https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=GIyAg7C-CyE
Where are you living right now? I’m close to Chilliwack in British Columbia. Are there speed dating, is speed dating available there? I don’t know if there’s services like that, but I know a lot of people are using apps on your phone like Tinder. Yeah, one of the things I like about speed dating, like at least once, is because it gives you a chance to talk to a very large number of women very rapidly. Well, first of all, that’s a good way of its exposure, right? It’s a good way of overcoming that fear of initial contact. But I think it also introduces you in a very blunt way to the diversity of personality, right? Because what you’ll find if you go on a speed dating retreat is that there’ll be nothing between you and the girl. In many cases, there’ll be something there. Sometimes, sometimes that’s OK. You don’t have to be attractive to or attracted to anyone, everyone. Forcing exposure to that wide variety of experience in a short period of time can be a good way of overcoming your fear. A lot of that’s just an experience, that fear, too, right? So you’ve got to figure out how to overcome that. And then I would say with apps like Tinder, it’s trickier because the degree to which sexual activity is implied in the initial meeting, in the initial agreement to hook up is unclear. But it might be worthwhile just to make a rule for yourself, which is that you’ll go on 25 Tinder dates, but you won’t engage in any physical contact because it’ll solve that problem for you. You know what I mean? And then you can concentrate on the conversation and you can concentrate on overcoming this inexperience that you have that’s interfering with your progress forward. But a rule like that just makes it simple. You need rules like that. You probably know this, but maybe you don’t. I mean, your experience with regards to being avoidant and afraid of contact with women is by no means rare. It’s unbelievably common among young men, and I think it is exacerbated by the factors that you just described, which is that we’re taught, young men are taught in particular, that any show of even confidence on their part might be interpreted as part of this toxic masculinity. And I think that, well, that’s something that would have to be unpacked for hours. I mean, what I would say is that women generally like men who have power but don’t need to use it. It’s something like that. And women who are uncertain and unsettled in their relationships with men would rather, for their own safety, that all men be rendered powerless. But that’s not helpful because it destroys erotic attraction and then all that happens is that men end up useless. So it’s not a solution. You know, like to destroy someone’s power is no solution to taming them, right? You want someone powerful but civilized, not someone so weak they can’t do anything wrong. And I think the message that young men get a lot in our society is, you should be so weak that you can’t do anything wrong. And that’s a really bad message. It doesn’t do anyone any good. You know, I’ve been seeing that, like, it seems like women are being told to be more masculine and that it’s a negative thing for women to be feminine and negative for men to be masculine. Even in Brampton where I was living, I saw these posters around their mall saying, who says women can’t be leaders? What’s wrong with throwing, like, a girl? And because it was being pushed on me so much, I felt like I was just accepting it. But now I’ve sort of seen through that. But yeah, I’m going to use that. I think that’s great advice that you just gave. Yes, well, we also have to account for the stunning popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey. You know, there’s all this surface talk about toxic masculinity and the overbearing rape culture that’s characteristic of men. And the attempt to, what would you say, I suppose castrate would be the wrong word, but maybe I’ll use it anyways. But then there’s this underground desire that’s manifest in the attraction of that sort of literature. I mean, that was the fastest-selling book in human history. And so there’s really something to be said about that. And the fact that those two things can coexist at the same time in the same culture is an indication of just how much conversation there needs to be about what the proper role of masculinity and femininity is. And also how to organize sexual behavior so that people are not pathologized by it. You know, it’s so interesting to me to watch what’s happening on the campuses because, and that’s emblematic of what happens in the broader world. I mean, at the same time we have discussions about how absolutely every form of sexual desire and behavior whatsoever is entirely permissible. We have the increasing multiplication of regulations about every single aspect of any sexual interaction between a man and a woman. I mean, those two things, the fact that those two things are happening at the same time means that something is wrong. I mean, maybe we should back off on the idea that absolutely every form of sexual interaction whatsoever is permissible and desirable. And simultaneously back off on the increasing enclosure of every physical interaction in a web of laws and regulations, most of which are going to be counterproductive and cause all sorts of trouble. you