Based Camp - Romance Novels WTF

00:00:00.000 pretty much like all the reviews were like oh the grovel in this is really good yeah it's great

00:00:03.900 grovel it was just like like him groveling at her feet to try to get her to come back oh god

00:00:08.700 this is like a fantasy that women have yeah apparently no would you like to know more we

00:00:13.700 were having a conversation this morning in the car and simone has telling me she's like oh well

00:00:19.940 there's this amazing thing where it turns out i can get these uh popular romance books for free

00:00:24.500 and so i listen to them to go to bed every night nothing puts you to sleep like a romance novel

00:00:29.580 but you have to stop listening to them all after a certain point go into this because i found this

00:00:36.440 fascinating and telling about modern society yeah so not all romance novels end with like

00:00:45.080 the will they part you know where like the couple finally forms and comes together and like

00:00:51.540 sometimes there there are periods at which couples do like start becoming couple-ish way earlier

00:00:59.420 in the novel and the problem that i have when this happens is that i cannot tolerate the books

00:01:06.300 after that like in the beginning it's fun because you're like oh what's gonna happen i mean you know

00:01:09.960 what's gonna happen but what's gonna happen how is it gonna happen oh these people are driving each

00:01:13.860 other crazy the tension is so fun but once it does happen it becomes intolerable and i think the reason

00:01:21.320 why is suddenly it's basically all about toxic relationships it's all about drama it's about

00:01:27.740 one person you know lying to the other it's about tension it's about breaking up after that point or

00:01:35.460 someone's not being faithful than that i think when you were describing it to me this morning

00:01:41.160 you were like it keeps focusing on the interdynamics of their relationship yeah like even when it's

00:01:48.900 pleasant yeah like immediately switching they get in a relationship and then they say oh now you're a

00:01:57.060 couple now what are you going to achieve together which should be yeah yeah yeah it's interesting that

00:02:02.860 you have this different framing of okay well once you've sorted out the partner thing then you focus

00:02:07.960 on what you're gonna do with that person right like that should be the point and i think what

00:02:12.480 this says about larger society is that people have a totally messed up perception of what relationships

00:02:19.700 are all about as is indicated by romance novels which is to say that relationships are all about how

00:02:25.060 you feel and how your partner feels and you know after you get in a relationship it's either about

00:02:30.820 how how in love you are and how you do all these things for each other and how oh my gosh how

00:02:35.620 romantic it is and you're all it's all pleasure all the time and amazing or it's about oh he's not

00:02:40.180 listening to me enough you know oh with this tension or i have to lie to him about this or he's lying to

00:02:44.640 me about something so it's all about feelings feelings feelings all feelings feelings and it's not at all

00:02:49.780 about yeah i mean the whole point of becoming a couple is you you you then as a unit can achieve

00:02:56.600 more than you would ever achieve by yourself and also your partner can help you become a better person

00:03:01.660 now sometimes that transformation takes place during the courting process in these books where

00:03:06.020 like you know the the the protagonists will change and become better people over time or they'll help

00:03:12.000 one person become a better person but like once they become together yeah it just like everything

00:03:17.560 falls apart and i i don't know why a woman would want to get in a relationship like or get married in

00:03:22.600 the first place if she assumed that that was what was on the other end just like

00:03:25.780 you know making each other feel good um which i actually see a lot of relationships like this and

00:03:32.380 i think a lot of relationship breakdown is the misunderstanding and and i think it comes from

00:03:40.620 women more than men potentially due to engaging in these sort of books and stuff yeah the societal

00:03:45.100 norms that these books are establishing that once you're married you're a single unit you are basically

00:03:50.300 a single person from that point on you know one of the things that you sometimes do when you like

00:03:54.220 to piss off regressives if you call yourself mrs malcolm james collins yeah because that's the

00:03:58.660 traditional way of doing it and the reason for that is because when people got married they became

00:04:03.300 a single unit a single entity they're they're no longer with the question about how do we get along

00:04:09.120 with each other it became okay what are we going to do like how are we going to change the world what

00:04:13.720 do we need to do for our family and that many hard cultures or more traditional cultures still

00:04:18.920 understand this now of course all of them have been eaten around at the edges like as we say

00:04:23.420 cultures start hard and then society and the world sort of acts like acid like softening them

00:04:27.840 and softening them so you'll see bits where they begin to change and have this more romance

00:04:32.200 perspective of relationships where after the relationship starts then the question is how does

00:04:37.500 this person make me feel right and the quality of the relationship is judged by the feeling this

00:04:43.820 creates in the other person and then they need to make those feelings and the oscillation of those

00:04:49.140 feelings a constant gain right because it's about okay how can i masturbate this instinct how can my

00:04:55.300 partner masturbate this instinct how can they ensure that i am feeling whatever content with myself

00:05:01.680 loved cared for uh paid attention to protected yeah so marriage just became completely within this context

00:05:09.980 completely about how the other person makes you feel and of course when you're focused on that then you

00:05:16.940 create challenges around that in the marriage when how you feel is irrelevant to the marriage largely speaking

00:05:23.320 when the marriage is about what you can accomplish together there are still ways a marriage can fail

00:05:28.140 or begin to feel like it's failing like simone and i like when we have a crisis in our marriage it's like

00:05:33.100 we're being very unproductive this year yeah it's always like whether or not we're achieving our shared

00:05:38.820 goals it's not about like how do you make me feel or your work output i'm like your work output has

00:05:43.900 gone down significantly recently simone we need to talk about this but then it's typically an action

00:05:48.920 oriented conversation it's how do we improve your work output yeah and what's interesting is i i went to

00:05:55.640 amazon and i looked up the like five top five best-selling romance novels at this time and

00:06:02.980 even one of them was about a an already married couple that came into marriage trouble because

00:06:10.560 the husband specifically had become so focused on making his business work that he i guess like

00:06:17.620 stopped paying so much attention to his wife who in turn had made many sacrifices to help the business

00:06:24.020 grow as well that is to say like she went for it like she helped him build up his business and went to

00:06:28.760 networking events to help him and then she felt like she was being neglected and so she like walks out on him

00:06:34.740 and like the book is pretty much like all the reviews were like oh the grovel on this is really good yeah

00:06:39.600 it's great grovel but it was just like like him groveling at her feet to try to get her to come

00:06:43.700 back oh god this is like a fantasy that women have yeah apparently no so like the one so when you look

00:06:49.680 at for example all the top five best-selling romance books on amazon right now the one common theme

00:06:56.360 among all of them is that the men are just like insanely in love with the women like period that's like

00:07:07.040 and like oh like they can do no wrong they're in love with them like and many of these women have

00:07:10.980 many problematic elements but still like the men are just like that's that's the theme but i think

00:07:15.660 that's a very common issue or or common theme in both male and female porn is that like the the partner

00:07:22.000 of the other gender the fantasy partner is super super into you that is to say your your insert into

00:07:27.780 the mary jane or whatever they call the man version of that and it was it was just so weird to read

00:07:34.700 about like these these book reviews about oh like good for her for walking out you know after he

00:07:40.700 neglected her and and i'm like wait sorry i'm wait they built a business together and they're now

00:07:47.800 billionaires and she feels like he puts too much time into the work that they've jointly worked really

00:07:56.560 hard to what hold on but also like i know this happens i know this happens you know there's

00:08:02.660 plenty of real life stories of wives being like oh you put too much time into work what about me and

00:08:08.020 like it's it's very strange and i'll tell you what i'll tell you what one of my pet peeves is when women

00:08:13.380 do this who are homemakers and they have like less than four kids yeah if you have like two kids or

00:08:22.660 three kids and i've seen you know in our personal lives we've seen women who have like only like

00:08:26.920 two kids or three kids and they have full-time child care yeah and they're still like why isn't

00:08:33.020 my husband spending enough time with me it's like of course you're living a life of ennui you're doing

00:08:38.020 nothing can't you like make some other friends like part of me is also like does it does it have to

00:08:43.340 be your husband i mean like yeah sure he's probably great no i mean a person who lives that pointless of

00:08:47.960 in existence if they had one role which was child care and they have now outsourced that role

00:08:52.960 um you know of course they're going to feel but i think you know that's that's actually maybe that's

00:08:58.520 another theme of these books is that these women are inherently special to these men in many cases

00:09:06.660 they are inept they are not they are inexperienced they are not particularly smart in many cases they're

00:09:13.940 like actively defective in some way but the men love them anyway so i think there's also this kind

00:09:20.260 of expectation that you as a woman can can be useless but still come into a relationship and be

00:09:26.900 idolized and worshiped with no merit like i just i mean how are people ever going to end up in

00:09:33.680 relationships now like if these are the the fantasies that women are enjoying i i don't i don't know what

00:09:41.920 to do well i mean it's it's hard it's so one of the things we say is we live in a fallen world it

00:09:47.180 is difficult very difficult yeah uh to secure a good partner in this environment which is why you

00:09:53.260 need to be willing to make compromises you know we did the other video you're not going to find a wife

00:09:57.680 and one of the things we mean is this it's i believe that not everyone can be successful in

00:10:03.700 this current market certainly not but many more people can be successful than are successful by

00:10:09.060 increasing the parameters of the women that they are considering both geographically you know

00:10:14.220 looking at women in other geographics and looks wise i'm like you you typically need to compromise on

00:10:19.440 multiple things if you're going to find well so ironically ironically the male leads in these books

00:10:26.260 actually represent what real high value men need to be doing which is like

00:10:31.280 getting these pathetic women and like falling in love with i'm just saying

00:10:36.440 something can also be read from these it's that women like this feeling and this is something that

00:10:43.140 i think the red pill gets really wrong when you are trying to secure a woman for just sex you know

00:10:50.140 coming on too strong can really turn them away like like becoming on too dedicated or anything like

00:10:55.680 that that can turn them away absolutely but when you have a woman who you are married to and in a long

00:11:00.660 term relationship with they actually do want that they do want you constantly telling them they're

00:11:06.760 the most beautiful woman you've ever seen constantly reinforcement you're the most beautiful woman in the

00:11:10.720 room constantly telling them how lucky you feel to be married that's one of the reasons why i can't

00:11:15.260 stand these romance novels once it gets to that stage because i'm like you know but don't i do that

00:11:20.540 to you or do i not do that you also vomit in my mouth when you do it for me anyway i mean it's it's

00:11:25.240 so sweet i just also feel guilty because one i have over saturated you with appreciation so that when

00:11:30.740 you see it in other environments you're like oh yeah i yeah it's i feel i feel you know conflict but i

00:11:38.400 do think that that is the correct thing to do and it is also the standard that women expect well but

00:11:44.320 here's where you where you don't fit the norm which is that like even though these women

00:11:49.000 constantly fail these men forgive them these women aren't productive the men love them anyway

00:11:55.180 like if i stop being productive you'd be like so when are you leaving like when can you i'm gonna

00:12:02.000 i i know i would come to you like one of those bosses which is like we need to talk about your

00:12:07.140 productivity oh no you you would elon musk me right you would say if if you were my employee i'd fire you

00:12:12.040 no no no i wouldn't do that but i would come to you and i would give you a a productivity plan

00:12:16.600 where i'd be like okay you have this long to increase your productivity back up to these

00:12:20.660 numbers and we'll move forward from there now that never happens in these romance novels that

00:12:25.340 never happens in these romance novels like i value you as a person but i just don't value people that

00:12:32.140 much so let's talk hard numbers here why why aren't you bringing in as much as you used to

00:12:38.380 um what what did surprise me and you know this is actually something we haven't talked about the

00:12:43.080 podcast but we do talk about in the pragmatist guide to sexuality and relationships i think

00:12:47.740 is what romance novels do indicate about what women find to be really attractive and i think it what's

00:12:54.020 telling and interesting is how this shows up differently in the top five best-selling romance novels on amazon

00:13:02.400 today so the common themes as i'm sure you remember from the book is the man is wealthy he is powerful

00:13:09.660 and he is high status right like that's yeah it doesn't matter if he's good or evil and this very

00:13:16.040 much shows up in all the top five books so one of the top five books basically the female ends up

00:13:22.160 being the nanny for a pro baseball player for his baby son for like a for a summer period or like some

00:13:27.760 short period of year but of course like they fall in love during that and there's a tension of like

00:13:31.040 oh she's planning on leaving but like what will happen obviously we know then the other one a woman

00:13:35.700 finds herself forced into marriage with a mob boss but it turns out that he's really nice to her

00:13:41.220 oh there's another one in which a woman has a terrible breakup and then ends up living in the

00:13:47.660 house of her best friend's brother and they pretend to be dating to like get people in their lives off

00:13:54.440 their backs either about having kids or just being in a relationship but then oh but but they start to

00:13:58.740 fall in love but then the girl has self-esteem issues but he just worships her and then another one

00:14:03.900 and this is interesting in that it's somewhat deviates oh and i should have mentioned that the

00:14:08.000 the brother the best friend's brother lives in a mansion and is like a millionaire of course he is

00:14:12.960 um then there's the one with the marriage falling apart that i told you about there's another one

00:14:17.140 where this like local town war hero or something and again enters a farce to pretend that he's dating

00:14:23.660 a girl who is from the wrong side of the tracks and not respected as part of a bet and of course they

00:14:28.440 fall in love with during that but of course he's like the top guy in the community even if he's not

00:14:31.840 super wealthy the final one which is interesting is the the the man in question is a vigilante who

00:14:41.000 goes after like sex traffickers and evil people and like secretly wants to overthrow the u.s government

00:14:48.000 but then becomes obsessed with the female lead and stalks her against her will so it's definitely more

00:14:54.160 of a like non-con kind of romance but i'm assuming that they signal his dominance and capability in his

00:15:01.180 competence as a vigilante so he's like scary but competent like maybe he falls more into like the

00:15:09.220 mom boss kind of category like he's bad but he's also very good but i do think that it's important

00:15:16.280 for people to be aware of like what actually is attractive one being seen as attractive by the

00:15:22.400 male interest and two by the male interest being powerful in some way but it doesn't have to only be

00:15:27.320 money it doesn't have to only be status he doesn't have to be the perfect golden boy war hero but he

00:15:31.100 can be he doesn't have to be the scary vigilante but he can be he doesn't have to be a mob boss but

00:15:34.920 he can be he doesn't have to be the billionaire but he can be you have to be like something and i think

00:15:39.540 it shows that like two guys like if i guess if you want to like romance novel hack your life as a guy

00:15:44.180 although you're ending up with this vapid feelings-based relationship which i very much don't

00:15:48.740 appreciate is you have to find some field that you can be the best in and be the best in it so maybe

00:15:54.560 you're the best like gamer maybe you're the best like finance analyst nerd but you have to be like

00:16:00.220 the best and then you have to show like extreme levels of attraction to and devotion to the woman

00:16:07.280 but in a way we're like but i mean i'm not totally sure about this is probably not a good idea yeah

00:16:12.640 yeah this is catching a woman who's optimizing for a spouse around the feelings that it provides her

00:16:19.480 instead of the productivity boost it gives her and the ability to achieve her goals that it gives her

00:16:25.120 or and i think really the ideal spouse and this is something we see in our society a lot is is

00:16:31.920 you're choosing the person with women to men who inspires you the most i think a lot of women you know

00:16:39.540 i i work with a lot of younger women right like gen z women and stuff like that and the common trait i'm

00:16:46.020 seeing and what they want is they don't know what they want to dedicate their lives to yet they're

00:16:50.620 sort of like i want to find somebody who has dedicated their life to something and then i'll

00:16:55.660 just do that thing yeah i'll just hitch my horse to that wagon right but that's what they're really

00:17:02.460 looking for in a partner and i'd say this is like the highest tier highest quality woman that you're

00:17:06.640 going to find which is a woman who's really looking for an inspiration that they can hitch their wagon to

00:17:14.140 and work towards every day because when i talk to gen z guys they often have some like or at least

00:17:20.880 worthwhile gen z guys some inspiration they already care about some goal that they're aiming towards and

00:17:26.180 they're like yeah this is what my life is about whereas with women it's often much more vague and i

00:17:30.820 think this is why women more broadly when they don't find a guy that they can hitch their wagon to

00:17:35.720 they end up hitching their wagon to like mainstream societal causes that are sort of very vanilla like

00:17:42.380 the environment yeah or something or yoga oh my god how many yoga girlfriends have we heard about

00:17:48.240 from high performing men yes would you say just never date a yoga girlfriend yeah don't take yeah

00:17:55.120 if that's if that's her thing like i don't care if she does it for like flexibility and balance

00:18:00.160 fantastic you know i'm sure it'll make her great in bed but like not if it's her thing not if she

00:18:06.300 identifies with it oh god no like big red flag yeah yeah well and i'd say that some things that

00:18:14.140 people might think red flags might not be like you were a vegan when i met you not vegan vegetarian

00:18:18.600 yeah yeah no i'm never giving up cheese gee whiz you were a vegetarian when i met you and i can think

00:18:23.420 a lot of guys would be like oh that's a big red flag it's like no women when they're looking for

00:18:28.780 something to dedicate themselves to they'll choose a lot of like vague societally approved things

00:18:34.980 until they meet somebody who inspires them like like really high quality women and these are the

00:18:40.300 women who are meeting you because they're interested in what you're interested in or they're interested

00:18:44.440 in the inspire like like the way that you were able to think and why it's important and why it's

00:18:49.480 worth dedicating oneself to much more than they're looking for somebody who masturbates a set of emotional

00:18:54.280 feelings and any woman i mean i think one thing we see in these books and in society more broadly

00:18:59.520 you can think oh i've done this great thing for my wife by you know making it so that she's a stay

00:19:05.820 at home woman and she has full-time child care i'd say that most people as soon as you've done that

00:19:10.680 you've destroyed your marriage that's doing the wife a severe disservice that's like a one-way ticket

00:19:14.700 to depression yeah she now has nothing she's doing all day every day except finding problems in her life

00:19:21.400 now do you think a lack of meaning is going to make your life happier yeah that's why women cheat that's

00:19:26.700 why they have the time to cheat like no people might like insinuate i love somebody in the

00:19:30.800 comments insinuating you might like be cheating on me or something and i was like she doesn't have

00:19:36.320 the time like they're there it is not feasible it is it is it is infeasible given the way that we

00:19:43.360 work in the ways that we spend time on yeah and also the fact that i find everyone else disgusting

00:19:48.680 well i know that i'm just talking about logistic feasibility yeah but if you've left your wife at home

00:19:54.880 all day and you've given her full time what else is she supposed to do you know well especially if

00:20:00.120 she lives for the feelings and that's the thing is is you know if you have a wife um you live for

00:20:04.860 nothing else if you have no purpose in life and i i think that this also when we're talking about

00:20:10.360 because we've talked about it from i think a more secular perspective like like a cause that you care

00:20:14.700 about or something like that but if you're from like a hard religious tradition what does this mean it

00:20:18.380 means that every day within your relationship you're saying what is serving god best okay you

00:20:25.120 you do not ask how do i make my partner feel you know you could be like well god cares about my

00:20:30.080 feelings god does not care about your feelings okay he's got a much bigger shit going on in the world

00:20:35.840 today right now you should be asking yourself what does he want for this world and how can you

00:20:41.420 increase that through the way that you're working together in your marriage and as soon as you stop

00:20:46.820 caring about the feelings it's much easier for them to just naturally maximize themselves as we've

00:20:52.580 talked about in other videos absolutely yeah so what else can we take away from this i i guess we're

00:21:01.580 if we don't want our our daughters reading romance novels and normalizing that this is what a desirable

00:21:07.660 relationship is or this is what romance is where can we send them i mean i i guess we have internally

00:21:13.740 like our own canon or like movies that we want our kids to all watch it together like as a family and

00:21:19.440 talk about because we think that they set good examples yeah but i mean are there any good examples

00:21:25.460 of a couple that does actually come together and work on something other than selfish means or

00:21:32.480 but they're the villains melko no one so so this is actually interesting and i think we've talked about

00:21:40.740 this in another podcast most healthy relationships oh gomez gomez and morticia oh no but they really

00:21:46.860 care about each other's feelings or in some other way seen as what's the word i'm looking for here

00:21:52.340 like transgressive yeah but you know even even gomez and morticia are romantic in that traditional way of

00:21:58.380 being like you know steamy romance in love and dancing but if you when you and you'll notice this

00:22:03.740 in media you'll be like oh that's a good couple typically good couples are villains or in some other

00:22:08.220 way coded as transgressive because being a couple that's focused on a mission and that is happy is

00:22:14.940 in many ways inherently transgressive of the value set that progressive society is giving to women

00:22:21.220 it needs to tell them that this isn't possible because it is not possible within a progressive

00:22:28.120 optimization function it is not possible within a progressive optimization function because the

00:22:33.020 progressive optimization function is hedonistic at its core it's do whatever you want to feel

00:22:38.620 good about yourself and that that always leads to conflict in relationship because each individual

00:22:43.820 isn't working towards some larger goal they're working towards themselves and so that always leads

00:22:49.060 progressive relationships to break down and so that is why this this beast in our society must tell

00:22:56.560 people you cannot be happy in this way you you you you are going to have this conflict because any

00:23:03.300 relationship based on that progressive societal model is going to have that conflict and that's

00:23:07.500 the really sad thing about this urban monoculture in our society is that the core thing that it's offering

00:23:14.580 people saying oh you can be happy all the time you just do whatever you want don't worry like we will

00:23:21.140 support you identify however you want we will support you be whoever you want we will support you

00:23:25.780 but sadly like when you look at something like a marriage this structurally leads both people to be

00:23:32.920 systemically less happy than they would be if they had lived for a higher purpose and that is really

00:23:39.340 fascinating and kind of sad it's kind of sad that so many people in our society have opted into those

00:23:44.160 relationships and feel this deep ennui and this deep unhappiness and their lives and their

00:23:49.660 relationships have become about how they make each other feel yeah well i love you simone i'm happy

00:23:57.100 oh oh oh oh oh oh the dungeons and dragons movie except they weren't a couple but like

00:24:02.740 the the two surrogate parents in the dungeons and dragons movie yeah but they weren't married i know but

00:24:08.920 it's the closest i can come to a relationship that endures over the years where they have a kid

00:24:15.980 and they both are working toward larger things and not each other's feelings they're also a lot like

00:24:22.380 like a modern relationship and that they don't they're not exclusive you know like whatever not

00:24:27.240 our relationship i don't know if that's we've talked about this in our videos i don't know if that is

00:24:31.960 long-term functional there's some people experimenting with it yeah yeah it may work out

00:24:36.300 it may not actually funny i think the best hope of a durable polyamorous culture is the one that tate

00:24:42.380 is pioneering with his brother and their oh the industrial model they have going on yeah it's

00:24:47.260 interesting all the tater tots running around tater tots i hope that they call them that the tater

00:24:53.840 how could they not call them the tater tots they obviously call them the tater tots clearly i'm

00:24:59.180 insulted if they don't yeah yeah you are lovely simone i love you malcolm i'm glad that you know

00:25:05.200 we're happy with our relationship so keep that going please

00:25:08.720 you

Based Camp - October 31, 2023

Romance Novels WTF

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