The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - 143. How To Be More Attractive To The Opposite Sex ｜ Rob Henderson & Mikhaila Peterson

00:00:00.000 You were talking about dating profiles. Do you have like, you've done a lot of research in this

00:00:05.700 area about what to do. So do you know where men go wrong with dating profiles and what they should 1.00

00:00:11.300 do? Is it like photos? They all, they're all, they all have fish or something. There's a lot

00:00:17.240 of fish on Tinder. I know it's a, okay. So, so a couple of thoughts. So, so you'd mentioned before

00:00:22.260 the, the, the study that I had cited about how, um, so men tend to swipe, right. They tend to

00:00:29.180 like the profiles of more than 60% of the women that they encounter, whereas women only swipe 0.58

00:00:37.360 right on 4.5%. As a guy, it's very, very slim odds. Where they go wrong, the fish picture is

00:00:46.020 interesting. I talked to one of the former product guys at Tinder, and he told me that actually fish

00:00:55.700 pictures tend to actually do pretty well. Welcome to episode 143 of the Michaela

00:01:06.000 Peterson podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson. I have a very fun podcast for you good folks today.

00:01:12.500 My guest Rob Henderson is a doctoral candidate at Cambridge University. Rob Henderson grew up

00:01:18.960 in foster homes in California. He joined the Air Force at the age of 17. After serving,

00:01:24.220 he attended Yale on the GI Bill and was subsequently awarded a Gates Cambridge scholarship

00:01:29.920 to study at the University of Cambridge. He's written for the New York Times, the Wall Street

00:01:34.920 Journal, and Quillette, among other outlets, and coined the phrase luxury beliefs for the beliefs

00:01:40.660 held by rich people, basically. Rob's great. We covered the dark triad of personality,

00:01:46.900 psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. People encompassing dark triad traits are skilled

00:01:52.740 at manipulation and making you fall in love with them, particularly if you're female.

00:01:57.460 We discussed his concept of luxury beliefs, sexual attraction, dating apps in the time

00:02:02.680 of COVID, wokeism and woke fishing, which is hilarious, the rise in self-censoring writing

00:02:08.920 and more.

00:02:10.240 Please be sure to subscribe if you enjoy this episode or this type of content.

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00:03:30.620 Thanks for watching this episode.

00:03:39.240 Rob Henderson, welcome to my podcast.

00:03:42.060 Hi, Michaela. Thanks. It's great to be here.

00:03:44.140 This is going to be a fun conversation.

00:03:45.700 We're going to go through a bunch of your articles.

00:03:47.740 I have a lot of questions. But before we get started, can you give a brief background about

00:03:52.740 who you are and what it is you do? Yeah, sure. I am a PhD candidate at the

00:03:57.820 University of Cambridge. I study social and evolutionary psychology. I've published in

00:04:02.840 peer-reviewed articles, but I'm probably most well-known for my popular writing. So I've written

00:04:07.460 in Quillette, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, among other outlets. And I'm really

00:04:12.200 interested in things like social status, social class, personality, the dark triad, which we

00:04:18.560 might get into later. And yeah, sort of cultural and social commentary. Okay. I think we should

00:04:25.280 actually just start right off with the dark triad because that's really interesting. So can we start

00:04:29.940 by just, can you give an explanation about what that means? Yeah. So the dark triad is a personality

00:04:36.320 constellation that, uh, encompasses three different traits. Uh, so the three traits are

00:04:41.840 narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Uh, narcissism is essentially entitled self

00:04:48.180 importance. Uh, narcissism itself is, is, is fairly complex and we can get into the sort of

00:04:53.000 nuances there, but it is sort of, you know, most people are familiar with, with what narcissism

00:04:56.840 is. Uh, psychopathy is callousness, cynicism, a sort of disregard for other people. And

00:05:03.660 Machiavellianism is sort of a duplicity and the willingness to sort of exploit others for

00:05:11.320 personal gain, a sort of cold calculated mindset. And together, these three personality traits tend

00:05:17.940 to go together in the same person. They all sort of correlate. So if one person scores high in

00:05:21.620 narcissism, they tend to score fairly high in psychopathy and Machiavellianism as well.

00:05:25.400 But there is some variation. You might be high in one and maybe not so high in the other,

00:05:29.360 but they tend to go together. How much of those just correspond to being disagreeable in the big

00:05:36.680 five? They're extremely highly correlated with the disagreeability in the big five personality

00:05:44.380 traits. So there's been multiple studies on this, on which of the big five correlate with the dark

00:05:51.960 triad. And of the big five, agreeableness is the most correlated, meaning negatively correlated.

00:05:58.080 So the higher you are in agreeability, the lower you tend to score on the dark triad.

00:06:03.620 But there's some variation, too, with the others.

00:06:06.680 So if you're high on the dark triad, you tend to score a little bit higher on, for example,

00:06:10.760 extroversion.

00:06:12.820 If you score high on psychopathy, they tend to score a little bit high on openness, but

00:06:17.140 the correlations are much weaker.

00:06:18.420 It's really about agreeableness. 1.00

00:06:20.520 If you're a dark triad person, you tend to be an extremely disagreeable person. 1.00

00:06:24.220 you said if you score higher on psychopathy then you tend to score a bit higher on openness 0.87

00:06:29.440 but it's a weak correlation yeah it's a weak correlation oh that's interesting yeah okay

00:06:35.480 so one of your articles okay so you wrote about the dark triad in psychology today and in quillette

00:06:43.400 and i believe it was psychology today oh yeah dark personalities are more likely to signal

00:06:51.400 victimhood. So, so that surprises me a bit because I always thought that it was more agreeable people

00:06:58.220 that tended towards being victims, but that's not what this suggests.

00:07:03.400 Well, it's, it's a little bit tricky. So the, that paper was a fascinating paper,

00:07:10.460 I think it was published in 2020, uh, in the journal of personality and social psychology,

00:07:14.080 uh, you know, a series of very interesting studies and they weren't claiming. So the

00:07:20.560 researchers were not claiming based on the studies that they ran that, uh, actual victims

00:07:26.100 score higher on dark triad personality traits. What they were claiming is that people who tend

00:07:31.580 to score high on dark triad personality traits tend to signal victimhood more and signaling

00:07:36.600 victimhood is not necessarily the same thing as actually being a victim. Right. And so people who

00:07:40.860 are truly, um, sort of the, the, the targets of misfortune or suffering have really gone through

00:07:46.800 bad things. Those aren't the people who, you know, tend to be narcissists or psychopaths,

00:07:51.100 but the people tend to be, you know, narcissists and psychopaths, uh, will sort of exploit people's

00:07:55.660 empathy and sort of exploit people's willingness to help suffering people, uh, by, by playing a

00:08:01.640 victim. And so, you know, of course they ran the standard, um, dark triad, uh, scales sort of asking

00:08:09.280 people various questions about how they, um, interact with other people and how they move

00:08:14.020 through the world, whether they tend to be cold and calculating and so forth, whether they're

00:08:17.920 sort of believe themselves to be more important than other people. But then they also created a

00:08:22.980 victim, a victim signaling scale. And it included items like, you know, I tend to want to broadcast

00:08:31.000 that people like me are sort of not as well known as we should be, or how, you know, more people

00:08:36.140 who are like me need to be, um, represented in the media or, or, um, in sort of the public

00:08:43.840 conversation, basically like, you know, they're, they're, they're put upon, they're sort of

00:08:47.780 suffering in some way and, and they tended to highly correlate. So the higher you are in dark

00:08:52.780 triad, the more signaling you do, um, in terms of victimhood signaling. So they also found some

00:08:59.520 interesting, uh, it wasn't just correlational studies. So they weren't just administering

00:09:02.800 scales and finding that they tended to correlate. They were also doing experimental studies as well.

00:09:08.640 Basically, in one of the studies, what they did was the psychologists rigged a game in which

00:09:14.100 participants could win some money. But what the psychologist did was rigged it so that it was

00:09:19.600 really easy to cheat and it was really easy for them to figure out who cheated. First, they had

00:09:24.820 people play this game. They tracked who cheated in the game to win more money. They also had these

00:09:31.440 participants take the, um, the dark triad personality scale. And they found that the

00:09:35.280 people who scored highly on this scale also were more likely to cheat, to win more money at this

00:09:39.020 game. Um, they also did these interesting studies where they, um, basically imagine the participants

00:09:45.640 to envision themselves in, um, in a sort of, uh, an employment scenario. So they have a colleague

00:09:51.940 at work who, and they're described as being a little bit unpleasant to be around and maybe

00:09:57.440 they don't like them very much and so on. So this is the person they're imagining, but then the

00:10:00.840 researchers asked the participants, you know, how much do you agree with these, with these items,

00:10:07.240 these statements, like, you know, this colleague insults you all the time. This colleague has

00:10:11.220 taken advantage of you. And all of these things is this, this colleague has done bad things to

00:10:15.560 you. This colleague needs to be fired. Nothing in the description of this person in this sort

00:10:19.300 of scenario indicated that they had ever insulted the participant, that they had ever done anything

00:10:25.100 wrong to them. But they basically, the scenario was like, this person just don't like them very

00:10:28.660 much. Right. And again, the researchers found that people who score high on dark triad are more

00:10:33.820 likely to exaggerate or fabricate negative qualities about this other person and say how

00:10:40.780 badly they've been treated by them. Huh? I wonder if they actually believe that or not.

00:10:46.760 Has there been any, like, is it full on lying? Is it, is it to get somewhere or do they switch

00:10:51.720 that in their head? So they think that they've been insulted. Yeah. I don't even know if like

00:10:57.920 it's an interesting question, but, you know, I'm not, I may not matter because the outcome is such

00:11:05.280 that this is how they behave. And, you know, the, the researchers, uh, in that paper, you know,

00:11:12.060 they document how, you know, uh, findings from, from insurance fraud claims, right. Like, you

00:11:17.660 know, some, some X number of millions or billions of dollars every year, um, are lost because of

00:11:23.240 people who are fraudulently filing insurance claim, people who claim that they can't seek

00:11:28.580 employment. Basically, a lot of people will exploit weaknesses in various systems in order

00:11:33.820 to extract economic gain or whatever kind of gain it happens to be. But people who score highly on

00:11:40.680 the dark triad, they tend to be more preoccupied with status, with sexual rewards, so material

00:11:47.720 rewards, social rewards, sexual rewards, and whatever environment they happen to find themselves

00:11:54.020 in, they will, um, enact the strategies to extract those rewards. So if they happen to be say in,

00:12:01.780 you know, the modern West in the year 2022, they might find that, Oh, the best strategy to extract

00:12:07.140 rewards is to signal victimhood. And so that's what they'll do to sort of, uh, exploit the

00:12:13.240 weaknesses in the system, but if they're somewhere else, you know, maybe being an extreme narcissist

00:12:18.060 might be the best way to do it. So they'll sort of lean into that. And that's the best way to,

00:12:22.000 to get attention, to get romantic partners or whatever it happens to be. So they tend to be

00:12:26.920 very good at sort of picking up on, you know, what are the, what are the ways to maximize those

00:12:34.260 rewards in whatever social environment they happen to be in? Okay. So that's very interesting, but

00:12:40.340 that type of person sounds like an unattractive type of person, right? Anyone who's signaling

00:12:45.220 victimhood without actually being a victim. I don't think anyone finds that attractive.

00:12:50.000 However, according to what you wrote, women are more attracted to people who score higher in these

00:12:57.740 dark triad personality traits. Yeah. Well, that was a study. I want to say it was from 2015.

00:13:05.660 I mean, this team of researchers, they had some women evaluate a man, basically his suitability

00:13:14.700 as a romantic partner.

00:13:17.020 And what they found is that men who score highly on the dark triad relative to an ordinary

00:13:22.740 man, so an average guy versus a guy who's really high on the dark triad, they score

00:13:26.900 the dark triad guy to be quite a bit more attractive.

00:13:30.720 So one standard deviation more attractive than the average.

00:13:33.160 And a standard deviation is a lot in psychological research, that sort of that gap.

00:13:40.540 I'd imagine I can't remember the specific details of how they sort of characterize this guy, this dark track guy.

00:13:46.940 But I'd imagine they weren't saying like he talks about how he's a victim or whatever.

00:13:50.100 Yeah. They probably talk about how he tends to be sort of superficially charming and maybe a little bit callous and uncaring and emotionally distant and these kinds of things.

00:14:01.160 And something else I had written in that article, sort of summarizing a lot of this research, Justin Laymiller, who's a sexual psychologist, wrote a book called Tell Me What You Want about sexual fantasies.

00:14:14.540 And he writes about how the most fantasized about superheroes among women, the most fantasized superhero is Batman, which is an interesting contrast with the most fantasized superhero among gay men, which which are Captain America and Superman.

00:14:33.300 And I found that kind of that that difference to be interesting. Right. Because like Superman and Captain America are like these goody two shoes, Boy Scouts, like, you know, these are the guys that little boys look up to as like the sort of like the the most pure and noble superheroes.

00:14:50.280 And I think Batman is often seen as like this sort of darker, edgier, you know, like almost like he's a villain, but he still does the right thing.

00:14:57.520 But you could imagine him going to the dark side.

00:14:59.340 And this is the guy that that women, you know, of all the superheroes, that's the one that they seem to like the most.

00:15:05.100 That's so funny.

00:15:07.020 That's so funny.

00:15:08.040 I never liked Captain America.

00:15:09.760 It's like that.

00:15:10.460 What about Superman?

00:15:11.420 Boring.

00:15:12.180 But Superman, too.

00:15:13.200 Well, Superman, mostly because it's like he he can do everything.

00:15:17.020 So he's just he's going to win.

00:15:19.140 Right.

00:15:19.580 It was like, it's too old of a superhero.

00:15:22.040 There's no weakness there.

00:15:23.180 What's his, I guess, kryptonite's the weakness, but I mean, come on.

00:15:27.020 One thing I would be curious about, I don't know of any research on this, but, um, I don't

00:15:30.740 know.

00:15:30.840 Did you see that new James Bond movie?

00:15:32.300 No time to die.

00:15:34.740 Is that the newest one?

00:15:36.540 The newest one with Daniel Craig.

00:15:38.260 Yeah.

00:15:38.560 It came out like a couple months ago.

00:15:40.520 Okay.

00:15:40.800 No, I haven't.

00:15:41.660 I really want to see that.

00:15:42.820 Have you seen it?

00:15:43.680 Yeah.

00:15:43.900 Yeah.

00:15:44.040 I thought it was good.

00:15:44.720 It's not like the best James Bond ever, but I thought it was really good.

00:15:47.960 Um, but one of the things that's interesting about the, this, the bond series is how like

00:15:51.640 the sort of the earlier bond movies were sort of more, um, campy a little bit.

00:15:55.640 There was a little bit more humor in them, but starting with the latest bond with Daniel

00:15:58.680 Craig, uh, like the series took this more sort of darker, edgier turn and the Daniel

00:16:03.980 Craig bond, um, he, he gets injured more, he's more vulnerable.

00:16:08.280 He gets beaten up.

00:16:09.620 Um, you can sort of see the physical effects throughout the movie of him sort of becoming

00:16:13.580 more and more damaged.

00:16:14.620 and he himself is sort of a more edgy and rough character.

00:16:17.940 And I would love to see, you know, if there's any data on like maybe 30 years ago, whoever

00:16:22.580 was Bond 30 years ago, how did women feel about that Bond versus the Bond today and

00:16:26.180 see like if which James Bond is like the most appealing to, to, to women or to, to viewers

00:16:30.860 in general.

00:16:32.260 Yeah.

00:16:32.520 Or if that has changed, right? 0.99

00:16:35.660 I mean, maybe it was the same percentage of women back then as it is now, but women now 0.97

00:16:39.920 don't find that attractive. 1.00

00:16:41.700 Oh, that's a good point too.

00:16:42.720 Yep.

00:16:43.020 Yeah.

00:16:44.220 Hmm.

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00:18:25.980 So there were a couple of parts of one of these papers that I thought were really interesting.

00:18:32.600 So I want to just read a few of them.

00:18:34.940 We can we can talk about that.

00:18:38.880 OK.

00:18:41.420 Oh, this was dark.

00:18:42.980 This was dark.

00:18:43.700 And I didn't know that I didn't actually know this.

00:18:45.940 So the book you're talking about David Buss's book, right?

00:18:49.660 Right.

00:18:49.920 When Men Behave Badly, which is a great book.

00:18:51.720 Yeah.

00:18:52.180 Yeah.

00:18:52.680 I need to talk to him.

00:18:53.980 That would be really fun.

00:18:54.760 okay so the book reports chilling research about predatory males researchers videotaped individuals

00:19:00.240 walking down the same block in new york city the tapes were shown to 53 prison inmates convicted

00:19:05.440 of violent crimes inmates showed a strong consensus on who they would victimize they

00:19:10.360 chose individuals who moved in an uncoordinated manner with a stride that was too short or too

00:19:14.360 long for their height in another set of studies researchers found an association between men's

00:19:18.960 chosen targets and women's self-reported frequency of having been sexually victimized in the past

00:19:24.120 this suggests that women suffering from unwanted sexual encounters inadvertently emit cues that

00:19:30.040 predatory males can detect. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That was, I thought it was a very dark excerpt 0.88

00:19:37.420 in that book too. And, and it, and it shocked me, um, because I had already known to, you know,

00:19:44.160 just from reading a lot of the psychological research on dark triad that again, they tend

00:19:48.200 to sort of pick up on the cues and the signals for them to obtain what they want. But yeah,

00:19:54.080 I would have never imagined that they could actually like sort of survey, you know, a bunch

00:19:59.500 of pedestrians walking and say like, oh, there's the vulnerable one. And it's almost like, you know,

00:20:04.820 what it makes me think of is like, you know, when, when you see like National Geographic or whatever

00:20:08.740 animal documentaries, and you see like the lion looking for like the gazelle that's like limping,

00:20:14.220 you know, the one that looks a little bit slower, smaller, more vulnerable than the others. And

00:20:18.120 they're sort of like surveying which one of these should I go after. And that was sort of what it

00:20:22.240 made me think here. And, you know, I think there's, there's probably some, you know, I think, I think

00:20:28.200 it's a useful way to think about it. I've seen, for example, research papers on psychopathy who

00:20:34.560 describe, um, the, the gaze, like the, the way that psychopaths look at other people, um, they've

00:20:41.160 described as reptilian you know there's this sort of like animalistic um quality to it that when

00:20:48.380 people make eye contact for a long period of time with with people who are emotionally vacant and

00:20:52.880 who only see you for what you can provide to them or what they can extract from you um apparently

00:20:59.580 a lot of clinicians and researchers describe this as a very sort of chilling experience like wow

00:21:04.200 that you're looking to the eyes someone who cares who doesn't see you as a human being

00:21:07.640 interesting do you think there's any use for this information so for more like for lack of a better

00:21:17.020 term for more agreeable men more agreeable men i assume are going to have a harder time attracting

00:21:22.500 women because women are more attracted to this these dark triad traits is there a way for people

00:21:27.680 to kind of present themselves in a manner that embodies these traits without actually being

00:21:32.820 a terrible person? You know, it's funny. I have a good friend of mine here at Cambridge.

00:21:40.500 He's a criminologist, Vincent Heronim. He has coined this idea of the dark.

00:21:45.460 I think he calls it the dark gentleman. And I may be getting some of the details wrong,

00:21:50.240 but it's essentially this sort of this marriage between a guy who's maybe a little bit edgy and,

00:21:57.580 you know, uh, ambitious and, you know, can be maybe somewhat emotionally distant,

00:22:02.200 but they know what they want. They're sort of using, um, you know, using some of those,

00:22:08.080 those qualities to pursue what they want while also sort of having a soft side to them,

00:22:12.260 you know, the sort of, uh, whatever, like the dad versus the cad, but sort of those two things put

00:22:17.280 together. Um, I suppose, yeah, I mean, people can cultivate and, and suppress various aspects of

00:22:25.340 their nature. I mean, broadly speaking in the personality research, our personalities like

00:22:30.360 the big five, they tend to be pretty stable throughout our lives. You know, if you measure

00:22:33.860 at age 18 compared to, you know, in your fifties or something, the correlation tends to be around

00:22:39.120 0.8. I mean, it's very stable, but that's sort of looking in the aggregate scale, you know,

00:22:45.720 across multiple, many individuals across time, but as an individual person, you can sort of,

00:22:50.680 And I'm sure people have experienced this where you may want to, say, be more extroverted, you know, in a social situation.

00:22:57.580 Maybe you're more of an introvert. Maybe you're more of a bookish type, but you want to make friends or you want to get promoted or something.

00:23:04.940 So you sort of become more extroverted or pretend to be that way.

00:23:08.220 And I think guys can do this, too, with with maybe being slightly more disagreeable while, you know, retaining some of the the good guy traits.

00:23:15.880 Um, speaking of extroversion, um, this reminds me of some interesting research on this too,

00:23:21.280 that, um, generally speaking, people are, they report being happier when they behave

00:23:27.460 in a more extroverted way.

00:23:29.060 And this is not just true for people who score high on extroversion, but, uh, introverts

00:23:34.040 too.

00:23:34.840 Um, if you, uh, tell introverts, you know, if, if introverts are in a study and the researchers

00:23:39.360 say like, you know, go, go behave in a more social way, interact with more people, talk

00:23:43.580 to more people today, introduce yourself to more people than you normally would, something like

00:23:48.420 that. They actually report being happier than when they behave in an introverted way, when they sort

00:23:53.880 of go against their impulses, you know, maybe they want to stay inside, but they force themselves to

00:23:57.840 go out. And I find this interesting too, that sometimes, you know, going against your own

00:24:02.420 personality impulses can actually increase your sense of wellbeing. That's interesting. I have a

00:24:10.620 theory that, okay, so, you know, if you, if you're an extremely agreeable person, you, you tend to

00:24:16.420 value, you tend to, you can potentially kind of cram down whatever you're feeling so that you

00:24:22.940 don't hurt anybody's feelings, right? Oh, I don't want to say that because this person might

00:24:26.220 interpret it this way. And if they feel sad, I'm going to feel sad because I'm an agreeable person.

00:24:30.540 I think that if people learn how to overcome that and actually say how they feel, they feel better.

00:24:37.000 I think it might just be harder for agreeable people because they care more about other

00:24:40.520 people's feelings, but that kind of thing, I think you can practice and you're like,

00:24:44.580 okay, you're concerned.

00:24:46.320 You're going to say something, it's going to hurt somebody's feelings, but you should

00:24:50.020 probably say it and you have that feeling in you.

00:24:52.080 If you just do that and then you survey the outcome and you're like, okay, this wasn't

00:24:56.380 as bad as I thought it was going to be.

00:24:57.940 I think if you practice that, you can get over that.

00:25:00.440 And I think for men who are more prone to being agreeable like that, I think that's

00:25:06.840 probably a good thing to practice in general, but also to make you more attractive to women.

00:25:12.160 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's, there's, uh, I mean, that's definitely, I think a useful way

00:25:17.280 to do it. And, and also, I mean, beyond, you know, trying to whatever, like shape your personality

00:25:25.280 in different ways or behave differently. You can also just sort of put yourself in places where

00:25:29.340 people might be more attracted to a more agreeable man. Um, so if you, you know, maybe,

00:25:35.980 maybe going out to, uh, I don't know, a nightclub or something is not the ideal place. If you're

00:25:40.680 more of saving an agreeable or introverted kind of guy, but I don't know, religious services 0.99

00:25:45.580 or, or libraries or something like maybe there are more, you know, women, there might be more, 0.94

00:25:49.960 more interested in a, in a more agreeable kind of person. So definitely you can sort of put 0.99

00:25:54.340 yourself in the right environment as well. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think the, the dating question

00:25:59.600 is fascinating just because I know, I think it's just, it's just becoming more difficult for a lot

00:26:04.760 of young people know guys who are you know they have good careers they have good income all those

00:26:10.300 kinds of things and they have some of them had to make it a second job basically of like reorganizing

00:26:16.920 their lives in order to find a suitable romantic partner I think it's getting pretty pretty rough

00:26:21.740 out there so what does that mean reorganizing their lives yeah so like a friend of mine for

00:26:27.720 example, he, uh, you know, sort of changed the hours he worked at in order to go to cooking

00:26:34.440 classes because he just figured, you know, he likes to cook and he wants to meet, you know,

00:26:38.360 a person who would want to cook to, uh, you know, sort of going to the gym at, at, at the right

00:26:44.360 hours, um, just sort of generally changing his habits and introducing himself to more people,

00:26:51.080 um, getting his, uh, dating apps. Like he had like a lot of input from different women and

00:26:56.720 different people who could help him like portray, you know, convey himself in the way that that

00:27:00.920 would maximize his chances of finding a suitable, uh, partner. And I think a lot of guys, you know,

00:27:07.000 they're, they don't do this, you know, they just sort of go through life and wonder what's going

00:27:10.520 on. And other guys are realizing like, Oh, it really is something you have to take seriously.

00:27:14.960 It's not something that's just going to happen by accident for you. You, and I'm sure women are

00:27:18.640 having in many ways, the same kind of experience, but, you know, just speaking from, you know,

00:27:22.680 most of my friends tend to be guys and this is sort of their experience. And yeah, it really is.

00:27:26.960 Um, you know, they're spending hours a week on, on this, uh, on this project of how to find a,

00:27:32.120 how to find a girlfriend. Yeah. Okay. Well, we could talk about that, but, but first, okay. So

00:27:37.360 this kind of has to do with what you just said. Um, this is from your article as well,

00:27:42.160 because of the increased risk women carry, they tend to be choosier about their partners. 0.59

00:27:47.200 In contrast, men are less discerning studies of online dating, for example, find that most men 0.72

00:27:52.320 find most women to be at least somewhat attractive in contrast women on average view 80 percent of

00:27:57.460 men as below average in attractiveness another study found that on the dating app tinder men

00:28:02.460 liked more than 60 percent of the female profiles they viewed while women liked only four and a half

00:28:07.240 percent of male profiles so this might be a problem that's way more prevalent for men i

00:28:13.840 didn't realize that 80 percent of men as below average that's quite off it is i mean right

00:28:21.180 Because, you know, you would think like 50%, right, it's sort of like 50% above and 50%

00:28:25.240 below, but to have 80% rated below is pretty, you know, it's pretty grim.

00:28:31.720 But this, this sort of reflects our innate evolutionary psychology, you know, so a lot

00:28:37.800 of evolutionary researchers essentially find that, you know, because men carry less risk

00:28:43.760 for, well, during sex, right, they're, they're less likely, even if they have sex with someone,

00:28:48.780 uh, they're less likely to contract, uh, an STD than women are. And yeah, yeah. And so,

00:28:56.800 well, I mean, cause, cause men's like organs are on the outside, whereas women's are on the inside

00:29:00.620 and that sort of affects, you know, uh, likelihood of contracting, but then also of course, pregnancy

00:29:05.120 itself, um, is extremely burdensome. And, and you can imagine, you know, it's already burdensome in

00:29:10.080 the modern era, but you can imagine, um, you know, 50 or a hundred thousand years ago in the

00:29:14.360 ancestral environment where humans evolved, you know, like getting pregnant for a woman was,

00:29:18.900 it was a life or death experience in many, many cases. So as a result of this, women have evolved

00:29:26.520 to be much more selective about who they have sex with. You know, they want a guy who sort of has, 1.00

00:29:31.240 you know, good, good genetic quality, but also a guy who sort of could, could take care of them

00:29:36.480 and provide for them and all those things. Whereas for men, the risk was so minuscule and the

00:29:41.600 potential gain of having a kid was so high in evolutionary terms, right. In terms of having 0.51

00:29:45.780 more kids. And so, um, for this reason, uh, I once had this, this line, I said this, uh,

00:29:52.120 on our mutual friend, Chris Williamson's podcast, um, uh, yeah, a couple of years ago now,

00:29:57.400 which is basically that for men, the default, when they evaluate women, the default is I would

00:30:03.360 probably sleep with her unless there's some extraordinary reason why I shouldn't. And for 0.87

00:30:09.100 women, the default is I definitely wouldn't sleep with him unless there's some extraordinary reason 0.97

00:30:13.840 why I should. So we sort of start from different positions. It's not exactly accurate, but I think 0.97

00:30:18.620 it gets at this intuition that guys are just less picky, at least when it comes to sex. With

00:30:22.920 relationships, it's a little different, but for women, I'm much more selective, again, because

00:30:28.220 of that risk of pregnancy and so on that they tend to carry. That makes sense. Okay. Yeah,

00:30:34.700 I like that. That's good. That's, that's a good line. Uh, okay. So you were talking about dating

00:30:40.760 profiles. Do you have, like, you've done a lot of research in this area about what to do. So do you

00:30:47.560 know where men go wrong with dating profiles and what they should do? Is it like photos? They all,

00:30:53.080 they're all, they all have fish or something. There's a lot of fish on Tinder. I know it's,

00:30:59.000 uh, okay. So, so a couple of thoughts. So, so you'd mentioned before the, the, the study that

00:31:02.780 I had cited about how, um, so men tend to swipe, right. They tend to like the profiles of more than

00:31:10.840 60% of the women that they encounter. Whereas, um, women only swipe right on a 4.5%. Right. So 0.95

00:31:19.040 very, you know, as a guy, you know, it's very, very slim, slim odds. So where they go wrong,

00:31:24.760 the fish picture is interesting. Uh, I talked to, uh, one of the, the former, uh, product guys at

00:31:31.460 tinder and he told me that actually fish fish pictures tend to tend to do actually do pretty

00:31:38.400 well uh surprisingly well and he thought it was we both thought it was funny because we're you

00:31:43.140 know we're both aware that there's this sort of trope that people make fun of it like oh the guy

00:31:47.220 with the fish but apparently yeah well you know and i make fun of it too but i mean apparently

00:31:53.280 if you have a fish uh picture it does slightly increase the chances for a guy you know i don't

00:31:59.500 know about how much, but it's better than average. Other things that guys can do. So this is really

00:32:07.880 interesting is having a dog. This is something that I think we all know, but it's actually a

00:32:13.460 huge benefit to have a dog in your dating app picture. I think something like you're twice as

00:32:21.680 likely or might've been like 60% as likely to be liked if you have a dog picture. If you have a

00:32:29.160 cat picture, you're actually less likely to be liked by a woman if you're a straight guy. So

00:32:34.580 if you're a straight guy looking for a female partner, having a cat is detrimental. So don't

00:32:39.240 have a cat. Apparently for gay men, it's a little different. I think gay men actually, they have a 0.91

00:32:43.640 slight preference, I think, for guys who have cats. But if you're a straight guy, yeah, don't 1.00

00:32:50.600 put a cat, get the dog. One other thing that guys could do, and this is a little bit more

00:32:58.300 involved in burdensome than just, you know, going out and asking your friend to borrow his dog for

00:33:04.100 a picture is continue your education. So there's research showing that basically what these guys

00:33:12.180 did, these scholars, they took a picture of the same guy, same profile. And the only thing that

00:33:19.180 changed was whether he had a bachelor's degree or a master's degree. And the guy with a master's

00:33:25.300 degree got twice as many likes as the guy with the bachelor's degree. And so, yeah, if you're

00:33:32.480 on the dating apps and you are, you know, sort of serious about finding someone, then maybe

00:33:37.260 getting a master's degree would be wise. I think a lot of people are going to listen to this and

00:33:41.200 say, oh, I'll just put master's degree on there. But, you know, you should really get the master's

00:33:45.100 degree. And it helps for women too, surprisingly. I think a lot of people are uncertain about the 0.69

00:33:49.980 benefits of education for women's romantic prospects, but actually women who get master's

00:33:56.640 degrees, they did the same study in the same set of researchers and found that women with a master's

00:34:01.100 degree get around, I think, 10% more likes than women with a bachelor's degree. So it's a slight

00:34:08.300 advantage. I don't know if it's enough, if it justifies getting the master's degree for 10%

00:34:14.100 more likes. Um, but it is a slight, uh, a slight advantage for them. And, and then, yeah, just

00:34:20.160 generally I I've, I've seen other, um, this isn't research, but this is just like opinions I've seen

00:34:24.980 from women, uh, that, you know, sort of the bathroom selfie is, is terrible. Get like good 1.00

00:34:30.640 pictures and those kinds of things I've, I found. So, so there's some conflicting research here on,

00:34:37.460 on um social proof uh which which david buss has has uh researched and other things so social proof

00:34:44.960 is basically um a lot of research finds that if a guy is in a picture with with women uh women

00:34:52.520 who are observing the picture rate him as more attractive than when he's alone or with uh

00:34:57.520 surrounded by guys um and the idea here is that like oh well if these women especially if these

00:35:03.200 are attractive women are willing to be around this guy and tolerate this guy, then there's

00:35:08.240 probably something interesting about him or something appealing about him. So they'll rate

00:35:10.820 him as more attractive. But then when it comes to dating apps, guys who post pictures of themselves

00:35:19.320 on their apps surrounded by women, they tend to get fewer likes than when they're alone or

00:35:24.720 they're with guy friends. I'm not exactly sure what's going on here. I think one reason for

00:35:29.760 this might be that like, you know, women, women may not necessarily be super interested. Like, 0.76

00:35:35.900 I think the picture may convey that like, this guy is unserious or that he's just wants to like,

00:35:42.020 have, you know, uh, short-term relationships, one night stands. He just wants to have flings.

00:35:46.680 And that's why he has these pictures of all these women. He's just, 0.59

00:35:49.380 you know, I think it gives maybe the wrong, the wrong vibe, but this is, you know, I don't

00:35:53.480 actually know. It's just speculation. Like, why do you think this would be?

00:35:56.200 yeah well probably i mean if i looked at that i'd i'd think especially if the women were

00:36:01.980 attractive i'd think okay that's potentially competition and if you're on a dating app 0.71

00:36:06.500 already you're like i just won't even won't even get into that i think it's probably that

00:36:11.200 is like maybe that's competition and or if you want to think deeper about it or why is he showing

00:36:16.140 other women on his dating profile right but i'd say competition probably if it's attractive women

00:36:21.520 Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, yeah, yeah. So that mismatch was was intriguing to me. I mean, in real life, there's other research showing, you know, what guys can do to to maximize their attractiveness or to increase, you know, their their appeal.

00:36:40.240 there was a research, for example, showing that a guy who carries around, um, so they basically

00:36:45.200 had the guy, the same guy, uh, he would approach women carrying a guitar case, you know, this case

00:36:50.820 in the shape of a guitar. And he would ask women, you know, he'd sort of start a short conversation

00:36:54.860 and then ask for their number. Um, and he, you know, he approached some number of women doing

00:36:59.460 it with the guitar case. And then, um, he did the same thing, you know, a few days later, uh,

00:37:04.200 with different women, uh, with nothing, uh, just sort of carrying nothing, just being, you know,

00:37:09.120 regular. And so when he had the guitar case, he got, um, many more numbers, many more phone

00:37:14.960 numbers. And I I'd wondered, I've never seen any research on this. I don't know of any,

00:37:19.840 even anecdotal stories, but you know, if you're a musician, uh, you know, have a, you know,

00:37:24.080 have some, you know, carrying a guitar or some kind of instrument, uh, I think that might be,

00:37:29.000 you know, that might be, uh, uh, advantageous. Probably depends on the instrument. Like if

00:37:34.260 you're carrying around a tuba i don't know how that well that's gonna go yeah a flute or uh yes

00:37:39.760 clarinet yeah i mean maybe with the clarinet i don't know probably not the flute or the tuba

00:37:44.540 yeah yeah yeah i don't know so what would be the most attractive instruments do you think so i

00:37:49.040 mean probably yeah guitar but like how a piano like how would a piano look saxophone might

00:37:54.060 saxophone oh right yeah there is yeah the sort of jazz and yeah okay i can see that

00:37:59.220 um drums how would drum how do you think women would see a guy with drums

00:38:04.540 Oh, I'm probably wondering why they were carrying them all. 0.86

00:38:08.960 Well, not carrying, but like by playing.

00:38:11.920 What I mean is like if you're on the apps and you're sort of seeing that or like on a website or something, you see a guy playing the drums.

00:38:17.340 I think like that might be, you know, I think someone.

00:38:19.920 No, I think that works.

00:38:21.320 I think anything in a band like that, a guitar, a bass, drums, anything like that would work.

00:38:28.500 Didn't one of the Kardashians just and I could have this wrong because I don't really follow the Kardashians, but didn't.

00:38:32.980 isn't one of them dating oh this is a terrible story that like rock guy who plays the drums

00:38:40.860 hold on okay hold on i need to know this travis barker doesn't he play the drums

00:38:47.760 i mean the name rings a bell he's a drummer there we go i know i know things yeah okay

00:38:52.760 okay uh courtney kardashian dating travis barker the drummer so there you go there's an example

00:38:59.580 all right yeah yeah i think uh okay so so the drum yeah drum yeah that'll be that could add

00:39:05.240 be added to the list you know learn an instrument um maybe yeah i'm thinking of others so i those

00:39:11.300 are sort of all of the empirically based suggestions that i have but i'm thinking of

00:39:15.240 others like maybe cooking you know if you're seen in a kitchen and you're cooking or making some

00:39:19.180 elaborate meal or something i don't know i think some of these like these would actually be worth

00:39:22.300 studying beyond just you know beyond the sort of usual like the dog picture or something you know

00:39:28.700 more education, but like actual hobbies and activities, which I think a lot of guys already

00:39:32.960 know, right? Like, I think you'll see, um, pictures of guys who post, you know, like outdoors pictures

00:39:37.680 or skydiving, or I think all of those, I mean, it's really interesting. I hope that there are

00:39:42.200 some researchers out there who are looking into this about like, you know, what, what personality

00:39:48.300 qualities is someone conveying when they, you know, when they have the skydiving picture,

00:39:51.860 I think, um, yeah, I think openness, maybe extroversion. Yeah. Yeah. Um, probably low

00:40:00.960 neuroticism or high emotional stability. Oh, I bet it's that I bet it's that for something like

00:40:06.520 skydiving. Yeah. Yeah. You're sort of showing like courage and the absence of anxiety. Yeah.

00:40:13.300 I mean, so I've gone skydiving and bungee jumping actually, and I didn't find skydiving that that

00:40:17.700 scary. I think bungee jumping is much more terrifying, but I think most people associate

00:40:21.460 skydiving with more terror. So maybe that's like a better, maybe that's a better picture.

00:40:26.240 How was the landing? I've wanted to go skydiving, but I have like a fake hip and a fake ankle. And

00:40:30.840 I figured that if something broke, people would just be like, yeah, maybe don't do that.

00:40:36.120 Oh, well, okay. So, so the first, like, I don't know, however many times you go skydiving,

00:40:40.980 you do like a tandem jump. So you're, you're actually attached to like a professional

00:40:45.540 skydiving instructor when you land, when you land. Yeah. So you're attached the entire time.

00:40:50.880 And so like, they basically are like telling you like, you know, when to put your feet up,

00:40:55.420 like how to do it, when to, when to land and so on. I don't know if it would be,

00:40:59.680 cause I know that you have some, you know, health conditions and stuff. I don't know if

00:41:03.000 that would be worth risking though. That could be pretty tough. I, I didn't have a problem with it,

00:41:08.220 but I could imagine like if one little thing goes wrong or like the wind blows at the wrong time or

00:41:12.840 something, maybe it would be, but you'd have to talk to a professional skydiving instructor to,

00:41:16.680 to get the deets on that. They're just straight up going to say no though.

00:41:20.200 Like, this is like, no, definitely not you. Oh, well, you can go skydiving or you can go,

00:41:24.880 you can go bungee jumping then, you know, I'll put that on, put that on your, uh, you know,

00:41:28.680 your, your webpage or whatever your, your, your app page, because I think it looks cool. Like,

00:41:32.760 I mean, I have some pictures. I, this was years ago. So I went skydiving in 2009 before, you know,

00:41:38.400 before all this, you know, the dating app stuff had taken off, but you know, I still managed to

00:41:42.160 get some cool pictures of jumping off the bridge and stuff and i'm like you know that's that's a

00:41:45.940 cool picture so that'll work yeah that's good that's good um do you think do you know any of

00:41:53.680 the stats about what's changed during covid for dating apps like has dating app use gone up

00:41:59.860 because everyone's isolated or is everyone actually isolated and scared of dating now

00:42:04.740 do you know anything about that no i i don't have any stats um about about whether it dropped i

00:42:12.000 I mean, my, my guess is at least for the first couple of months of the pandemic, probably

00:42:16.520 there was a sort of reduced use, but then like just anecdotally, just from like talking

00:42:23.780 to my friends, a lot of my friends who are single and especially my friends who are younger

00:42:27.680 and still in college, uh, it seemed like, you know, there was like a brief, like eight

00:42:32.460 week period of, Oh, let's, you know, be careful.

00:42:34.960 And then they stopped.

00:42:36.200 And I mean, I had a friend who, so he, he worked at a consultancy.

00:42:41.360 He was right out of college in 2020.

00:42:44.340 He went on furlough, which is basically like, you know, they're paying him 20% to not work

00:42:49.360 anymore, you know, because they were sort of reshuffling, reorganizing, whatever.

00:42:52.960 And so they paid him 20%.

00:42:53.820 He took a six month furlough and he said for six months straight, all he did was, was go

00:42:58.280 on the apps and bring a different person over to his house every day to have a date and

00:43:04.780 whatever else.

00:43:05.280 So, so he did this for a six month straight, basically throughout the entire, you know,

00:43:09.460 lockdown. Uh, and this was in the U S and yeah, he was telling me, it was funny. He's like, I was

00:43:14.560 so, uh, grossed out with myself during that period. Um, but I was bored and had nothing else to do

00:43:20.960 because I couldn't go anywhere and do anything at all. I had was the apps and that was my

00:43:24.100 entertainment. Uh, and, uh, yeah, he, um, ended up going on like this religious retreat in Israel,

00:43:30.600 uh, as a way to like, like cleanse himself of like all of his sins or all of the stuff that

00:43:36.520 he had done, he felt a little bit repulsed about like just what he had. And so then he, he was

00:43:41.960 like, I'm going to turn over a new leaf. I'm deleting the apps. I'm never going to do this

00:43:44.940 again. And then he comes back from Israel. And then he said like, within a week, he downloaded

00:43:48.080 all the apps again. He was doing the same thing. Um, and all my other guy friends are telling me

00:43:52.460 the same stuff, you know, like, I think that people who actually had the best, you know,

00:43:56.680 the best time, if you can call it that were people in relationships, you know, like people

00:44:01.060 who already had a part of, they were just sort of chilling at home, like whatever, watching

00:44:04.380 netflix and hanging out or whatever and like the people who were um you know trying to figure out

00:44:09.860 the dating apps and like whether or not to put like i think tinder had this special like a special

00:44:14.940 feature for people who were vaccinated to like signal that they're vaccinated and you know

00:44:20.880 there's like a bunch of interesting ways that guys interact with the apps i don't know if

00:44:25.620 you've heard of uh you know about woke fishing okay let's get into woke i think i've peripherally

00:44:32.560 heard of woke fishing, but what is that? Well, so you've probably heard about catfishing,

00:44:37.880 right? Catfishing of like pretending to be someone else on the internet, on social media or whatever,

00:44:42.180 but woke fishing, it was this thing. There were a couple of articles about it. I think in Vice

00:44:47.980 and the New York post, basically men pretending to be progressive to get laid. And so they would

00:44:56.320 put like you know something in their tinder bio like you know they'd put black lives matter or

00:45:02.800 you know climate change reform now or something like that and they would just sort of pretend to

00:45:09.420 do this but there were these stories of like guys doing this you know putting this and then they go

00:45:13.400 on a date with a girl and then later on you know the women who are writing these stories about this

00:45:18.620 you know they'd go home with a guy and find like books by ann coulter on the bookshelf or like a

00:45:23.420 maga hat like stashed away in the closet or something or he listens to joe rogan yeah yeah

00:45:29.420 yeah yeah he has uh yeah yeah so he has the you know joe rogan app on his phone or something or

00:45:34.120 the spotify app with joe rogan and so i yeah i think like yeah a lot of guys were sort of like

00:45:40.020 trying to figure out how to how to you know get the attention of women and get their interest and

00:45:45.740 um jeffrey miller the evolutionary psychologist he's described this as political peacocking

00:45:52.240 um you know like the animal the peacocks right like they puff up their their feathers to get

00:45:58.980 the attention of the peahens and he basically drew this analogy of like guys you know broadcasting

00:46:05.680 how they care about you know xyz political issue as a way to sort of you know demonstrate you know

00:46:12.320 their moral feathers of how good and how noble and pure they are and women might be you know

00:46:18.060 some, some women might be interested in, in, in guys like that. So yeah, but those kinds of guys

00:46:23.960 are probably not, you know, they're probably not very honest. Well, they're definitely not honest,

00:46:28.660 but they may not be the kind of guys you want to be around for very long. If they're willing to

00:46:31.620 lie about who they are. Score high on the dark triad, probably. Right.

00:46:36.980 Huh. That's interesting. I wonder when, when some of these kinds of ideologies spread,

00:46:42.520 I wonder what percentage of people are like that. Right. And then once it gets popular,

00:46:47.840 they're like okay well this is what makes me popular there's almost it's almost like a i gotta

00:46:53.260 know an evolutionary mechanism right if something takes over and you're like okay well stay alive

00:46:58.140 i've got to be part of the crowd i'll just go along with it i wonder what percentage of the

00:47:02.900 population an idea has to hit in order for that to happen it's definitely happened i would say now

00:47:08.700 with woke culture. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's some research showing that if, if 10%

00:47:18.480 of the population comes to like hold an idea very vehemently and very stridently,

00:47:23.820 and they are inflexible in their opinions, they're unwilling to be moved. Um, then that idea does

00:47:31.620 tend to proliferate, um, simply because the rest of the 90% of the culture, um, they either tend

00:47:38.320 to have, like, even if they have opposing opinions, they may not hold them very strongly.

00:47:43.140 And basically, if you have 10% of the population who really believes in their ideology and 90% who,

00:47:51.060 you know, they believe what they believe to varying degrees, but generally they're more

00:47:54.980 flexible, then the smaller group will tend to, their ideas will tend to proliferate, right? I

00:48:01.300 mean, it just makes sense. If one group's flexible and the other group is inflexible, the inflexible

00:48:04.740 group is going to exert dominance over the more flexible group. Um, that's crazy. 10% is not very

00:48:11.760 high. I would have assumed it had to be higher than that. I get the inflexibility part, but 10%

00:48:16.080 is not very many people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, I think this is, um, uh, I mean, a good

00:48:22.300 example of this would be what you're describing here with, you know, the woke culture and a lot

00:48:26.940 of these, you know, I've called some of, some of those ideas, I've called them luxury beliefs,

00:48:30.920 uh, which tend to be held by a very small percentage of the population, you know,

00:48:36.120 tend to be, you know, disproportionately educated and affluent. And, you know, most people don't

00:48:41.000 agree with a lot of this stuff. I mean, like the defund the police and all this kind of stuff,

00:48:44.420 like the vast majority of the population thinks it's utterly insane, but you know, the, the rest

00:48:49.880 of the population, um, you know, they, they maybe don't have as much influence or they don't spend

00:48:54.520 as much time interacting with politics or whatever. And so a lot of policies can get pushed through

00:48:59.280 that the majority of the country doesn't necessarily agree with.

00:49:03.320 Luxury beliefs.

00:49:04.460 Has anybody gotten you in trouble for that?

00:49:08.400 Nothing, surprisingly little.

00:49:11.580 You know, I haven't had any issues with it.

00:49:14.120 I've written about it multiple times and tweeted about it a lot.

00:49:18.200 I mean, it's funny, like when you're in academia,

00:49:22.520 when you're a PhD student and research and whatever,

00:49:24.660 like you come up with all these ideas and, you know,

00:49:26.960 some of the ideas that you work really hard on, no one cares about. And then like an idea you

00:49:31.360 spent 10 minutes on will suddenly take off. And that, that was kind of like that with luxury

00:49:34.620 beliefs was just a term that popped into my head. And, you know, it's just, uh, the way I define it

00:49:38.800 is, um, ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the

00:49:43.600 lower classes. And so defund the police is an obvious example, but I think there are some

00:49:48.400 others as well. Um, and yeah, it's, uh, the, the whole like inflexible, like small population

00:49:56.540 exerting there, they're well over the others. I think like what I was seeing at, as an undergrad,

00:50:01.640 I went to Yale and here at Cambridge, I'm seeing like very sort of affluent and well-to-do people

00:50:06.620 who hold opinions that are way different from ordinary people, middle-class people,

00:50:11.620 working-class people. But those are the ideas that get attention in all of the sort of legacy

00:50:16.600 media outlets and stuff. And, you know, this is probably why they're to some, to some degree,

00:50:22.720 uh, at least one reason why they're so upset with, um, you know, podcasters and people who

00:50:28.460 are more independent and people who have interesting guests on people like you, people

00:50:31.760 like Rogan and so on, is that like, you know, they only want their people to, to get attention

00:50:36.200 and audiences. What's it like being at Cambridge? If you're not like, is it's how's Cambridge doing

00:50:44.260 in regards to being woke or not it's it's not as bad as like some of the you know top universities

00:50:53.400 in the u.s but it's still like pretty bad you know your dad was disinvited from here a couple

00:50:59.080 years ago uh which infuriated me um because i was really looking forward to having him here i mean

00:51:05.220 part of the reason why i applied to cambridge was because um of his influence you know why i applied

00:51:09.900 to grad school, uh, was because of, of watching, uh, some of your dad's work and some of his

00:51:14.400 videos. And so, you know, there is like an activist contingent here, but, um, you know,

00:51:20.860 it's lately, it seems to have cooled down somewhat. Um, you know, you're, you're, you

00:51:25.420 and your dad, your dad were here pretty recently and there wasn't too much, too much of that stuff

00:51:29.840 going on, but you know, I, I try to keep my head down. I've had like private conversations actually

00:51:36.100 with professors here who've said like, you know, I'm surprised you haven't had more,

00:51:40.700 you know, like more people haven't tried to come after you or something. And I'm like,

00:51:44.520 like, it's weird because on the one hand, I feel like I haven't said anything that bad

00:51:47.820 or anything that wrong, like whatever. I have like pretty moderate opinions, I think.

00:51:53.640 But on the other hand, I sort of get what they're saying because, you know, being a moderate in

00:51:57.960 certain environments, like you're, you're perceived as, you know, a crazy extremist or

00:52:05.820 something okay there's um so one of the articles it's kind of what we've been talking about

00:52:13.600 i want to read one thing maybe more than one thing oh but it's um people being afraid to talk

00:52:22.420 nowadays so this was this was scary and i didn't know this at all but you wrote results from a

00:52:29.260 recent paper titled keeping your mouth shut, spiraling self-censorship in the U S

00:52:34.560 says they find that self-censorship has skyrocketed in the 1950s at the height of

00:52:41.180 McCarthyism, 13.4% of Americans reported that they felt less free to speak their mind than

00:52:48.380 they used to. In 1987, the figure had reached 20%. By 2019, 40% of Americans reported that

00:52:55.680 they did not feel free to speak their minds and then this isn't a partisan issue either the

00:53:00.720 percentage of democrats who are worried about speaking their mind is just about identical to

00:53:04.920 the percentage of republicans who self-censor 39 and 40 respectively that's insane 40 of people

00:53:15.140 are worried about it compared to mccarthyism too yeah yeah it's uh yeah right so in the 1950s

00:53:24.080 during McCarthyism, it was 13% of Americans said they don't feel free to speak what's on their

00:53:28.880 minds. And, you know, the most recent, uh, survey, like you said, is around 40%, regardless of

00:53:34.080 political party, which I find interesting. Um, I can see that going sort of, you know, like why

00:53:39.800 there's, whereas the political difference is interesting. I think part of it is just, um,

00:53:45.200 among, if you're a Democrat, right? Like I think a lot of people believe that, you know, uh, maybe

00:53:49.560 for Democrat, you should have a little bit more flexibility or freedom because you tend to agree

00:53:53.480 with whatever the prevailing ideology is or something, at least in the sort of sociocultural

00:53:58.520 context. And, you know, I think a lot of them, like I have close friends who are, who are

00:54:04.520 Democrats that they're actually like, kind of, you know, they walk on eggshells. They're careful

00:54:10.200 with what they say. I think a lot of this stuff, you know, I've, I've written at length about how

00:54:15.720 much of the, the, the cultural trends and the fashions we're seeing it's, I mean, it's a little

00:54:21.320 bit political. Sure. But I think it's much more about class. Um, I was raised, you know, I grew

00:54:25.940 up in a working class town in California by, you know, I was raised by Democrats who didn't go to

00:54:31.720 college, who were more working class and who, when I visit them now, it's like, you know,

00:54:36.740 they, they're still centrist Democrats. You know, when I grew up, they were John Kerry supporters

00:54:40.860 in 2004, but they, you know, they're, they're just so disconnected from a lot of the, the

00:54:46.600 cultural stuff that, that more educated people talk about, like, you know, it really is a sort

00:54:51.380 of class-based thing. Um, you know, they'll, they'll casually make like sweeping stereotypical

00:54:57.620 remarks about gender. And they speak in a way that would actually, uh, make college educated

00:55:03.300 Republicans uncomfortable. Right. About like, Oh yeah. That's interesting. I wonder what percentage

00:55:09.460 of the population just isn't paying attention to this. I think it's like, no, I'm a Democrat.

00:55:13.680 Oh, that's scary.

00:55:15.980 Yeah.

00:55:16.380 Yeah.

00:55:16.800 I think there's a lot of that because most people, I mean, most people don't subscribe

00:55:20.020 to any news media outlet.

00:55:22.460 They don't really consume or keep up with a lot of this stuff.

00:55:26.560 It is very much a sort of upper class, upper middle and upper class thing, right?

00:55:31.060 If you go to college and, you know, you're just supposed to, you know, stay informed

00:55:34.940 or whatever.

00:55:35.440 I mean, it's, yeah.

00:55:37.240 When I, when I first entered university, I was just shocked at how important people seemed

00:55:43.000 to believe it was to like read the latest op-eds and articles and all this sort of um updates on

00:55:49.640 vocabulary and all these trends and stuff that was so totally checked out from before um but the

00:55:55.420 the self-censorship thing something else that was interesting about that um i don't remember if i

00:55:59.540 put in that article or not i've written about it elsewhere is that it's um it's it's correlated

00:56:07.180 with education such that, uh, and this is, this is perhaps linked to, you know, people who are

00:56:13.100 Democrats, but they just don't know what's going on. Right. Is that, um, or they're, they're sort

00:56:17.500 of not keeping up with the trends or something as much as educated people. Um, so non-college

00:56:22.060 educated people, uh, it was something like only if I'm recalling the numbers correctly,

00:56:26.620 they may be a little off, but they're basically around 20% of high school graduates. So people

00:56:32.840 who highest level of education, they were in college around 20% say they self-censored.

00:56:38.080 And then it was like, you know, something like 30% or 35% of college grads. And then for post

00:56:44.120 graduates, it was like more than half, something crazy like that. So basically the more educated

00:56:48.580 you are, the more likely you are to self-censor. Um, and I think, okay, sorry. Is that partly

00:56:55.440 because I know that there's a correlation between maybe this, maybe there's not a correlation,

00:57:00.740 but people say that the smarter you are, the more, you know, what you don't know.

00:57:04.600 Do you think it has anything to do with that? Or is it being educated in an ideological fashion?

00:57:11.040 Oh, that's interesting. I could imagine it perhaps being the result of both of those things. But,

00:57:16.620 but again, like the more, you know, what you don't know, uh, you know, that indicates that

00:57:22.200 you're sort of, um, intellectually humble that you're, you know, sort of open-minded or something.

00:57:28.520 But this specific question is about, you know, do you not speak what's on your mind?

00:57:32.100 So this is actually, you know, these are thoughts and opinions that you already hold.

00:57:34.800 Are you willing to express them?

00:57:36.540 And it seems that the more education you have, the less willing you are to express yourself.

00:57:42.780 Actually, it seems to indicate that the more educated you are, the less open minded you

00:57:46.160 think the people around you are.

00:57:48.280 And so maybe it actually is at odds with this notion that the more educated you are, the

00:57:53.180 more you know, you don't, you know, you don't know what you know, or you know what you don't

00:57:56.200 know or something like that.

00:57:57.780 And so, yeah, I think this is fascinating, too, that actually the most educated people, you know, it's almost the reverse of what you would expect.

00:58:06.340 And I think the researchers in that paper I cited, they say something like there is this there is this gradual sort of cultural awareness that like as you obtain more education and sort of rise in socioeconomic status, you sort of learn that you're supposed to keep your mouth shut in certain instances.

00:58:23.220 and you're not allowed to say certain things and you have to be careful and walk on eggshells.

00:58:26.620 And, um, yeah, it's, it's just, uh, that part of the reason why I wrote that entire

00:58:32.040 article was because of how shocking I found that because I had grown up thinking it was

00:58:35.640 the reverse, that the more education and earning power and just sort of the higher socioeconomic

00:58:41.540 status, the more freedom you'll have.

00:58:43.280 But at least in this sort of social context, it's actually the reverse.

00:58:47.700 It's the less freedom you have, um, or at least the less freedom you feel to, to speak

00:58:52.100 what's on your mind.

00:58:53.220 hmm wow well i bet there are a number of reasons for that

00:58:58.840 that's yeah that's strange interesting okay what what got you interested in all of these different

00:59:08.340 topics uh yeah i mean i've always been a pretty curious person uh but you know again i i came

00:59:17.180 from quite a bit of a different social background than a lot of um a lot of the you know people

00:59:23.020 that I went to college with. So I actually grew up in foster homes in Los Angeles. And then I was

00:59:29.300 adopted later into working class family in Northern California. How old were you when that

00:59:34.520 happened? I was seven. I was almost eight when I was adopted. So my biological mother came to

00:59:42.220 California from the US or came to California from South Korea, sorry, when she was a woman.

00:59:48.840 And when I was three, she became addicted to drugs.

00:59:51.700 And so, yeah, I never knew who my father was.

00:59:55.400 And so I spent the next five years or so in foster homes around L.A.

00:59:59.940 And, yeah, and then moved to Northern California.

01:00:05.560 And, yeah, it was just sort of economically and socially, too, sort of in terms of my family structure.

01:00:12.900 I mean, just very challenging for me as a kid growing up.

01:00:17.060 Um, it's actually a really bad student, you know, just totally checked out just because

01:00:21.300 my home life was such a mess.

01:00:23.580 And so, you know, I, I joined the military right out of high school when I was 17.

01:00:29.400 Wow.

01:00:30.120 I know nothing about you.

01:00:32.460 Yeah.

01:00:32.840 Yeah.

01:00:32.980 We talked a little bit when you were, when you were here, but you know, we were, I think

01:00:36.000 we were both very busy and there was a lot going on, but yeah.

01:00:40.300 Um, yeah, I was in the military and did an enlistment served mostly.

01:00:45.480 I was actually overseas for most of it. I was in Germany, did a couple of deployments to the

01:00:51.020 Middle East. And it was from there that I went to college as a slightly older, you know, like a

01:00:57.140 mature student. And so I think all of those experiences together, combined with my probably

01:01:03.880 innate curiosity, led me to be interested in, you know, why people are the way they are,

01:01:10.220 why are there these like odd class differences and how people carry themselves and their opinions

01:01:14.120 and their beliefs and, you know, like what's going on with, with the dating scene and all

01:01:19.280 of these things have been, you know, it's just been all super interesting to me.

01:01:24.560 Are you going to write a book?

01:01:25.980 What are your plans?

01:01:27.600 Yeah, I'm writing a memoir actually, uh, about my sort of experiences in foster care and

01:01:33.160 what life was like growing up in, you know, my dusty, uh, working class town in the late

01:01:39.740 nineties and early two thousands and, you know, how I came to, to, uh, end up in, in these sort

01:01:46.580 of fancy universities and, and what I've learned and all those kinds of things. So yeah, that's my,

01:01:52.100 my project now, um, is, is the memoir. When is that? When, when do you think you're going to

01:01:56.620 wrap that up? When is it going to be published? I know there's big delays now for printing. So.

01:02:01.440 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm still, well, so I have the manuscript done. I'm working on revisions

01:02:06.700 right now with my editors at Simon Schuster, um, sort of going back and forth on certain things

01:02:13.100 and, you know, trying to, you know, whatever. So, so, um, probably late this year, um, I'm thinking,

01:02:20.600 uh, so I'm, that's my goal is to have it on track because I'll be finishing up my PhD program here

01:02:26.020 at Cambridge, uh, probably like late summer, early fall, somewhere around there. And then if

01:02:31.140 the book came out, um, you know, right around that time or a little bit after, I think that would be

01:02:34.820 ideal, you know, if I wanted to go on a book tour or, or to, um, to, to deliver talks or whatever,

01:02:40.340 to, to sort of promote the book and, and share, um, all the stuff that I've learned.

01:02:46.320 Okay. That's very cool. That's very cool. Did you have me back on to talk about it?

01:02:51.280 Oh, I will for sure. For sure. Yes, please. Um, did you have trouble? Like I assume writing

01:03:01.320 about foster care and some of these experiences is like heavy. Right. And I know, um, I've been

01:03:08.820 trying to write about some of the stuff that I went through and I, I find that when I wrote it

01:03:15.200 down, I wrote too much almost like the stuff that was heavier. There was like too much detail.

01:03:19.520 Yeah. So did, did you have any issues writing out hard topics?

01:03:25.200 Are you writing a memoir, Michaela? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to reading

01:03:30.380 that too. Um, and yeah, so I've never actually talked about, uh, yeah, the writing experience

01:03:37.000 on a podcast before. So this is kind of cool. I mean, it was, it was hard. I mean, I've written,

01:03:42.880 I had written about, uh, a lot of this stuff even before the book. So the way I even landed

01:03:49.260 this book deal was I wrote an op-ed in the New York times in 2018. Uh, it was like a 900 word

01:03:55.200 summary of my life. Basically. Uh, it was titled, um, why being a foster child made me a conservative.

01:04:01.700 Um, and I can see that being popular. It was, it was popular. It was a little bit controversial,

01:04:07.560 but not as controversial as I'd expected. Um, but then like, that was the thing that got the

01:04:12.480 attention of, you know, literary agents and publishers and stuff. Um, so I had some experience

01:04:17.480 writing about my life before, but like getting into like the granular details of it, uh, it was,

01:04:22.560 it was hard. I mean, it was actually, um, it was hard enough to the point where if I had known how

01:04:30.340 hard it was going to be, I wouldn't have done it. Uh, just because like of the, uh, emotional

01:04:35.340 exhaustion and the time and the like reenacting all of it. Cause I tried to write each chapter

01:04:42.760 from the perspective of myself at that age. So if I'm seven years old in a foster home,

01:04:46.680 I tried to remember what was it actually like there? What do I remember? You know, who was

01:04:51.260 around, you know, what was school like all those things. And it was really, it was really exhausting.

01:04:56.800 I don't know if that was even the best way to do it, but that's the way I chose to do it.

01:05:00.020 And I ended up writing more than I needed as well. I mean, I think the contract called for

01:05:03.660 like 80 to 90,000 words and I ended up writing more than a hundred thousand. But you know,

01:05:09.560 in my case, I mean, yeah, I mean, you probably are aware of a lot of this too, but I sent it to

01:05:13.680 a bunch of different people, writers and people that I respect and ask them for feedback and

01:05:21.100 asked them to be, I asked them all actually the same set of questions. Um, you know, like,

01:05:27.040 what did you like about the book? What did you do? It's like, you know, what was your favorite part?

01:05:30.460 What was your least favorite or less, you know, less engaging part and so on. And, you know,

01:05:36.540 I was trying to get, um, you know, uh, psychologists sometimes call when they do

01:05:40.920 their research inter-rater reliability, uh, which is like, do all people agree on something

01:05:45.320 essentially. And, uh, if, you know, out of those 10 people, if a handful of them or some number

01:05:51.300 of them said like, this part was a little boring or dull, or I didn't get it or whatever, I either

01:05:55.740 changed it or, or removed it. And after, you know, going through that process a couple of times,

01:06:01.080 um, yeah, I whittled it down to, to get it within that word count. Um, you know, I try to keep in

01:06:06.680 mind, uh, you know, this idea that, um, you know, I've read this from multiple different authors,

01:06:12.580 actually, that the, the worst thing a book can be is boring. Uh, and so, you know, if any part

01:06:18.080 of the feedback I got was like, Oh, this was a little bit slow or something. I'm like, all right,

01:06:21.740 I got to change it or remove it. Yeah. Interesting. Did you find that more of the, I mean, we can

01:06:28.020 get into this more too, when we actually talk, when we actually read your book, when you come

01:06:33.080 back on, but did you find that some of the harder things you wrote about, you had better memory of?

01:06:40.200 huh yeah yeah you know i i some of them yeah um some of them i did have a better memory of

01:06:50.680 some of them i mean i have i think the bittersweet memories were the ones that i had the easiest time

01:06:57.400 recalling and writing those are the ones that have stayed with me uh but there were some really

01:07:01.820 intense negative memories as well um you know i write about for example um when i was first adopted

01:07:09.460 Um, I was adopted by a married couple, a man and a woman and their young daughter who was

01:07:15.060 their biological daughter who became my adoptive younger sister, um, who's, uh, younger than

01:07:21.500 me, three years younger.

01:07:22.260 And so I remember like when I moved in with them and how happy I was to like, you know,

01:07:28.380 say the words mom and dad and like, Oh, like I have a mom and I have a dad now.

01:07:31.960 And I don't have to, you know, and my sister, I remember like it, it, it, you know, somehow

01:07:39.440 I, it, once it had, I had internalized the fact that, um, because all of the foster homes I had

01:07:44.700 lived in either, I was always moving or my foster siblings were always being taken. Right. Like I

01:07:49.780 would make a bond with one of my foster siblings and then they'd go back to their parents or they

01:07:53.320 go to another home. And so I was never sure who would be leaving and when, but when I realized

01:07:58.420 that, um, my sister and I, neither of us were ever going to be taken from each other. Um, you know,

01:08:04.360 like I distinctly remember that feeling and writing about it. And then also when she gave

01:08:09.520 me some toys because all the foster homes I'd lived in, I never had any toys. And so when my

01:08:13.440 sister gave me some toys, like, you know, like it was first, it was confusing to me because I had

01:08:18.220 never had that experience before of a kid giving or anyone giving me toys. But the fact that this

01:08:23.040 little younger than me, this little kid is giving me toys is like confusing, but also like, you know,

01:08:29.000 it sort of cemented our bond together and so like those those kinds of memories you know it's it was

01:08:36.200 at the time happy but in hindsight it's actually kind of sad those were the kind of memories that

01:08:40.180 i remember the most wow this is gonna be a crazy book this should do well yeah um part of

01:08:49.440 have you felt better since kind of finishing the manuscript does it feel like

01:08:54.940 that like resolved anything or you got some of this emotional i don't know trauma out

01:09:01.600 yeah i mean well i hated the process of writing it actually yeah you know like i mean are you

01:09:08.860 how far along are you so i i have a hundred and seventy thousand words and i haven't covered

01:09:15.780 the last two years and the last two years were awful last three three years so i need to get

01:09:24.720 rid of, like, I'm sure it's all just like, there's too much going on there. So I need to cut like

01:09:32.240 half of it. That's a, that's a, it's a sturdy, uh, memoir. Yeah. That's a, you know, that's a

01:09:39.680 thick one. Uh, 170,000 words, man. Um, but, but you know, like it's, I, I'm like, how long have

01:09:47.700 you been, been at the process since? So, because dad always taught me to write out, you know,

01:09:54.720 traumatizing memories. Right. So I actually started writing after I had my hip and ankle

01:09:59.620 replaced when I was 18. So I had that done when I was 17. So I started writing through these when

01:10:04.740 I was 18. So I've been doing this since I was 18. I really focused on making into a book when I was

01:10:12.780 23, but then things got so weird that I was like, well, I can't end it here. I feel like I can end

01:10:18.540 it now though but so i've been doing this for years and it's been yeah pretty grueling the last

01:10:25.060 parts were like grueling yeah i can imagine i mean yeah that's yeah i mean just from what little i've

01:10:31.000 i know and i've heard i mean i can imagine i mean it's yeah but at least it sounds like you had some

01:10:35.520 of it already sort of prepared and yeah so it wasn't like yeah like the stuff from when i was

01:10:40.820 a kid too like that i'd gone through so many times that it was easier right yeah yeah for me

01:10:48.280 it was, I mean, I had like notes and, and, um, you know, just like scraps and ideas and stuff

01:10:54.260 that I've accumulated over the last few years. Um, but it wasn't, uh, it was like, literally I

01:11:00.720 had to like write, you know, 90,000 words in 18 months or something. And so I had like targets to

01:11:06.360 set for myself of, you know, whatever 300 words today or X number of words tomorrow. And, you

01:11:12.660 know, if I can get this many words by this date, then, then it's fine. Um, but then like, you know,

01:11:18.260 once it was, once the like first draft was done, I did feel a lot better and I'm like, wow, I can't

01:11:23.560 believe it's, I can't believe it's over. And then like the fact, like, I mean, when I was able to

01:11:28.040 end it in a way that I liked and that was satisfying, you know, because it's a memoirs

01:11:32.320 are weird, right? Because it's like your life is still going. There's no like real end, but how do

01:11:37.020 you make a satisfying conclusion to all of the themes that you've discussed and, and make it

01:11:43.620 satisfying for the reader too, not just for yourself. And, um, once I got there, I think I

01:11:48.180 was like, oh, finally. And I'm like, I'm so done with this thing. And I'm, and I'm actually not

01:11:51.940 done. Cause I'm still going through edits and revisions, but at least the sort of the, the

01:11:55.760 marble block is there, like chip away at it. But yeah, it's, uh, you know, it's a, it's a weird

01:12:00.580 process. Um, and I'm kind of glad I'm, you know, I'm, I'm doing it and I'm glad I'm done, but

01:12:06.580 you know, it's, uh, it's not something I would have agreed to had I known what it was going to

01:12:11.520 be like. Um, I don't know how you feel. I mean, it sounds like you're, you're having a different

01:12:17.140 experience with, with yours. Yeah. Well, I kept a diary since I was in grade one. So I had,

01:12:23.380 I just had so many details that I don't think I would have remembered otherwise. So it's difficult

01:12:28.340 for me to say like, this really doesn't matter. Like part of these things just don't matter. So

01:12:33.060 I'm at the point where I need people to go through it and think and go, Whoa, like there's

01:12:36.840 way too much detail there. Or like, no one cares about this. Yeah. Yeah. I, I talked to my,

01:12:43.320 my sister. So I had mentioned my, my adoptive sister asking her what she remembers. I talked

01:12:48.680 to like, you know, friends from high school. I haven't talked to, I mean, now it's been,

01:12:52.800 you know, 13 plus years since I've talked to some of my friends from high school

01:12:56.980 and asking them like you know do you remember that like trying to get the memories right or

01:13:02.120 at least as right as possible but it's really weird like writing um memories because you know

01:13:11.080 so for example I talked to my my my mom my adoptive mom about a conversation we'd had when I was nine

01:13:15.700 uh and I told her like oh do you remember that time we were in a car outside of this house and

01:13:20.680 you told me about xyz and I did this and like you know whatever and I'm describing this to her and

01:13:26.000 she was like, we weren't in a car. Like we were at a different house on someone else's porch.

01:13:30.980 It wasn't nighttime. It was like early morning, like, you know, just like the, the basic detail,

01:13:36.940 like the basic part of it is right. But all the details I got, one of us got wrong, or maybe we're

01:13:41.480 both wrong. Right. And that part is hard for me to like reconcile that. Like, okay, so we have

01:13:46.660 different recollection of when that conversation took place and what was going on around us.

01:13:51.800 And so like, you know, like every other memoir, you always have to put like, you know, these are,

01:13:55.360 these are true at least as i remember it but of course like no one can truly verify some of these

01:14:00.140 things you know cool yeah okay well i'm looking forward to when that comes out definitely send

01:14:06.920 me a copy we'll talk about it when's uh when's yours coming well i wasn't willing to finish it

01:14:13.660 until there was a good ending like you said it's weird because it's your life um and my dad was so

01:14:19.400 sick for so long that i was just like i can't like it's just this like depressing you know

01:14:24.420 autoimmune, chronically ill child. And then I get better. And then her dad gets sick and,

01:14:29.900 and then it ends. I was like, that's not going to work. I was like, I'll just wait until dad

01:14:34.820 gets better. Assuming that's going to happen. And he's better now. And things are like,

01:14:38.920 it seems more conclusive. So I've just been so swamped with everything else. It's hard to like,

01:14:45.620 I've got a book deal, but it's hard for me to, there's not enough pressure. And so I haven't

01:14:52.120 been like, pry, you know, I've got like my dad's brand and then I have the podcast thing. So I

01:14:56.460 haven't been like just half an hour a day. Right. I haven't got to that. Plus I think I needed to

01:15:01.540 process some things. I'm probably almost ready for another sprint. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was

01:15:08.940 surprisingly, yeah. Like, like the processing of it and sort of like mining through all of

01:15:14.040 those emotions and stuff. Like, yeah, I don't think of myself as a particularly, you know,

01:15:18.900 like, Oh, so like I took your, your dad's personality test and I scored in like, I don't

01:15:22.600 know, like the bottom 10th percentile on, uh, neuroticism or, you know, just like really

01:15:27.580 like, yeah, I'm just not that, that emotional, but that process was like surprisingly, uh,

01:15:33.080 you know, brought up a lot of feelings and stuff.

01:15:34.800 And yeah, it's, uh, it's a, it's a crazy experience just, you know, trying to relive

01:15:39.440 your life in the span of a couple of years again, you know?

01:15:42.000 So, yeah, that's wild.

01:15:45.120 Yeah.

01:15:45.480 Okay, Rob, if people want to find you online, where should they go?

01:15:50.280 You can go to my website, robkhenderson.com, or follow me on Twitter at Rob K. Henderson.

01:15:56.420 Okay, we'll link all those below, too.

01:15:59.360 Sounds good.

01:15:59.860 Thank you. Thank you very much for coming on. I'll have you back for your book. That'll be fun.

01:16:03.780 Maybe. I don't know. It'll be interesting, anyway.

01:16:06.520 Yeah, yeah, it'll be an interesting discussion, and thanks, Michaela.

01:16:15.480 We'll be right back.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - March 26, 2022

143. How To Be More Attractive To The Opposite Sex ｜ Rob Henderson & Mikhaila Peterson

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