Episode 5 - Hoe Phases

I had a hoe phase. Because I had that, it probably has really influenced the way I see the world.

Doing drugs for any given night will probably increase the pleasure of that night. The flip side is, okay, what about sexuality?

You don't tell the kids, you don't tell people this is how to behave. You try to give them an understanding of the trade offs. You say, listen.

What's up? It's the Handsome Hour. Welcome back. Cody's here. Cody, hello.

I'm Cody.

Hi. Stoney's here. I'm Stoney. Hello. My name is Wes Myers.

Today, we're talking about single people.

Welcome to Handsome Hour. Just do it.

Just do it.

That's I'm gonna make that our slogan. Alright. Let's get into it here.

Yeah. We're talking about single people. Do you wanna talk about one of the things we sent to the group?

Yeah.

Okay. Which one do we like here the most?

We had the one a couple weeks ago, right, though. I thought it was it was pretty juicy.

We talked about the the love symposium too. That's true.

I would find that really fascinating because most people understand that there's gonna be tech conferences and this conference and that conference. But the idea of a love symposium for matchmaking conferences is something that, you know, wouldn't have crossed my mind before getting to know you guys and finding out about that. So for the average person out there, the idea that there's a group of people getting together in a convention center just talking about matchmaking and the challenges of it as a business, that's kind of fascinating to me.

Yeah. Well, I was only there for one day, so I only saw Cody talk. Cody gave a fantastic talk about Keeper and building a matchmaking platform from First Principles. But what are they talking about there?

Yeah. So it's like mostly it's like people in the tech space that are sort of building in the relationship formation space. So there was matchmakers there. There were people building relationship formation tech. People talking about building tech around embedding human personality through various modalities.

Evolutionary biology, like a few scientists and researchers were there talking about their research. Some relationship coaches, and dating coaches types, but definitely in the rational, not just your average bro dating coach, but in the rationalist space.

There were lots of thought experiments flying through the air.

So I would say it was just generally tech and rationalists that were interested in relationships in the surrounding industry. Yeah, some really, really interesting stuff. I mean, you know, people doing the most interesting stuff to me was people trying to embed human personality via either text or video, right, and then predict relationship outcomes from that. That's crazy. I mean, think about that.

You can upload a thirty second video of yourself, and then they'll use that to sort of map your personality in vector space, and then make a prediction about who you're gonna be compatible with. That's really fascinating.

So you would upload it solo, not as a couple?

Well, I mean, you know, one could imagine both, but, you know, particular person I'm thinking of who's building was working on that is is in solo. So he has started with a date, like a celebrity video. I thought that was an interesting place to start. So, you know, they scraped YouTube, they got a bunch of celebrities, and they'll take, you know, thirty second to two minute clips, and then, you know, and and basically get personality embeddings from that. And then his part of his idea is he also wants to he wants to he's calling it like full stack personality, which I thought was an interesting way to think about it.

So he wants to do, you know, get personality embeddings from video, but then also get like like, he's like, ideally, in the best case, like, we're gonna get DNA, genetic information, and then also test you more traditionally, like on pen and paper. And through all three of those, we can sort of create this full mapping of personality, and thereby and his point is that like, thereby we can get, we can separate out like what is nature versus nurture versus situational, right, and really fully understand every layer of your psyche. Then That's fascinating.

Well, yeah.

I mean, you know, if

I mean, it's just works. Like, the company is just research. I don't want to be like I don't want to be

It's deep tech. Don't know.

Yeah. I

don't know. Also thinking that would apply to employment interviews as well. If you can suss out the personality with whatever statistical likelihood during employment interviews.

Yeah. I mean, it feels like it would be applicable that everything on Earth is involving humans. Like, you know? Yeah.

That's

What kind of seasoning do you like?

Absolutely. I mean, that's that there is a this is what I've been talking about with some of the guys I met there and stuff for the last couple weeks is like, there is this sort of what I've been calling the general case to be solved, which is not just for long term romantic relationships, which obviously what we're focused on, but the general case of mapping and predicting human personality, to solve the narrow case, you kind of have to solve the general case. And if you solve the general case, the market opportunity is ridiculous. Yeah, like you're saying, it's useful for literally almost every industry. That'll be a generational.

Whatever company solves that will be the next meta. They will be a generation defining company.

Yeah. I think my skepticism about it is always like, it's extremely generalist. It is it is the to to me, like, when we when we talk about, like, trying to map human personality, we're, like, it really I I don't wanna be cynical about it or, like, be trying to be funny or something. But, like, it it does just feel like looking in the mirror and being, like, what am I? You know?

Like, it it's, like, it is the the problem. And it it's, like, I don't know if it can actually be solved,

you know? Well, there's also another level of, can you use that as a self help tool to change? Because the whole point of this is I have a expected outcome in the future. That expected outcome is single as of now because I'm not with anyone, and I want to change that. I want to change the future.

And do I do that by getting a better match, or do I do that by becoming a better person? And we're all open to the idea of, hey, buddy, you should go to the gym. That would help. Like, that is a sentence we're all comfortable with. Is there a personality gym?

Is there a mental gym that would make a difference? Because a lot of the times when you break up with someone, certainly by the third date, you know what they look like. You're not breaking up with someone on the third date or the third year because of any of the characteristics on paper. You're breaking up with them because of, ultimately, you're like, this is not working. This is not a match.

So how could that even be used, if at all, to help you better yourself, presuming anyone even wants to better themselves?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's also a very answerable question. I I think we already have some decent answers to that question. We already know what personality traits are more stable versus more malleable. Like, for example, I think we've talked about before on this podcast.

Neuroticism, one of the best predictors at an individual level of future relationship success. People who are high in neuroticism are much less likely to enter a relationship. And if they do enter a relationship, they're much less likely to be happy in that relationship, it's much less likely to go the distance. But you can change your neuroticism levels. There are known interventions, CBT, various types of meditation that can lower your neurostimum.

So it's like, it's both highly explanatory and very changeable. But there's other things that are less changeable, like openness. You can't really change that.

What about, well, shrooms, according to Good point. That can change it a

little bit. Yeah, that is one of the few things.

I think the other challenge is that the people who are high in neuroticism don't want to change the fact they're high in neuroticism. That's my limited experience.

You think?

I'm thinking of several people.

Interesting. These These are being emotional

These are regulated and anxious. But the idea that they would want to take the feedback or that they would even imagine the suggestion that they're highly neurotic.

Sure.

I think have you guys done anything that, like, if I mean, we within the the big five facets, have you guys done anything in your life where, like, it it actually did meaningfully, like, change one of those things for you, like, personally?

I think I'm a lot lower in neurosis than I used to be.

Yeah. What happened?

I think it was just like a slowly over like, as I got older, it was just like you you experience more of life, you start to, like, realize, like, oh, like, can it's gonna be fine. Like, I can handle shit. It's yes, there are ups and downs, but the stakes aren't as high as I thought when I was 18 or whatever.

I'm trying to think, are there any neurotic movie heroes? Mr. Bean? I don't classify him as a hero. Maybe he's a star.

And he also doesn't say anything.

What about Monk?

Have you ever watched that show? Oh. He's kind of Mr. Bean esque, I feel like.

But so Monk is not a movie, and Mr. Bean is not a hero. So I I think we're we're still going with my question. Are there any movie heroes that are high in neuroticism? And it seems like our idolatry of the kind of the archetype of who we want to aspire to be, which is usually heroes in movies, they're not neurotic.

So I wonder if that is something we grow into.

Anakin is kind of neurotic.

Yeah, it's a good one. He's love love Depends on how you define hero.

The villains tend to be more neurotic. Yeah. The villains tend to be like, we need we need order. But you could argue Or so

Darth Vader was pretty chill by the end. Mean, you know, he got a little bit angry at

His heart was wild. His heart was softened for the love of his son.

It's definitely less common among primary characters. I mean, I would say secondary and tertiary care. It's a common sitcom trope, for example, right? That one of the characters will be the Monica, the one who's anxious and stuff. Yeah.

Don't know if it depends how hard to find a hero. Probably not superheroes. I don't know. Is Peter Parker neurotic? I feel like there are I feel feel it feels like there are

Have you ever seen The Accountant with Ben Affleck?

That was yes. But that's autistic rather than neurotic. But I but I hear you. He was obsessed with minor details,

but that was I'm sure he would measure, like, even if he is autistic like, it's not his defi neuroticism isn't his defining trait, but it he still is neurotic.

Let me ask you this question then. Are you talking about a more scientific, I've done the big five twice different years, I've noticed a change? No. Or are you going on anecdotal gut feel? Well, I think

you could take the big five twice and get different scores on it. I I've take I take the big five, like, a couple times a year, and, like, there's probably, like, a 10 or 20, like, standard deviation or not standard deviation, but margin of error. So, like, for I I can think of, like, doing a lot of psychedelics is one for me, maybe. I don't know if it even made me more it might have made me less open in the long run. I feel like every time I I've said this before, I think I feel like every time I take like acid, I become more right wing.

And I don't know what that I don't know what that means. The

machine elves told me that need to close the borders.

Well, I just find myself thinking about the highways a lot, and then I'm like, man, this thing wow. You authoritarian really really can't authoritarianism really can't get things done. And it's the, you know, the the organizing massive power. But the other one I think was like, I ran for student body president my senior year of college. And I like ran this like very obnoxious and loud campaign and like completely embarrassed myself.

But it made me, I think, a lot less neurotic. It it sort of like broke the seal on like me being able to just like go up to people and say things and like not really feel weird about it because it's like, I don't know, Scott Adams talks about this a lot, but it's like, once you embarrass yourself really bad one time, you know, like I didn't show everyone on campus my penis or anything, but like, you know, you you kinda like act flamboyantly in like a major way and then you go do it. And then you come back and you realize that, oh, there's really no really cost to that at all. You still feel fine. Everything feels normal.

And it like sort of unlocks this ability to not be nervous about things because you like, you know that

the consequence I did that in college, because I wanted to be a musician, and so I in order to cure myself of any sort of stage fright, I would go to open mics or perform, and I would unprepared. So I wouldn't even know a song. I'd have to improvise I'd force myself to improvise a song on the spot. Just was like the most terrifying thing you could possibly do. And then I just like they did that like every week, and then I completely desensitized myself to to talk, you know, being in front of crowds.

Yeah. Well, I I think we're we're talking about like basically the same experience. Because I was going for me, it was like debates. But we were having, like, these, like, debates, and there were, like, you know, a 100 people in the audience or whatever. And, I would just I didn't prepare at all.

I didn't know what the issues were. I was just, like, riffing completely on stage. And it yeah. I think that's a good cause I think neuroticism is changeable. I guess maybe with the psychedelics argument, openness is changeable.

I feel like maybe conscientious I feel like I've become if anything, I've become much less less conscientious with time.

Typically, people do tend to go become a little bit lower openness over the course of their life, and which you see that come out like in politics, for example, people become more conservative as they get older.

Yeah.

Right? Which is partly a function of IQ going down, like fluid intelligence going down over the course of their lifespan. I've definitely become I don't think probably by nature I've become more extroverted, but as I've just gotten better at socializing and developed my social skills as I've gotten older, I probably present more extroverted.

Yeah, I agree with that one, too. That resonates with me. Yeah, it's the same thing. My natural inclination to go socialize and talk to people hasn't changed, but my ability to do it and, like, feel confident doing it has changed.

Yeah.

I've gotten better at it, but I wanna do it less and less. So I've gotten apparently more introverted because my desire to go meet new people is suddenly becomes, I'll do that tomorrow night, not tonight. Then before you know it, a month has gone by.

Yeah. That's true.

Could go back to the original topic, which was talking about single people. And then the question is, well, why I mean, most people who are single and were tuning into this want to change that state. They want to change going from single to not single, and they want to do somewhat of a selective marketplace to a subset of people who are hotter than them. I also think, why is it that we are more single than we used to be? And I sometimes I think about how we've dropped the benefits of being in a relationship and increased the non benefits or or, you know how am I trying to say this?

The benefits of being in a relationship are, as far as I can tell, apparently less than they used to be. And I think we're all able to be so selective because and maybe this is a good thing. Independence isn't as challenging anymore, but that ends up leaving us isolated.

I don't know. Do you is it like is the is the perception actually that? Because I I do hear people say that, that the perception is that the benefits of being in a relationship have gone down. But I think about the past, yeah, I don't know, four or five, you know, nine to eighteen month relationships I've had. And in reflecting on those, it it feels like in every case, was like just desperately trying to hold something together that obviously wasn't right to avoid the soul crushing feeling of being alone.

Does that resonate at all? Or like

Yeah. Think that's what most people experience most Exactly. Of the That's why most relationships form.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah. I'm agreeing

with you. So if we were to so my one of the ways I look at this is if I was to put this in strictly numeric terms, for me, being single is about a seven out of 10. I'm actually a very happy person single. My life is not that bad. When I get into a relationship, it ranges between a two out of 10 and an eight out of 10, maybe a nine out of 10.

So the challenge is just to make my life better, I need to find that relationship that makes my life an eight or nine out of 10 on average rather than ranging from two to eight just to be

half an hour. It it does bear mentioning here that you have a child. Yes. So there's sort of that that part of meaning of, like, of having someone in your corner, of having like like you don't really have to be alone. Like you have a close relationship no matter what.

Like it is with your daughter. I know it's not a romantic relationship.

No. I I understand what you're saying.

It Having someone there is, like, 90% of what it is, of the comfort of, like, literally just not being alone and, like, totally cold and, like, confused in the world.

Right. Completely true. If if I wanna watch a movie with someone, sure, the movie might skew towards PG-thirteen, but I get to watch a movie with someone on my couch, and that's an experience someone who's truly single is going to struggle to have. I get to have meals with someone. I get to have that mealtime conversation.

Yeah. But it's it's more than that. Like, it's not about, like, you you the benefit that the psychological benefit that you're getting from having a daughter is not about, like, having something to do between five and 8PM. It's like Life purpose

is what you're referring to.

Yeah. In a set yeah. I mean, it's it's very much just like life purpose. It's just like this fundamental question of like, if if like having purpose isn't really what I'm getting at. It it it it's just, like, having something else there, like, having something to ascribe, like, having having shared mind space with another person.

I mean, I'm agreeing with you, though I think that shared mind space manifests as Yeah. Dinnertime conversations in the car. I mean, it's true. One of my favorite activities is even dropping her off and picking her up from school because you've got half an hour just to chitchat. And without that, how many of those live conversations would I have with someone who I'm close to?

Probably much less.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think your point is valid, Wes, which is just that probably most people aren't at a seven when they're single. Like, that's pretty And maybe it's because or your daughter, maybe it's just because you're just a naturally upbeat person, or maybe you've gone through a whole journey in your life to get there. Whatever it is, probably most people are being single is much more excruciating.

Yeah. If you don't have social ties otherwise, because even, like, you if you're over the age of 30, like, friendships start to mean a lot less, because your friends go get families, and they then that is the primary relationship in everybody's life. And then, like, when you're young, you think, like, your friendships are very significant. And, like, yeah, they are. And, like, hopefully, you hold on to some of your friendships for the the totality of your life.

But, like, when you start to develop, like, real family relationships, the friendships seem much less important. They seem much less, like, real, like, anchoring social ties or like something I don't know.

But Yeah. I agree.

Yeah. It becomes like something like, you're not getting your sense of identity from your friendships, you're getting your sense of identity from like your actual relationship and your family and things like that.

I think some of that is also a function. As I look back in my twenties, I had free time, and I don't have anything resembling that right now. And I think if you were to wave a magic wand and have people in their forties have as much free time as people in their 20s with no responsibility and willing to live in lower quality rent, then I well, Okay, we're still lacking in energy. But I think so much of that that fun in the twenties is this lack of responsibility.

Yeah. Sure.

So there was one a couple weeks ago. It was am I overreacting? Am I overreacting for breaking up with my girlfriend over saying, I've had my fun. That's in quotations.

Oh, that's good.

Quotations. I've had my fun. It's time for me to settle down. That's what she said that broke me instantly. This came up after a group discussion with her friends that had to do with hookups.

I asked her to clarify what she meant by that later, and she said that she's glad she had her fun sex with hookups, and that she's glad she can settle down with someone more secure and available. I told her that I basically find that extraordinarily offensive, and right then and there basically ensured that there would, for the rest of our relationship, forever be an imbalance. I rejected all hookups as I wanted sex to be only for those I loved, whereas she had a bunch of hookups, loved all of it, and then settled for me, who she basically implied was a downgrade. This is kind of a long post. I don't know if I should read the whole thing.

She thinks I'll read one more paragraph. She thinks it's absolutely insane that I'd leave her over this, but I personally can't fathom staying. I mean, to put it quite bluntly, I felt like the biggest bitch after she said that in front of her friends. I think the relationship and the one you want to spend the grammar is messed up. I think the relationship and the one you want to spend of your life, is clearly trying to say the rest of your life with should be the fun part.

It goes on like that for a while. But, yeah, thoughts.

He's I think that he's a 100% in the right.

Alright.

I think that he I think that it's not even thinking that. Maybe like I think that a lot of people will think what she thought. It's her saying it to him. If someone said that to me, I'd be like, that that's it. Yeah.

Yeah.

It is the it is the implication that it is the implication that right now is not fun or, like, that the past was more fun. It's the it's the idea that, like, I'm thinking about all this exciting sex I used to have even though now I'm with you, You know? Even even though I'm with you now, I'm still thinking about all the exciting sex I used to have, implying that now and he's I mean, the takeaway for him should one be like dump this girl, but number two, like he's not putting it down in the bedroom is what I would say to him. It's like it's like, yes, leave this girl, but also, like, learn some learn some new moves. But, yes, he

is correct. Stoney, what do think?

So I I wanna look at this from a couple different levels. And the highest level is, does our past matter? What is it like to say, yes, I dated for a decade because I wasn't emotionally ready to commit, and now I'm emotionally ready to commit. And as someone who I think I would fall into that bucket for purely selfish reasons, I want to say that's an acceptable place to be. Having come from, you know, a place of immaturity to maturity, I sympathize with that.

But I don't think that's in fact what she's saying. If she had said, I dated because I wasn't ready, and now now I'm ready to be in a relationship and I want to be with you, I want to be with someone wonderful like you, it's the exact opposite of what she said. So I think what she's saying is, I was attracted to the bad boy, and I realized that my attraction to the bad boy was getting me nowhere. So I went for the lower desirable mate, and that's you. That's what I hear.

And I agree that is unacceptable.

Yeah. So there's a there's I also want to take a couple different perspectives. One thing that might be worth teasing out is how much, yeah, her history is what matters here versus its implication about how she thinks or what she's saying in the way she's saying it, what it implies about how she thinks about him, right? And those might be worth separating out. It's like, how much does your past matter, versus how is she actively thinking about him in the present?

Obviously, I think probably the three of us here, and I would think almost everybody could agree that it feels shitty to feel like a second choice, or to feel like a consolation prize, right? Like, obviously, you want to feel like your partner's first choice. So I don't think that part is super controversial. I mean, is there much to say on that? It's like, yeah, make your partner feel good.

Make your fart. Make make your fart feel good, baby.

From my perspective I mean, this is a very personal thing. From my perspective, the the history doesn't matter as much, but it's because, like, I'm very confident in certain ways in relationships where it's like, I'm not worried about like, I'm not I I I let's just say that I never worry that she's fantasizing about something in the past that she doesn't have now that she wishes she had. Right? So like, I don't but if but if she came to me and said something like what this woman said, then that would be the opposite of the case. Right?

Which is like that's the the entire reason that I can ignore a woman's like sexual history or whatever is because she's not saying things like what this girl said.

Right. So what's interesting, I don't know, maybe I was just like, yeah, that that seems like it's like a no brainer. It's like, yeah, she seems like she's kind of admitting that she's settling and that that feels shitty and it's like, fuck that.

It would be like if I went to a woman, I was like, yeah, I used to date all these hot girls with like giant tits and nice asses and stuff, but like, I'm really glad I I dated with the dog who likes I settled with the dog who likes to cook, you know? Like if if girl, if I said that to you, you would not be it's the same thing.

Yeah. I don't know if there's more nuance on that. I think that's just pretty cut and dry. To me, maybe the more interesting one is the other one. It's like, does your past matter?

I hear what you're saying, Stoney. I would say, like, this is a perfect example of where of a situation that happens a lot these days where the sort of received cultural values of liberalism are very at odds with most human nature. So it is simply the case that I think it's just true that most guys care about a woman's sexual history.

Well, we we can take this to the extreme and establish it in a way that people are comfortable with and then walk backwards. So I'm willing to bet that 99% of the population wouldn't want to date a repeat murderer, and pretty close to that wouldn't want to date someone who was a former prostitute. So if someone had said, yes, I spent ten years working as a Las Vegas prostitute, but now I'm ready to settle down, I think a lot of I'm willing to bet 98% of the men, but, well, hesitate to say, yes, this is the kind of person I want to be, my wife. And then you go, Okay, well, what is the gray area and what is completely greenfield? And I I don't I don't think it's wrong to discuss that.

And when people accuse someone else of being immoral for even thinking that, I think that's crazy.

Yeah. I mean, I think it comes out of a shock there is this narrative in the culture that because of the received liberalism or whatever, we all swim in the waters of liberalism. And so it's like we're indoctrinated from a young age, and women are indoctrinated from a young age, that it shouldn't matter. That you should just be able to, and there's nothing wrong with having your fun. There's nothing wrong with swiping on the apps and sleeping with hundreds of guys.

That's empowering. It's taking charge of your own sexuality. Right? That's supposed to be positive and healthy. It's sex positivity.

And then it's like a shock when they encounter a guy who cares about that. And they see him as it's shocking, they see him as an affront against all of their values and the values of our civilization. And worrisome. What it really is, is it puts the thorn of fear in their heart. Because deep down, we all know what human nature is, and you're sort of made to forget by cultural programming.

And they deep down, they're afraid that, oh shit, have I fucked my value in the mating market by, you know, have I severely and maybe irreparably damaged it by living that way in my early twenties or whatever? And this guy is reminding me of that. Like, he is, you know, pulling up a mirror.

So one of the ways to look at it is, what is the benefit of going out and having a series of short term relationships or even just casual sex. And let's imagine we're advising our kids, and they say, hey, I'm but just to be clear, my daughter is 12 and this conversation has not happened, lest anyone get worried. But imagine your kid comes to you and says, hey, I'm thinking about doing cocaine. Everyone says it's really fun. And if you're really honest, you're going say, well, it is fun, but what you're doing is you're accelerating the short term gains and you're massively increasing the long term downside.

Going out and doing drugs for any given night will probably increase the pleasure of that night. Going out and doing drugs in Ibiza club is probably gonna be a lot of fun. But what happens when you do that for ten years? What is the life outcome? And I think most parents would say, no.

Don't even do coke once in an Ibiza nightclub because what's what's there is no long term benefit of that. And I think we're all comfortable with that. And then the flip side is, okay, what about sexuality? And there is this push that it is liberating. But if Coke and an IVs nightclub is not liberating, then why is having random sex with strangers liberating?

And then heaven forbid you get pregnant and you're like, great, I'm now going to terminate a pregnancy which at minimum is highly emotional or I'm gonna bring a child into the world without a stable family structure. So you get these tremendous downstream challenges.

Yeah. For sure.

Well, I this is this is where I've done the biggest one eighty in in probably the past two or three years of my life is like on this issue in particular. Because I used to be a big like body count guy, and I thought I cared about that a lot, and I would get like intensely jealous in relationships. And if you look at my recent relationships, you will see that I have my revealed preferences. I actually do not care about that at all. And it genuinely does not bother me at all.

And I think about it because I I was first of all, young people are not having sex, which is like a problem. And so I think that, like, I think this question of like what we're talking about right now is like a very like millennial problem. It's like because if someone's 10 years, know, if someone's in their early twenties right now, like the advice literally might be like go get drunk and hook up. Like you need to get that out of system. Like, I'm not saying do it with a 100 guys.

I'm saying do it with, like, one person, but, like, they are not having sex. So, like, they need to go maybe do stuff like that. I'm gonna disagree with you that that is

a problem. I can imagine a society where that doesn't happen. I can imagine a society where people wait till they're married to have sex, and that society being better than what we have

But they're not getting married either.

Yeah. I think what I think you're I think it's an indicator of other problems. I don't think it's a problem per se. I think it is pointing at things that are problems.

Yeah. But I think sometimes you need to break the seal. Like, I think that they're anxious and weird around other people, and that there's all this interpersonal friction, and that a lot of those walls come down after the first couple times you have random sex. And I'm not look, I'm not giving the advice to like go, you know, get an STD or something. But for very young people, like, it, you know, it might be a net good if we had a little bit more of that kind of stuff.

Maybe it's something everyone should do once, not something one person should do a thousand times.

Well, also I think maybe something that's worth bringing into the conversation too is that like, you know, when we say something like young people aren't having a lot of sex, it's a very big oversimplification. Because what's actually happening is it's becoming more Pareto distributed. Right. So there's a small number that are having a ton of sex, and then they'll, you know, and then they most are like, and then there's many that are having very little. And so it might, yeah, mean, if we wanted, we could talk about that

Well, it's like, the thing I wanted to say is we're talking about having a hoe phase, right? Yeah. The quote hoe phase is what we're talking about.

And also just, sorry, one more quickly thing. That's also often grouping together men and women.

Yes. We're not just talking about men.

Most of the people who are young people who are not having sex, if we're being honest, are men. Yes. Most women are having a moderate amount of sex, and they're all having it with the same few guys. And most guys aren't having zero, and then a few are having an insane amount of sex.

Yes. But when we talk about the hoe phase, we're also talking about men. We're talking about

men. Sure. Sure. Sure. That can apply both to men and women, yes.

But like, yeah.

Because I I wanna ask, because I had a hoe phase, you would say, right? And So did I. Yeah. And that is because I had that, it probably has really influenced the way I see the world now. And the way I'm able to talk about these things, the reason I talk about them the way I do is because of I've had that experience.

I've come out the other side of it, and I've learned something from Now, the like, societally, like, the cat is out of the bag of the hoe face. Right? Like, that is you might think of your young adult experience as like that being what you're supposed to do. That's how mainstream it is. Right?

So so you can't, like, not have that idea in the first place. So you have three we'll we'll say women for the the thought experiment. Woman a had a hoe phase. Woman b did not have a hoe phase, but is curious and maybe wishes she did. Woman c did not have a hoe phase and does is glad she did not have a hoe phase.

Right? In in my mind, woman three is like obviously obviously great. Okay? I mean, that she's unique. But woman one and two are not actually different.

Because if you're in a relationship with woman one, I mean, they're different, but it it like, you're going to run into maybe similar issues or like, obverse issues with both of them. Like, woman one is going to, yeah, either be like, I really appreciate you and I learned something from this whole phase and you are what I want, or she's going to be like the woman in the example tweet you shared where she like is a little bit resentful because maybe she doesn't feel like you know, she feels like she could have done better. But woman two also is like now, she's not comparing you with the men that she was hooked up with in the past, but she's comparing you with the men that she imagines herself having hooked up with during her imaginary hoe phase that she kind of wishes she had. And like, I don't know if it's actually worse to be with woman b than with woman a.

I'd rather be with woman a because woman b is gonna be changing during that and saying, you know what? I made a mistake getting into a relationship. I do need to encounter the whole phase. And I'll keep these details light, but a family friend who was what he thought happily married, having merged two households and two sets of kids together, out of the blue, his wife just said, You know what? I realized I didn't have enough fun when I was younger, and I want to go out and dance and go clubbing, and I need to end this.

In her mid forties.

Oh my God. It was

a shock to him, and it was a It shock to was horrifying.

Yeah. So I'm yes. Okay, yeah. I think that's correct. I think that you're correct.

Cody. Pat Buchanan.

No, yeah. I I think that's a good I think that's a I think that's a really good thought experiment. And I think if I had to choose, I would probably say one as well. But I mean, given the choice between a and b, or one and two. Obviously, we all want three.

That's the ideal. Yeah. So be three if you can.

I think I still almost prefer granted that she appreciates me and isn't like doesn't have any resentment, right, like does genuinely feel like I'm her soul mate, I think I still prefer one over three, which is Really?

It's a

little bit it's a little and I would have thought that that was insane, like, two years ago. Right? But it's a little bit to me, a little bit like have you ever heard the stories about, like, in World War I where, like, a British soldier and a German soldier would find each other alone in the woods and they wouldn't kill each other? They wouldn't even fight? They would just be like, oh, they'd be like both taking a piss or something?

And and it's like, you know, when you're in the trenches, it's like very, like, you know, oh, like these, you know.

They had Christmas Day soccer matches between the front lines between the German and British soldiers, and the desire to kill each other wasn't really there. It was more that if you're being shot at, you're gonna desire to save yourself, and then it turns into a never ending escalation. But there was very little, from what I understand, animosity soldier to soldier. Right. Well, it's like, you know, I've like slept with a lot

of women. So like for me to like, I've dated girls who were like very repulsed by that fact and like did not like that I had done that in the past. And they were very oversensitive to like anything about that stuff.

But is that jealousy or is I that think largely jealousy. Because equally, I've had other women say things like, oh, a lot of the other girls liked him, and that was a turn on for me.

Yes. I think that I think that if we're talking about women A, B, and C still, I think women A are much more likely to feel that way of, like, you know, the social proof effect of it than woman C. And when I've dated girls who are like woman C, they've always been, like, even a little touchy about sex because they're, like, thinking about like, like, they're worried about my body count, which is funny. I'm like, you're supposed to be impressed by me. But with the women, A, it's a it's a little bit like, like, know, I was in the army.

It's a little bit like if I sit down at the I sat went to a bar, I sat down, and there was a guy who was in, like, the Irish like, the Northern Irish Army or, like, the IRA or something. And it like, I was immediately, oh, like, we we can we can sit here and talk all night and, like, instantly understand each other just of, like, having the shared experience a little bit. So, like, like, if if I if I date a girl who has, like you know, I'm not saying she's, like, had sex with hundreds of guys or something, but, like, who, like, understands that part of life a little bit, like, we can kinda, like I can tell her about something I learned in a past relationship without her being instantly, like, jealous and uptight about it. Because, like, she that it allows this level of openness where, like, you can actually talk about I'm not saying you're, like, telling her about all the, like, girls you banged and, like, how good it felt, but, like, you're all the juices and things. But like If you could go back and not have your hoe phase, would you?

No. I would do it again. I would have I would would choose better.

So maybe the different question is, if you were to design the optimal life, would it be falling in love and met which you probably did, and then marrying your high school girlfriend, which would have led you know, and then and then the question is, okay, are we then imagining reality with statistical divorce, or are we imagining long term relationship with your high school girlfriend with kids and a stable marriage? It would be hard for me to imagine, given how much I've changed and how much I needed to grow and how much I grew, it would be imagined it would be hard for me to imagine that would have lasted just because of what I needed to go through. But no, I think my life would have been better if I had married my high school girlfriend and had four or six kids and did that archetypal life.

Yeah. You think that. But then also, if you did that, you would be thinking like, you need to have enough of a taste of each life. Like, definitely, I've gone too far in the other direction where I'm 32 and I should be married by now. But if you married your high school girlfriend, you would just be sitting here having the same question about the opposite side of life.

You'd be like, would it be better if I'd done these other things? I think that if you're designing the optimal life, it's like probably have enough one night stands, one or two, to understand it's not actually fulfilling. Have a couple short term relationships so you understand, like, what actually maybe, like, not a great relationship looks like or, like, you you, like, kind of, like, see what's out there. And then maybe when you're, like, 22 to 25, like, actually meet the right person and settle down and, start. You're still starting early at that point.

But I think you need to kind of see over the it's like when the Amish, they do Rumspringa. Right? And the reason they do that it's like if you're if you don't know what that is, it's like if you're Amish, they let you go out and go wild for one weekend when you turn 18 or something, then you come back. And the reason they do that isn't like go have fun. It's to say, okay, this is what the alternative is.

So when you come back and you still wanna be Amish, we know it's because you really wanna be Amish and you're really opting into like this life. You're not just doing it because you were like born into it. It's like a way of, like like, forcing an opt in.

I think it's longer than than a week. I think it could be even be a year or two, but there's a there's an end date to it. And if you don't come back into the fold within that end date, you don't get to ever come back.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the way I look at it. It's like you need to, like I'm not saying you need to sow your wild oats. Like, if if the if your high school sweetheart is the one for you, like, by all means, marry them.

But you don't wanna have this, like, lingering thought in your head that's like, is there another way of living my life that's actually better than this? Like, you need to see enough of that to know, actually, that's not what I want. I really appreciate what I have right now.

Yeah. I think I agree with both of you. I think the ideal is to marry your high school sweetheart, and then be okay with that and be satisfied. How realistic is that for most people? Hard to say.

Most people probably do need to just realistically have a wider experience of life so that they can be more happy with the ultimate choice that they make. Although, I think that, you know, that does damage you irreparably, and so you pay a cost for that. And the ideal would be to not pay that cost. But is that realistic? Probably not for most people.

And what if that cost is never meeting your grandkids because you started too late, or at minimum, meeting your great grandkids. You know, that cost of how old are your kids when you pass away. You know, my dad started late, and I was early 30s when he died, so he never got to see me turn into a different person. His view and his relationship with me is literally truncated by his death, obviously. So I think there's these huge secondary downsides of delaying that which you find valuable, just like I think some of us would say that, you know, going to college and then getting a useless PhD delays whatever workforce involvement by nine years.

It's a those years aren't coming back.

Yeah. For sure. I would say the of all worlds would be one in which, like I mean, this is like the it's just like the perennial problem of older generations trying to pass down wisdom to the younger generations. And the kids never listen because, like, they have to go learn the lessons themselves.

And then and then that's the question of what are the pros and cons of the rigid societies that force things to onto people attempting, I'd like to say attempting to do their best for the society. And that to me is is a fascinating question because we've we've pretty much thrown that away. Right. We've thrown away the wisdom of the generations, and it doesn't seem like it's left off less left us better off. We might be having more fun, but I don't think we're better off.

Yeah, no. Well, problem is that it's always done Advice is always given poorly, and the wisdom is always done poorly. It is instantiated in these institutions, and in these ways of acting and being that are sort of delivered just via force and fiat, just via the stick. They just say, just deontologically. Just do this because it's the way that we do it, because I said so.

And that's easy to rebel against. Way that it needs to be delivered, and I think this is the best you can do, and what I would try to do here, is to give a full picture. So you don't tell the kids, you don't tell people this is how to behave. You try to give them an understanding of the trade offs. You say, listen, the vast majority of people who go and live a wild life, you do incur a cost.

It's not free. And the liberal, libertine view on life is not totally correct. It's not just empowerment. There's an element of truth to that, but there's also but it's not fully correct. So you feel that itch, just know, like, so I'm not telling you how to live your life.

You can decide for yourself. Just know that nothing is free, and that if you delay family formation, if you delay fine, you will pay a cost for that. And keep that in mind as you make these decisions, so that you don't get surprised at the age of 35 when you're still not, you know, whatever. You haven't found your partner, and you've been living this libertine life for the last fifteen years, and etcetera, etcetera, and because you've been the cult, like what you were told by the culture. Right?

That is the way to do it. Like, give people the knowledge and tools to make informed decisions, etcetera.

Also, if you make it fifteen years of living a libertine life like that and just having free sex or whatever it is that draws you to that lifestyle and you don't inherently recognize that it's not actually fulfilling until you're 35, you are retarded. There is something wrong with you at that point. And I'm okay

with I think it's really common these days. I think Yeah. I mean, there's a selection effect, obviously. But I talk to these people every day, right? It's, you know, sure, you can if we're blaming the people, it is like most people.

Right? Like if you want

It's not your fault. It's okay.

I mean, it it like it is and it isn't. It's like it's like, you know, I don't know. Like, yes, should should you be a genius jack rocket scientist with like, sure, yeah, there's always a better version of yourself you could be, but also the culture's broken. Like, also, you're being lied to.

There's corollary to this where we all appreciate that some people should and should not have credit cards. We all appreciate that there's a limit to those credit cards, and this isn't just the business decision. This is the law. You can't, I don't think, have a credit card for someone under the age of 18. So we've established this rigid framework that almost doesn't need to be explained in that you can't get a credit card too early.

But then you look at what happens even if we take everyone and say, let me explain to you the downsides of overspending your credit card and maxing it out. Man, the number of of things we've seen on YouTube about people explaining that they just didn't understand credit cards, I don't know if you can explain to enough people in the world the pros and cons of doing something and expect a positive outcome. I absolutely see why traditional societies force this with no option to to waiver because what what's the percentage of people who will mess this up? When that percentage hits twenty, thirty, 40%, I can totally see why someone says, you know what? Let's not explain.

Let's just make it a law.

Nope. Yeah. Well, it is there is like a certain it is income as someone who knows better, it is, at at a certain point, incumbent upon you to, like, enforce or impart this information to the people who don't naturally know any better. I was thinking about a past girlfriend told me this story about her grandmother, and she didn't have a good relationship with her grandmother. And it's because when my ex girlfriend was like a teenager, her grandmother criticized her for like, quote, dressing like a slut.

And I'm thinking like, you know, in that moment when your grandmother said that, like, she actually did have wisdom to give to you and she did have a lesson to teach you. And she failed to do it because she couldn't communicate effectively. But it's not your fault for being a young girl who doesn't know any better, it's your grandmother's fault for having lived an entire life and learned this lesson along the way, but also have having not learned how to communicate the important thing and true thing that you need to hear in a way that you need to hear it. Like, that's your grandmother's failing. It's the old person who's wise is it's their job to communicate the truth and the lesson to the young person who doesn't know any better, not the teenager's job to, like, receive criticism and wisdom from an old person.

Because young people have never been

able to. I tend to agree. And and responding to both of you, like, I take your point, Stoney, but I would say like, it feels like we've never really tried the thing where we just like give good advice that paints the full picture. So it's like, yeah, I guess if that if we try that and it still results in like, you know, whatever, everybody messing it up, as you say, like, you know, maybe we can have the conversation then. But it feels like we've never actually done that.

It feels like I don't know that.

Well, there's no like, you you can't I don't think you can really what are we talking about? Like, let's tie this to reality. What we're talking about is communicating a set of relationship norms and sexual norms to society at large who needs to hear it and needs to understand these things and what?

Yeah, that successfully allows people to that preserves a sense of self determination while also, you know, allowing them to make the choice that for most people results in a happy life in the long term.

I mean, there's too much noise, right? Like, sure, okay. No, a lot of people are trying to communicate this. Like, in some ways, like the church is trying to communicate this. Right?

But it's it's because there's so much noise. Like, by by definition, people who people who need to be told what to do in a certain sense also are probably the same type of people who are lacking the capability to figure out which of the messages from the world they're receiving

Yeah. The That's

right way to live, which one they should listen to.

And yeah, go ahead.

We're completely comfortable with passing laws around this. Even for people who want to legalize drugs, I don't think anyone wants to legalize fentanyl. So we've come to the conclusion that, as a society, we want to ban fentanyl regardless of people's individual desires, partially because those who want do fentanyl aren't making the greatest decisions. And we've come to the conclusion, you know what? We're gonna restrict individual freedom to make a better society.

So I I don't think you can just say to people, hey, here's the downside to doing fentanyl. That's pretty much covered. You know, you can just walk down the street in in a high drug use area and see the literal dead bodies. So so pro fentanyl is is not an issue.

So what is the what what would you let's say you're the you're the god emperor, Stoney. Well, what law are you proposing?

I'll answer that in a roundabout way. I think the right thing to do is to look back over all of history and all of society and say, when did things seem to work the best? Because I'm not smart enough to know if I do a, the downstream effects are gonna be b. I I can only guess at that, and the people who currently do that seem to make some really awful decisions. The people who try to optimize our society, presuming they know the outcome of something, really have made some, I think, horrible mistakes.

I would just look at, okay, what when did society seem to be the most productive, the safest, the happiest, and how do we how do we architect something similar to that?

I know what it was.

Well, what's the answer to that?

It's when women started using the computer. Men started using the computer in, like, 1987. Things were still going fine. We've actually there there's a there's a very women started using the computer in about 2001, same year as 09/11. I'm not saying that they're connected, but I am saying that you can point to 2001 and say, that's kind of where things started to go off off the wires a little bit.

That's true about everything.

In the nineties, we're a golden age. So let's let's say 1987 to 2001, golden age. Men on the computer, men on the Internet, women not. 2001, women log on, all hell breaks loose.

Repeal the nineteenth.

No. No. They can vote. They can vote. They just they if if if a if a if a woman is going to be on the Internet, she should have to type HTTPSColonSlashSlash before anything else.

And and that should be if you're if for women women need to only be accessing the Internet through like a command terminal. Right? Through like a like a an Apple two computer.

So we're gonna redo Instagram as a terminal?

No. That's the point. There will be no Instagram.

No. It'll be it'll be a terminal.

GUI is the problem. Like Yes. The right. If you have to code to use the computer Yes. Problem solved.

If if if a woman wants to use Instagram, it has to be like slash lookupfriendphoto. So Steve

Jobs cause all our problems. The graphical user interface

Yes.

Flash nice fonts and pretty colors on the screen Yes. Cause all our problems. Okay. So so so we could we could talk about this forever. Let's try to wrap it up here.

Obviously, we're not gonna change society tomorrow. Yeah, I would say the advice of the individual is like, yes, some individuals are not capable of making good decisions. Even the greatest advice in the world, they're a lost cause. For those who are capable of making good decisions, know that there is a cause. It is not free.

It's human nature. You can argue with it all you want, but it's simply the case that most people and certainly most guys care about body count. They care about your past. And are there guys like Wes that don't care, or that you like, sure, fine. But that is a dangerous path, you are incurring a cost, and you should be very careful about how you incur that cost.

Also, ladies, just tell me the number. I'm not gonna ask, but just at some point, tell me the number.

It's also just like statistical, like known fact that people with higher body counts, like their relationship quality and likelihood of relationship formation and long term stability, like, very highly correlated. They plummet.

True. So Thank you for for an amazing episode, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you. Handsome Hour.

Handsome Hour.

Just do it.

It's the handsome hour.