men.
- CWChris Williamson
... care about your feelings, Robert-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... unfortunately, and the guys from Datanomics know that firsthand. Well, why don't we-
- RHRob Henderson
That's great.
- CWChris Williamson
Why don't we flip it on its head? Why don't we start-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... talking about the, uh, gender sex gap-
- RHRob Henderson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
... between men and women? So, I know that... I think it's the
- 42:15 – 45:05
Tinder gender gap
- CWChris Williamson
bottom 80% of men on Tinder are competing for the bottom 20% of women.
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. That was a, that was a fascinating, uh, finding. Yeah, where they basically found, yeah, exactly what you're, what you're describing here, that, you know, men...... who are not, you know, exceptionally good-looking or, or have certain status markers. They're, they're having a much harder time on Tinder. Um, just to put this into perspective, if I recall these numbers correctly, men, uh, on average, swipe 60% of the female profiles they see. They like them. Was it swipe, swipe right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
You know, they like those profiles.
- CWChris Williamson
Don't pretend you don't know, Robert.
- RHRob Henderson
I know. Uh, let me, let me pull up my app real quick.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Um, just, just to check. Um, and then, uh, whereas women, on the other hand, I think it was 4%. They swipe right on 4% of the male profiles they see. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
That is an unbelievably low, low number. J- I mean, just purely from a, a time investment standpoint.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You need to get through 100 people to get four, four right swipes, and if you have a particularly bad afternoon-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's not a, not a ridiculous stat to think you might not stripe- swipe right on anyone. Unbelievable.
- RHRob Henderson
Right. It's almost like the experiences are completely different, right? Whereas, I mean, like, I once ... This, this wasn't a psychologist. I just, uh, in a casual conversation, I once heard someone describe this, the, the sort of difference between men and women in terms of, you know, how they value the opposite sex was something like, men look for reasons why they wouldn't sleep with a girl, whereas women look for reasons why they would sleep with a man. So, the default position for man is, you know, "I wouldn't sleep with her, unless there's some extraordinary rea- reason why I shouldn't." Whereas for women, it's, "I'm definitely not going to sleep with him, unless there's some particular reason why I should." Um, and this is sort of, you know, we're seeing this in, on Tinder, right, with, with the frequency of, of, of right swipes. So, uh, yeah. So basically, there's a large group of men who are collecting large numbers of, of likes. I have a friend, um, and you probably know guys like this, who are racking up huge, huge numbers on these dating apps. Um, yeah, I have a friend who has, you know, something like 20,000 plus, uh, matches on Tinder. I think he closed it down. He ended up getting in a relationship and, you know, he settled down. But for, for a while, it was-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm surprised he didn't, I'm surprised he didn't break the fucking service.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
He closed it down because Tinder came in and, and they said-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... "Uh, sorry, we just can't give this account any more storage space with your 20,000 likes."
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, sh- sh- shut it all down. Um ... No, it was actually the opposite. Um, I don't know how this happened, but he was, uh, Tinder identified him as, like, some kind of valuable user and, like, gave him all of these perks and benefits and, like, lifted his limitations on how many swipes he could take.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh my gosh. Was it like Amazon Prime or something? If you-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... if you've ever,
- 45:05 – 46:20
Genius
- CWChris Williamson
if you've ever actually spent more than £1,000 in a year on booking.com, you get to become a Genius. And booking.com-
- RHRob Henderson
Okay (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
Being a booking.com Genius is fantastic. You get 10% off, you get early check-in. So, I wonder-
- RHRob Henderson
A gen-
- CWChris Williamson
... if he got that early check-in and, and, and-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. It's essentially the equivalent of that. No, I haven't ... I've never, uh, gotten those privileges. Sometimes Amazon sends me complimentary protein bars-
- CWChris Williamson
Nice.
- RHRob Henderson
... uh, because I, I order so many of them, but I've never, uh, never, never anything like free Amazon Prime, but, um ... But yeah, so, so you have guys like, like my friend here who has all of these likes, and then you have other guys, and, and I think this is probably more typical of the male experience on dating apps, where, you know, they go through, you know, w- dozens or hundreds of profiles and, and get maybe a handful of, of, uh, matches with women. Um, and so yeah, this is, this is sort of the typical male experience where, you know, the, the, the competition is, it's tough. And one thing I'm concerned about now with, with the economic downturn is that it could get tougher. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. As women-
- RHRob Henderson
You know, more guys losing their jobs.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
A handful of guys. Maybe, you know, guys, guys who've been to work from home, you know, podcasters and so on who, you know, have stay-at-home gigs. You know, th- things might, might turn out pretty good for, for them, but for other guys-
- CWChris Williamson
Here's hoping, Rob.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
Here's hoping, mate.
- 46:20 – 48:40
Pandemic
- CWChris Williamson
I'm fucking just been praying.
- RHRob Henderson
Fingers crossed for you.
- CWChris Williamson
I've just been praying for a pandemic to happen so that my-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... dating, my dating situation can improve. No, man, it's, um ... Again, this is another tough pill for, for men to swallow, and, and, you know, when we talk about a, a world which I absolutely haven't delved into, but incels, MGTOW, uh, which is men going their own way, uh-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... red pill, black pill movement. Rollo Tomassi is gonna come on at some point when I can finally get ahold of him.
- RHRob Henderson
I would like to.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, all of this, all of this kind of, like, men going their own way thing, um, I think is, is in response to the challenges that men are seeing in the dating market.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's increasingly hard for men to find women. Um, d- the stats don't lie. I can't remember how big the sample size was for Tinder, but it was ... I remember that they analyzed a lot, the difference between how many men that 80/20 ... Which is so funny that it's a Pareto distribution as well. Um, the 80/20 distribution between the bottom 80% of men-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... competing for the bottom 20% of women, which conversely means that the top 80% of me- uh, uh, of women are competing for the top 20% of men.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, it's such ... That top 20% of men have such an unfair advantage.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and I got, I got a comment, an unbelievably long comment-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, that was very well, very well-written, although I, I didn't understand most of the language, and it's someone who had crawled out from these Reddit subthreads about MGTOW and incels and stuff like that.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And had said about, um ... Uh, he was making a comment on a girl that I had on recently who created a, a website, like OnlyFans. Long story short, he said one of the things he accused me of, um, playing the game because I'm 32 and still single. He said that if I was, if I was being, um, charitable/respectful generally for men as a whole, I wouldn't continue-
- RHRob Henderson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
... staying single until 32. The implication is that I'm playing the game.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That I'm tying up the options of a number of different girls throughout m- throughout their 20s, throughout their 20s, throughout their 20s-
- RHRob Henderson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is restricting men from ... I mean, uh, first off, I was very flattered. Um, but-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, I was about to say (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, s- secondly, the-...
- 48:40 – 51:10
Why Men Arent Getting Laid
- CWChris Williamson
the fact it was so well-written, man. Like, it was-
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
This comment was hu- it had line breaks and he'd managed to make shit bold on YouTube. I didn't even know you could do that. So I'm like, this is, this guy's... this is fuck- a small thesis. You should submit it at Cambridge.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And, um-
- RHRob Henderson
I'll post up. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... he went through and then I replied. I gave this tiny little reply, and then he went again. And it w- there was a little bit of sort of vitriol in it, but what made me really sit back was that it was very well-balanced and worded, and he obviously understood what he was talking about. And I was like, there is an entire body of knowledge here trying to figure out why men aren't getting laid.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, I think that, I mean, that- that- that definitely sort of is, at least to me, a- a very charitable, uh, probably one of the more charitable, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Much flattering, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
... you know, interpretations I've seen.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a backhanded way of- of doing it, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Right. But- but yeah, I mean, there are a lot of guys out there who are struggling. I know guys like this, um, who aren't doing so well, um, in terms of dating, in terms of jobs, you know, they're not where they want to be. And yeah, they're struggling, and you know, uh, I don't- I don't think guys like you are immediately tying- tying women up or anything like that, you know, in terms of keeping them out of- out of the dating pool, but I do think there are some challenges right now simply because the modern world is, you know, there's a mismatch between our sort of innate desires and the way that the modern world is set up, um, such that, you know, there aren't as many men in college and women tend to prefer educated men. But, you know, men aren't going to college and, you know, people are wondering why that is. Um, there aren't as many, you know, men who are earning, uh, in- in- in terms of the millennial generation, I believe that women are earning as much, and in some cases even more, than millennial men. Um, at least in the UK I read this. So-
- CWChris Williamson
So you've got better-educated-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... richer-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... women.
- RHRob Henderson
Yes. Women are better-educated and richer, which again is, you know, there's nothing wrong with that, but if they're looking for male partners, they're going to look for men who are also better-educated and richer, and preferably even more educated and richer than themselves. So this was, uh, you know some-
- CWChris Williamson
So basically every- every woman is- is now becoming the tall friend, right? They're becoming the tall friend who can only date basketball players and, you know, like pro sports guys.
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
Because... And- and the- the-
- 51:10 – 54:15
The Alternative
- CWChris Williamson
the converse of that is really, really bad for both men and women, which is-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the alternative if women tend to date up and across, or their- their preference is to date up and across to richer and/or, uh, better-educated men, and there are fewer of those men around, there's two choices left, which is both genders get to remain single for the rest of their life, or women get into relationships with men that they're fundamentally unattracted to.
- RHRob Henderson
Which is also not ideal, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Terrible. Terrible, man.
- RHRob Henderson
I mean w- well there's also the other option would be, uh, women can par- women can essentially share a man, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Uh, so- so some people have speculated, uh, that this is what's basically going on in these gender-imbalanced, um, communities like- like universities, uh, and colleges where there's a surplus of women relative to men. Men are much more likely to play the field, so to speak, you know, they're more li- more reluctant to settle down, more interested in casual sex and so on. And in colleges where there are more men than women, there's actually more relationships, uh, more emotional commitment, and more of a dating culture. Um, and some people find this surprising but it's really not because in these colleges with more men, they're, men are basically competing to- to, uh, you know, uh, get a- get a girlfriend.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
And women on average tend to prefer, you know, courtship, commitment, uh, relationships and so on. And in environments where there are more women than men, uh, women basically have to compete for the small pool of men. And what do men like? Well, men on average tend to like, um, you know, more casual situations, you know, more short-term relationships, one-night stands, um, you know, things that are more casual. And so women are more likely to do those things to try to get men to- to- to like them. So-
- CWChris Williamson
They've got to- they've got to play each other's game, right? When-
- RHRob Henderson
Right. Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
... men are the surplus rather than the scarcity, they have to play women's game, and when women are the surplus rather than the scarcity, they have to play men's game.
- RHRob Henderson
Right. Yeah, and we're seeing a- we're seeing a kind of inversion. I mean, I think in the past when men had more education than women, um, maybe it was, maybe- maybe monogamy was easier, uh, in some ways simply because, you know, if- if men or if, yeah, if women preferred dating men who are educated and have higher earnings and so on relative to themselves, then yeah, I think maybe it was easier back then, uh, in some ways, and today when things are sort of flipped and they're- they're reversed now where women have more education and so on than men, uh, it becomes harder. And so some people have suggested that polygamy or some variation of that will arise. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
There's a lot to overcome-
- RHRob Henderson
... such that basically ............................
- CWChris Williamson
... a lot to overcome there, and I think the- the whole we haven't really delved into it too much, that is a whole nother two-hour episode, I think, if we try and really get into how does monogamy, uh, help with resource distribution be- from men to women, et cetera, et cetera.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um,
- 54:15 – 57:00
Sexual Liberation
- CWChris Williamson
but yeah, I wonder- I wonder what an increase in, um, sexual liberation for women, in, uh, education for women, in, you know, we're- we're talking now, we're using terms, speaking about the fact that women are potentially too educated to date men, or at least to dead m- date men that they are attracted to, that they're potentially, um, almost shooting themselves-
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... in the foot by their earnings and by their level of education, um, because they're reducing their own dating pool down. And I wonder as we go through potentially more, uh, gender pay, uh, changing, and- and I- I don't know what the immediate future has in store. I mean, the immediate future has absolutely fuck-all in store because everyone's locked in the house, but the-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... after that, once we, once the world re-begins.
- RHRob Henderson
Hm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. W- I- you know, in- in- in the shorter term, I'm more pessimistic. Um, I think, like, basically no one has the answer right now and we're going to sort of fumble and muddle our way through trying to figure out, you know, what to do. You know, i- in some ways, and, you know, I've written about this, you know, a lot of men are- are simply just dropping out. Like, you know, you- you mentioned the- the- the MGTOW guys, MGTOW guys, you know, a lot of guys now, more and more it seems, are just not interested in relationships at all, and they're sort of retreating into, you know, video games or porn or these other, you know, sort of distractions. And I wonder if as technology improves, you know, once like, you know, there's virtual reality where a man can put on a set of goggles or something and lose himself in some, you know, uh, fictional porn world, um, whether, you know, some small percentage of guys will just be okay with that.
- CWChris Williamson
Some increasingly bigger percentage of guys, potentially.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. And- and in that case, um, yeah, in the real world, uh, basically there will be even fewer, uh, men for women, you know, as- as men-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
... continue to drop out. And then, you know, there could be some- some sort of, uh, equilibrium reached where, yeah, maybe poli- some mix of polygamy and- and reprodu- uh, uh, technology and so on will, you know, we'll- we'll have a new norm arise-
- CWChris Williamson
I was talking s-
- RHRob Henderson
... through all of this.
- CWChris Williamson
I was talking to Douglas Murray, the guy that wrote Madness of Crowds, I had him on the podcast.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, he's- he's unbelievable guy. I don't know whether you've seen either, but he's got jacked. He's got-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, it's on Twitter. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... proper jacked out of nowhere.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. You know, I just saw him a couple weeks ago and he- he had, you know, his blazer on and his shirt and everything, I had no idea that was underneath, all of this.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, he's, uh, anyone- anyone that's listening that remembers my episode with Douglas, I mean, he'd- he'd had
- 57:00 – 1:09:34
Douglas Murray
- CWChris Williamson
a couple of wines, so he was fairly lucid anyway. But he, uh, he just looked like normal dude, normal guy.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But he has been pounding the gym. Go on his- go on his Twitter, search Douglas Murray, go on his Twitter, have a look. The guy's jacked out of his mind. Um, but any- anyway, so I was talking to him and, uh, he- he in his book, Madness of Crowds, he's got this chapter about women, and he talks about... He's, um, significantly less diplomatic than me and you have been this evening. Um, but he's- he's talking to one of his friends and his friend, uh, said... He was saying, "How's your young son who's 17 or 18 or something like that, um, is he, is he dating anyone?" And, um, his friend replied and said, "Oh, no, he's not interested in girls." And obviously Douglas is a gay man-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... immediately went, "Oh my god, he's not fucking gay, is he?"
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Like, just having seen like the-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... potential future that this- this, uh, fellow had ahead for him.
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, right. Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And- and he said, uh, "Oh, no, no, no, he's- he's- he's not gay. He's just kind of thinks that women are a little bit difficult to get his head around, so he's kind of just exited that situation." I can't remember what he said he was doing, like, um, uh, working a lot on his career and maybe pl- maybe doing music or playing video games or something. But you can imagine that, you know, if you are the bottom 80% of men who are disenfranchised from the dating market, who essentially can only get yourself into a relationship where your partner low-key is unattracted to you, even if they don't know it, um, and you feel like you're the worst of a bad bunch, I mean, sorry for red pilling you this evening about it, but, um... I- I'm single as fuck, so I can say what I want. Uh, but, you know, if that's what happens, like, there's the potential for a- a whole fucking disenfranchised male militia of single guys walking around. And I think that, you know, as much as they're very, very well-spoken and have some incredibly, uh, sophisticated arguments, there is a significant portion of the MGTOW red pill incel Reddit movement for whom this is probably the easiest explanation.
- RHRob Henderson
Hm. Hm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think- I think so. And there are- there are more and more guys I've noticed who either... Yeah, it... I mean, to me that mindset of this- this 17 year old kid is unimaginable. You know, when I was 17, when my friends were 17, like, y- you know, girls were all we could pos- like, that's all we could think about and talk about-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. (laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
... right? It was like sports and girls, and that's about it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
And, yeah, I'm seeing more young guys just sort of like either- either say they're not worth it, or say that they can't figure it out, or they don't really know, and just general confusion. And, you know, one of the things I think is important, you know, having conversations like this, uh, because when guys go online, um, you know, there are some very toxic parts of the internet, right, where guys go, like, you know, you were talking about caricatures earlier, they, you know, sort of take, you know, principles in evolutionary psychology or in research and then they exaggerate them or they, you know, uh, sort of turn them into the worst possible version of what the finding was in order to, you know, assuage their own feeling about why they can't get a girlfriend or something like that. And, yeah, I mean, I have some sympathy for these guys too, but, I mean, I think that there's a- a- a lot of this sort of red pill, MGTOW stuff is- is really just sort of, you know... They want girlfriends, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
And- and this is what's- what- what it turned into.
- CWChris Williamson
You got a lot less time. Like your- your missus would not let you spend five hours a day on Reddit.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So the presumption is that if you're on Reddit five hours a day, you haven't got a bird.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so but the- the- the alternative is unless girls are going gay, and I- I haven't got... I don't know the stats about that, but unless girls are going gay, they're not dating either. You know, if men aren't dating women, women aren't dating men.
- RHRob Henderson
That's not necessarily true. So women can date a man who is dating multiple women, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- RHRob Henderson
So, you know, I think this is probably what this, uh, YouTube commenter guy you mentioned earlier was t- you know, wha- when he said-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, yes, of course.
- RHRob Henderson
... you're- you're- you're hogging up these women, so you as a 32-year-old, you know, good looking guy, you probably have, you know, six or seven girls on the side.
- CWChris Williamson
No. Ro- no, that's not-
- RHRob Henderson
Okay, sorry eight. Nine. (laughs)
Episode duration: 1:09:34
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