 Welcome back to the 21 Convention, Orlando, Florida, 2018. Our next speaker's name is Sean T. Smith. He's a personal friend and a great guy, the author of The Tactical Guy to Women. He's going to talk to you today about how to keep the wrong women out of your life. Quick intro and story about Sean. I get a lot of stuff mailed to me from people that want me to talk about it or review it on my channel, and I got this book in the mail from him about a year ago. I think it was September last year. Open it up. Shrink writes a book. I didn't really have the best experiences with shrinks, you know, in the past with marriage counseling and so on and so forth. So I kind of put it on the table for a bit, but then when I opened it up and spent 10 minutes on it, I consumed it that same day. It's a great piece. If you haven't picked one up, grab one from the front. Guys, I want you to give a warm welcome to Sean T. Smith. Good morning. I'll tell you a story about a brilliant man. This is a friend of mine. We'll call him Mike. He's aware of what I do for a living and he urges me to share this story whenever I can. Mike was going into his second marriage and, you know, not his first rodeo. The first one was kind of rough and marriage was important. So he got back in the game and he was doing it upright and he was about a week out from his marriage and this thing was taking on some momentum because he had bought the venue and he'd rented the swanky restaurant up in the mountains for the reception and friends and relatives had taken their vacation time and they had bought their plane tickets and rented their hotel rooms and this thing was barreling down the tracks like a runaway train. And it was a Sunday morning, kind of like this, feeling mellow, maybe a little hungover, I don't know. And him and his lady, his fiance, decided to go to a coffee shop just to get away, just to have a minute alone. And as they were chatting, there was a lull in the conversation and she said something interesting to him. She said, I know how I'm going to die. Now some guys would have said, well, that's nice, dear. I'll go back to their iPhone, but not Mike. He's inquisitive and he's sharp. And he said, well, what do you mean? How are you going to die? And she said, you're going to kill me. So, yeah, this is a hell of a thing to hear on a Sunday morning with your wedding about a week away. And it wasn't the first time that he encountered something like this with her. She's a wonderful woman, smart, motivated, successful, intelligent, but she'd had these moments that we all get where her emotions sort of took over her reality of the world. And that didn't bother him so much because, like I said, we all experienced that. What troubled him was there was a little bit of lack of insight when this happened to her. This would become her reality, whatever it is that she was worried about at the moment. And for a few days, she wouldn't be able to bring herself back to reality. And that was kind of troubling to him. So he heard this statement and he was starting to notice a pattern. And guess what he did? He canceled the wedding. And you can imagine that people were not too happy with him because of all the investment, monitoring and time investment that people had put into this wedding, all the activity and on the bride's side, all of the women around the bride frantically doing whatever women do when they're getting ready to dress their friend up like a princess for a day because we're a weird animal and we do that. So all this anger and hostility and the social pressure, don't do that to a woman. Don't leave her at the altar. What kind of man are you? But that's what he did. And I'll tell you later how it turned out because it's an interesting story and it's a positive story. But what I'm here today to talk to you about is that I don't think it's ever been quite this dangerous to have the wrong woman in your life. And it doesn't matter whether your values are more aligned with Hunter Drew or Caleb Jones or anywhere in between. If you want women in your sphere, this is a risky time. If you're an old guy like me and you bring the wrong woman into your life, maybe you get to take a trip to family court and won't that be fun? If you're a young guy on a college campus, maybe you get to visit one of these kangaroo courts that's popped up all over the country where your future and your plans can be decimated by an unsubstantiated, anonymous complaint. And maybe you're just a guy who has an average one night stand like a guy who came into my office several weeks ago. He had a one night stand about a year ago and over the course of the last year, this woman who, by the way, she pursued him, she initiated, and once she had scratched that itch, she changed her mind. And she has spent the last year tormenting him. She hasn't called the cops. She has just systematically been destroying his personal and his professional relationships. And that's not counting just the average risks of having a woman in your life who is personality disorder addicted, traumatized, or has some run-of-the-mill mental illness that she refuses to get treated. And did you know that this morning in the New York Times, the Sunday New York Times, there is an article advising successful men how to handle it when they get accused falsely of rape. It's become that mainstream. This is where we are. And by the way, the first step is to publicly endorse the Me Too movement. Just tell them you like Big Brother. That's all. Just say you love Big Brother. Just say it. That's where we are, guys. So I don't think it's ever been particularly easy to decide which women to include it to your life. It's always been risky at the margins. And it's risky for women at the margins to bring the wrong man into their life. But I think Anthony Johnson made a compelling case yesterday that the margins have encroached into the mainstream. And this is a risky time to have the wrong woman in your world. And I want to make the case today that the men in this room are particularly at risk because I sit across in my office from a lot of guys who are putting their lives back together after they've had their plans torn as thunder by the wrong woman. And I notice something interesting with guys who are successful and motivated. There's a particular blind spot that they can't see with women. And I want to give you today something that hopefully will help you avoid this blind spot if you ever have the opportunity which hopefully you won't. But the problem that I noticed was successful, guys. Well, let's start with this question. What do women look for in men? Cross cultures and throughout time. What do we know about what women seek in men? Well, for complicated questions like that, I like evolutionary psychology because it's a nice framework and there's a lot of numbers and math behind it and research. And what evolutionary psychology teaches us is that women look for traits beyond physical appearance and beyond social connectedness. They look for personality traits and they look for traits that like intelligence, kindness, industriousness and the ability to provide. Those four traits show up over and over again in the evolutionary literature. And kindness, by the way, doesn't mean nice. I think a lot of you guys have already read that book and if you've met Dr. Glover this weekend, that guy, he's not a nice guy, but he's a very kind man. So kindness, intelligence, industriousness, industriousness and the ability to provide. So who am I describing when I say those four traits? Well, look around. It's you guys. I've been talking to you the last few days. I've been taking some notes and I'm watching you. I've never seen a group of guys like this in my life. Hundreds of men in the same room, squared away, motivated, ambitious, moving forward. You got your values in order or you're getting your values in order because your value should always be an ongoing process, right? You don't, values are not a destination or a process, but I've never seen a group of guys like this. You have, whether you think about yourself this way or not, you have what women are looking for. So congratulations. Here's the bad news. You're vulnerable. And there's, there's an obvious vulnerability and a less obvious vulnerability with successful men. The obvious vulnerability, and I know some of you guys don't think of yourself this way, but maybe change your frame around that. The obvious vulnerability is that when you have what women are seeking, you attract a larger pool of women than the man who doesn't have all of those qualities squared away. And in that pool of women, there's going to be your personal percentage of the opportunists and the gold diggers and the personality disorders. These are the ones that are going to make themselves very apparent to you. They're going to pursue you aggressively. They're the ones that are going to be right in your face. That's the obvious vulnerability. Here's the less obvious vulnerability that I see in my practice over and over with successful guys who possess what women want. It's that they're charmed. See, they're charmed with women. Women have never been much of an issue for them. There's two factors that go into this. I think number one is that women have always been present for them. They've never had to work as hard as the guy who has to go out and really pursue and try to earn attention. So it's easy for them. And because it's easy for them, women are just sort of present if one goes away, another one comes in and they don't have to work very hard. And this leads men to think that they're charmed with women, which they are. And how do people behave when they're charmed? Well, Napoleon thought he was charmed, so he marched to Russia and that worked out for shit. So these men who think they're charmed, a lot of times they're focused and they're driven and that's another quality that women are attracted to. And as they're focused and driven, they're not really paying attention to what women are telling them. And so some of these guys, they reach a point in life where professionally they're squared away and they get into their 30s or 40s and they realize that there's something that they want. They want that companionship. They want that family. Maybe they want children. And so some of these guys decide to get married without having done the work that men who don't possess those qualities have had to do. And so this is like getting behind the wheel of a Bugatti and you haven't even read the owner's manual. Maybe you get lucky and probably most guys get lucky and they don't wrap it around a tree. But for some of these guys, problems crop up in their relationship. And because they've been charmed and they haven't had to work very hard, they're not very skilled at handling those problems. And more than that, they're very prone to doing what they've always done, which is retreating into their work so that they don't have to face the problem. Or they come up with a short-term solution that only makes things worse in the long term. So what I want to give you today is some ways to check your experience, because this is really the blind spot that I see among these successful guys is checking their own experience. Now, I hear a lot of tips about things to avoid in women. And I think it's fine to have that checklist, you know, women who take too many selfies and women who are seeking attention from men. It's good to have that checklist to look externally at a woman and check her behavior and have some rule-outs. But the problem is you could have your top 10 list and a woman comes out of left field with number 11 that you never saw coming. But if you are in touch with how you're responding to her character, that's a pretty reliable sign. So we'll get to that in a minute. One of my favorite books is The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumont. And my little 11-year-old daughter in her seventh grade class read this recently, the abridged version, the little short version. And she was telling me about the discussion that they had about this book in the very feminist environment of her school and the very feminine nature of her teacher. And they were discussing how to interpret a book like this. Is it a religious allegory? Yeah, maybe. Is it a story of redemption? Possibly, I don't think so. This very feminine, lovely, talented woman who's leading this class in this feminine environment missed the most obvious point. This is the story of a man who starts out naive and idealistic and weak. And then as the world has its way with him and evil people enter his life, he chooses to make a transition. He transitions into a man who is capable and resourceful, powerful and generous and very dangerous. It's a story of transformation. And I think Alexander Dumont would have fit in nicely with this crowd, not so much with my little daughter's teacher, but in this crowd he would have fit right in because he understands masculinity and he understands the transformation. That's not really why I bring him up. The reason I bring him up is because Alexander Dumont, this guy who understands masculinity, he wrote another book called The Mohicans of Paris. And this is just a fun detective novel, right? This guy has a detective agency and this detective has a thought, this is a theory, that whenever somebody comes to him with a case of intrigue or murder, that if he digs far enough toward the truth, somewhere at the center of that story, he's going to find a woman. And the book starts with this line, chers et la femme. Now I grew up in a truck stop, so I don't speak French, but I'm told that it means find the woman. And this line appears throughout the book, find the woman, find the woman, find the woman. Now if you think of somebody in your life, a man in your life who's reached this mid-stage of life and things are going well, and he should have life by the short hairs, because he's done everything right, he's made all the right decisions. He should have money, he should have the house he wanted, he should have the success car he wants, he should have everything he wants in life. But for some reason, he's not firing on all cylinder, he's depressed, he's down, he's broke. And you could ask yourself, where's the woman? There's a guy who came into my office many years ago, we'll call him Dave, and he was just such a man. He was in his mid-thirties, and he had built himself quite a business. He wasn't run in the world, but he had built something that was reliably a provider for him, and it would have seen him through for the duration. And when he got to his mid-thirties, he decided that something was missing, and he wanted that female presence in his life in a meaningful way. He'd had girlfriends, of course, but he wanted family, he wanted children. And so he went on a mission, he was a problem solver, like so many of us. He saw a problem, it was a clear solution, he had to find a woman. So he started looking around and putting himself out there, and the first woman that came along that really fit the bill, man, they were together, they were just peas and carrots for like three months, everything was just wonderful, they fit perfectly, the sex was great, she was smart, she was intriguing, she was everything he wanted her to be. Well, as it happens, about three months into their relationship, she had a little problem with her roommate and decided to move out. I had some kind of tiff, I don't know what it was, whatever roommates fight about, and Dave, being a problem solver, he saw a problem to solve and said, well, I have a house, paid for by the way, and she needs a house, we'll just move in. It's a perfectly rational solution. So a couple more months go by, and as it happens, this woman has a little tiff with her employer, and decides she's going to walk out on her job on a random Thursday or whatever it was, and so Dave saw another problem. Well, I've got this little company, it's not huge, but I can squeeze one more employee in, so he hires her. So here we are about six months into the relationship, and already this woman is in his house and in his business, and I don't mean in his business colloquially, I mean having the hands in his till. Well, about nine months down the road, right on schedule, her character, her real character starts to appear, and she's not the agreeable, lovely woman that he thought she was. She's actually a little bit disagreeable, and there are problems that never get solved in discussions and arguments that they can't get past. And about a year into the marriage, he starts to notice that not only is she disagreeable, but these problems are growing, and she's actually a little bit violent. This is a bad situation. If you've ever been in this situation, a violent woman in your life, that's no win for men. You know what happens if the cops show up in most municipalities? Bad situation. So he's starting to get a little bit scared, and about 15 months into the marriage, and I don't know what painted him as a victim here, because he contributed the problem, of course he did. In every couple, it takes two people to create hostility, so he was contributing, but the violence, no excuse for that, no excuse for that. And about 15 months into it, he realized, this is really going to shit, I got to get out of this. I'm headed for disaster, got to escape. Well, guess what? She wasn't in the mood to just walk away, because she felt entitled to this house that she'd been contributing to, and this business that she'd been contributing to. And so being fairly handy with the legal system, as he eventually discovered, she put him in a position where he could either face this contentious, what's the opposite of criminal court? Civil court. This civil court, she could take him to civil court and they could have this try or this disagreement that consumes an unknown number of dollars for an unknown period of time, or he could liquidate and buy her out. That was the position that she put him in. No marriage, no kids, no contracts, just the wrong woman in his life. And so what did he decide to do? Well, he consulted with his attorney, and the best thing for him to do was simply to liquidate, buy her off, start over. Wrong woman. So last I heard, he was doing okay. He built it once, he could build it again, I'm sure he's thriving now. But that was an expensive lesson for him. So if you were to meet someone like Dave walking down the street, should have the world by the short hairs, but he's dragging along and he's depressed and sad and broke, you could reasonably ask, where's the woman? Well, in Dave's case, she's over in her new condo with half his shit. Probably softening up her next victim. All right, so Dave's mistake. I don't want to beat up on Dave, but Dave made a mistake. Dave's mistake was that he didn't pay attention to those little signs of character that she was showing him early on. And we've all made this mistake. If you haven't made it with a woman, you've made it with somebody else. Somebody showed you what their character was really about, and you had this little intuitive message and you ignored it. Anybody ever done that? I've done that many times. I try not to do it anymore. So as I said, what I want to give you today is a way to check in with your own experience, because I think that's a more reliable sign sometimes than what she's showing you, particularly if you're a little bit smitten with her and she's a little bit smitten with you. So I'm going to have to remember three things, just three things to look for within yourself when a woman is approaching you and you're actually considering bringing her into your life. Like I said, I don't care if you're interested in notch count or marriage or anything in between. Having the wrong woman into your life is destructive. So item number one is idealization. I don't feel like to be idealized. Well, when somebody's idealizing you, it's not like the honeymoon. The honeymoon, you're not seeing each other clearly. And there's been interesting research on this recently where when two people are in a honeymoon phase, they're actually kind of altered state. They're under the influence of their own brain, and they're not seeing the world correctly. They're not presenting themselves as they normally are. They're not seeing the other person correctly. But that's different than being idealized. The idealization is when a person refuses or is unable to see your flaws, number one, and number two, this is more important, that you become the source of their emotional regulation. Here's what I mean by that. Let's say that a woman is starting to fall for my buddy Rich Cooper or is Richie back there somewhere. And this woman is starting to idealize Rich Cooper, which means that she's not seeing Rich Cooper as a three-dimensional person. Whenever he presents a flaw, she just blows right past it. And she thinks it's cute and charming or whatever, but she finds a way to dismiss it. And maybe this woman is having some problems in her life, like maybe she doesn't like her job, but she couldn't have a bad day at work if she tried because all she has to do is think, oh, Rich Cooper. Rich Cooper is in my world, and that makes everything okay because she's seeing Rich Cooper as some kind of combination of who he really is and who she imagines him to be. And do you see the problem with this illusion? Well, the problem with any illusion is disillusionment. Eventually she's going to start to become disappointed because nobody can live up to what she's built in her head. And eventually, as she starts to experience that disappointment, she experiences something else. Now she's lost that center of her emotional regulation. And now Rich Cooper is no longer the source of her happiness. Now he's the son of a bitch who's responsible for all her misery. How dare you? So what does it feel like to be idealized? Well, you've all been idealized. And maybe it's not by a woman. Maybe it's a little cousin or maybe it was an employer who couldn't see and acknowledge your faults. And I want you to think about what that felt like so that when it crops up with a woman, you know how to identify that feeling. And maybe for some of you, it feels kind of good. Maybe you liked it a little bit. For most of you, it probably felt a little creepy and weird. Whatever that problem is or whatever that feeling is, that felt experience, identify it for yourself because it's a red sign or a red flag. It's a warning. That doesn't mean you have to run for the hills. It just means you need to stop, stop, slow down and assess what's going on. So that's number one. Idealization. What is it? Idealization. Very good. Item number two, intuition. Now as men, we're not really trained to listen to our intuition generally. And we're actually kind of discouraged. And it's not like anybody over little kids. It's not like anybody says to us, hey, you little crotch stain. You better stop listening to your intuition. I'll smack you a good one. It doesn't work like that. It's that we are taught to push through difficult situations. We are taught to push through difficult emotions and set them aside. And that's a wonderful quality. You need that quality. But the trade-off sometimes is that we turn away from what's going on inside. And I find that a lot of guys need permission to listen to their intuition. And permission, an effective form of that, is understanding how it works. I'm going to give you a really quick rundown of what intuition is so that you have permission to listen to it. There was a study back in 2000. It's one of my all-time favorite papers. It was by a young rock star researcher named Matthew Lieberman. And he broke down how intuition functions. It's not that complicated. See, our brains, they process information on different levels. There's this high level that we're using right now, this verbal level I'm talking, you're listening, we're engaging. That's one level. But then there's all kinds of non-verbal levels that our brain is processing information on. And where intuition is concerned, there's one part of the brain in particular that's kind of interesting. It's called the reticular activating system. And what this little part of the brain, way down deep inside, is responsible for is consciousness, arousal, and where you focus your attention. It's pretty important stuff. And then this reticular activating system, there's a little bundle called the ascending reticular activating system, or your ARAS. And what the ARAS does is it takes information that's coming in from all of your senses, not your olfactory sense, that's a little different. But all of your other senses, even your immune system, they're starting to think of as a third sense. But anyway, the ARAS is taking all this information, and the information is traveling up your ARAS, as one of my professors used to say, and is getting sorted. And some of this bubbling up all the way to this verbal awareness, but some of it stays non-verbal. It's information, that's all it is. It's just information, potentiation and little neurons. It's all it is. It's nothing magical. It's nothing feminine, just information. Now how does the brain communicate non-verbal information with non-verbal cues? So maybe you get a little upset stomach, or maybe you get something, you know, a little hair stand up in the back of your neck, or maybe you just get irritable, or something that you just can't drop, there's something back there going on, you don't know what it is, or you can't sleep at night. Whatever it is for you, I want you to be able to label that, because there's been some interesting studies on intuition. And some studies say that the information you get from intuitive non-verbal signals is more reliable than not. And I read another study that said that intuitive signals are less reliable. It doesn't matter, because here's how you handle an intuitive signal, whatever shows up physically or emotionally or cognitively with you, when your intuition is speaking to you. Step number one is just to recognize that your brain is processing something, and you don't know what it is. And then step number two, this is important, stop, just stop, so that you can ask yourself what's going on, what's, what is your brain trying to tell you? What's happening? Something weird is going on. And everyone in here who's motivated and ambitious, which is all of you guys, you have some way of processing information. You have some men that you talk to, or you go on a hike, or you smoke a cigar, whatever it is that helps you sort out some kind of problem that you're struggling with, apply that to your intuition. So number one, idealization. Number two is what? All right. Number three, confusion. And this is one that successful men are particularly prone to. This is a trap, being confused in the relationship. So what do you mean by that? I mean that she's giving you mixed signals, or you're in no-win double-buying situation. So she asked you to come over, and you want to go over, and you get there, and then on the phone, she sounded like she wanted you to just get there, and she's not talking to you, you get in the silent treatment. Or she's upset, and whatever you do makes things worse. These are little issues of confusion. And what happens with very successful guys, sometimes, is that they'll push right past that, because they got shit to do, not time for this. So they'll push past that confusion, they'll set it aside. Don't do that. That's a huge mistake. That confusion is telling you something. And I think one of the couple ways to recognize this, one, is you just have the sense that everything in the relationship is just a little harder than it needs to be. I guess relationship is work. That's one sign. Another sign that I've heard guys tell me is fatigue. Imagine, I don't know if this ever happened to you, but you're a little kid, you're an 80 or 10-year-old boy, and your big sister takes you to the mall with all of her big sister friends, because they're going to go clothes shopping. And here you are, you walk into this environment, it's all feminine, it's all these racks of clothes, and the energy just drains out of you, like a little puddle on the floor. You know what I'm talking about? That kind of fatigue, I just don't want to be here. This is sucking the life out of me. If you get a little hint, a little hint of that feeling, it might be an indication that this is a confusing relationship, or it's just taking more time and energy than it should. And if that's the case, again, you slow down. Don't ignore that shit. Slow down. Ask yourself, what's going on? What is my brain trying to tell me? And I told you there's three, there's actually four. There's a linchpin here that makes all of this work. In fact, it doesn't work without this, and that's the element of time. Risk management is, some people define it as reducing uncertainty on your goals, reducing the effect of uncertainty on your goals and ambitions. And one of the most efficient ways to reduce uncertainty with other human beings is to just take time and let their character show up and actually listen to what they're showing you. All right, so what are the three we got? Idealization, intuition, confusion, and then the element of time. And see, there's this push and pull between men and women, because women, like my friend Mike, and he's going to get married, women are always pushing to keep things moving. They want to keep the relationship going forward. They want to get that commitment. And I don't have any illusions about the genetics and the biology of that. I know what that's about, but I also find it kind of endearing because I have a soft spot for women. Your job is to push back. Use the element of time to your advantage so that you can find out who she really is. And again, I don't care if it's a one night stand. I don't think anybody should be having one night stands in this environment. That's just me. I think it's an incredibly risky thing to do. I think even for that, you better be vetting women carefully. Evolutionary psychology, well, let me back up a little bit. I already told you how I feel about evolutionary psychology. It's like my religion. It's wonderful. But there's this idea that's floated around in the vernacular for a few decades. It's the idea of the gatekeeper. And we hear that women are the gatekeepers of sex. Or yeah, women are the gatekeepers of sex, and men are the gatekeepers of relationships. You ever heard this? Okay, good. It wasn't just me. And the idea is that there's this rigid barrier. And on one side are women. And on the other side are men. And in order for a man to have sex, he needs to meet this list of criteria. And then he can pass through the gate. It's a very binary way of thinking about how men and women interact. And I've never really liked it. And evolutionary psychology doesn't seem to like it because one of my favorite books, another of my favorite books, is David Busse's Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. It's like my Bible. It even comes in two volumes, like the Old and New Testament. It's very exciting. You should check it out. It's a great framework for human behavior. And do you know that nowhere in these entire two volumes, you find the word gatekeeper, except once. It's one place where it appears. And it's in dismissive quotation marks. And it's in a passage about women's motivation to pursue polyandrous sex. That's more than one guy in quick succession. So it's hardly an endorsement of this gatekeeper idea that you hear about in the vernacular. What you find instead in evolutionary psychology over and over again is some version of the word choosy. And I like that word because as binary as gatekeeper is, choosy has shades of gray. A person can be a little choosy or a lot choosy. And you can put a lot of math behind this idea of choosiness. And that's exactly what evolutionary psychology does. Now, the idea of the gatekeeper, you can trace that all the way back to Darwin because he noticed that in a lot of species, it's the males that compete for the women. And then in 1948, a researcher, a guy who spent a lot of time in the basement were fruit flies. He was an evolutionary psychologist, I guess. They didn't really have that term then. But he noticed a similar thing. And he came up with this idea that eggs are expensive and sperm are cheap. And then that sort of morphed into this idea of the sexual gatekeeper and the relationship gatekeeper. But what evolutionary psychologist says, actually, is that choosiness is a behavior that's moderated by a couple of major factors. One is operational sex ratio, which is the ratio of men to women or males to females. And also the variability of quality in each one. So that's how those are the two factors that go into female choosiness. And the factors that go into male choosiness are those factors plus parental investment. That's a big one for males across species. So we have this idea of choosiness. And what it tells us is that even when it looks like females are being passive and receptive and just opening or closing that gate, actually, they're still participating. They're still participating in the game. They're still competing. We all know that. We've been talking about it all weekend. But if you're a researcher with some fruit flies, maybe it takes a while to figure that out. And in fact, with fruit flies, you notice something interesting. That males who spend too much time in courtship have shorter lives. And females who spend too much time being choosy have shorter lives. And neither one gets to procreate if they're stuck in this condition. So natural selection gives us some really interesting push and pull and risk management about choosiness. And we know that women are not just passive receptors. They're actually engaged in the game. And we know some interesting things about the way males across species compete. Like you have those mountain goats, the rams. You've seen pictures of them hitting each other with their big horns. And they're going through this ritual. And it's a pretty violent competition for territory and women. Giraffes do something similar. Chimpanzees are very hierarchical and very competitive among the males. And if you're a mid-level in the hierarchy and you're a male and you pursue a woman, female chimpanzee who has been, that was not a Freudian sliver. It was just me being sloppy. So I actually really like women a lot. If you pursue the wrong female, you might have your gonads ripped out, but not by her, by another male. And that's the interesting thing about the competition that exists among males across species is that it's actually a cooperative act that when males are competing, they're not trying to kill each other. When those rams are doing this, those giraffes are banging their heads together, they're not trying to kill each other. Those are males who are actually cooperating and trying to sort things out because it doesn't pay to destroy or kill a member of your tribe or your troop or your herd or whatever you live in if you're an animal. And human male competitions very much the same way. So this idea of choosing this, kind of lost my train of thought there because I started talking about chimpanzees and giraffes and rams. And I was going someplace like this. And where I was going is that there's a question that evolutionary psychology doesn't answer. It's really troubling to me. And the question is what happens when the mere act of pursuing a woman or female becomes dangerous. And not because you're contending with other men or other males, but because the female now has the power to destroy, to devastate any male who pursues her that she doesn't like. You don't see this anywhere else. You know, I don't know of any animals where if the male grunts in the wrong way, the female is going to rip his balls off. I don't know. I've not heard of this. But that seems to be the situation that we're facing right now. It's very unique. And so evolutionary psychology, with its notions of choosing this and all its ideas of math and risk management, it doesn't have much to say about a condition where the mere act of pursuing, the mere act of being in the presence of the wrong woman can destroy you. Evolutionary psychology doesn't have much to say about that. But I do. Because I didn't like that word gatekeeper for a while, but I'm starting to come around. Because that image of the gate, it suggests that there's something valuable, something precious that needs to be protected against an invading force. And that thing that needs to be protected is your future, your families, if that's where you're going, your contribution, your dent in the universe, as Rich Cooper says, and that invading force. I don't know. You could call it gender feminism if you want. I think that's sloppy, but I don't think it's wrong. And I'm coming around on the word gatekeeper because I've sat across from too many men who've had their lives destroyed because they invited inadvertently, unintentionally, invited the wrong woman into their lives. And Pat Campbell stood up here a couple of days ago and he told you something very important, and I hope you remember it. You're the prize, not them, you. And I hope you act accordingly because it's a fucking dangerous world if you don't. So, you guys, I don't want to leave it on a somber note like that. Let me tell you, let me give you a little something, a little ray of sunshine here. Let me tell you what happened with Mike when I finished that story. When we left off, the world was upset with Mike. His world was not a happy place. And he agonized over what to do for quite a while because he actually loved this woman. Really, like the way he talks about her still today. I was talking to him a few weeks ago about this. This tore him up because he actually really found her to be captivating, and he still does. But here's the problem. He saw this trait in her, and it wasn't about so much the fact that she would lose control of her emotions, because he recognizes it happens to all of us. The trait that troubled him was her unwillingness to examine that question. And he spent months trying to get her to examine the fact that she was the one who was losing control of her emotions and not seeing it, and it was rare. It's not like she was not bore-relying, nothing like that. She was just a little traumatized. It's understandable. And so after months of trying to get her to see this and saying, look, if it's just about the issue, we can work with it. And if it's just about you getting anxious once in a while, we can work with it. But what do you do with somebody who's saying, I'm not the one who's dysregulated. You're the one. You're so dysregulated, you're going to lose your noodle and off some people someday. It's not me. What do you do with that? He knew that that kind of process was going to happen over and over again, and it wasn't going to get better. And so as much as it broke his heart, he broke it off with her. Still says happy birthday to her, because he loves her. He couldn't be with her because he took his time. He did exactly what I'm talking about. He listened to his reaction to her, and he took his time against everybody's wishes. He used time to his advantage, and time showed him something that he didn't want to see, but there it was. So if we fast forward a few years, Mike has been in a different relationship, and this time with a woman who has a long, unbroken track record of stability and good humor and insight and all the things that make a relationship work with a woman if that's what you're after. Because as destructive as it can be to have the wrong woman in your life having a right woman by your side, that's pretty sweet. As somebody out here, I'm just on the elevator, told me it's the force multiplier that can take you further than you thought you were, further than you thought you could go. And what did Donovan just say about women in your life? I forgot how we put it. I thought it was kind of poetic, but same idea. Having the right woman by your side, it elevates you, or it levels you up. Forgive me, Donovan, if I'm getting it wrong, but we all elevate too. Elevate, thank you. But that's another story, probably for another day, because I think I'm running out of time here, so we'll leave it for that. With that for now, and I guess we could open up to questions if you want. I can't see any of you, so just shout them out. Right here in the middle. Thanks for your question. I appreciate the speech and all that you contributed to the Red Men group on the Saturdays that you did appear. What happens to the brain during the first three to six months of a new relationship? You kind of touched on your brain is under the influence. As I'm unplugging myself, I realize what has been happening to me with the things I've been learning. So what happens to your brain when you're in that infatuation stage? The research that I've read is kind of interesting, but it's a little bit non-conclusive. What some researchers have noticed is that there are some serotonin signatures in the bloodstream for somewhere between nine and 16 months. It depends on the study you look at, but somewhere in that time frame where your brain chemistry is literally altered a little bit. It's not very precise science. It's kind of like looking at Mars through a telescope, bouncing off of a mirror. It's an indirect measure, but it's enough of a measure to know that people are a little nutty when they're infatuated. You're literally a little bit drunk. It's not a great stage to be making decisions in. So my advice when I talk about how much time to take, my advice is get past that infatuation stage. And the way you know that you're getting past that infatuation stage is that you each start to look like actual humans to each other again, and little things start to annoy you. And when you start to see that other person as a fully three-dimensional person, then you're probably out of that stage, and then the clock starts. Then you get to see what shows up. Take your time. Yeah. Hey, over this side. Which side? Who's time? On your left. Is that God? Yeah. Love your book. I highlighted so much of it, I shouldn't have highlighted. So it's a broad question. I'm sure you see all sorts in your clinic. So the broad question is what do you do when there's sexual incompatibility in terms of more desire on one side than the other? And the instance is my female friend came to me her and her partner in mid-twenties, and she wants a lot more than him, and they talk about it. They're committed, been together for two years. I'm sure you see this in your clinic. What do you normally do? What you normally do is weed that out beforehand, because I guess it depends on how important it is to you. But if it's a no-go, then it's a no-go. Everybody has a list of things that they're willing to tolerate and not tolerate. And a problem like that, there's three things. Kids, money, and sex. And if you start out on the wrong foot, it ain't going to get better. So I guess you get to decide what do you want to do with the situation that ain't going to get better. Thank you. Yeah. How's it going, Sean? Hey, we're at. Hey, so right here. Yeah. Hey, so psychology major checking in, my question for you, and your speech was awesome, by the way. My question for you is, as the leftist feminist juggernaut has infested the media, academia, etc., how do you feel about the future of the field of psychology and the field being potentially compromised by this leftist crazy thing? It's fucking doomed. No. No, it isn't. Because there are two divisions of psychology. There's the academic branch where all this nuttiness has just taken hold. And then there's clinicians. And I know clinicians who are feminist, but they're not nutty because the reason they're not nutty is because they're in touch with human beings every day. And even if they have these ideas about men, when they meet an actual man, as they do over and over, it pulls them back toward reality. And I know one, I'm in a consultation, well, I shouldn't say who it is, but I know one therapist who brands herself as a feminist, but she doesn't hate men. I don't know how she's working that out in her head. I actually got a YouTube I'm working on with about feminism, but yeah, I'm not sure how she's working that out, but she doesn't hate men. So the clinical side will always be fine because the clinical side always pulls people in the direction of human beings. It's the academic side where people can start echoing themselves with their stupid ideas. That's where the danger is. And so how do you fight that? Well, I'm pretty loudmouthed about it. And I hope that after you finish, I hope you'll be loudmouthed about it too. Thanks, Matt. Yeah. Hey, doc. Hey. This side. Which side? It's much easier when it's not on a podcast. Quick question. So obviously, Cindy, Miston, Dr. Buss, my impression of your profession, you're essentially giving somebody a psychology degree that's narrowly specified to their problems. So it's a proactive measure, other than those two authors, who would you recommend for somebody to, I guess, there, get their one on one level psychological chops and learn this stuff before they have to pay you 500 an hour? I just realized this may not be the best question to ask you. No, no, it's fine. Your psychology 101, my favorite books. Well, Robert Glover's book, I know most of you guys have already read it, but it's like gospel for men. Steven Pinker is great. I think Steven Pinker will probably be my top recommendation, even though he's a neurolinguist, he's not a clinician, but he has a way of taking concepts that you can apply to yourself about how you work and about how the world works. And I give myself a little plug, too. I wrote a book called The User's Guide to the Human Mind. And what I did with that book is I wrote a book that the folks where I come from could understand, or the book that I could understand. Basically, I took behavioral, behavioral information and evolutionary information and how it connects with treating anxiety and depression and so forth. And I wrote a book for myself, and I've gotten a lot of good feedback on that. Thanks, Doc. Yeah. Who's next? Hi, Sean. Yeah. Could you elaborate on how to think about emotional nuance? I'm sorry, say that again? Yeah. Could you elaborate on how to think about emotional nuance in relation to dealing with passive aggressiveness in a relationship? Yeah, passive aggressiveness and emotional nuance. Emotional nuance is one of my favorite topics because if you want to avoid the borderlines of the world, this is the one thing you need to look for. It's very easy. Emotional nuance. So how do borderlines see the world? Well, you're good or you're bad. It's complete emotional dysregulation. It's painful. I feel bad for people with emotional, borderline personality disorder, but they veer from you're a good person, you're an angel to your bad person and you're a devil. And so emotional nuance is simply the ability to say, I'm mad at you right now, but I still like you. And if a person can say that, then they have emotional nuance. And then passive aggressiveness, I don't know. You all know what it looks like, I think. You know, somebody's being indirect. They're being obstinate. They're being resistant when they don't get their way. They're taking jabs. They're doing these little things that are rebelling against you, but they're not overtly rebelling against you. I don't know. I don't have time for that. And if you shouldn't have time for it either in my estimation. All right, everybody, let's give it up for Sean Smith. Thank you.