The Mating Grounds Podcast

Jealousy is the emotion of mate guarding, paying attention to the behavior of our mates around others. There are many evolutionary reasons for this, and Dr. Geoffrey Miller explains why a little jealousy can be good. Also, be honest with yourself about why you are in a relationship. Tucker Max and Nils Parker give advice on mate value in different life stages. And Tucker runs through 5 quick questions to ask yourself to understand if a relationship is going to last or if she will eventually look for and find someone else. 

This is normal and something every guy goes through. Two effective ways to start getting back out there and regaining confidence are small wins and great friends. Dr. Geoffrey Miller begins this Q&A episode talking about making small steps to be more outgoing, with women and with friends. Tucker Max brings up social relationships and how a great thing to do is engage with good friends in positive, uplifting ways. Many problems start with not having friends.  This is something that most dating advice never focuses on. Social relationships are so important to mental health, confidence, and even hormones like testosterone. As humans we need strong relationships, especially during tough times. And as men most of our friendships are made in structured social groups with a common set of goals and values. Sports clubs, the military, and startup culture are good examples but there are 100s. Start with finding those groups. You can listen to the Jack Donovan (The Way of Men) episode for a more in depth talk on this.  

This Q&A is for men who are are worried about going bald or gray and losing hair. There are two key takeaways: great hair doesn't matter as much as you think and the simple solution to be more attractive it to shave your head.   Tucker Max, Dr. Geoff Miller, and Nils Parker talk about how there's not much you can do to prevent hair loss, but that's OK because women don't really care. Dr. Miller mentions it's not even in the top 30 most important things that women want. However, awful hair like a comb-over or bad hair piece can lower your mate value.    And think about it from an evolutionary perspective: If women were turned off by baldness, we would have evolved not to get bald because those men would not have mated. The fact that we evolved this way means baldness doesn't matter much to women. Your bald ancestors still got laid.

In week 3 of Helping Joe, Tucker Max and Charlie Hoehn talk about two of Joe's Tinder dates and break down what went wrong and why. They go over his mistakes, including one critical first date mistake that blew any chance he had with a cute Mexican girl. They also talk about improv classes, why they are awesome, and how most guys don't get enough "reps" in real life. They wrap up with a bit about testosterone test results, the importance of social relationships, and how they have a huge impact on your health and hormones.   

The idea that just believing in yourself, going out there, and faking it will lead to real confidence and long-term success.  Confidence is the realistic expectation that you have of being successful at something given your competence at this thing and the risk involved in doing it. Humans developed confidence as a way to track our competencies so that we make the right decisions about various risks. This is not feeling good about yourself. This is not believing in yourself no matter what. That is self-esteem.  You build competence through preparation, practice, and demonstrated performance. You can't fake competence, you actually have to work to get good at a skill.  If you aren't good at skiing, you can't fake going down the Black Diamond run. It's the same with talking to women. If you have low social competence (trouble talking to people), you can't fake talking to women. In fact, faking confidence here will make you look even worse because people can tell that nothing is behind it.  Faking it is good advice to follow when you are already competent and you have the skills, but subjectively you don't believe that you are any good. Your confidence is much lower than your competence. Here "fake it 'til you make it" can help you become confident when your skills are already there.  A better strategy is to get objective feedback. To figure out if you should focus on either building skills to get better or faking it and acting as if, ask people around you, a good friend, who can be honest about whether or not you already have these skills.

Taking yourself too seriously can mean many things like you may have no sense of humor or you're too into yourself. In this episode, Dr. Miller, Tucker, and Nils explain how self-deprecating humor, making fun of yourself, is the best first step you can take to being less serious. Research shows many positives associated with this type of humor.  Sometimes, being shy and reserved is a result of your social group. If that is true for you, find people or places where you are more comfortable to open up. Even having one great friend who is more playful to go out with is great. And as a last resort, ask people about themselves. Take a genuine interest in what they know that you don't know and build from there.  They also mentioned a past podcast on communication that you can to listen in order to solve this problem. 

Women who work are usually paid to be nice to you, especially bartenders and waitresses. If you like her, there are low risk ways to see if she's interested. In this episode, Tucker Max, Nils Parker, and Dr. Geoff Miller talk about how to gather information ( Does she have a boyfriend? ), talk to her like a friend, and ask her out in an easy way (think social, not 1:1) so you don't creep out a woman who is 'trapped' at work. Nils, who was a bartender in his 20s, also gives advice on how to tell when a bartender or waitress is into you. Hint: 90% of the time, she's flirting with your wallet, not you. That's her job, dude.

Humor is very attractive and displays many traits like intelligence, social proof, mental health. Not everyone can be a comedian, but you can go out with good friends, make fun of eachother, and bring women into the fun. In this Q&A, Nils Parker, Tucker Max, and Dr. Geoff Miller explain the basics and low risk ways to use humor, be funny, and tease: Making fun of yourself and your friends is attractive Even having just one hilarious good friend is enough to make you better. How to tease women without going too far.  Why punching up is better than punching down.   How to make funny observations of other odd people around you. And why joke quality is better than joke quantity.

In the second week of Helping Joe, Tucker Max and Charlie Hoehn talk about Joe's Tinder profile (what he did right and wrong), his first Tinder date, why small talk is so important and easy it is to do, why making a woman feel comfortable on the first date is critical to it going well (Joe fails at this in later episodes), and how to message or followup with a woman who "goes dark." Also, Tucker and Charlie make fun of Joe and the odd things he says. 

The Numbers Game ( the more girls you talk to, the more sex you have ) is bad and ineffective advice, even for short-term mating. There are some big assumptions that pua guys make with this that are just wrong. More effective strategies are to optimize your mating market and change your goal when you go out. If you have trouble talking to women or getting a date, playing the numbers game is almost the worst thing you can do.