Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 136: Why Modern Men Become Simps (Failed Dating Strategy or Sexual Kink?)

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

Matt and Steve sit down to talk about why so many men are now accused of being "simps". We discuss: - What ACTUALLY makes a guy a "simp" - How we should feel about men who do it - What causes unhealthy fandom and hero worship --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- Email us your thoughts at [e-mail] --- Don’t waste time & energy. Find love Faster: Download Your Free Guide to Learn the 3 Love Habits... → http://www.3LoveHabits.com  

Well, hello, hello, my little podcast peppercorns. It's Stephen Hussey here coming to you with another brand new episode of Love Life. And let me just say thank you to all of you who sent your lovely birthday wishes. It was my birthday earlier this month. And in this episode, Matt wishes me many happy returns. And thank you to all of you who did as well. It was very, very kind of you. And this episode is all about the modern phenomenon of simping. Being a simp, it's a derogatory term these days for a certain kind of man. It's often used in internet parlance. And I suppose it's used to describe a man who is overly submissive or attentive to a woman

and lavishes her with attention in the hopes of getting some of her affection sometimes to the point of losing his self-respect or you know publicly uh showing that he worships her and so this comes in different shades and forms but this is largely what is known as being a simp and in this episode we talk about why this phenomenon is apparently more widespread or more people are being called out for it. Is it fair? Is it unfair? Is it a kind of misguided dating strategy? Is it some subset of fandom? Is it a kink? We get into it and talk about our views on the phenomenon of men simping online, especially on places like Instagram or Twitter and OnlyFans. And yeah, we also discuss whether simps deserve sympathy or do they deserve the lampooning and mockery that they're subject to.

So that's some meaty stuff to get into for the day and there was just so much in this and more we can say and we probably will go into in future episodes where we want to talk about the phenomenon of men commenting and liking other women's photos on social media and why they do that and what that means uh so we will get into that as well but this was a fun one to you i've said it already but once again happy birthday thanks man i know we're going to be reunited soon in person uh which is going to be a joy uh yeah i'm spending it with the family i came home i've got all our cousins coming over tonight matt um possibly with their screaming

babies we don't know um but uh yeah i'm just i'm we're having a bit of a pizza party we're going to just kick it old school with the fam i'll tell you what's nice what i really did appreciate is that i'm coming home tonight on a flight that gets there tomorrow and you all made sure it was one night before i got home that you did that big celebration i'll tell you why it's my fault because i have a wedding tomorrow not my own matthew but an old school friends and so i've literally got to shoot off to wales wales and for those of you don't know is a country within the united kingdom so i've got to go three hours to wales to a wedding that tomorrow so you know we gotta be i've got to squeeze old steve's birthday in where we

can fit it i come home for just a few weeks and the the first big bash everyone's having is literally the night before i get there it's painful steve but it's your birthday i'll let you off i get it you've got a silly wedding to go to in wales sorry sorry we couldn't accommodate you i'm sorry sorry thanks for saying that mate but no i am i appreciate it steve speaking of birthdays i don't know if you saw this article about this man in japan who has gone to jail for telling multiple different women a different date for his birthday he was dating all of them look get this boyfriend who dated 35 women and told each one he had a different birthday so that he regularly received gifts is arrested for fraud in japan i don't know if he went to jail this seems like a strong offense to go to jail for but he was arrested for fraud in Japan. I don't know if he went to jail. This seems like a strong offense to go to jail for,

but he was arrested for fraud. I was going to say, the man's a rascal, but is that a crime? I don't even know why that would be an arrestable offense. Is that fraud? Telling people you've got, like telling people the wrong date for your birthday? I mean, if you're going down that path,

you're going to have to arrest a lot of people on Tinder for giving the wrong age. I mean, yeah, reporting that crime, I mean, it's a scoundrel at best, a public nuisance. Is it arrestable when men lie about their height on dating apps? A fraud. You've defrauded me their height on dating apps? For fraud. He's defrauded me. It's a generous view of fraud.

He's only 5'7". Yeah, it's a generous view of fraud. It was a clever scam, maybe, to get lots of birthday gifts. But dare I say, it would have been easier to try and work your way up the corporate ladder to afford more gifts for yourself than to have 35 different girlfriends yeah i feel he hasn't thought that through because that that comes with all its own obligations i mean i don't know what these women are buying him for his birthday but surely that trade i mean is that going to be worth the effort of 30 girlfriends

how good a gift is he how good a gift is he asking for he's basically started that is the equivalent amount of work of starting a business you might as well start a business yeah and work his way up that way well i i did want to talk about uh what's it called jameson simpp-free November? No, simp-free September. Did you remain free of simping in September? Well, I feel like we should probably define simping for everyone first because this is a sort of... Is it a new age term? I feel like it is.

It must be. It's a new word that's made its way into the modern vernacular simping um so do you want to actually it was i think it was an older word like back in the 90s or something but then uh oh so not like oh you i thought you were going to say 1900s no no like older in the sense where i think it's just totally been uh revived by social media fitzgerald i suppose was labelled by Hemingway a bit of a simp, right? Yeah, he was. But I don't know if Hemingway would have used the word simp. I think Hemingway had worse words for Fitzgerald in that department. Actually, going by his writing style, I feel like Hemingway could have, he might have used the word simp. He might have enjoyed, I feel

like Hemingway would have enjoyed the word simp for its derogatory nature. It's quite a cutting word, isn't it? Well, Steve, put us out of our misery. What, in your estimation, is a simp? Well, you put me on the spot here. It's a kind of guy who is prostrating himself at the feet of a woman who is kind of putting himself, like worshipping her like she's a goddess. And he's kind of willing to do whatever for her affection. And in some cases, there seems to be a kind of fetish angle to it but it's often just used as a derogatory term to to describe what they call like beta males or guys who are crushing over one

woman really hard even if she you know is even if she's like hey thanks oh thanks or even i suppose if she's on you know it goes from from jameson and i sort of did a little bit of homework and apparently it can apply to men in relationships too that they're fawning constantly over the woman they're with doing anything they can to please her um just just living to please her but of course at the other of the spectrum, you've got guys who are doing that over women that don't even know they exist on social media. You have a TikTok dancer who has, in some cases, millions of men commenting

and saying how much they love her or how lovely she is, how wonderful she is, how much they admire her, all of that. And I don't think simping has to be gender specific, but it tends to be a derogatory term for men. Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard simp. I think it is pretty much exclusively used about men. Real quick before we continue to develop this idea, I wanted to tell you about a program I have that so many of you out there still don't have. It is called the Momentum Texts. And the whole idea of this program, which by the way is barely more than the price of a Starbucks coffee, was to get people momentum in their dating lives in a world where so few people feel like they have genuine momentum. We're either on a dating app and we feel like we can't get off the apps or we're dating someone

right now and we feel like it's not going anywhere. How do you get momentum so that all of this energy you're putting into your dating life actually leads to a real relationship? The Momentum Texts is a program that gives you 67 counterintuitive text messages that you can send to someone to get out of this stuck phase of your love life and into a real relationship. And these aren't designed for you to just replicate what I say, although you can. They're designed to teach you the why behind why they work so that you can express yourself authentically, but understand what you need to say in order to move something forward with someone, whether it's from texting someone on an

app to an actual date or dating to an actual relationship. Go grab your copy of the Momentum Texts at MomentumTexts.com. And now let's get back to the episode. So there was a thing in September, apparently,ve there was a was it simp free september is that what it was called jay where they it was it was basically a month where simps were supposed to be condemned you were supposed to sort of round them up and name and shame anyone who was caught simping right by the way i just want to make a statement about this word i hate this word i don't i don't like i i think this is a pretty mean word and i think that what's underneath it is actually quite serious very serious and um and referring to people in this derogatory way does no help to, to the situation.

But if we take the person in a relationship, um, we could say, okay, that might be someone with a somewhat anxious attachment style or someone who, um, is just trying to go out of their way to please their partner because they think that that's the only way that there'll be loved.

And that if they can do enough for their partner their partner will stick around there's an obvious kind of win there right i i'm keeping my partner that my partner is with me and i think by doing lots and lots and lots of nice things for them and constantly fawning over them and looking after them that they will stay with me. There's a difference between that and the sort of thing we see online these days where men, so many men en masse are just liking and commenting on pictures of women that they will never meet, who will never see their comment, who will never even acknowledge them for the most part. And yet they're waking up, seeing a picture of that woman and liking and commenting on that picture. What do you think of that, Steve? Because I think it's fascinating when there's such there's there's not an obvious reward to that you know it's not like you're being scammed and you know you think you're talking to someone one-to-one and it turns out

it's just a bot online that's talking to you they can see that there's hundreds and in some cases thousands of other people commenting and liking on this woman's picture or video. And yet they still decide to throw their like or their comment into the mix. What do you think is the reason that men do this well i think part of it taking away even just the element of someone being sexually attracted to someone there's all the stuff you said is only the same in fandom culture where you are fawning over a celebrity and commenting all day on their pictures and posts over a pop singer that is not seeing hundreds of thousands of comments and that's fandom right there is a one-way trend there was a one-way relationship there and you're getting something out of it because you like being a fan of that

person all that stuff i guess with the simple thing you're talking about it's not really that yeah sorry go before we even jump into that let's just talk about the fact that the psychology of a fan is even that i suppose is interesting right because if if you're commenting on your favorite pop star's latest post knowing that you're one of 10 000 comments what do you see as the reward system in place for that what it's it's just a hit of something that you get because you feel like somehow you're leaving this thought in their world and that they might see it? Or is it just for you? You don't even think they're going to read it. It's just for you somehow to feel connected to that person. What do you see that as? If it's the same thing as what the men do on these women's profiles? Well, yeah, it's similar. I don't do that. So I don't really know what exactly.

I mean, I think people get out of it feeling like they are putting their putting down their cards on like, I am a fan of this person. I love Chris Pratt. I love Jennifer Lopez. I'm into whatever it is they stand for. I'm into BTS, right? The pop pop band and and they like being a part of the tribe and other people see it and they see that you're commenting on it and that i think there's that kind of it does become a kind of attachment identity wise um now the simping thing is a little different because right like people when they're doing it on an attractive person's profile or guys doing it on a hot woman's profile it's not like oh i really love uh one direction's music and i'm so into the albums and stuff it's like i think she's hot

i think she's hot and i want to express a moment of horniness of that bikini picture really did it for me. I'm going to put a sexual emoji. I'm going to like, or I'm going to be like, oh, for a lot of that, it does, it's not just simple, leering comments for a lot of it. A lot of the time, when people are referring to simps in the comment section of women's profiles, they are referring to a kind of niceness and a loyalty that comes across in those comments. You know, they, they're not, they're not saying, oh my God, you're so hot. I'd like to do X, Y, Z to you. They're not saying that. They're saying, you look amazing here, babe. You know, hope you're having a great day or they're, they're that same sort of niceness and sweetness that might be associated with that kind of guy or that behavior in a relationship is being applied in this context.

So it's not even stereotypical testosterone-fueled male behavior. No, some of it is. Some of it is. Some of it is. It leans towards the fetishistic and the dirtyishistic and the dirty and minded and you know they'll go like i'm simping over you with these drooling emojis and

sexual innuendo and whatever but like yeah you're right there's self-awareness in that one but you're right there are some dudes who will put like a very lavish number compliments and and go like oh you're so you know you're the perfect woman you're so whatever and then someone under it is obviously like you're simping bro you know don't be a simp you're like or they'll put like simpler you're simping but i like the idea do you know do you know who's the best is that person that there's the person who's doing the you know the praising the worshiping but then there's the simp police who you want to go why are you here then what are you what are you you've sort of tipped your hand here because what are you doing in this comment section right now why are you down here that you're a hundred comments in why are you doing in this comment section right now why are you down here that you're a hundred

comments in why are you down here firstly you had to be on this woman's profile in the first place secondly you had to have read down the comments and decided to pick on this poor simp they're gonna flush out the simps bro what? You're for the good of men everywhere letting him know, hey, bro, I just want to know your simps showing. Like, what? Who are you? And what's this? I think, Steve, that's just advanced simp tactics.

I think that's just, I'm hoping that I get noticed for calling out a simp and by I'm disassociating with that behavior. But really I'm still in the comment section of this 25 year old's dancing TikTok. It's kind of simpception. Simp within a simp. I would say it's simp adjacent. But I see, Steve, my whole thing on this is I actually think that this is an interesting phenomenon. And it's one to be, I think it's one to be pitied.

I think it's one to, I think it deserves a level of empathy and sensitivity. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the maid cafes in Tokyo. When we were in Tokyo, we, you know, we had heard about these maid cafes and you me and harry went to one and for everyone out there who's listening a maid cafe is a is a cafe in tokyo it doesn't have to be a night spot it could be you could go there in the middle of the day i think you could probably even go there for breakfast but it's basically a place where there are maids or, well, women dressed up as maids. They're usually fairly sort of young women in their 20s.

And they're in these sort of somewhat skimpy maid outfits, but not, they're skimpy, but not skimpy. And they're skimpy but not skimpy and they they're not they're not sexual they it's very much cutesy it's like manga anime cutesy and from the moment you get there they're very sweet to you and very giggly and laughy and they sit you down and you order food. And when they come over, they do these sort of strange anime rituals where they get you to make a heart with your hands and say like a little, a little spell.

Or you do like a cat noise. Yeah. You'll do a cat noise together and every now and again you they bring a guy up and sort of celebrate him by just i don't know how do they celebrate someone it's not they just sort of they bring them up and they sing they take a picture with them but there's nothing really sexual about it i'm not saying that's the case in our western social media in the case of simping but in in japan in these maid cafes it's so not you think that this is going to be this seedy horrible thing and actually it's so not sexual what happens is you get there and you look around the room and you start by finding it sort of funny and silly and

strange and fascinating and then you look around and and in a way it can feel quite sad because you you see these men they're often sort of middle-aged salary men in their suits they've just come from work and they're not behaving in any way inappropriately. They are just sitting there and talking to these women who work there who are laughing at their jokes or who are giving them a moment of attention in conversation. And they are so happy to get it. And you get the impression that these people are there a lot, right?

I mean, it's not, you don't get the impression that this guy came here once in the last 10 years. You get the impression that this is a regular place, that this guy comes for this very small amount of attention and synthetic connection. And there's something about what I see on social media now with the way that guys interact with these women who have large audiences that feels similar to me. It might be more sexualized than the maid cafes in Japan, but it's still this very low-grade synthetic form of attention and connection. Yeah.

That doesn't amount to anything, you know? It's so impotent. Yeah. There's nothing there it's not even it's not even a lap dance at a strip club you could say about a lap dance in a strip club what's the point like what's the point what's the point in going and getting teased by someone for 20 minutes or five minutes or whatever, and then leaving and nothing actually comes to fruition, right? Like that you could say that, like, what's the point? But there's still a lap dance here on social media. There's no lap dance. There's, it's, it's not even a tease in that way you're probably getting nothing back but you're still commenting and i think that should be looked at culturally as a sign of just how

just how devoid of attention or connection these people actually are that i think of it steve like i'm willing i i am so starved of something that i am now commenting on the wall of someone who probably will never ever see my name alongside a thousand other men she's never going to comment back but I'm willing to settle for whatever kind of tiny tiny tiny thrill that is and maybe just the hope that this person might interact with me on some level and even in that is the kind of this, I've bought into this cultural narrative that this is really valuable. I don't know this woman. I don't know what she's about necessarily. I don't know what she's like in life.

I just know that she's hot and that she dances. And, and that's, this is what makes her so valuable to me. So it's not just that I'm getting nothing. There's nothing tangible I'm getting out of this. I've also bought into this narrative culturally right now that this is really valuable and that I should want to interact with this. And I guess that's why those guys are lambasted and mocked is because, like you say, there's something there's something beyond even like just mere lustful jeering about it. There's something where they are going a step further and being like, I, I think about you. You're a fancy. I dream about you. I love you. And it's like a synthetic emotion. Like you say,

it's someone who, you know, and when the simp police come along, what they're saying is you're one of 200, 500 guys in this woman's DMS or on her only fans. And you're talking to her as if you like have something with her. And she sees you as, she sees you as attention or money or followers. And you're talking to her as if you like have something with her and she sees you as she sees you as attention or money or followers. And you're like prostrating yourself as if you have, you know, you're making up these feelings you have.

And I think that's why those guys are mocked so mercilessly. And if people had more empathy, they would see the connections with this and everything else. Steve, before we go any further, I want to just take a moment to acknowledge one of the people that is listening to us out there. We've been reading reviews in each episode. It's been really lovely to do that. It's made me feel much more connected to our audience. This review on iTunes is from Brianna B. She says, So, I wrote a message to your IG account thanking you all for what you do. But then I heard in your podcast that you read the iTunes reviews and wanted to be sure you knew how grateful I was.

Well, thank you for doing that. And here we are reading them. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I know that it wasn't by chance that I stumbled upon your YouTube channel. I went through the most painful breakup four months ago with the man I was with for three years. We were planning on marrying. I've spent the past four months going through all the stages of grief over and over. I don't understand why things had to happen the way they did and I don't know how I've made it this far. At the beginning of the breakup, I truly had no desire to move forward in life. But since I started watching your videos and listening to your podcasts, I'm beginning to

feel a confidence about myself that I haven't felt in a while. I'm beginning to realize my self-worth again. I'm realizing the ways in which I should continue growing and the ways in which I'm doing an amazing job. I was so incredibly hard on myself after the breakup and I was incredibly mean to myself. Now I can say that with the ways in which I'm improving my mental health and my thinking patterns and the dedication I have to all of your videos and podcasts, I finally feel hope again. I know I have a long journey ahead. Some days feel raw all over again, but I'm healing. Little by little, I know I'll get there. Please don't stop doing what you do. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for touching so many people. The world needs more

kind, compassionate, and inspiring men like you guys. Sincerely, your new biggest fan. from the bottom of my heart for touching so many people the world needs more kind compassionate and inspiring men like you guys sincerely your new biggest fan brianna what beautiful review um brianna and and just a message uh about your life i'm so thank you for being so raw and vulnerable and for just giving us one more reason to keep doing what we're doing. Yeah, that really means a lot. And thank you. Thank you for those reviews. And thank you for all your emails at podcast at Matthew Hussey.com. And I want to just say to anyone out there who is experiencing the same thing as Brianna and to you, Brianna, we have a useful guide out there who is experiencing the same thing as Brianna and to you Brianna we have a useful guide out there for people who are looking to rebuild their lives after the initial

grieving process of a breakup when you're ready to start building again we have a free guide called the three love habits.com if you go to three love habits.com. If you go to 3lovehabits.com, you'll find that guide and it's something we put together to give the three habits that not only make you stronger, but also put you on the path to finding someone who is right for you.

So that's 3lovehabits.com for anyone who's in that position. And thank you again, Brianna, for leaving this review on iTunes. For anyone else out there who's thinking of leaving a review, they mean the world to us. Come leave one on iTunes. And there's also a chance that we'll read it in an episode. If people had more empathy, they would see the connections with this and everything else. Steve, I once coached someone who had a very short interaction with someone, you know, 10, 15 minutes. Exchanged numbers. And then for months, exchanged a handful of texts with this person.

But it never went anywhere. I think one time he said, you know, he suggested maybe they see each other, but it never came to anything. He never followed through on it. And for months, she had held on to this thing that the way she described it was like it had somehow been a relationship. She didn't call it a relationship, but the way she spoke about it, you'd think someone was talking about an actual relationship they were having and all that really happened was that in the you think about it time wise in the context of a year that 10 to 15 minutes had been shared together and then for months this this had become the fuel for this kind of imaginary dynamic that was going on.

One that he probably never even thought about twice. You know, maybe he just fired off a few texts here and there, but he clearly wasn't giving it much thought. I mean, he would be stunned, no doubt, to find out just how much he had been on her mind for months, this person that he'd only spent 10 or 15 minutes with. It would absolutely floor him. Most of us in life, men or women, would be floored to find out at one stage in our life how much someone we never really gave any actual attention or intention to thought about us the the idea the fantasy that they had constructed in their mind that they had held on to. And when I speak to someone like that, and this person that I worked with, what's evident is that A, there's some need at the core of this.

There's some deeper need at the core of this. There's something that's not being, a need that's not being serviced in your life, either by yourself or by your life in a more nutritional way. And that this has become a surrogate for meeting this need in a, in a genuinely connected way. And it even becomes a kind of excuse not to engage in the real world. It becomes an excuse not to engage in a real relationship. I remember thinking about this person that I was coaching that as long as she engaged in this fantasy of what happened and why didn't it turn out to be something and I can't stop thinking of go and involve herself in the real game. She didn't actually go and have to risk anything.

In her mind, she had created this sort of fabricated jeopardy of like, what's going on here? There's this drama that she had constructed in her head but it wasn't real drama because nothing was actually going on it was a it was a this war going on on a stage it wasn't the actual stakes of life as long as she lost herself in this she didn't need to go and actually meet someone where something could actually happen and that's true of course for anyone commenting it's like as long as you're commenting relentlessly on your pop star's career and work and you know when i mean steve there are you know pop stars when they show up at a hotel there are people always and it's usually the same fans in every city that when that pop star rocks

up to that city the same fans go and show up at their hotel they they know what hotel they're going to go to they They figured it out, which by the way, on its own is an unbelievable detective mission. In a very secretive world where false names are used to go and check into hotels, somehow their fans have figured out where they're going to be staying and have done all of the reconnaissance work to know that and then show up at that hotel sleep there overnight outside sometimes come or show up at 3 a.m to to try and witness the moment in the middle of the night where that person shows up they are there for all of that. And, and when people do that, I think this is a distraction from focusing on your dreams. You've become so obsessed with somebody else's dream that you don't actually have to focus on

your own right now. They've become your dream, their dream, their life has become your dream, your life. And, and you're not focusing on your own dream that could make you as wonderful as they are, or as wonderful as you think they are. Whatever they've achieved that impresses you, you could actually be doing right now if you weren't spending all of your time and energy chasing this person around the world. You could actually be doing that for yourself. You could become that person that other people look at as incredibly impressive or extraordinary by going and working hard. stuck in an imaginary relationship with a guy that she once quote dated or met for 15 minutes it's a distraction from going and having a real relationship from actually having stakes when the guy is commenting on the woman's profile it's a distraction from the fact that he could actually go out there and talk to a real woman.

And risk rejection. There's no, what's risked by leaving a comment on a woman's profile that gets 10,000 comments? Nothing. There's the faint, tiny, glimmering hope that maybe she'll see my name and comment back. But there's also no downside. There's no, I'm not risking anything. Whereas if I went up to an actual woman in the coffee shop I go to every day and said something, then now I'm someone who could actually be rejected. And since I don't believe in myself

anyway, and I don't think I have very much to offer, The last thing I want to do is have that confirmed by someone in the real world. I'd rather just give my attention to someone online who has no interest in rejecting me because I'm one of many people propping up their social status and their image, who by the way is using me just to profit. I mean, there are millionaires being made everywhere who are just profiting from that kind of behavior and encouraging it. You know, no pop star wants to tell their fans, don't show up at my hotel. Hey, stop doing this. I'd rather you go work on your own dreams. No one wants to say that because I need these fans to be crazy about me. The woman who benefits from millions of people following her online or the man who does has no

interest in saying, guys, honestly, it worries me how much you comment on my shit. It concerns me. If you were my brother, I'd be worried about you right now. And I want to let you know, like, go live your life. Go live your life and do something meaningful in your life. They don't want to say that because I want as many likes as possible so that I can get those sweet advertising dollars. really dark situation that profits on all of this simp behavior that everyone's laughing at without addressing the real thing the real need that's going on and it's no different it's no different from the person that steve you or i often come across who is stuck in a situation in their head instead of living their life it's just happening at scale in a in a way that you know we think it's it's it's funny to laugh at but it's actually

a situation that i think deserves empathy and sensitivity i agree with that and i think it yeah i i don't i feel it's like witnessing some of our worst human characteristics and that's what troubles me when i see people's willingness to do it because it's like our our desire to be told what to do our desire just to follow a leader blindly to subjugate our own individuality to someone else because like that will give me purpose and meaning is if i follow around this band and like you say if it was your significant other or something who said i'm gonna go and fly around eight cities to follow around this band you'd go you're this is mental and there's nothing wrong with like steve you and i you know we we like the rapper watsky right and when he went on tour we like i traveled to chicago to go see him

on tour in fact i think i've seen him like three times now you know i've seen him once with our friend michael rosh in chicago and my friend casey we've seen him once in New York and I'm a fan. I'm a fan. There's nothing wrong with being a fan, but, but are you being inspired? Is it, are you going and you're a hardcore fan who's being inspired by what you're seeing and then going and using that to create magic in your own life? Or has this become the thing? Has your work in your own life become being a fan? Because that to me is where it steps over into a different territory. Is this inspiring you to go and create magic in your own life? Or is the magic you're creating, you're pouring into just being a fan? Because now it's a closed loop. Being inspired by something should be an open loop.

It should be something that then spreads into the rest of your life. It shouldn't be something that is a snake eating its own tail, where you're inspired by this person that you follow. And what do you use all that inspiration to do? Follow them harder. Right, yeah. And just like worship anything they do. Look, I'm a huge fan of many things.

There's artists I've seen multiple times. If I love a movie, I'll go see it four damn times at the cinema like i i love being passionate about things i love and to me fandom is one of the coolest things if you like if it it's like talking with my friends and nerding out over something i really love and like we all go and like do the thing together because we're all lovers of this video game, this movie, this book, whatever. And like it's a community you have and you love it and you share it with people and it's like a source of passion. That's all beautiful stuff. And that's that, like you say, is inspiring and you're inspired by people. So you want to like absorb everything you can of it but it doesn't mean you go to this it's when it crosses to this weird subjugate my individuality hero worship this person is uh a

golden god and i you know i must like uh subjugate my life to everything they do all right i take your i take you as a point with the whole the whole fan comparison to simps um but to me there's a distinction that's important where a fan leaving a comment or behaving this way is doing it as a signal sort of not just for themselves but for a whole community for like a tribe a tribal impulse the simp phenomenon is more is less of a signal and more of a strategy and i think the misguided strategy is just simply of being nice and like if i am nice enough to me it's like a grade school crush like the impulse that a guy would have for in third grade just like i'm just going to be so nice to this person that they're going to give me attention back. So nice, so nice, so nice. And the misguided part that you've talked about for years, Matt and Steve is just that, uh, being respected is far

more important than being nice in attraction. Yeah. I, I mean, look, this is, this, this relates to both the world of simping online with someone that's never going to know who you are and also within a relationship. Because people make this mistake all the time and give them everything they want and, and worship them and, and make sacrifices, then they will love me more. And it is misguided because people don't love us more simply because we do more for them. I think about it like attraction is a series of levers right there's the I do things for my partner lever which by the way is a perfectly great lever you don't want to not have that lever or you're just an arsehole but it's not the only lever there's also the I'm really fun to be around lever. There's also the, I'm super silly and playful lever. There's also the, I am mysterious in certain moments lever.

There's also the, I am challenging my partner lever. All of these are good levers. And if you keep using the same lever over and over and over again, because that's the one you're most comfortable with, you're going to wear it out. You know, or if you think about it like a carrot, you keep, it's possible to overfeed someone with carrots. Like you can't, you can't keep doing that same thing over and over again and think that it's going to give you proportionate returns in your relationship. It doesn't work like that. At some point, you get diminishing returns from trying to impress someone the same way.

And that's true of any of those things. If you're mysterious and that's your way of impressing people, you know, you start with a sense of mystery. That's great for five minutes. Like, so, Ooh, he's super mysterious and whatever. Try doing that for a year in an actual relationship. You're it's going to get old so quickly. Yeah. And that's the thing we'll, we'll park this for another episode, but that is why people find the, I'm just being a nice guy thing so grating is just because the,

if all you are is just saying nice things, if all you are is just a sweet guy, well, so what? Like that's, loads of people are nice. It's like, it's not interesting. It doesn't make you, if you have no boundaries, if you're just a nice, nice, nice, I'm really sweet. It's, it's one strategy. And it's like, yeah, you're pulling the same lever, same time and hoping like, maybe they'll just see I'm really, really nice.

Yeah. By the way, as if that's what, as if that's the number one goal in life is to find someone who's nice. I, you know, there was a, Jameson came across an article recently that said women are now looking for nice guys. I don't know what study was done to show that women are now looking for nice guys, but that's laughable to me because what I know is actually meant by that is that they're now prioritizing nice as well it's not that it's not that now I'm willing to abandon everything else I want for a nice guy because if you if really if nice is all you want you can find it go go look in the comment section on Instagram and you'll find a bunch of people who are being really, really nice, right? You don't need, the search isn't difficult to find

someone who's just nice. We don't want just nice. What we want is someone we respect who is also nice. And that's the part that people find difficult because it's a unique pairing, right? We've talked about this many times in our work. Unique pairings are those qualities that we find when we just find one nice, one good quality in someone, we get attracted on some level. We might get attracted to them as a friend. We might get attracted to them as a lover if they're mysterious or if they're sexy. We might get attracted to them as a lover if they're mysterious or if they're sexy. We might get attracted to them as a mentor if we think they're particularly successful or knowledgeable. Right. One quality can create attraction.

What makes someone an addiction, someone we want to give much more space to in a rounded way in our life, is when someone has unique pairings. Two qualities you don't normally find in the same person in our life is when someone has unique pairings. Two qualities you don't normally find in the same person in the same person. And when you find someone who is, I don't like the word nice, let's say kind, you know, or someone who's respectful. But when we find someone like that, who are generous, these are all better words than nice, because they're sort of proactive words nice is a bit of a passive reactive word but when we find someone who let's call it nice for a moment is nice and we respect them that's a unique pairing because a lot of people

we find nice we don't respect and a lot of people we respect don't always come across as very nice. So what we're looking for is nice as well. Oh, I'm finally prioritizing someone who's nice in addition to all of the other stuff that I've always prioritized that has got me in trouble when it didn't come with nice. I want to tee up what I think we should cover in the next episode because I had more to cover, but we've done this for a minute now. I feel like let's tee up the next episode. I want to, what I'd like to talk about building off of this theme is something that's related, but somewhat different,

which is guys in relationships because it's easy to talk about the simp who isn't in a relationship and has this giant need for attention and connection because he's not getting in his own life but what about the guy who is in a relationship he has attention he has connection but is liking the pictures of other hot women on instagram or tiktok or anywhere else what do you do if you're in a relationship with someone like that why do people who are in relationships do this? And what do you and I make of that, Steve? We'll talk about that next time. Side simping. I don't even, yeah, that, this is a different, I, this is a different thing, I think, but yeah, side simping is one word for it. Um, I'm sure that people in relationships with people like that have another word for it,

but we'll, we'll go into this. Matt, we had a lovely person who emailed into our inbox at podcast at Matthew Hussey dot com from Copenhagen. But they've asked to be anonymous. So I'm going to respect that. And she says, hi, Matt and Steven. I just want to say a massive thank you for your latest podcast episode i listened to it rewinded four to five times because the issue you guys discussed resonated so deeply for me and it was exactly what i needed to hear i got out of a really

unstable on-off relationship of four years last year and have been heavily struggling with feeling inadequate and not good enough ever since discovering that he is now in a seemingly loving relationship with someone else that gets all the things that I struggled with for years on end, resulting in a massive heartbreak. I've been lingering in my own self-loathing for months, and that episode gave me a moment of clarity I've looked for for so long. You guys helped make me realize that I was absolutely right for walking away and turning my back to years of demeaning and disrespectful behavior and to remember to not feel envious of his new partner. Again, thank you so much for the podcast. It has been a great tool in my newly founded urge for self-development. I enjoy listening when I cook my dinner and it is

a highlight of my day. Steve, for anyone who is going through that same situation, what was that episode called? If they want to go and listen to it. So that episode was called what if he changes for someone else? So if you go back to that episode, what if he changes for somebody else and you're going through a similar kind of heartbreak or resentment? Um, that I know that can be a brutal situation, go check out that episode and let us know what you think.