Navigating Vulnerability: Masculinity in Relationships

Join Simone and Malcolm in this in-depth discussion about the dynamics of emotional vulnerability between men and women, specifically focusing on why women often feel repulsed ('the ick') when men cry or seek emotional support. They delve into cultural trends, societal expectations, and personal experiences, examining how these factors contribute to the complexities of male emotional expression and relationships. The conversation also explores the biological, psychological, and cultural elements that shape emotional behavior and expectations in men and women.

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Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about men crying and women leaving them, or men going to women for emotional support and then women getting the ick. This has been an ongoing trend as, as like a meme that goes around every now and then within.

The Red Pill diaspora, or even the original Red Pill or Mik Tal community back in the day. Mm-hmm. Somebody would be like, well, you know, ex girl said she wanted me to open up to her emotionally, or she wanted me to be vulnerable around her. Or a girl will say something like, well, you know, why, why don't men ever like show their emotions or cry or whatever?

Right. And, and then men are always like, well, because I tried that once and the woman never talked to me again or forced me or like. You know, over and over and over again you see these stories. Okay? And so, you know, I understand why you used to go viral is in the red pill community. Like my brain sees this and the first thought it has is that's so unfair.

I'm just picturing Greta

Simone Collins: Thunberg saying, how dare you? That's how dare you say this is what you want. I tried. And then what did you do? You left me. It also feels, it, it seems kind of fake to me though, so I, I'm, I'm, and keeping here more. What do you mean fake? Do you not

Malcolm Collins: think it really happens? I'm sure no men express

Simone Collins: themselves extremely flamboyantly all the time online and in person.

Like, I, I don't, I don't ever, I've never felt like men are withholding their emotions. I feel like what's actually happening here is women signaling, maybe because they're seeing a therapist or something, that they expect a certain type of emotional vulnerability. From their male partners. Like remember how you were walking behind those elite people at that one conference we went to?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And they

Simone Collins: were like, I would never date someone who wasn't seeing a therapist. It could be that their therapist or kind of giving this, by the way,

Malcolm Collins: who were saying it, and then,

Simone Collins: And so they're, they're then communicating to their boyfriends like, will you have to be therapy speak insecure? And then the men.

Attempt to, in a very fake and contrived way, open up and break down. And it, I mean, obviously they look like idiots because they don't actually, that's not how they feel. And then that, that might

Malcolm Collins: actually be a component of it. Yeah. I'm, I'm not gonna lie, I, I might feel like part of it because when I started like investigating my own experiences around this, right?

Yeah. Like the first thing I think is how dare women be that, you know, callous, that, that, that seems

Simone Collins: crazy. Yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: then, then I, the first thought is I'm. These women don't know that they don't want a guy to do this. Like they're not trying to trick their boyfriends into crying in front of them or something.

No. They genuinely think that this is what they want because this is what they've been told what they want. You know, they're not being well. Yeah. And what they've

Simone Collins: been told and, and by whom. Exactly. 'cause this isn't stuff that shows up. For example, in fantasy romance novels, men opening up in a way where they become emotionally vulnerable by crying does not happen.

In romance novels. Which very, which is very

Malcolm Collins: porn by the way,

Simone Collins: you know, which, which is, yeah. This, this is what women actually want. The, the monster er section of the library. Yeah. Doesn't, doesn't show up in that. Well, no, even like when I was a, when I was younger, I, I loved historical.

Malcolm Collins: Okay,

Simone Collins: romance. So like not, that's not, there were no monsters.

It was just always noble men 'cause they had to have money. You know, you have to be

Malcolm Collins: powerful. But then I, I started to think about, you know, before I dated Simone and I was like, well, because another thing I thought when I heard this is I don't remember having this problem. I don't remember any girl. Ever leaving me because I opened myself up emotionally to her.

Yeah. And I never intentionally tried to emotionally guard myself when I was dating. No. And I dated a lot, lot. You were extremely

Simone Collins: transparent, like from moment number one. So I think you also edited out anyone.

Malcolm Collins: But I'm and I, but I'm also from the perspective of a lot of guys. Whether they say simpy or effeminate or whatever word they want to use, you know, I do not appear to be the archetype of masculinity, nor am or at least a, a, a generalist societal archetype.

I would argue I'm an archetype, was in my cultural background. Yeah, we were,

Simone Collins: we were told one person noted that your neck wasn't wide enough. But I don't know how it could be any wider without you looking really weird. Yeah, no, they mean like a neck, like that's all I can imagine. Yeah. A triangle neck.

Yeah. Like what's his face? Who does some morning routines and has the most kyphotic posture in the world. He makes me so worried. No, but

Malcolm Collins: the, the point I'm, I'm making here uhhuh, right? Largely speaking mm-hmm. Is, is I, I am, I am couching what I'm about to say in a, this is Malcolm saying this.

You

know, Malcolm Effeminate, Malcolm Malcolm, who's never tried to overly represent a form of masculinity.

Sure, yeah. And I would, I thought to myself, I'd never had this problem.

Mm-hmm.

So then I searched my memory. You know, I, I've dated. A lot of girls you know, as I've mentioned before, I haven't mentioned in a long time on the podcast, so I probably should, like, I've slept with over a hundred women before I married Simone.

Like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I really played the field for a long time and it was wrong. And I'm not saying it's a good thing I did it because I didn't have any other moral structure back then. I was just like, oh, what is status for men? Status is sleeping around, so I'm gonna sleep around, right? And then eventually I got to a point where I was like, this is stupid.

Well, it was

Simone Collins: fun for you,

Malcolm Collins: right? I mean, you had fun. Oh, I, I had fun, but more from a game perspective. I'm better than winning. Feels good. Look at what I'm winning. Yeah. Winning. Winning feels good. I, I don't know if like, like sex is fine, but it's like, not like once you do it a lot with a lot of people, it's like, not that like, it's like okay it's not like it gets worse.

Like some people are like, oh no, it doesn't get worse. It's just the, you, you realize that you may have mythologized how good it is a bit. But. The point here being or, or, or ignored the bad part. The, the, the smell, the shower afterwards, the grossness, the, you know, et cetera.

Simone Collins: Especially with the stranger who you haven't vetted, you're kind of like.

Where, where have they been?

Malcolm Collins: I guess they're hot. You know, what did I just put myself? I always vetted everyone to an extent. It wasn't like I was sleeping with strangers. I wasn't like going to bars or something like a, like a, a good, like quarter of the people I slept with were virgins when I slept with them.

And I, you know, I had enough experience to tell the difference. You know, so it wasn't like I was going after sluts. I, I was going after you know, the nerds, like that was my specialty is nerds. But the point I'm making here is, so I search my memory. I'm like, okay, I never had a problem with this.

And then I started to think, did I ever cry in front of a girl? Did I ever look for like, like show emotional vulnerability to a girl? Did you, and then like past Malcolm responded to me in my head, like, I'm, I'm modeling past Malcolm and past Malcolm's, like. Why would you do that? Girls are for sex. Like,

Simone Collins: oh, so did well, I, I guess I should, have you ever cried in front of a, like a, a, your brother or a friend, like who's a guy?

Maybe when I was a little kid and

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: got like, that didn't count. Like little No. Like, not injury, crying.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I, I, I'm, again, I'm couching all this and I'm not saying, I didn't even realize until I thought about it. That I had never gone out and cried in front of a girl, that I had never gone out and cried in front of a friend or something like that, that I had never have.

You

Simone Collins: wanted, like, have you ever stopped yourself from crying in front of me or No? I'll cry. Cry

Malcolm Collins: alone. But you cried alone. Yeah, but it's never over. Like sadness, just like

Simone Collins: frustration.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's, it's, it's usually over like somebody else's suffering or something that I need to fix in the world, or, you know, the beauty of something.

Well that's, so there's

Simone Collins: this, there's one form of crying that is manly, and I think it, like, at least the older ones of us can all relate to it. There was this. Commercial. I think it was about trash where there's a crying. It got an Indian. Yeah. And the single tear goes down the, it's this man. Yeah. And he like his face is the most stoic facial expression in the world.

And a single tear falls down his cheek. And like that is the acceptable manly form. Like it does That doesn't undermine your crying at all. 'cause it shows like you're in complete control, but you feel so much that one deer is able to make it out.

Malcolm Collins: But you're still in control. But also keep in mind, he is crying over, like when I said that I, it is over like world problems, right?

Which I

Simone Collins: guess also is manly, right? 'cause it shows that you are a leader, you are responsible for a larger world. Like, like

Malcolm Collins: George Bush crying when he's looking at the Katrina victims. I remember this. You know, the idea of like when is it appropriate to show vulnerability and emotions? Yeah. And when is it not as a man, but, but the wider personal stuff.

Simone Collins: No, but like for the people that you lead or care about or represent, as long as you don't show too much like gesticulation. But

Malcolm Collins: the point I'm trying to make here is, this is me saying this, not trying to front how masculine I am. Yeah, no, you've never, you've never tried to look masculine. You just are. It just never occurred to me.

Why I would want to do this, and we're gonna talk about this in a second, but then also in our relationship, have I ever cried about anything? Did I cry when my mom died? Did I cry like, no.

Simone Collins: Did I look when your mom died? Not only did you not cry, you proceeded to host a lunch guests in New York City, and then a dinner party.

All the same day. It was

Malcolm Collins: pre-planned. I couldn't cancel it, you know?

Simone Collins: Most people would, and like people kept being like when they, when they found out, 'cause they, we didn't tell them exactly right away. They were like,

Malcolm Collins: oh my God. I mean, I remember you looked like you were close to crying that day and I just felt like I had to calm you down because you were like, oh, this is so bad.

And I was like, Simone, our kids are safe, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I talked you through it. And I remember like, the only thing I was thinking about when you told me was like, oh, I've gotta make sure Simone feels comfortable because clearly she's really distressed. But the larger point here being is even with this, even with me never really crying in our relationship, even with me, never really, you know, any of this it was never, and I don't think it ever felt to you, like I intentionally was trying not to show emotions to you.

I've, I've definitely sat you down and talked about concerns I have about our future whether it's financial concern No. And there are times where yeah,

Simone Collins: you just feel super worried. But often, like when you do so you, you're sort of like, man, like being, you know, sort of overtaken by this and like to the point of it not being logical, but I need to talk through it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But the point I'm trying to make here is I feel like what's actually happening here. Is even for men who aren't very traditionally masculine. Crying is just not a common thing to do as an adult, nor is seeking emotional validation. And I should note here that the form of crying that men get punished for is the type of crying that seeks emotional validation.

Mm. Or that is meant to portray a specific self image. Yeah. I guess

Simone Collins: we have to think like, why was crying evolved? I imagine it, it's to pull the heartstrings of a parent and a caregiver, so Well, yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: it was meant to tell Mommy that you need resources. Right? Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so if you are doing this to an adult and, and, and some women continued this into adulthood, right?

And I think the reason we see this behavior in some women in adulthood and not men is because for women it can be a way to signal their youth and thus the number of childbearing years they have left. They want to show men, actually, I'm very young, whereas a man doesn't need to signal that to women in the same way I.

Scene: And the whole sexy baby thing isn't an act. I'm a very sexy baby. I can't help it if men are attracted to me. Like that homeless guy. He likes what he sees. Okay, that could be for me. It's not! It's for her.

Malcolm Collins: Well,

Simone Collins: and yeah. No, I, I really feel this, and this is why I feel pretty strongly about that theory because I really don't like crying. Like I know a bunch of people who are really afraid of vomiting. I. Two of my best friends in college had like a deep fear of vomiting. Like they would not eat out so that they would just never have a risk of eating food, poisoning that level of fear.

And I think, I feel not that crazy, but like close to cry, I really hate crying and I've learned that the best way to never cry is to know that when I am. Especially hormonally vulnerable to isolate myself, which is why we do the whole thing where when I give birth, and clearly I'm going through a lot of hormonal nonsense, you drop me off at the hospital, I deliver the baby.

I like post C-section, have to spend a couple of nights in the hospital and then when I'm out, like, okay, like I'm collected, but like it's really hard. Like if, if and, and I don't cry almost at all. Unless like there's a nurse around asking me how I feel because I, I know that the only times I cry are if there's an audience that's in like a kind of caregiving position.

I. That makes me feel somewhat vulnerable. And then like this signaling thing comes out where like, because my body or mind knows it's in some form of distress, it's like, alright, do it. And I think many women maybe it, it, it makes sense that women who are more likely to be in very vulnerable positions, like let's say you're in.

A roving clan or a tribe or something like that, and you're pregnant or you, you've just delivered, like, you actually are much more dependent, like you still are in a slightly more childlike dependent state, even as an adult because of that physical vulnerability we're gonna, it demonstrates use to an extent, you know, men, women, yeah.

Yeah. So it's useful then, yeah, you're still crying, so you may not be a child, but you still need someone, you need to pull someone's heartstrings so you don't die because you can't otherwise keep up with everyone due to your pregnancy or due to being postpartum or something like that. So. But I really, I think that has to be it because there's such a strong correlation, at least for me, between crying and there being audience.

And like, if no one's around, I am so fine.

Malcolm Collins: And it's, well, this might also be why I haven't felt an intuition to do it, because I don't feel these same type of caregiver from you that I would feel from a mom, right? Like you are somebody who supports me, but ultimately depends on me as are other women who I've dated, therefore.

I wouldn't cry. Right. Like why would I do? Right. It's like

Simone Collins: not some unidirectional caregiver relationship.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Which makes it you know, make more sense within that context. And the point I was making earlier is that if you look at the ways where it's okay for a man to cry, yeah. They are, when it is not about.

Self vulnerability. Yeah. When it's, it's certainly

Simone Collins: not the signaling type of crying.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. It's, it's, it's you know, you are crying for the sake of the wor in a way it's about showing your responsibility

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Versus you know, retreat from responsibility.

Simone Collins: Right, right, right. 'cause it's not about you, you personally feel it's about for other people.

Like you're only crying because you do make the thing, you're crying about your personal responsibility and that thing isn't you. It's beyond you. And this may also explain why women, when this does ultimately happen in the way where men are crying for personal reasons, so repulsive because it implies to women that those men must think those women are the caregiver.

Yes. And that is the number one, like of the least sexy things a man can do to imply that the woman. Is the caregiver. To signal that in any way explicitly or implicitly or through body language and crying is a very, probably a very clear form of that. That, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, true. Why did she develop the ick when I called her mommy and put my head in her lap and cried, right?

Like, yeah, well, well maybe. 'cause you shouldn't have signaled to her that she's your mommy, right? Like, yeah. Well

Simone Collins: it's, so, it's, it's also like, and this is exacerbated by, there's this huge discussion online among women. 'cause I, I can't tell you how many. Podcasts and YouTube episodes I've seen about this.

Of one, the research shows that when in relationships women take on more, like they do more work for the, for taking care of their husbands. And, and they do most, you do more for than I do do, and they do. So like already women are taking this on. And already now, because of all this media, most women are aware of the fact that they're taking this burden on.

And then if a husband turns around and is explicitly like. Yeah, you're, you're my mommy. Like, or you're my caregiver. That just, that, that like snaps them. They're like, that's it. 'cause like at least they wanna have this fantasy that like, well, you know, when it comes down to it though, my husband provides the money and the security.

When it comes down to it, my husband's dominant. And if that falls apart. Then like none of it's worth it.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, of course. The whole LA falls apart. Yeah. Yeah. So like

Simone Collins: how, how, how are women the a*****e then? Like at that point, right? That makes it seem a lot more, well ,

Malcolm Collins: they believe that they want something they don't actually want.

They're like, I want somebody I can be vulnerable in front of. Yeah. Because that's what they've been told by therapist culture. Yeah. And here, you know, and ask guys to, you know, think for themselves. Like do you, do you actually. Like, do, do you actually want somebody who, who you could be vulnerable around?

I mean, you can draw out the vulnerable side of you, like anyone can do that, but does that feel good? Does that feel natural, or is this, yeah. And just leaning into

Simone Collins: that help you in any way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Is is I, I think part of the problem, I don't like being vulnerable is that think it's good, like, oh, this is unfair, that I can't turn to them with my vulnerabilities.

Yeah.

And what I would reflect it back to, and keep in mind there are cultural differences.

Simone Collins: Hey, I'll point out, women don't necessarily want to be vulnerable. And by choosing to not have kids, and by choosing to not put themselves in vulnerable positions, women are signaling that in the modern age, women don't.

Want to be in this position. They don't want to be physically incapacitated by pregnancy or postpartum periods. Okay. Like

Malcolm Collins: that's, that's sort of tangential to the point, the point I'm making here is that a lot of men when they see these, they're like, how terrible is it that I can't go to anybody when I'm having emotional distress?

Mm. And the way I would reframe this as. You know, you frankly, like

Iron Man: And dad went to 7 Eleven to get scratchers. I guess he won because that was six years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Which happens, dads leave. No need to be a pussy about it. Here's what I need.

Malcolm Collins: Oh God. You know, but this is unfortunately, and I, and I know our society doesn't tell you this.

Emotional control should really not be that hard as an adult male. Like, and, and I'm, and I'm, again, this is the simp Malcolm. This is a effeminate Malcolm telling you, like, I never even considered that I was controlling these things about myself because I never thought about indulging in them, right?

Like mm-hmm. I am not here saying I am extra masculine. I am saying that you are being primed. To think that you need to do this thing that is actually not good for you at all. In the same way that we point out that, you know, people are taught, oh, you need to let out anger. And yet we know that like if you punch a wall, it actually makes you angrier.

Yeah. Like this is, it's not gonna help

pop psychologist stuff like indulge in, in emotion for a short period to release it. No. Indulging for an emotion in a short period makes it louder. It doesn't release it. Mm-hmm. That's not a no. Yeah, redirecting your attention. And recontextualizing what's happening to you is how you lower an emotion, not indulging in it.

And this is one of these like pop psychology things or, oh, you know, real men cry. Who the made that up? I'll tell you what, it wasn't a man who said that, right? Like, yeah, it was some weird group that was trying to siop men into making themselves look like. Es in front of their, their, their partners.

Right. It is basically the way I see it, right? Like, yeah. It's, it's a group that is like, well, have men acted more like women? And, and again, the women do not realize that this is not what they want. No,

Simone Collins: no. They're, I mean, well, yeah. And the women also, you know, like these are the same people who are brainwashed into codependent relationships with their therapists.

I mean, yeah, they've got a lot of problems going on.

Malcolm Collins: They've got a lot of problems going on. But I mean, the, to start with for you guys is just, I mean, I think that this is a part of the problem. Like this is not a something that you are, like, you need to resist or something like, I, I'd make an example here if I decided that like I wasn't going to masturbate, like I.

That would be an enormous challenge for me. I would be like, oh, are, are you glad I'm not one of those, those wives who are like you,

Simone Collins: you're not allowed. I've seen

Malcolm Collins: so much of it online recently. Yeah, this's crazy. I didn't know the head of, of Prager U was pro masturbation. Apparently. He went on some like Catholic show and he goes.

Well, you know, it, it, it doesn't cause me problems in this marriage, and it didn't in my last three either. May they thought that that was hilarious. Maybe not the best argument I've heard about that. I think that's more of a boomer problem than you know, but the point being is like, that would create like, like I'm not the person coming here and saying I have total self-mastery, right?

Like mm-hmm. Clearly I don't have self masturbating around something like masturbation. Thanks for telling the world, Malcolm. No, no, no. But what I'm saying is, and the reason I'm contrasting this. Is, I don't want people to think that I'm coming out here being like, I'm the most masculine disciplined man who's ever existed.

Yeah. And that's why I never feel like crying or seeking emotional support. Well, as we've, we've

Simone Collins: revealed in other podcast episodes, you know, kind of watch out for the ones who frame themselves as super masculine. And often it comes out that, you know,

Malcolm Collins: or, or super caring of women they're, they're, they're usually hiding something.

basically I'm starting the fatherhood chapter of my life. We're not pregnant just yet, but we've moved to the Scottish Highlands,

The reason why me and my ex split up is I told her to sit down and to write down like her goals and I wrote, you know what, I want to move to like a big city.

You will not find this kind of woman who will fit with this lifestyle in a big major city why?

The women who are in the big cities are glorified Instagram prostitution.

I actually want to have a few like, Sleepless nights.

I want to have a few likes like sleep deprived nights where I stay up late bro for the last few years I've been to sleep at 7 8 p. m I've you couldn't imagine the amount of like parties and social events and dinners that I've missed

I know what goes on in these parties And the issue was that the girls that I was meeting from these places, just like I, I was as well, um, We're all low quality.

It's a low quality place to be.

. I wanted to be super social. I wanted to have some late nights where we stay up and we're social and there's a party that we go to and everything.

But she saw it, and I'm not gonna lie, like, I could see how, like, offended she was. Where she was quite, like, pressuring, she was like, Wait, you wanna do this? Oh, you wanna do that? You wanna stay up late? But that's unhealthy.

Those party girls, like the party, low quality, degenerate, TikTok type of girls.

They are attracted to the party, low quality, degenerate, TikTok type of guys. Fine, like trash can stay with trash.

Because for hers, she wrote that she wanted to do more of the things that we were currently doing. , it's wholesome , and you know that she's an awesome girl for that, she doesn't want to be around like, You know, like party girls and whatever I just realized like we're actually going into two separate seasons right now

Fine, like trash can stay with trash. This is going to sound weird, you need to be hit in the face. I will repeat that again. As a young man, you need to be hit in the face consistently.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but the point I'm making here, okay, is I am not that, I am not trying to signal that I am not here saying. I never really feel like crying in front of my wife because I'm tough. Mm-hmm. I'm just like, if you do not allow society to brainwash you around this stuff, it's gonna be like a complete non-issue for you.

It's gonna be like, oh, why would I even think about doing that? Right? Mm-hmm. Unless you are born with some sort of unusual biology. , And here what I mean is obviously people are born with different biologies. Some men. Are born perceiving the world more like women. Some men are born, you know, more cry than other people.

You know, some men are. What about men

Simone Collins: who go on estrogen? Really cry.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and, and culturally you know, it's, there might be differences, there might be some cultural groups. And I just might be from a cultural group where men almost never cry and it's just not even something we would consider.

Yeah, Scott's

Simone Collins: Irish doesn't strike me as a

Malcolm Collins: cry friendly. Well, the funny thing is, is I remember my parents growing up, you know, they were very bought into the urban monoculture. They were very like, oh, you know, you should cry when you need to cry. You should really, they were never like, that doesn't seem like your parents.

Well, they were, they, they were like, well, you know, we may not do it, but like, you know, don't, don't. And my dad also not a particularly masculine guy. I've never seen him cry.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, actually he's a lot like you. Like he may, he, he doesn't, he never tries to front masculinity, but he like saved that entire ship full of people in a giant storm and stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that was actually pretty cool. He won a, the, the Coast Guard medal in an American like medal of something. This, like, he was one of the

Simone Collins: first people to do a class five rapid in South America on the BOBO.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, he did a lot

Simone Collins: of,

Malcolm Collins: Crazy things, but he,

Simone Collins: he doesn't front and he doesn't come off as like.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't know. He pulled like a Kennedy, like going out in a storm and saving everyone on a boat or something. Yeah. You wouldn't

Simone Collins: know. He'd like, yeah. You, you need

Malcolm Collins: to talk him through this. And he is like, oh yeah, that one time I saved the, the boat in the middle of the storm. Yeah.

And, and, and you hear these stories, but they're not like a big part of how he contextualizes himself. Actually not,

Simone Collins: no. It's like, this is the stuff I learned like seven years into our relationship.

Malcolm Collins: He really, and it's not that he doesn't try to, he really tries hard to frame himself as like the erudite Nope.

Erudite

Simone Collins: and, and, and, yes. And, and that he,

Malcolm Collins: everything will be about, oh, how I did X and I went and saw X and you know. Yeah. So it's not like he doesn't front he fronts just not he fronts, he just never considers about his natural masculinity about being masculine, even though he's done a bunch of like big masculine things.

Life. Yeah. And that is interesting as well, that, that. People and people like him can be desperate to be seen a certain way. Yeah. And he, and he is like hungrily desperate in a way that comes across as not positive. But you know, he doesn't need to leave. If you're watching this, Michael, we love you.

He's not watching it. He, he watches like one of our episodes every month.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Or too much effort. Sorry, Michael. But the, the, the point I'm making is and he knows it. You know, I, I tell him this, I've told him it's a good with a kid. I was like, bro, like stop trying to get people to see you this way.

Like, it's not like positive. But a lot of people from his generation just have this drive to be seen in a certain way.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, not what in our, in every generation. Come on.

Malcolm Collins: But the reason why this is relevant to this conversation is. Despite this drive to be seen, not as masculine, but like it's this erudite intellectual

mm-hmm.

Which

was in his generation, would've been an incredibly emotionally sensitive position.

Hmm. He's

never really indulged in that around me, and I think it's because of a lack of a biological drive to mm-hmm. Not, not because he's masculine or because he wants to seem masculine. He just never felt that impulse.

And I think that you were right at the beginning of this. That impulse. When guys do that for their girlfriends and they show this vulnerability, it's mostly contrived.

Mm-hmm.

It's, it is not an emotion. They're really feeling, it's an emotion that they cultivated. It it to signal something to their partner that they think their partner wants to see in them.

Or some iteration of like, well, real men cry. I'm a real man, therefore I'm gonna cry. Right. I'm, I'm so masculine, I can show my vulnerabilities. When I just don't think that, and this is, I, I guess also what I mean is psychological framing and just in our society we're not really told how to be masculine or anything like that.

You know, it's like a, a version of feminine, I guess I'd say. Like it, my intuition around vulnerability, it is just not something I would indulge in. Like if I am focused on my vulnerability, like. Maybe my family's financial insecurity. You know, we don't have a job right now that's bringing in money, sign up for the Patreon.

You know, we, you know,

Simone Collins: huge thanks to everyone who has chosen this for us. Like,

Malcolm Collins: it's super cool, but we don't, we don't, you know, we don't, there's a lot of things that I could be worried about, but like, if I come to you like crying about that or acting emotionally vulnerable about that. I am doing nothing to achieve the security that my family requires.

Right. Like I, and, and my family does require it and I am responsible for it. So if I go to you and I'm in this state of like emotional indulgence you're gonna look at me and be like, okay, well now we're really screwed. 'cause now I need to find out how to handle the family financially. Got

Simone Collins: well.

You're not in this by yourself, friend.

Malcolm Collins: I, I know I'm not in this by myself, but I don't abdicate all responsibility for you to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like, to make it, to make

Simone Collins: me feel like it was all on me would be terrible.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and I think if I came to you crying about it, you would feel that way.

You'd have to say like, oh yeah. I'd be like, well,

Simone Collins: I guess I have to figure this out by myself. I

Malcolm Collins: probably, you'll get through this. Yeah. You know? Why would that not make somebody leave you? Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, well, but if I went to you, would you feel the same way if I, no, if I did that to you?

Malcolm Collins: Because it is my responsibility, and I think every man wants it to be their responsibility.

No man wants to be in a relationship where they, their partner doesn't feel safe coming to them and being like. Hey. Because keep in mind, at the end of the day, the decisions in where we are is downstream of my leadership and my decisions. So when my partner comes to me and they're like, hey, you know, I, I'm really concerned about like this direction we're heading and everything like that, and I feel a lot of vulnerability and am I safe?

You know, it's a bit like a crew coming to the captain and saying this. Mm-hmm. There's a big difference between the crew coming to the captain and saying like, you know, on the captain coming to the crew, but like, I don't know if we're gonna hit land. I don't know if we're going to have enough food until we hit land.

I don't know if we have enough. You know, to like the captain coming down with to the crew and being like, I don't know if we have enough food. I don't know where land is. We're out of limes. You all are gonna get scurvy and die horribly. You know, that's a very different scenario.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it's because, you know, and these guys, they wanna take on this captain role.

They do. So most of them do, I think, right? And most of their, their partners want them to take it on, and they haven't really thought through what it means for the captain to go to the crew to be like, guys, I'm, you know, for, for a captain to go to the crew and be like, Hey I'm looking actually though,

Simone Collins: what if this is a generational thing?

What if younger people, because we've seen just almost logarithmic levels of infantilization what if younger men actually want a mommy? The problem is that this is happening. With younger people, maybe some do,

Malcolm Collins: but I mean, the point I was making here is, is is the captain going to the, the crew and being like, Hey, you know, food is scarce.

I, I've done the math. I don't, I don't know if we are gonna make it to shore on time. So, you know, this seems like the best course we could take to, to get there. That's what I'm like when I come to you is vulnerability.

Me

coming to the crew and being like, I just don't know, like. I, I, I didn't mean for you guys to all not have enough food.

I just was trying my best. That's not something the crew wants to hear. No.

Mm-hmm.

And you've taken on this role of captain of other people's lives and you know, maybe that's part of, you know, like you're saying there, is that a lot of young men do not want to take on the role of captain of, of their local, you know, partnership or whatever, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that could be another thing going on. So theory one, this is women asking for men to show signals that men aren't even, they never needed to show that they're not comfortable showing. And then when they try to either fake it or kind of make it happen naturally everything falls apart because intuitively this is just a huge alarm bell for women on an instinctual deep evolved level.

But then the other thing could just be, yeah, that more men really don't want. To be leaders or captains and women are not here for that. Which could also explain why there's even more content now about, I don't know, there, there's some name that women are using for this, like being a, like the the mom to their.

Like having a man child or something, being the mom to their partner, like doing everything for 'em and feeling like, great, now I just have to take care of two people instead of one.

Malcolm Collins: But I think part of this is the way women contextualize things. You could contextualize yourself as being like my mom, you do the cleanup often.

You cook me food often. I do

Simone Collins: your laundry. I do all the dishes. I do the cooking. Yeah. Are you not, I clean the house. Like

Malcolm Collins: if you wanted to see yourself as my mom, you could. Well,

Simone Collins: I, I guess like it, I, I still think that's fairly normative for women. I think where the difference is in, where it's too far for women is where the men don't also then in, in turn be like, well, and, and the buck stops with me when it comes to income, financial stability, et cetera.

Like leadership.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like our future.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay. And I think the problem is that many of the women who complain about this, really aren't in that position. And this, this shows up even in pop culture. Like obviously a lot of people have been commenting on the relationships in the Secret Lives of Mormon lives, which I think had like another season come out or something and mm-hmm.

Like one of them. Was trying to be sort of this, you know, tradish, not really, but like, you know, Mormon influencer. But like, I think while her husband was going through medical school, she was paying all the bills and everything, but he was still trying to be like, well, I'm calling the shots. And, you know, that, like, I think we're just seeing too many examples of that in media where, well,

Malcolm Collins: that's okay.

Like, like that's not a bad thing. People used to do this, the wife would work Oh yeah. Take turns

Simone Collins: with school and everything. But like, it, it, the relationship does become unstable if. The woman is doing, like if she's pregnant, having kids, bringing in all the income, maybe cooking and cleaning as well, like.

That gets wrong. Well, that's a

Malcolm Collins: normal Korean or Japanese relationship know it's so bad. This is why women don't wanna get married. This is why

Simone Collins: there's a failure to thrive over there. They're not having kids.

Malcolm Collins: The men are like, you're gonna do what I tell you to, and now you're gonna no, because they don't have a structure for this.

And this is why I think building a structure for what be masculinity looks like, why it's important to have these conversations.

Hmm.

As sort of like a. You know, you could do a lot of things. You even bring in, you know, the majority of our income, I'd argue and provide more in terms of economic stability than I do.

No, that wouldn't

Simone Collins: come were it not for the systems that you set up. Right. But our dynamic is you do the thinking and I make it happen, but like the, the making it happen part means nothing when there's nothing. For me to make happen.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I'd argue that you'd be financially stable if I'd never met you. Yeah, I would be.

Simone Collins: Absolutely. But like that, and again, that's why many women remain single.

Malcolm Collins: But the, the, the point here being is that, you know, you do not follow me because of, and this is one of the problems that you see in Korea and Japan's style masculinity is the woman does everything. The woman makes the money, and then the man bosses her around, right?

Yeah.

Simone Collins: And they're like, not, not doing instead of,

Malcolm Collins: and then the man shoulders the burden of the family and the future and does what he can to try to protect the wife emotionally speaking. Mm-hmm. Which is, I'm sure, at least to an extent, how you feel within this family.

Simone Collins: Oh, totally.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and you know, I, I do, do you know a degree of childcare in terms of the older kids?

That's a degree.

Simone Collins: That's all. I mean, I still think you, who took the kids to the birthday party this weekend? Who spent every light and lion share of the day with them? Playing with them?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But they're, they're, you know, really good kids. You know, they're so great. But I already see it in the boys, you know, they don't.

Like the older ones don't cry as much anymore. Like men stop crying I think at a fairly young age. And, and we as a society somehow contextualize that as bad and it's not bad. It's normal.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and a man not crying. And I think that this is also really important stereotype to break. And not being emotionally vulnerable is not the man being a steel wall or being your typical, overly stern, whatever.

Like, you guys know me, you see, I am not overly stern or lacking an emotion or lacking an emotional expression or, you know, somebody who's deeply trying to control everything. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, well, I guess I do have a, a, a large degree of emotional control that I, I believe I have a duty for, but I'm not.

You know, the, the stereotype of the rigid, you know, thin lipped, whatever, right. You're not

Simone Collins: the classic maintain frame red pillar we'll say. Yeah. I do think it's interesting that, well, one, it's important to recognize that men and women express and process emotions differently and also have very different hormonal profiles, which really affects emotional output, but two.

You pointed out, and I think this is true, that like across cultures and like probably based, like based on your genetic inheritance, you are going to have different ways of processing emotion. And I wonder which cultures involve men crying the most. Chime in in the content or comments if you have a, an idea there.

Malcolm Collins: I'm curious. Yeah, I'd be interested to know.

Simone Collins: What would you guess? I'm

Malcolm Collins: guess like Muslim cultures, cultures where you have strict hierarchy between individuals

Simone Collins: Well, and also where men and women are more isolated from each other. Yeah. So I feel like in such environments you wouldn't need to as, as, as ardently evolve that emotional maturity because in like men aren't crying in front of women, you know, they're crying in front of men.

Yeah, theoretically. 'cause they're in men's spaces.

Malcolm Collins: And another thing I note about myself that people may be getting wrong here is I am not a particularly tough guy. I am you know, when I, when I get hurt or I, I am, I am definitely less, I. Have less endurance than you have in

Simone Collins: terms Well, what's your, your, your percentile for pain tolerance is like, is like

Malcolm Collins: 0%.

Simone Collins: 0% and I'm in the 99th percent.

I should clarify here that we're speaking off of full genome sequences. I am in the 99th percentile in terms of pain sensitivity, and Simone is in the bottom one percentile in terms of pain sensitivity.

So, yeah. I mean, again, I think that goes to show that your genetic inheritance is going to affect how you process pain. Pain. Yeah. But again, at that point

Malcolm Collins: I'm making here is this isn't either me being like, I, I am a super good at like, you know, still stealing myself against pain or anything.

Yeah. You're not, you're

Simone Collins: not saying anything. Yeah. You're not like, look at me, I'm. Super

Malcolm Collins: masculine. I'm, I'm a, I'm a complete wuss when it comes to pain. I don't, I don't want pain. I don't like pain. Pain is not good. Get in, get in the away. I am, I'm not gonna subject myself to pain for no reason. You know, it ain't your thing.

No.

To show, to show how tough I am. The guy who puts the cigarette out in his hand or something, I'd be like,

Simone Collins: yeah. Oh, what the, what? Yeah. But I really, I think people who do that for real. Just don't feel it the way you would feel it. Yeah. I think pain tolerance isn't about ability to emotionally process pain.

I, I think it's literally about what you're able to feel, period. I.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you to Dec Simone. Interesting episode. I think yeah. One that's not talked about is what does masculinity mean in our society and what's normative for masculinity? And I think I'm a great person to show this because I'm talking about my own internal subjective experience, which I think is slightly more insulated from urban monoculture than other people's, just due to my natural arrogance.

Hmm. And th this can give you an idea of even what an effeminate guy's insulated experience around emotional vulnerability is.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and, and I came away with a better understanding, or at least a hypothesis as to why women are so instantly disgusted and turned off by men expressing personal vulnerability.

Malcolm Collins: Well, would you be turned off if you saw me, like come to you emotionally vulnerable, like try to model yourself? How would you feel about that?

Simone Collins: Depends on what it would be about. Like sometimes people just like if you were injured, you were crying. I'd get it, man. Yeah. But yeah, I, I think it depends on what the implications are for me and our family's safety, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And I, and I think that's where a lot, a lot of people do. Do you remember how much

Malcolm Collins: about pussy? I was about getting the the blood drawn thing. And you and the kids all got around me to push the thing you weren't, and take all my, remember

Simone Collins: how, like whenever you get a shot, if I'm there, I just bite your other shoulder and it works really well.

Malcolm Collins: You're cute.

Simone Collins: So I think it's a lot of, it's just an ick thing for you with needles, not necessarily about the pain, because I'm, I'm inflicting more pain on you. True. I don't like, I

Malcolm Collins: don't like I, yeah. But I'm just like, not that masculine around this stuff. That's why I think it's, it's really interesting to use myself as the metric here.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Well, and you know, I learned, not too long ago that the concept of toxic masculinity was to describe, actually, reaction is against sort of anti-male bias. So sort of men acting out against society, not allowing them to just be normal men. So it wasn't just like, oh, natural masculinity is toxic.

It was more like almost performative reactive. Masculine signaling, which I think

Malcolm Collins: is what a lot of toxic masculinity really is. Yeah. Performative

Simone Collins: signaling that's not actually masculine.

Malcolm Collins: Being overly tough or cruel to a woman instead of the woman's protector.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh Uhhuh. And I, I think, yeah, I, that kind of blew my mind.

I was like, oh crap. So like, it's not natural masculinity. It's, it's contrived masculinity in response to society going too far with feminization. And that yeah. Thought that was super fascinating.

Malcolm Collins: So I love you to Dec Simone.

Simone Collins: Love you too. Gorgeous. It was fun. Thank you. Well, I was just looking at the anime images from the. Our premium Patreon with the Oh, me

Malcolm Collins: too. I love those for the stories.

Simone Collins: They're so cute. It makes me wish that there was a manga that I could reach

Malcolm Collins: just, you know, for Substack. We're also gonna be releasing these, but we're releasing them on weekends, on Substack, or is they're all already released on Patreon.

What Simone is referring to here is we have four stories of now that I created, partially playing through ais, , to, , you know, explore various types of Zaki worlds. And, , they're, I find them to be very entertaining. They're in audiobook form, , and she created title cards for them.

It was just, you know, we don't wanna flood you if you're a substack person with like five different stories all in one weekend. Yeah. So the idea is, is that we, we give them to you slowly. Whereas for Patreon, it just makes sense to bundle the upload. This is not a subset Patreon

Simone Collins: fantasy fiction audio books that you're making available.

Yeah, we, we listen, or at least I listened to a bunch of them when we took a family vacation. It was so fun. It was so fun. Yeah. We've

Malcolm Collins: got four now. Four books. Yeah. That you can listen to if you want to. Well, that's

Simone Collins: in addition to all the pragmatist guides being free to paid subscribers, so I guess not technically free, but.

All the audiobooks and eBooks, you can just immediately download them if you are paid subscriber plus our albums, I put, I separated out the one, just the general like glitch hop album that's available for everyone, like paid or not as a fun thing to download. But also then the premium base camp songs I separated out from the future day songs.

So we just have a separate future day Technip Puritan album, which I wanna add to the, some of them are so cute. I mean, they're all cute, but like, I really like the one that's like country style. Hey, you know,

Malcolm Collins: that's about future day.

Yeah.

Song: Let's promise to make a for every heart in this human race.

Our visions of tomorrow shines so bright together we can make it right

flight. Imagination is our guiding light.

Malcolm Collins: It's, it's cute. That's hilarious. So the our fab project, the reality fabricator, like AI storyteller.

Yeah.

We're like, I basically was like, we need to, to the team. The UI is not. Not up to snuff. It is, it is very unstable. It is very difficult to use. And so, you know, I got to this first point where I'm like, we need to see if we need to remake this. And so what they're gonna do is they're gonna do two things.

The team is going to take this and try to make the existing system downloadable to see if that fixes the issue. That's cool. And make a text first to see if that fixes the issue. And then Bruno's going to try to create a web first version of this. Nice to see if that fixes the issue. And basically, and then I'm gonna test the app against the web first and see which does better.

And my intuition is that the web first is gonna do better. And it was, I. I mean, the reason we did the app to begin with is so we could sell it on Steam. But I don't know if it was ever really that good for the steam community to begin with given that it's written based and that a lot of the visuals were sort of shoehorned in for investors and stuff.

Yeah.

And that we should really focus on just creating really good immersive storytellers and, and world explorers that are text first, and then all of the other stuff can come, can come after that.

Simone Collins: I'm with you on that, that that checks out for me. I like that. Right.

Kids: Do you? Do you like this one, Andy?

That means yes.