Peter McGraw takes the hot seat on the Three Single Women podcast to celebrate their 6-month anniversary—and (boldly) speak for all men. This crossover episode dives into masculinity, femininity, dating, and personal growth. ✨ Special announcement: Peter’s new eBook on aging sexy is coming soon. Learn more and join the Solo community at petermcgraw.org/solo
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Listen to Episode #246 here
Three Single Women Put Peter on the Hot Seat!
Welcome back. I find myself in the hot seat, grilled by the delightful trio behind the Three Single Women Podcast. In this special crossover episode, I’m asked unapologetically to speak for all men, all the blokes. I like to think I rose to the challenge. We’re re-releasing this episode hot on the heels of my deep dive into masculinity, so you may read some familiar themes echoed throughout this conversation.
Three Single Women is part of the SOLO family, hosted by the fierce, funny, and fabulous Pip Brown, Rachel Beck, and Lucy Meggeson. These three, each running their own successful shows, join forces for a weekly, honest, heartfelt conversation about being single and child-free. I highly recommend checking them out. This recording celebrates their six-month podcast anniversary, and I was honored to be part of it.
Finally, a quick announcement. I released a personal finance book for solos as an eBook, as well as a workbook to accompany the SOLO book. I’m excited to introduce something a little different, something a little sexier, though still in eBook form. Inspired by a series on aging, retiring, and dying single, I created Aging Sexy, a fun new eBook for solos who are aging forward, not fading back.
It’s cheeky, stylish, and empowering. A guide ready for anyone who wants to redefine being sexy, and this is important, on their own terms. You can find it along with the other ebooks at PeterMcGraw.org/solo. Thank you all for the support. All the sales from the eBooks support the SOLO Project. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoy tuning in to this episode. I certainly enjoyed participating in it. Let’s get started.
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Special Six-Month Anniversary with Dr. Peter McGraw
Welcome back to Three Single Women. When this episode goes out, it’s going to be the 2nd of June, 2025. That marks almost our six-month anniversary of recording this show. We got together and thought we needed to do some form of special episode to mark this occasion. I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for six months, but here we are. We thought what better to do than ask Dr. Peter McGraw to fly back from Asia with jet lag and come onto our show?
Did you actually fly back from Asia to be on our show?
Ironically, I flew back from Europe via London. I was in your neighborhood around this time.
We thought that we would grab a bloke for a bloke’s perspective to come on our show. Peter, are you scared?
No, I’m not. I’m excited.
You’re meant to be excited.
You are my people. What do I have to be afraid of? Let’s see.
Peter, for anybody who doesn’t know who you are, we’d love for you to introduce yourself to an audience of single women.
I am a champion of single living. That’s probably the best lead for this group. I’m a behavioral economist. I’m a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. I’ve been a humor researcher. I have dedicated the last several years of my life to advocating for single living, for pointing out the opportunities that singlehood grants us, and pointing out, at times, some of the inequities and some of the problems with the world that’s focused on getting us to ride the relationship escalator.
I love the fact that other podcasts have cropped up since I started SOLO several years ago. There wasn’t anything quite like it, at least not with a male voice. Now, there are more books, more talks, more conversations, and more voices. I got to know Lucy. She was in earlier than Pip, and then Rachel, across the pond, a fellow American. Pip, I saw your Instagram or something posting that you’re starting this show. I thought it was a fabulous idea. I’m honored and thrilled to be here.
Thanks, Peter. We are so pleased to have you on. We’re so pleased to have you here with us. We’ve been having plenty of chats here about the state of affairs when it comes to men and women. We’d be keen to get your perspective. We’ve had various conversations here. We’d love your perspective. You were talking about the opportunities that arise from a solo life. We’d love a male perspective, please.
I’m happy to speak for all men. I feel very comfortable doing that. There are a lot of worse male voices out there. There is something unfortunate that’s happening. I like to say that men are unpopular at the moment. As a result of that, in a post #MeToo world, the male voices are the ones that tend to be disagreeable. There are men who don’t give an F what people think.
There’s something valuable about having authentic, vulnerable conversations where you’re not worried about people judging you. The problem is that not giving a care in the world tends to correlate with some other disagreeable perspectives, and so on. We’re not getting the full conversation. The public conversation and the private conversation that are happening among men are not in line, in part because some of the more reasonable voices are a little reluctant to wade into the public sphere about this stuff for fear of backlash, being judged negatively, being misinterpreted, and so on.
I’m getting to that point where I’m getting comfortable with my voice and especially talking about these types of issues. I have a forthcoming episode on my show about masculinity, where I get two men together, and we have a very deep, wide-ranging conversation about what it means to be masculine in this world. Bring it on. Let’s go. Let’s have some fun.
Unpacking Modern Masculinity: A Void in Identity
Can I pick up on one thing you said there? From that conversation with the other guy, what were your thoughts on what it means to be masculine in this world? Isn’t this part of the problem, as in men not knowing what it means anymore to be masculine because women don’t need men in the same way that they perhaps used to?
I appreciate you asking that question. There is a void in what it means to be masculine. Where are the conversations happening? Who are the men who are the proper role models, who are showing what to do, and then also talking about it? The lack of resources for young men is shocking. I’m working on a new book. In many ways, it is a book that I wish I had when I was a young man, one that models good masculine behavior and honest masculine behavior.
I can preview a little bit of the takeaway that I personally had from that conversation. There were two things. One is something that my guest said, which is that this masculine-feminine conversation is not the right conversation. It’s a conversation about what it means to be a good human, regardless of gender. That was a very striking observation, and one that I’ve been thinking a lot about.
Within a gendered context, one of the conversations and arguments that I’ve made is that we can talk about it as two levers. There’s a masculine lever, and there’s a feminine lever. The masculine lever is confidence, assertiveness, and this provider, protector, ambitious, and achievement-oriented world that stereotypically has been masculine, and then more of a nurturing, caregiving, emotionally connected, compassionate lever that is typically associated with femininity. Those two things are a yin and a yang. The best people have both at their disposal.
Older men have trouble with the feminine lever, and some younger men are having trouble with the masculine lever. I’m speaking broadly. What I believe is that you need both levers. This notion that masculinity is toxic, I disagree with. I believe that masculinity is toxic when you only have one lever. That is when the situation demands sensitivity, nurturing, caregiving, compassion, and all you can do is man up, be confident, be assertive, be aggressive, and be all those things. All those things are appropriate under the right circumstances.
This doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, let’s be honest. If you can only pull a compassionate, nurturing lever, there are times when you need to be assertive, be aggressive, and be achievement-oriented in the world, depending on your situation, goals, and so on. I thought it was a very useful way to develop a perspective that I’ve been keeping in private for a long time.
The Tipping Point: Women’s Masculine and Feminine Balance
Can I pick up on another thing that you said there? I’d be interested to get your opinion on this. Given what is going on in the state of the dating world and how men aren’t seemingly doing so great at the moment, we wanted to ask you what you thought was going on there in a broader sense. When it comes to women, do you think that perhaps part of the problem with women is that they’re pulling a bit too much on their masculine lever and not enough on the feminine? Do you think the balance has tipped too far over to the side of women being more in their masculine than their feminine? As you so rightly say, we are all both. We should all be able to access both parts of ourselves.
This is a human issue. I do think that men can be quite intimidated by this. It happens on two levels. We have to address the first level, which is that men and boys are falling behind. At least in the United States, they are, but I think they are in many places. We can point to a lot of evidence of this. One of the most striking ones has been that men’s participation in the labor force has been dropping. I don’t have the data off the top of my head, but even men who are looking to participate. These are men living with their parents, the classic being in the basement. When I say men, I mean eighteen and up. I’m talking adults.
Women make up 60% plus of both undergraduate and graduate programs in the United States. We’ve seen our manufacturing hollowed out in the United States, which is a place where men have traditionally worked. This is true in Europe also. We’ve seen the status of trade work drop in many ways, even though it’s a very good life. In a post-AI world, it might be some of the best work that you’ll be able to do.
We’re seeing men fall behind. That is the term that I use. Women, single women especially, are outpacing men with regard to home ownership in the United States. I’ve talked on my show about the age gap. The age gap has increased. Men are living 6.9 years less than women. There’s no conversation about that. As a man, you get almost seven years less time on this planet, and no one seems to give a shit. There are also incarceration rates, homeless rates, and suicide rates. All of those things are shocking and sad there.
In terms of being able to find someone who’s a good match if you’re an educated woman and a successful woman, and I’m going to speak broadly here for women who want to “date up” and date a man who makes more money, who’s more educated, and who’s more successful, these are cultural norms that are tough to undo. You look around and you’re like, “Where is he?” That’s the first thing. There’s a mismatch where there are not as many eligible bachelors in that traditional achievement sense.
The other one is more of an emotional and psychological approach. We’re speaking with a very broad brush, but there is evidence for this. Straight women want their men to be men. They appreciate that masculinity. One of the places that you’re seeing this is in the bedroom. The data that I’ve seen is that most women identify as submissive in the bedroom. They want a man to take control. They want their partner to take control.
Some of it is, “I’m the boss bitch in every other part of my life. There is something nice about someone taking the reins and taking care of me.” It’s not all, but the number of men who identify as dominant in that forum, so to speak, is not commensurate and is not the same. There are a lot of women who want to release themselves in this intimate, romantic way, and there are not as many men who are willing to take the reins and do that.
One is, where are those conversations happening? Men are scared in a post #MeToo world about being too assertive. There’s this mismatch that’s happening there. What it leaves is both genders, heteronormatively, wanting and desiring men, not knowing what to do, like, “Is this okay? Is this okay? I don’t know. Is this okay? I bet none of you, if you’re interested in straight men, find that appealing. Two of you are shaking your heads. It’s not appealing. They’re like, “Is this okay?”
It’s emasculating. It comes across as not feeling confident. That’s not sexy for anyone.
The number of times I see a woman who says, “Tell me the time. Tell me the place. Tell me how to dress again.” That’s not, “Is this okay? What are you thinking? What do you want to do on Friday night?” It’s like, “Wear something sexy. I’m picking you up at 7:00. We’re going to have a fabulous time. Take a nap. We’re going to be up late.” They’re thirsting for that. There’s not a lot of that that’s happening. I can be wrong. We have to be careful about broad brushes. I’m curious. How does that relate to you?
I know what you’re talking about, Peter, in the form of when I was into dating, which I’m not at the moment. It’s very unattractive when you are getting these half-hearted messages. It doesn’t turn you on, does it, any of that?
Also, though, there’s a bit of an issue with it, going back to what I mentioned about balance. Part of the problem is that as a woman, I personally want a guy who is confident, knows what he wants, makes those moves, etc., like we’re speaking to you, but also who’s not going to be at home, who does none of the housework. The thing is, there is a world where it is possible for a guy to be both of those things in the same way that there is a world where it’s possible for a woman to want a man to completely take control on the bedroom, but she also wants to be a boss at work.
The Growth Gap: Men, Women, and Emotional Intelligence
That’s exactly right. Where do we see the rub? The issue is this. Your wife, girlfriend, or even female friend comes home, calls you, or whatever it is. She’s having a bad day. She’s having trouble at work or whatever. To me, the right way to approach that is to go, “Do I need to problem solve, or do I need to listen?” The guy who runs roughshod starts problem-solving.
The guy should start with the feminine and say, “That sounds difficult. How are you feeling?” Also, if she wants help, she can ask for it, or he can say, “I have some ideas. If you want to talk about them, I’m happy to talk about them, but I’m also happy to listen.” It is being able to, in that kind of way, connect rather than having one script to play out in that sense, but also not being afraid to say, “I understand you’re upset, but I think you’re wrong.”
To be able to say that compassionately, like, “That sounds difficult. I think you’re making a mistake,” and not being afraid to say that. To me, that’s about having an equal relationship and a loving one. I want my friends to tell me I’m wrong. I’d rather my friends tell me I’m wrong than the world tell me I’m wrong, I’m making a mistake, or I’m overlooking something. I’ll go back to what I started. Where are these skills being developed? Where are they being shown? Where are they being taught in this sense? You need a lot of confidence to be able to be like, “Wear something sexy. I’m showing up at 7:00. We’re going to have a great time tonight.”
The problem as well is that these things are not being taught. All of this, what it requires, first and foremost, is self-awareness, and, dare I say, personal growth and development, and somebody who is emotionally mature and emotionally intelligent. Please correct me if you think I’m wrong on this. Is it fair to say that perhaps there are more women out there who have done the work on themselves to become more aware of themselves and therefore try and show up as a better version of themselves, and fewer men who’ve taken the time to do that work and get that self-awareness?
The stuff that all three of us hear about various guys in various relationships suggests that there’s not a lot of that kind of work going on with men. I know I sound like I’m generalizing. I’m not saying I don’t know. I don’t necessarily think it’s the fault of men because they’re not being shown. We were saying before you came on that as women, we’ve grown up to be emotional beings, to share our feelings, to show our feelings, and to talk about our feelings. Men have been conditioned to do the opposite of that.
I completely agree with what you’re saying, and there are a lot of reasons for it. I have a friend. We talked about his wife. I was like, “She’s an emotional ninja. She’s so far ahead of us socially and emotionally. You have to recognize that.” Where are these conversations happening? Certainly, women are so far ahead on this. You can use the SOLO movement as an example of this. Two-thirds of my solo listeners are women, easily. They’re more aware of the challenges of being single. They’re also better at getting help and getting support for it. I don’t know exactly why that is all happening, but it is real and very much happening.
There’s a meme that goes around, like some guy climbing a mountain or something barefoot. It will be like, “The things men will do instead of going to therapy.” This is one of those memes that are out there in the world. I’ve done a lot of therapy. It can be quite life-changing. There are also a lot of other ways to get help. I don’t have a therapist. I’ve almost given up on having a therapist at this point, in part because where is he?
I want a male therapist, I’ll be perfectly honest. I want to be able to speak so frankly without feeling like I might have to filter there. I’m a 55-year-old man who has lived a big life. I’m also a pretty masculine man. I have high testosterone. I know. I’ve seen the numbers in this way. I feel like I have that other lever, thankfully, but also, I don’t want one of these therapists who are like, “That sounds very difficult.” I want a robust therapist to help me. He barely exists. There are almost no male therapists to begin with. They all wear sweater vests and talk softly like it’s an NPR show. Where are those resources in this kind of way?
I’ve been having a conversation with people about, “If you could choose any mentor in the world, who would it be?” I get great answers, like Oprah, Obama, Maya Angelou, and Mick Jagger. People have all these wild, cool things. They would ask me, “Who would you have if you could have anyone?” I thought about it, and I eventually came up with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is an imperfect man and a flawed man, but I am imperfect. I am flawed.
I grew up with this man. He is a great man. He achieved greatness in three different areas in his life across his lifespan. Also, he’s a man who has enjoyed his life along the way. I could learn from that man in that sense. He is having some conversations, but not the full range. I do lament this issue. I’m concerned about it. It’s something I’m increasingly turning my attention to. It’s why I was so excited when you three reached out to me.
Sweden’s Egalitarian Model: A Blueprint for Balanced Genders
Before I go into my question, I want to commend you and thank you for being this voice because whenever we don’t have that voice for ourselves, we need to create it. I don’t know if you know this about my story, but I’m a licensed school counselor. I worked in New York City public schools for about fourteen years. My last school was a middle school.
For my first seven years, I did college counseling. When you were talking about the number of young women going to college, I saw that firsthand. Those numbers are very real. When I worked in a middle school, the young men were impressionable. They’re listening to Andrew Tate. It’s an issue. It’s slowly starting to change. I’ve seen some articles about groups for young men, sensitivity, and things like that.
I want to commend you for being a voice out there and being loud about this. You were talking about the match between masculinity and femininity. It is so true. I wanted to talk a little bit about your TED Talk. I studied abroad in Sweden for a year. I was the one nodding whenever you were talking about the masculine because I grew up in rural America, blue-collar, very masculine men.
When I studied abroad in Sweden, I saw this wonderful balance of men. This was in 2001 when I went. Men were wearing the BabyBjörns. Men were pushing the baby carriage. I was like, “What is this?” In your TED Talk, you talk a little bit about this. It is about what Lucy was saying about women doing the work, but I do think there’s a cultural thing here, and I do think it’s possible.
In this TED Talk, I talk about how Sweden is the singles capital of the world, and that it is a place that values a family of one. One of the things that is also true about that culture is that it is incredibly egalitarian. It gets back to what we said at the outset about what it means to be a good human, rather than what it means to be a good man or a good woman in this way.
A very egalitarian model, one that gives both women and men good opportunities to thrive professionally, educationally, and economically with regard to their health and well-being, allows people to be the best version of themselves. When you’re the best version of yourself, it often allows you to bring that best version into your relationships and into society, and to not feel like you’re doing, for example, women’s work as a man.
I grew up in a female household. I had a single mom and my sister. I didn’t have that very traditional set of roles. I saw it in my grandparents, but that was only on the weekends. My mom had the male roles and the female roles in that world. It was difficult in a lot of ways. I missed out on having male role models, in a lot of sense. I’ve had to piece it together myself.
It also made me like women. It also made me realize that this works when you can both serve each other, and you’re serving a child, for example. What is in the best interest of the child? That is that the father is involved in this child in intimate ways. He is also relieved a bit of having to be the provider in a way that we don’t talk about enough.
When I take an Uber on a Friday night, it’s almost always a man. It’s almost always a guy who has a second job because he’s got a family and kids in this way. Part of that age gap that we talked about earlier is that men work themselves to death providing for a family. They do more dangerous jobs. They work more hours. The stress of work is not pleasant. A lot of women are recognizing that this is great economically, but it’s also not always great for your soul, in a sense.
Having a more egalitarian world relieves some of that pressure on both sides and allows people to meet in the middle in a way that is healthy and wonderful. I agree with you, Rachel. These countries, especially in Northern Europe, are at the leading edge of this new world. I wanted to highlight it in the talk. There are lots of happy singles also because you don’t have to default to one way of living because of this family-of-one set of policies.
On our show, we talked about the differences between the US and the UK. I do think that’s why a lot of people still follow the marriage or relationship escalator in the US, because of healthcare and health insurance. In Sweden, I saw that firsthand. You didn’t have to worry about that. I do think that goes in with the happiness factor.
The Manosphere Decoded: Understanding Online Male Communities
I want to comment on something else you said about these young men. I talked about these disagreeable men. For your audience who are less familiar, where is the conversation about masculinity happening? It’s happening in what’s called the manosphere, which is a loose set of communities online. The manosphere is made up of three groups of men and boys.
The first one is the men’s rights activists. These are older men who’ve typically been divorced, had custody battles, who feel like the government is not looking out for their interests when it comes to the end of a marriage, for example. The next group is these pickup artist types. Those guys, thankfully, are a little bit on the way out who were pick-up artists before #MeToo. These are guys who are learning tricks to meet and seduce women.
I’m disappointed by that world. These are men who want sex, but they also want intimacy and connection. The pickup artists don’t help them get that, at least the latter, because there’s too much deception and duplicity, but it does get them to try at least. One of the problems is that a lot of men have given up. They’re not even trying to pursue romance anymore because they feel like it’s not worth it. If you spend any time on the apps, you can swipe hundreds and hundreds of times and never have anyone ever match with you if you’re a less appealing man.
The problem with those pickup artist types is that they’re not given the skills to develop something if they do connect with a woman who finds them attractive in this way. The conversation happening with the pickup artist types is completely wrong. The conversation that we should be having with men is, “You need to become the kind of man that women want to spend time with. You can’t trick them. There’s no tricking them.”
It’s like, “What do you need to be doing? You need to get healthy. You need to stop drinking so much. You need to start exercising. You need to start eating right. You need to start dressing like an adult. You need to have a home that a woman wants to step into and be excited to spend time in that home. Not just a woman, but normal people, friends, etc.
You need to have a path with regard to professional growth. How are you going to earn a living in this world and do it in a way that you are enlivened, that you get out of bed excited for your day? How is it that you are going to learn to manage your emotions to soothe yourself? How is it that you’re going to develop a growth mindset around personal development?” This is a tall task. We’re asking people to live good lives here.
This is humans.
It’s for humans. That’s right. I think the men are struggling with these endeavors more so than women generally in this sense. The pickup artist types aren’t helping with any of this.
Also, Peter, the porn industry isn’t helping either. From all accounts, that’s horrific. It’s showing young men who aren’t doing these things. They aren’t eating properly. They aren’t dressing properly. They aren’t keeping their house tidy. They can sit there and either have an AI girlfriend or log on. They’re addicted to porn because it’s like a form of soothing. You mentioned the word soothing. I’ve heard that being called a form of soothing, this porn addiction.
The Dating Divide: Why Men and Women Are at Odds
This relates to that second group. I’m going to come back to your observation, Pip, because it deserves its own standalone soliloquy, if I may. I have very strong opinions about this. The other group is what they call MGTOWs, Men Going Their Own Way. These are men who are like, “I’m out. I give up. I’m done. I’m done with women.” Their message isn’t all negative, but it is dripping with misogyny.
Are they the same as incels?
The incels are connected to the pickup artist group and a little bit of this group. Incel is a moniker for involuntary celibates. These are men whom no one wants to have sex with. They want to have sex with women. They like women. They’re attracted to women, but they are so unappealing that no one wants to have sex with them.
These tend to be young men. Do you know why? It’s because no one wants to have sex with young men, not even young women. You went to uni. I was an incel. I had a terrible sex life as a young man because I didn’t know how to relate to women. I was too nice guy. I was derpy. I dressed badly. I was the guy who looked like he was always going to the gym. I was once described as “That’s the guy who’s always going to the gym,” because I dressed in gym clothes all the time.
The problem is that these incels go and they listen to Andrew Tate and these other dudes. What these guys do too often is blame women for their situations because it’s easy to do it. What they need to be saying is, “Stop dressing like you’re going to the gym all the time. Here’s how you behave in these situations. Work on yourself.”
A lot of young guys don’t realize that what they have to do is live a rich life. With time, they will become appealing. You can’t give up. The moment you give up, and the moment you turn to the dark side, so to speak, is going to forego any chance you have to have a healthy, romantic, sexual connection with someone in this way. MGTOWs are often about, “Work on yourself. Have a good job. Do all these things,” but they’re very dismissive. They’re like, “The system is not set up for you, gentlemen, so you should opt out of it.” That’s the kind of conversation that’s happening.
When I started SOLO, I did a deep dive into the manosphere. I found it to be, sometimes, a depressing, misogynistic, sexist place, but also a place where there were sometimes conversations happening that were trying to elevate men. To be honest, where are those conversations happening? I don’t know. They’re happening there.
That’s the appeal to Rachel’s point. These guys are seeking solace in male voices that are saying, “You’re okay. There’s nothing wrong with you.” It needs to be more balanced, and it should be a conversation that celebrates women. It should be a conversation that says, “One of the greatest things as a straight man that can happen in your life is to spend time platonically, romantically, sexually with wonderful women. Your life is incomplete without the other half of the population. If you treat them like the enemy, they will be the enemy. You will not have this happening.”
I don’t know if this makes sense, but as I was listening to this last point you were making, I see a lot online about women hating men. I got out of the dating world a few years ago. I got off all the dating apps and everything. I have two nephews, 16 and 20. I think about them a lot and my former students. There was this meme that went around that no one taught men how to deal with empowered women.
I feel for men, especially young men, because I do think there needs to be more space for them to balance out this masculinity and the feminine. I’m grateful for you describing these because I felt like I learned a lot there. It’s broken is what I’m saying. The dating world is very broken because we have men who hate women, and then we have these women who are women in male fields. All this man-hating going on isn’t helpful either.
It does not help at all. It is socially acceptable to say that you hate men, to say an entire half of the population that you have hate in your heart for them. You get these memes. There was a meme. It said if you were a woman on a hike, would you rather encounter a man or a bear?
We’re going to do an episode about this.
I’m like, “Are you kidding me?”
I can see it from both points of view. What you say is right. It is acceptable to say, “I hate all men,” but if you hear a bloke saying, “I hate all women,” then he’s in trouble, and we somehow aren’t. That is completely screwed up. The whole man and the bear thing, from a female perspective, it’s easy to see why that’s bloody funny and, on the other hand, how it’s incredibly sad and incredibly tragic. It pertains to this whole conversation that we’re having.
The Digital Dilemma: How Smartphones Are Reshaping Humanity
We’ve moved our dating over time. We had arranged marriages. Dating was happening in private. They were connections happening in the living room of a home to a public dating around romance, finding your person. These are very heavily gendered roles. We’ve driven it completely online. In a post #MeToo world, you can, as a man, get in trouble for asking a woman on a date, because if you ask the wrong woman, you’re harassing her. Go to the place where the women seemingly want dates, which is online.
The apps, in particular, have decided, which is a good business model but a sad one, that they’re going to monetize male pursuit. If you’re a man, it’s very difficult to make a match. You make it easier to make a match by spending money on the apps. If you’re a woman, you get lots of attention, some of it good, some of it bad, and some of it ugly. As a man, you get almost no attention. That’s very frustrating, in particular because there’s a non-trivial number of people on the apps who are not interested in meeting anyone. It’s an extension of their Instagram.
It’s another form of social media.
It’s like, “Look at all these likes. Look at all these things, but I’m not meeting anyone. That would be a risk. I’d have to leave the house to do that.”
Do you think that’s more men or more women, or equal?
It’s more women.
Do you think it’s more women who are using it as a way of getting likes?
Yes, because men get no likes. If you’re a man and you’re doing it for the likes, it’s a complete and utter waste of time. In my book, I cite a study that talks about these probabilities of something becoming romantic and/or sexual. It’s shocking. It’s unevenly distributed. The very top men do get lots of attention. The men who are tall, good-looking, rich, healthy, do a cool job, and all those kinds of things, those guys do, but it’s a small percentage. They’re the version of a woman. They get the woman’s experience. I have a friend who’s like that. He gets lots of attention in ways that I never do or never will, and I’m not a terrible bloke. Imagine the guys who are struggling.
What ends up happening? Pip’s point about pornography is especially concerning, but it goes even beyond this. It gets back to the human thing. We have gotten so good at creating comfort in this world, creating entertainment, and creating compelling consumption opportunities that we don’t have to lean into life and relationships like we used to.
I talk to my students about this all the time. I said, “You don’t understand what my life was like as an undergrad. To do anything interesting with my life, I had to leave the house.” When I was in the dorm, I had to go to the dining hall. I had to go to the gym. If I wanted to meet a lady, I had to talk to her. I had to flirt with her. I had to ask her for her phone number. I had to go to parties. I had to go meet my friends. That was fun, exciting, difficult, exhausting, and scary, but every time I left the house, I lived life.
With my students, for example, it’s not only that they don’t have to leave the house, but they don’t have to leave their bed to live this compelling life that ultimately is not good for them. They can scroll on Instagram and TikTok and be entertained. They can order food from Uber Eats and DoorDash. They can hit their vape and get a rush of nicotine.
If you’re a man, you can sports bet. You can gamble from your bed. We’re not even talking about the risk of that yet. We’re about to see in the next few years a massive problem with this. You can watch the most outrageous pornography. You can substitute a lot of the excitement in life and a lot of the compellingness of life through your damn phone. You don’t ever have to take a risk talking to someone, asking them out on a date, or failing in this way.
What ends up happening is that guys quit. They’re like, “Why should I spend all this time swiping? Why should I spend all this time trying to do this stuff? It’s not going to pay off. These women on this porn site do everything I want them to do. They’re much more attractive than the women I can spend time with.” I’m not anti-porn. Pornography has a place within the world, and there can be healthy consumption of pornography.
I remember distinctly, as a younger man, and this is even before it got so outrageous, deciding that pornography was not the right choice for me, at least not in any meaningful way. The time I would spend on porn is time that I could be spending pursuing real women, which is ultimately what I wanted. I’m very lucky because I’m good at seeing the world clearly and having self-control. It’s my superpower that I was able to put that away and recognize the opportunity cost that pornography was having on my life. A lot of these guys don’t feel good about it, but it’s hard to escape that temptation.
The problem is that it is so addictive. This is the whole thing with technology and phones in general. Even without porn, there’s the addiction to be on your phone so much of the day. If they’re lying in bed, they’re always on the phone. You plug it into the charger, which is next to your bed. Where is this going to end up? This is crazy what is happening to humanity.
Also, many years ago, a guy who was struggling to meet a woman would not have been lying in bed and spending the rest of his time on his phone. A guy many years ago who was struggling to meet a woman would be outliving his goddamn life because he didn’t have a choice. That, in turn, would probably attract women into his life.
If we’re going to attribute blame, let’s blame the smartphones because it’s bloody hard to get off them. We’ve all been there. Instagram is the only social media that I use, but I will get caught as badly as anyone else sometimes, not very often, thank God. Sometimes, I can find myself scrolling, and 45 minutes go by. I’m like, “I’m still on this phone.” It is designed to keep you on the app. When you are in your late teens and early twenties, it’s a lot harder to understand what this is doing to you and your life. It’s serious what is happening at the moment.
Imagine starting smoking at age 11 and then trying to quit at age 21. That’s what screens are to young people. They’ve never experienced a world without them. We have. We’ve seen the other side. We know that the other side has its downsides, but it’s a much better life, so we are able to escape it. I tell my students, “The cavalry is not coming because your parents are as addicted to their phones as you are.” I think the pendulum will swing back some way, somehow. We’re having these conversations. We’re going to have people modeling this. At some point, policy will kick in. We’ll have phone-free schools and all this kind of stuff. I 100% agree with you. Honestly, it breaks my heart because people are missing out on life.
Going back to the men thing, if you’re a young man and you listen to a podcast or watch ESPN, these advertisements for the betting apps, for example, are woven so seamlessly into the content that it’s not even obvious it’s an ad. You’re watching games, and within the screen, there are sports betting kinds of stuff. It’s taking advantage of people who have no ability to regulate these kinds of things. Pornography is the ultimate.
I always loved women. I never blamed them. This is a gift I have to see the world clearly. I was like, “No one wants to have sex with me. Is it my fault, or is it millions of other people’s fault?” I decided it was my fault. I then was like, “What do I need to do to be appealing?” That set me off on a path. I made misguided decisions, but I finally figured it out.
I threw myself into life in a way that was incredibly entertaining and growth-oriented, regardless of who was willing to date me. It made my life better. It ultimately made me someone women wanted to go out on dates with. I had to wait ten-plus years for that to happen. Thank God I did not have an iPhone. Thank goodness.
Authentic Living: The Key to Attracting the Right Connections
That’s looking at the richer your life is, regardless of your situation, as to whether you can find the right person. If you are living a rich life, in the end, you are going to attract that because you are becoming the best version of yourself. That’s the whole key to it. It is to look after yourself because, in turn, that puts you out there as a much better form of yourself, doesn’t it?
I say this to men, “You should not get in shape to attract a woman. You should not find an appealing job to attract a woman. You should not redo your wardrobe to attract a woman. You should do all of those things because it’s good for you. It will also have this other benefit, but you have to do these things for yourself.” The moment you start living your most authentic life is when you become appealing to other people. That’s intoxicating.
The right people.
That’s right.
It has to start with education. If young men are not aware of this, why are they not aware of this? It’s because we are not taught this shit in school. I stumbled upon this all by myself. I wasn’t taught this either. I ended up on the journey that I’ve been on over the last few years because I happened to reach a point in my life where I was at a crisis. I was like, “I know there’s more. I need more. Something’s got to change.”
I stumbled upon personal growth, spirituality, and all of this stuff that we’re speaking about. Becoming a better version of yourself, starting to live your authentic truth, and all of this stuff, should be taught in schools. In my opinion, we should be taught in school that the way you think and your mindsets are as important as any math equation that you learn, way more so. The younger generations particularly are in such deep shit. What needs to happen? It has got to start with kids being educated on this stuff.
Being educated about their phones.
Being educated about screens and all the rest of it so that young men and women are growing up as self-aware, evolved, and growth-oriented people or humans.
I do think that our generation was well-meaning when it came to their kids. I sound like such an old man sometimes, but I don’t care.
It’s all right. I sound like an old woman.
In the early ‘80s, there was a PSA that would come on in America. Rachel, you might be too young for this.
I turn 45 soon.
Maybe. It would be that famous people come on at 10:00. It would come on when the news comes on. It would say, “It’s 10:00 PM. Do you know where your children are?”
I remember that.
You could find this on YouTube. They had Cindy Lauper.
I’ve heard of this.
Our parents were detached. We had the latch key kids. What we did as a generation was we decided to lean in and create good, healthy relationships with kids. That’s wonderful, but we wrapped them in bubble wrap. We kept them safe. When I was a kid, when the streetlights came on, it was time to come home. Mom had no idea where we were. We were out there mixing it up, throwing rocks at each other, and doing stupid stuff.
People are like, “There are all those scary people in that scary world. We’re going to keep these kids safe. We’re going to have play dates. We’re going to put fences around playgrounds. We’re going to put down all the mulch so the kids aren’t swinging over concrete and all those kinds of things.” What we did was we handed them screens to occupy them. We should have done the opposite. We should have taken their screens and thrown them in a volcano.
We should have kept the kids out there in the world, mixing it up and knowing, “Mom and dad are here. We love you. We’re here for you. We can help you manage this world, but you’re mostly on your own. Go and do this.” Swing that pendulum halfway back, so to speak. We’ll look back on this experiment and hopefully learn from it. I’m hesitant to predict the future, but that’s my hope.
I was going to piggyback on a little bit of what Lucy said and what you said, Peter. I call myself a recovering educator. There were reasons why I left the field. During the pandemic, I was in New York City public schools. I saw an article that New York City public schools are banning cell phones.
It’s starting to happen, thankfully.
It’s starting to happen, which is great, because I spent most of my year and a half doing online bullying investigations. I was a school counselor. I am big on emotional and mental health. It’s hard as an educator because there’s so much put on schools to teach the kids, and yet our hands are tied because there are certain things we can’t talk about. From the US perspective, because there’s so much happening with education policy, you can’t even talk about certain things with children, or you get in trouble.
We’ve talked about this on our show before, but we’re the last generation that knew life before cell phones. I got my first one in college, but it was meant for emergencies, like when I was driving to and from college. I did a lot of work with families during my time in New York City public schools. I remember so many times, I had to have conversations with parents, like, “You’re the parent. You have to take the phone away because your child is bullying this student so badly that she doesn’t want to come to school.” The parents would be like, “I can’t do that. They’ll be mad at me.”
That’s right, because you have to be friends with your children.
I grew up the same way. My parents didn’t know where I was. I was out in the woods. Who knows?
Throwing rocks at each other.
My brother and I were throwing rocks at each other all the time. I gave my brother a bloody nose one time because I kicked him. That was different. The bubble wrap around kids is real. I am hopeful that the screens do go away, but it’s going to take a lot of policy changes and things like that. It’s also the families. There’s a lot of family work to do.
I have a lot more freedom as an educator. I’m a tenured professor. The students are adults. I have been dedicating more precious time in the classroom to these issues. I feel it’s a moral endeavor. I find the students are receptive. I do these fireside chats with my students. After class, we get together and talk about life more deeply and a little more unfiltered than I do in the classroom. The students are opting into this.
With the screen stuff, it feels like a smoking cessation program. They feel like smokers. They know their phones are killing them, but they can’t stop because it’s such a normal part of their life. To your point, Rachel, they’ve never experienced anything else. Also, their entire social life is on that phone. To cut off the phone is to cut off the people they love. That’s a tricky situation to be in. We can do it.
Healing Masculinity: Inside Men’s Wellness Weekends
One is I love my solitude, so what a gift to throw my phone in a volcano. Also, I have the ability to create deep one-on-one or group connections in person with other people who are like me and my friends who are there. I don’t know if you three know this, but I’ve started doing these men’s wellness weekends or wellness days. The masculinity tapping happened during one of those trips. It’s a new thing for me. I’m doing it haphazardly, but it is honestly incredible.
Backing up what Rachel said, it’s so needed, Peter. It’s so wonderful that you are tackling it. It’s such a positive thing to hear at this point in life.
For these guys, it is so fresh for them. First of all, it’s not a phone-focused thing, as you might imagine. It’s both physical, psychological, and spiritual. We’re going and doing HIIT workouts. We’re hitting the heavy bag. I do a talent show on the first night where the guys show off a talent to get to know each other. We do a lot of hiking, time in nature, sitting in saunas half-naked, and having vulnerable conversations. It is an incredibly supportive environment. It’s an environment that encourages vulnerability and authenticity, one in which men don’t have to apologize for being a man.
I had a great time doing it. It’s something I’ll continue to keep doing haphazardly. We are going to need to find more ways to have these kinds of conversations. I thank the three of you for letting a bloke invade the show and speak in a forthcoming way. I’ll be honest. I do feel a little like, “Am I choosing my words correctly? What’s the blowback?” I hate to say this. There are women who are tuning in who hate men and hate me. I’m sensitive to that. I don’t want to cause anybody any more pain than they’re already experiencing.
Everything you’ve said has been fascinating. I wanted to ask one question about your weekends. Are they specifically for your students, or are they for guys in general?
I’ve only done a few of them at this point, and I’ve done them for friends. I did start to pitch a well-being course at my university. It didn’t work out because of scheduling issues. Some of it is also that there’s not as much of an appetite for that kind of class as you would hope. They should let me do my entire teaching load around that class. To be modest, I’m the perfect person to teach that class. It might reinvigorate my career, in a sense. There’s no one to blame for why it hasn’t happened, but it would be important to do.
With the wellness weekends, I have not yet moved into a situation where it’s an acquaintance or a stranger, in part because what makes the weekend work so well is how well curated the group is. Andrew Tate is not invited. These are men who have those levers, at least at their disposal. I don’t know how to take it to the next step. I’m in a waiting period in my life. David Bowie went to Berlin to reimagine himself. I’m in my Berlin period. I’m experimenting a little bit in that sense.
I’ll tell you who else does. Mel Robbins, we’ve all heard of her. Her husband, Chris, does these men’s retreats. It sounds very similar. It seems to me that there has never been a time when the world needed this more. This is what young men need. They need a space to hang out with a guy like you or a guy like Chris Robbins, who is self-aware, sensitive, evolved, masculine, and feminine. That’s what guys need.
A friend of mine sent me either a reel or something like that. In the UK, there’s a company that’s been set up called JourneymanUK. It’s getting these young lads, between 12 and 18, to go on these adventure weekends. It was all centered around this coming away from your phone, being more physical, being more emotionally aware, sitting around a fire, and talking. That’s such a positive thing to see in light of what we’re talking about. It’s so positive to see that people are trying. Even where I live, there’s a local men-only group or something. This is starting to happen. It is very gently starting to happen.
I’m excited about it. What’s been interesting is that it’s been women who have been talking about this. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but it’s been women who have been talking about this crisis around then, in part because they have permission to and because they’re better at it. Seeing this stuff starting to happen is exciting.
I’m imperfect. If you’re looking for the perfect man, good luck. I don’t know how it’ll play out. I’ll make a pitch for your audience. If they found this compelling, one of my favorite episodes on SOLO is From 23 to 53. I was 53 years old. A young man reached out to me via email asking me some questions. I said, “Here’s my number. Give me a call.”
I was sitting in the sauna one day on the phone, talking to him about all this stuff. He’s a college student. I invited him to show up on the show, and we had this conversation. Two men, 30 years apart. It was like I got a chance to talk to myself at that age. I’m proud of that conversation because it was a masculine conversation, but it was a thoughtful conversation. I felt like I could help him or help any other young man who listened to it. If you have readers who have young men in their lives, it might be a good place for them to start.
I’m starting to wade into this more. I thank you for inviting me to have this conversation. I agree with you. It’s important. Society is only as good as its weakest gender. The world is not zero sum. I don’t believe that. I believe the world is a positive sum. The advances that women make do not need to come at the cost of men, and the advances that men make do not have to come at the cost of women. It is the case that when you elevate both, both end up getting even better. There’s a compounding effect there. When we can move away from this zero-sum thinking and welcome these conversations as messy as they can be, we will be better off as a society for it.
That’s exactly why you need guys hiking up a mountain, sitting in a sauna, having a conversation, or around a campfire rather than sitting on their phones. That is one of the many things that is going to improve this world. That’s what needs to happen. It’s like us and them with men and women. There’s a little bit of a feeling of us and them. I’m guilty of it sometimes. I’m guilty of being one of those who are like, “Bloody men.”
On the back of this conversation, I feel bad and ashamed of myself for falling into that trap sometimes, but I suppose I can also see it from all different perspectives. It depends on which glasses you’re looking through and which conversation you are a part of when you are having a particular conversation. We’ve had some conversations on this show that have been a bit like, “Bloody men,” but here we are having a conversation that’s saying, “Poor men.” It can be both-and. They’re not mutually exclusive. There’s a problem with men that you don’t want to go anywhere near, and there are also lovely men.
They’ve got the feminine side, but the balance of it. That’s the thing. It’s bringing that balance of the feminine side in a man. It’s so attractive because it’s an emotional thing.
It’s sexy.
We’ve started competing, like women in the boardroom, women CEOs, and all this stuff. The crux of this episode was about being a good human. That’s the center of getting back to this. Being a good human is what we all need to strive for instead of being a certain way as a woman or as a man. It’s about being a good human.
I agree with that. One of the best places to start is to practice love and kindness. We talked about the feminine lever. Can you start to go through a world where you can start by loving yourself and being kind to yourself, and then the people you love, family, friends, romantic partners, lovers, and then strangers? Can we be loving and kind to strangers? The most challenging thing, and yet the most elevated people in the world can do this, is to love the people they don’t like and to be kind to their enemies. This is a practice that is not trivial.
I don’t see how hate does an individual much good. Confucius says that anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand, waiting to throw at someone else. It turns us dark inside. Your point, Rachel, is a good one. What are the best humans doing? The best humans are taking care of their mind, their body, their soul, and their connections. They’re seeking purpose. They’re seeking love, expansiveness, and abundance in their life, and that’s so sexy.
Peter nearly made me cry.
I know. Me too.
The three of us were like, “Maybe I do want to be in a relationship.”
Peter, you’ve got yourself three new girlfriends.
This conversation has completely backfired on our own show.
We have all been guilty of it. We’ve been guilty of conversations on here where we are probably not helping that situation. We have so enjoyed having you here. We might have to have you on as a permanent fix, Peter. It’ll be Three Single Women and Peter.
Three’s Company was a show in the ‘80s with the guy living with two women, and how scandalous that was. I’m happy to be your bloke. I’m happy to speak for all men.
You’re our go-to bloke. When we need to grab a bloke, we’ll grab Peter.
You don’t need consent. You can just grab me.
Thank you so much, Peter, for joining us on this six-month anniversary episode. I’m sure that our paths will cross again in the future. Thank you so much for being such an incredible voice on here for us. Thank you.
Cheers.
Thanks, Peter.
Lots of love.
Important Links
- Rachel Beck
- Lucy Meggeson
- Three Single Women Podcast
- Three Single Women Podcast on Instagram
- From 23 To 53: A Conversation About Manhood
- SOLO
- Aging Sexy
About Pip Brown
Pip is the host of the One Single Woman podcast, where she explores life as a single, childfree woman and the impact of social conditioning on our lives, our world, and our future.
At 40, Pip is a nature and animal lover who has found peace in stepping away from societal expectations.
Through honest conversation and personal insight, she’s on a mission to expose the pressures we’ve been conditioned to accept since childhood and to unveil the freedom that lies beyond them.
About Lucy Meggeson
Lucy Meggeson is a former BBC Radio 2 producer and the host of Thrive Solo (formerly Spinsterhood Reimagined), a podcast which celebrates all things single, childfree, and personal growth.
She has a membership — also called Thrive Solo — for women who want to make the very most of their lives, regardless of their relationship status.
Lucy’s first book, Shiny Happy Singles: Celebrating the Joy of Independent Childfree Lives (Bloomsbury, UK) / Thrive Solo: Embracing the Freedom, Joy & Opportunity of a Single, Childfree Life (Hay House, US) is available now!
About Rachel Beck
Rachel Beck is the host of The Feisty Heroine Podcast, where she helps women break free from toxic relationships, reclaim their independence, and step into the role of heroine in their own lives.
At 45, Rachel is unapologetically single, childfree by choice, and living on her own terms. After leaving a marriage that didn’t honor her truth, she rebuilt her life from the inside out—finding power, purpose, and peace in solitude.
Through unfiltered storytelling and raw, real conversations, Rachel empowers women to stop waiting for permission and start writing their own love stories—without the ring, the timeline, or the rules.