Speaker A: Welcome to Sharing My Truth with Mel and Susie. The uncensored version where we bear it all.

Speaker B: We do.

Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Sharing My Truth Pod.

Thanks for joining us today.

We have a sweet little special episode for you guys.

We've actually put it in two parts, so this is part one.

But if you guys have any questions or comments about this episode, please go to sharemytruth.com where you guys can email us or voicemail us. You guys can also go to Share My Truth Pod.

DM us there. About this lovely interview we did.

The interview is with. His name is Jeffrey St. James. He is a licensed professional counselor and he works with men, women, couples.

He has specialized in the consultation for trauma victims and ptsd.

And we really wanted to get his opinions on men, specifically because he has very interesting opinions about men and especially the men today.

So, you know, millennial men,

Gen Z men, and why men are not meeting women and things like that.

But he was an extremely excellent person to talk to because also he lives in the U.S.

so what he sees is different. What we see up in Canada, too. I think not fully, but I think he does have a very good call on what men are thinking today.

And it was just a very interesting conversation. And obviously this episode. Well, this episode is hour, but the whole interview was two hours.

Mel, what did you think about it?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we're increasing on this podcast trying to get the professional male perspective.

Whether we agree with it or not is irrelevant.

It's just, I don't. I think we both feel, don't we, that there's not enough out there on the male perspective of relationships. It either goes to some very weird place.

There's not, like, enough of that perspective and what men are feeling and why they can't meet women or what they feel about the women, the young women that they're dating,

what they want, their perspectives, their demands, their needs, whatever it is. He sort of gave a good perspective of that. I mean, he obviously comes from a very.

He's very much giving the male perspective.

Speaker A: Very much.

Speaker B: Yeah, but I think that's fine because we,

like I said, we need to hear it. And as women, as two women from two different generations, whether we like it or not,

you know, we need to hear it. And I think specifically women who are trying to have relationships and date really need to be like, tune in a bit more to what's going on.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: I think it's.

Speaker A: It would so helpful to hear someone like Jeff speak about what men are actually thinking. Right and we tell ourselves that we really want to know all the time and yet we kind of block it out.

Or we say, oh, that's offensive. And then we don't listen to it because we don't like what it's saying. And it's like, no, we actually just have to shut up and listen sometimes about what is actually going on or you're not going to hear the truth,

even if it's offensive to you or it hurts your feelings or whatever. And some of the things he says are off putting, but I don't think they're untruthful. I think it's just he says things that are obviously very much more male focused.

And we're used to talking and seeing everything from the woman's perspective.

And so that's a very interesting thing that we were able to speak with him about. And I love that he was super honest with us too. Like he was not beating around the bush or, you know, giving us the, you know, soft truth about it.

He was very much giving us the hard truth about what men are thinking and how the male experience is right now, especially with dating and with women.

And so the first part of this episode, or the first. Yeah, part of this episode is really well, because we're doing part one to part two. So the part one is more about the male perspective and males dating women and why men are not going out and going out of their way pretty much to date a woman.

And why my men are not wanting to date women anymore.

Speaker B: Yeah,

may choose not to marry because it's too difficult and stuff like that. Yeah, because I think we hear a lot about,

in the media, like women are keep saying, and you hear this sentence a lot like, I, I don't need a man.

And you know, I'm cannot, I'm financially independent, I don't need a man. And all this sort of stuff. And I don't think we ever hear, well, men going, well, we don't need a woman either.

I mean, at the end of the day, you know what they mean by that is they don't need a relationship. I mean, they don't need somebody to cook and clean for them that you can pay for sex.

Well, you can figure that out in whatever means you want to figure that out, that you don't actually need to have a relationship or be married and that in many cases it's too difficult or they're just not meeting the right person so they might as well be on their own.

And we hear that a lot from the female perspective, a lot but we don't hear or maybe listen to the male perspective.

So I think that's what we really wanted to get somebody who would tell us what men are saying, thinking, seeing, and not just men,

kind of at the. Let's call it the top of the dating tree like everyone else, which is 99% of the population,

and why it's a problem.

And at the end of the day, in my view, the answer is somewhere between the two. It's not about the male view or the female view. It's about both views and how we figure that out somewhere in the middle.

Yes. But it's just more that we don't listen enough or hear or maybe we're not interested as a society in the male point of view.

Speaker A: Right. Because we're like, you guys have it all anyways. You guys are privileged men.

Why do we have to listen to what you have to say anymore? And.

And some of that I agree with, but in some of that I don't. Men are still a very big part of the society and we should want to make them happy, just like we should want to make women happy.

And we should,

you know.

Well, yeah,

it's a very odd thing because we're just,

you know, feminism has taken over slightly in the Western world.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And men are unhappy about it.

Speaker B: Extreme feminism. And like, it's something. I mean, you're here wanting our conversation with him, but I said to him that I feel somebody of my age that younger men are paying for the sins of their father.

So their father and the grandfathers, who were misogynists and were not nice to women. Whatever. We live in a world today where that is not happening anywhere near in the way that it was, because you can't do that.

It's not legal. You can't do it in the workplace. You can't be inappropriate. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but there are so many safeguards compared to, even when I was young, the way women were treated.

Women have not.

Women that are in their twenties have not grown up in a world where men have been allowed to behave like this. They were when I was young, but that is not the case.

And young men who are not behaving like this are still being treated as if they're capable or are going to do this, which is absurd. Yeah. And it's creating a weird vibe.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Let's be frank. So, yeah. So that's it.

Speaker A: So this is part one, guys. Stay tuned for part two. It'll come out next week.

And we can't wait for you to listen to them both. Definitely listen to both parts.

It's a really incredible conversation. And if you guys have any thoughts about it, which we hope you do,

thoughts and opinions, complaints,

the complaint center's open.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You guys can go to sharingmytruth.com and if you have any questions for Mr. Jeff James,

you can always email them to us or DM them to us and we can even do another episode answering your specific questions with him.

But here's the episode, guys. We hope you enjoy part one.

Speaker B: Yeah, enjoy.

Speaker A: And hello. Thank you so much. Jeff James.

So nice to get to know you. So nice to meet you today,

all the way in our neighbor, usa.

We're so happy that you could come on the pod today. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker C: I appreciate you both for welcoming me and I hope to represent the homeland. Well.

Speaker A: You'Re your nice little northern neighbors, but obviously, no, no harm. No harm done by. We love our neighbors.

Speaker B: We do.

Speaker C: Listen, I'm not going to tariff y' all if y' all don't tariff me, so.

Speaker B: Oh, God.

Speaker A: Tariffs. What are tariffs, Val? Tell us all. No, let's not get into it.

Speaker B: It's too depressing.

Speaker A: Well, thank you so much. Obviously, we want to start off with just allowing you to maybe just introduce yourself,

tell our audience who you are, what you specialize in, and where they can find you on Instagram or any other socials.

Speaker C: Great.

So my personal account is by the St. James. My middle name is Saint, and my actual podcast that I recently lost on, launched on Instagram is Ask a Brother.

And I'm just looking to get into this podcast space as far as what I do for a living. I am a therapist,

licensed professional therapist. I'm trauma trained, certified to help people with PTSD.

And I've been working in the field for 10 years,

worked in prisons, with courts, schools, and now run an outpatient program.

And we're the largest mental health practice in the city of Philadelphia,

so.

So, yeah, so I'm pretty busy, but I want to incorporate and figure out how to get into this podcast space,

especially in terms of just bringing some more balance to the conversations.

I'm noticing that it's really, really dominant with people who have very strong but oftentimes uninformed views on things.

And I think it'd be pretty cool to get some people who aren't looking to maybe just go viral or say something to just demonize one side versus the other. I think it would be pretty cool to kind of get to the next wave or iteration of podcasting and hopefully contribute in some meaningful way.

Speaker A: I love that. I feel like that's a great way to go about podcasting and welcome to the podcast space.

It is obviously challenging. There's a lot of podcasts out there,

but as long as you have,

obviously you need an opinion. But it's great to also be informed. And that's why we also bring awesome guys like you to really get the actual information and not just our lovely opinions, obviously.

But no, it's good to have an.

Speaker B: Expert 100% and a male. The male side of it,

because that is, believe it or not, quite tricky to get the male side of it. And it's part of the whole problem that,

like, I think you're saying that. Exactly what you're saying. There's too much of one voice and not enough of another,

and there's too much extreme voices out there.

And we're trying to,

in our little tiny corner of the Internet,

change so far.

Trying to change that and just to.

To. To talk a bit more. Really? Yeah,

yeah.

Speaker A: And it's great that, like, obviously. Do you work with mostly men? I know you said you worked with prisons and the law system and in Philadelphia.

What does that look like, really?

Speaker C: I don't just work primarily with men. I'm pretty all over the place in terms of populations that I serve. I do couples. I have worked historically with children,

men,

women,

single,

depressed, anxious,

suicidal, you name it.

I've worked with all of these different groups. Now I'm at the stage, I guess, of my career where I'm heavily focusing on training therapists to.

To offer better and more high quality care in the inner city.

So with prolonged exposure, which is what we're certified in,

our therapists are really exposed every week to the worst of things that can happen to people and helping them get their lives back on track.

So whether it's gunshots or grapes or molestations or, you name it,

these people are still here. And we have to figure out a way to help them feel like they're getting something back in terms of their life.

So my job is to help the therapist help them.

Speaker B: Right?

So, I mean, that's very intense. That's absolutely one end of the human experience scale, like the horrible, very dark end.

So you've seen a lot of very difficult stuff.

I know you said that you work with couples,

and I know you talked a lot about what's going on today with men and women.

Um, and it's something we've seen a lot in our. In. In our podcast. We've done a lot of episodes on why are there so many single women? Why there's so many women.

Speaker A: Well, I'm experiencing it as a single woman.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's on you. The whole rest of this focus on me.

Speaker A: Can this be a therapy session? That would be great.

Speaker B: Yeah.

And, you know, we've done a lot on dating apps and the just. And judging by the comments we get on our social media,

there are just so many issues,

so many issues from the male side,

from this very. And I know it's a big buzz thing at the moment, everyone's talking about toxic masculinity,

but equally the narcissistic side of feminism,

which I don't think enough people talk about.

But I wanted to get your opinions on why is everyone single? Why is everyone. Why can they not meet? What is going on? What is the big issue?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a very, very big, broad question.

What I tend to do both in serious,

potentially contentious conversations,

whether it's in therapy or just in platforms like this.

I actually start with kind of setting the tone when it comes to letting people know that they have a decision to make of what type of listener they want to be.

Typically, when there's these types of debates, interactions, or conversations, there's two types of people you can end up being.

One is a person who's primarily focused on whether something is true or not and whether or not your life aligns with that, or whether or not you need to grow to get your life more in alignment with said truth or how said truth makes you feel.

And based on how it makes you feel, that determines whether or not you'll accept it.

This podcast and these types of conversations, people are going to be very tempted to want to go off of things that's being said and whether or not it's true.

Not really about whether it's true or not, but how. What. How they're emotionally feeling about it.

I'm more interested in trying to encourage all of the listeners and people that watch this to kind of. Let's kind of lean in more so on our logic, our reason,

our rationality,

and focus on whether or not some the things that are being said are actually true about men,

true about women in general,

versus necessarily how it makes us feel.

And I think that that's important because regardless of who I'm talking to,

if they have a particular in group that they consider themselves to be a part of, whether it's men, women,

lgbtq,

political, whatever,

what tends to happen is when they hear something they don't like about Their group, they're in group,

they want to be treated as an individual and say, that's not me.

But when they're talking about the out group,

they have no problem generalizing.

Yeah. So it's important that we know that those two things are typically what we're doing when we're listening to these types of conversations.

Am I more focused on whether or not something is true about a particular topic?

And two,

am I getting triggered because the thing that's being said about my group in general doesn't apply to me personally.

These conversations, it may not apply to you on an individual level, but most of what I'll be referencing are things that pretty much can easily be verified.

So I just kind of put that disclaimer out just because I know that these type of things are really, really sensitive.

But in terms of the research I've looked into and thinking about this stuff for, like over a decade,

I kind of came to three main points,

the first of which was the pill and birth control.

The second was the sexual revolution or sexual liberation movement.

And the third was social media. There's obviously way more things that can be listed,

but I found that these were the top three major things that changed the overall trajectory of how human beings looked at each other,

valued each other, and even the general direction of what's happening to humanity in terms of the replacement birth rates.

So, yeah, we can expound on those three, but yet the pill and birth control,

the sexual revolution, and then also social media and the advent of social media, which includes, by extension, dating apps.

I think that those are the three major things, unfortunately,

that has rigged the system for a very, very small percentage of men to meet the qualifications for a large body or pool of women.

And what both sets of men, the ones that qualify and the ones that don't,

there's good and bad things that have come from that as a result.

Um, but what I will say is that I think if there's an overarching conclusion as to why so many people, men and women, are still single, still frustrated, can't seem to find happiness,

I think we get to a place and point when you've had so many negative experiences,

so many failed experiments in your teens and or twenties and or possibly thirties,

both sexes will eventually start to naturally get to a place where they're basically approaching the other group or other side with very, very high skepticism,

and they're expecting for that side to give as much as possible and for they themselves to risk as little as possible.

So when you're highly distrustful when you're extremely skeptical,

you're going to approach relationships through a very transactional,

less patient,

less open perspective,

you're kind of increasing the chances for the interaction to probably not go well or not work. You're going to probably see flags that are probably neutral. You're going to call them red.

You're going to. You get what I'm saying? Like, I think that's what ends up happening, is that when we get disappointed, when we get divorced, when we get ghosted, we get.

When we get cheated on one too many times,

the end result's gonna be you're way more skeptical, you're less trusting, you're less open.

And now you want the other party to give so much more.

And you're trying to give as little as possible because you don't want to get hurt.

Because you don't want to get hurt, you want to risk as little as possible. So I think between those three things, I categorize in the overall conclusion of what I think is the motivating factor for what we're doing, I think that's what ends up happening.

Speaker A: Well, I kind of want to actually go back into what, like, with that. You said that they're qualified and unqualified men.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: What. Can you expand on that, on what that really means for you?

Speaker C: Obviously, it's. It's slightly different when it comes to an individual woman by individual person. For. For sure.

But there are certain.

I don't want to say universal, but there's usually general attraction triggers that a lot of women will kind of expose and express. One of them being. They typically want a man that's taller than them.

Right. So by default,

if you're shorter than most women,

the pool of women that's even going to see you and you not being visible to them is already going to knock you down quite a bit.

So we can even jump into dating apps because I think this applies to. What is it? Right. A lot of women are typically looking for in the past.

And when I say within the last, like, five years,

this insult culture, this red pill thing, it was referenced on adolescents, this 80, 20 rule.

A lot of men between their late 20s and early 30s, they don't have to hear it on social media or hear it from some charismatic figure to start to realize and experience.

This was actually most of what they saw and experienced in their actual own lives.

When you were in high school,

there was the popular guys and everybody else.

So the popular guys had access to a whole.

Every other month, it seemed like there was a new girl that potentially was trying to get his attention. It was the jock, it was the good looking guy, it was the athlete,

et cetera, et cetera.

In high school you saw this guy who seemed to get an inordinate amount of attention from a lot of the girls. And then you had the quote unquote average guys and then you had the guys who effectively just were kind of ignored when you got to college that typically looked either the same or started to worsen.

But what happened with social media is it changed women's expectations and the pool of men that they actually thought they could potentially have access to.

So what that means is that generationally 40, 60, 80 years ago, the pool of men that would even know this woman would exist was relatively related to her city or her town.

Now it's a whole campus.

Now it's multiple people from other campuses.

Now it's national,

global market,

and we could even argue it's a global market that you're dealing with.

So as a consequence, her view on optionality has changed because her lens is that,

yeah,

maybe the guy I'm looking for isn't in my neighborhood, but I can effectively come into contact with any guy on the planet so long as he has.

Speaker A: Social media also affect the men as well because they have access to all the women in the world now.

Speaker C: Yes, but that typically it, it splits into two categories.

The men that most women say that they want and are attracted to and the men that don't qualify. And when we say qualify,

we can say attraction triggers.

That includes physical height,

a certain,

a certain amount of money or resources that they can kind of glean based on the type of lifestyle that he's living, the people he's surrounded with,

you name it. Where in essence,

it sounds kind of bad to say, but like physical appearance,

height,

social cues relating to attraction triggers,

and whether or not other women think he's also attractive and other men respect him.

That's functionally the markers for whether or not a man's going to be taken seriously,

be responded to,

engage with multiple women or a lot of women and potentially get access to no women whatsoever without having to pay for it transactionally. That's the reality of it.

So what's happening is I think that things are so skewed with these dating apps. We're looking at all the stats and they're all saying something very similar.

Bumble is a great example because my wife and I met through Bumblebee.

Speaker A: Congratulations.

Speaker C: Thank you, thank you. We got married about two years ago, I think, and our baby was born last Summer and awesome.

Speaker B: What a success story.

Speaker A: Seriously, Bumble should sponsor you.

Speaker B: They should.

Speaker C: So out of wanting to, like, I'm so grateful I'm out the game because we joked around when we were first dating and she was first hearing about the incels, the red pill, blue pill, this and that.

And she asked me about Passport Bros.

And she said,

what do you think about this? Passport Bros. Like,

what's with these guys? She's like, would you have been one if we hadn't had men? I said, yep.

Speaker A: Sorry. Passport Bros. Bros Bros. Passport Bros. Yeah.

Speaker C: Passport Bros is where men are seeking the option of going abroad to interact and have access to women who for a variety of reasons. It could be just for recreational sex or tourism.

It could be because they want to look for more traditional women.

They may want to look for women who aren't nearly as progressive or feminist in nature in comparison to the West. It's a whole host of spectrum of reasons for why men do it.

And she had asked me flat out,

why would you do it?

And I said, I'm going to be honest with you.

Between my last relationship and meeting you,

dating and trying to date was actually extremely difficult.

I'm not a model. I don't make all the money in the world. I don't have the greatest physique,

but I got a fair, decent amount of matches and interactions with women.

The process between trying to get them to respond,

then getting them to actually set a time to meet, then actually meeting them and it actually leading towards something was a lot harder than I had realized 10, 15 years ago.

Speaker A: And that's crazy because you are a good looking guy, right? Like, yeah, maybe you're not George Clooney, but like, this shouldn't matter, right?

Speaker C: Hold on.

I mean, you know, I ain't George Clooney now, but we ain't gonna sit here and act like I'm Shrek.

But what it was was I was realizing that there was a level of entitlement and arrogance and certain assumptions of what I had to give and offer to people who I don't think realize where we are, where we were in comparison to each other of the dating market.

So I'm, I'm 35 now, so I'm going to give you an example of what this looked like while on the app. There was two apps. I was on Bumble and the second app I was on was in the States.

We had one called Blk was black, which is like a lot of black people would just would get on it.

And I was obviously in Philly and it.

When you get on the plane and land somewhere, the. The location shifts in the. In the app.

And I had to go visit a cousin, a family member, for her 40th birthday in Chicago.

And this was right at the time when I, like, first met my wife. Like,

my now wife. Like, two weeks into us knowing each other, meeting each other.

And I left from Philly and I had to layover in Atlanta for two hours.

And then I left from Atlanta,

got to Chicago,

got off the plane,

walked outside, and got in my cousin's car when she came to pick me up.

And I turned on my phone,

and I had 70 matches.

70. And I wasn't on the app. I wasn't doing anything. I was in Atlanta for two hours,

and I was in Chicago for maybe 20 minutes.

And I had 70 women who liked.

Speaker A: My profile in Chicago.

Speaker C: Between Chicago And Atlanta, the two hours in Atlanta and crazy 30. 20 to 30 minutes in Chicago, I had 70 women.

I'm 30 at this point. At that time, I was about 30.

And I don't think women realize what that means for all the men who will anything close to me look better than me, make way more money than me,

what their pool,

who's on these apps? Not for two hours or two and a half hours,

days,

weeks,

months at a time.

I. I don't think they. I don't think that they actually know.

So when you're in that position as a man and you're considered in the top five, top 10% in most categories,

and it's not coming from a place of arrogance, I don't think that they truly get that demand that they're willing to ignore 90, 80. 90% of men for the leverage and opportunity and choice that he has.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker C: So that's a very, very small example of I'm literally hopping on planes and leaving, and I'm not doing anything. And I had almost 80 women,

that approach that. That initiated contact with me just by dropping in two cities.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: And Atlanta's the considered. The black capital is a lot of African Americans, and black Americans live in Atlanta as well as Chicago. So, of course, the data was probably skewed to a degree, but that's the reality.

Speaker B: A lot. That's a lot of.

Speaker A: Well, just for being there for such a short amount of time.

Speaker B: Like, I've heard people say that a lot, actually, that in a weird way, women have made this for men. Like,

we've designed it. Modern feminism, that they don't. They don't need to have a relationship because all these women, why would they Want one.

But I want to go back to quite a few things that you've said because it's an interesting age difference we have here. So you're 35,

Susie's 29, I'm 52.

Speaker A: 30 next week.

Speaker B: Want to cry?

Speaker A: Want to cry?

Speaker B: Yeah. Cry her a river. Yeah, no,

is. You know, I obviously see it from a different perspective. You know, I've been married for 25 years,

I'm British, so it's a bit different in Europe, in the uk.

But for me, looking at this, looking at these comments, so, you know, I think to myself from the comments you've made, the sexual revolution, the pill. Well, Gen X,

all of my friends are on the pill. We're all, you know,

sexually revolutionized, shall we say. We weren't, you know, we were already living,

you know,

more promiscuous lives than our parents, let's put it that way.

But all of my friends got married,

all of them had careers, they're all educated,

you know, they've had children. So, you know, when you're a woman, you have children, you've maybe worked at different paces and rates throughout your career because of children,

but they've all managed to find a mate and have a career and have children.

Balancing all of those, incredibly difficult. But the point is that they've done it and we dated in real life. So where I met my husband through a friend that worked, I worked with this friend and he worked this friend and she kind of matched us up, which is kind of traditionally how it happened.

Like a lot of people of my generation met at work, which of course we've eradicated because of me too.

So, you know, everybody I know in their 50s, 60s, late 40s, met at work. You can't do that anymore for fear of something happening.

So that knocks out a massive pool of people to me.

So I think to myself. And you were talking about high school. It was the same in my day. You know, there were the handsome guys and the good looking girls and,

you know, the people who weren't so attractive. Nothing has actually changed in any of what you've said there. I don't think like, you know, people got more dates than others and so on.

What's changed? The social media and this that you're talking about like that you can see the possibilities being infinite apparently. And you know, and that men see all these girls on Instagram who are all AI generated anyway, but they think they're real and they, they think there's always something better over their shoulder kind of thing.

There's A certain piece of it that seems to me, from my perspective, that has changed.

And it's the fact that we don't date in real life. People don't meet in real life situations as much. They do a bit, but not as much.

It's very hard because people are very nervous and particularly nervous at work and particularly men.

Men do not want to approach women. They're terrified and I don't blame them.

And so it's the way that we meet and the way that we present ourselves as human beings. Have we actually changed that much between. So you're a millennial. I'm Gen X, you're just a millennial in terms of levels of promiscuity and levels of, of career.

In levels of stuff like that, I'm not.

Maybe a bit, but not a huge amount.

The generation before, yes, there's a big difference.

But Gen X to millennial, to Gen Z,

we, we've, you know, we've all had multiple partners, we've all dated, we've all, whatever. It's a, it's something that has really changed. The key piece and it must be the Internet is the socializing,

the apps for one, which obviously didn't exist.

And the way people are meeting,

I mean, it's just bizarre what it's doing. It's bizarre.

Speaker C: Yes. I agree with you that two of the three things I listed obviously existed during your time, but it did open the door and started something that led to what we got to today.

Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker C: Now what I would argue is, and I agree with you about the social media component,

but reevaluate.

If the social media opened up the door in terms of our views and perspectives on optionality,

if the sexual revolution and sexual liberation either continued,

what did that look like and mean for all the countless couples and individuals and families where it didn't work?

And what were the ramifications and consequences of the increase in single parent homes,

in the increase of people not knowing who their father was, in the increase of one in three paternity tests in the States specifically,

people don't,

they can't identify who the biological father is or.

Speaker B: Was really 1 in 3, 1 in 3.

Speaker C: And that's who's tested.

So reimagine, you could do the math on all of that.

And then lastly,

as the push from the 60s, 70s and 80s on of more and more and more women going into the workforce and getting more educated increased the pill and birth control convinced two generations of women to push and prolong when it is that they should start thinking about children and the problem was that as they simultaneously did that,

they did not realize that when they decide, well, it's time for me to slow down, it's time for me to settle down, it's time for me to get serious about the screening process of who I'm going to cohabitate with, have sex with, potentially do life with long term.

The competition is now different.

So it hitting the window of when you were in high school or college, when it first kind of started, this was still a ever growing thing. The full effects of it now we're seeing post 2000,

right? So that's really what the. Obviously social media is the third big mega piece that really changes it all, but it actually also impacts all these other factors. So now, for instance, let's take birth control,

recreational sex and social media.

What does that do to a girl, young girl or woman's brain about seeing all these people traveling,

seeing all these people purchasing all these things and all these lived experiences they want to have before they have children?

And their belief system is, I can keep pushing the motherhood thing further and further down. I'll get to it.

30, 32, 34, 36, you know, modern medicine.

This celebrity said that they had a kid at 38 or 42.

I can get to it when I'm ready. And by the time a lot of them are quote unquote ready,

the rules aren't the same. And I'm going to say something that I've heard, and I'm sure you two may have heard about the mountaintop analogy. In terms of the dating marketplace,

women start at the top.

And that's the reality when you turn 18.

In terms of the desirability factor, the gate,

you start at the top.

The moment you turn 18. You didn't have to do anything.

You just had to exist. You have inherent value in the dating market with other teenagers, with men in their 20s, men in their 30s, men in their 40s, and that run from 18 to 25 is when you're probably going to get the biggest pool of men younger than you and older than you that's going to be interested in wanting to do life with you and potentially for the reason of you being potentially the mother of their children.

Speaker A: I just want to chime in here because since like being the young one. Single. Who's single.

Speaker B: Yes, the young single one.

Speaker A: The young single one,

obviously I, I'm not really on the app because I have just given up just for now. I'm just like over it.

And I have actually I've, I've not really been on birth control in my life, like here and there and then I like it and so I use condoms and that's what works for me.

But I do find it really interesting, obviously like that you're saying,

you know, like I know the divorce rate is like 52%, right, if people are getting divorced.

But that means that people are getting married when they're younger and like possibly having children when they're younger. No, no, you're saying that's not happening.

Speaker C: No, there's no, there's, there's no correlation between the divorce rate versus when people are actually getting married. There's marriages lasting two years,

there's marriage is lasting four years, people are getting married at 25 and getting divorced by 29.

There's not really a causal or correlated link to that. And that's the problem is it's really the illusion of time.

It's the illusion of time.

And the difference is when I was talking about that mountaintop.

An 18 year old boy has functionally nothing to offer most women that are single.

He's the one that has the time.

That's right when the magic number for both sexes is 30.

Because that's the time if he didn't get himself in a situation where he has to pay a lot of money out in alimony or child support,

if he's not incarcerated,

if he's been steadily increasing his value just naturally with work and making more money and building his body and his brand up at 30,

this is what happens.

She One side most desirability with the greatest pool of men.

When she hits 30,

I'm going to throw out a number, let's say that's cut in half,

right? Let's say they're still attractive, she's still desired, there's still a lot of people that want her. But now her competition is everybody that's younger than her and everybody that's a her age and everybody that's a little bit older than her that potentially looks better than her and potentially has a better attitude than her and less negative experiences with men.

Speaker A: For sure. I mean, I'm experiencing it like I see exactly what you're saying. Like not that I'm right now even looking for a relationship,

but like there is the fact that I know a lot of my friends are who are in their early 30s, let's say,

and they are finding it very hard to find a boyfriend. Like let's say they, they broke up with their boyfriend like two years ago and they're trying to find a partner.

It's Very, very hard. But the. I'm also finding,

I don't know, maybe you, you have experience with men around like,

obviously your age.

I find that a lot of those men who are in relationships aren't happy actually with their relationships. And a lot of them are,

you.

Speaker B: Know, happy or unhappy.

Speaker A: Unhappy.

Like a lot of them are cheating or they're just not giving what they should to their partner.

What is that with men? And obviously, like, I don't know if they're gonna get divorced, like if there's gonna be a bigger divorce right now because of all of these, you know, social media apps.

It's a lot, you know, you're to find someone else or even just like, you know, Ashley Madison, someone to your house. Like,

you know, we're getting. And I'm now seeing it where like, I'm like, why would I want to even get into a relationship if most of these guys are cheating on their wives?

Right.

Speaker C: Okay,

I'll answer that. And then we can just jump straight into men cheating and why they do it, because it sounds very relevant.

The first thing is I can't speak to the uk,

Canada,

Australia and other westernized cultures or countries in terms of like some of their rates for divorce or marriage, etc. Well, what I will say in the states is 70% of all divorces are initiated by women.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: 80% of she's college educated.

So regardless of level of happiness,

for whatever reason, men aren't typically,

on average initiating the divorce.

It doesn't mean that they're all happy.

That doesn't mean that they're all faithful. It just means that for whatever reason, that's not their go to when they are unhappy.

Now, how to make up for that unhappiness? They can stay at work longer.

They can find other hobbies with friends. They can look for outsourcing the things that they feel their partner isn't doing with other women. There's a whole host of reasons for why men might ideally want to stay or not break up their home or have their kids moving between households.

There just is other factors that's probably in their heads for why it is that they're choosing to stay.

In the last podcast I met with the mom advocate.

I talked to her about the happiness factor not really being something historically throughout almost all of human civilizations,

when it came to marriage,

that really wasn't a factor. And now it is.

And unfortunately, you can't perpetually be happy. You can't always be happy,

and you have a group that when they're unhappy, you have to kind of ask them. And I've been, I've even asked women this directly.

If you have to choose between your own unhappy.

If to choose between your own happiness or the happiness of your entire family,

which do you choose?

A lot of them are going to say their own happiness.

Speaker A: A lot of men or a lot of women. Sorry.

Speaker C: A lot of women are going to say they're all unhappiness.

But when you ask men,

it's the data speaks for itself.

They'll stay in unhappy situations for the sake of the kids,

for the sake of finances, for the sake of image, for the sake of status or reputation, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't mean that they don't do things on the side to supplement that.

But their view of happiness isn't nearly as important to them as it is to a lot of women in the modern,

modern age.

Speaker A: I thought it would be opposite. That's so interesting.

Speaker C: No, that's why they, that's why women, the women aren't leaving happy marriages. Yeah, they're leaving ones when they're unhappy.

Speaker B: The statistics are that married men are the happiest group and single women are happy. Like, like married women are not as happy as married men. Like married men are more happier than married women.

Speaker C: So the funny thing about that stat, and it's threefold that I'll say with that one, you have to wonder when in women's lives are they answering that question when they're married?

Because I envision that when they're answering that question throughout the duration of that their marriage probably matters,

I think because statistically speaking, they experience a fuller range of emotions and neuroticism seems to express itself more within the female population.

It's not unusual to me to hear the ups and downs of happiness. Sad,

ecstatic, depressed amongst, talking with women.

That's just not,

that's not strange to me in my field of mental health and psychology, honestly.

And on the flip side with.

I find it ironic that in the age where women are using the most, they're diagnosed the most with anxiety,

the most with depression,

the most psychiatric medication services in that era,

many of which are doing when they're actually single.

The self reporting data doesn't, it doesn't do anything for me is basically what I'm saying.

The data,

the evidence,

the constant frequent disappointment of not being able to find an adequate partner,

the constant need to overspend to supplement and make up for the lives that they can't experience with someone else,

the high rates of student loan debt in the U.S. the high consumer debt amongst women in the U.S.

i'm sorry, like they can self report all they want about how happy they are.

They'll trade places in the heartbeat for the woman that's married that says that she's so quote unquote unhappy.

And clearly in the US we have no problem initiating and filing for divorce.

So it's one of those things where I'm not saying people are liars.

What I am saying is that I think that it's a multivariate analysis that probably needs to take place and that happiness is probably more on a scale than necessarily happy or not happy.

So that's my honest assessment.

And I think that I don't put all this stock in.

It's the women who aren't with men that are doing the best and happiest in life. And I don't even argue the opposite, that it's only the women who can find a good man,

that they're all happy and they have no complaints. I think you're going to have complaints whether you're single or where you're living with somebody.

Either you sick of yourself or you sick of somebody else. So that's,

that's, that's what it is.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, surely, you know, most of the divorces though are initiated by women is really because women can now be self sufficient in the sense that economically to a degree you can figure out something sexually,

you don't need a man to buy a house. You know, compared to say my grandmother's generation who in fact my grandmother had to get married because she was pregnant, you know, that doesn't exist anymore.

So you don't have to marry a man if you want a child and you don't have to marry a man if you want to have a house and a materialistically successful life.

And so that sort of emasculated men to a degree. Like,

so, like, what is their role? Like what are they. And the thing that I find strange is I find men in their 50s or men that I know in their 50s and older,

pretty secure in who they are.

They've had families, they've,

I'd say I personally know a lot of successful men. They've had families, they've done well financially. They're not all happily in their marriages. They definitely don't hate women versus the younger generation.

And these are men who also didn't, I'm talking about men in their 50s. They didn't grow up in this me too thing. So they're not afraid of women,

but they understand the feminist movement. And then you compare it with men, you know, sort of 25 to 35 and younger, that sort of younger Gen Z or young millennial age.

And there's a huge amount of hatred for women,

not understanding feminism or where it came from and not understanding. And I think this is where there's a disconnect for me is that young men, I think, are paying for the sins of their fathers, right?

So the way that older men behaved,

younger men are now having to pay that and they don't get it because they didn't grow up in that era. Whereas men sort of in their 50s understand.

They understand that era. They understand what women went through in the workplace. There were no rules and laws, and I certainly live that.

And that young men, young women in turn didn't live through what I had to live through. Very misogynistic work environments where there were no rules and laws and men definitely stepped over many boundaries.

Young women today,

none of them have lived through that yet they are behaving as if they grew up in my generation when. And the young men, so they're confused because they're not behaving according to what their experience is.

And the young men are like, hang on a second, why am I paying for my great grandfather did or father did or whatever?

And so they. The sort of behavior between both of the gen of the genders is so confused. I mean, that's what I see is it's just young men saying, hang on, I didn't do any of this ****.

I didn't, I wasn't gross, I didn't do stuff that I shouldn't have done that was inappropriate and blah, blah, blah. But young women are blaming them for that when they didn't grow up in that culture.

And that makes no sense at all.

And then you add a layer on top of that that women don't need men financially. I mean, of course it's better. I attest to that. I work, my husband worked.

It's way better.

It's way better if you're happy and you live in, you work and are married and you're in a team and you go forward in life together. But it's not essential, whereas it used to be historically.

And so I think it's put men in this very weird space.

And we've talked about it a lot, like in the beginning of the conversation about incel. Red pill,

blue pill and all of that. And this real rise in toxic masculinity amongst young men,

this hatred of women that like, they absolutely like it's full on rage.

Speaker A: And we also like obviously being women and having a podcast where we're very open about our opinions.

You know, we see it like real time on our. On our comments, on our everything, like on the messages we get. We see it. And so obviously, like, I know you're not saying that's not happening, and women and men are very much to blame on both sides of why this is happening.

And I know you'd. Obviously, we had brought up adolescents and obviously this culture.

Speaker B: What are you.

Speaker A: What are you thinking about?

Speaker B: Where's it going?

Speaker C: Yeah, I see. This is where the podcast is going to definitely become a lot more controversial with some of the things I'm going to say. But, Melanie, I'm going to agree with you 100% about, from the male lens.

And the reaction about modern men are being made to pay for the sins of a patriarchy that they're no longer a part of.

That is for a lot of men, this visceral reaction is the world and environment that their fathers or grandfathers were able to experience,

were able to afford,

were able to have access to,

has been squeezed and reduced to a very, very small pool of men.

And that's the reality.

And that is a consequence of.

Of women changing the terms of what it was required for a man to have access to a woman sexually in order to get a wife, in order to have a child, in order to start a family, in order to not be a genetic dead end.

I'm going to give an example personally,

and I hope that this helps just at least to humanize,

not excuse, but humanize where some of these unchecked emotions from men are probably coming from my parents. When I was young, I believe I was in third grade, we moved from Philadelphia to South New Jersey in Willingboro,

that's in the suburbs.

And that home,

three bed, two and a half bath, huge front yard, side yard, backyard, was a house on the corner.

That house at the time when they got it was probably like $120,000.

And they were. And when they first moved, my mom wasn't even working.

In order for me to get a comparable home like that,

I have to make what both my parents made combined.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker C: And in order for me to have a wedding like they had a wedding,

how much do I have to make and spend for sure, in order for me to get a degree,

in order to make the money,

how much debt do I have to go into?

So there's an entirely different world of expectations that's being placed on a generation of Men.

So when the cost of living is higher,

when the expectations are now elevated to a level it's never been in human history for any man,

it's the highest ever going to be for anybody in a western culture right now.

And your sexual counterparts are also making money, also entering into the workforce, and they unknowingly in, or maybe knowingly in the process of fighting for equality,

fighting for their own liberation,

getting access to education and money and resources.

You doubled the tax base and you doubled the workforce and you stagnated wages for the men who were still expected to do this.

Yeah,

it came with it.

So the ultra capitalists here in the States, the Rockefellers and other groups,

that was a very subversive.

They funded the very groups that they told women, this is the groups that are your advocates,

they funded them.

So as you left the home, as you took on student loan debt,

you prolong the period where you normally would have been, probably focusing on starting a family.

When you come back out,

your expectations don't go lower,

they go higher. When you went into college, you were maybe not making much of any money.

When you come out of college, between the student loan debt in the states and the actual salary you're making,

the pool of men that even qualifies is significantly reduced. What are you gonna do with all of these men?

Yeah,

that's now being pushed to the margins and to the side. And we're not saying pushed to the side like women are kind of,

you know,

they just play around a little bit. You know, we go out on dates every now and then. You know, we flirt every now and then. They are viewed as zeros.

Nobody's invisible.

And the numbers will fluctuate depending on the study.

But most,

a lot. Not most. A large percentage of women don't want to make 80k, a hundred k, 125k.

And data man is making half that.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker C: And if you plot him in any other point in human history,

he'd have a wife and six kids,

a home that's paid off, and maybe one or even two vehicles.

So you're taking modern adaptations,

modern expectations,

and being shocked when environments that's been very hostile to men,

they've equated the toxic negative things that men can do and projected that onto anything pertaining to be a distinction between men and women.

That's how it feels.

That's how it comes off. You, you've, I think you both have referenced it at one point about this concept of toxic masculinity. It doesn't exist.

Speaker B: It does.

Speaker C: Toxic Max, I'm gonna say it as clear as I can.

Masculinity and feminine and femininity are descriptions of positive behaviors in terms of care,

nurture, provision and protection.

That's what it is.

That's what being masculine means.

That's what being feminine means. Either you're very nurturing and protecting or you're doing provision and protection. Like that's what it means to be ultra feminine or masculine. The actual terms, that's what they mean.

They are in the affirmative. They are positive things.

So when you're calling something a toxic version of it, that, that, that there's literally. It's oxymoron.

It's toxic people.

There's men that do toxic things, okay? There's women that do toxic things. But when a man steps outside of being a masculine man in a particular scenario, that's not a version of masculinity.

He's just being a toxic individual. He's being a toxic man. But that's not a toxic masculinity.

Same thing with. There's no toxic femininity.

Either you're feminine or you're not. Either you're masculine or you're not.

So unfortunately, what's happening is these boys, and it's so pervasive.

It starts in grade school, all the way through the latter years, all the way through college.

These are environments that overcorrected and they switched from.

We're in a patriarchal system where we need to factor and prioritize how men feel and men's perspectives on these things. And it overcorrected.

This is why in the States,

millions and millions of young boys are being diagnosed with ADHD and being put on psychiatric medication.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: It's crazy,

because they're in a system that prioritizes how girls tend to operate, move,

function, and think,

versus any psychologist worth their salt would know that prepubescent boys and even boys going through puberty,

how much extracurricular activity they need, how many various forms of expression they need,

how their way of bonding is often physical in nature, how there's a roasting process of just in normal communication and how that's designed to kind of build up his ability to be able to deal with the world when school is done.

So you're shunning, you're penalizing, you're punishing so much of what it means to be a boy and a man.

You're having a huge market of people who are getting divorces and are now raising these boys with no father influence. Don't even talk about and Ask about what's happened in the black community and then you're shocked when there's all this resentment and anger.

What did you think was going to happen if you said all men are dogs and they're not needed? And we're questioning whether or not men are valuable and a huge percentage of homes father isn't even involved or you know, like it just at some level you have to acknowledge,

like it makes sense why there's so much anger and resentment.

My stance when I talk to young men or men, period,

is, so what are you going to do about it?

Because the reality is any client that comes in,

what if I was to tell you, you don't have any control over anybody else?

The market's the market.

Women are women, their standards are their standards.

You can cry about it,

you can be depressed about it,

you can avoid it,

or you can look in the mirror and say, I don't match up to most of the things that most women want and I can either do something about it or nothing about it.

And if you want to do something about it, we can come up with a treatment plan for the next six weeks,

six months of how you can radically improve yourself,

how you feel about yourself, your self esteem, your motivation, your body, your health,

putting you in certain scenarios where you're going to build up the experience, you need to feel more confident and comfortable, build up your career and resume. And I promise you, you're probably going to have significantly different outcomes.

I've seen a whole lot of ugly, short men with some beautiful women.

Speaker A: Absolutely. We love smoking.

Speaker C: But what he did was he put the work in.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So that he had the options.

So the incel culture is based on men or young boys that are extremely frustrated and angry about not so much the access to sex because they can go and outsource and pay for that.

It's actually the lack of feeling someone is attracted to you as a person.

It's that and couple part. It's not just the frustration with the lack of attraction from the opposite sex, like, nobody wants me, nobody values me.

It's also the second part, the unwillingness to do something about it.

So that pool of young boys or men,

when they're surrounding themselves by people who talk this way, that are super negative, that's constantly downing and saying the market's unfair.

Women have changed. What's wrong with them?

Why do I gotta make six figures in order for them to even go on date? Like, what the heck is going on?

While those of us as men learn the game and realize don't hate the game,

learn the game and get in.

You got other players or people who are sitting on the sidelines so ****** off that they're not getting any starting time.

If you're watching a basketball game,

if you're watching a soccer game,

you gotta put in the work. In practice, you gotta work with a coach.

You have to work on your own, you gotta work on your coordination, your speed, you gotta build up your muscle mass. You have to put in the work to justify you getting the playing time to get on the field and or the court.

The incels they're at a space either because of exposure, not working with men like myself or people like myself where they don't know that much of what they're struggling and dealing with is the consequence that women have changed.

We are in modernity, but also an unwillingness to look in the mirror of things. They need to change internally. So that's actually what's going on.

Speaker B: Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review this podcast and follow us on social at sharingmytruthpod and leave us a voicemail on our website sharingmytruth.com to share your stories and experiences with us.

We'll see you next time. Bye Bye.