Ask A Dude: Episode 5, Part 2

In this podcast, which follows Nick's list of what it is to be a real man, the group discusses why men feel they need to impress women.

Music by Lemon Music Studio by Pixabay

www.sacred-truths.com

Transcript

Welcome to Episode 5 Part 2 of Ask a Dude. Three women, one guy, where we get real answers on subjects most men aren't willing to talk about. This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham. [music] 

Emmy: I want to transition, it's related. I wrote down this question for you Nick. But I think I've already got the answer, but it's also worth this intro that I'm going to give. Because, my question had to do with, oh, how men feel they have to impress women, when they're on a date. That was my original question, which I don't know if you need to answer that. But yes, I am still interested in your answer. But let me just explain here. It's interesting because this came from an article I read in the New York Times several months ago. And it was called "Date Like a Monk." It was by Jay Shetty. Deborah is saying you read that too. Okay, I found it really fascinating because this man spent several years as a Hindu monk in his mid-20s. And the Sanskrit for monk means the right use of energy. And I really resonated with all that he said about being a monk. Being in the world is not bad. I'm paraphrasing his article. But rather takes away one's primary focus and energy. That is to understand oneself in order to love oneself and thereby love others. And that really resonates with me and why I even have a yoga practice. It's for those very same reasons. 

So in the article he went on to say when he left the monk-hood and started dating women again, he found that he went on a date with some woman and immediately fell into what I'm calling the trap of having to impress her. That's what he had to do. He took her to a really expensive restaurant that he could not afford so that she would be impressed. And he said, he had said, "If she's impressed, he feels validated." And so, for me, this feels so misaligned to me. It totally ignores the woman's intelligence and how she may want to connect with a man. It feels like a lie to me. It feels like a scheme. When a man is trying to impress it is jarring and particularly disturbing for me to experience the act of a man trying to impress me. It's very disturbing to me. And then I think, well, now what do I owe him? Do I owe him my body? Do I owe him my love, my devotion, my time? What is this? What is really happening here? And as the author states, and I agree, the foundation of the relationship is now based on dishonesty. When a man tries to impress a woman and the woman is impressed. So it's that whole idea of tricking and fooling the woman and that's on your list, which just, it disturbs me so much. It is just so disgusting to me that we have to be tricked and fooled because we don't know what we even want. We have to be fooled into having sex. 

And I wrote my own list of what I need to see in a man rather than someone impressing me with how much money he makes or what kind of car he drives or whatever it might be. And I wrote a man's core strength. How does he actually handle stress? Does he engage in acts of kindness when there are no witnesses? Does he strive for self-realization? Does he see and treat others as equals? Is it about connecting? And these were the things also that he, I believe this man wrote in his article, all the things. Well, take that back. I'm saying all the things a monk learns. These are the things that monks strive for. So I find that really interesting because according to this article, this man's experience of being a monk, he's really striving to be something very different than what's on that list. So I just find that to be really interesting. And if you have anything to add to why do men feel they have to impress women because it totally nauseates me and I can see right through it.

Nick: I've seen, hearing men talk about the impulse to impress women. I've heard that come from a vulnerable place, at least from my estimation, that there was something that was actually a vulnerable bit coming through. Like, that the experience of being appreciated for what they produce comes from a vulnerable place. I've definitely felt that energy and I've felt that energy was sincere. And I've felt that clearly come from a place of insecurity, for sure. Not really manipulation, but just insecurity, for sure. And I've felt that come from a place of manipulation, for sure. All three of those. So that one is pretty mixed in terms of an answer to where that impulse, the origin of that impulse, for sure, can come from manipulative place. But it also comes from what I have observed as a vulnerable place or just insecure place. 

As far as to know yourself and to heal yourself and to really work with your own healing and growth and self-awareness in the interest of serving others is the opposite of this list. The absolute antithesis of it, for sure. There's no doubt about it. There's a lot of self-harm in this list. It's a harm machine. Harm others, harm yourself, lie, just blah. And so, what you described there is the exact opposite of it. 

Deborah:  I'm sort of toying with the difference between wanting to impress somebody and wanting to be appreciated by them, because there's a huge difference there. And, I know I have wanted to impress people in my life, but I think not to dominate, but to be appreciated. And so it seems to me that impressing somebody, the way you describe it on your list, Nick, is the manipulative, dominating kind of impressed. You know, I caught a fish this big. I drive a car bigger than you. I have more money than you. Look, I have a finer suit than you. That's slightly different than seeking validation or even seeking love or seeking appreciation. I'm wondering if there's a gender-based difference, because as I said, I have wanted to impress all kinds of people in my life. And now I'm questioning my own motives. 

Emmy:  No, this is good. If I wanted to impress someone, I think it comes from a place of insecurity for me. And I think after reading this article, it was a vulnerable moment for him. He really did like this woman and wanted her to like him, and he was really nervous about it and felt this is what I gotta do. I gotta take her to the fanciest restaurant that's way over my head. And in fact, she didn't even enjoy the restaurant or the food or any of it. 

Heather:  I think it's still true to a significant extent that men are judged as sexual partners by really superficial things, too. In a heterosexual situation, like even at an unconscious level, you know, there's still a hierarchy. And that kind of just like for women, it seems like it creates insecurity. Like, do I make enough money? Do I live at my parents' house right now? Like, do I, you know, what's my, how do I look? Like, I feel like both friends and people I've been out with, you can kind of feel that, you know, that they're vulnerable to judgments of them. And they know it. 

It's so hard to like say that because it feels like it's so weighted on women have to be the pleasing object and men just get to shop. No. But on the ground like day to day, that's not always the only thing that's going on. 

Deborah:  I'm sort of struggling with how that landed on me. And there's that sense of, I'm aware of, I have judged, you know, walking down the street and you think, huh, I wonder why he's with her or I wonder why she's with him. And of course, I don't know these people. I am judging them entirely by either how they look, what they're wearing or how they seem to be relating to one another. So I think I'm conscious of that with myself. Like, why would anybody want to be with me? Because I, you know, I share Emmy's list, all those millions of reasons why one is unlovable and why one, you know, will always be for the rest of time. But then now I'm thinking about trophy wives, the whole notion of trophy wives. You trade in, you know, your fated middle-aged wife and you get a new shiny young one and lots of men do this, right? They trade in their, I don't know, Buick for a Lamborghini. They trade in the mother of their children for a dental hygienist. This happened to someone I know, not the car. And I think, what is this sort of trading up about? 

My brother, apparently, my brother and his friends at one moment in time, all their wives left them. No, I lie. The husbands left all their wives. Oh, sorry. And then five, six years later, all the husbands regretted trading in the mother of their children for the shiny new young one. Because the shiny new young one didn't have the same history, the same values. They seemed to be superficial, apparently, was the generality between my brother and his friends. How does that tie in? 

Nick:  We're all good?

Emmy:  Yes, I'm just glad I don't have to answer that question. 

Deborah:  It may not be answerable. 

Nick:  No, no, I have an answer. So, all of this ties in to the way that men moderate status among themselves. So, they're in a rolling continuous status check with each other. And if they buy into this list, plus the final idea that status with other men is the number one most important thing in their lives, then they're going to seek status. And, at all costs. And part of that, one of those status checks is an attractive wife. And then that's another thing. There's the income, the status of the job, their social status in the community, how successful and beautiful their children are, what their wife looks like and where they live. And so, they're carrying that around and doing status checks with each other kind of constantly in any social situation, based on where the party is, who they know, which country club it is, and all those ways of monitoring status. And so, that's, if it's accepted that status is the most important thing, then that's what the outcomes are going to be. A trophy wife is part of that. 

Heather: It occurred to me when I was first listening to your list. I was thinking back to a good deal of equity, diversity, and inclusion training we had at school, that talks about a number of those status-based achievements, if you will, as part of whiteness, white privilege, that hard work, success, good car, beautiful wife, nice home, good neighborhood, successful children. It has been suggested to us this is all part of that machinery. So, I guess my, it's a two-part question. Do you think your list particularly applies to white privileged men, or does it have more universal qualities for many men, regardless of color or income or region? 

Nick:  So, my take on this list is that this list is the foundation of white supremacy. This is the engine that is the basis and the fundamental structure of white supremacy. The only little extra ingredient in all of it is that success in the system, success in the dominant culture, is the product of ability and hard work, and that it's fair. And that the people at the top deserve to be at the top, because they're the most hardworking and the most smart, and the most determined and able, and that it's an equal starting line for everybody, and that it's a meritocracy. So, once you've established that, all of that unfairness is fair, because it's earned. And so, people can sleep at night. Then they can say, "I'm a moral person. I broke no laws. I'm living in a fair and just society. I'm a good person." And they can create and generate a narrative of being good people, because they live in a fair society. Ooh. So, that's how this piece fits into that meta structure of injustice. It's a massive, widespread injustice. 

And it's, I think, that weird vulnerability of the idea of white fragility, why people at the top of the dominant culture tend to freak out when it's questioned, when the fairness of it all is questioned, is because it's so not. It's so unfair. And it's so...injustice is so widespread. It's so obviously wrong that people at the top feel very vulnerable to being criticized, because it's the feeling of one little thing being pulled out of the side, and the whole thing is just going to collapse in a pile of lies. 

Heather:  I don't think I have any specific thing to say. It feels just like we're running up, I guess we are, just running up into the same thing over and over again. Like, not that that's bad, but just, God, like, this thing. You know? Ah. (chuckles) Make it stop. Make it stop. 

Deborah:  That's possibly my unanswerable question, is, okay, we're starting to understand this better, so now what do we do about it? Can we fix it? How can we fix it? I suspect we can't fix it globally, but we can probably fix it individually and in our own lives, and with the people we do know, and the people with whom we work, and the young ones that you're all raising. 

Heather:  It seems important to name on that point that there's so many decades of scholarship and activism around this, you know, that we have a lot of things to say about that, that I only know that a little bit of, it just seems important to say. It's kind of cool to be in this format where there's this feeling of like, even if all of us knew what we knew coming into these conversations, there's a way in which we're like discovering something organically in person-to-person conversation about it. Yeah, there's so much thought and sacrifice that has gone into exploring these problems and formulating them and calling out solutions, you know? 

Nick:  This feels really powerful and important to do. At least an attempt at an honest accounting of the shadow that we're dealing with. So that feels really powerful. It feels like this was a pretty bombshell-y thing. I've had a couple days to kind of deal with it, and so I think there'll be some follow-up stuff. Who knows what'll happen. 

Heather:  And yeah, I think one thing that's happening for me is, do you identify as white?

 Nick: Yeah. 

Heather: Okay, so like, I do a fair bit of reading and things on these topics, but to have, it's not a common experience at all to like sit with an individual white man who is naming all this on his own, you know? That's like different. And even though that list wasn't surprising in a general way, to have one man sit at a table with me and say, "This and this and this and this and this in my life, inside my head, downloaded into my head." It's something. Like, I'm experiencing it as something really, I don't know what the word is, powerful, but that big, I guess, that feels like something that can be done for people who are carrying the hard to say side of this to like say it. Make it out in the open. [music] 

This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham with music by Lemon Music Studio from Pixabay. And with special thanks to our dude, Nick Oredson. This concludes episode five, part two of Ask a Dude. Please join us for part three. 

Please visit our website at sacred-truths.com. Thank you for listening. [music]