The Mating Grounds Podcast

In week 6 of Helping Joe, Charlie brings in one of his female friends to show Joe first hand what she experiences when dating online or through Tinder. She also gives him feedback on his profile and advice* on what to do and not to do when messaging women. Tucker makes a lot of jokes and draws out great feedback from her. He is also a case study here for one way to tease and have fun with a woman. *She was good at knowing what she wanted but bad at extrapolating this across women in general. Most of what she said was specific to her. It's better to ask a woman what she personally wants and listen, not ask her what all women want because she will project her preferences onto all women and give you bad advice. 

What's The Bad Advice?   A lot of creepy pickup websites gives lines to use or tactics to ignore, isolate, keep pushing, and "attract" a woman when she says she has a boyfriend. This applies to short-term mating situations.    Why This Is Bad Advice?    You are wasting your time talking to someone who is not into you. Creepy dudes give this creepy advice because many of the guys they are marketing to who follow pickup crap get this response a lot, "Sorry I have a boyfriend." because the women they are talking to are weirded out.  This is a polite way of saying "please, leave me alone."   The Better Advice Is Short And Simple    If a girl tells you that she has a boyfriend in the first 30 minutes or so of talking to her, she's not into you. Go talk to other girls who are.   There are exceptions to the rule (like everything in life), which Tucker talks about in the rest of this episode, but 95% of the time you are just bothering her and better off talking to girls who don't tell you that they have boyfriends.

There are a lot of anecdotes from Reddit's NoFap and YourBrainOnPorn of guys who have issues with masturbation. Unfortunately, there's not much good science and virtually no studies on how much should you masturbate or what is optimal. In this short Q&A episode, Dr. Miller, Tucker, and Nils advise you to experiment, track how you feel, and do what's best for yourself until better science comes out. If you are married, it's better to just have sex with your wife. They also try to figure out why the hell a married guy asked this question.

This listener called in from Boston, which is a terrible city full of awful people. We've had multiple questions about how to handle assholes from there. We decided to answer one of them and rip on Boston in general. In this Q&A, Tucker Max, Dr. Geoff Miller, and Nils Parker explain how male cockblockers are usually not trying to stop you from getting the girl. They are instead asserting their status or dominance by making fun of you. If your friends are doing this, you have shitty friends and need to make new ones. They also give exact comebacks and conversation scripts you can use to deal with these douchebags. 

In week 5 of Helping Joe, Nils Parker steps in via Skype while Charlie is playing it away. Nils brings a different set of questions (and jokes) for dealing with Joe’s issues. He and Tucker Max dive a little deeper into why Joe gets nervous on first dates and how to reframe one’s mindset when going into a date to have more fun and be more relaxed, which ultimately will lead to those dates going better. They also talk about understanding women on Tinder and setting better expectations for date.

Women give this advice to guys a lot, but it's useless. A better way for you to "just be yourself" is to first figure out what about you is attractive to women. Then accentuate these strengths by putting yourself in places where those best parts of you will shine and your weaknesses will not show.

In week 4 of Helping Joe, Tucker and Charlie begin by talking about Joe's first improv class, going out to a bar with Charlie, and feedback from girls at that bar. They then dive into having better and more fun conversations, giving a ton of tips, tricks, and ways to re-frame how you look at making small talk or talking with women at bars or on dates. Also, Joe recorded his last date so Charlie and Tucker could listen to it (not on the podcast). They give specific and sometimes hilarious feedback on what Joe did right and wrong in this date. It was better than his last date Helping Joe, Part 3, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. They wrap up by talking about how being in the moment and being a little vulnerable is how people really connect with each other.

When a woman you are sleeping with wants an exclusive long-term relationship (boyfriend), but you are not ready to give that to her, it's best to be upfront and honest about it. Tucker Max was terrible at this when he was younger, and it led to relationship disasters. In this Q&A episode, Tucker Max, Nils Parker, and Dr. Geoff Miller explain how it's totally cool not to want to commit long-term to a woman you are having sex with, but it's important to have a clear conversation with her about that. They include how to bring this up and a few conversation scripts to use. 

This is a great question, but the way this young caller asks it and the background he gives us, which is great by the way because it helps us figure out what's really going on, shows that there are fundamental problems with his mindset, strategy, tactics, etc. He has gotten a ton of terrible advice and ideas from pickup artist nonsense. Tucker Max, Dr. Geoff Miller, and Nils Parker explain the four most common reasons why girls flake, cancel, or don't show up to a date; why this will (and should) happen a certain percentage of times, and why looking at it as "flaking" and blaming the woman is the wrong mindset.     They also give some harsh but much needed advice on throwing out your pickup ebooks and bootcamp binders. For more on how pua scams work and why their tactics are terrible for long-term success, listen to this episode about the pua scene. 

Getting drunk, yelling, and/or being rude with women is not an effective strategy.  However, there are traits of an 'asshole' that women do find attractive. This was Tucker's mating strategy for almost 10 years. He wrote 3 books about his stories of being an asshole. It is difficult to pull off and works best with a small percentage of emotionally damaged women.  We also have a whole podcast on this in our How To Be Attractive Series.