William Costello

Yeah, it's almost too on the nose to do something like that.

You know, get the goal, get the girl.

But that feels like such an intuitive idea for young men.

Yeah, it's strange.

And even like as benign self-development advice as Jordan Peterson gets framed as misogynistic, it's as if to develop yourself, particularly with the goal of achieving romantic success, that that gets framed as misogynistic.

But you touched on a very interesting point there earlier as well about how you had to learn the game or you had to go through the trial and error.

And I was talking with my friend Chris Williamson about this.

And we talked about how the mating market and the mating game is the only game in town that you don't get to practice for.

It's a real baptism of fire.

You have to go in there clumsily, develop yourself, figure out what works, get your heart broken, get rejected, get all of that anxiety.

And people being very anxious and risk adverse now are not willing to do that.

And even to do that is also kind of seen as to make those mistakes along the way in the mating market.

It comes with a lot of costs.

And you mentioned like the Me Too era is potentially a lot of real costs associated with making a lot of mistakes along the way there.

Yeah.

And, you know, throughout recent decades and recent history, a lot of people met their partner at work.

You know, both my brothers are married to or engaged to women they met at work as well.

So, you know, it's not like this absolute fringe phenomenon that should be always frowned upon.

And if you close that door for people to, you know, you're no longer allowed to meet a romantic partner at work, we spend all our time at work.

It's like you're