Simp, Saved, or Something Else

Simp. High-value man. Alpha. 50/50. What do you bring to the table? The language may be new, but the pain underneath it may not be.

What if some of what we’ve been calling wisdom is actually woundedness? And how do we know the difference?

No sides. No gender war. Just honest questions—and there’s a seat at the table for you.

#SimpsSavedOrSomethingElse #TheTensionWhereTruthLives #WisdomOrWounds #Manhood #Relationships #FaithAndCulture #PullUpAChair #LetsContinueTheConversation

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Let's continue the conversation. Yesterday we put a lot of language on the table. Let's take a second with it. Simp. Alpha male, beta male, high value man, high value woman, red pill, body count, 50-50. Provider, protector, traditional man, traditional woman. And then that question that seems to show up everywhere. Now, what do you bring to the table? But this morning I don't want to start with the language. I want to start somewhere underneath it because I'm wondering, what if some of what we've been calling wisdom is actually woundedness? That's a hard question for me because when somebody tells me, don't ever give more than you're getting, that can sound like wisdom. Protect yourself. That can sound like wisdom. Don't trust too quickly. That can sound like wisdom. Never allow another person to have enough of you to destroy you. After you've been hurt badly enough, that can sound like some of the best wisdom you've ever heard, and maybe some of it is. But how would we know when wisdom ends and the wound begins? Tell me what you think about that. Leave me a comment. I'm serious. I don't just want you listening to this conversation. I want you in it. Because this morning Charles is trying to understand something too. Pastor Howes is still in the bed. I want you to imagine a young man sitting at our table. He's trying to date. Maybe he's online. Maybe he's using an app. Maybe he's doing everything people told him to do, and he's getting almost nothing back. Pew Research found that among recent online daters, 64% of men said they had at least sometimes felt insecure because they weren't receiving enough messages. Don't rush past him, let him sit there, because across the table is a woman using some of those same apps. And 54% of women said they had felt overwhelmed by the number of messages they were receiving. Same environment, different pain. He's wondering why nobody sees him. She's wondering why everybody seems to want something from her. Now put those two people on a first date. What does he bring with him? What does she bring with her? I'm not talking about money. I'm not talking about education. I'm not talking about whether she can cook or whether he can provide. What did they bring emotionally that was already in the room before either one sat down? That's what interests me. And brothers, there's another chair I want us to look at. In 1990, 55% of men reported having at least six close friends. By 2021, that number had fallen to 27%. And the percentage of men reporting no close friends at all had risen from 3% to 15%. Now I'm not giving you that number so we can say, look how terrible things are today. I'm asking, where does that man take his pain? Where does he take rejection? Where does he take embarrassment? Where does he take loneliness? Where does he take the questions he doesn't want anybody to know he's asking? Because pain doesn't disappear because nobody gave it somewhere healthy to go. It goes somewhere, and increasingly, somewhere may be online. Now we're getting closer to the manosphere, and remember, we're not getting in the gender war, we're standing outside of it trying to understand what we're seeing. Recent research commissioned by Ofcom found that the manosphere isn't one single movement. It's a collection of different communities, and people can be drawn toward them through things as ordinary as humor, debate, advice, and self-improvement. The same research found that socially isolated people may be especially vulnerable to harmful ideas in closed online communities. That makes me ask another question. What if the young man wasn't looking for hate? What if he was looking for help? What if he typed? How do I become more confident? Why can't I get a girlfriend? How do I stop being used? How do I get over her? How do I become successful? How do I become a man? And somebody answered. Maybe some of the answer helped him. Maybe some of it hurt him. Maybe some of it did both. I don't know. But I'd like to hear from that young man. If that's you, talk to me. What did you go online looking for? And what did you find? Now let me move to the other side of the table because that woman has a story too. Among women under 50 who had used online dating, Pew found that 56% said someone had sent them sexually explicit material they didn't ask for. 43% said someone continued contacting them after they said they weren't interested. So when that woman comes to the table guarded, maybe there's something behind that too. Maybe what he experiences as rejection, she experiences as protection, and maybe what she experiences as emotional distance, he experiences as protection. Two people protecting themselves from two different kinds of pain can look like two people who don't care about each other. That one bothers me. Because now I'm wondering whether some of this war between men and women isn't always hatred. Maybe some of it is fear wearing armor. And that brings me back to what do you bring to the table? That's a fascinating question. Because sometimes we mean what do you earn? What do you own? What can you provide? How attractive are you? How old are you? How many children do you have? Can you cook? What's your education? What's your status? And I'm not saying those things never matter. Adults should bring responsibility into adult relationships. But I wonder when the table became an appraisal table. Because before I ask what you bring, shouldn't I ask who you are? And maybe an even harder question, what happened to you before you got here? Maybe you brought six figures to the table. But you also brought abandonment. Maybe you brought beauty to the table, but you also brought distrust. Maybe you brought a house, a career, a degree, a retirement account, but you also brought a wound nobody can see. And maybe that wound has been making decisions for you for 20 years. Now I'm thinking differently about the question. Maybe the most important thing somebody brings to the table isn't what they own. Maybe it's what they've healed from or what they're willing to heal from. I don't know. What do you think? Put that in the comments. When somebody asks, what do you bring to the table? What's your answer? And there's something else I'm wrestling with. None of these human behaviors are new. People had sex before dating apps. People cheated before Facebook. People used each other before TikTok. Men hurt women. Women hurt men. Prostitution is ancient. Adultery is ancient. Lust is ancient. Loneliness is ancient. So I'm not interested in pretending there was some perfect generation when everybody behaved themselves and relationships were wonderful. There wasn't. But something has changed. Maybe not the human heart. Maybe the machinery around the human heart. There was a time when meeting somebody required more human interaction. You had to talk, you had to approach somebody, you had to risk rejection face to face. You might have had to call somebody's house. You had to make plans. You went somewhere, you sat across from somebody, you talked. Maybe you opened the door, maybe you paid for dinner. Maybe you didn't. Everybody didn't follow the rules then either. But there was friction between desire and gratification. Today I can look at a photograph, swipe left, swipe right, yes, no, attractive, not attractive, and make a judgment about another human being before I've ever heard their voice. Technology didn't invent rejection. But it changed the speed of rejection. Technology didn't invent comparison, but it changed the size of the comparison pool. Technology didn't invent lust, but it changed access. Technology didn't invent loneliness. And here's the tension I'm sitting with. How can we have more access to one another than any generation before us? And still feel so disconnected from one another. We can know where somebody went on vacation, what they ate last night, what they're wearing, who they're dating, what they think, what they bought, and still not know them. We can have physical intimacy without emotional intimacy, digital connection without human connection, access, without attachment. And maybe that's part of how we got here. Maybe it isn't. That's why we're talking. And now I want to put two people back at our table. That young man is still sitting over there. That young woman is still sitting across from him. He's afraid of being used. She's afraid of being hurt. He's been taught not to overinvest. She's been taught not to depend on anybody. He's protecting himself. She's protecting herself. And somehow, two people who may both want love can meet each other already prepared for war. I don't know how much of that describes you. Maybe none of it, maybe all of it. But if you heard yourself anywhere in this conversation, I want to hear from you. Leave a comment. Ask the question you think nobody is asking. Tell me where I'm wrong. Tell me what I'm missing. Tell me what your chair at this table looks like. Because we're bringing those voices with us as this conversation continues towards September 1st. And I don't want to arrive there having already finished the conversation for you. I want us to arrive there with something on the table worth talking about. So for today, I'm not trying to answer how we fix it. I'm still trying to understand how we got here. And I'm still sitting with the question that started this conversation how much of what we've been calling wisdom is actually woundedness? If you found this conversation meaningful, like subscribe, follow, leave a comment, or send us a message. We don't just want you to listen to the conversation. You have a seat at this table.