The Mating Grounds Podcast

In week 6 of Helping Joe, Charlie brings in one of his female friends to show Joe first hand what she experiences when dating online or through Tinder. She also gives him feedback on his profile and advice* on what to do and not to do when messaging women. Tucker makes a lot of jokes and draws out great feedback from her. He is also a case study here for one way to tease and have fun with a woman. *She was good at knowing what she wanted but bad at extrapolating this across women in general. Most of what she said was specific to her. It's better to ask a woman what she personally wants and listen, not ask her what all women want because she will project her preferences onto all women and give you bad advice. 

What's The Bad Advice?   A lot of creepy pickup websites gives lines to use or tactics to ignore, isolate, keep pushing, and "attract" a woman when she says she has a boyfriend. This applies to short-term mating situations.    Why This Is Bad Advice?    You are wasting your time talking to someone who is not into you. Creepy dudes give this creepy advice because many of the guys they are marketing to who follow pickup crap get this response a lot, "Sorry I have a boyfriend." because the women they are talking to are weirded out.  This is a polite way of saying "please, leave me alone."   The Better Advice Is Short And Simple    If a girl tells you that she has a boyfriend in the first 30 minutes or so of talking to her, she's not into you. Go talk to other girls who are.   There are exceptions to the rule (like everything in life), which Tucker talks about in the rest of this episode, but 95% of the time you are just bothering her and better off talking to girls who don't tell you that they have boyfriends. 

There are a lot of anecdotes from Reddit's NoFap and YourBrainOnPorn of guys who have issues with masturbation. Unfortunately, there's not much good science and virtually no studies on how much should you masturbate or what is optimal. In this short Q&A episode, Dr. Miller, Tucker, and Nils advise you to experiment, track how you feel, and do what's best for yourself until better science comes out. If you are married, it's better to just have sex with your wife. They also try to figure out why the hell a married guy asked this question.

This listener called in from Boston, which is a terrible city full of awful people. We've had multiple questions about how to handle assholes from there. We decided to answer one of them and rip on Boston in general. In this Q&A, Tucker Max, Dr. Geoff Miller, and Nils Parker explain how male cockblockers are usually not trying to stop you from getting the girl. They are instead asserting their status or dominance by making fun of you. If your friends are doing this, you have shitty friends and need to make new ones. They also give exact comebacks and conversation scripts you can use to deal with these douchebags. 

In week 5 of Helping Joe, Nils Parker steps in via Skype while Charlie is playing it away. Nils brings a different set of questions (and jokes) for dealing with Joe’s issues. He and Tucker Max dive a little deeper into why Joe gets nervous on first dates and how to reframe one’s mindset when going into a date to have more fun and be more relaxed, which ultimately will lead to those dates going better. They also talk about understanding women on Tinder and setting better expectations for date.

Women give this advice to guys a lot, but it's useless. A better way for you to "just be yourself" is to first figure out what about you is attractive to women. Then accentuate these strengths by putting yourself in places where those best parts of you will shine and your weaknesses will not show.

In week 4 of Helping Joe, Tucker and Charlie begin by talking about Joe's first improv class, going out to a bar with Charlie, and feedback from girls at that bar. They then dive into having better and more fun conversations, giving a ton of tips, tricks, and ways to re-frame how you look at making small talk or talking with women at bars or on dates. Also, Joe recorded his last date so Charlie and Tucker could listen to it (not on the podcast). They give specific and sometimes hilarious feedback on what Joe did right and wrong in this date. It was better than his last date Helping Joe, Part 3, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. They wrap up by talking about how being in the moment and being a little vulnerable is how people really connect with each other.

When a woman you are sleeping with wants an exclusive long-term relationship (boyfriend), but you are not ready to give that to her, it's best to be upfront and honest about it. Tucker Max was terrible at this when he was younger, and it led to relationship disasters. In this Q&A episode, Tucker Max, Nils Parker, and Dr. Geoff Miller explain how it's totally cool not to want to commit long-term to a woman you are having sex with, but it's important to have a clear conversation with her about that. They include how to bring this up and a few conversation scripts to use. 

This is a great question, but the way this young caller asks it and the background he gives us, which is great by the way because it helps us figure out what's really going on, shows that there are fundamental problems with his mindset, strategy, tactics, etc. He has gotten a ton of terrible advice and ideas from pickup artist nonsense. Tucker Max, Dr. Geoff Miller, and Nils Parker explain the four most common reasons why girls flake, cancel, or don't show up to a date; why this will (and should) happen a certain percentage of times, and why looking at it as "flaking" and blaming the woman is the wrong mindset.     They also give some harsh but much needed advice on throwing out your pickup ebooks and bootcamp binders. For more on how pua scams work and why their tactics are terrible for long-term success, listen to this episode about the pua scene. 

Getting drunk, yelling, and/or being rude with women is not an effective strategy.  However, there are traits of an 'asshole' that women do find attractive. This was Tucker's mating strategy for almost 10 years. He wrote 3 books about his stories of being an asshole. It is difficult to pull off and works best with a small percentage of emotionally damaged women.  We also have a whole podcast on this in our How To Be Attractive Series. 

Jealousy is the emotion of mate guarding, paying attention to the behavior of our mates around others. There are many evolutionary reasons for this, and Dr. Geoffrey Miller explains why a little jealousy can be good. Also, be honest with yourself about why you are in a relationship. Tucker Max and Nils Parker give advice on mate value in different life stages. And Tucker runs through 5 quick questions to ask yourself to understand if a relationship is going to last or if she will eventually look for and find someone else. 

This is normal and something every guy goes through. Two effective ways to start getting back out there and regaining confidence are small wins and great friends. Dr. Geoffrey Miller begins this Q&A episode talking about making small steps to be more outgoing, with women and with friends. Tucker Max brings up social relationships and how a great thing to do is engage with good friends in positive, uplifting ways. Many problems start with not having friends.  This is something that most dating advice never focuses on. Social relationships are so important to mental health, confidence, and even hormones like testosterone. As humans we need strong relationships, especially during tough times. And as men most of our friendships are made in structured social groups with a common set of goals and values. Sports clubs, the military, and startup culture are good examples but there are 100s. Start with finding those groups. You can listen to the Jack Donovan (The Way of Men) episode for a more in depth talk on thi

This Q&A is for men who are are worried about going bald or gray and losing hair. There are two key takeaways: great hair doesn't matter as much as you think and the simple solution to be more attractive it to shave your head.   Tucker Max, Dr. Geoff Miller, and Nils Parker talk about how there's not much you can do to prevent hair loss, but that's OK because women don't really care. Dr. Miller mentions it's not even in the top 30 most important things that women want. However, awful hair like a comb-over or bad hair piece can lower your mate value.    And think about it from an evolutionary perspective: If women were turned off by baldness, we would have evolved not to get bald because those men would not have mated. The fact that we evolved this way means baldness doesn't matter much to women. Your bald ancestors still got laid. 

In week 3 of Helping Joe, Tucker Max and Charlie Hoehn talk about two of Joe's Tinder dates and break down what went wrong and why. They go over his mistakes, including one critical first date mistake that blew any chance he had with a cute Mexican girl. They also talk about improv classes, why they are awesome, and how most guys don't get enough "reps" in real life. They wrap up with a bit about testosterone test results, the importance of social relationships, and how they have a huge impact on your health and hormones.   

The idea that just believing in yourself, going out there, and faking it will lead to real confidence and long-term success.  Confidence is the realistic expectation that you have of being successful at something given your competence at this thing and the risk involved in doing it. Humans developed confidence as a way to track our competencies so that we make the right decisions about various risks. This is not feeling good about yourself. This is not believing in yourself no matter what. That is self-esteem.  You build competence through preparation, practice, and demonstrated performance. You can't fake competence, you actually have to work to get good at a skill.  If you aren't good at skiing, you can't fake going down the Black Diamond run. It's the same with talking to women. If you have low social competence (trouble talking to people), you can't fake talking to women. In fact, faking confidence here will make you look even worse because people can tell that nothing is behind it.  Faking it is good adv

Taking yourself too seriously can mean many things like you may have no sense of humor or you're too into yourself. In this episode, Dr. Miller, Tucker, and Nils explain how self-deprecating humor, making fun of yourself, is the best first step you can take to being less serious. Research shows many positives associated with this type of humor.  Sometimes, being shy and reserved is a result of your social group. If that is true for you, find people or places where you are more comfortable to open up. Even having one great friend who is more playful to go out with is great. And as a last resort, ask people about themselves. Take a genuine interest in what they know that you don't know and build from there.  They also mentioned a past podcast on communication that you can to listen in order to solve this problem. 

Women who work are usually paid to be nice to you, especially bartenders and waitresses. If you like her, there are low risk ways to see if she's interested. In this episode, Tucker Max, Nils Parker, and Dr. Geoff Miller talk about how to gather information ( Does she have a boyfriend? ), talk to her like a friend, and ask her out in an easy way (think social, not 1:1) so you don't creep out a woman who is 'trapped' at work. Nils, who was a bartender in his 20s, also gives advice on how to tell when a bartender or waitress is into you. Hint: 90% of the time, she's flirting with your wallet, not you. That's her job, dude.

Humor is very attractive and displays many traits like intelligence, social proof, mental health. Not everyone can be a comedian, but you can go out with good friends, make fun of eachother, and bring women into the fun. In this Q&A, Nils Parker, Tucker Max, and Dr. Geoff Miller explain the basics and low risk ways to use humor, be funny, and tease: Making fun of yourself and your friends is attractive Even having just one hilarious good friend is enough to make you better. How to tease women without going too far.  Why punching up is better than punching down.   How to make funny observations of other odd people around you. And why joke quality is better than joke quantity.

In the second week of Helping Joe, Tucker Max and Charlie Hoehn talk about Joe's Tinder profile (what he did right and wrong), his first Tinder date, why small talk is so important and easy it is to do, why making a woman feel comfortable on the first date is critical to it going well (Joe fails at this in later episodes), and how to message or followup with a woman who "goes dark." Also, Tucker and Charlie make fun of Joe and the odd things he says. 

The Numbers Game ( the more girls you talk to, the more sex you have ) is bad and ineffective advice, even for short-term mating. There are some big assumptions that pua guys make with this that are just wrong. More effective strategies are to optimize your mating market and change your goal when you go out. If you have trouble talking to women or getting a date, playing the numbers game is almost the worst thing you can do.