 How can someone who's been viewed as a harmless Asian guy their entire life change now? Let's talk about it. This is a classic internet debate. Oh, we got to talk about this viral post on Reddit. It says, struggling with coming across as the harmless, non-threatening guy. This guy basically introduces himself. He's a 30-year-old Chinese American. He has had success in life, career, and even he feels his looks and physique, but he still struggles with being seen as harmless, non-threatening and goofy, which is the biggest single reason he reveals that he has been prevented from dating the higher quality women that he feels like he should be getting. Oh, yeah. And then he goes through saying like he does date women, but then he apparently only attracts very toxic controlling women, perhaps because he gives in to them. And he's just like, I just need a stronger personality. I don't want to be so agreeable. I don't want to be so non-threatening because maybe women don't find that sexy and masculine. So I guess we're going to talk about it in this video. We'll try to break it down, you know? Yep. So make sure you like, subscribe and turn on your notifications. But real quick, we got a word from our sponsor SmalaSauce. Get it at SmalaSauce.com right now. It goes great on everything. A lot of people like it. Check out the Instagram at SmalaSauce to see all the cool content that we've been creating for it. Yo, I mean, you know, I'm going to be honest. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't gone through some percentage of this myself. You know, I think anybody who was born into a highly academic Chinese American family, Asian American family, it seems to be honest, more prevalent. This, this type of situation seems to be more prevalent in the Chinese world. Yeah. I mean, and let's talk about why being seen as a harmless Asian guy is so bad, right? Obviously, do you want to be a scary Asian guy? Well, there, there's actually some pros and cons to everything, right? Well, maybe you would like the potential to be viewed as a threat, right? Not that you are, but you'd like that like in your back pocket. Let's talk about a lot of Asian guys who maybe he's not super tall and maybe he doesn't have like a super chiseled face and a lot of facial hair. Oh, he does go on to say that he was growing up and he had the smallest physical frame out of everybody, which made him feel like he needed to be extra role agreeable to fit in. Right, right. And but being a harmless, smaller Asian dude in America, maybe with no facial hair or strong muscles, it might make you feel like that everybody's just seeing you as like a friend or they want to take advantage of you. Low key your friends like subconsciously might do that because you're such an agreeable person and you're not like your stature isn't tall. So then you're short, but then your personality isn't very big either. Right. And I feel like he's not really saying that guys are taking advantage of him, but maybe he feels that women are taking advantage of him. Right. Possibly by saying the really controlling women are the types that only gravitate towards him for long term relations. No, I mean, this is common. I would say like sometimes I feel like maybe more so in years past, but I feel like I would get viewed as like a harmless Asian guy. You know, and it's not that I am a dangerous Asian guy and like you don't want to be viewed solely as that either, but you just feel like you are going to get slightly disrespected in certain contexts if you seem or act or appear too harmless and too nonthreatened. Right. It's almost like you're not saying you're a pit bull. You could be like a golden retriever or a terrier, but you're getting treated like a Pomeranian. Yeah. No. You would see a Pomeranian or a little dog. You're like, oh, that's so cute. And you're just rubbing. You're just like, I just like killing a dog. Can't do nothing. No, no, no. I mean, I'm not going to lie and say that I don't relate to this original poster at all, like 0% because I remember in the past, like even like three years, this one chick that I dated for a while who are not a while, but like she was like quote unquote like a baddie. And every time we would go out. It's like constant compliments from men and women and whatever like that. And just free stuff comp. It was just like that level of situation. But I remember she was really controlling and ultimately just too much to deal with it. Like the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. So I've even been through that situation where it's like where I was like, yeah, I finally got a model. And then it's like, man, she's trying to control my life and it's not worth it. Oh, all right guys. So we're going to get it. We don't have all the end all be all answers for everybody. I don't personally know this guy. He definitely needs some close bro homies to like talk this over with that actually care about his life, but we'll do what we can. Yeah. Do you think it's true that being this goofy, agreeable, nice, harmless guy that girls want to be friends with? That's not the person. I'm assuming he's talking. Let's just be shallow here for a second. This guy's talking about like baddies. He that's not the personality. Archetypically, the baddies want. No, no. I mean, and I mean, listen, you have to be the male version of the female that you're trying to attract in a way. You know what I mean? Like you have to know what you offer her. And so that's how I would look at it. And yeah, I mean, I don't know what he means by high quality of women. If he just referring to better looking women, which is that's somewhat of a shallow way to look at it. Although I understand what he's saying. It's a very guy way of looking at it. A very guy way. A little bit young too. It's a little bit younger. Yeah. Or maybe he just feels like that he should have the direction and he should be steering the ship in a relationship of like, oh, babe, you want to go here? Like I got the plan here. You know what I mean? Like that where we could go do this and that. But is he is he saying that he's coming across as like, I don't know. I don't know what I want to eat. What do you want to eat? And he was like basically saying like he doesn't like that he is that way in his relationships and he feels like it's resulting in his, I guess, lower overall rank in the marketplace. Yeah. I mean, honestly, without knowing this guy, there's no photos, right? Yeah. What I would say is like the number one thing I think a lot of guys overlook is like they get muscles, they hit the gym, they get the new haircut, they buy some clothes, they kind of like know how to make themselves look better. But that doesn't necessarily change the personality. I think one thing that a lot of guys and what I've heard from women that I've talked to or gone out with is that a lot of guys are not very straightforward. Now you don't have to be the smartest guy to be straightforward, but you kind of do have to know your direction and have a vision for yourself and know yourself and what you do and don't like. And it sounds like this guy is more just always going along with the flow of things versus dictating the flow, which is a more alpha masculine thing to do. Yeah. I think it is ultimately like something that more guys, if they probably wanted to take control of their life, they'd have to craft an image for themselves, stick to their principles, have a spine, have a backbone and really like still make some other adjustments. But really it's almost like if you come to me, then it's going to be a good fit, but I'm sticking to my principles. I'm not shifting my backbone and my spine, just out of whim to try to get more opportunities. Exactly. Exactly. So I guess David real quick before we get in the comment section because there's a lot of other Asian bros weighing in on this. But what are some things that you would just recommend off the top of your head? Well, first off, first off, let's be honest, and as is classic with Reddit here, do you think this post means that much without photos? Man. Without photos, without understanding the exact city. We don't know you, bro. This is so weird to give advice from a written text. It's so vague, right? It's so vague. I have no idea where you are, what you look like. I'm assuming this is a nerdy Chinese guy who's a tech consultant, though, who went to a top 10 grad school. That's the information that he's given. Sounds fit. Maybe he's got a jawline. But not only the truth is fit means something different to everybody, right? Like people are, are you going by your mom and dad standard from the motherland? Are you talking about American standards in the bodybuilding gym? Are you talking about Hollywood? Those are all different thresholds, right? Anyway, I do think you probably should hire a personal trainer. And you know what I realized? You know how a lot of people are always like, oh man, personal training's so expensive? You don't need personal training forever. When you sign up for it, you're not buying it in perpetuity forever. You could get it for like two weeks, a month, two month, like as much as you need, right? People think like you're signing a year long or like 10 year contract, bro. You could hire a personal trainer for like a month. It's totally worth it. You'd learn a lot from them, too. Yeah. And you could even hire a personal trainer for like sports that you like. Yeah. Like it's nothing wrong. You could hire a personal basketball trainer for like a month and he'll teach you stuff about your game that you never ever would have picked up. Exactly. Even if you're training with your friends. Another thing that he should look into is therapy. Oh. Look, here's the thing. You need different therapists for different issues. He may have some sort of masculine frame issue in his social life, not even his career life or his potentially his STEM career, STEM consultant career's not, you don't need to be hyper masculine for that anyway, necessarily. So I'm saying if he needs that, he should maybe get a male therapist for that particular aspect. Alright, normalizing mental health. Should he take a look at martial arts, Andrew? This was a common thing that got brought up and not just obviously this thread, but a lot of threads. Yes. I think probably he's, I know he's considering BJJ. I don't think I have a particular martial arts I would point him to. I will say this though, that boxing gyms do feel different than other gyms because boxing is a Western thing. It's not an Asian centric martial arts. So I feel like. It is even, even more. Yeah. It's more like Latino guys and American thinking guys at a boxing gym. I think that might be interesting for people. Of course, I value Muay Thai, MMA, you know, like BJJ gyms. I think those are cool too. But I'm just saying for a cultural social aspect, I think boxing gyms do offer something a little bit different. I think you just got to get in where you fit and like find a martial art that you really relate to, that you that you like. And it should be full of guys who like, know how to do things like cook or like change tires and stuff like that. Another thing is once you learn that martial arts to a good enough level, you can actually still teach like girls that you know, you know, a lot of girls don't know martial arts. They're like a zero out of 10. You can bring them up to speed to a two out of 10. You're teaching them something physical. That's also very cool. That shows you are masculine. So you're like a student, but then you can become a teacher to people whose level is lower than you. Yeah. Be a teacher, teach them something. Come off the bench for a rec league team, flag football, soccer, basketball. Obviously a lot of team sports, a lot of Asians, specifically from Chinese nerdy academic families, obviously you could be any type of Asian. I just happen to see this archetype more prevalent on a probability racial basis in the Chinese American community. Your parents may have put you in badminton or swimming only growing up. So you have been isolated from Western team sports, right? And you need the exposure in Western team sports to what to be around other masculine guys. I mean that, but I think teamwork, relying on each other, getting mad at each other, getting frustrated with each other, making adjustments, cheering for each other. When I say join a rec team, what I actually mean is even if you're not good at the sport, just be on the team and like be what it's like to be part of winning and losing together with guys. Right. You're saying even whether or not you're even contributing. Yeah. No. Contribute, find a way to contribute by like cheering on your teammates or like, or hyping them up or something like, just getting involved. I think a lot of guys like, they don't like yell enough and like cheer other people on. They're not loud enough. They don't just, they don't use their vocal chords and like say something positive enough. Do people need to do the archetypical buff guy things like get tattoos and be, you know, get a pit bull or get like, you know what I mean? Some type of like, you know, obviously having a pit bull dog and I'm not saying that, that's the extreme 10 out of 10 version is a very hyper masculine thing to do. Okay. I don't know about the dog. I get a French. Yeah. At least the dog with some muscle, right? Whatever about the dog. I think the dog having a pet like teaches you responsibility and stuff like that. But looking into getting a tattoo, bro, here's my thing. Listen, we all, we all Asian guys, if you don't have a lot of facial here, you're not very tall. You don't have a lot of like structure on your face or whatever. Like, you don't have an interesting look. How do you make up for that? How do you look interesting to people? How do you look masculine? How do you look like you have an edge? A lot of people get a tattoo. A lot of people get a visible tattoo. It's not wrong. I don't think it's right. You're talking about like below, below the elbow. Below the arm, on the arm, whatever on your calf, whatever it is. Yep. So anyway, guys, I mean, obviously those were just some quick recommendations we had off the top of our head. I'm not sure. I'm assuming just based off this post, he's talking about conventional masculinity. Anyway, let's just get into the comments section. Andrew, it sounds like you have a friendly small guy personality. There's nothing really wrong with it. It being authentic to yourself is better than, better than trying to be alpha because that could just be annoying on the other end of the spectrum. What do you think of this comment? Because they're just saying, yeah, I mean, what you have an enjoyable small guy, agreeable personality, but you just, you want to be perceived as like this ultra crazy damn Bilzerian dude, which is just not that. Yeah, that is true that he is just not that probably at a baseline and that's going to be very, very hard to change if possible, if impossible at all. But I would say, let's say on the agreeable scale, he's here and this is like a mass, ultra masculine dude. Realistically, you can only tick from here to here, but he could do it, but you're talking about one to two standard. Yeah, he just doesn't have to be as agreeable. Don't say yes to everything. Say you disagree with things. Say you want to lead stuff. You want to plan some things, you know, yeah, I would say, and this is kind of like a little bit of an aside is like, be open to dating women from Asia. Like you know, like that's like way different. I think that they are going to process things completely different because their mother board was developed in the East versus girls that are developed in the West. They may feel like this guy who's a tech consultant. It's already like, even if he has a good career and he makes his six figures, it's like too boring for them. Yeah, Eric, I am so glad you are such a reliable man. And I look up to you. It is so fun hanging out with you, Eric. This guy says learn to be disagreeable. Um, many Asian men lean or are very people pleasing because of a tough Asian upbringing. Some people said due to Asian moms sheltering them and babying them and coddling them like a little, a little emperor, little prince learn to disagree and have different opinions. Oh, but here's the thing about having different opinions. Make sure they're still well thought out. You should have passions, have opinions and know how to disagree with people. Be like, y'all, you know, actually, I think, I think there's another reason for that. Or like, oh, actually I, you could just say like, hey, actually I disagree, but here's what I think. That's kind of cool. That's like saying that's like showing like, you're not afraid to disagree. Especially when you're disagreeing with your date, you got to be tactful about how you do it. Right. Yeah, but you still got to show them. You have passions. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Omicases. I love omicases. Oh, hiking. Right. If you don't like hiking, don't go hiking. Yeah, but you can say it in a different way. Oh, I hate hiking, actually. You list off like 30 reasons exactly why you hate hiking. And then she's just like, oh my God, like, why do you hate hiking so much? Yeah, I just never went. It's stupid. Hiking stupid. Don't say that. This guy said that he's five, seven on a good day. He's not buff, but he's worked out with a lot of different chicks, even though girls tell him that he's girl coded, aka feminine. So basically he was like saying different lanes could work for different people. Yeah, man. I think you got to expose yourself to different types of people, man. Different types, all different types. Do you think he's fishing in a limited pool? Probably. See, I don't know anything about him. This is the thing. Everybody's trying to give you advice, but you just wrote like two paragraphs. We don't know anything else. This is why people always give the advice to people to become bartenders. Like on their, like part time. We're talking about like 10 hours a week become a bartender. You know what we can do in this video, David? We can actually give him solutions and result solutions. All we can do is give ideas for possible training. Right? Being a bartender, go into a boxing gym, joining a co-ed sports team or joining like this. You're exposing yourself to a lot of reps outside of your comfort zone and outside of the current rings of Saturn that you're exposed to. Yeah, joining a co-ed improv class. Like these are not things that are going to solve your issue, but they're just pointing you in the right direction of training that you may need. Right, right, right. Ultimately, this guy said your problem isn't external. It's internal. You don't know yourself or what you ultimately want. Exactly. I don't think this guy has a direction for himself. All right. So here's my takeaway. This guy, all I know is that he's a Chinese-American guy who's 30 years old and a tech consultant. He went to a good school. He has a upper middle class income or you know, like a good income, but he's getting treated like a friendly, goofy, agreeable nerd. Because that's who he probably is acting like. Right, right, right. But the thing is, you have to understand there's about 10 aspects of your life that would need to change on a consistent basis and need to have those social muscles or imaging or branding muscles like rebuilt from the ground up. It could work, but it would take years and it would take a lot of concerted effort. But you know what I noticed about Reddit, Andrew? A lot of people like, they want things to change but without really heavily changing themselves. Yeah, yeah. And I think one of my last takeaways is like, if you need to change your environment to get some reps in to like feel free to like talk to people and like become somebody different. You need to be outside of yourself or who you've always been, right? Not to be someone completely different, but like, let's say you go on a trip with a couple of your guy friends, right? Just into a different city even where you don't know that many people, but you like, then you get to feel more free and practice, you know, maybe be like, okay, maybe I'll act like a little bit more this way and I'll just see how it goes or something. I'll joke with that cute waitress or cute service worker girl. Or I'll even joke with like, I'm saying even like maybe the way he interacts with other guys too, that changes how you interact with women too, right? Like I'll be extra friendly to this bartender, guy or girl, you know, I'm just going to make small chat and like I'll be able to... No, let me try to make this person think I'm cool. Why don't you play that game? And obviously, you know, to extrapolate it to the high level, it's passport bro-ism, which I'm not even against to be honest, I just think it's like how you execute it. But like, I guess, is the tough part that I got to ask though, is the tough part that who he is not really appealing to what the goals he wants right now? Is that true? I'll say this, one thing to take a look at is Canada too. In Canada, they're probably cooler like a nice tech consultant guy. Like that might not get knocked as many like uncooled points in Canada. I agree. So take a look at Europe, the EU, Western Europe, it just tends to be less hypermasculine to be honest. So yeah, I mean, those are all different suggestions. What do you guys think in the comments section below? I mean, like we said, a lot of Reddit posts, they're kind of very vague. They don't provide enough information. There's no photos, but that's what people like about Reddit is the anonymousness. But also that's the disadvantage in terms of providing advice to these people. Let us know what you guys think in the comments section below. What are ways that guys who are unhappy at 30 years old or whatever around that age range in terms of like, man, I got slotted into this lane and I kind of fulfill these stereotypes, but I don't want to be in this lane anymore. I want to shift over here. What are things they can realistically do? Let us know in the comments section below. Keep it civil until next time. We're the Hop-Hop Boys. We out. Peace.