Episode 11 - Don't Be a Dancing Monkey

Welcome back to The Handsome Hour. In this episode, we cover a lot of topics. We discuss whether I'm fat. Wes Myers, believe we talk about whether I'm fat.

Spoiler alert.

We talk about yeah. Well, we talk about Episode over. How to optimize yourself, what to focus on if you're trying to optimize your dating life. Should you be 10% better at the thing you're already good at or should you be better at the thing you suck at?

Yeah. We get into some existentialist philosophy. Sorry. Yes. See, joke that'll make funny that'll make sense as a joke because I spend the whole episode saying you shouldn't apologize.

Yes. And Stoney, what what

Come back at the after you listen to whole episode, come back to that and laugh.

Yes. Yeah. Enjoy enjoy what you're about to listen to. And this is Stoney Gruneau and?

Barack Obama.

And I'm gay. Alright. Let's start the episode.

Welcome back

to The Handsome Hour. What you see is 40% better than what you get.

Stoney is 50 years old, so we're gonna talk about that today. We I just found out. I don't know. If if you've been following since day one, you listened to the first episode where I said that Stoney was 38 and he didn't correct me. So, Stoney

I believe Sun Tzu said never interrupt your enemies when they're making a mistake.

I think he did say that. And so, Stoney, I I guess question one, what are what were the seventies like?

The eighteen seventies, people.

Yeah. Let's just talk about aging in general. What are you doing to stay young? A lot. Okay.

Because you look very young. You look

Some of that is just genes. My dad routinely looked about fifteen to twenty years younger than he was, and so I've got that as a good starting point. I try never to interrupt my sleep through an alarm clock. I try to go to bed early enough that I can wake up naturally. I don't do much to damage my body.

I'm pretty neurotic about my diet. Not as neurotic neurotic as some people who may or may not be on this podcast. And as of now, I'm doing a lot around Blueprint Protocol by Brian Johnson.

Brian Johnson, he'll die.

Yeah. I do one experiment, and I bought his face protocol, and I am absolutely not a guy who uses product. For me, I would never use a product. And I didn't know whether to trust Brian Johnson's facial protocol, so I used on half my face for a month. And you could absolutely feel a difference between the right half and the left half.

You couldn't see a difference, but I could feel that the right half felt much better. So after a month of one-sided usage, I'm now doing both sides.

Okay. And but you so okay. See, I would think that wouldn't work, the one half of the face, like, two faced, like, from Batman. But, like, you would just had a you had a sexy half and an old half.

Well, again, there was no visual difference, but and I was waiting to see if there would be, but once I felt there was a difference, I'm like, you know what? I'm not gonna experiment forever. I'll just You don't

think that was a mess so there was no there wasn't a visual difference?

Not that I could see. And you can look at it But

you could feel a difference. Yes. And you don't think that was a placebo? You don't think you just Absolutely not.

And in fact, once I started using both sides, I could still feel a difference two, three, four days after doing both sides.

I started doing a skincare. I put like 12 creams on my face every day now. I paid I paid a lot of money for this, like, it was on Instagram, so I, you know, I had to buy it. And I feel like it does something. Like, I my face feels different.

I will say my I feel more moisturized.

I mean, that could just be putting stuff on your face. Right?

It could be. But I would the fact that it still felt different three, four days into the both sides was for me the kind of clincher that something was happening. Now, maybe this something has no long term effect, but concerning how much that guy tests his products and tests everything, I'm willing to take a punt.

Okay.

Yeah. Well, there's different types of, like, aging and looking old. When you look at Brian Johnson and it's like he'd like, he kind of does look like an 18 year old, which is weird because if you can look at past photos and it's like he aged, he aged, like he has like seemingly reversed aging somewhat. I think that there's something to be said about aging gracefully and like becoming more like the example I always see, and people talk about, like, this is like, people age slower than they used to, and it's probably because of, like, less cigarette smoking or drinking more water or, like, something. Like, fewer like, maybe there's not lead in the gasoline or something.

I it's gotta be something because when you someone did a side by side of Penn State football players from the eighties versus today, and the guys in the eighties looked like a 30 to 40 Yeah. Year And you look at Hulk Hogan when he was 35, it's incredible the the aging that people would go through by by the time they got to their early twenties.

Yeah. Well, the the the example I always see online is is is The Sopranos. They take James Gandolfini on the first season of Sopranos. He was 38 years old and he looks old. He looks like James Gandolfini.

And then his son on the show, who was like Robert Eiler, who, you know, was like 12 years old on the show, is now older than James Gandolfini was when they filmed the first season of The Sopranos. But at this age now, he looks like a he still looks like a child. And I I find that kind of everywhere, but like you don't look like a you don't look like you're 50, but you also don't look like a child. You're not like, you don't have neon you look like I think women find that attractive, a sort of a senatorial sort of, like you wanna age. I think that there's something like,

you do How much want is this just the hormones in the water making the fricking frogs gay?

Yeah. Which is real, by the way.

Oh, yeah. It is.

Yeah. They're hermaphroditic frogs from birth control and rivers.

Yeah. Yeah. No. That is that is totally a real thing.

And I'm presuming that's the reason why Timothee Chalamet looks the way he does and why the Penn State football players look the way they do.

Well, don't That's what I'm saying. How much is that contributing? Mean, nobody knows.

I don't think that's why. I think it's probably all of those other things. Paul Scala says it's because people drink more water.

Paul Scala, that is the dumbest he is a moron. No, he's not. He is.

I'm sorry. He's okay.

The suggestion that that we all decided to drink more water is, I think, questionable. That's There was no secret memo

that went out. That's so silly.

No. Yes. No. No. No.

The idea that you need to drink a lot of water is a relatively new concept. They used to they people used to just drink, like, beer and and Coke up until for all of history.

And when they were building the pyramids, they were drinking Coca Cola.

No. But, like, think about, like, on ships, you know, like ships sailing across the Atlantic, they just drank rum. Like, they didn't drink they weren't drinking water.

They were drinking water. Okay.

But they weren't drinking very low alcohol. But the point is alcohol would just would just prevent it.

Okay. Like, I drink a gallon Right? Of water a I drink, like, a between milk and water, I drink, like, a gallon a day. People people literally just used to drink beer.

I just people drink when they're thirsty.

In the in the No. We are thank you. We are evolved to feel thirsty when we need water.

Like, the dog the dog you don't have to say to the dog, do you wanna drink water now? It just drinks when it's thirsty. It's we have these self regulating systems. And all of the people who didn't drink enough water and died left the gene pool.

That's

right. I don't think we need to worry about drinking water.

No. It makes you but it keeps

you I'm sorry. This is the dumbest take of all time.

No, it's not.

Well, this is the worst take.

Humans have evolved to to kill themselves slowly for This no

this podcast will be released and the listeners will have Google and they'll have ChatGPT and I will be vindicated.

Paul Scallis, come at me. Come on the podcast. I will annihilate you on the main stage.

I think we need to look into Wes is funded by Big Water.

That's right.

Big Fuji bubble.

You should drink I get I get a a case of Essentia delivered every week. Actually, need to update it so it's every week because

I don't have it too fast.

I like the big Mountain Springs bottles, but but I'm sure Cody will tell me they have extra arsenic in them.

Oh, yeah. Those are pure poison. Alright. Let's talk about some dating topics.

Yes. Dating. Let's talk about dating in old age. Let's talk about

Clearly, you guys

No, I think the juiciest topic here is the retatretride. Retritritrit

No one can actually Retritritride. You and

I can't

say it.

Haven't seen it spelled. I've only heard other people butch the pronunciation.

Butch the pronunciation. It's red, reda is what they call it. Retatratrode? Retratrode.

I've never seen it spelled. How do spell it?

So you guys know that there are one of the jobs of pharma is to come up with a generic name that is unpronounceable and a brand name that is pronounceable, I think they did the best job ever on this one.

Does it have a brand name? I guess Ozempic, but it's not Ozempic.

So technically, it's ratatruotide.

Tide. Okay. Ritatriotide. Got it.

And what's the one I'm taking? Tirzepatide?

Also known as Zep in its shortened form, and I can't pronounce the full form either. Okay.

Yeah. So I think the juicy thing to dig into here is what we talked about earlier, where I said we can say that you're on it, right?

Yeah, we can say that I'm on I can say anything you want about me on this thing. Okay.

So Wes is disgustingly fat.

Handsome. No,

I'm just kidding. So you're on it, and I asked you why and you said you want to get results really fast, I asked you why, and do you want to rehash that? Wesley, why do you want to get results fast?

Because here's what I've discovered. I'm a single man now, you you listen, if I could give you one piece of advice, you cannot be in a relationship unless you are perfect in every way. Okay? And if if you have any flaws whatsoever, you are going to be alone.

Yes. This is you're you're expressing the the the collective unconscious, the voice of the zeitgeist. This is the fear of everybody. This the fear voice that's in everybody's Well,

so you can't it's like, you know, that you go out there, you play football on Sunday, and you say you leave everything on the field. It's like, don't I wanna leave everything on the field. Right? If I have to tear my ACL to win the game, I wanna win the game. Right?

So I wanna get I'm I'm gonna get a six pack. Alright. I'm gonna be I'm gonna be yoked. Gonna be so yoked.

This is wrong in at least three ways. Okay. Let's unpack it. Shall we count the ways?

Yes. Let's let's go. Number one.

Okay. So number one, we'll just set aside very quickly and we can move past it, which is that I think you're taking a bigger health risk than you think, but that's fine, we can set that aside. Yes. Let's keep this dating related.

Everyone needs to die one day.

Okay. Second reason is you're plenty fit. Girls love a dad bod.

No, I don't have a first of all, don't have a dad bod. Second of all

You said you think you're fat.

I'm a little bit pudgy.

If you're a little bit overweight, like one or two body fat percentage points, that's a dead body. It's fine.

No. But it's

not we're

not optimists. Okay.

We're trying to Three or four.

Okay. So yes. Yes. I am so sorry. Look.

Thank you for taking my side. Right? Like, Now Cody gets to be wrong. No. Okay.

Yes. If it but but body so my body stores fat in my face. You know, like your every body like has it prioritizes different fat pockets differently for when it's where it stores that fat. And the first place my fat goes is to the area around my nipples and my cheeks and my chin. And those are the worst places to like, you don't want to a fat face.

That is the problem. You can't have a

face. Listen, here's how it works. Here's how women perceive men, okay? They do not perceive, like when we evaluate, when a man looks at a woman and evaluates her, he has a platonic ideal in his head of appearance, on an object level, and he's comparing her to the supermodel or whatever, and he's going, you know, she's 4% body fat above the ideal, and docs points accordingly.

That's not how I think about women, by the way. But go

ahead. Okay, that is the mechanism. It is unconscious, but it's something like that, right? The point is you are evaluating her looks directly on an objective level. Or subjective, but on an object level, as you would say.

Women perceive everything filtered through the lens of status. So it's through the social lens. So they only have categories, they're not going this guy's a little overweight. There's only a few different buckets. It's how are my friends gonna perceive him?

How is the culture perceived him? What bucket does this man get put in? What is in other words, what does his weight mean about who he is as a man in society? They don't care about your body fat, per se.

True, I'll Okay, give you

so what that means is that what they mainly want from the physique of a man is just that you are large. Just take up space, so that you are physically I'm already large. Yeah, you're like what, six'two or six'three?

I'm tall. So you're tall? Have wide shoulders.

You have wide shoulders, you have a lot of muscle underneath all the fat. Yeah. Yeah, dude. So you take up plenty of space. So check the the point is you check the box to be successfully put in the bucket of physically imposing.

So incremental gain does not change the category that you're in. The incremental gain in body fat, I mean, you're already physically imposing, and you're not in the category of physically unattractive, because in the bucket of Well, it could

be more. This is the handsome

handsome hour. You always be always be The last bucket at the very top is like model, right? Where you're like

Which I could be.

Where it's no no, could. Yes, Where it's noticeable where it's noticeable that you are so attractive that that is like a defining feature of you.

Dude, give me two months. And you won't even be able to do this podcast because your mouth will be on the floor the entire time.

And any incremental you gain that you pick up in between those buckets earns you nothing.

I don't think that's true.

I'm going to disagree with this binary idea, because It's for every but every

woman roughly speaking, this is

how will have different preferences. So even if it is binary, which I don't think it is, more women, the bell curve of where that bucket starts will change by by for each woman.

I mean, I think that your point about status is true, but the fact there is that I'm going to be the cofounder of a fledgling startup for years to come. That's like saying

as a self published author. That's not gonna account for anything.

Right. Like, there's like, no no woman gives a shit. I I think that my career right now is probably a net negative for women. Apart from the fact that it gives me interesting things to talk about. And, like, you know, it you know, it's garnered other benefits to my self confidence and other things.

But I think that like having a top tier physique like is going to be a plus no matter what.

Yes, my point is that you have to be true for that to actually matter more than it matters now, you have to truly be top tier. You got to be like top 1%.

I'm going to disagree with you here, and what I'm going to say is that I think it would be better if you refined your statement, Cody, to be a bit more accurate to say that for a woman to decide to put you into the marriageable bucket based on your looks does require model level physique. But for a woman to put you into the fun bucket does not. The fun

bucket No. It's is a the exact opposite of what you just said. It's literally the inverse of that. That's how men work. Women are the opposite.

No. What I'm saying is that a woman will not decide to marry a guy based on on his looks or not, generally speaking, unless you are the 1% model.

Well, there's a threshold that needs to be met. I'm not asking a woman to marry me because of my looks. I'm saying that I want to bring a package, and if the if I can get over the hump of initial interest, you know, 1% more of the time because I'm in excellent shape. Also, being in excellent shape first of I have in the past been in the top 1% of male fitness. I just to be clear, like, I there have been points in my life where I was you wouldn't even be able be in the same room as me.

You'd be so humiliated.

I sit here, I am struggling to believe this, but I will

accept No. I used to be able to bench three fifteen.

Like Okay.

The there's a confidence that comes with that. Not that I'm not confident. If anything, I probably have too much confidence in dates. But I do think that there's, like, a certain self assuredness and confidence that comes with that that is also a benefit when you're presenting yourself to a woman that's not just

like Okay. But there are probably easier ways to get to that level of confidence, right? Like, then

But it's it's a it's a good way for him to pick that, because it kills two birds with one stone. The the one of the ways I would look at this is when a woman looks at you in a microsecond, her personal AI decides whether to check you out for two more seconds or to move on with her gaze.

Mhmm.

And I think that nebulous, unknowable, distinct per woman thought process or subconscious thought process is gonna have a whole lot of factors. And I That's don't see why he why Wes can't up a number of them simultaneously.

You can. It's just a question of diminishing marginal returns and where you invest your time and effort. So you're choosing a category where you're already almost optimized. It's not your bottleneck. That's the point.

But I would also disagree with that and say his lifespan will benefit from this, and so many other areas will benefit from him being in optimal shape that he'd be crazy not to get the incredible double triple whammy Well, in I

mean I'm also over understating how fat I am. Like, I if you haven't if you see me with a shirt off, you'd be like, dude, fucking lose 10 pounds.

Yeah. You're you're a 25% I'm a little chunky, dude.

I got Okay. I'm not saying you lose weight. We reported the other day, and my gut was hanging out, and Stoney was like he just he expressed disgust.

Alright. I'm not saying you shouldn't lose weight lose weight. I mean, I'll be the first to espouse the importance of health. I'm I'm I'm a health maniac. But the point is, in a dating con, like that's separate benefits, like yes, living longer is good, I mean, I would again argue that you are taking on new separate risks by doing fucking Chinese peptides, whatever, but whatever.

That's not here nor there. From a dating perspective, you're not gaining very much from whatever costs you're incurring, the benefits that you're earning from those are marginal. There are other things that would yield way better benefits for less effort.

Hopefully this podcast will go for a year, and in a year, we can do albeit not a double blind trial, but I'm losing weight, Wes is losing weight, and we can both talk about our impact.

Cody, you get fat. Okay? I'm gonna I'm gonna get thin and svelte. I'm gonna be a golden god. Cody, you get fat, and we'll see who has better dating

outcomes. I I am so confident that I could be twice as I could be I could be fat.

It's Also, by the way, didn't you just cut? Don't don't you aren't you like 10% body fat? Like, didn't you just obsessively lose a bunch of fat?

Yeah, I did a cut over the summer. I mean, I'm back up to higher now. I've been bulking. I could be fatter than you, and it would not matter. I'm so confident.

Yeah, because I'm taller

than you. No. No, I'm saying for me it wouldn't. Yeah. If I at five eleven, I don't

But it's still not optimal. You want to optimize. No, I I appreciate. I think that you are making a valid point, which is that you don't like okay. My dad, if you're my dad, this is dad.

My dad oh, my dad lost like 60 pounds. He started his epic. Sure.

Looks like dad. Yeah.

He looks he looks amazing. He looks cute. Let's say that you're, you know, eightieth percentile fitness, eightieth percentile intelligence, eightieth percentile funny, twentieth percentile charming. Right? You want to upgrade charming.

Yes. You want to upgrade your weakness because there's levels of sufficiency. For most women, you just have to pass a threshold in a number of categories.

That's

right. And being you know, the difference between having $10,000,000 and $25,000,000 isn't going to mean that much to a woman. But the difference between being a fat fuck and being a svelte little twink like Cody is going to be a huge upgrade for you.

Okay, I'm five'eleven. I'm not

a twink.

Listen, yes, that is exactly right, and more. So it's all of everything that you just said, plus more, which is that the marginal gain in the population of women that you add by going from eightieth to ninetieth percentile in any given category is not the same as the marginal gain that you add from going fortieth to fiftieth or whatever. In other words, you are not only getting dimensional marginal return in quantity, but also in quality. The quality of the women that you are adding at those upper echelons, who are filtering out based on Think about that. The girl who goes, you know, the guy who is ninetieth percentile attractiveness and physical looks is not good enough for me, but I will date the guy who's ninety fifth.

That's not the girl that you want to date. You want to date the girl who's not that shallow.

Well, I totally agree with you. The challenge is that in New York City, is very hard to build up a long term friendship with a series of women, which could eventually lead to romance. Unfortunately, women are hyper selecting in New York City, so you need to get over that threshold. And and I'd also say that if West is going through a, quote, makeover, I could totally imagine him working on his haircut, his clothes. I know women love Adidas tracksuits, but could

This is a

Ciccini tracksuits. Who you

are as a person should change. Fundamentally, rearrange the spheres of your soul.

Right. Okay.

I got distracted. But then that's the problem. So it's just a separate problem. So it's like, okay, it's not the hyper selectivity. I guarantee, this is what we talked about before, but if it really is that hyper selective, you're fucked anyway.

So just give up. It's actually not, though. It's an artifact of the apps of if you actually talk to these women in person, they're not as selective as they appear on the apps. The problem is it is other aspects of your deal flow, so to speak, I agree or your with that.

I have a question, and I don't have a firm answer to this. So we I don't know how old Ryan Gosling was in Crazy Stupid Love. Thank you.

Yeah.

I don't know how old he was in that, but I'm guessing it's about the same age as Wes. And I'd be curious if we could,

you

know, use AI to get, you know, a 100 images between Wes and Ryan Gosling in that movie. Where what would the bell curve of women being interested in him be? Because I think we can all agree that, sorry, Wes, Ryan Gosling is gonna be more attractive to the vast majority of women than Wes is right now. So where does that bell curve exist? This will be actually a good study to do.

Yeah. I mean, the point is, like, yeah, I mean, you you're you have photos that rate very highly.

Yes. Have. Well, and that's part of the problem too is that I'm lower body fat percentage of those photos, and those are the photos I'm still using. For catfishing. So I've well, I feel not that I mean, it's don't look that different now, but like I do need to

difference the matter.

I mean, it probably isn't, but I I don't know. It feels a little just disingenuous. Like, the thing is that if you don't like if you look better than your pictures, that's good. If you look the same as your pictures, that's good. If you look worse than your pictures, the delta between the expectation and the reality is going to feel larger because deficits feel larger when you're coming in with an expectation.

So

disappointment is squared.

Yes. It doesn't matter. This is the Well,

I'm also trying to

I wanna disabuse everybody this way of thinking. This doesn't

Well, no. No. But what I'm doing is is perfectly in accord with the guidelines that we've just laid out and the advice that we give everyone because I can't really fix my status. Like, I've I've said that right now. Like, in a few years, I will be high status because, you know, I'll be a billionaire from Keeper, and I'll have a yacht, and I'll have paintball guns and, you know, like a, you know, a train set.

That's really cool. But in like, right now, fitness is the Something that's under your control. Most lagging thing that I can control.

Mhmm. I agree.

I'm already very funny. Disagree. I'm already very confident. I'm already very charming. I'm already a great kisser, and I'm, you know, I have a you know, I'm great in bed.

And you're humble. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying, like, I am realistic here. If look. If I can say I'm fat, then I can say that I need to fix that, and I can also be like, well, it's because I have all this other great stuff going By

the way, being great in Beb will not help you in dating, it'll only help you in retention.

Yeah. That's right.

And being a great kisser.

Let me tell you, do you know what a blitzkrieg is? You just get in there once. Dude, I have witnessed I'm gonna I've I've I've I've wanna say this on the podcast. I have witnessed multiple women discreetly telling their friends that I'm I gave them the best orgasm they've ever had.

Sure. That can go like it can spread amongst, like, a social

in dude, in college, I had a I don't even my dick's not even that big. It's like a normal sized dick. But if you it's all about angles. I'm telling you. You get I mean, you watch YouTube videos about this, guys at home.

There's a great Vice article on on going down on girls.

Do you get your protractor out when you have sex?

Yeah. I do. I have a I have a slide rule. I have an abacus in by my bed. But in college, I girls would lose their virginity to me on purpose because I went to a very small school, and I had a reputation for being good at sex.

So, like like, not I'm not tell I'm not just pretending these are good looking girls. Right? But, like, in college say, what's fucking up? Come on. Yeah.

Practice. But there were there were multiple occasions where a girl would just come come over with a bottle of wine unannounced and be like, do you like, let's hang out? I'd like, alright. And then we she was just there to have sex, and then she would leave, and it was just that was it.

This must be really hard. This must be really difficult, because you you peaked in college, and it's been downhill No. Since.

No. It's been uphill since.

Well, then why are you trying to lose weight if it's been uphill since?

Because it could be more uphill. It's a big hill. When was the

last time a woman showed up at your apartment with a bottle of wine saying,

let's I'm have 32 years old. I'm fat. Dude, that's what I'm telling you.

So what I'm saying is it sounds like you had your best dating life in college, and it sounds like you're not experiencing your best dating life now.

No. Well, because back then, was just I I don't wanna have sex anymore. Like, I don't have I have like, I'm not driven to have sex.

No. But you were attracting women and Yes. It sounds like you are not attracting women at the level you

attracting women, to be clear. It's this is I am attracting plenty of women. The point is to to attract the the one woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with. It's like I want to be in optimal shape. Like like I did great in the regular season, but now I'm trying to win

Super Listen, you're but you again, you're missing the point. The the marginal women that you are the additional marginal women that you're attracting by getting in better shape on the apps, and there will be some, are 0% of them are your future wife. The problem is that you have a surplus of the wrong kind of woman on the apps, and they are distracting, it's hard to tell the difference at a surface level without looking deeply. And they are so you're actually there's a million false positives, you have a mountain of false positives, and they are burying the true positive at the bottom of the pile, and so actually you are making your search worse, because you're putting more false positives into the hopper, on top of the pile. The problem is the apps.

Medium is the message. The problem is the apps. So the problem is that you need to get rid you need a filtering mechanism that gets first of all, that ensures the true positive is in there, because let's be clear, the high quality women might not even be on the apps. But two, filters out the false positives. And so what you need is, for example, that is your bottleneck.

So what you need is, for example, just off the dome, go find some in person social networking, social network opportunity. Go join a book club, or a fucking whatever it is, some in person thing that is relevant to the interests that you know your future wife was likely to have. That is going to put you around way more and then you actually get to show off like men are at an intrinsic disadvantage on the apps anyway, and we've talked about this, Because the apps are not a place where men get to show off the qualities that make them attractive. So everything that makes you so it's just you're competing in the wrong arena for the wrong women. Like, just doing that one change would like 10x your results.

So if I can split the difference here, and we use a fishing analogy, Wes is buying a slightly better fishing lure by engaging in the activities, but Cody's pointing out that he's fishing in his bathtub, and there are no fish there, so it doesn't matter, and he might as well spend that time going to a pond where there are actual live fish. So you're Yeah. You're highlighting that it is possible that Wes wins the long competition by finally getting women on the app to match with him. But as he just said, he's not here for random dating, he's here to meet that one woman, and if he succeeds in doing better on the apps where that one woman isn't, then what's the point?

Yeah, that's right. And to be clear, if your goal is just hook up with girls on the apps, then sure, then it makes sense to try to optimize the apps, and physical appearance is a huge component of that. You already have great optimized photos. And if that is your only goal, then you probably don't care about leading women on or not living up to their expectations when they meet you. So that doesn't matter anyway.

But that's not your goal, right? So given that your goal is marriage and long term dating, yeah.

But I I think it's perfectly fine for him to say, I want to be the best version of me, and that best version of me needs to exude success, professionalism, confidence, wealth in every aspect of his life. I do think he shows up wearing a peacoat

versus That's gay. That's gay. You don't need, like, external validation to be No, confident about

it's not about confidence, but it's about who all right, so tell your logic about why that's a bad idea.

What? Which part? Just

Showing up.

Being your best self.

Good shape with a good haircut.

No, is a good idea. Okay. But it has nothing to do with dating. It's a good idea just because you should just be intrinsically motivated to be healthy for your own benefit. That's fine.

That's why I said, let's separate that out. Like, sure, yeah, be healthy for your own benefit, but don't tell yourself that dating is the purpose for it, because it's not. If your goal is to maximize dating outcomes or optimize dating outcomes, it doesn't matter. For Wes specifically, to be clear, like some people it is the bottleneck for their dating, in which case, great, address it. But for Wes's specific case, it doesn't matter.

We could agree to disagree.

I mean, rebut what I said, I've made excellent points.

I think that I okay. So would I like to not be using dating apps? Yes. Am I using Keeper, the dating app killer, the best dating product ever invented? Am I using it?

Yes. And well, that's why I'm doing that. But also, you know, I don't I want to feel optimal. I'm really not doing it for dating. I'm I mean, I am doing it partially for dating.

Like, I think that, like, whatever marginal gain can be had there is good. But, like, I do just wanna look and feel the best, and I wanna be at my physical peak. I wanna

That's fair.

I wanna walk around, and I wanna be like, you know, I want people to I want a woman to look at me and be and say, there is nothing to criticize here. You know, like, that's gay.

That's the wrong attitude. I'm gonna agree with Cody here.

Like, I should never be rejected by a woman ever.

That's gay.

Is what I'm saying. It

That's should never the problem. There you go. Thank you for saying that, because that is exactly the problem. Rejection is

I should be rejecting them.

Rejection is awesome and beautiful. Embrace rejection. You should be trying to get rejected by 99.5% of women. I'm doing great. That is optimal.

You don't, again, filter out false positives. Like, turn false positives into negatives, into true negatives, right? Like, the women who are going to reject you on this frivolous shit, you don't want them.

See, I don't think it's that simple because I don't think that women are or anyone. I I mean, I don't you know, I I can't say that it's just women. I think that people look at you and people talk to you and they have an interaction with you and they get to know you a little bit. And their impression of you, it's not itemized. There's no spreadsheet.

No one's being like, okay, well, I like his intelligence and his charisma, but I don't like his body. Like, there's you know, maybe they are

able If they're do retarded, they can't tease those apart.

No, but it's like the halo effect. It's like if you have a great body, they will interpret all of those other things as being great. If you have a disgusting body That's

not sure what hunt do. Okay. Yes, in extreme cases, but the halo effect it varies by how significantly the halo effect is exerting influence is gonna vary person to person. Not every I think you and I can look can evaluate a person, can separate their mind from their body. I mean, are you saying you can't do that?

Not really. I don't know. I can, but I'm not like, if you okay. Let me tell you. Like, because I am shallow is what I'm saying.

Like, I will reject a girl for the most trivial of reasons, you know? I will I will

Then that's a problem.

You should address that. I will reject a girl.

That's your problem.

No, it's not a problem. It's a good thing. Because these things matter to me, you know?

Then it's not trivial.

Okay. Then it's not trivial, but it also falls into the category of things that you're saying that a woman should not reject me over. So like, I'm not going be a hypocrite. Right? Like You'll

so you're saying that that, you know, if a woman is what like a little bit just ever so slightly overweight or well, okay. It does work differently for men and women, so that that is an important caveat here. But are you saying that the primary and basically only thing that you care about with what will for, you know, for a woman that you're going to marry is just looks?

It's up there. It's not primary, but it's like

So it's just get the hottest girl you can, that's all that matters.

No, no, no, no, no. It's not all that matters. But it's like, it's in the top three things.

Okay. But there's no diminishing marginal returns for you. Like, you'd rather have a nine who is a shallow psychopath than an eight who's like sweet and loves you for who you are?

No, I'd rather have the eight.

Okay. So there's diminishing marginal returns in that just like everything else. So the point is, you're willing to go from a nine to an eight to get the other qualities, so she should be too, right? So why are you trying to go from an eight to a nine in your own looks?

Because it's better to be a nine. Like, would Okay. Yes. Would I take an eight who loves me over a nine who's a psychopath? Yes.

I would take a nine who loves me over a nine who's a psychopath. And I would take a nine who loves me over an eight who's a psychopath.

Sure, the point is that you never have a perfect one to one compare. Again, it's just everything is trade offs, right? So yes, of course, obviously, should we all be a 10 on everything? Ideally, yes. You're not That's going going be a a 10 Okay, sure, fine, and that's fine.

I'm just saying, like, let's be honest about what's happening, which is that you know, you're optimizing for something that you're already largely optimized for. It's not the thing that matters, it's not your bottleneck.

I'm going to disagree, it's probably not the bottleneck, but I think Wes is looking around and saying, what's the low hanging fruit I can pluck? And whether you're in business That's

what a bottleneck is. Okay, then what is my bottleneck? I don't have

I just said it. It's that you're using the apps.

Yes, but okay. Okay, yes, I am using the apps. I'm also, like, going to the store, you know?

Are you approaching girls at Whole Foods? No. There's no girls I like there. But Then you're then you're on the apps, that's the bottom. Like, what?

I shop at Food Town. Shop at Food Bazaar.

You gotta go to C Town.

In the Goods app.

That's where That's where the future wags are. See your wives and girlfriends.

Oh, that's like the international market, C Town?

It stands for Comedotown.

Oh, I went to C Town in Astoria. You know

where girls love to congregate? Food deserts. Other girls I like. Yeah, so right. So this is I mean, to be clear, I'm not saying this is super easy to solve, right?

Like this is one of the defining problems of the modern dating landscape, right? And that's why Keeper exists, like we're trying to solve this. So I'm not saying this is an easy problem to solve. But the point is, health and weight are not an easy thing to solve either, right? So if you're going to invest time and effort and resources, do it on the thing that's going to get the highest returns.

There are totally social circle and network style funnels, or you know, funnels in that arena that you can funnel is a bad word, I'm not let's say systems, right? That you can work to implement into your life and build into your life that are going to get you, in my opinion, way better, more meaningful returns, right? Like, that's my point.

I'm going use an analogy here. So if Wes had an ice cream store and no one was coming into it, he'd say, I know what I'm going do. I'm going double my selection of ice cream. It's not really gonna make a difference. He needs more people coming into the store to look at what he's got, whether it's signage or location or who knows what.

And by focusing on his physical fitness, it's further down the journey. He's not increasing the number of women

to He's interact trying to add more flavors, and he's trying to sell ice cream in Alaska. Yep. It's like

I used to own an ice cream store. I did, I really did. That's awesome.

How Yeah. Does one maybe that's the first

story.

When I was Is that how you got fat?

No, when I was growing up, my dad owned an ice cream store in my town.

Okay.

Yeah. And I used to that's how I got like

You could have been like an ice cream mogul. Like you could have been an I ice cream

should be an ice cream mogul.

That would be fun. Yeah. Sometimes I fantasize about just like starting like a just like a simple brick and mortar like business like that. Like, I'll just do a chain of ice cream stores, like it's so simple. It's just like you sell ice cream, you try to get more people in the door, and by sell more ice cream, then you lose money every month.

It's like, there's no like solving an abstract unsolved problem, like this is a solved problem.

Yeah, dude. I dated this racist Indian girl in Philadelphia briefly, and her family owned a chain of Dunkin Donuts. And I was just like, I was kind of rubbing my hands together at the thought of like, just owning franchise businesses, right? Like, you know, driving around, like, that's the closest you can get to like being in the mafia today, I feel like is like, you know, you just own a Cadillac and you just drive around to your different junk of donuts, and you're like, how many bagels did we sell this morning? You know?

Well, boss, we only sold a 100.

Yeah. Exactly.

You better double it. Yeah.

That's very much a personality issue. So one of my buddies in London is a big fan one of my buddies in London is a big fan of a guy called, I think, Roger Hamilton. It it's also quite likely he's a sociopath, so I'm always a little bit hesitant to recommend him. But what he did was he did a kind of approach of what is your personality type, and that should direct you towards what business you get into. And people who own and hold and manage Dunkin' Donuts for thirty years are not the personality types that also start are not founders who start businesses.

That is not shocking.

So you you probably are not fit for that line of work.

Well, who says I'm fit for the line of work I'm currently in?

But you chose it. That's the point is that if you were drawn to it, then there's your answer.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that I think that life is really complicated.

Know? We'll end on that.

No, just joking. How what are we at here?

We're at forty three minutes, I'm guessing we'll cut some percentage of Okay,

so we gotta keep We

could wrap this. Mean, we've done one topic, we could do another episode and do a separate topic.

So here's a picture of much fatter, stony from only six months ago before four months of the peptide I can barely pronounce. You

look the same.

No. Look. No way. The face is different. And look at the belly button.

The belly button is making that little

Oh, dude.

I can't see you. Where That's cool. You know when someone gains weight and you can kind of see where their belly is pushing against the shirt except for where their belly button Yeah. No woman says, I like the way his belly is pushing against his button down shirt.

Your belly looks like one of the worms from Dune. Just like just like I cresting over your waistline, you know, just just grasping for air.

You don't see a difference in my face between

I noticed a difference. Who's this woman?

You have the Those are two that's my cousin and his girlfriend.

Okay.

You you sort of in that picture, you have the Donald Trump going thing going on with your neck, where like You're you're fine

in this photo. You're tied.

Yes. No. You're touching is the difference. And whether that difference You

look like Bill Gates in this photo. That's who you

look like. That's what women really say, if at least if they're over the age of 18 and not on Jeffrey Epstein's Island, is they say, I want a man who looks like Bill

Gates. Listen, you could do you could do worse.

But that's the point. I could do worse, but I could also do better. And and here we are talking about improvement. You look much better. You look much better now.

You're also wearing a thicker shirt,

thank God. You're wearing a what's that thing that squeezes? Corsets. Corsets.

I'm wearing Spanx.

Corsets. Like, Stoney can barely breathe. I think you look a lot better. Also, think that like some guys, like you you have the tight collar where it like stuffs your fat.

You're if you have Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like some fat is worse than other like face net fat and neck fat is worse than belly fat. And like you need to have a little bit of like an hourglass. I think that you want an hourglass. Or what is it?

Not an hourglass. For women, it's an hourglass. For men, it's an inverted triangle.

Yeah.

You know, you want your there's a ratio of hip to shoulder that you want. Yeah. I mean, you definitely look better now.

Yeah. That's the question is, yeah. Yet Cody would say

Have you noticed that your dating prospects changing? Have you noticed your results changing?

Yes, actually. Liar.

Cody would say

but I feel like I have.

As a result of this.

Cody would say you should be meeting women at the Chinese buffet.

So That's right.

What I have found was that when I was at the dog park, I would definitely say there was an increase in the number of women who would chat to me for a little bit longer when I dropped 20 pounds.

I would bet half my net worth that that is a function of you feeling more confident and being more charismatic as a result and not at all a function of actually your change in weight.

Entirely possible, but then it was still worth it.

I mean, okay. I mean, if that's what you needed to do to be more confident, then like, all right.

And I don't think anyone's really accused me of lack of confidence.

I don't know.

Dead silence.

I'm thinking of accusing you of that.

I don't

go for

it. Been sitting on that accusation.

Yeah. Of all the things people have ever said, it's, Tony, you lack confidence, has never been something I've heard in my life.

I don't know. I mean, look, listen, I hear you. If you think it's really having an effect, then great. I think that in those in person contexts, I mean, is just based on my own perspective and a lifetime of experience. And you know, thousands of hours as an expert matchmaker, one could say one of the best matchmakers in the world.

Now you're stealing my lines, and you're acting you're the second best by the numbers, you're the second best matchmaker on this podcast. By the numbers. Okay? I'm not saying you I'm better. I'm saying

That's still actually one of best matchmakers in the world. Yes. Okay.

But we can't all hire you. You would need to start some sort of digital service where you could replicate your amazing skills. If only you guys could do that.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just I don't think it matters. I think it matters.

I think almost all that matters in that context is your personality. It's just like, do you have game and charisma? And are you dressed well? And do you present like, do you read as when you're standing next to this woman talking to her, the main evaluation that's happening in your head is does can I picture dating this guy? Does he read as the kind of guy who could be my boyfriend or my husband?

And most of what factors into that is, is he funny? Is he charismatic? Is he interesting? Does he seem high status? Does he seem can I picture him in my life?

And it's like such a small percentage that is like, oh, is his belly like a little bit bigger? It's like, no, I don't know. Okay.

No, I think you're correct.

I agree with that too.

I'm just trying to optimize the one because I have all of those other things. In most ways, I'm the perfect man. And I would like that I would like for and that's fine. Oh, yeah. I have a very stylish apartment.

I think that I would like I would I think that there's I think that the visual because I I do come off to women, I think, very confident. And I have, like, sort of a natural bravado that I like, and I like that about myself. But I think that the having the visual be really just dialed into that is important. Does that make sense?

If you want to do it for yourself and your own, like, your own reasons, like, nothing wrong with that. It's just, you know, don't Pete, I think this is just like, don't know, something what I'm really okay. I'm kind of harping on this, because I feel like it's a style of thinking that I see and I used to make the same statement, to be clear, I'm talking to myself too, like the way I thought five years ago. And I see a lot of people think like this, and I feel like it's a very common way of thinking, which is optimize into deep into diminishing marginal returns for the most legible thing. And what dating apps make most legible is looks.

And it's not actually most people's bottleneck, and then they're surprised when they're pouring enormous amounts of time, energy, resources into this, and getting very small returns. It's like, yeah, no shit. That's what happens when you pour resources, when you're into diminishing marginal returns curve, and it's not your bottleneck. So, etcetera.

That's a very fair way to look at it. So if I could summarize your advice, it's only do it if you're really doing it for the right reasons. Don't do it to think it's going to improve your dating prospects.

If it

does as a bonus, fine.

And it might be somebody's bottleneck, right? And if it is, like, Okay.

Yeah, if you're fat and you're listening to this, then don't take this to mean that you shouldn't improve yourself.

And here's the litmus test. Here's the test, right? And I think this is a little bit less true in the reverse for men. Like, most of this has all been about you know, how women are going to perceive this, right? It's from the male perspective about if you're a man.

I think there is some true, you know, much 80% of what I've said applies in the opposite direction, it's not a perfect mirror, of course. But to be clear, like, the test is do you read as fat? That's what matters. So like, if you are so fat such that, right, like you walk into a room and people's perception of you is like, there's a fat guy. Okay, that is the level of fat where like, it's probably your bottle neck.

That's something like, you need to like, that is the main thing you need to focus on. Anything below that threshold, as a guy, typically, it's like, there's the difference is almost meaningless.

And I think the analogy I would use there is whether you have a Target scarf or an Armani scarf, it's not going to make a difference in your dating life.

Totally.

But I got mine off Amazon, so I think we all know

the level of You ever might get a glasses

of I think the attitude I'm gravitating more and more and more towards as I get older is like, this is I'm just gonna say it like this, because this is how it sounds in my head. It's just like, it's like it's like trying to optimize your dating life at all is like fucking gay. It's like, and I know I've been talking from a very like rational perspective this whole time, but it's sort of the meta thing behind all of that, which is like, I shouldn't say it quite like that, it's like not trying to optimize. It's like optimizing is okay. It's like, what you should be doing is owning who you are as hard as fucking possible, and then optimizing for how that is expressed and embodied, that going to get you just that's going to get you the results that you actually want.

I'm going to rephrase that in some analogies. If you have a teenage child and they're struggling, trying to become their best friend is probably not the right answer. Trying to become the best parent you can through leadership is the right answer. If you have a business that's struggling, sure, you wanna make more money, but just trying to rack up the sales is not going be as effective as trying to sell the best value product you can to create

the most Yeah, focus on value. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's like what is fucking gay is trying to optimize and maximize the way that you are perceived for the perception per se, right? It's like you should not care how other people perceive you within reason, of course.

It should be about the motivation should be intrinsic. It should be I want to be the best version of myself according to my own values. And if you care about being aesthetic, and in shape, and muscular because you just like it can be difficult to tease these things out, but that's my point, is like you should try to tease these things out, because the distinction matters. Then great, do it, that's fucking cool. If you're doing it because it's like, I want to be hot to women, you're gay.

Don't try to be hot to women. Who cares what women think?

Trying to attract a loser is gay. It is.

No, actually, it is.

Think Trying we're

is gay. Just be, and the right women will be attracted to that.

Yeah, no, I think that's true. I agree with that.

I think what the Whole Foods founder said, which is that if you live your life trying to achieve happiness, you're gonna have an unhappy life. If you live your life trying to create value and serve the world, you're gonna have a happy life.

Yeah. It's about don't be don't be a little performing monkey. Yep. Like, what what what are you? A fucking dancing clown?

Like

Cody is highlighting that if you optimize on ephemeral transactional values that don't truly make you a better person, then why are you even doing that?

Yeah. Why are you even doing that? And like, you're all it's only going to lead to your own immiseration.

Well, there's end to it. Before you know it, you're getting you're looking like Michael Jackson, and you've had your nose fallen off from too many plastic surgery attempts.

In my argument is that you actually don't want it. You think you want it. You think you want to be attractive to women. But actually you don't. Like, like, and this goes for most people, I'm sure there are fucking psychopaths out there who like, actually, who get But like, I think actually, like, you really investigate, and you really keep digging, and you keep digging, you keep digging, what you'll find is that like, like, actually that leads to like an unhappy life that you actually don't want.

And you think it's going to lead to this like promised land, and it actually won't. And you know that deep down if you like really follow the logic chain all the way to its end.

I agree, because the question is, how many plastic surgeries would I want my ideal match to have had? And the answer is zero. I'd rather have imperfect breaths than perfect silicone breaths. And that list goes all the way down. So, yes, give me the imperfection of humanity, and I would not wanna be with a woman who constantly frets over every nip and tuck job she can take.

Yeah. But at the same time, if she's working on a healthy glow post yoga and just wearing nice clothes, and just being happy, wonderful.

Yeah. And I would say, if you want to switch it switch the genders, I mean. Because I think you kind of said this a little earlier, Wes, and I'm guessing that what you're hearing, I don't want put words in your mouth, but I'm guessing the counter argument that's manifesting in your brain right now that a lot of guys would say is like, so what you just said earlier, which is like, well, I'm shallow, like I want a hot girl, so of course she wants And I feel like the response to that is like, I'm not saying that like having looks preferences is like not a thing. Right? What I'm saying is, okay, two things I would say to make this point.

One, the girl who's attractive to you, like, there's not, I mean, there's not like that much she can do to like change how attractive she is to you. Like, girls think that there's a lot she can do. She thinks putting on makeup and wearing a cute little dress, she thinks she's going from a six to a nine. And actually, she's going from a six to a 6.2. Right?

All this stuff that they think that it doesn't matter, you can tell. And she's either attracted to you or she's not.

Well, heck, look at the I can't say the word bucic or bucolic fat removal, which some of

Which is horrific.

Some of the very attractive women have done, and they go radically down.

Yeah. I would

so much rather date the before than the after.

And every guy has dated or been attracted to a girl that how do I put this? Is like less attractive than he would have thought he would have been attracted to. Yep. Right? Yeah.

Absolutely. It's like it's like it's like I can tell that she's objectively a six, but for some reason, like, she just does it for me, and like I and like and it's like works, and now she's like a seven to me or whatever, or whatever it is, right, whatever the numbers are. And it's like, there's just some ineffable quality about her

Here we go, Cody, tell them about the horizontal traits and the vertical preferences.

No, I'm not gonna talk about that. I'm just like, I mean, I could if I, but I've already talked about that, so that's not where I'm going. But anyway, whatever, you get my point. So like, it's just it's it's and like that and that is just like

the point You're saying that my soul mate isn't gonna care about whether my abs are visible.

Well, you don't even have to get all mystical, or yes, I mean, not your soul mate, but like, it's just like, the point is just like, if that's the thing that's making the difference, it wasn't going to go all the way anyway.

If you

were going to marry that girl And if you marry that girl, you'd miserable. Sorry, go ahead.

We're really struggling with the talking over, because I'm really trying not to talk over. Exactly. No, no, no, just do it. It's no one's fault. But on the first we should probably delete this.

But on the first episode, said, guys, don't get self conscious about talking over. But whatever you do, don't talk over. But don't

get self conscious.

No. You just do it. Just do it.

I think the equivalent is if Wes said, I'm going to get a green Lamborghini to attract women, we'd all be like, oh, boy. Not only is that not going to work, but it's going to attract the wrong women. I personally put health and fitness in a different category, but I totally see where Cody is going by saying, you might just be upping your vanity level.

Well, I was hitting on a girl, I was hitting I was at a New Year's party, and I was sitting on this girl, and she wasn't, you know, she's like probably, you know, six. Right? I don't want aristocratic. I want the I want the hottest girl at the trailer park.

Okay.

You know? Sure. Like

That's the thing.

Yeah. I'm trying to meet my girl at the NASCAR club. But I was this is an Amos story. This girl seemed very charmed by me and like I could tell she liked me and then like her boyfriend came up and her boyfriend looked like he looked like he owned an ice cream store. He was a big big fella, you know, kind of fat balding.

I I think he had like the Brooklyn hot thing, you know, like where there's certain markets where it's sort of like Sure. You counter signaling, you look like shit, and it's hot to girls for some reason.

Yeah.

That's not the market I want be in, which is why I'm optimizing. But I mean, this story has nothing to do with what we're talking about. But, like, I was, like, you know, like, talking to this girl, like, she clearly liked me. And I was like, I'm like, okay. I'm like, gonna try to get this girl's number.

And then, like, her boyfriend came in there, like, engaged, I guess. And, like, he was, like, having to, like, try to stand between us because, like, he like could tell what was going on. And like that's the situation I never want to be in. Right? It's like this guy was fat.

Right? Like I could have, you know, I could have put this guy in a headlock. Right?

Yeah.

You know, I could have cut off his airway. Yeah. But that's the situation. You know, you don't you never want to look at another man. I I the way I look at it, you should be every man you meet, you should be either richer or more fit.

You need to have one of those things on everyone you meet. Thomas

just Do deep down feel that you are, like, in a Nietzschean way superior to me because you're taller?

No. I I think that that I think that that's a cop out because I feel like I feel guilty. I feel guilty about being

You didn't earn your height.

Yeah. Because I just happened to be tall. I come from a a

In what way do you feel superior to me?

I don't feel superior to

you.

I feel I feel vastly inferior to you. You're a lot smarter

than me. Before your trip to Colorado, I felt my haircut was superior to yours because you look like a ragamuffin. But then I found out that you only got your haircut in Colorado and it all made sense, and you look great now.

So Oh, thank you.

Well, Sony feels superior to both of us in every single way possible. He's superior in age. He's wiser. He's more he's more optimized. His meat comes from a better source.

He's got the

fat He my hair like looks like shit. Yeah. He's taller than both of us.

And when when every time a Sony meets a new guy, he's like, wait. Why am I superior? I got better meat.

Yeah, do have any idea I'm how stressful Bobby. It

This guy is so hard.

Right, yeah. Just hosting a podcast with the Ubermensch. He's refined. He's like this English aristocratic sort of attitude about him.

Okay, I know this whole episode has been a Cody rant, and I'm sorry. But I want to say one more thing to bring it all home.

If you like women, you're gay.

If you like women, you're gay. Date the only way you cannot be gay is to suck dicks.

Yes. No. I'm the least gay person you've ever been.

Here's I'm gonna bring it all bring it all home. And that is, this is the end of my I really believe this, and this is gonna start this is gonna get a little metaphysical, a little almost religious, but I really think it's true, which is that here's the end of what I'm saying. Like, everything I'm saying is sort of pointing towards this telos, which is, here's what happens, okay? It's not just because I know, like, what I've been saying is like, it's like, it's like, oh, just like just just like optimize for like, like your values, like what you like what you deeply care about, and like that's how you be a good person, and you might not get a hot girl, but like at least you'll know that you're a good person. I know that's what it sounds like I'm saying.

Actually, that's not quite what I'm saying. It goes one more step beyond that, which is that the only sin is a divided heart. Actually, you're gay because you're conflicted about who you are, Because part of you believes in who, like, has a little bit of self confidence, like knows what you care about when you believe in who you are, but the other part is like, but I want to be a dancing monkey, and actually I want to live up to other people's standards too. What happens when you double down, and you commit to who you are, and expressing that in its full idiosyncratic weirdness, is that you fucking resonate, and unseen forces, the higher, the fucking firmament, comes to your aid. The angels and demons come rush to your side, and you resonate like with the universe to make to sound all spiritual.

Because you're so aligned, and you know who you are, and you're so confident, and you're so grounded, that actually you're way more charismatic, and way more attractive, and everybody perceives you as more charismatic, and and that the the level of overall attractiveness you gain from that, that is way higher than you'll ever get from fucking like having abs. Right? Like they we've all met that person, who just like walks into a room, and like, there's just they have this quality, where they're like, it's not that they're so attractive, or they're so smart, but they just are so confident in who they are, and they know what they believe in, and they know who they are, and it just comes out, it just radiates, and you can feel it, and they resonate, and by the time they leave the room, everybody is oriented towards them, and they have changed the molecules in the air. We all know that's a thing, it happens, you can be that, commit to who you are, the only sin is a divided heart. I'm out.

Yeah. I think you would call that quality magnetism.

Yes, you can cultivate that.

It's very yeah, I think you can. I think it's just like loving yourself, being very self assured and being like Yes. Accepting of yourself.

And the way that you do that is you just continually double down on anybody who says no to me, I say no to.

Yes. Yes. And but I I think that there is a I mean, would you agree that part of that just is like a a side effect of self acceptance?

Yes. But it's kind of like It's

like charisma, too? It's like Yeah. Yeah. How much of that is a skill versus how much of it is a spiritual pursuit?

It's both. It's both. It's like it's like an Ouroboros, know? It's like it feeds into itself. I really think the fundamental unlock that unlocks that feedback, because like, partly it's just like, well, you start doing that, and then you see that it works, and it makes you feel better, and you get better results from life, and then that encourages you to keep going.

But the way the fundamental unlock, I think, that gets you started in that cycle is actually believing. What?

You had a loogie in your throat, and you said actually, so you sounded like a meme. Actually.

Right? It's like convincing yourself and actually believing, and you won't be able to convince yourself at first, you'll have to see this proven to yourself, but you can, you can certainly can prove it to yourself. That it's what I keep saying, but not because I feel like now I'm being redundant. But it's that deep down, most people don't believe, they're afraid of missing out. They have like FOMO, right?

They're like afraid when somebody rejects them, that it's like, that could have been my wife. Or that's just true across the board, not just in dating. It's like, oh, I interviewed at some place, and they rejected me, and that could have been my dream job, but they rejected me, so I missed out. They're afraid that they're missing out on all these things, because they're not good enough, and they're getting rejected. And it is precisely your desperation to live up to the standards of life that you don't live up to, that's the problem.

It's not right? It's like if you just said, actually, the fact that I got rejected from that job interview, it wasn't the right job for me. It actually wasn't. Their selection process worked, and I don't want them. If they don't want me, I don't want them.

It's like, I think that wanting the approval of another person is sort of like slave morality. Like if you go into an interaction and you want that person's approval, then simply wanting that is going to seep through your interaction and it's going to be disgusting to the other person. Yeah. The point is that the simple internal state of how you feel in that moment and you have to genuinely not care. Yeah.

But the internal state is sensible by the other person, and you can't I think I lived a lot of my life thinking that I could train myself to present in a way that I could still feel that way and present in a way that didn't, like, make it obvious that I felt that way, you can't do that. You have to actually feel that way, or else it's spiritual. It's energetic. It's like that.

Yeah, 100%. And I think it's true. And you can prove that, given enough time, you will prove this to yourself. You don't have to take anybody's word for it, but better to have it proven to you when you're in your twenties than when you're in your sixties.

Sony.

But but like, and even more, like, yes, you'll get all these charisma benefits, but also, it's like part of what happens is that like, you just unlock velocity in your life. Like, part of the advantage that you get when you do this is that you can just move so much faster through life, because you don't spend your time getting hung up on these supposed missed opportunities. It's like, you just immediately can shut that door and never think about it again. It's like, great, I didn't get the job? Awesome, I'm not going to be that, and I'm never going to try to be that ever again.

Moving on. It's like, you just immediately, and so you're able to get escape velocity, cause you can just go so much faster than the person who's like, wait, no, the door closed in my face. Let me in. Hang on. I'm going to stay here and knock on this door for five minutes, and then I'm going knock on the next door for five minutes.

It's like, multiply that by 10,000 doors, and you never make any progress.

Yes. Tying into this, when I moved to England in my twenties, one of the things that really surprised me was how filtered conversations were. And it almost seemed like everyone thought about the sentence they were about to say, evaluated it for politeness and whether it was offensive or not, and would then say it. And what I found was that you got very few raw interactions with people, because you were always dealing with them post filter. And as an American who just opened his mouth and said whatever I was thinking, I got into trouble and I took a step back and I was like, well, which one do I want to be?

Of course, I'm oversimplifying here, but I ended up being, no, I want to be raw, and I don't want to have to filter everything through, is this acceptable? And if everyone does that, we all turn into carbon copies of everyone else. And I think what everyone is what Cody and Wes are saying is keep on striving to be authentic to yourself, and the end result will be a positive perception. But if you focus on the positive perception, you're doing nothing else than looking around and constantly responding to these micro stimuli, which are meaningless. So forget all of that and just be your authentic self.

It's the handsome hour.